“Then,” said the old man, leaning so close that Iron Heart could smell the stink of his breath, “would you like to marry her?”
—from Iron Heart
Emeline stepped into the afternoon sunshine and gave a sigh of pleasure. “That was a most satisfying shop.”
“But,” Miss Hartley panted beside her, “do I really need all those frocks? Won’t one or two ball gowns do?”
“Now, Miss Hartley—”
“Oh, please, won’t you call me Rebecca?”
Emeline tempered her stern tone. The girl was terribly sweet. “Yes, of course. Rebecca, then. It is most important that you be properly attired—”
“In gold leaf, if possible,” a masculine voice cut into Emeline’s homily.
“Oh, Samuel!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Your chin looks even worse than this morning.”
Emeline turned, carefully smoothing out her brow. She didn’t want Mr. Hartley to see either her vexation at the interruption or the odd flutter of excitement she felt low in her belly. Surely, such tumult wasn’t altogether becoming in a woman of her age.
Mr. Hartley’s chin was indeed a darker shade of plum than it’d been since Emeline had last seen him. Apparently, he’d run into a doorway sometime in the night. An oddly clumsy accident for such a graceful man. He was now leaning against a lamppost, his booted feet crossed at the ankle, looking like he’d been there for quite some time. And he had if he’d been waiting in this way since the ladies had entered the dressmaker’s three hours ago. The awful man couldn’t have been standing out here the entire time, could he?
Emeline felt a twinge of guilt. “Mr. Hartley, you do know that it’s quite acceptable for you to leave us whilst we finish our shopping?”
He raised his eyebrows, and the sardonic expression in his eyes said that he knew perfectly well the niceties of a ladies’ shopping day. “I wouldn’t dream of abandoning you, my lady. I apologize if my presence is irksome.”
At her side, Tante Cristelle clicked her tongue. “You talk like a courtier, monsieur. I do not think it becomes you.”
Mr. Hartley grinned and bowed to her aunt, not at all put out. “I am suitably reprimanded, ma’am.”
“Yes, well,” Emeline interjected. “I think the glover’s next. Just down here is the most wonderful shop—”
“Perhaps you ladies would like some refreshment?” Mr. Hartley asked. “I’d never forgive myself if you fainted away from the exertion of your labors.”
Emeline was forming a suitably regretful reply when Tante Cristelle spoke first. “Some tea would be very welcome.”
Now Emeline couldn’t decline him without looking churlish, and the dratted man knew it. The corner of his mouth curled as he watched her with warm brown eyes.
She pursed her lips. “Thank you, Mr. Hartley. You’re very kind.”
He inclined his head, straightened away from the lamppost, and held out his arm to her. “Shall we?”
Why did the man only remember the proprieties when it suited him? Emeline smiled stiffly and placed her fingertips on his sleeve, conscious of the muscle beneath the fabric. He glanced at her hand and up at her, cocking an eyebrow. She tilted her chin and began walking, Tante Cristelle and the girl following behind. Her aunt seemed to be lecturing Rebecca on the importance of shoes.
Around them, the fashionable Mayfair throng ebbed and flowed. Young bucks loitered in doorways, gossiping and eyeing the grandly dressed ladies. A dandy strolled past in a pink-powdered wig, his long walking stick extravagantly employed. Emeline heard a snort from Tante Cristelle. She inclined her head to the Misses Stevens as they passed. The elder girl nodded most properly. The younger, a pretty if vacuous redhead in overwide panniers, giggled into her gloved hand.
Emeline lowered her brows in disapproval at the girl. “How do you find our capital, Mr. Hartley?”
“Crowded.” He dipped his head close to hers as he spoke. She caught a pleasing scent on his breath but couldn’t place it.
“You are used to a smaller city?” She lifted her skirt as they approached a puddle of something noxious. Mr. Hartley drew her closer to him when they skirted it, and for a moment she felt the warmth of his body through wool and linen.
“Boston is smaller than London,” he replied. They separated and she was chagrined to realize that she missed his warmth. “But it is just as crowded. I’m not used to cities at all.”
“You were raised in the countryside?”
“More like the wilderness.”
She turned in surprise at his answer just as he must’ve leaned toward her again. Suddenly his face was only inches from hers. Fine lines surrounded his coffee-colored eyes, deepening as he smiled at her. She noticed that a thin, pale scar lay under his left eye.
Then she looked away. “Were you raised by wolves, then, Mr. Hartley?”
“Not quite.” His voice was amused, despite the sharpness of her words. “My father was a trapper on the Pennsylvania frontier. We lived in a cabin he’d built from logs that still had the bark on them.”
This sounded very primitive. Actually, she had trouble imagining his home, it was so foreign to what she knew. “How were you educated until you went to the boys school?”
“My mother taught me reading and writing,” Mr. Hartley said. “I learned about tracking, hunting, and the woods from my father. He was a very good woodsman.”
They passed a bookshop with a bright red sign hanging so low that it nearly brushed Mr. Hartley’s tricorne. Emeline cleared her throat. “I see.”
“Do you?” he asked softly. “My world back then is a far cry from this.” He nodded at the noisy London street. “Can you imagine a forest so quiet you can hear the leaves fall? Trees so big a grown man cannot wrap his arms about their girth?”
She shook her head. “It’s difficult to picture. Your woodlands sound very strange to me. But you left those woods, didn’t you?”
He was watching the flow of the crowd about them as they walked, but now he glanced down at her.
She drew in a breath, staring into his dark eyes. “That must have been quite a change, leaving the freedom of the forest for a school.”
One corner of his mouth tilted up, and he looked away. “It was, but boys are adaptable. I learned how to follow the rules and which boys to stay away from. And I was big, even then. That helped.”
Emeline shuddered. “They seem so savage, boarding schools.”