But Mr. Thornton grinned and winked. “Never fear, I can continue our inquiries here in London whilst you talk to Craddock.”
And like that, Emeline knew that it was all decided. Her breath seemed to grow short as if her chest were being squeezed. Oh, they would argue and discuss the details back and forth, and she would need to petition Lady Hasselthorpe for invitations for the Hartleys, but in the end, it would all work out. She would be attending a house party with Samuel.
She looked up, knowing that he was watching her, and as her eyes met his warm coffee-brown ones, she wondered, Did he know what went on at house parties?
Chapter Nine
Now, of all the things in the world that the king loved, he loved his daughter most of all. He so doted on her that whenever she asked for a thing, he did his utmost to see that she received it. Which is why, when Princess Solace begged the king for permission to marry her own guard, instead of being a trifle tetchy as most royal parents might, he simply sighed and nodded. And that is how Iron Heart came to marry the most beautiful maiden in the land and a princess to boot....
—from Iron Heart
“Will you be gone a very long time?” Daniel asked a week later.
He was lying on Emeline’s bed, head hanging off one end, both feet in the air, completely in the way of Harris, who was packing.
“Probably a fortnight,” Emeline said briskly. She sat at her pretty little dresser trying to decide which jewelry to bring to the Hasselthorpe house party.
“A fortnight is fourteen days. That’s a terrible long time.” Daniel swung a foot and got it tangled in the bed curtains.
“Lord Eddings!” Harris exclaimed.
Really, one ought not to miss one’s own offspring. She knew that. Many mothers of her rank hardly saw their children at all. Yet she hated leaving him. It was just so heart-wrenching to say good-bye.
“That will be all,” Emeline told her lady’s maid.
“But, my lady, I haven’t half finished.”
“I know.” Emeline smiled at Harris. “You’ve been working so hard, you must be in need of refreshment. Why don’t you take some tea in the kitchen?”
Harris pursed her lips, but she knew better than to contradict her mistress. She set down the pile of clothes she’d been holding and marched out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Emeline got up and went to the bed, shoving aside the mound of petticoats laid out on the surface to make a space. Then she sat, her back against the great oak headboard, her legs straight in front of her on the bed. “Come here.”
Daniel scrambled toward her like an eager puppy. “I don’t want you to go.”
He squirmed against her, smelling of little boy sweat, his knobby knees digging into her hip.
She stroked his blond curls. “I know, darling. But I shan’t be gone overlong, and I shall write you every day.”
More silent squirming. His face was hidden against her breast.
“Tante Cristelle will stay here with you,” Emeline whispered. “I don’t suppose you shall have any currant buns or sticky sweets or pies at all whilst I’m gone. You’ll have quite wasted away by the time I return and look like a stick boy and I shan’t recognize you.”
Breathy giggles came from her side until his blue eyes surfaced once again. “Silly. Tante will give me lots of sweets.”
Emeline feigned shock. “Do you think so? She’s very severe with me.”
“I’ll be fat when you come back.” He puffed out his cheeks to show her.
She laughed appreciatively.
“I can talk to Mr. Hartley, too,” he said.
Emeline blinked, startled. “I’m sorry, darling, but Mr. Hartley and his sister will be at the house party as well.”
Her son’s lower lip protruded.
“Have you been talking to Mr. Hartley often?”
He darted a look at her. “I talk to him over the wall, and sometimes I go to visit him in his garden. But I don’t bother him, really I don’t.”
Emeline was skeptical about this last. Right now, though, her mind was more taken up with the notion that Daniel and Samuel seemed to have formed a bond without her even knowing it. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the squirming imp beside her. “Can you sing me my song?” he asked in a small voice.
So she stroked his hair and sang “Billy Boy,” changing the name to Danny as she had since he was a baby, making it his song.
Oh, where have you been,
Danny Boy, Danny Boy?
Oh, where have you been,
Charming Danny?
And as she sang, Emeline wondered what the next fortnight would bring.
THE RENTED CARRIAGE was not as well-sprung as Lady Emeline’s vehicle, and Sam was beginning to regret deciding to ride inside with Rebecca instead of renting a horse for himself. But he and Becca had hardly talked in the week since the disastrous Westerton ball, and he’d hoped that the enforced time together would break the spell.
So far, it hadn’t.
Rebecca sat across from him and stared out the window as if the view of hedges and fields were the most fascinating in the world. Her profile wasn’t a classic one, but it was very pleasing to him. Sometimes, when he caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye, he’d have a flash of recognition. She looked a little like their mother.
Sam cleared his throat. “There’ll be a dance, I think.”
Becca turned and wrinkled her brow at him. “What?”
“I say, I think there’ll be a dance. At the house party.”
“Oh, yes?” She didn’t seem particularly interested.
He’d thought she’d be delighted. “I’m sorry I ruined the last one for you.”
She blew out a breath as if exasperated. “Why didn’t you tell me, Samuel?”
He stared at her a moment, trying to understand what she meant. Then a horrible chill crept through his belly. Surely she wasn’t talking about...“Tell you what?”
“You know.” Her lips crimped in her frustration. “You never talk to me; you never—”
“We’re talking right now.”
“But you’re not saying anything!” She spoke the words too loudly and then looked chagrined. “You never say anything, even when people make terrible accusations about you. Mr. Thornton came close to calling you a coward to your face when we were in the garden last week, and you never said a word to him. Why can’t you defend yourself at least?”
He felt his lip curl. “What people like Thornton say isn’t worth replying to.”