Page 69

A n oppressive silence followed Emmeline, Lady Fosberry, and Juliet from Covent Garden Theater to her ladyship’s carriage, and from the carriage through the entryway and into the drawing room beyond.

It wasn’t until they were seated in front of the fire that Lady Fosberry ventured to speak, her expression dazed as it moved between Juliet and Emmeline. “Well, my dears. I never imagined when we left for the theater this evening that we’d become the performance.”

Emmeline dropped onto a settee, her ears still burning. They’d left before the end of the first act, scurrying away like thieves in the night, but their departure hadn’t quieted the wagging tongues. By then, the damage was already done.

Dear God, Juliet’s expression when she’d seen Lady Christine’s smug face…

“Juliet, dearest?” Lady Fosberry paused in front of the settee where Juliet sat, her back straight, her gaze on her lap. “If you’ve been keeping any secrets from me, now is the time for you to confess them. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Juliet startled when Lady Fosberry spoke, as if she’d forgotten anyone else was in the room. “I, ah…I hardly know what to say, my lady.”

“It’s all Lady Christine’s doing, of course.

” Lady Fosberry began to pace from one end of the drawing room to the other, wringing her hands.

“Lady Christine and her spiteful mother, and that ridiculous Lord Cudworth. Chestnut hair, indeed! If he can’t distinguish lavender from periwinkle, or periwinkle from violet, why should anyone think he knows chestnut from sable, or sable from mahogany? ”

“I don’t understand it, my lady.” Emmeline gave a helpless shake of her head.

“He’s changed his mind a dozen times. Why does anyone listen to him?

” For all his smirking tonight, Lord Cudworth had failed to properly identify the color or purpose of the gown, as well as the lady wearing it, yet the ton had seized on Juliet’s name as if every word out of his mouth was sacred truth.

“Why believe the truth when a lie is so much more entertaining?” Juliet was frozen in place, all but her hands, which she was clenching into fists until her knuckles whitened. “The ton must have their amusement, mustn’t they, my lady?”

“Juliet, my dear, I must hear that it is a lie from your own lips.” Lady Fosberry struggled for a moment, as if she’d rather choke on her next words than say them aloud. “Did you…you, and Lord Melrose…are you indeed the Lady in Lavender?”

Juliet let out a laugh, but there was a sharp, ugly edge to it. “You heard Lord Cudworth, my lady. It’s the Lady in Violet now.”

The bitterness in that laugh, the anger and hurt Juliet was trying so valiantly to hide cut Emmeline to the heart. What an utter fool she’d been, to believe the Templetons couldn’t be ruined a second time. How laughable it was, to think the ton ever forgot or forgave anything.

Lady Fosberry pressed a weary hand to her brow. “We need to think what’s best to do, girls. It’s only a matter of time before your name will be on the lips of every gossip in London, Juliet.”

“Oh, I daresay it already is.” Juliet, who’d stuffed herself into the furthest corner of the settee, didn’t meet either Emmeline’s or Lady Fosberry’s eyes. “Or it will be, before the end of the second act.”

Lady Fosberry joined Juliet on the settee, taking her hand. “Juliet, dearest, I won’t be angry with you, but I must know if you?—”

“Lord Cudworth is mistaken, my lady.” Juliet raised her chin, but she couldn’t hide the trembling of her lips, the defeat written into every line of her face. “I’m not the Lady in Lavender.”

Lady Fosberry’s eyes slid closed as she let out a long breath. “No, I thought you couldn’t be. You must forgive me for asking, dearest, but?—”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Emmeline’s voice was dull. “It doesn’t matter if she’s the Lady in Lavender or not. The truth doesn’t matter.”

Lady Fosberry blanched at the expression on Emmeline’s face. “Emmeline, my dear girl, it’s?—”

“Juliet’s done nothing wrong, but her innocence won’t make a bit of difference to the ton . Soon enough they’ll all be saying she intentionally lured Lord Melrose into an indiscretion so he’d be forced to marry her.”

They’d say that, and worse. They’d claim Juliet was just like their mother had been, every inch a devious Templeton, and from there it would go on and on, the lies and innuendos piling up until the truth was crushed under their weight.

“I grant you the situation is dire, Emmeline,” Lady Fosberry said with a quiet sigh. “But I can assure you I have no intention of allowing Lady Christine and Lord Cudworth to get away with such a horrendous lie.”

“They’ve already gotten away with it. As Juliet said, it’s such an amusing lie!

Isn’t that all that matters? Everyone in that theater tonight knows Lord Cudworth is lying about Juliet, just as they know Lady Christine put him up to it, but that won’t keep them from repeating it all over London.

” She was rambling, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“The truth is a dull, tedious thing, though in this case it might be shocking enough to satisfy even the ton .”

“The truth?” Lady Fosberry paled at Emmeline’s words. “God in heaven, what now? What do you mean, Emmeline? What is the truth? I must insist on knowing the whole of this business this instant.”

“I should have told you at once. I beg your pardon, my lady, for lying to you.” Emmeline rose slowly to her feet, her knees trembling. “I was the lady in the library with Lord Melrose the night of your ball. I’m the Lady in Lavender, Lady Fosberry. Not Juliet, but me.”

Whatever Lady Fosberry had expected to hear, it wasn’t that , and her jaw dropped right into her decolletage. “ You? But…I don’t understand. You weren’t even at the ball! How could you and Lord Melrose have?—”

Emmeline’s face felt stiff, her lips numb. “I wasn’t at the ball, no, but I did venture into the library in search of a book that night. Lord Melrose happened to come in when I was there, and…I didn’t intend to…my encounter with his lordship was a mistake, my lady.”

If she’d been any less devastated, Emmeline might have laughed that the odd chain of circumstances that had led to that kiss could be called a mistake. It felt far more like fate, a sequence of unlikely occurrences that would nevertheless change the entire course of her life.

Indeed, it already had.

She was in love with Johnathan. Perhaps she had been from that first moment he’d touched her in the library, and now…

that would never not be true. How could anything ever be the same as it had been before that kiss, when she would never again be the same person she was before she fell in love with him?

“Of course it was, dearest. I could never think otherwise.” Thankfully, Lady Fosberry didn’t demand to know how Emmeline could have kissed Lord Melrose by mistake , but only gave her hand a gentle pat. “There’s only one thing for it, then, and that’s to tell Lord Melrose the truth at once.”

“He already knows.” He’d known almost from the start. All that time she’d been telling herself he didn’t recognize her as the lady he’d kissed, he’d been quietly watching her, and drawing his own conclusions.

All the correct conclusions, as it happened.

But that only made it more painful. If she could have made herself believe Johnathan felt only a responsibility to the Lady in Lavender rather than a particular regard for her , she might someday have recovered from the loss of him.

But he’d seen her in a way no one ever had before, and now her heart was wholly, irretrievably his.

Lady Fosberry saw her distress, and an anxious frown creased her brow. “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me at once. Would it really be so terrible, Emmeline, to be the Countess of Melrose?”

“I’m not destined to become a countess.” Wasn’t that what she’d told herself? That she was the flaw, the mistake that should have been corrected before the experiment even began?

How absurd, to think it could be done as easily as that.

“Nonsense, Emmeline. You’d make a splendid countess, and then there’s the small matter of your being the lady Lord Melrose is searching for.”

“But—”

“Give me a moment, please, girls.” Lady Fosberry held up a hand to silence Emmeline, who’d opened her mouth to speak. “Just a moment to think, and I’m sure I’ll come up with some way to?—”

The drawing room door opened then, startling all three of them. “I beg your pardon, my lady,” Watkins said with a bow. “Lord Melrose has just arrived.”

Lady Fosberry blew out a breath. “Yes, we’ve been expecting him. Show him in, Watkins.”

Juliet remained as she was, only the quick dart of her gaze toward the door betraying her nerves, but Emmeline dropped back down onto the settee, her heart crawling into her throat at the mention of Johnathan’s name.

A moment later he stormed into the drawing room, his hair disheveled and his eyes wild, looking as if he’d run straight from Covent Garden to Hampstead Heath.

“My dear Lord Melrose, I think we—” Lady Fosberry began.

But Johnathan didn’t seem aware Lady Fosberry or Juliet were even in the room. He strode over to the settee where Emmeline sat, and gathered her hands in his. “Emmeline.”

Her treacherous heart melted at the sound of her name on his lips, and dear God, she didn’t know what to say, or where to look, nor could she bring herself to withdraw her hands from his.

Lady Fosberry didn’t share Emmeline’s hesitation. “It seems we’ve discovered the identity of the Lady in Lavender at last, my lord. Unfortunately, this situation has become a good deal more complicated than either of us could have anticipated.”

“On the contrary, my lady. The truth is simple.” Johnathan’s fingers tightened around Emmeline’s, squeezing gently. “After our conversation among Lady Hammond’s roses yesterday, I was left with the impression you are the Lady in Lavender, but you never actually said so.”