An Infamous Proposal Read online

  There was no ignoring the scowl that seized her mobile features. Her lips formed into a pout, and her chin lifted at a challenging angle.

  “Nicholas,” she said coolly, all childishness slipping from her. It was a hostile young lady who greeted him. But at least she hadn’t called him “Lord Hansard” in that arctic way.

  “Good day, Emma,” he said, ignoring her mood. “I brought you some partridges for dinner. I left them with Soames. He told me I might find you here.”

  “A peace offering wasn’t necessary, but I thank you.”

  He entered the gazebo uninvited and sat down on an uncomfortable wooden seat. “A lovely day,” he said, glancing out at the sun-drenched park, dappled with shade from spreading elms and oak, with a sprinkling of copper beeches to add variety. In the near distance, the weathered brick of Whitehern rose impressively.

  “Yes. Miss Foxworth has taken cold so I cannot drive out.”

  This mixture of propriety and self-interest was typical of Emma. He never knew quite what to make of her.

  “I hope you had some callers to lighten the tedium of being alone?” he asked.

  She leveled a stern gaze on him. “I don’t find my own company tedious, Nicholas. If you find me boring, pray do not feel obliged to remain. You will be relieved to hear I have no commissions for you today.”

  Emma could be selfish, frustrating, flighty, and thoroughly annoying. She could also be charming, amusing, and generous. “I never find beautiful ladies tedious,” he replied. “What I was trying to discover, in my roundabout way, was whether you had offered for Bounty. I saw him calling on you.”

  “That old snuff dipper!” After her first outburst, she took a few deep breaths to control her temper. It did not surprise Nick that she failed. When she spoke again, her voice held a wintry tinge of frost.

  “No, I did not make Mr. Bounty an offer—nor Soames, nor my bailiff or head groom. I decided to put a notice in the journals instead: ‘Desperate widow seeks husband, preferably under ninety years. Must have four limbs, some hair, and a few teeth. Direct inquiries to Whitehern, Sussex.’ You will see it in tomorrow’s Morning Observer.”

  Nick’s lips moved unsteadily. “I take your point,” he said, “but I feel you do Bounty an injustice to include him among the octogenarians.”

  “Do you feel you do my discrimination justice to imply I would offer for a gentleman who is fifty if he’s a day and has a daughter older than I am?”

  Hansard seldom blushed, but he did feel a little heat about the ears. “I feared the circumstance of your aunt Hildegarde’s imminent visit might have pitched you into unusual behavior.”

  “It did,” she said, and met his gaze coolly. “After your categorical refusal, I am not likely to repeat my error.”

  “I apologize for last night. I was a little surprised—”

  “No, Nick, you were gasping in shock, like my old mare Belle with the heaves.” Emma realized that this unbuttoned conversation was displeasing Nick and added politely, “I want to thank you for rescuing me from making a wretched mistake by refusing me last night. I realize we would not have suited in the least. I have decided that I shan’t marry until I meet some gentleman I can esteem—as you gentlemen say, since you are afraid of the word love. Meanwhile, I can look after myself.”

  “You have braced yourself for Hildegarde’s visit, then?” he asked lightly. This had always seemed an excuse to him.

  “Miss Foxworth has a cold. Aunt Hildegarde is a practicing hypochondriac. She won’t come when there is illness in the house. Miss Foxworth will be in no rush to recover, I promise you.”

  “Very sly, Emma.”

  “I have the disadvantage of being a lady. We must use our wits to save ourselves as custom and the law give all the authority to the gentlemen. Had you proposed to me, it would have been considered right and proper. And by the way, about last night...”

  “Let us agree it didn’t happen,” he said dismissingly.

  “We can’t sweep an elephant under the carpet. It happened, and there is just one other thing I ought to have explained last night, only I was so nervous when you pokered up like an outraged spinster that it slipped my mind. I quite forgot about Mrs. Pettigrew. Naturally I did not mean you would have to break with her, for, of course, I meant only a marriage of convenience.”

  “Very flattering. I understood you meant possibly no marriage at all. If I recall aright, there was some talk of your jilting me.”

  “Yes. Perhaps you would have gone along with my scheme if you had known my true intention?” she asked daringly.

  “That would certainly have made it more palatable,” he replied, and watched as her jaw squared in anger. “But then I have my own reputation to consider as well. Folks would be bound to wonder why you broke it off. I would be castigated as either a monster of depravity or some other sort of scoundrel.”

  “Or Lady Capehart would be called a jilt, no better than she should be,” she pointed out.

  “That is another possibility. And speaking of ladies’ reputations, I must mention that you are slandering an unexceptionable lady to imply Mrs. Pettigrew is my mistress.”

  “Indeed! It is news to me that unexceptionable ladies send their gentlemen callers home at three o’clock in the morning. I saw you riding down the road at that hour the night before you went to London.”

  “What were you doing up at three o’clock?”

  “Watching you come home from Mrs. Pettigrew’s. And looking at the moon,” she added with a wistful expression. “It was a full moon. The park looked silver and black. It was beautiful.”

  Nicholas found himself gazing at Emma. She had a faraway, romantic look in her eyes. He shook himself to attention and said, “As you are interested in what I was doing, I’ll tell you: I was attending the foaling of Bounty’s broodmare. If the foal was a filly, he was to sell her to me. It was a colt.”

  “Odd Bounty didn’t mention it.”

  “Odder that you should,” he retorted. “There are some things ladies do not discuss with gentlemen, Emma.”

  She gave a demure smile. “So you told me, last night.”

  “And you have decided to ignore the lesson?”

  “I have decided to set my own boundaries, especially when I am with friends. We are still friends, are we not?” she asked archly.

  “Thus far.”

  “Good,” she said, and picked up her book.

  Nicholas took it as a hint that she wished to resume her reading. He glanced at the title and was surprised that it was not a gothic novel, but a tome on Grecian antiquities.

  “I didn’t know you were interested in Greece,” he said.

  “There is a good deal you don’t know about me, Nick. It occurs to me that in the several years we have been acquainted, we’ve never talked about anything serious—except estate matters, since John’s death, of course. I wonder why that is.”

  Nick cocked his head and grinned. “Perhaps it’s because you’re young and pretty.”

  “Or perhaps it’s because you’re a gazetted flirt. I don’t know why young gentlemen think ladies’ heads must be gray before their owners are allowed to enjoy sensible conversation. I’ve often discussed Greece with Bounty. He’s quite an expert. Did you know they had slaves?”

  Nick felt a sting of annoyance at the recurrence of Bounty’s name. “So I’ve heard.”

  “It is shocking that everyone puffs Greece up as such a fine model of society. The ladies were treated abominably.” She slanted a long, enigmatic look at him. “Even worse than we are treated in England.”

  “You’re sitting at ease in your own garden, which the law allows you to own outright. You control your own estate, your finances. I cannot think you are too hard done by in England.”

  She gazed off into the trees. “Yes, but everyone still treats me as a child. I know Papa will send Aunt Hildegarde sooner or later. I haven’t the freedom of a married lady, yet if I marry, my husband will expect to bearlead me.”

&nbs
p; With a thought to Lord James, Nicholas said, “What you ought to do is find a biddable husband. You will satisfy the proprieties and still keep the upper hand at home.”

  “That is exactly what I have been thinking myself. But where is this pineapple of perfection, a biddable husband, to be found?”

  “You never know, Emma. He may show up sooner than you think.”

  “No, I won’t find him here. No point fishing for a trout in a rain barrel. Such gentlemen are only to be found in London.” She said the last word reverently, as if it were sacred.

  “I caught an excellent trout in my own river,” he said, smiling.

  “I was speaking metaphorically, Nick.”

  He took his leave in good spirits. James would not be a severe husband. He was an easygoing fellow, good natured and handsome. Perhaps a little too easygoing for a girl in Emma’s frame of mind? He shook the wisp of doubt away. The situation was too volatile to leave as it was. Most certainly Emma would marry someone very soon, and it was best to make sure that someone was a proper gentleman.

  Chapter Five

  Emma assumed it was one of those coincidences, whose long arms are so famous, that brought Derek Hunter to Whitehern the next afternoon. Miss Foxworth had been putting her nephew forward as a parti ever since John’s death. And now, just when it was possible for Emma to be thinking of marrying, he appeared in the flesh.

  In fact, Miss Foxworth had had more to do with it than had coincidence. She regularly dispatched notes to her favorite nephew. In the last she had said that Lady Capehart was now putting off her crape and going into Society again.

  Derek Hunter waited only long enough to have his hair trimmed and to lay his watch on the pawnbroker’s shelf to pay for his new jacket before setting off for a visit. The tailor refused to part with the vestment without some payment for past services.

  Hunter made an unfashionable and inconvenient arrival mere moments before dinner. As it was only his aunt and Emma who were there, it was no matter. Miss Foxworth was sufficiently recovered from her sniffles to come down to dinner.

  Emma was curious to see this Adonis of whom she had heard so much. So far as appearance went, she was not disappointed.

  He was tall and well built, with a glistening head of hair so blond it was nearly white. A pair of sapphire blue eyes of startling clarity peeped out from his tanned, healthy face. His jacket, while not the work of Weston—it was by Stutz—showed his shoulders off to perfect advantage.

  He was accoutered with all the trinkets of the dandy. A quizzing glass hung on a black, corded ribbon. A gold watch fob, attached to a thick gold chain, dangled from his pocket. The watch that went with it was on the shelf in London, but the fob and chain looked well. His pockets held an assortment of items: snuffbox, dice, cards (both playing and calling), and a spent bullet that had been prized out of his shinbone after he was shot by a highwayman with exceedingly poor aim.

  He lifted the quizzing glass when Miss Foxworth presented him to Lady Capehart and studied her for a moment through it, before speaking in a practiced drawl.

  “By Jove!” he exclaimed. “How does it come London hasn’t heard of you, Lady Capehart?”

  “I cannot imagine,” she replied, “for I have certainly heard of London.”

  “A wit!” he exclaimed. “It is unusual to find beauty and intelligence in one lady.” And wealth into the bargain, he added to himself. He opened his lips to reveal a set of perfect pearls, marred by having the corners filed down to allow him to whistle like a mail-coach driver during a dry spell in which he had thoroughly enjoyed that occupation.

  “You make your home in London, I believe, Mr. Hunter?” Emma said.

  “I keep a set of rooms there—a pied-à-terre for the Season, you know. One must do the pretty with the debs, or the mamas fly into the boughs, but I spend most of my time in the country.”

  “Emma is very eager to spend some time in London, Derek,” Miss Foxworth prompted.

  “I should say so! There’s nowhere like it. As old Johnson was saying t’other day, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.”

  Emma frowned. She recognized the quotation and knew perfectly well Dr. Johnson had been buried in the last century. But perhaps Mr. Hunter meant some other Johnson who had quoted the doctor. It was a common name after all.

  Mr. Hunter continued to outline the delights of London. “Drury Lane, Covent Garden, the balls, routs, ridottos—and Vauxhall, of course! You really must allow me to take you ladies up to London for a few days.”

  Emma listened, enthralled. Those were exactly the things she longed to see and do. Now that she was out of mourning, she also had shopping to do to update her wardrobe. And it would be lovely to have an escort for the evening. “What a charming idea!” she exclaimed.

  “Pity I didn’t bring my traveling carriage,” he said. “I decided to drive my curricle as the weather was so fine.”

  “Emma has a carriage,” Miss Foxworth said.

  “I’m sorry I sold my London house, or I could put you up there,” was Mr. Hunter’s next misleading statement. “It was too large for a bachelor. A great barn of a place on Grosvenor Square, next door to Lord Harrington. I took a set of rooms instead.”

  These artful speeches made Emma think he was very well to grass. Miss Foxworth had been vague on that point, but his style of life certainly indicated wealth.

  “I rather enjoy staying at hotels,” she said. Before long Soames announced dinner.

  “And here I sit in my buckskins!” Mr. Hunter exclaimed. “You will think me no better than I should be, Lady Capehart, but I shan’t make you sit down to cold mutton on my account. Just close your eyes, and pretend I am properly outfitted. I ought to have brought my valet with me, but he dislikes the open carriage. I am too soft by half with my servants.” Of course he had no valet.

  “That’s quite all right, Mr. Hunter,” Emma said. “It is only ourselves. Sir John’s valet is still with us. He will look after you for the nonce.”

  “And after dinner we shall have a friendly game of cards to pass the time, eh?” He was assured of picking up enough blunt to treat the ladies to dinner and a play in London.

  “We don’t usually play for money, Derek,” his aunt warned him.

  “Egad, I’m not talking about gambling! Pennies a point—or perhaps a shilling a point, to make it interesting.” Miss Foxworth gasped. “Not much point shuffling pieces of paper about if there is no sport of winning a little something in it,” he said, smiling. “I’m sure a nabob like Lady Capehart has no objection to a shilling a point.”

  Every word that left his lips raised him higher in her regard. She didn’t want to look like a Johnnie Raw and agreed that a shilling a point would make the game interesting.

  He kept the ladies well amused during dinner, with apocryphal tales of house parties he had attended at sundry noble homes, balls, hunts in which he had led the field, races won, and other dashing doings that showed him to advantage. During the course of his stories, he put himself in Scotland shooting one morning and hunting at Badminton that same afternoon, but as Emma had no idea that Badminton was in the Cotswold hills, she didn’t find it strange.

  It was the naive Miss Foxworth who said, “Is Badminton in Scotland, Derek?”

  “Did I say Badminton? I meant Badderhurst, old Lord Macintosh’s place, in Scotland.”

  “Badderhurst doesn’t sound Scottish,” Miss Foxworth said.

  Hunter glared her into silence. “No, it don’t, but it is. By Jove, this is excellent mutton, Lady Capehart.”

  Mr. Hunter consumed a hearty dinner, praising every bite that entered his mouth. When it was done, he wafted his hand as if he were the host and told the ladies he would join them in the saloon as soon as he had gargled a glass of port.

  “What do you think of him, Emma?” Miss Foxworth asked eagerly.

  “He’s very handsome.”

  “And so lively. Very amusing, is he not?”

  “Vastly amusing.”


  “Derek knows everyone. He will show us a good time in London.”

  When he joined them a little later, Miss Foxworth said, “Perhaps you could take Emma to a ball, Derek, if any of your friends happen to be having one while we are there.”

  “By Jove! Wouldn’t the fine lords stare to see her!” he exclaimed, with a long, approving look at Emma. “Of course you were presented at court, Lady Capehart?”

  “No, I wasn’t,” she said apologetically.

  “Pity, but Society is fierce in that respect. No presentation, no balls.” He took a pinch of snuff and sneezed daintily into his handkerchief.

  “Perhaps a small, private party,” Miss Foxworth suggested.

  “Unfortunately, with the Season as close to over as makes no difference, the lords have all run off to their estates, or Brighton.”

  “Perhaps we should go to Brighton,” Miss Foxworth said.

  Mr. Hunter gave a chiding look. “It is London that Lady Capehart has set her heart on, Auntie. I hope I can show you a good time without noble balls. And now, shall we set up the card table?”

  Mr. Hunter managed to relieve his hostess of five pounds, which he deemed enough for the trip. It took him a few hours to do it, for he disliked to risk using shaved cards, and his hostess proved a daunting player.

  “Beginner’s luck! I shan’t insult you by not taking the money, Lady Capehart,” he said, scooping up the gold and sliding it into his pocket. “Tomorrow evening when you fleece me, I shall insist that you keep your winnings.”

  “I shall hold you to that, sir,” she replied.

  It was late, and after Soames brought them a light snack, they retired. The next morning Mr. Hunter expressed his regret that he hadn’t brought his hack with him, for he craved some exercise. Emma immediately offered him the loan of Sir John’s mount. He rode about Emma’s estate, mentally adding up the value of the acres, farms, and herd, and wondering if the sale of the cattle would bring enough cash to buy a couple of thoroughbreds. The chit was a nabob, by gad! As green as grass and as pretty as could stare. Dame Fortune had smiled on him at last.