Chapter 1
“Stiff upper, Em.” Kaitlin Manning threw a fake smile toward Emma Tomkins. “Here comes another.”
Emma fought the pain she knew wreathed her face.
Her friend Kaitlin had agreed two weeks ago to act as Emma’s second in her duel to fight off the men with marriage on their minds.
This garden party was the latest soiree where Emma tolerated the hordes of fellows who were intrigued by her eight-thousand-a-year inheritance.
“Do I know him?” Emma hoped not. Aside from making a mash of long, funny names, she was discouraging fellows who thought they had a shot at getting her to marry them. Her resolution was to grow old and remain a grumpy spinster—with money to burn.
“Merton,” Emma’s young cousin, Diana, patted her mahogany hair and coughed out the name.
Emma searched her memory. “Where did we meet? Tell me quickly.”
“Day before yesterday.”
“Not the one with garlic on his breath!” Emma winced and pushed back tendrils of long fire-red hair that escaped her coiffure.
Diana chuckled.
Kaitlin, a married viscountess who’d been at this society business for eight years now, sent Diana a telling glance. “No. From Devon. Likes to swim? Your remem…Well, good day, Lord Merton.” Kaitlin was always at the ready to save Emma with smiles and all the correct names of the one hundred.
“Lovely to see all you ladies.” He gave a little bow. “You are all looking well.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Emma did her bit for the conversation. Heaven knew Lord Mutton, or whatever his name was, had little to contribute.
“I say, do you still go to Brighton next week?” he asked Emma.
“We do. Why do you ask?” Want a newsy tidbit to offer up at tea time?
“I just heard this morning from a friend that his sister’s carriage was attacked on the Brighton road by a highwayman.”
Emma froze. Kaitlin had told her about the incident this morning as they came to Lady Trilling’s garden party.
Highwaymen were not a subject Emma encouraged.
One such friend—in a moment of impulsive desire—had masqueraded as a highwayman and kissed her.
One lady had witnessed this and spread rumors which told of Emma’s ruin.
She’d suffered from the ton’s disdain for more than ten years.
She wished never to meet another highwayman, real or imposter, ever again.
“That is terrible,” Emma commiserated. “I hope your friend’s sister is well and that the fellow did not rob her or her fellow passengers.”
“No, for some odd reason, he seemed to be in it only for the show.”
“Very odd,” Kaitlin said. “But it is so wonderful no one was robbed or hurt.”
“You won’t go to Brighton, will you, Miss Tomkins, until this man is caught?”
“Oh, I dare say, Lord Mut—” Kaitlin shook her head at her—“my lord, I am not put off by such shenanigans.”
“Many robberies of shops here in town.” He knit his brows. “A few in Brighton, too, in the Lanes. Not good, you know. Not proper.”
“No, well, I—”
He dithered on. “I would worry about you, Miss Tomkins. Your young cousin here, too.” He flashed a smile at Diana. “Little Dorothy, is it?”
Di would have corrected him, but Emma sent Di a pointed look. Not the only one who botches names, am I?
“I beg you to be careful,” Mutton rambled on. “Wait a few days before you leave London. Do come to my reception next Wednesday for the ambassador to Berlin. Smart fellow. Hates schnitzel though.”
“That is bad,” Diana offered. “Hope he likes beer.”
“Hmmm. Yes, good thought.” Mutton focused once more on Emma. “But…but really, my dear Miss Tomkins, do remain in town. Come to my party. I have no hostess, but I would love it if you would consent to act as such for this occasion.”
“Oh, Lord…my lord. I am honored at your invitation and your trust in me, but you must understand I have been in society only these two weeks and I recall few rules. My education in social arts began eleven years ago, sir, and one forgets all the tiny ins and outs.” One also remembers those who shut me out after my own highwayman pulled me from that horse and kissed me.
“Phooey, Miss Tomkins. Put your worries of that in a boat and send them out to sea. I care not for the past.”
She had to smile at his solution. He might be a jolly fellow after all. “I thank you for your concern, sir.” She’d avoid using his name altogether. She’d murdered so many. “But I have appointments in Brighton I must keep.”
“Do you go by private coach?”
“I hoped to take the public one from London, yes.”
“Ah, but my dear Miss Tomkins.” He drew himself up into his protective mode. “Do you think that wise?”
Men who had better ideas than she and who offered them up like rules to follow, set her teeth on edge.
“I do. For years, sir, I have travelled up and down the roads of England without incident.”
He cocked his head. “Except for that one….”
He’d just ruined all the good will he’d stored with her in the last few minutes. She bristled.
“Have you a small pistol for your reticule?” He went on, impervious to her glower and her clenched fists.
“I do.” She didn’t, of course. She would never own a weapon. Life was too precious to threaten another with harm. She’d had enough of that from her father’s fists. “My cousin and I will be safe, sir.”
At her clipped retort, he saw the error of his ways. Smart to retreat, he offered the tip of his head and his excuses.
“Mutton-head,” she seethed.
“Now, now.” Kaitlin shot Emma a frightened look. “Gather yourself. Here comes Lady Shackleford.”
Disaster. Emma had managed to avoid the notorious tattletale at the previous events she’d attended in London. But today was the end of her reprieve. She’d do her duty and pretend she remembered not one thing the woman had spread about her.
“Good afternoon, Lady Shackleford,” Kaitlin did the honors. “I am certain you remember my dear friend, Miss Emma Tomkins, and this is her young cousin, Miss Diana Tomkins.”
The lady was taller than Emma, towering over most in the room, even the men. She was thin, too, so much so that a strong wind might not only destroy her wiry grey coif, but pick up her bony body and blow her out the garden wall.
Oh, what mercies joyful to behold. Emma grumbled to herself as the woman and Diana exchanged pleasantries.
Then the woman turned her spectral face on Emma. “I am happy to see you back in society, Miss Tomkins.”
What a lie. You are the one most responsible for me being excluded from society ten years ago. But this was her mother’s best friend’s garden party and Emma could not strangle this woman in the midst of her friends and the last whiffs of the fragrance of roses.
“Thank you for the welcome, my lady. My cousin and I are delighted to share in the good society.”
“I understand,” she said with a lift of her monocle and a survey of Diana’s hair and demure décolleté. “You come to renew old acquaintances. How lovely.”
Emma would give this busybody nothing to carry from her presence. “We are.”
“And next you close your uncle’s house in Queen Square and go to Brighton.”
That bit was public knowledge. “It is so.”
“It is also rumored you wish to sell your uncle’s house. Why? It could serve as your residence when in town for the Season?”
“It could,” Emma said with a nod. “But it won’t.
” She intended to bring out her young cousin, Diana Tomkins, in Brighton.
A smaller community that swelled when the Prince Regent came to visit, Brighton’s pleasures were more manageable for Emma and for Diana.
Her seventeen-year-old cousin was a new heiress, a rich merchant’s cousin, and a smart young thing who deserved to take her time selecting a husband. If indeed, Di wanted one at all.
“I understand,” the lady said as she leaned close and tried to pry news from them, “you wish to formally come out while in Brighton.”
Emma shot Di a warning glance. Her cousin was well aware of Lady Shackleford’s behavior and Emma’s dislike of the woman.
“I take my cousin’s recommendations, my lady. She knows so much more than I.”
The lady pursed her tiny lips together. “Yes, well.”
“Forgive me, my lady,” Emma had had enough of her snooping. “I must go sit in the shade.”
“Ah, yes, your freckles will multiply, won’t they?”
Along with my anger. “Good afternoon, madam.” Then Emma, her cousin and her friend strode away.
* * *
The three women found an empty garden table and four chairs.
“Wine is in order,” Kaitlin said as she tried to catch a footman’s eye.
“Make that two for me,” Emma groused. “Sorry,” she said to Di, who knew she drank only in moderation, but to whom alcohol was an anathema.
Di shook it all away. “I know who you are, Cuz. Have two if you wish. We’ll just say you’re having one for me.”
“You are a dear.” Her young cousin was not yet out in formal society, but Emma took her along to less formal gatherings like this one to allow her to become comfortable with the goings on in town.
Kaitlin murmured her appreciation as a footman appeared and set before them four glasses of white wine. “If you could bring us a lemonade for our young friend, I would be most happy.”
As Emma watched him leave, her gaze fell across the French doors to the main salon of their hostess’s home. And she gulped.
What is he doing here?
Why? Why now?
Obvious, old girl. Building his new reputation as an earl. Or was it as viscount? With some never-ending title, too.
Emma could not recall. She’d stopped reading the bits in the newspapers about Lancelot Winters, the young cousin of some funny-named earl or baron or whatever who’d inherited his relative’s worldly goods. Good for you, Lance. You deserve some rewards for what you have endured.
She wanted to go to him, stand near, inhale his devotion to lemon-scented soap and remember his endearing friendship—and dashing courtship.
She should go and express her delight at his appearance, if only in form…
if that were even acceptable. Which it was not.
Still, quite a formidable figure he cut, too.
And luscious to look at for a man who was… .