A Valentine Wedding (37 page)

Alasdair drove up to the house in his curricle in the middle of the afternoon. He tossed the reins to Jemmy and went up to the front door, his step somewhat less light and agile than usual.

Harris let him in. “I trust you’re recovered from your spill, Lord Alasdair.”

Alasdair grimaced. Even the servants had the gossip. “Pretty well, thank you, Harris.”

He stood in the hall listening to the message in Emma’s music pouring from the back of the house. His mouth was stern, his eyes grave. So she really had given up. But only the greatest unhappiness could have fueled her playing, and he must take what encouragement he could from that.

He strode past Harris with a brief nod. At the door to the music room, he hesitated for a moment. Then
he opened the door and stepped inside. The latch clicked as the door closed.

“Go away,” Emma commanded over the music, furious that someone should break her unspoken rule and disturb her when she was playing.

“No,” Alasdair replied.

Her hands came down in a crashing chord on the keyboard.

“Put on your pelisse.” He came up behind her, putting his hands under her arms and lifting her upward off the bench. He forestalled her protest with a flat, “Don’t argue with me, I’m all out of patience.”

She turned and stared up at him dumbfounded. “What are you doing?”

“You’re coming with me,” he responded steadily. He turned and picked up the pelisse she’d been wearing that afternoon and had carelessly discarded over a chair. “Put this on. It’s quite a long drive and it’ll be cold when it gets dark.”

Emma shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere with you. It’s over, Alasdair, don’t you understand?”

“No,” he said, holding out the pelisse. “I neither understand it nor accept it. Now put this on, please.”

Emma didn’t think she’d ever seen him like this. He was calm, his voice even, but there was a taut severity to his expression, in the set of his mouth and the gravity of his eyes. It was not anger, but it was absolute determination. The kind of last-ditch determination that would keep a drowning man clinging to a piece of driftwood.

She found herself putting on her pelisse. He handed her her gloves and stood waiting patiently with her hat until she’d drawn on her gloves. Then he set the dark blue chip hat on her head and tied its pale blue velvet ribbons beneath her chin.

Emma tried again, a note of desperation in her voice. “Alasdair, this is ridiculous. It’s a waste of time. Nothing’s going to change. You can’t compel me to go with you in this way.”

“Come,” he said, moving to open the door for her.

It was as if he held her on some kind of invisible leash, Emma thought, unable to believe that she was going with him utterly against her will and yet without the slightest overt force on Alasdair’s part. She walked past him into the hall.

“Oh, are you going out again? Alasdair, I saw you from the window.” Maria came hurrying down the stairs, her relief that the music had stopped ringing clear in her voice. “Are you taking Emma for a drive? Have you recovered yourself? Such a terrible thing to happen. And just after Emma’s accident … such a peculiar coincidence.”

“Don’t wait dinner for Emma,” Alasdair said, not troubling to answer Maria’s ramble of questions.

“Good heavens, why not? Where are you going?” Maria stared at him, suddenly taking in his expression, Emma’s white, strained countenance, and the almost palpable tension between them. “Is something wrong?” she asked fearfully.

“No,” Alasdair said quietly. “Nothing at all. Come, Emma.” He put a hand in the small of her back and urged her to the front door.

Emma, feeling like a marionette on a string, obeyed the pressure wordlessly. In the same silence, she allowed him to hand her up into the curricle.

Jemmy greeted her cheerfully, but then he too realized that things were not as they should be. He sprang onto his perch as the horses started forward, and held his tongue.

“Where are you taking me?” Emma found her voice at last.

“Somewhere I should have taken you long ago,” Alasdair replied in the same even tones. “But you’ll have to forgive me if tell you that I am not at all in the mood for conversation.”

It was such a supremely arrogant remark in the circumstances, and so absolutely typical of Alasdair, that Emma almost gathered up her skirts and jumped from the curricle.

As if reading her mind, Alasdair put out a hand and laid it firmly on her thigh. Emma stared over the horses’ heads and closed her lips tightly.

By the time they were trotting through the sleepy village of Kensington, she was intrigued despite herself.

Jemmy sat up abruptly on his box and muttered, “Well, now, ’ere’s a turn-up.” He nodded sagely, now well aware of their destination.

They went through Hammersmith and crossed the river at Chiswick. Emma glanced at Alasdair. He seemed to have relaxed at last, his mouth less rigid. But then, he wouldn’t allow his tension to communicate itself to his horses, she reminded herself. He was probably not in the least relaxed.

They turned under the archway of a coaching inn that bore the sign of the Red Lion. Alasdair alighted and held up a hand to assist Emma. She descended and looked around. One Red Lion was very like another. What were they doing here?

“I’ll be waitin’ ’ere, then, guv?” Jemmy took the reins from Alasdair. “Jest as usual.”

Alasdair nodded and took Emma’s arm. “We have a short walk.”

“How fortunate my blisters aren’t troubling me,” she said acidly.

“It was fairly clear they weren’t this morning,” he responded. “Judging by the way you were running down Albermarle Street.”

Emma’s glare threw daggers at him and for a moment his expression lightened, the old glint of amusement sparking in his eye, then it was gone and his countenance was once again set.

They left the inn yard and walked down a narrow lane of small cottages until they reached the end. The last cottage was larger than the others, and Emma saw the outbuildings of a small farm clustered in the surrounding field.

Alasdair opened the garden gate and gestured to Emma that she should precede him up the path to the front door. He knocked. It was opened immediately by a gangling lad who regarded Emma with curiosity.

“Emma, I’d like you to meet my son,” Alasdair said calmly. “This is Tim. Tim, this is Lady Emma Beaumont.”

Her mind reeled.
Why hadn’t he warned her?
But of course he wouldn’t have done. It was typical of Alasdair. This was his way of punishing her just a little for forcing this upon him. Well, she could meet his challenge. But oh, how the boy reminded her physically of the young Alasdair!

Emma held out her hand to the boy and said with a frank smile, “Tim, I’m very happy to meet you.”

The lad bowed but his mind was clearly elsewhere. He cast his father an anxious look. “Mama came to see you.”

“This morning, yes,” Alasdair agreed. “Is she in?”

“She’s in the kitchen with Sally. They’re making mincemeat.”

“Well, would you ask her if she’d—”

“Alasdair!” The glad cry came from within the house. “I heard your voice. It’s so good of you to come so quickly.”

The woman Emma had seen that morning appeared at the door. She was wreathed in smiles. An apron covered her round gown of sprig muslin, and she held a large wooden spoon in her hand.

“Oh, goodness me,” she said when she saw Emma. She wiped her free hand on her apron, looking flustered. “You didn’t say you were bringing visitors, Alasdair.”

“No, he’s very secretive that way,” Emma said, stepping forward, taking charge of this encounter. She held out her hand. “You must be Lucy … oh, I beg your pardon, that’s very forward of me. Mrs … ?”

“Hodgkins,” Lucy said, taking the hand. She looked inquiringly at Alasdair.

“Allow me to present Lady Emma Beaumont,” Alasdair said. “I intend to marry her.”

Emma’s jaw dropped at this barefaced effrontery. The man was impossible. Lucy beamed. Tim shuffled his feet with an air of unease.

“Why, I’m so happy … bless me, but that’s wonderful news,” Lucy said. “Come in, come in. We must have a glass of elderflower wine to celebrate. Mike’s still in the fields. Timmy, go and fetch him … right away. Come in, Lady Emma. Do excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”

Lucy, like most people, was clearly not inclined to question Alasdair’s stated intentions, Emma reflected, stepping into the small hall. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder if Emma intended to be made Alasdair’s wife.

But it would have been churlish to spoil this meeting.
Everyone seemed so genuinely delighted and pleased with Alasdair’s news, and interestingly didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about his bringing her to meet them. Did they know a different Alasdair? A less secretive Alasdair? The urbane, sardonic man society knew would certainly not have fitted so comfortably into this cozy domestic setting.

Mike Hodgkins, who soon arrived with Tim, was as happy as his wife. He shook hands, congratulated her and then Alasdair with scrupulous formality, then gave a great guffaw of laughter, kissed his wife, and tossed back several glasses of wine in quick succession.

Emma noticed that Tim seemed to cling to his stepfather’s side. He hung on Mike’s words, laughed when he did, hurried to fill his glass when it was empty. And yet Tim wasn’t at all uncomfortable with Alasdair, she thought. And Alasdair treated him with the affectionate friendliness that outsiders so rarely saw. It was the side of him that she loved. That Ned had loved.

But Tim was obviously Mike Hodgkins’s son in all but blood. Did this trouble Alasdair? He knew what it was to be estranged from his parents … to feel no emotional ties to his family. How was it with this son of his?

And as she watched and listened and played her part, Emma thought of how much time she and Alasdair had lost because he wouldn’t open this side of his life to her. These questions were ones that she needed answered. She loved him. How could anyone who loved someone not want to understand, to know about such vital issues in a loved one’s life? And how could he possibly not have realized that?

She caught herself looking at him with an almost
frustrated impatience that he would be so stubborn. And then he glanced across at her and what she saw in his eyes took her breath away. It was both question and plea. And then she understood how much of himself he had risked this afternoon.

She smiled and held out her hand to him. He rose and crossed the small parlor. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. There was silence in the room, but it was a silence that seemed to enfold them.

Then Alasdair gave her back her hand and said in a voice that was utterly normal, “Tim and Mike and I have some business to discuss. Will you and Lucy excuse us for a few minutes?”

Emma inclined her head in acknowledgment. She thought Tim looked anxious as he went out with the two men who fathered him. And she thought he probably had not the slightest reason for his anxiety.

Lucy moved to the window seat to sit beside Emma. “I don’t know what’s for the best,” she confided, settling the baby on her lap. “Alasdair wanted to send Tim to his old school, and it would be such a wonderful thing for Tim. But he doesn’t want to go.”

“Eton?” Emma wrinkled her nose. “My brother and Alasdair never had a good thing to say about the place.”

“But it would turn Tim into a gentleman,” Lucy said.

“Not if he doesn’t want it to,” Emma said. “It’ll just make him miserable.”

“But he
must
go to school,” Lucy insisted. “He’s saying now that he won’t even go to the dame school … or to the rector, who teaches him Latin and Greek. I went to ask Alasdair what to do about it this morning.”

Emma nodded. This morning seemed a lifetime
ago. A whole mistaken, confused, topsy-turvy lifetime ago. “What does Tim want to do?”

“He wants to be a farmer like Mike.” Lucy played with the baby’s fingers. “Mike’s a good farmer … he’s a good provider. I couldn’t ask for a better husband. But Tim could be something else. He could have chances.”

“But maybe Alasdair could ensure he has chances that suit him better,” Emma said hesitantly. She didn’t want to interfere. And this whole situation was so new that speaking for Alasdair seemed a very dangerous business, and yet at the same time quite right.

“If he wants to farm, then he’ll be a better farmer if he can read and understand things. There are new things to learn about farming all the time these days. Crop rotation and enclosures …” She stopped, realizing that she was being carried away by her own enthusiasm. She was talking about big estate management. Lucy and Mike had a smallholding;.

But Lucy seemed unperturbed. She was nodding thoughtfully.

“Mama, I don’t have to go to the rector
ever
again!” Tim bounded into the parlor, his face flushed, his eyes bright. “And I don’t have to go away to school after I’m too old for Dame Baldock’s. I’m to go and learn how to manage a big farm as soon as Mike says I’m old enough.”

Nicely done, Alasdair.
Emma nodded her silent approval. Both men seemed at ease with a decision that had clearly been a joint one.

Alasdair bent to kiss Lucy. “Be happy with it, Lucy. It’s for the best.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling now. “So Lady Emma was saying.”

Alasdair cast Emma a slightly startled look, then he
said, “Well, I don’t think we want to intrude on you any longer. Come, Emma.” He offered her his arm.

Emma took it, made her farewells, and accompanied him outside. As they walked down the path, Alasdair observed reflectively, “I’m glad we see eye to eye on Tim. But then, my bride-to-be, you’ve always shared my opinions on most things.”

“I haven’t yet shared my opinion on the matter of marriage,” Emma pointed out with some asperity.

“Then share it now, my sweet.”

Emma took a deep breath. “You are an arrogant, opinionated, cozening, insinuating minister of hell!”

Alasdair grinned. “Never have I heard you speak sweeter words, my honey-tongued angel.”

“Oh, I haven’t even begun,” Emma declared. “I shall fill your ears with insults every day of the rest of your miserable existence.”