Bar Sinister (24 page)

At her tumbling questions he smiled, too, leaving Emily breathless. "To answer you in
reverse order, McGrath is at the inn with our gear. We came on the mail coach. From
London."

"Good heavens."

He looked a little pale but otherwise remarkably well, Emily thought, and well turned
out in a new brown coat and buckskins. And remarkably handsome, too. She was apt to forget what
a handsome man he was. He wore his thick brown hair longer than usual, to hide the scar, she
supposed. It served the purpose and she liked the effect much better than a proper Stanhope
crop.

He noticed that they were still holding hands and disengaged gently. "Shall you show me
the house? I wasn't sure I'd picked the right cottage, but there was an ominous-looking woman with
a broom across the lane, so I chose this one."

"How fortunate you didn't go up to her. Mrs. Hibbert feuded with Watkins for years.
She's our local witch."

He was startled into laughter, a pleasant and thoroughly distracting sound.

Emily contrived not to throw her arms around him.
Propriety, Emily, propriety. "You've
had a tiresome journey. Ought you to have walked from the inn?"

"Nothing wrong with my legs." He was still amused. "Lead on, ma'am."

She showed him Watkins's parlour, with the rosewood secretary for his writing and the
settle and the chairs for the children. It was a less attractive room than the kitchen, smaller because
the bedroom behind it cut off a third of the space, but the red Turkey carpet had cheered it up. She
was glad she'd brought that and the bowl of daisies on the mantel.

"I daresay you'll be wanting more room for books. Papa will bring the estate carpenter
down to you when you've settled in. The bedroom is rather poky. There's room above for McGrath
and Peggy to have a little privacy. Do you think it will do? It's not at all far to Wellfield House. Half
a mile along the lane."

"Mrs. Foster--"

"And I think you should be calling me Emily," she went on greatly daring. "We've been
acquainted for a long time now, Richard, and I abhor ceremony. Besides, I'll never remember to
call you Colonel. I've only just got used to Major." She crashed to a stop and ventured a look at
him.

His eyes were grave. "You're very kind. Emily." He let out a long breath and looked
about the room. "I like the house. It's far better than anything I could have found for myself."

"I thought perhaps you'd find it too small."

"Small!" His brows shot up and he grinned, with the predictable effect on Emily's pulse.
"You have an extravagant idea of my expectations. I've just spent two months in a back bedchamber
with a panorama of chimney pots. This looks like Versailles."

Emily laughed. "I've saved the best for last." She led him down the narrow passageway to
the back door. "You see, I knew you'd be wanting to have the children to yourself some of the
time, and no cottage, however spacious, can contain such spirited children without bursting. When
you writ Papa to find you a house I remembered Watkin's garden."

A bit of weeding and pruning had improved the overgrown plot out of all compass. Emily
gazed about her with satisfaction. The afternoon sun showed the garden at its best. The apple trees
were heavy with green fruit, the grass a trifle brown, perhaps, but tidy, just right for romping
children. Sir Henry had caused his carpenter to put up a swing in the far tree, and the bench
beneath the nearer one shone with new paint. Along the grey stone wall the autumn flowers, freed
from choking weeds, flared in cheerful riot, yellow and orange and scarlet, a patch of delphiniums
like a bit of blue sky in one corner. It was not a large garden, but it would be large enough.

She danced across the grass feeling rather like a pleased child herself. Amy and Matt had
tested the swing already and pronounced it serviceable, but Emily was glad she hadn't brought the
children with her. Perhaps she should have, but for once she had not wanted their company, and
she certainly did not want it now. The thought made her self-conscious again.

She turned back, wanting reassurance, to find that Richard stood in the doorway. He was
watching her, frowning, perhaps because of the light. Sir Robert had said he suffered from
headaches.

"Do you not like the garden?"

He walked slowly over to the bench and sat down on it. "Very much, Mrs.
Foster."

"Emily," she corrected. She gave the swing a push and went to stand before him. The
swing moved back and forth in shorter and shorter arcs.

In the afternoon light the marks of Richard's ordeal were plainer than they had been in
the gentler light of the kitchen, and his eyes were troubled. He looked very tired. "Emily, then. I'm
glad I found you here alone. The children are apt to be an impediment to rational speech."

Emily smiled. "True. What did you wish to say?"

"That I owe you an apology."

Emily stared, blank.

The headache, or frown, if that was what it was, still tugged at his brows. "You will have
wondered why I didn't warn you long ago of my...inconvenient antecedents." He looked
away.

Emily blinked. "Oh. Do you mean Lady Sarah and so on?"

"And so on," he repeated, grim. "I shan't pretend that I would have told you from the
first, but I daresay I'd have got to it. I believed I'd seen the last of them, you see."

"I like Lady Sarah," Emily said feebly. "It's all over now. Isn't it?"

"I hope so."

"Sir Robert has been everything that is kind."

"Yes."

She sat gingerly at the other end of the bench and cocked her head, enquiring.

In the tree's shade his eyes were very dark. "Will you tell me something? If I'd made a
clean breast of things from the first, from the time my solicitor answered your advertisement,
would you have consented to take the children?"

She hesitated just too long.

He sighed and looked away. "Well, there you have my reason. Not very honourable, but
I was desperate enough to be ruthless."

"I believe the Duke of Newsham did not know of their existence at the time," she offered
by way of comfort.

"It didn't occur to me that he would discover them, either. My tactical blunder was
Bevis. I'd forgot he's my mother's cousin, and would probably run into one or another of her
children."

Emily turned that over in her mind. If Bevis were Richard's mother's cousin, then he was
also Richard's cousin. She wondered if that fact had ever crossed either man's mind. "Then the
encounter with Lady Sarah was almost inevitable?"

"I daresay."

Emily groped for the words to express her confused feelings. "Pray don't refine too much
upon it. I've had a few anxious moments, but the children are happy and in the pink of health.
That's what counts. Shall you come with me now to see them?"

He started to say something and stopped, rubbing at his forehead. "I thought...this
evening." His hand dropped. "That is, what time do they go down for the night?"

"Tommy at half past eight and the other two at nine."

"Early."

Such hours were rather late for children. In winter they went to bed earlier. Emily
suppressed a smile. Clearly Amy and Tommy would lead a strange life if, God forbid, their father
took them off with him. Her amusement faded and she shivered a little. "Why don't you come to
dinner? Papa and Aunt Fan are coming, and the vicar. They'd be very glad to welcome you. We
dine at seven."

"I'd like to thank Sir Henry for the house." Richard hesitated, then smiled ruefully. "I
confess I'd prefer not to display my famous one-handed fork trick just yet."

Emily flushed. That was the second time she'd forgot his disability. He would be thinking
her remarkably insensitive. "If you'd rather not I won't press you, though I assure you no one
would stare."

"I'm sure they're all far too well-bred. It's mostly vanity. I hate being so confounded
clumsy." His smile faded. "If you dine at seven I can see that my coming at eight would be
inconvenient to you. I'll walk up in the morning. I'd come now, but McGrath will appear at any
moment bearing potions and salves and lint. If I don't cooperate he'll sit on my head."

Emily rose, reluctant to leave. "There's no need to wait till morning to see the children,
Richard. Come at eight, before Tommy falls asleep. Phillida will show you up to the nursery for a
nice private reunion, and then, when you've seen the children, you can come down to the
withdrawing room for a glass of Papa's sherry."

He demurred politely, but Emily set herself to persuade him. She didn't intend to tell
anyone but Phillida of his arrival. Let it be a surprise. A splendid surprise, as it had been to
her.

He escorted her as far as the stile that led to the private footpath. McGrath had come with
the inn porter, bearing the luggage, glowering. Peggy would have a reunion, too.

Emily walked slowly home, hugging her pleasure to herself. When she finally reached the
house she hesitated to go in, for it seemed to her that her feelings must be written all over her
face.

She looked in on the children's supper, mildly surprised to find them unchanged and
unconscious of change. She settled a dispute between Matt and Amy, admired Tommy's expertise
with the silver fork her father had given him, and catching Peggy's sharp eyes on her, escaped to
make last minute arrangements for dinner. That done, she dressed with great care in a new muslin
trimmed in blue ribands. After critical inspection of her flushed cheeks, her bright blue eyes, her
shining brown curls under the merest wisp of a lace cap, Emily decided that she didn't look in the
least like a housemaid. What she looked was nervous.

The vicar, Mr. Wheeler, was coming for dinner. A fiftyish widower who instructed Matt
and half a dozen other sprouts in the rudiments of Latin, Wheeler had already proposed to Emily
three times, and she knew she would hear his heavy gallantries this night with special impatience. If
the same florid phrases had fallen from Richard Falk's lips she would have drunk them in like a
greedy shark. She wrinkled her nose at the hussy in the glass and stuck out her tongue.
Housemaid, indeed.
Laughing at herself, she went down to greet her aunt and father.

They had brought Mr. Wheeler with them, a circumstance which allowed Emily to put
dinner forward a quarter hour. No one remarked the briskness of the preliminaries. Her father had
spent the day making an extra crop of hay in his water meadow and declared himself sharp-set. Mr.
Wheeler had no such excuse for appetite but dug in with relish anyway. Between masculine
munching and Aunt Fan's detailed account of a visit with a widowed friend in Winchester, Emily
had scarcely to say a word. The dining room lay at the back of the house overlooking the orchard.
She had some hope that Richard's arrival might pass undetected--if Phillida had understood her
instructions.

"Off your feed, Emma?"

Startled, Emily dropped her fork on the plate and met her father's disapproving
gaze.

"Gel don't eat enough to keep a bird alive," Sir Henry grumbled.

"It's the heat, Henry." Aunt Fan cut a bit of sprout. "Debilitating."

How absurd they were. Emily swallowed a bubble of laughter. "Yes, indeed. If the good
weather keeps on in this tiresome way I shall go into a decline. Do have one of those doves, Mr.
Wheeler. Mrs. Harry is trying a new sauce and will be wanting your opinion. Wine, Papa?"

The moment passed. It was wonderful, however, what a tedious business a dinner could
be. So many side dishes to be tasted and judged. So much fuss. Would Papa really insist on smelling
the cork of that tolerable little hock Emily had purchased in Winchester? Would Richard's knock
occur as Phillida was serving a course? Would the meal never end?

Eight o'clock whirred and bonged in the middle of the sweet, but nothing untoward
happened. Perhaps Richard had suffered a relapse or just decided not to come. When Phillida
brought in the savoury, however, it was obvious from the maid's air of portent--and from the way
she dropped the cheese slicer and knocked over Mr. Wheeler's water glass--that Something had
Occurred.

Emily mopped, apologised, and excused herself. She followed the flustered servant out
into the hall.

"Has he come?"

"Oh, Mrs. Foster! Through the kitchen, and Mr. McGrath with him. Didn't Mrs. Harry
give a shriek." Phillida giggled. "I showed 'un up to nursery. Such a to-do as I never heard. Mrs.
McGrath fair had the vapours."

"Hush, Phillida. Let us finish this meal in decent order. Try not to pour the coffee over
Sir Henry." Emily returned to the dining room, suppressing her excitement as best she
could.

"Clumsy wench, that Phillida," Sir Henry growled. "I wonder you put up with her,
Emily."

Mr. Wheeler had leapt to hold Emily's chair. "But Mrs. Foster's soft heart must prevent
her turning off so faithful a servant, Sir Henry."

Emily bit back a snicker and slipped into her place.
Old softhearted Emily.

"What's happening, Emily?" Aunt Fan, alive as usual upon all suits. "Out with it,
gel."

Emily gave up. "Oh, it's just Colonel Falk."

Under their startled gaze her false insouciance deserted her. She gave Aunt Fan an
apologetic glance, adding, "He came this afternoon. On the mail coach. Phillida has just taken him
up to see the children."

Sir Henry exploded. "Upon my word! Have you no manners, Emma? Didn't you ask the
poor devil to dine?"

Emily soothed and explained, and restrained her relations from trooping up to the
schoolroom at once. Mr. Wheeler was struck dumb. He kept looking from one to another with the
air of a bewildered horse. Sir Henry grumbled. Aunt Fan exclaimed. Emily began to enjoy the
sensation of controlling events.

When she and her aunt retired to the withdrawing room, however, she found herself
trembling a little. Aunt Fan gave her one piercing look and made her sit on the small sopha.
"What's wrong?"