A Valentine Wedding Read online

  “How could you possibly have any knowledge of investments, and the Exchange, and cent per cents, or whatever they’re called?” Emma demanded. “You’ve never had a feather to fly with.”

  “True enough.” He folded his arms and regarded her with a half smile. “My esteemed sire, as we all know, was not a thrifty gentleman.”

  “Bad blood,” muttered Lord Grantley. “Came from his mother. Bad blood in all the Bellinghams. Hardened gamesters, the lot of ’em. Saw your grandmother lose six thousand guineas at one sitting. And your father was the same.”

  “The matter of my penury is thus explained,” Alasdair agreed blandly. “The youngest son of a hardened gamester …” He shrugged. “However, I wonder if we’re not wandering off course a little here.”

  Emma was silent. Alasdair’s father, the earl of Chase, had been a vicious tyrant. A drunkard and a gamester who had fallen from his horse late one night on his way back from a card party and broken his neck, leaving an estate mortgaged to the hilt and more debts than a king’s ransom could have settled. Alasdair, the youngest of three sons, had not a penny to his name. Not that you would ever guess that from looking at him, she thought. He lived like a wealthy man, but how she couldn’t imagine.

  “I wouldn’t begrudge it if Ned left you twenty thousand pounds,” she said impatiently. “You were his closest friend … closer than any brother could have been. But I absolutely refuse to accept your authority over my expenditures. Am I to ask you for my quarterly allowance? Ask permission if I wish to set up my stable? Have you approve all my household expenses?” She glared first at Alasdair and then at the lawyer.

  “My dear Emma, I’m sure that Lord Alasdair will be everything that’s accommodating,” said Maria, rising from her armless chair. “And you don’t want to be worrying about finances yourself. It’s so … so unfeminine. Much better to leave such sordid details to a man. Men have much better minds for dealing with such matters. I’m sure dear Ned knew that he was taking care of your interests … just until you get married.” She came over and laid a hand on Emma’s arm. “Maybe you should lie down on your bed and rest for a little before dinner.”

  “Since when have you known me to need to rest before dinner, Maria?”

  “Well, to be sure, never,” the lady said. “But this has been a very trying afternoon for you.”

  “An understatement,” Emma said shortly. She addressed the lawyer. “Well, sir. Do you have answers to my questions? How much authority has my brother invested in Lord Alasdair?”

  The lawyer rubbed his mouth with his fingertips. “By the very nature of the trust, ma’am, the trustee must review all expenses,” he said hesitantly. “But there is no other area of jurisdiction.”

  “Oh, how fortunate. I am not obliged to gain his consent to my marriage, for instance?” she inquired sardonically. “Or to where I might choose to live?”

  The lawyer shook his head and sounded quite shocked as he said, “No, indeed not, Lady Emma. You are of age.”

  Emma frowned down at the carpet at her feet. She traced the pattern with the toe of her blue satin slipper. “There is no way, I take it, that this will can be set aside?”

  “None, Lady Emma.”

  Emma nodded almost absently. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, her voice distant as she walked over to the door to the music room. She disappeared, the door clicking shut behind her.

  “Well, I always said she had very odd manners,” Lady Grantley announced, rising to her feet. She sniffed. “Of course, with such a fortune, she’ll not be short of offers, regardless of her manners. We’ll just have to pray she doesn’t squander herself on a fortune hunter.”

  “Her fortune has always been large and she hasn’t succumbed as yet, ma’am,” Alasdair pointed out gently.

  Lady Grantley gave him a look of supreme dislike. “She was seriously in danger of doing so once, as I recall.” She sailed to the door. “I shall go to my apartments. Maria, would you send the housekeeper to me. I wish to review the menus for the week.”

  “I believe Emma has already done so, Lady Grantley,” Maria said.

  “Emma is no longer mistress of this house.” Lady Grantley swept from the room. Her husband, with an apologetic look at Maria, muttered something about a glass of claret and followed her.

  “Well,” declared Maria, two bright spots of color on her cheekbones. “Well!”

  “Well indeed, Maria.” Alasdair pushed himself away from the bookshelves. “The sooner you and Emma are established elsewhere, the better for all, I would have said.” He smiled at the woman, and the rather harsh cast of his features was immediately softened. His eyes lost their sardonic glitter and became warm; the thin line of his mouth took a less uncompromising turn. He patted her shoulder. “You have no need to take instructions from the countess. If she wishes to interview the housekeeper, let her summon her herself.”

  “Yes … yes, I think I shall do just that.” Maria nodded decisively. “Mr. Critchley, I’m sure you’d care for a glass of wine before you leave. If you’d like to come with me …” She went to the door. The lawyer gathered his papers, bowed to Lord Alasdair, and followed his hostess with an eager step.

  Alasdair flung himself down in a chair with earpieces and closed his eyes, waiting. He guessed Beethoven. He didn’t have long to wait. The first notes of the pianoforte were soft, tentative almost, as Emma found her mood. Then they grew and strengthened and he found himself listening to the Kreutzer Sonata.

  He nodded his satisfaction. He still knew her as well as ever. He rose and entered the music room. If the player noticed him, she gave no sign. Alasdair took a violin from a lacquered marquetry cabinet and came to stand behind her. The sweet sounds of the violin joined with the pianoforte, but Emma didn’t acknowledge him until the piece was over.

  Her hands were still on the keys as the strains of the sonata slowly faded in the air. “Oh, how I wish we didn’t play so well together.” It was a cry from the heart.

  Alasdair contemplated a response and decided against it. He placed his violin on a marble-topped table with gilded legs. “Do you have any idea how much you’re worth, Emma?”

  She turned on the thimble-footed stool. “Not exactly. A great deal, I know. Does it matter precisely how much?”

  “I think so,” he said dryly. “And if you don’t think it matters, then I have to say that you’re definitely not the best person to be managing such a fortune.”

  Emma flushed but was obliged to acknowledge the justice in this. However, she said, “That’s not why Ned made this arrangement, and you know it.”

  “You are now worth something over two hundred thousand pounds,” Alasdair said steadily, ignoring her statement. “You are an extremely wealthy woman.”

  “And you’re going to make me even wealthier, I gather.” She rose from the stool. “But that isn’t why Ned made this arrangement. Is it?”

  “I don’t know why Ned decided on this,” he said dismissively. “All I know is that it’s a fact. So let’s get to points, shall we? Where do you intend living?”

  “In London for the season. Where else?”

  “Where else indeed?” he agreed. “Do you wish me to find you a suitable house for hire?”

  “I would wish to buy,” Emma snapped.

  “I don’t believe that would be sensible,” he said evenly.

  “And why not, pray?” Her chin lifted; her eyes threw their challenge.

  “Because you will get married,” he stated baldly.

  “Not to you!” Emma flashed before she could stop herself.

  “No … as I recall you made that painfully clear once before,” Alasdair replied with a cool nod. “As it happens, I was not renewing my suit.”

  Emma controlled herself with difficulty. It was typical of Alasdair to turn the tables in that way … to put her at a disadvantage. She faced him directly. “I believe that was what Ned intended with this diabolical arrangement.”

  “Yes, so you implied. But Ned did not con
fide in me.” He reached for the bellpull. “Sherry or madeira?”

  Emma hesitated, then accepted that Alasdair was not going to admit what they both knew to be true. And what difference did it make anyway? The sharp spur of anger was gone now, and wisdom told her that somehow they had to find a way through their antagonism, through their shared past, to manage this situation. Whatever Ned’s motives had been.

  “Sherry,” she replied and bent to warm her hands at the fire while Alasdair gave instruction to the footman who appeared in answer to the bell. The silence in the music room elongated. Emma remained at the fire. Alasdair strolled to the window. The curtains had not yet been drawn and they could hear faintly the sound of the waves crashing on the beach below the cliff on which the house stood.

  The footman returned with a tray. He set it on the marble-topped table and withdrew.

  Alasdair poured wine and brought a glass to Emma. “You’ll have to preserve the proprieties of mourning … or do you intend to flout convention?”

  “Ned had no time for the conventions,” she said.

  “Very true.” He sipped sherry, watching her closely. “You’ll dance?”

  Emma suddenly smiled. “I’ll not waltz,” she said. “Ned detested the waltz.” Tears started in her eyes and she brushed them away. “He also detested weeping.” There was a catch in her voice and she put down her glass. “Damn it, Alasdair. Why did he have to die?”

  He moved toward her, his arms sliding around her, his breath rustling through her hair. And for a minute it was as it had been so many times in the long-ago past. He was comforting her … for a scraped knee, a fall from her horse, a schoolroom punishment. But Alasdair was grieving too, and in this moment of accord she comforted him in turn.

  They clung together. And now it was not the long-ago past, but the recent past. A past she had sworn never to revisit. But she could feel the beat of his heart, take the scent of his skin, his hair. The supple length of his body was imprinted on her own. His hands moved down her back, holding her to him.

  The world swung on its axis. Her mind and senses whirled in confusion. She pulled out of his arms, her tears dried. “Take a lease on a house for me, then.” Her voice was harsh and she picked up her glass again and drank. “I would be in town for the new year.”

  “As you command, ma’am.” Alasdair bowed, irony in every line of his slender frame. “We will discuss the details of your financial arrangements when you’re established in town.” A smile flickered over his fine mouth. “I assure you I won’t keep too tight a hold on the purse strings.”

  Emma held herself very still, then she turned and whisked herself from the room. The door closed quietly behind her.

  Alasdair sat down at the piano and played a series of chords, each one more strident and discordant than the last.

  Chapter Two

  “This is really a very superior house, Emma.” Maria untied her bonnet strings and nodded her satisfaction as she looked around the large first-floor salon. “The rooms are such a good size and the furnishings quite above the general run. I was so afraid you might be melancholy, my dear, at finding yourself residing in meagre accommodations, after what you’ve been used to. Grantley House is such a distinguished mansion, and Grosvenor Square such a perfect address.”

  She gave a little sigh, and placed her bonnet on a chair. “But this is really a very pleasant house. And Mount Street is a most convenient location.”

  “I’d live in a chicken shed if it was the only means to get away from Aunt Hester.” Emma drew off her York tan gloves. “The woman’s pure poison.”

  “I must say I don’t find her very good-natured,” Maria agreed rather more moderately.

  Emma smiled at her. “You on the other hand are a saint, Maria. How you managed to bite your tongue when she sniped at you, I really don’t know. I wish I could have done the same,” she added a touch regretfully. “It would have been so much more dignified to have maintained a cool silence, instead of plucking crows with her all the time. And it does make it very unpeaceful for poor Uncle Grantley.”

  “Well, my dear, you always did have a quick temper,” Maria said comfortably. “And dear Ned too. He would never stand quiet if he thought there was an injustice.”

  “No.” Emma’s smile was tinged with melancholy now. In search of distraction, she walked to the long windows overlooking the street below. “What a commotion! The post chaise is still blocking the street while they’re unloading our baggage, and there’s a dray behind it with a very irate driver.” She went into a peal of laughter. “I don’t know what he’s yelling, but I’m sure it’s far from polite. John-coachman looks ready to mill him down.”

  “Oh dear. What a vulgar scene.” Maria shook her head. “London is such a noisy, dirty place.”

  Emma chuckled but said nothing. For all such protestations, Maria loved being in town for the season. She was a highly sociable creature for whom the endless round of callers and calling, of shopping and parties, even the insipidities of Almack’s, were meat and drink.

  She was a distant relative of Emma’s father, whose husband had died and left her with a very small competency, not enough to maintain the lifestyle to which she’d been accustomed. Emma’s own mother had died when her daughter was fourteen, and Emma’s father had invited Maria Witherspoon to act as hostess and chaperone his daughter when she made her London debut at eighteen. Maria had been delighted at such a generous offer and the prospect of returning once more to the vigorous social whirl of the wealthy and wellborn, and when Emma’s father died, she had become Emma’s permanent companion.

  It was an arrangement that suited them both. While Maria was not clever, she knew everyone, had impeccable connections, and was ideally suited to the task of chaperoning a young and wealthy heiress in society. She was good-natured and easygoing, and since she would never dream of attempting to influence Emma’s opinions or actions, they got on very well.

  “I’ll go and make sure the boxes and trunks are set in the right rooms,” Maria said now. “You’ll have that nice big bedchamber at the back, Emma dear, and I’ll take the one at the front.”

  “Nonsense. You know you’re a light sleeper. You won’t sleep a wink if you’re overlooking the street,” Emma said. “I’d sleep like a log in a barn, so you take the back one.”

  Maria hesitated only a minute, then with a murmured, “So good of you, Emma dear. So thoughtful,” she hurried out.

  Emma remained at the window. The altercation between her own coachman and the driver of the dray was growing ever more heated, and quite a crowd was gathering. John-coachman was a burly man, but the driver of the dray looked like a prizefighter, and Emma was just beginning to think that she should send out Harris, the butler, to pour cold water on the smoldering flames before someone was hurt, when a curricle came bowling around the corner from Audley Street.

  The driver pulled up his team of bays an inch before they could plunge into the obstruction. The maneuver looked almost leisurely, but Emma, who was no mean driver herself, knew the cool head, steady hands, and absolute precision that had been necessary. But then, she would not have expected anything less from Alasdair Chase, who now handed the reins to his tiger and sprang down from the curricle.

  He wore the highly coveted blue-and-yellow-striped waistcoat of the Four Horse Club. A handful of spare whip points was tucked into the pocket of his many-caped driving coat. He addressed himself to the warring parties, and while Emma couldn’t hear what he was saying, the results were instantaneous. John-coachman clambered back onto the box of the post chaise, the driver of the dray set to backing his horses up the road, and Alasdair, with a word to his tiger, turned to the front door.

  He paused for a moment and looked up at the house. He saw Emma in the window and raised his curly-brimmed beaver hat in salute. Then he disappeared from her sight as he mounted the steps beneath her window.

  Emma waited. She heard his quick light step on the stairs and told herself firmly that she would be neit
her provoked nor provoking in this interview.

  Alasdair entered the salon, bringing the cold fresh air with him in the glow of his cheek, the brightness of his eye. “Good God, Emma, I can hardly credit the amount of baggage you have. How could two women need so much? There must be dozens of bandboxes and trunks. I nearly broke my neck tripping over a dressing case in the hall.” He tossed his hat and whip onto a satinwood sofa table and drew off his gloves. His every gesture was smooth, supple, economical.

  “So, how do you like the house? Will it do for you?”

  “Maria is very pleased with it,” Emma said. “I haven’t as yet had time to look it over properly.”

  If Alasdair was disappointed by this noncommittal response, he gave no sign. “There’s a music room,” he said. “At the back of the house on the ground floor. I think you’ll find the pianoforte to your liking. It’s one of Pleyel’s from Paris and it has a beautiful tone.”

  “Thank you,” Emma said. If Alasdair had selected the instrument, she knew she would have no complaints, but she wasn’t about to be effusive. “I’ll try it later. When we’ve had time to settle in,” she added pointedly, unable to help herself despite all resolutions. “At which time I daresay we shall be happy to receive visitors.”

  “If that was an attempt to snub me, my dear Emma, I have to tell you it went glaringly abroad,” Alasdair stated pleasantly. He sat down in a deep chair before the fireplace and crossed his legs with the air of one prepared to make himself comfortable. “I am your trustee, if you recall. And as such have privileges not accorded an ordinary visitor.” He smiled up at her as she still stood by the window. “Not to mention the privileges of an old … a very old … family friend.”

  “That was in the past,” Emma said. “I’ve hardly said two words to you in private in the last three years. Which is why this is so damnable!” she added, impassioned even though she’d told herself she would be calm and polite and distant. She had struggled to resign herself, but it seemed impossible. Every time she thought she’d managed to accept Ned’s diabolical will, just the thought of what it entailed would demolish her hard-won peace of mind.