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Emma groaned. It was time to face it—there was no way to avoid going to England. Not that a trip abroad could be considered punishment. She adored her cousins. Belle and Ned were the sister and brother she’d never had. But still, one had to think of the serious things, and Emma didn’t want to neglect her self-imposed commitment to Dunster Shipping. She glanced back over at her father. He was sitting behind his desk, arms crossed, looking implacable. Emma sighed, resigning herself to a temporary setback. “Oh, all right.” She got up to leave—to pack, she supposed, since she’d be leaving the next day on one of her father’s ships. “But I’ll be back.”
“I’m sure you will. Oh, and Emma?”
She turned around.
“Don’t forget to have a little fun while you’re there, all right?”
Emma flashed her father her most mischievous smile. “Really, Papa, you don’t think I would deny myself a good time in London just because I didn’t want to be there?”
“Of course not. How silly of me.”
Emma put her hand on the doorknob and opened the door a few inches. “A girl only gets a London season once in her lifetime, I suppose. She might as well enjoy herself, even if she’s not the society type.”
“Oh marvelous! Then you got her to agree?” John’s sister, Caroline, the Countess of Worth, exclaimed, suddenly barging into the room.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that eavesdropping is impolite?” John asked mildly.
“Nonsense. I was walking down the hall and I heard Emma speaking. She had the door slightly open, you know.” She turned to Emma. “Now that we have this settled, however, what is all this I hear about you punching a thief in the nose today?”
“Oh, that,” Emma said, pinkening.
“Oh what?” John demanded.
“I saw someone trying to take Ned’s wallet. He and Belle were bickering about something or other, like they always do, and he didn’t notice that he was being robbed.”
“So you punched him? Couldn’t you have just screamed?”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Papa. What would that have accomplished?”
“Well, then, did you at least throw a good punch?”
Emma bit her lower lip in a sheepish gesture. “Actually, I think I broke his nose.”
Caroline groaned audibly. “Emma,” she said softly. “You do know that I am very much looking forward to having you in London for the season?”
“I know.” Caroline was the closest thing Emma had to a mother. She was always trying to get her to spend more time in England.
“And you know that I love you dearly and would not want to change a thing about you.”
“Yes,” Emma said hesitatingly.
“Then I hope you won’t take offense when I say that proper young ladies really don’t go about punching unsavory characters in the nose in London.”
“Oh, Aunt Caroline, proper young ladies really don’t do that sort of thing in Boston, either.”
John chuckled. “Did you by chance get Ned’s wallet back?”
Emma tried to throw him a haughty look, but she couldn’t stop her lips from turning up at the corners. “Of course.”
John beamed. “That’s my girl!”
Chapter 1
London, England April 1816
“You realize, of course, that there will be hell to pay if my mother catches us.” Arabella Blydon looked over her costume with a skeptical eye. She and Emma had borrowed frocks from their maids—much to their maids’ dismay—and were presently creeping down the back stairs of Belle’s London house.
“There will be a lot more hell to pay if she catches you swearing,” Emma commented wryly.
“I really don’t care. If I have to supervise one more flower arrangement for your party, I’m going to scream.”
“I hardly think a scream would be appropriate when we’re meant to be sneaking down the stairs.”
“Oh, hush,” Belle muttered ungraciously, tiptoeing her way down another step.
Emma surveyed her surroundings as she followed her cousin. The back staircase was certainly a change from the one she and Belle usually used in the main hall, which curved gracefully and was cushioned with luxurious carpets from Persia. In contrast, the polished wooden steps of the back stairs were narrow, and the walls were whitewashed and unadorned. The quiet simplicity of the stairwell reminded Emma of her home in Boston, which was not decorated in the opulent London style. The Blydon mansion, located in fashionable Grosvenor Square, had been in their family for over a century and was filled with both priceless heirlooms and exceedingly bad portraits of the Blydons of yesteryear. Emma glanced back up at the plain walls and sighed softy as she fought back a pang of homesickness for her father.
“I cannot believe I’m creeping around my home like a burglar to avoid my mother,” Belle grumbled as she reached the bottom of the first flight of stairs and rounded the corner to begin the second. “Frankly, I’d rather curl up in my room with a good book, but she’s sure to find me there and make me go over the menu again.”
“A fate worse than death,” Emma murmured.
Belle looked at her sharply. “I’ll have you know that I’ve gone over that blasted menu with her countless times. If she corners me one more time with questions about salmon mousse or roast duck à l’orange, I really don’t think I can be held responsible for my actions.”
“Contemplating matricide?”
Belle shot her a wry look but didn’t reply as she daintily moved down the stairs. “Watch out for this step, Emma,” she whispered, hugging the wall. “It creaks in the middle.”