Page 57

“Yes, why not give the lady a chance to manage this her own way?” Emmeline Templeton had taken up a blue velvet pillow, and was tugging at the tassels, pulling bits out, one by one. “I can’t think it’s necessary for you to go to such lengths to hunt her down, my lord.”

Hunt her down ? What an odd choice of words. “Time is a matter of some importance here, Miss Templeton.”

Juliet frowned. “Why is that, my lord?”

“Because the ton is sure to find out who she is,” Cross said. “This is just the sort of scandal to set every tongue in London wagging, and don’t forget the ton wanted a match between Melrose and Lady Christine Dingley. Someone must be punished for disrupting it.”

“Disrupting it?” Lady Fosberry’s gaze sharpened. “Do you mean to say, Lord Melrose, that you intend to marry the Lady in Lavender?”

Johnathan stiffened. “I’m not in the habit of ruining young ladies’ reputations, my lady. I think you know me well enough to know that.”

“Of course you’re not. You’ve never been a debaucher, Melrose. Indeed, this is all so out of character for you, I hardly know what to make of it, but then people are terribly unpredictable, aren’t they, Emmeline?”

Miss Templeton— Emmeline —let out a choked sound, and Johnathan found his unwilling gaze drawn back to her. For an instant he sat there stupidly, staring at her in silence.

She noticed his perusal, and another wave of color washed over her cheeks.

It suited her, that flush, as did the touch of pink in her cheeks from the sun.

She’d been outdoors when they arrived, mucking about in the dirt, by the looks of it. Perhaps she was a gardener, but not the sort of gardener who confined herself to wandering about the gardens with a parasol, sniffing the blooms and striving to look picturesque.

She wasn’t a thing like the ladies Johnathan was accustomed to. She didn’t seem to care one whit for fashion, and there wasn’t a bit of flirt or simper to her. He wasn’t sure what to make of her, but there was something about her face that caught his attention.

That dainty, pointed chin?—

“The ton won’t stop until they’ve discovered who she is,” Cross was saying. “It will be far better for the lady if Lord Melrose discovers her identity before they do.”

“Yes, you’re quite right, of course.” Lady Fosberry tapped her lip, thinking. “I can come up with a list of names for you, my lord, but it would be tremendously helpful if you could tell me anything about the lady other than the color of her gown.”

“The color of the lady’s gown according to Lord Cudworth,” Cross muttered. “ Cudworth , of all people, who couldn’t properly identify a lavender gown if he were wearing one himself.”

Lady Fosberry chuckled. “I can’t disagree with you there, Lord Cross, but that only makes this more difficult. There must be something else, Lord Melrose.”

Johnathan fingered the violet ribbon in his pocket, but for reasons he didn’t care to examine, he wanted to keep it to himself. Fool that he was, he was possessive of the blasted ribbon, protective of it.

He’d take it to one of the perfumers, instead, and find out which scent it was. Perhaps they could be persuaded to tell him which ladies had purchased that scent recently, and he could compare their names to the young ladies on Lady Fosberry’s guest list.

“Lord Melrose? Do you know the color of her hair, or her eyes?”

“I’m afraid not, my lady. The library was too dark for me to distinguish her features, and she never spoke a word.”

“It sounds like quite a strange encounter, my lord,” Juliet Templeton murmured.

It did, but the strangest thing about it was that it hadn’t been strange at all. Her warm lips, her long fingers sifting through his hair…the rightness of it had been dizzying. “I’d know her at once if I kissed her again,” Johnathan said, without thinking.

“For God’s sake, Melrose.”

Cross frowned, but Juliet Templeton let out a delighted laugh. “Bravo, my lord. That’s the first thing you’ve said that moves me in your favor. But of course, Lord Cross is right. You can hardly go about kissing every young lady in London.”

“No, and it’s a great pity, as it would be tremendously exciting if you did .” Lady Fosberry chortled. “You’ll call on us tomorrow, Lord Melrose? I’ll look over my guest list this afternoon, and should have something to report then. I can’t promise it will be helpful, but I’ll do my best.”

Johnathan dragged his attention from Emmeline Templeton’s fetching blush to Lady Fosberry. “Yes. Thank you. You’re very good to help me, my lady.”

“Well, well, you’ve always been one of my favorites, Melrose, and it is kind of you to entertain us all with this business with the Lady in Lavender.” Lady Fosberry gave him a mischievous smile. “After all, there’s nothing worse than a dull season.”

Johnathan wasn’t certain how to reply to that, so he merely offered the ladies a final bow and made his way out of the drawing room, with Cross right behind him.

“My goodness, girls. Such a scandal!” Lady Fosberry breathed, as soon as Lord Melrose and Lord Cross were gone. “Poor, dear, brave Lord Melrose.”

Poor Lord Melrose, indeed .

Under cover of the blue velvet pillow in her lap, Emmeline’s fingers curled into fists.

What sort of gentleman kissed a lady as Lord Melrose had kissed her, without having the faintest notion he was standing beside her the very next morning ? The worst of it was, she couldn’t even reveal what an utter scoundrel he was without giving herself away!

“I think it’s all nonsense,” Juliet announced. “If it was too dark for Lord Cudworth to see the lady’s face as she left the library, then how could he tell the color of her gown?”

“Or be certain the gentleman he saw was Lord Melrose at all?” It had most certainly been Lord Melrose, but Emmeline was desperate to try staunch the flow of this rumor, even as she knew it was hopeless. The ton had it now. They wouldn’t let it go until they’d squeezed every drop of blood from it.

“My dear child, no one could ever mistake Lord Melrose for another gentleman. He is the Nonesuch, you know.”

Emmeline slumped against the settee with limbs heavy with sudden exhaustion. Dear God, what a tangle. She should have listened to Phee, and kept far away from London.

What a fool she’d been to imagine for a single instant she wouldn’t be found out. The ton was always watching, peering around every corner, ready to snap up the latest scandal like a frog catching the tastiest flies on the tips of their tongues.

“This puts an end to our wager, my lady,” Juliet observed. “Lord Melrose was quite clear about his intentions regarding the Lady in Lavender.”

“Oh, bother the wager!” Lady Fosberry waved a dismissive hand.

“I don’t give a whit about it, and never did.

I’ve been begging Euphemia to accompany me to the Continent for months now, and you know very well I’ll insist on giving Tilly a season.

The wager was simply a means to get you to London, in the hopes of improving your circumstances. ”

Juliet smiled. “And so, we will. There are a great many other gentlemen in London aside from Lord Melrose. Perhaps I’ll marry one of them.”

Lady Fosberry gave her a sharp look. “I hope you aren’t referring to Lord Boggs.”

“Lord Boggs!” Emmeline repeated, appalled. “What’s Lord Boggs got to do with anything?”

Juliet shrugged. “A bird in the hand, as Helena says.”

Emmeline stared at her. “What does that mean?”

Lady Fosberry grimaced. “Lord Boggs admires Juliet. Anyone who attended my ball last night could see that, but I do hope you’re not encouraging him, Juliet.”

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t. You said yourself he’d be a good match for Miss Crowley. That’s even more true for me, given our mother’s scandal.”

“He isn’t a good match for you at all, Juliet!” Emmeline was horrified by the very idea.

“Are there any dreadful scandals about Lord Boggs, my lady?” Juliet asked, ignoring Emmeline and turning instead to Lady Fosberry.

“No. He’s as dull as a church sermon, but there’s nothing to his credit, either.” Lady Fosberry exchanged glances with Emmeline. “I agree with your sister. I think him an exceedingly bad choice, Juliet, but I don’t pretend to understand all the twists and turns of your magical matchmaking formula.”

“There isn’t a bit of magic to it, my lady.” Emmeline said automatically, but her gaze remained on Juliet, uneasiness twisting in her stomach.

“Ah, yes. I keep forgetting it’s simply mathematics.”

“There’s a great deal more to it than that ,” Emmeline protested, unable to help herself. “If you take into account psychology, even zoology?—”

“My dear Emmeline, this is no time for a discussion of zoology.”

“—but I don’t recall a single principle of science, mathematics, or matchmaking that argues for a match between Juliet and Lord Boggs.” Emmeline took Juliet’s hand. “He’s not the sort of man who could ever make you happy, Juliet. Just the opposite, I’m afraid.”

Juliet said nothing, but she didn’t need to say a word. The truth was dawning on Emmeline with such awful clarity, she couldn’t imagine how she hadn’t seen it sooner.

The wager, this trip to London—it had never been about a betrothal to Lord Melrose.

Juliet had leapt at the chance of a season right after they’d learned Lady Mariana Shelby had refused Lord Boggs.

He was the reason Juliet had accepted Lady Fosberry’s wager, despite it going against both Phee’s and Emmeline’s wishes.

Now that she considered it, Emmeline would be amazed if Juliet had ever intended to pursue Lord Melrose at all. She’d likely had Lord Boggs in mind from the start.

And it was hardly a mystery as to why.

Ruin had been creeping toward the Templetons since their father’s death—slow and stealthy, but as inexorable as the tide wasting away the sand at the water’s edge.

They didn’t speak of it, but they’d all known it was coming, even after Phee had worried herself into exhaustion trying to keep them together at Hambleden Manor.

But then Helena had accepted a governess position, and there’d been no hiding from the truth any longer.

A lady with Juliet’s face and charm could do very well for herself in London—with a certain kind of gentleman, that is.

She was as lovely as their mother had been—the only Templeton sister who could truthfully be called a beauty—and as charming and vivacious, but without Alice Templeton’s hard, brittle edges, her ruinous selfishness.

There wasn’t a single doubt in Emmeline’s mind Juliet would sacrifice her own happiness to save the rest of them, and save Hambleden Manor.

Dear, lovely thing.

But Lord Boggs! It was out of the question. Emmeline would never allow it, but she’d have to tread carefully. Juliet was as stubborn as the rest of them, particularly once she set her mind to a thing.

But this was no longer just about a wager. It was about Juliet’s happiness.

“Well, my dears, it’s been rather an exciting morning, has it not? For my part, I think we should all be thanking the Lady in Lavender for rescuing us from a dreadfully dull season.”

Emmeline pressed her lips together to hold back a snort.

The Lady in Lavender, indeed .

She would not be revealing herself to Lord Melrose, or to anyone else. The Lady in Lavender could be made to disappear as quickly as she’d appeared, and once she was gone, the ton would forget about her, and so would he.

Blast Lord Cudworth, anyway. He hadn’t gotten a single thing right, for pity’s sake. The gown had been amethyst , most decidedly amethyst, and it hadn’t been a gown at all, but a day dress. Now all of London was in an uproar over the word of a man who couldn’t tell the difference between the two.

“It’s not every morning one finds two such handsome, robust gentlemen in one’s drawing room, is it?” Lady Fosberry rubbed her hands together with glee.

Robust . A prickling heat washed over Emmeline. Yes, Lord Melrose was that, but also…surprisingly gentle, even tender. The soft press of his lips, the teasing stroke of his fingers, his slow, deep drawl in her ear.

I want to taste you…

What had he meant by that? Emmeline had spent half the night imagining the dozens of tantalizing possibilities, but he hadn’t said only that, had he?

No, he’d said, I want to taste you, Susanna.

Susanna, or, as Emmeline had learned from one of Lady Fosberry’s maids this morning, Lady Susanna Exeter. Lord Melrose must be in love with her. He’d certainly kissed her as if he was.

Except he hadn’t been kissing Lady Exeter at all.

He’d been kissing Emmeline, touching Emmeline .

Surely, a man in love should have known he wasn’t holding his beloved in his arms?

Then again, she’d let him kiss her, and she’d even kissed him back, so perhaps the kissing had less to do with love than she’d always supposed.

Still, their liaison in the library couldn’t have made much of an impression on Lord Melrose if he couldn’t even identify whom he’d shared it with, and Emmeline wasn’t such a fool as to moon over a gentleman who didn’t know one lady’s lips from another’s.

A kiss didn’t count if one of the participants believed themselves to be kissing someone else at the time?—

“Emmeline, did you hear me? Goodness, child, you were a thousand miles away.”

No, just as far as the library . “I beg your pardon, my lady. Did you say something?”

“I did, indeed. I need a few bits and bobs from the shops, so we’re off to St. James’s Street, but do go and change your gown first.” Lady Fosberry patted Emmeline’s hand. “You mustn’t wander about London looking like a street urchin, you know. This is London, not Buckinghamshire.”