Читать книгу Emma and the Earl - Elizabeth Harbison - Страница 10

“Let me get this straight. This American gardener to whom you’ve been writing love notes for two years in my name is finally coming to London and wants to meet you?”

Robert Brice Sorrelsby Palliser, the seventeenth earl of Palliser, looked at his friend, John Turnhill, in the mirror behind him. “She’s a pharmaceutical horticulturist, and I would hardly characterize our letters as “love notes.” But other than that, you’ve got it right, yes.”

John smiled, a little smugly. “And you want my permission to continue the charade and impersonate me in the flesh?”

Brice gave a resigned nod. “I can’t see any other way around it.”

John shook his head, clearly relishing Brice’s dilemma. “I cannot believe it. Is this the same Brice Palliser who sold the most successful daily newspaper in Britain because he felt that kind of journalism was ‘dishonest’?”

“It is dishonest.”

John gave a shout of laughter. “So is pretending to be someone you’re not.”

Brice started a hot objection, then paused. John was right. For two years Brice had corresponded with Emma Lawrence using John’s name and address in London, only a few miles away from Brice’s own London home. Regardless of his reasons—reasons which were very good and completely understandable—when you came right down to it, it was a deception.

Two years ago, John had published a photography book of English country gardens, and Emma, spotting an unusual flower in a photo of Brice’s Sheldale House garden, on Guernsey in the Channel Islands, had written to John asking about it. Since Brice was more familiar with the plant than John was, John passed the letter on to him. Brice, in turn, had answered for John. At the time it had seemed a good, efficient way to answer Emma’s query.

Brice’s correspondence with Emma had been very impersonal, at first. But then she’d written again, and something in her response had moved him. “I couldn’t help but laugh when you mentioned you were off to microwave a ‘pitiful chicken dinner,’” she’d written. “Believe it or not, I had the same thing on the table in front of me. I’m starting to think we’re cut from the same cloth. If you told me it was overcooked and rubbery, despite your best efforts, I’d be sure.…” He’d written back, not wanting to break the illusion he’d created, both for Emma and for himself. Before he knew it, a close friendship had developed. By then it was too late to tell her he wasn’t who she thought he was.

“How do you decide when it’s okay to lie and when it’s not?” John asked Brice now, his freckled face twitching into a goading grin.

“This was not a typical lie,” Brice said calmly. “The difference is in the intent. I didn’t tell Emma I was John Turnhill for any malicious reason, or to take advantage of her. You know as well as I do that I wrote that letter for you in your name as a favor because you were in a pinch. I never dreamed it would lead to any sort of personal correspondence.”

“Come on, old man.” John thumped his friend on the shoulder. “You’ve had a couple of years to tell her the truth now. Why haven’t you?”

“It’s ironic, I’ll concede that.” Brice bit out the words. The truth even sounded like a lie to his own ears. “But the reason is that she has a…a thing, as she puts it, about honesty.”

“A thing?”

“It’s really important to her. And rightly so.” He wouldn’t say more. It had been a confidence Emma had shared with him. He wasn’t going to give John the details, no matter how much they might support his own case. “The fact of the matter is that by the time I should have told her the truth, it was already too late.”

“It’s never too late to tell a woman you’re the earl of Palliser.” John gave a cynical laugh and gestured around the ornate room. “Surely she’d be thrilled to find out your true identity, rather than believe you’re plain old me.”

Brice looked at him seriously. “No, she wouldn’t.”

John studied Brice for a moment, then sat down in the Louis XVI chair in the light of a high narrow window. “Even if that’s so, I honestly don’t see how you can pull this off. A lot of people in this country know who you are on sight, especially women who read articles titled ‘The Ten Most Eligible Bachelors in Europe.’ How are you planning to avoid that kind of recognition?”

Brice gave a heavy sigh. John was right, he had gotten some of that kind of publicity over the years. Every now and then he learned of another magazine or newspaper who had put him on a bachelor list. “Emma wouldn’t read that kind of article.”

“But what if she did?”

Brice shrugged, certain she hadn’t. “How many people would really recognize me in the flesh after just seeing one or two badly reproduced photos?”

“That’s the question. If you ask me, you’re recognizable even from a bad photo.”

Brice looked at his reflection in a gilded mirror on the wall. His dark hair, slightly wavy and a little longer than usual, was fairly ordinary. On the other hand, his distinct Palliser bone structure—the high cheekbones and straight brow—were easily distinguished. The green eyes, which everyone likened to his late father’s, seemed somehow conspicuous.

“Look,” John said, interrupting his thoughts.

“Why don’t you just tell her the truth and let the proverbial chips fall where they may? It seems a lot easier than all this agonizing.”

“I don’t want to lose her,” Brice heard himself say, and realized that it was true. It might be selfish, but he wanted to preserve his friendship with Emma at any cost. “This is the only relationship that I’ve ever had with someone who accepts me for myself alone and not for this…” he gestured around the room, “this persona.”

“In leaving out this persona,” John gestured as Brice had done, “haven’t you left out a great deal of who you really are?”

Brice followed the sweep of John’s arm, assessing the office of his London home. Oriental carpets covered a gleaming wood floor. The high walls were adorned with priceless art and tapestries. His eye fell on a Remington painting, whose value was higher than that of some people’s homes. This wasn’t exactly the impression he had given Emma of his life, he knew. “Maybe.”

John gave a knowing nod. “And you’ve used my name to do it. That’s two enormous lies right there. It’s a tangled web all right.”

Unbelievably tangled, Brice thought with an inner groan. Almost schizophrenic. Yet for everything he’d left out in telling her about himself, he’d revealed something more important, in many ways more true. That was at the core of his dilemma, in fact: one of the main reasons Brice was reluctant to tell Emma who he really was, was that in his letters he’d been free to be the man he really wanted to be but couldn’t. He’d been light, fanciful at times, even funny. He’d never gone into the subject of his duties, his public persona, the historical estates he had to maintain, the international company he had to run. The heavy weight of his responsibilities lifted every time he picked up the pen as John.

Emma would be hugely disappointed to learn that the man she’d been writing to all this time was a serious, duty-minded aristocrat, who might have dreamed of dancing in the fountain in front of the Ritz on paper, but who would never even consider such a thing in his real life.

When John spoke again, he was very serious. “You have to be very careful about getting involved with someone, remember.”

“I know.”

“Unless you’re ready to tell your mother the truth about Caroline.…”

Caroline Fortescue was the daughter of Brice’s father’s business partner. Though both men had passed away several years back, there was an expectation among remaining family members, most notably Brice’s mother, that Brice and Caroline would marry.

It made sense as a business merger: the budding Fortescue microchip technology together with the Palliser telecommunications technology would dominate the market. Their parents thought it was “a good match,” and they’d been heavy-handed in their persuasion ever since Caroline and Brice had been in their early twenties. Finally, for the sake of living in peace with their parents, the two had decided to pretend to agree with the plan until they’d found what they really wanted. They were very sure of one thing though, they would never marry each other.

Brice groaned. “If I tell my mother that Caroline and I have no real intentions of getting married, she’ll go on a matchmaking campaign the likes of which would have made Wellington quake with fear.” He shook his head. “I’m not up for that just yet.”

Brice’s parents had made “a good match,” and as a result Brice had grown up with cold, distant parents who had more regard for appearances than they did for each other. Now his mother was fully willing to extend that legacy to him. Living alone, he’d found out at age twenty, was a far warmer experience than living with two people who led such pointedly separate lives. Perhaps when two people loved, living together was something different than he had experienced. But unconditional love was for other people. He’d never experience it—how could he? His very name created conditions that would be difficult to live with, not the least of which was the occasional public scrutiny.

“Until you say otherwise, and firmly,” John said, “Caroline is a consideration.”

“That’s right.”

“Then you’ll have to let this Emma know,” John persisted. “Before she gets dreamy ideas about herself and you and inadvertently creates havoc for you both.”

That was one worry he didn’t have, thank goodness. “Emma has no romantic interest in me whatsoever.” Brice reflected on this relief for a moment, watching the silent sway of the trees in a gentle wind, then snapped himself out of it. “So that’s not a consideration. She need never know.”

John didn’t look convinced. “If you’re sure…?”

“I’m sure.” He spoke with complete confidence. “So what about it? Can I use your house while she’s here? You’re going to be gone anyway, right?”

“I am, yes.”

“Then it will be perfect. I have to get away from here.” Brice leaned against the windowsill and looked out. The lawn fanned out a long way to the wrought-iron fence bordering the quiet street in South Kensington. Though it was a sunny warm day, no one was out. No one was ever out.

He couldn’t invite Emma here, even if he wanted to. It would be like a big wet towel on her vacation. The neighborhood was austere, full of people like him—people who lived quiet, shadowed lives. He wondered if anyone had ever really had fun here. Was it even possible? He doubted it. He had to use John’s home for Emma’s visit, just in case she insisted on seeing where he lived. “You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary.”

“I know.” John looked at him in silence for a moment, then smiled. “All right. If you insist on going through with this, I don’t see how I can protect you from yourself.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of three keys. He dropped them onto the end table with a clang. “Now that I think of it, perhaps this is just what you need to get out of your slump.”

Brice looked at him sharply. “What slump?”

John gave him a patient look. “The one that’s made you the most grim, serious man in the country. The one that you’ve been in for the last—how old are you?”

“You’re exaggerating. I’m not that bad.”

“No? The Independent recently referred to you as a living heart donor.”

Brice grimaced. “That’s a very old joke. I would have thought they could do better than that.” He didn’t want to reflect on any nugget of truth behind the statement.

John shrugged. “You’ve got to admit, you haven’t been the most jubilant fellow in the world. Maybe this will lighten you up some. Now, about the house. Sarah’s leaving for Venice on the second of July. I’ll be following by a day. After that, the place is yours.”

“Excellent.”

They were interrupted by a discreet knock at the door. A maid entered holding a silver tray with a special delivery letter on it. She extended this to Brice, who took it from the tray and nodded a dismissal.

Brice glanced at the envelope and felt a sense of dread. He tore open the letter, read it, and felt the blood leave his face. “Good God.”

“What is it?”

“Trouble. This just came from Sheldale House on Guernsey.” Brice shook his head and held the letter out to John.

“‘Dear Sir,’” John read aloud. “Blah, blah, blah, ‘will be in England between July fifth and twelfth. If there is any way possible that I could tour the gardens on my trip,’ blah, blah, blah, ‘send word at’ blah, blah, blah…” He looked at Brice and raised his eyebrows. “So?”

“Look at the signature.”

John looked. “Emma Lawrence,” he read, then his mouth dropped open. “This?” He pointed at the letter. “Same woman?”

Brice nodded. “She must have sent it there the same day she wrote to me here in London.” He took the paper from John and wadded it into a ball. It had been years since their correspondence had anything to do with the gardens at Sheldale. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she might still be interested in seeing them.

“So what’s the big problem?” John asked.

“The problem is that she can’t go near the place without discovering who I am.”

“You could have the staff take down all the portraits and photos,” John suggested.

“And ask them to pretend I’m someone else, that they don’t recognize me?” Brice scoffed. “Be serious.”

“It’s not as though you have to go with her, you know. Send her along to look the place over and see her when she gets back.”

“And run the risk of her seeing something or hearing something that will give me away and I won’t even know it?” The possibilities made his mind reel. “I can’t take that chance.”

A long silence hung between them.

“What are you going to do?” John asked at last.

“I’m not going to answer.” Brice expelled a long breath. Not answering went against every fiber of his responsible being. “It’s the only thing I can do. The earl is out of commission for the time being.”

“Until she sees you,” John pointed out. “Obviously she’s a bit more familiar with ‘the earl’ than you thought. She managed to find your address.”

“Any resourceful person could have done that,” Brice said. “It doesn’t mean she knows what I look like. She probably thinks I’m a doddering old man.”

“What about when she gets here? With Palliser Telecommunications going public, your picture has been in the newspaper several times this week already.”

He knew. “That’s local news,” he said, more to himself than to John. “They wouldn’t know about that in America. At any rate, I’m quite sure she won’t be reading the financial pages while she’s here.”

Emma stumbled out of customs at Heathrow Airport, thanks to slick new shoes and a polished linoleum floor, and almost fell right into the newsagent’s kiosk, knocking one of the papers to the floor in several pieces. “I’m sorry,” she said, stooping to gather them together again. A headline caught her eye: Palliser Telecommunications Prices Skyrocket as Economy Rises. Palliser! The very man she wanted to see. She picked that section of the paper up to look closer.

“You going to pay for that?” the seller asked sharply, startling her.

“Oh. Yes, of course.” She started to reach for her purse, then remembered that she hadn’t changed any of her money yet. “Sorry, I don’t have any cash…” Under the man’s dark scrutiny, she reassembled the newspaper and handed it back to him. “Jeez, welcome to England,” she said, under her breath.

She walked away, wishing she could have seen a picture of the earl of Palliser. He hadn’t answered her letter before she left and she was getting nervous. She hoped he was a kindly old man who would be glad to let her tour the gardens of his estate, but as time wore on she pictured him more and more as a pointy, mean, middle-aged dandy, who had tossed her letter in the trash as soon as he’d gotten it, cursing her American brashness for even asking.

Maybe he’d even gotten on John’s case about it, since she had mentioned his book in her letter. Perhaps that was why John was so vague every time she asked him anything about the earl or Sheldale House in her letters. She hoped not. It hadn’t occurred to her that if the earl didn’t like personal contact, he might blame John for it.

No, that was borrowing trouble. John would have said something if the earl had given him a hard time. He didn’t hold things back from her. She smiled at the thought of finally meeting him, then immediately felt a twinge of nerves. The unwelcome thought that he might be disappointed when he saw her flew to mind. There was no telling how he pictured her in his mind, but she worried that he’d expect some tall, thin, blond California-type beauty. If so, he was in for a surprise.

Emma was plain. She had ordinary facial features, nondescript brown eyes, a plain old straight nose, an ordinary smile. At five feet eight inches, she was tall but not willowy or especially thin, or any of the things that made being tall a desirable trait for a woman.

Usually she went about her life and her work without thinking much about her appearance. Normally it didn’t matter. And it shouldn’t matter now, she realized. She and John were already great friends, it wasn’t as though either one of them expected it to lead to anything more.

Attraction wasn’t an issue.

She wondered, ruefully, if it was the habit of all women or just those who were particularly insecure about their looks to feel like it always was an issue. There hadn’t been a job interview, a party, or a blind date where Emma hadn’t felt the same self-consciousness.

This was what was good about her relationship with John. They liked each other for who they truly were, not for their looks, their jobs, their finances, or anything else that could be summarized in a demographic label.

It was the most…what was the word? Honest came to mind. It was the most honest relationship she’d ever had.

The two-day symposium on holistic medicine in the twenty-first century seemed to Emma to last two years, partly because of her jet lag and partly because of her eagerness to get it over with and meet John. After the first day, she’d been disappointed to return to the hotel and find no message from him. She couldn’t call him because she didn’t have the number, despite the fact that she had again tried the information operator and the phone book. She hadn’t heard from him since sending the card about her visit, so she wasn’t even positive he knew she was in London.

During the second day of the symposium, she could barely follow the debate about the medical use of marijuana because she was trying to decide what to do if there was still no message from John when she got back. She had his address. If worse came to worst, she could always just show up and knock on his door, but she really didn’t want to do that. Emma was not a fan of surprises, either giving them or receiving them.

When the group finally let out on the second day, she was so eager to get back to the hotel that she took a cab rather than saving the money and figuring out the bus schedule. The desk clerk called to her as soon as she walked in the door.

“Message for you, miss,” he said, with a knowing smile. Emma had asked him about messages at least twice a day since she’d arrived. He looked at her over the wire rims of his glasses, and handed her a folded yellow slip of paper.

She could barely breathe as she opened it. “John Turnhill rang,” it said, “at 4:10 p.m. Would like to take you to dinner. Can you make it tonight?” He had also left a phone number. At last!

She turned to ask the clerk if she could use the phone, but before she could speak, he nudged it toward her. “Dial direct,” he said, then deliberately turned to busy himself with the mail slots in order to give Emma some privacy.

With a shaking hand she dialed the number on the paper. When he answered, she went weak at the sound of his voice. She tried to speak, but all that came out was an embarrassing squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “John? This is Emma,” she said.

“Emma.” Was it her imagination or was there tension in his voice? “I’m so glad to hear from you.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. She must have imagined the tension. She swallowed. “I got your message. Dinner tonight sounds great. What time?”

“How about if I pick you up at half past seven?”

She looked at her watch. Half past. That meant 7:30, which meant she’d have two hours to get ready. “Perfect,” she said. Her entire body was tingling with anticipation. “Do you know how to get here?”

“Yes, I can manage.”

She didn’t want to let him hang up. She’d waited so long for this that she was half afraid it was a dream that would pop like a bubble if she wasn’t very careful.

“So I’ll see you then,” he said, again sounding a little stiff.

“Great,” she said quickly. Don’t sound over-eager, she told herself. “Until then.”

When she hung up the phone she noticed that her hand was shaking like a dry leaf in the wind. Breathe, Emma. You’ve got two hours to calm down.

“Boyfriend?” the desk clerk asked, taking the phone back.

“Nope. Just an old friend.” She felt her face grow warm. “A pen pal, actually. We’ve never met before.”

“Ah.” He nodded, and gave her a commiserative smile. “You look nervous.”

“I’m more nervous than I’ve ever been in my life.” The words came out in a rush.

“You needn’t be, a lovely girl like yourself.” He gave a quick smile and said very seriously, “Your friend will be very happy when he sees you, I’m certain.”