Dear Deceiver. Mary Nichols
laughed. ‘Oh, Teddy, you are a goose, but what would I do without you?’
‘I can’t stay tied to your apron strings forever, Em,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘If you are worrying what will happen to me if you are offered a position, please don’t. Whether you will have it or not, I am a man now and must find my own way.’
‘I haven’t been offered anything so it doesn’t signify.’
‘You had no luck either?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll have to find a husband, like I said before.’
‘And just how am I to do that?’
‘Cultivate any eligible you meet, instead of rebuffing him, as you always seem to do. There was that gentleman last night—he was interested, I could tell. All you did was complain about the voyage and tell him to mind his own business…’
‘I did not!’
‘As good as. If you had accepted his offer of compensation, who knows where it might have led…?’
‘Teddy, you sometimes talk the most dreadful nonsense. Of course he wasn’t interested in me. He’s probably married with half a dozen children. Anyway, I have no intention of marrying for money…’
‘Why not? I am persuaded that is how most marriages begin.’
‘How can you say that, when you know how much Mama and Papa loved each other?’
‘They were an exception.’
‘Then I shall be another.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘And I could hardly be married within a week and that is how long our funds are likely to last.’ She paused, serious again. ‘I will try again tomorrow. I’ll go to a domestic agency…’
’emma, you can’t be a housemaid, it is as bad as me being a tea-wallah.’
‘I think this business of having an uncle who is a viscount has gone to your head, brother dear. We cannot afford pride.’ Which was only too true, though she lamented it as much as Teddy did.
The next day she tried a new agency and her luck changed, though she did wonder if it was because she furnished them with a glowing reference from Miss Emma Mountforest who had employed her as a companion while residing in India. ‘Society among the English community in India is very little different from that in England,’ she told the proprietor, tongue in cheek. ‘I shall soon adapt.’ Emma did not like the deception, but she was beginning to realise she would get nowhere telling the truth. She was given an introduction to take to the Marquis of Cavenham, who required a companion for his sister, Miss Lucilla Besthorpe.
She returned home to leave a note for Teddy, telling him where she was, before following the directions she had been given to the Marquis’s house in Bedford Row. It was a tall mansion, identical to those on either side of it, with rows of sash windows and a heavy oak door with a large brass knocker and flambeaux either side. She took a deep breath and knocked, prepared to lie, if necessary, to obtain the post.
The maid who answered the door took the agency’s letter from her and left her waiting in an anteroom for several minutes, which seemed like an hour to Emma, who found that her hands were shaking with nerves. She gave herself a good scolding and managed to calm herself by the time the girl returned.
‘Come this way, please.’
She led the way up a curving staircase, covered with Turkey carpet, to a large sunny room on the first floor, where she left her. Emma, looking about her at the upholstered sofas with their faded gilt scrolling, the spindly chairs and satinwood sofa table, the secretaire in the corner, the gilt framed pictures which could have done with cleaning, the spotted mirror and ormolu clock on the mantel, the striped taffeta curtains and worn carpet, came to the conclusion that the room had once seen better days.
She had thought there was no one there, but a slight movement by the window caught her eye and a young lady emerged, from behind the curtains. She was about seventeen, Emma judged, dressed very simply in a morning dress of spotted muslin, with a deep frill at the hem and lace about the neck. Her hair, which was fair, was worn tied back with a blue velvet ribbon with no attempt at fashionable arrangement. And yet she was lovely, mainly due to a cheerful countenance and sparkling blue eyes.
‘I thought I would take a look at you before you saw me,’ she said, coming forward and seating herself on one of the sofas.
‘Oh, and what conclusion have you come to?’ Emma asked, deducing that this was the Marquis’s sister and would be her charge if she were to be appointed.
‘You are not what you seem.’
Emma gasped. Surely she had not been seen through by a schoolmiss? ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘At first I thought you rather dull, a little brown sparrow, but then I saw the way you looked about you, as if summing us up, and I realised that there would be no deceiving you.’
‘Does anyone need to deceive me?’ Emma asked, conscious of the irony of that remark.
‘No, but you have already deduced that we are not as plump in the pocket as we would like. Dominic wants to set the place to rights, but it all takes time and he has not been the Marquis for long enough to bring us round…’
‘Should you be telling me this, Miss Besthorpe? It is a private matter, surely?’
‘But if you become one of the household, you must know what you are falling into.’
‘Your brother, the Marquis…?’
‘Oh, Dominic is as open and honest as the day is long. Everyone knows our circumstances, but matters are improving. Dominic has just made a huge profit on some investment or other and so I am to have a Season, after all. You do not know how relieved I am, for otherwise I would have been packed off to Aunt Agatha in Yorkshire, and that is not to be borne. She is old and so strict, I might as well be in purdah. Even Dominic does not wish that on me.’
‘Miss Besthorpe, I really do not think you should be divulging that.’
‘Oh, do call me Lucy, everyone does. If I am to have my come-out this year, I need a maid who will also be a companion and chaperon. I think we should suit very well, don’t you?’
Emma felt as though she were being swept along on a tide, but she liked Lucy, who had a refreshing candour and was not in the least conceited. ‘Yes, but I have yet to meet the Marquis and he may not agree.’
‘Oh, Dominic will like you, I know. And besides, I can bring him round my little finger, if I have a mind to. I have already turned down three applicants—three old dragons breathing fire.’
Emma found herself laughing and it was at that point Dominic entered the room.
He stood watching them from the doorway, realising that when Miss Woodhill laughed, her whole face lit up and she came vibrantly alive. Even in her dowdy brown clothes there was something about her that made her stand out; she had a natural grace, a way of carrying herself, a quiet dignity which, to his way of thinking, reflected good breeding, and yet she seemed totally unaware of it. She had, he supposed, found out who he was and decided to take advantage of his offer of compensation, after all. He was both disappointed that she might have a mercenary streak and delighted to see her again. He took a further step into the room and Lucy, seeing him, ran to take his arm and drag him forward.
‘Dominic, this is…’
He smiled. ‘Miss Woodhill, I know.’ He bowed to Emma. ‘Your servant, ma’am.’
‘You know?’ Lucy looked from him to Emma, who seemed to have been struck dumb. Her face was flushed and her mouth partly open as if she had been frozen in the middle of a laugh. ‘You did not tell me you knew my brother.’
Emma was thunderstruck. Her confused thoughts ranged from how handsome the Marquis was in his blue superfine coat, buff pantaloons and polished hessians,