Art and Artifice Read Free Page A

mother would have wanted for you. Once
you see him again, I’m certain you’ll understand the wisdom of this
match.” He turned to the butler, who had approached them and stood
waiting. “Ah, Warburton, what do you have for me?”
    “An urgent missive from the Prime Minister,
your Grace,” the butler intoned. “I’ve put it in your study.”
    Before Emily could say another word, her
father excused himself and hurried off.
    She had hoped to ask about the stranger who
had disappeared from the sitting room, and to continue her
discussion with her father, but the note from the Prime Minster
must have been important, for a footman brought word that her
father would not be dining with them after all. She understood.
Really. Here Parliament thought they had the world’s biggest madman
safely locked away and what did Napoleon do but escape to cause
havoc once more! She’d known it wasn’t her graduation or impending
marriage that had called her father back from the Congress of
Vienna. She did her duty and dined with her aunt, then retired to
her room and plotted.
    She’d had simple goals for her Season:
celebrate their entrance to Society with Priscilla, Daphne, and
Ariadne, and take her place in the Royal Society for the Beaux
Arts. Marriage and a protracted honeymoon in another county did not
aid either of those goals. So, Lord Robert would have to change his
plans. Whatever passion he thought he had conceived was
ill-founded. He knew nothing of the woman she had become. She’d
simply have to convince him, and her father, that marriage was not
in their best interests.
    Before going to sleep in the feather bed, she
penned several notes and dispatched them with a footman. Two went
to Priscilla and Daphne and Ariadne to attend her in the morning.
The other was more bold. It requested the honor of meeting with
Lady St. Gregory. They had never met, but surely for once, being
the daughter of a duke would work in Emily’s favor.
    The lady had yet to answer the next morning
when Emily’s friends arrived. With Lady Minerva still fashionably
abed, Emily was able to meet them in the withdrawing room alone.
First, of course, she had to submit to the usual rituals. She
admired Priscilla’s new pelisse, agreeing that the serpentine green
exactly matched the shade of her eyes. She exchanged hugs with
Daphne and hid the wince when she stepped on Emily’s toe. She
commiserated with Ariadne on her sniffle and assured her that it
was rare to succumb to influenza so early in the spring as the
beginning of April.
    Emily made sure they were comfortably seated
on the camel-backed sofa and gilded blue chairs and pointed out the
sweets and tea Warburton had left for their enjoyment. Then she
took a seat in the harp-backed chair opposite them and folded her
hands in the lap of her spruce-colored wool gown. “Father says that
I must marry Lord Robert, immediately.”
    Priscilla blanched. “No, no, no! You cannot
get married so soon! I cannot have the Ball without you!”
    “And we must have the Ball,” Ariadne
insisted, dark blond curls trembling on either side of her round
face. She always reminded Emily of a canary, busy, inquisitive,
head cocked as if trying to understand every aspect. “You know all
Daphne and I will have is the dinner party Mother has planned.”
    “What is His Grace thinking?” Daphne
lamented. “It just isn’t done!” She threw up her hands and
collapsed against the seat, but that was Daphne. Emily had once
painted her as Artemis, goddess of the hunt, all rousing good cheer
with her honey-colored hair and ready smile. Daphne’s mother had
taken exception to the diaphanous robes and insisted that Emily
paint on a high-necked bombazine gown instead. Who ever heard of
Artemis riding to the hunt in bombazine?
    “I fail to see,” Priscilla said, green eyes
narrowing dangerously, “how Lord Robert can arrange a wedding so
quickly, unless you plan to elope to Scotland.”
    Emily shuddered. “No, thank you. But