Emily and the Dark Angel Read online

  Verderan realized he had reached Burton Road and had spent the journey in contemplation of a plain country miss.

  As he entered the most prized address in Melton Mowbray—the Melton Club, commonly called the Old Club—he muttered, “Poudre de Violettes must addle the brain.”

  2

  EMILY ARRIVED at Grantwich Hall in borrowed slippers and still reeking of violets.

  Her housekeeper, Mrs. Dobson, immediately declared, “Lord love us, Miss Emily, what have you been up to? I’m used to you coming home smelling of the farm yard, but now . . . Well, it wouldn’t be decent to say what you smell of!”

  Emily chuckled. “And there you may have the right of it. A lady of easy virtue hurled the powder out of a window and some of it hit me.”

  “Well, I never,” was the gaunt housekeeper’s comment as she eased off the pelisse and held it at arm’s length. “What for would she want to do a thing like that?”

  Emily caught a glimpse of herself in the old kitchen mirror. Her bonnet still sat on her head as that man had arranged it—further back than her usual style so that the waves of her hair showed, and tilted so that the elegant bow he had so casually tied nestled under her left ear. It looked quite fetching, but flighty. Definitely flighty.

  She saw the color rush to her cheeks, whipped off the offending bonnet, and thrust it at Mrs. Dobson. “This can be thrown out, I think. I never did like it anyway.” As the woman dumped both coat and bonnet outside the door where the smell would do less harm, Emily suppressed a strange urge to rescue the bonnet and add it to her small collection of romantic mementos.

  Her wits must be addled. That man’s easy familiarity with women’s garments showed what kind of person he was.

  The housekeeper returned and put thin hands on bony hips. “Well, Miss Emily? Are you going to explain how you got into such a state?”

  Emily’s mother had died when Emily was only five and Mrs. Dobson had become more foster mother than servant. The Grantwich children had always regarded her as such and took no offense at her vigilance.

  The woman might look like a battle-ax, but she had the heart of a mother hen.

  Emily snitched a jam tart from the cooling tray and bit into it with relish. “Delicious. I just got in the way, Dobby,” she assured the woman, adding mischievously, “The target was the gentleman I had the misfortune to collide with.”

  “Say no more!” commanded Mrs. Dobson, raising a hand. “I can imagine the rest. It’s to be hoped no one recognized you.”

  Emily put on a rueful expression, but didn’t try to hide the amusement in her eyes as she licked delicious flakes of pastry from her lips. “Well, I had to introduce myself to him, since he was obliged to lend me his arm through half of Melton.”

  “And why, pray, was he so obliged?”

  “The heel snapped off my boot.”

  Mrs. Dobson stared at the borrowed slippers as if they were the devil incarnate. “Lord have mercy, Miss Emily, you’ll be ruined yet. It isn’t right you going around doing estate business.”

  “I’m coming to enjoy it,” Emily confessed. “And you know Father won’t hire anyone. I think it would be to admit . . . you know.”

  The woman sighed. “Aye. Admit he’ll never walk his land again and Master Marcus won’t come home. Still and all, Miss Emily, it isn’t right.”

  “I’m actually rather good at it,” Emily pointed out. She had begun the task under protest, for she had always been a very conventional person, but over the past months she had learned the ropes and now found the challenges stimulating.

  “That’s nothing to do with it,” said the housekeeper. “What’s to become of you when Master Marcus does come home?”

  “I’ll go back to being a proper lady and concerning myself with household matters.” Emily couldn’t make herself sound truly enthusiastic. She wanted her brother home safe, but knew it would mark the end of her stimulating new life.

  “And when Marcus marries Miss Marshalswick?” Dobby asked.

  Emily sighed. “I will probably marry her brother and become the vicar’s wife,” she said. It wouldn’t be the same. Hector would never let her have a say in the property, and he’d probably keep a close eye on the housekeeping too.

  “If he’ll still want you after all this traipsing around,” Mrs. Dobson said dismally. “A vicar’s wife must set an example, after all. What if this morning’s faradiddle gets talked of?”

  Mrs. Dobson was genuinely concerned, which gave Emily pause. She had no mind to be a scandal. “Truly, it wasn’t so bad,” Emily assured her. “Away from the market-crosses the town was largely deserted and my rescuer seemed—” Emily had been about to say that he seemed a very proper gentleman, which was what Mrs. Dobson needed to hear. She could not bring herself to describe him that way.

  “Seemed what, pray?”

  “A gentleman,” supplied Emily feebly.

  Mrs. Dobson’s eyes narrowed in the way she had when she was hot on the trail of a prevarication. “And who was this ‘gentleman,’ Miss Emily?”

  “A Mr. Verderan. I doubt I will ever meet him again.” With that, Emily stole another tart and beat a retreat before the housekeeper could dig deeper.

  She went to her room to change and to vigorously brush her hair in an attempt to reduce the smell. Mrs. Dobson had only raised concerns which had lurked in Emily’s mind for some time. It was not so much that she feared she would lose her reputation by managing the estate so much as the fact that ordinary life was going to seem very dull.

  If the Reverend Hector Marshalswick lived up to everyone’s expectations and proposed marriage, she should surely accept. It was likely to be the only opportunity ever offered. Emily was a practical young woman; she had lived twenty-six years without any man conceiving a violent passion for her, so it was unlikely to happen now. Hector was only thirty, prosperous, well-enough looking, and had the highest moral standards. He would make an excellent husband.

  Emily sat with the hairbrush dangling from her hand, wondering why such a marriage seemed a dismal prospect.

  This was obviously the reason society forbade young women from taking on unusual roles. It left them unsuited for marriage. Well, until there was definite news of Marcus and he either returned or her father agreed to hire a manager, there could be no decision on a marriage.

  She began to apply the brush again with a distinct feeling of relief. The brush did little good to her hair, however. She would have to bathe and wash her hair. So would Mr. Piers Verderan, she thought with satisfaction. But that conjured up an alarmingly intimate picture of that tall gentleman in his bath. What on earth was the matter with her? The violet-scented powder must have gone to her brain.

  She hastily took up her record book and went down to her father’s room, only stopping along the way to order water heated for a bath.

  Sir Henry now lived on the ground floor in what had been the library. It still contained a wall of glass-doored bookshelves full of sermons and agricultural treatises, but now it also held Sir Henry’s bed and wardrobe and the daybed upon which he was sometimes persuaded to lie.

  He was not a noble invalid. He complained a great deal and refused to make any effort to resume a normal life. He claimed it hurt too much to sit in a wheeled bath chair, and for all Emily knew he was telling the truth.

  She was fond of her father and made great efforts to ease his situation, but from reality or contrariness, nothing she tried was admitted to help at all.

  When she came in he was lying propped up in his bed, staring out of the window. He was pale, but with a disturbing port-wine color in his nose and cheeks. His once solid, hearty bulk now seemed a soft mass around him. He was complaining peevishly at his long-suffering manservant, Oswald. As soon as Emily entered, he ordered the man out and bade his daughter pour him some brandy.

  Emily bit back her protest. It wasn’t good for him, but he was drinking more and more each day. She and Oswald had tried watering the spirit, but Sir Henry had noticed the adultera
tion immediately. Without voicing a protest, she gave him the glass and her record book, then leant forward to touch her lips to his cheek. He did not thank her for any of it.

  “What foolishness have you been up to now?” he growled as he opened the leather-bound book. “That it should come to this, having a chit out of the schoolroom do man’s work.”

  “I’m twenty-six years old, Father,” Emily said quietly.

  “Old maid,” he grumped and ran a finger down the page. “You paid too much for those heifers.”

  “The war is driving prices up, Father. We agreed we needed new stock. We got a good price for the pigs.”

  “So I should hope. Twenty pounds for five loads of hay!” he exclaimed. “What fool promised you that price?”

  “Harvey of The Swan. You know there’s a tremendous demand for stable goods during hunting, Father.”

  “Then you could doubtless have got more.”

  He continued his carping scrutiny of her records while Emily struggled to be charitable. It was terrible for him to be confined here and in pain. But would it make his pain worse if he were to give her a few words of praise for her labors? She was coming to dread the times when she had to visit this cluttered, stale room.

  “Griswold’s sheep?” he shouted, making her jump. He glared at her. “Who buys sheep with winter coming on? And where do you think to put them, you silly ninny?”

  “Helstead’s underused. And Ratherby,” Emily stammered, wishing she’d thought up a better answer to this inevitable question.

  “Only just,” he snapped. “A harsh summer and you’ll have a lot of cheap mutton. And who’ll pay? Me. Damn it all, you’re letting everything go to wrack and ruin!” Pettishly, he hurled the book to the floor. Emily moved quietly to pick it up.

  “Perhaps it’s time to give up,” Sir Henry muttered, draining his glass. “Accept that Marcus is dead. Let Felix come and look after things.”

  Emily counted to ten.

  Her cousin Felix was a lightweight wastrel. He had no interest in coming to Grantwich Hall and working the land. He merely looked forward to the day when he would own it and could milk it dry to pay his gambling debts. Apart from that, its chief appeal to him was that it would be a pied à terre in hunting country that could buy him some friends.

  Her father seemed to forget the time Felix had invited himself to stay for the hunting season three years back. He and Sir Henry had almost come to blows.

  “You know the War Office still holds out hope, Father,” said Emily. “Everyone says Napoleon must surrender any day and then we will know for sure.”

  “If you haven’t ruined the place by then,” he snarled. His nose twitched. “What’s got you stinking like a tart? Silly tottie. Think to catch a man, do you, at your age?” He drained his glass. “I’m not paying for those sheep,” he said, and set his mouth like a rebellious three-year-old.

  Emily caught her breath. Sometimes he did this, became totally unreasonable. “I’ve bought them, Father,” she said.

  “Then you can pay for them,” he said with a sneer.

  Emily’s hands tightened on her record book and she was tempted to hurl it at him. “I don’t have that much money at my command,” she said, wondering for a moment whether telling him she intended to pasture the flock on High Burton would help. No, it would give him apoplexy.

  “Well then,” he retorted, “you’re in a pretty pickle, aren’t you, my girl?”

  “Father, everyone has accepted me as your agent. It was you who refused to hire someone to do the job. They trust my word as yours.”

  “I didn’t tell you to buy those sheep.”

  “It was a chance not to be missed. Griswold’s ill and wants to go live with his daughter. He’s sold the farm to a Meltonian who wants it for a hunting box and doesn’t want the stock. He was willing to sell cheap for a quick sale, and someone else would soon have grabbed the bargain if I’d delayed. The shepherd comes with them.”

  She began to relax as she saw the petulance leave him. Oh, it wasn’t fair to any of them that it had come to this. He’d been a good landowner and a good father. A rough, bluff old-fashioned squire, he’d dealt fairly with all, but now he was all twisted by his misfortune. Another reason to wish Marcus home was that Sir Henry would deal better with another man. He’d let Marcus help him and not resent it.

  Her father picked fretfully at his coverlet. “Too many sheep, too many horses . . . all eating their heads off . . . You’ll have to take the hunters to market soon.”

  Emily looked at him with compassion. The start of the hunting season must be eating at him like quicklime. Soon they’d all be out after the hounds for glorious twenty-mile runs, and all he would have would be the distant sound of the hunting horn. If he was finally talking of selling his pride and joy—his hunters—then he was coming to accept that no one in this family would hunt again: that he was an invalid and Marcus was dead. Though she had believed herself resigned to the truth, it brought tears pricking at her eyes.

  She swallowed. “We’ll get nothing for them in the ordinary market, Father.”

  “I know that,” he snapped. “They need to be out in the field, but who’s going to hunt them now? Not me. Not Marcus.”

  Emily took a deep breath as an idea came to her. “Father, can I use the sale of the horses to finance the purchase of the sheep?”

  He sneered. “There’re three prime five-year-olds out in the stables, but you’ll be lucky to get fifty guineas each.”

  “I’ve heard of hunters going for hundreds.”

  “One of Lonsdale’s sold for a thousand once,” Sir Henry reminisced, a flicker of pleasure lightening his expression. “Ah, that was a night. Drunk as monks, the lot of us ...” He came back to the bitter present. “And that’s the only way to get that kind of price. Ride the hell out of the animal all day, then sell it drunk at the Old Club. Assheton-Smith sold Furze Cropper for four hundred guineas after the Billesdon-Coplow run, and he’d bought him, they say, for forty. But how’re you going to do anything like that, miss?”

  Emily worked at keeping calm. “I don’t need to get a thousand, Father, or even four hundred. Just a hundred or so each. Nelson at least is a top-class hunter. If you’ll let me try, I think I can sell them at a fair price.”

  A spark of interest lit his eyes. “Oh, do you? Make it a wager, then, eh? Since you seem all set on ruling the roost here. You sell those horses to cover the cost of the sheep and I’ll let you carry on running this place as long as you want. Fail, and I’ll turn the whole place over to Felix.”

  Emily caught her breath. It was a silly, dangerous wager, but it sprang out of his frustrated boredom and was not untypical. Had he not, like other men, wagered more than he could afford on such meaningless things as how many piglets a sow would have, or whether a dog would turn left or right at a fork in the road? At least in this case she would be able to work towards making it come out well.

  She wasn’t quite sure yet how she was going to manage it, but she’d just have to make sure she did.

  “Very well, Father,” she said calmly. “A wager it is.” Deliberately, she held out her hand to him.

  After a momentary hesitation he took it and shook on the bet. A glimmer of genuine amusement lit in him, making him look much more like his old self. “You’re becoming a saucy piece,” he grumbled, but his lips twitched. “Damme, but I wish you’d been a boy.”

  Emily dropped another kiss on his cheek and left.

  Once outside the room, she took a moment to compose herself. It really wasn’t surprising that her father was so tetchy, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear, particularly when it led to such ridiculous situations.

  To her dismay, Emily had discovered she wasn’t the stuff of which good sickroom attendants are made. Perhaps it was as well that she would not marry and have children. Instead of womanly skills and a tender heart she appeared to have a gift for administration and a head for business. Which was perhaps as well, for if she were to preserve
the estate she had to find a way to get a handsome price for three hunters.

  She had to do it, for she could not bear to see the estate in the clammy, greedy hands of Cousin Felix.

  Under her management, Grantwich Hall was prospering as never before. It was partly the effect of the war, but she knew it was also because she was an efficient administrator. Unlike her father, she kept careful records and accounts. She was happy to listen to the local experts, and they were gratified to advise a poor young lady who was struggling to manage in difficult circumstances.

  She was selling surplus stock and adjusting the animals on the land to make the best use of it. She was also beginning some planned breeding programs to improve the flocks of sheep. She had instituted some economies and used the savings to bring about improvements in the conditions of the tenants.

  She longed for her bath, but it was not ready yet, so she popped into another room at Grantwich Hall, that of her aunt Junia.

  Sir Henry’s older sister, Junia, had lived at the Hall all her life and had no intention of moving no matter what might happen. She also had no intention, short of the direst emergency, of becoming involved in the running of the establishment. She had occupied two rooms overlooking the gardens since leaving the schoolroom. From there she attended to a vast correspondence and painted beautiful flower pictures which she either gave away or sold, as the mood took her.

  She organized her life to suit herself as arrogantly as if she were a man and was as likely to wear trousers as skirts, but when the occasional stranger would congratulate or berate her for being a “modern” woman, perhaps even a Wollstonecraftian woman, she would look at him with a blank stare.

  Junia Grantwich was an original and Emily thought her delightful.

  She knocked, and entered the airy parlor to find her aunt absorbed in a painting of some dried seed-heads of wild garlic.

  “That’s lovely, Junia.”

  “Think so?” asked the older woman. “Not the pretty stuff the hoi polloi likes. I like it.”