Page 17 of To Marry and to Meddle
The lady caught her eye first, because she was undeniably striking—hair of a burnished copper color, green eyes, tall and waifish. Her face was lovely, but not so lovely as to be uninteresting in its perfection—there was a slight hook to her nose, and when she spoke, Emily noticed that her smile was a bit crooked. There was something about her that drew the eye, some magnetic aspect to her demeanor that made it almost impossible to look away once one had noticed her.
She was also, Emily thought, very young—her own age, perhaps, or even younger. Her skin was smooth and unlined, her complexion luminous. Her green eyes were knowing, however, and there was assurance in the angle at which she cocked her head, and even in the way she held herself, as though aware of the male eyes sure to be resting upon her. Emily, despite being recently married, suddenly felt rather naive by comparison to this creature.
And then, belatedly, she noticed the man who stood next to her beside their carriage, deep in discussion with the innkeeper, who seemed to have accompanied them out the door.
She sucked in a breath. “Is that—” she began in a murmuredundertone to her husband, and he cut his eyes toward her for a moment, faint surprise registering in his expression, as if he had forgotten that she was even there.
Following the line of her gaze, he gave a sharp nod. “Delacre.” He uttered the name rather as one would utter that of Lucifer—in fact, Emily had heard him utter Lucifer’s name just the evening before, regarding dear Cecil, and she thought he spoke Delacre’s with an even darker tone.
To be fair, however, everything she had ever heard of Viscount Delacre indicated that he thoroughly deserved it. The man was infamous among theton—enormously wealthy and powerful, but an absolute blackguard. She knew plenty of gentlemen who had reputations as rakehells—both her new husband and Diana’s fiancé, to start—but Lord Delacre was something different entirely. Julian and Lord Willingham were the sorts of men who wouldn’t be caught dead near an eligible debutante, for fear of being trapped into marriage; Lord Delacre was a man who would ruin a young lady and still refuse to wed her. Emily distinctly remembered her own mama warning her away from him during her first Season—and, she recalled with a start, she had encountered him once at a ball, while she’d been on Mr. Cartham’s arm.
It had been her fourth Season, the first that Mr. Cartham had been courting her, and they’d been in some crowded ballroom or other, taking a turn about the room, when they’d run into Lord Delacre.
“Cartham,” Lord Delacre said, stepping directly in their path so that avoiding him was impossible. “I wouldn’t have thought to see you here.” There was a note of arrogant condescension in his voice that caused Emily to cut a quick glance to her companion, who had been interrupted in the middle of a lengthy monologue on the subject of his favorite haberdasher.Despite the rather seedy nature of his profession, she had found conversation with Mr. Cartham to be surprisingly monotonous over the past two months. He was an odd, fussy man when he was not conducting his business matters, fixated on the visible signs of status—the right hat, the most impressive cravat knot—that he seemed to think were the key to earning theton’s approval.
“Delacre,” Mr. Cartham said curtly. Her gaze flicked back and forth between the two men with interest. “If you’ll excuse us—”
He made to step past Lord Delacre, but the other man blocked his path, taking a step sideways so that Mr. Cartham was once more forced to draw to a halt. “You’re not still angry about that matter with that—er, lady—from the Adelphi, are you?”
“Consider the company you’re in, Delacre,” Cartham had said sharply, glancing at Emily for the first time during this encounter. This drew Lord Delacre’s dark, considering eyes to her as well, and Emily found that she didn’t like being the object of this man’s attention. She had grown used to men’s admiring glances, to the way Mr. Cartham paraded her around ballrooms like some sort of prize to be displayed—but that suddenly seemed vastly preferable to the way she felt under Lord Delacre’s gaze.
She felt… naked.
“Lady Emily Turner, is it,” Lord Delacre said slowly, not really asking, and Emily gave a cool nod.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, my lord,” she said.
“No,” he said, giving her a slow smile that made her feel as though she needed to take a bath, “I don’t imagine we would have been.” His gaze flicked away from her back to Mr. Cartham. “Attempting to buff yourself up to a shine, Cartham? It’s a worthy effort, but I don’t think even an accessory as lovely as this one will get the scent of the colonies off of you.”
“And yet I don’t think you’d find a single debutante in London willing to be seen on your arm, Delacre,” Cartham retorted, leaning closer to the other man.
He tightened his grip on Emily’s arm at this juncture and led her past Lord Delacre, who made no further move to impede their progress. And later that evening, alone in her bedroom, long after her parents had gone to bed, Emily had shed half a dozen tears, then quickly wiped her eyes and climbed in bed—because never, before or since, had she ever felt so much like a trophy, and so little like a person.
So little like herself.
And so it was perhaps unsurprising, this jolt of visceral dislike that she experienced now, watching Lord Delacre through the window. His presence here, in the company of a young lady, did not bode well.
Before she could contemplate this further, however, Lord Delacre was shaking hands with the innkeeper and the couple were vanishing into their carriage.
“I wish I could go warn off that young lady,” Emily said, watching the coachman leap up to his perch and gather the reins in his hand. “Though I suppose, not knowing her situation, she might not have any options other than being Lord Delacre’s mistress.” She uttered the last word in something close to a whisper; she was perfectly aware of such arrangements, of course, but it was not considered polite for ladies to acknowledge them.
“She has other options,” Julian said grimly, his eyes still fixed out the window on the now-departing carriage.
Emily looked at him in surprise. “How can you possibly be certain of that?” she asked.
“Because,” he said, tossing his napkin onto the table and pushinghis chair back as he rose, “that’s Susannah Simmons—the leading lady in my next production.”
“I don’t wish to complain,” Emily said several hours later, “but things do not seem to be going entirely well at the moment.”
Opposite her in the carriage—now with a fully operational axle once more, rattling merrily down a country lane—her husband gave her a dark look. “Things are fine,” he said shortly. “A spot of rain won’t stop Reeve—he’s a very skilled driver.”
Emily cast a skeptical look out the window, where black clouds had gathered, entirely blotting out the bright sunshine that just half an hour earlier had dappled the surrounding countryside in a summery glow. As if on cue, a clap of thunder sounded; Cecil started slightly from his spot in his cozy nest. He was currently reclining in great comfort in the basket that she had designated his carrying case, which she had padded with a couple of her chemises. She had noticed Julian leveling more than one malevolent look in Cecil’s direction, as he happened to be doing now.
“Don’t look at him like that,” she said protectively, her hands fluttering around the kitten as if to shield him from Julian’s glares.
“I cannot help but think,” Julian said, “that it seems terribly unfair that that mangy bundle of fur has been in closer proximity to your undergarments than I have.”
“I think you are determined to hate him.”
