Page 69 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
“Heavens,” he said.Is this to be my future as well? Gout and pump water?
To his dismay, a tidal wave did not roar in from the Bristol Channel and float them out to sea before they arrived at the Partridge home. Sir Clarence was in the library, with his bandaged foot propped on a footstool, looking as though he could chew through masonry. Lord Ragsdale took a deep breath, blew a kiss in the doorway to Clarissa, and closed it behind him.
“Sir Clarence,” he heard himself saying, “how nice to see you again. I believe we have a matter of the heart to discuss.”
~
I refuse to flog myself because I allowed Lord Ragsdale to kiss me, Emma told herself at least one hundred times before noon, laying on the mental lashes as she busied herself with his instructions. That the experience was pleasant beyond all reason only added to her logic that she was getting old now—almost twenty-five—and more susceptible to such things. She considered the matter and resolved that, when this matter of her father and brother was settled one way orthe other, she should give some thought to marriage and a family of her own.
Not that her future husband would be anything like Lord Ragsdale, she told herself, suppressing a small shudder. She allowed herself a smile, wondering what he would say if she told him that he had become her measuring stick of what not to look for in a husband.
She frowned, aware of the fiction of that statement. While it may have been true several months ago, it was not true today. Lord Ragsdale showed great potential now. Emma picked up the quill again and dipped it in the ink.Miss Clarissa, she thought grimly,I hope you appreciate the paragon—well, the improved person—that I have helped to fashion. I hope you will have the wit to scold him where he needs it and give him plenty of headroom in matters where he shines.She sighed.I should write a manual for the care and upkeep of Lord Ragsdale and give it to you, Miss Clarissa. Why am I afraid that you won’t know what to do with him?
The thought dogged her for several days, but she eventually put it aside as she and the footman made several more trips to Deptford Hard and the shipping offices. No one had ever heard of theMinervaor theHercules, not even when she attempted bribery. When she explained it to him, Robert Claridge took her task to heart and traveled to Portsmouth, seeking news of the missing ships. There was no news, not even any scraps of information in the dusty boxes at the Home Office, which she returned to during the remaining days of the week.
“I begin to wonder if they ever existed,” she told Robert as he sat in Sally’s room, watching her pack.
“You could return to Virginia with us,” he offered. “I do not think Lord Ragsdale would mind, and didn’t you say he is probably engaged by now?”
She nodded and began to fold the chemise in her hands smaller and smaller. “I am sure you are right.” She looked down at the garment in her hands and shook it out to beginagain. “Perhaps Lord Ragsdale will have thought of something else. I should wait.”
And so she did, although it gave her a pang to stand with Lady Ragsdale and wave good-bye as the Claridges departed for Portsmouth and a ship to America. Robert had kindly left her enough passage money to see her to Virginia, “When you decide you’ve looked enough,” he had told her the night before.
To take Lady Ragsdale’s mind off the melancholy of farewell, Emma saw to it that they traveled to Norfolk to look in on the progress of construction and renovation. She took notes on the improvements, pleased to see how well Manwaring and Larch worked together. The sheepherders had already moved into their new quarters, and work would begin on the crofters’ cottages as soon as the planting was finished.
“Lady Ragsdale, you can tell your lordship that he has a good instinct where people are concerned,” Mrs. Larch told her as they walked around the newly dug foundations on her last evening in Norfolk.
“Mrs. Larch, I am not married to Lord Ragsdale,” she said quickly, before she lost her nerve. “I serve him as his secretary. I do not know why he didn’t correct you during that first visit, and then I was too embarrassed to say anything.”
Mrs. Larch stared at her in amazement. “I never would have believed it!” She looked at her husband, who was chatting with the bailiff. “And didn’t my David remark to me that you two looked like you had been married years and years?”
Oh, my, Emma thought to herself.This is worse than I thought.
“It was just Lord Ragsdale and his rather demented sense of humor, Mrs. Larch,” she apologized. “I trust you will excuse him.”
Mrs. Larch allowed as she could. “Well, you may say all that, but I think you would have made a grand Lady Ragsdale.”
“Why, thank you,” Emma replied.How curious, she thought.A few months ago, I would have pokered up and protested at such a statement. Perhaps I am learning something of toleration.
And something of patience, she told herself early the next week as she shook her head at Lasker’s offer of hackney fare and started walking to the bank for the monthly audit of Lord Ragsdale’s accounts.I will certainly need it if I am to say more than three or four sentences in my life to Clarissa Partridge.
That morning’s interview with Clarissa called for a brisk walk, she decided. They had returned from Norfolk to a letter from Clarissa. Lady Ragsdale read it, then held it out to Emma, a broad smile on her face. “Well, it is about time,” she commented.
Emma read the brief note, marveling that Clarissa could write as she spoke, in breathless sentences, little wispy fragments that managed to convey her delight at Lord Ragsdale’s proposal, and then ping off half a dozen other topics in the brief space of half a page. She looked on the back, but there was nothing more.
And then only days later, the fiancée herself sat drinking tea in Lady Ragsdale’s private sitting room, all blonde and lovely and wearing a diamond that Emma thought vulgar. When Lady Ragsdale inquired where her son was, if he had not returned with her, Clarissa only shrugged her shoulders.
“He bolted out of Bath after only three days,” she said, her expression somewhere between a pout and a simper. “He said something about business that would not wait. Yes, thank you,” she said, selecting a macaroon from the tray that Emma held out to her. “I will have to speak to him about such precipitate behavior.”
“He does his best work on impulse, I think,” Emma noted.
“Well, it won’t do, and so I will tell him,” Clarissa concluded, speaking with finality. She took a long look at Emma. “And I will also tell him that once he is married, he can find himself a regular male secretary, like all his friends.”
Oh, I like that, Emma thought as she quickened her pace to the bank. Of course, as soon as the wedding—and maybe sooner, if today’s conversation were any indication—she would find herself an independent woman.There will be nothing for me here in England. There is nothing in Ireland. I suppose I will return to America.
The banker’s audit was the usual ponderous process of reconciling ledgers and figures, with occasional reminders this time for her to pay attention. “Emma, this is not like you,” the senior clerk scolded.
I suppose it is not, she considered as she turned her attention from a perusal of the paneling to the ledger before her. She accepted the Bath receipts, her eyes widening at the cost of the diamond ring that Lord Ragsdale had lavished on his bride-to-be.He must be dead in love, or monstrously vulgar, she thought as she added the sum to her entries.
