The Bluestocking and the Rake (The Regency Gentlemen Series) Read Free Page B

unenthusiastic contributor to the more intimate moments of wedlock?
    He set down his tea cup and suggested that Emily show him the rose garden that he had spied from his curricle.
    The mother beamed. The daughter blushed and looked sick.
    A shawl and a bonnet were fetched, and soon the Earl of Marcham, the most notorious of men, was alone with the eminently respectable Lady Emily Holt.
    “You have been away, my lord?” she stammered as they pushed open the gate into the rose garden.
    He nodded. “To see my mother.”
    “And is she well?”
    “Yes, I thank you.”
    A silence fell, and Emily blushed and looked away.
    “Do you know why I am here?” he asked.
    She turned fuchsia pink. He found himself irritated by her blushes; her lack of worldliness, her die-away airs. He had been about for a good many years and had seen more than his fair share of blushing virgins. Many had set their snares for him and many had failed to entrap him. Lady Emily Holt and her dreadful mother would have to try a good deal harder if they were going to land him.
    He smothered a yawn as she turned towards him.
    “You are here to visit my poor Mama and indeed we are grateful for your kindness,” she said.
    “My kindness?” he echoed. “Pray what have I done to deserve your gratitude?”
    “You have taken an interest in us, even though you circulate in considerably more fashionable circles than ours. We are simple people, my lord.”
    He doubted that. Her father was an earl, albeit an impoverished one, but they were still an old noble family and not so poor that they could not afford to put on a show for a prospective son-in law.
    “And yet that is a very fashionable gown you are wearing, Lady Emily.”
    She shrugged a pretty shoulder, pleased with the compliment. “Oh, this old thing? I have worn it for an age.”
    “I’m sure I would have remembered if you had…Emily…may I call you Emily?” he asked, touching her arm. “I wish to know…are your feelings engaged? Forgive my candour, but I must know. You and Thomas…is everything entirely at an end between you?”
    Lady Emily Holt paled and looked at her hands. “Mr. Edridge has…has decided that I am not…I mean he has…other interests.”
    “I see.”
    There was a silence.
    Lord Marcham watched her face, trying to read her feelings. But she was so calm and pale that he could not detect any signs of her heart having been touched. He tried another approach. “Thomas tells me that you are merely friends. He said that you have told him that it was all a mistake and that you had no feelings for him beyond that of a brother. Forgive me, I do not wish to give you pain, but I have to be certain.”
    Lady Emily Holt raised her chin. “I won’t pretend that you do not perfectly understand the circumstances, my lord. Mr. Edridge has…has toyed with my affections. He is nothing more than an acquaintance to me now.”
    He nodded, satisfied. “Then…I mean…would you do me the honour…?”
    “Yes?” she replied breathlessly, staring wide-eyed up at him.
    He froze. The words stuck in his throat. Somehow he could not do it.
    “Would you do me the honour of escorting me to the lake? I have a fancy to see it.”
    “Of course,” she replied demurely, as she led the way along the path.
     
    * * *
     
    “Well, child, well?” asked Lady Holt as soon as his lordship had driven away.
    Emily blushed and looked down at the floor. Her mother came towards her and took her face between her hands. Emily lifted her eyes.
    “Well, child? Has he asked you?” Lady Holt demanded.
    The young woman knew what it meant to her mother. She knew that the new gowns and bonnets had all been for his benefit. Her mother looked at her with such a sense of expectation that Emily felt trapped. To let down her family after such expense, to be a disappointment to the people she loved so well―she could not do it.
    “Oh, Mama,” she began.
    Lady Holt beamed. “You are engaged then? Tell me Emily, is it