Читать книгу A Scandalous Proposal - Julia Justiss - Страница 14

Several hours later Emily looked up from her worktable in bemusement. “Put them on the desk, I suppose,” she told the urchin with his paper-wrapped parcel of flowers.

“Where, ma’am? There be’s a pow’rful lotta posies a’ready.”

In truth, the top of her small desk was nearly buried beneath a floral avalanche. The bouquets—some small, some large—had begun arriving early this morning, and the parade continued steadily all day. Francesca had long since run out of vases, and the most recent offerings reclined in an odd miscellany of pots, mugs and bowls.

The numerous bouquets contained only pansies or violets. Deepest purple, pale lavender, near white, the shimmering velvet blooms and their perfume filled the office and spilled out into the salesroom beyond.

Searching for a spare inch, Emily surveyed the assortment with a mingling of amusement and exasperation. Lord Cheverley must have bought up every blossom in the city. They’d be reduced to water and cold mutton for dinner, as there was hardly a kettle or teacup left in the kitchen. She didn’t know whether to be touched or annoyed.

The delivery boy still stood, flowers in hand, looking at her expectantly. Sighing, she laid down her scissors. “Just bring them to me.”

The boy handed them over, but when she dug in her pocket for a coin, he waved her away. “The toff what sent ’em paid me good, ’n offered me an extry yellow boy if’n I wouldn’t try’n fob a tuppence off ya.” Tipping his grimy cap, he gave her a gap-toothed grin and ambled out.

Francesca entered from the kitchen behind her and raised her eyebrows. “By the Blessed Virgin, Mistress, your noble lordling must be pleased with you.” Eyes twinkling, she leaned over to pat Emily’s cheek. “And you, querida, look like a woman who has been well loved.”

“Enough, Francesca.”

“Ah, you grumble, but me, I think it very fine,” Francesca replied with unimpaired good humor. “You are tired, no, mistress? Rest, and I will deal with the clientela. Then I cook another special dinner.”

“Lord Cheverley is not invited for dinner,” Emily replied stiffly.

“But he comes tonight, surely as a saint’s reward,” Francesca said shrewdly. “Go rest yourself, mistress. He must not see your beauty dimmed. Take the violetas—” the maid wrapped Emily’s hands around the flowers “—and sleep. I left upstairs a vase.”

In truth, she was tired. With a sigh, she allowed Francesca to urge her toward the stairs. “All right. But for an hour only.”

“Good, I will wake you,” the maid agreed. “A hungry work, this loving is. Tonight will I prepare a hearty paella.”

“If you can find anything to cook it in,” Emily muttered as she walked out.

Emily slipped the fragile, fragrant blooms—deep violet with tiny white eyes—into her favorite vase, a delicate piece of blue-and-white Portuguese pottery in a fanciful pattern of birds and animals. Setting it down on the desk that also served as her dressing table, she caught her reflection in the little mirror propped against the wall. Solemn eyes, somewhat shadowed perhaps, stared back at her over a straight, narrow nose and generous lips. I look no different, she thought. Should not becoming a Fallen Woman have left some tangible sign?

Steeling herself, she picked the miniature off its easel beside the mirror. In defiance of convention, Andrew had wanted her to paint him relaxing rather than posing formally, and so she had. The neck fastening of his dolman was un-hooked, his capless hair tumbled as if in the ocean’s breeze. She’d managed to capture the sparkle in his emerald eyes, his high-spirited grin with just the hint of the devil.

Oh, Andrew, what would you think of me now?

The ache went too deep. Replacing the miniature on its stand, she wandered to the balcony. Wan sunlight, a feeble imitation of the fierce peninsular light that had bathed the quarters they’d shared in a score of different villages, cast a mellow glow. She leaned against the railing, gazing down into the garden below.

When she first returned after years under the Peninsula’s bright sun and sharp blue skies, she’d found London’s mist, fog and smoke impossibly grim. ’Twas as if, she joked to Francesca, the city itself wept at her loss. Then she’d come upon some pots of lavender at a farmer’s market and set about turning the abandoned, weed-choked lot behind her shop into a replica of a peninsular garden.

Now, pots of herbs surrounded a sundial fashioned from a broken milestone, an old deacon’s bench salvaged from the parish burn pile set invitingly near. Her beloved lavender thrived in the barren, rocky soil around the sundial, its scent, released by the gentle sun, floating up to her.

How the smells of sun-baked earth and herbs brought it back—the sharp-cut scenery of rock and scrub, narrow gullies and steep ravines. The simple, whitewashed dwellings clinging to hillsides and gazing at the distant azure sea. How she’d loved to set up her easel on the wide balcony and work furiously to capture the changing light on those hills, that glimmer of ocean.

She’d painted Andrew, too, of course, and Rob, his rascal of a brother and fellow soldier, and all their comrades. Canvases of men in uniform relaxing on the balcony, dining about her table or playing an impromptu game of cricket on the village square had begun to crowd her baggage, for when the troops were billeted in towns between engagements, the quarters of Lieutenant Waring-Black and his beautiful bride became a sort of junior officer’s mess. Many an evening had they laughed and played at cards, while Boyd or Matthew sang to Francesca’s guitar.

Melancholy filled Emily’s chest along with breaths of lavender-spiced air. She loved this little garden, a tangible reminder of the happy sunlit days with Andrew. When accounts did not total, or a tradesman bickered, or some well-born lady puffed up with her own consequence belittled her, Emily would somehow find herself sitting on the bench below. She’d run her fingers along the stiff gray wands and inhale the herb’s sharp, cleansing scent. Whenever something troubled her.

Like the thought of the tall, well-formed man returning tonight. Her lover.

Her cheeks burned, her body heated and the thought escaped before she could check it: I’m sorry.

Don’t be an idiot, she told herself crossly. You’ve chosen your course. There’s nothing to do but go on and make the best of it. Only children and cowards whine and regret.

She was too honest to deny Cheverley’s lovemaking brought her intense—and sorely missed—pleasure. Nor could she deny the idea of receiving his caresses again, soon, sent a spiral of warmth to her very core.

’Twas just her pride that ached, and old memories she should have long since laid to rest. She should view the matter pragmatically, as Francesca suggested.

A businesslike arrangement without long-term or legal complications might suit her very well. And if his lordship’s ardor lasted until she managed to build her income to such a level of security that she would never again be forced into this position, it would, as Francesca said, be all to the good.

And just what does that make you? a little voice in her head whispered. She turned away from the garden, trying to shut out the ugly word that burned, unspoken, in her ears.

After leaving Emily in the lightening dawn, Evan sought his bed. Too keyed up to sleep, though, he soon gave up the attempt. From the exasperated look his mama gave him when he left the breakfast chamber two plates of eggs, ham and sausages and three steaming cups of tea later, he must have missed half her conversation.

Deciding in his present fog of abstraction he would likely run his high-perch phaeton into a post or allow the highbred cattle to bolt, he waved away his groom and elected to walk to his Horse Guards office.

But during the stroll, instead of reviewing details of Wellington’s supply routes, his mind kept slipping back to the sounds and images of last night. The low velvet timbre of her voice. The curve of her little finger as she held her teacup. Her eyes, sometimes deep plum, sometimes the lighter veined lavender of a woodland flower.

Flowers. He halted, electrified. To the woman beautiful as a perfect, fragrant violet he would send every blossom he could find. Grinning, he hailed a hackney and instructed the jarvey to carry him to the closest florist.

Two hours and a good deal of blunt later, he had dispatched enough blooms, he calculated as he mounted the stairs to his office, to cover her desk and most of the dining table. Mayhap she could even strew some petals on the sheets.

An immediate wave of heat assailed him. No, he dare not start thinking of that. Besides, he wanted this evening to proceed differently. He’d promised himself to court and woo her, then had taken her like a street-corner strumpet. The very thought of it galled him anew. He would have been well-served if she’d kicked him down the stairs afterward and bolted the door.

Instead, she’d wept.

His stomach twisted and his chest tightened. Ah, sweetheart, he vowed, never again will I make you weep.

With a start he realized he now stood before the door to his office. Gathering his disjointed thoughts, he entered, extracted a supply ledger from the stack on his desk and sat down to review it.

He was gazing out the window, thinking of violets and amethysts rather than account totals, when his door opened and Geoffrey Randall, his college mate and assistant, strolled in.

“’Morning, Ev. Have you reviewed the ledgers yet?”

Evan glanced at the page he’d smoothed open at least half an hour ago, unable to recall a single total. “Not quite,” he mumbled.

“When you finish, could you check this report for powder and shot? I’ve added the columns three times, but the figures don’t make sense.” Frowning, Randall tapped the paper he held.

Ah, figures. With a private smile Evan called to mind one particular willowy, well-rounded form.

“Something doesn’t seem right,” Randall was continuing. “I’d appreciate your looking at it. If you would, Ev. Ev?”

His drifting attention recalled, Evan focused on the secretary. “Y-yes. You were saying?”

His assistant eyed him with some concern. “Seem a tad done-up this morning, old friend. Rough night? Surely you didn’t lose, for a change?”

A sudden vision of Emily in his arms, and he in Emily, warmed him like a candle flame. “’Twas a wonderful night, and I certainly didn’t lose.”

Raising an eyebrow, Randall laughed. “Ah, that sort of night. Why don’t you go get some sleep? You’re not doing any good here.”

“Thank you most kindly,” Evan replied with a grin. “But you’re correct—my mind isn’t on ledgers today. Shall we discuss the matter later?”

“Of course.” Randall grinned back. “And if the wench is even halfway deserving of that fatuous smile, you’re a lucky devil.”

As Evan neared home, the idea of another gift struck him with vivid clarity.

There must be no gown unfolded with memories tonight. No, tonight she should come to him in sheer purple silk and a whisper of cream lace. His woman, wearing his gown, making new memories that were theirs alone.

Proceeding immediately to the shop of one of the city’s most exclusive mantua-makers, he swiftly made his choice. However, when he informed Madame she need not deliver the garment, for he intended to take it with him, she protested she’d be happy to insure it arrived wherever he wished.

Catching the speculative gleam in her eye, he realized the seamstress was consumed with curiosity to discover the identity of his newest inamorata. Instinctively he knew his reserved, dignified Emily would not appreciate having her name bandied about. Cordially turning aside the dress-maker’s offer, he paid her well and left the shop.

To be truthful, he found the notion of revealing Emily to be his mistress strangely distasteful. Not that he’d ever flaunted his women, but Emily was different—a treasure he wished cloistered for him alone. He’d not have what they shared be the subject of vulgar speculation by Willoughby and those of his ilk.

What a many-faceted jewel she was, too: elegant and proper as the highest-born lady in that demure lavender gown the first day they’d met; siren last night, her ebony tresses flowing silken over her bare back and full, high breasts, her soft mouth and thighs promising sin and magic.

Just thinking of her hardened him to such urgent need he groaned. How many more hours until dark?

After avoiding his mama’s curious glances at tea, he dressed for dinner early and slipped away to his club. Surely he could find someone to get up a game of whist or piquet that would fill the hours until he could present himself back at her shop.

“Ev, well met!” Brent Blakesly rose to greet him as he entered the reading room. “Missed you at White’s last night. I take it that means your, ah, appointment was successful?”

Evan knew he was beaming; he couldn’t help it. “Completely.”

Brent whistled. “Congratulations, then! Come—” he motioned to a waiter “—let’s have some champagne! Though I can hardly credit it—Willoughby was so sure she’d not go down for anyone.”

Evan jerked back the hand his friend was enthusiastically pumping. “Dammit, don’t you dare describe her in such terms.”

Shocked into immobility, Brent simply looked at him. “Sorry, Ev,” he said at last. “I meant no disrespect.”

Shocked himself by the depth of his outrage, Evan made himself smile and motioned Brent back to his chair. “I don’t want this to become common knowledge about London—not a hint of it. If you take my meaning?”

Brent straightened, looking mildly affronted. “I’m hardly one to go gossiping about my friends. As I thought you’d know.”

“Yes, yes, I do know. Just a reminder.”

“Mrs. Spenser worries for her reputation?” Brent guessed.

“No, I do. I don’t want some idle fool getting the wrong idea and bothering her.”

Brent stared at him searchingly, then shook his head. “The lady must have made quite an impression.”

Evan let his mind play over the images of Emily in all her guises, and of their own volition his lips curved into a smile. “She did indeed.”

The champagne arrived, and with a flourish, Brent presented him a flute. “To you,” he raised his glass, “the luckiest bastard in London.”

After they downed the wine, Evan put a restless hand to his pocket and frowned. “Blast, I seem to have left my watch. What o’clock is it?”

Brent squinted at the mantel clock across the room. “Near on five, best I can see. How about a few hands of piquet before you leave me for the divine Madame? Mayhap I can fleece you of enough blunt to assuage my jealousy.”

So strongly did the thought of Emily pull Evan, even the prospect of several hours spent over good wine in the company of his best friend didn’t appeal. He knew where he most wanted to be. So why not just go there?

“Another time, perhaps,” he replied, deciding on the spot. “I think I’ll stop by the shop and make sure the runner is still on duty.”

Brent grinned. “Righto, better check. Runners are such an inefficient lot.” He ducked Evan’s mock punch. “Give the widow my regards—you lucky bastard.”

Already halfway across the room, Evan only nodded.