Chapter 13
“Emma, dearest, are you awake?” Agnes knocked on the door. “May I come in?”
At her bed, Emma lifted her pulsing head from the mounds of pillows. “Yes, I am. You can come in, Grandmama.”
Shuffling to her side, Agnes rested a cup of warm milk and toasted bread slathered with preserves on the end table. Sitting up, Emma took the cup and had a sip.
“How are you feeling?” Agnes asked. “I only ask because you have sent out excuses for not attending functions three times this week, even to Lord Ashton. I thought you fancied him.”
“I do,” Emma sighed. “It’s just—I have been rather swept up these past few weeks and neglected to prioritize work over social engagements. I know Hattie and Lottie will understand, and so will Lord Ashton. I have never hidden my circumstances from him.”
“You’ve been out of sorts all week, and I don’t think worry about work is all there is to it,” Agnes said kindly. “Selfishly, I hoped you had turned over a new leaf after the Arundel Ball. Are you sure that is all there is to it?”
The business with Vincent, she thought darkly, was the cause. That clandestine meeting four nights ago had rattled her to her core.
The man’s life she had saved, one she truly believed was an innocent, had turned out to be the very bounder who had ruined her family—and she despised him for it.
He was the same man who kissed her senseless, willed to give her a fortune, had promised to help her brother, and tempted her heart to melt.
Utterly confused, Emma’s only solution was to sequester herself in her home and try to make sense of the nonsense in her head. Shame and confusion tightened her chest as she remembered how eagerly she had accepted his kiss.
I’d acted no less than a hussy. A tart. A lightskirt!
“It really is,” Emma did her best to convince her grandmother. “It is the middle of the season, and the ladies need their dresses and frilly accoutrements as soon as possible. You know how demanding they can be. I haven’t had time for a full season since my debut.”
Her grandmother seemed to accept that explanation on its face value. “I understand, dearest, but that does not mean you should neglect your present situation. Your gentleman has asked for you twice this week, and I fear you might be missing out on the chance of a lifetime.”
Emma stifled a sigh. “I know, I know. I’ll write to Lord Ashton and offer to attend any further outings he might have.”
“You might not need to,” Agnes said as she retrieved a card. “He’s sent you another invitation.”
Flipping the card over, Emma read an invitation to Newmarket. “‘Tis a… Horse Race?”
“I understand it’s just as acceptable as any ball or soiree,” Agnes said. “Back in my day, something like this would be unspeakable.”
That prodded a snicker from Emma. “I don’t think it was that bad, grandmother.”
“It was, oh it was,” Agnes said solemnly. “So, will you attend?”
“I suppose,” Emma replied. “I’ll send a card back before I take my bath.”
Agnes clapped. “Wonderful! Let me help you pick out a dress.”
“I am so pleased you decided to come,” Lord Ashton took Emma’s hand and kissed the back of her small glove. “I have sorely missed your presence these past few days.”
“So have I,” Emma admitted, tipping her leghorn hat to look at him. “I hope you enjoyed yourself the last week.”
“Enjoyed myself? Without you?” he teased.
Smiling, Emma wrapped her arm around his as they walked into the stands at Haymarket.
Understandably, dozens of gentlemen lined the course dressed in fine day coats and breeches, but there were a few gents present with ladies on their arms. Only a scant few of those ladies were dressed as she was, in debutante white.
This is how life should be, ordinary without the tumultuous emotions coming from Vincent.
Glancing down, Emma was glad she’d taken great pains with her wardrobe today, a sprigged white muslin trimmed in sky blue silk. Beneath the empire waist, the front of the walking dress parted to reveal a shimmering underskirt.
Bookmakers collected wagers and called out odds while jockeys mounted their horses and prepared for the race.
“Do they have similar events in Spain?” Emma asked.
“We do,” he replied as they leisurely climbed the stands, “but most of the people flock to see los atadors and cuadrilla before they go to see horses.”
Emma paused. “The four bullfighters?”
He laughed. “No, but that is my fault. I should be clearer. When the bullfighters go in the arena, they have six assistants with them.”
“Have you met any gentlemen during your time in London?” Emma asked. “Joined a club, perhaps? I hear Whites is the bastion of male camaraderie.”
“I have been invited by a gracious lord,” Lord Ashton replied as they headed to the stand’s steps. “And while I attended one night, I haven’t made any commitments as of yet.”
“That sounds lovely. Which lord might that be?” The question was offhand and innocent, as they climbed the final steps.
“Duke Highminster,” Ashton replied after a thought.
Emma almost missed a step.
Ashton caught her, “Easy there, my lady.”
While holding onto him, all she could mentally scream was, that bounder!
“Yes, yes,” she gave him a tight smile as she straightened. “Thank you for catching me—” she looked over her shoulder. “—I’d be mortified if I’d fallen.”
“I’d never let that happen,” he laughed. “We are almost there.”
“Where?” she asked. “Do you have a box here?”
“No,” he shook his head. “I was about to tell you. The night I attended Whites, and I mentioned to a friend of mine that I was looking into the races, Duke Highminster overheard me and offered to share his box. Ah, there he is right now.”
While forcing a smile, Emma was internally seething; how dare Vincent ignore her demand to leave her alone and do this? God Almighty, the man was an arrogant brute. This was beyond the pale!
Perched in his seat and casually reading a paper, Vincent had no right to look at ease when he’d planned to upend her day.
His frock coat and buff trousers matched his stormy grey eyes, but his silver-grey waistcoat struck another chord to the suit superbly fit to his virile form.
An emerald stick pin winked in the folds of his cravat while his hair curled at his nape.
“Your Grace,” Lord Ashton bowed, “Thank you for inviting us.”
He closed the paper with deliberate folds and set it aside. “I wasn’t aware you were bringing company. But nevertheless, you and Lady…”
“Lady Emma,” Vincent supplied helpfully.
“Ah, yes, Lady Emma—” the bounder’s voice dipped to a tone that sent shivers down her spine, “—you are welcome.”
Pulling away from Ashton, Emma curtsied, “A pleasure to meet you, Your Grace.”
His gaze caught on her, brows creasing. “Have we met, my lady?”
Of course we’ve met!
“I am afraid I haven’t had the displeasure, Your Grace,” she offered a tight smile. She wanted to slap the smirk off his face so badly that her palm itched under her glove. How on earth could he act so indifferently with her when she was ready to jump out of her skin?
“Pleased to meet you,” he grinned devilishly. “And I believe the correct term for that expression would be pleasure. May I compliment you on your dress? I do not think I have seen that style before.”
“It is my own creation, Your Grace,” Emma replied. “And thank you.”
“Please,” Ashton gestured to the seat beside Vincent, and Emma bit her tongue as she sat. As much as she would prefer not to be sitting beside the man who had twice seduced her, she kept her head straight as the jockeys began to line up.
“Have you made any bets, Your Grace?” Ashton asked, offhandedly.
“Not yet,” Vincent replied casually, his eyes flitting over the horses, “though I do have some speculations, so I am waiting for the first round to pass.”
This close, his hot, masculine scent entered her nostrils and caused her to swallow reflexively.
He smelled clean, with a hint of citrus and spice, a welcome change from the pungent colognes preferred by most gentlemen.
If she leaned just an inch to the left, she could feel his heat, a familiar heat—and that drew her like iron to a lodestone.
“Please tell me what you think,” Ashton said.
Emma forced herself to keep her head straight as Vincent’s eyes skittered over her skin while he spoke to Ashton. The conversation about horses and stock and vigilantism went through one ear and out the other. She fixed her eyes on the track as the signal went off and the horses leaped into action.
A well-muscled black leaped into the fore and was hemmed in by greys and dappled whites.
A frenzy of chants and curses from the crowd rang out from the sidelines as the horses approached the final stretch.
She found it particularly cruel when the jockeys used their whips and flinched a couple of times when she thought the jockeys applied them too hard.
“I believe that dappled grey will be victorious next round. I will place my bet on that one,” Ashton remarked, then looked at Emma. “I should have considered a maid to chaperone us, shouldn’t I?”
“No need.” Vincent snapped a finger, and two men clad in footmen’s livery, as well as an auburn-haired woman clad in grey, moved to stand behind him. “She is very safe here. I tend to travel with a team.”
Where was that team when you came to my house in the middle of the night or when I came to yours? Was that your house at all, or did you just steal into someone else’s lodgings?
Ashton took her hand and kissed the back of it, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles before he pulled away. “I’ll be back soon, sweetheart.”
Vincent’s eyes trailed Ashton as he descended the steps before he turned to Emma. “You’re a sweetheart now?” His voice held thinly veiled mockery, and that irked her.
Instead of stooping to meet his insult, she simply asked, “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” he asked blithely.
“Interfering with my life,” she muttered. “Lord Ashton is a good man; he is kind, considerate, and he does not hide more secrets than a goblin in his hoard.”
He stretched out a leg, “He is not fit for you.”
Her jaw fell. “Are you…” she puffed out a breath. “Such unmitigated gall! How would you know who is best for me?”
Vincent cocked his head to her. “Have you kissed him yet?”
Her head snapped to the left and right, horrified that someone with social pull might have overheard him. Incensed, she leaned in and whisper-shrieked, “Can you be any more discreet?”
The bounder had the audacity to smirk. “No one is near us, pet, and if anyone was, it would be my people, and they are loyal to me to a fault.”
“But not to me,” she said, her cheeks flaming. “And do not call me pet.”
“You’ve been courted by him for what, two, two-and-a-half sennights now?” he asked. “Are you concerned that you’ve kissed me twice now and him not at all?”
She winced; it was true that she had allowed kisses in the two meetings they’d had, while not once had she felt the urge to do so with Ashton. And by the knowing look on Vincent’s face, he knew it too.
“That’s unfair,” she murmured.
“Do you want to kiss him?” he asked, that damned brow arching again.
“Maybe I do. That is no concern of yours, anyhow,” Emma lied stonily, her face trained on the track. “Have you forgotten that I despise you?”
For once, he sobered, and his jaw worked. He did not reply yet, and while he pondered over his next words, she tried to ignore the way his hair curled over his jaw so chaotically, as seen from her peripherals.
“I will accept that you dislike me—there were some extenuating circumstances with that,” he managed. “I want to explain.”
Emma’s eyes latched onto Ashton’s blond hair as he made his way out from the crowd of bookmakers and was climbing the stands.
“Now is not the time.”
His gaze followed hers. “Will there be a time for it?”
She never got a chance to answer him as Ashton rejoined them and sat. To him, she asked, “How did it go?”
“Fairly well,” he nodded. “Let’s hope Longshanks will make me the victor this round.”
Taking the relief from Ashton’s presence, Emma allowed herself to wilt into his side, pointedly leaning away from Vincent. She did not mind when Ashton wrapped his arm around her in a very avant-garde move from a gentleman.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Vincent’s eyes narrow and his jaw go stony. The rigid set of his shoulders, the steel in his spine, and the dogged manner that he stared at the track—not one glimpse at her— almost made her wonder if he was jealous.
Good, she thought. Let him stick this in his pipe and smoke it.