Page 39 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
I think I am full of gratitude or attitude myself, she thought, dimpling at the idea of Fae Moullé presenting Lord Ragsdale’s bride with a bonnet and sharing bedroom confidences.
“I think you will have to be extremely diplomatic, should this eventuality arise, my lord,” she replied, feeling a slight twinge at her own deception with Fae. “Perhaps it would be best if Fae remained your little secret.”
“My thought precisely.” He paused then and a slight wariness crept into his eye. “Emma, you won’t be needing me today, I trust.”
“Well, we did need to look over your estate receipts before we leave for Norfolk tomorrow, my lord,” she reminded him gently, not wishing to disturb the moment.
“Tonight, then, Emma. I am off to Tatt’s to buy another horse,” he told her. “When that arduous endeavor is completed, I will toddle over to Whitcomb Street and pay a morning call on Clarissa Partridge.”
“Very good, my lord,” she interrupted, raising her eyebrows.
“And then, with or without your permission, I will descend on White’s for lunch, a brief snooze in the reading room, and then a gentlemanly glass of port. Only one, mind you,” he assured her as he continued his progress to the book room. “I intend to become a pattern card of respectability.”
She watched him go, shaking her head and wondering why men were so strange.He must be in love, she concluded as Lord Ragsdale took his correspondence into the book room and closed the door behind him.This isn’t the same tight-lipped man who greeted me with such a scold last night. Something wonderful must have happened at the theatre, Emma decided as she climbed the stairs on light feet.If this romance with Clarissa prospers, perhaps I will be sprung from this indenture faster than I had hoped.
And why not love?she mused as she walked down the hall to Lady Ragsdale’s room. He said he was thirty, high time for any man to be thinking seriously about marriage and a family. She knocked on the door, hugely pleased.
Lady Ragsdale was still in bed. She looked up over the newspaper and smiled at Emma. “Ah, my dear. Over there are the dresses John ordered for you. They came yesterday with Sally’s things, and we didn’t notice it until the afternoon.”
“For me?” Emma asked as she approached the dresses draped over the chair.
“For you, Emma. And don’t look so dumbfounded! John has a very kind streak, once someone calls his attention to a necessity,” Lady Ragsdale stated.
“But I never said anything,” Emma insisted, picking up the dress on top and admiring the softness of the deep green wool. There were lace collars and cuffs on the chair too, and a petticoat far better than the ragged thing she wore.
“No? Well, perhaps neither of us gives John credit for the good he does.”
“I am certain you are right, my lady,” Emma said. The other dress was black, and experience told her how good it would look as a background to her auburn hair and pale complexion. “Oh, please tell him thank you for me.”
“Tell him yourself,” Lady Ragsdale said with a smile. “And Emma, I have a paisley shawl inside my dressing room that I never wear. It’s hanging on the closest peg to the door.”
In a haze of pleasure, Emma went into the dressing room and was brought quickly back to earth by Lady Ragsdale’s dresser, who obviously had been listening at the door. Acton thrust the shawl into her hands and hissed, “Don’t think you’ll get any more from my lady.”
“I learned long ago not to expect anything,” Emma whispered back. “I’m certain you’ll be quick to tell me if I overstep my place here, Acton.”
The shawl looked especially fine with the green dress. Emma remembered to drop a quick curtsy to Lady Ragsdale and another breathless “Thank you” before closing the door quietly behind her. She was down the stairs in a moment and knocking on the book room door.
“Emma, you needn’t knock,” came Lord Ragsdale’s voice from within. “I’m not ingesting opium or chasing the chambermaid. At least not presently.”
You are so outrageous, she thought with a grin.It almost amounts to Irish wit.She opened the door and came into the room, suddenly shy. “I just wanted to thank you for the dresses,” she said.
He looked up from the desk where he was going over her neatly entered account books. “I hope they fit.”
Some sense told her that they would be a perfect fit. “I am sure they will, my lord.” When he continued looking at her, she hesitated.Why do I dislike being under obligation to this man?she considered as she watched him lean back and continue his perusal of the ledge. “Sir, you didn’t need to go to such expense for me.”
He closed the book and indicated the chair next to the desk.
“Emma, I may have many faults, but dressing poorly is not among them. I like the people whom I employ to look at least half as grand as I do.”
She laughed out loud, and he joined in her laughter. “Well, I don’t expect you to match my incomparable high looks, Emma, but you must agree that if we are to do business together, I have certain standards.”
“Yes, my lord,” she agreed, a twinkle in her eyes. “I have standards too. Does this mean that if I do not approve of your waistcoat or pantaloons, you will change them to oblige me?”
It was the closest she had ever come to a joke with an Englishman, and he seemed to know. He laughed again, reached out, and touched her arm. “By all means, by all means. I have it on unimpeachable authority that a good wardrobe covers a multitude of character flaws. You are welcome to correct me.”
She watched him a moment more, struck by a sudden and wholly unexpected wave of pity.You are so convinced of your own flaws, she thought,and how sad this is for you. And how strange that I am feeling sorry for an Englishman.
“Emma, you must have something quite serious on your mind,” Lord Ragsdale was saying when she paid attention to him again. “Can it be that my flaws cannot even be covered by a good tailor and boots from Hobie?”
