Miss Fortescue's Protector In Paris

And he was someone in danger of being sent down from Oxford unless he mended his careless ways and started behaving like a Blakely, according to his parents. He was someone who excelled at making parties merrier and not much else. Emily was clever, beautiful, smart enough to run her father’s business one day, if she wanted. Smart enough to marry anyone she liked. His cousin Alex said Emily was sure to even expand her father’s already lucrative business and become an even more wealthy heiress one day.

He could certainly believe it, after how angry she became when he suggested marriage was her best option, a lady’s only choice.

Yet if she didn’t marry, he thought ruefully, it would be quite a waste. What a kisser she was. It made him wonder what else she would be brilliant at, in the privacy of a bedchamber...

Chris shook his head hard to dislodge a sudden image of Emily Fortescue dressed only in a thin silk chemise, laughing amid a billow of white pillows, her glorious chestnut hair spread mermaid-like around her. He had no business thinking about her that way.

And when they were together, they always seemed to argue. She was definitely not for the likes of him and he was not for her. Maybe they would have fun in the bedroom, if that wild kiss was any indication, but they would quarrel each other to death everywhere else. She was too strong-minded, too gloriously goddess-like, for everyday use.

And he was sure he would never quite measure up to her.

Yet, oh, she was so beautiful. He watched as she gracefully drew her arm back to serve, the long, lean line of her body. How had he never realised that before? Oh, he had always known she was pretty, that was impossible to miss. But she was actually incomparable.

‘What are you doing lurking out here, Chris?’ he heard his brother William say.

He glanced back to see Will walking towards him along the pathway between the trees, his brother’s dark suit and dark hair blending into the shadows. He looked impeccable, responsible, the always-serious one. ‘Just hiding for a moment before I plunge into all that Miss Grantley’s schoolness, I suppose. I have a newfound allergy to academia, even if this isn’t quite Oxford.’

Will gave a wry chuckle. ‘I’m rather surprised you showed up at all. It doesn’t seem like your sort of scene.’

Chris glanced at Emily again, her white skirts a blur as she dashed along the net. Her laughter floated back to him on the breeze. ‘Lemonade and deportment lessons? No, thank you. But I thought Alex might appreciate someone here besides the Duchess.’

Will smiled. ‘Yes. Poor, sweet Alex.’ He, too, studied the tennis game and for one awful instant Chris wondered if he, too, admired Emily. But then he realised Will watched Diana Martin, her hair a bright red in the light, waving her racket in mock-threat at Emily. Will’s smile seemed uncharacteristically—soft in that moment.

Interesting.

Will turned away from the sun-dappled scene and aimed his piercing blue gaze at Chris. Much like Emily, Will had an uncanny ability to see too much. Even when they were children, Chris could never pull off pranks on Will. And now Will had left university with a First in the Classics and worked for the Foreign Office, respectable and perfect.

‘Are you sure nothing is amiss, Chris?’ Will asked.

Chris shook his head, making himself give his trademark careless grin. It always seemed to throw everyone off. ‘Amiss? Whatever could be amiss on such a bright, sunny day, far away from any work at all?’

‘Yes,’ Will said quietly. Quiet with him was always a dangerous sign. When Will got quiet, it meant he was thinking even more than usual. ‘You want everyone to think all your days are bright and sunny, don’t you, Brother?’

Chris turned away. ‘Why should they not be? We are young, the world is open to us. Pretty girls, a drink at the pub tonight, maybe a horse race tomorrow...’

‘And that’s all there is?’

‘Of course it’s not,’ Chris said, feeling a strange anger rise up in him. Life should be more, should have some purpose. That was easy for someone like Will to say, or Emily. They seemed brimming with purpose, with serious minds that led them towards something greater. Chris searched for it, but where was it? So, he played the pleasure-seeker, the clown, the trickster.

He looked towards the tennis lawn. The game was over and Emily had put on her hat and was hurrying towards the house, arm in arm with Alex and Diana, the three of them giggling together as if they hadn’t a care in the world. As if the world hadn’t been rocked with a kiss.

‘But that’s what life is for now,’ Chris concluded. ‘As to the future, who can say? Father declares I’m fitted for nothing. Maybe he’s right.’

Will frowned. ‘When has Father been right about anything?’ he said. ‘Listen, Chris, you’ll be done at Oxford soon. Why don’t you come talk to them at the Foreign Office? I can arrange an appointment time.’

‘And work with you?’ Chris thought of how he would come off next to Will and shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t take me. And I’d die of boredom there after a day at a desk, thinking about infinitely boring people at infinitely boring foreign courts.’

Will laughed, a rare, rich sound. ‘Not every job there is as tedious as formal diplomacy, Chris. There is a lot there that would suit you very well indeed. And I’ll be leaving for India soon; they need more men at the London office. You should think about it, anyway. Father will start making noises again about the church and Mother will find you an heiress to marry if you don’t head them off with a different plan.’

Chris grinned. Both of those were tacks their parents had taken with him many times. Both sounded like the depths of wretchedness. Maybe Will had a point. If he had a different job in mind, there could be no vicarages in his future. ‘We’ll see.’

‘Good, do think about it. Now, should we go in? Surely it’s time for tea and no one could ever fault Miss Grantley’s for their excellent cook.’

‘True. I’ve been thinking about those raspberry tarts all day.’ Chris followed Will towards the arbour where maids were setting up the tea service and he was glad the day was almost done. But he could swear he heard the echo of Emily’s laughter following him at every step.

Chapter One

London—spring 1891

Christopher Blakely was sure his eyes were crossing from the mounds of paperwork. He had been making his way through them for hours and still the piles of documents loomed high. This was by far his least favourite part of the job.

He pushed the papers away and sat back in his chair with a laugh. Surely he would be more useful at a party somewhere, drinking and laughing, drawing people in—and learning their secrets. Wasn’t that why the Foreign Office had hired him in the first place, after his useless years at university? His light-hearted ways, his charm, his genuine interest in people and their strange ways. Such charm drew people close, invited their confidences, in a way that cool professionalism, such as that possessed by his brother Will couldn’t hope to accomplish. At least not as quickly as Chris, with his dimpled smiles and endless bottles of wine, the way he seemed born to read people and situations and adjust his reactions accordingly, could achieve.

He sighed as he plucked the document off the top of the pile—a report from an operative in Berlin, where trouble always seemed to be brewing. Even though the Kaiser was Queen Victoria’s own grandson, he was a troublemaker of endless ambition and jealousy. It was certainly difficult work, there on the ground in the embassies, a tightrope of keeping secrets while ferreting out everyone else’s, especially in etiquette-ridden places like Berlin. Yet Chris found he rather envied those men. They were respected, known. His own work, once so exciting, now seemed rather—dim.

The parties, the laughter that hid so much behind the bright masks, the satisfaction of drawing out hidden dangers and using that information to help his country—it had been everything to him. It was all he could have wanted, using his own gifts to do some good, gifts so different from Will’s, from what his parents had always demanded. It gave him a deep fulfilment. Pleasure, even.

But he was not as young as he once was. Chris ruefully ran his hand through his hair and wondered when its golden colour would turn iron-grey. When his ‘light-hearted rogue’ act would no longer be useful. It was already dull to himself.

He glanced at a photograph in its silver frame, set on the edge of the desk as if to remind him that he did have a family, that he owed something to other people. Will and Diana Martin on their wedding day more than a year ago, all elegant morning coat and white satin, all joyful smiles. Even after all these months, the soft way they looked at each other, those secret smiles only for themselves, were still just as tender as they had been on that day.

It made Chris smile to think of them. And it made him feel discomfited. Nothing like that was on the horizon for him. He had become too good at his work. His reputation as a rake put him beyond serious marital consideration, even if he had wanted to marry. Society mamas let him dance with their daughters and flirted with him themselves, but he knew they did not see him as a good prospect. They only saw what he chose to show them.

Even if he did marry, he could never really be honest with a wife, could never be his true self. He wouldn’t put a person he cared about in a perilous position, not when his work included all manner of people and situations. Risking his own safety and reputation was one thing; he couldn’t do such a thing to a lady. Even if there was one out there who would have him.

Against his will, an image appeared in his mind as he thought of a lady he could care about—an image that came up too often sometimes. Emily Fortescue.

He saw her as she was at Di and Will’s wedding, her pale blue silk gown like the sky itself, her laughter as she caught the bouquet. Emily, with her sharply edged intelligence, her hazel eyes that always saw too much, her lips that tasted so sweet under his. So irresistible. She made him want to spill all his secrets to her, to tell her everything, and that was dangerous indeed.

Chris glanced again at the wedding image. Will and Di were Emily’s friends, too. Diana was practically her sister. He could never offer Emily, who meant so much to so many people, the kind of marriage she deserved; neither could he trifle with her. Not that he could imagine anyone trifling with Emily’s affections at all. She was too intelligent, too independent, and she had made it clear she did not intend to marry.

So, Emily Fortescue was the only lady he could imagine marrying—and the last lady he ever could. It was a prison of his own making and one he could never back out of now. His work depended on it; too many people depended on it, even if they would never know it.

He pushed away memories of Emily, as he so often had to do, and reached for the pile of papers again. Even the problems of Berlin were less complicated than romance.

Luckily, a knock at the door interrupted the tedious task. ‘Come in,’ he called in relief.

It was Laura, Lady Smythe-Tomas, another of the office’s secret agents and one of their most successful. A beautiful, redheaded young widow, she had a rare sense of style, a deep, husky laugh and royal connections to the Marlborough House Set. She and Chris had worked together often before and he always enjoyed her company, even if they were far too similar to ever be romantically involved. It was too bad; he wouldn’t have to hide his work from her.

‘Christopher, darling, are you ready for...?’ She paused in adjusting her kid evening gloves and sapphire-blue gown, her luminous green eyes narrowed as she took in his shirtsleeves and tousled hair. ‘I see you are not. Are we going to be fashionably late?’

‘Late for—what?’ Then Chris suddenly remembered. A gambling party at a very secret, very exclusive club, one which high-ranking German and Russian diplomats favoured.

Laura laughed and perched on the edge of his desk. ‘Too engrossed in all those fascinating reports, I see. Well, there is plenty of time. It’s better if we give them time to find the claret, then they’re easier to talk to. And we must appear to be carelessly late fribbles, anyway, yes?’

‘Fribbles we must be.’ Chris went to the wardrobe in the corner where he kept his extra evening clothes for just such emergencies. He glanced back at Laura, who was sorting through her beaded reticule and humming a little waltz to herself. She had been widowed for many years, left almost penniless by her titled older husband. Was she ever lonely? Did she ever regret the work? ‘Laura...’

‘Yes, darling?’ she answered, tucking a strand of dark red hair into her beaded bandeau.

‘Have you never considered marrying again?’

She gave a startled laugh. ‘Why, Chris! Are you proposing to me?’ She laughed even harder when he was afraid he looked rather alarmed. ‘Oh, don’t look so frightened. I know very well you are not. If there is anyone who is less the marrying sort than I am, it’s you.’ She slid off the desk and planted her gloved hands on her hips. ‘Why? Have you met someone and are having second thoughts about this work?’

‘No, not at all. I was just—just thinking about Will, I suppose.’

‘Oh, William.’ Laura waved her hand. ‘He is different. He works above-board at an embassy, he must have a spouse. One would just get in the way of our kind of work. You know that.’

‘Of course I know that.’ He had always known that, that being rakish was part of the importance of what he did. It was only lately that he felt himself changing, changing in ways he did not understand. ‘But have you not ever felt, I don’t know—felt alone?’

‘Oh, Chris, darling.’ She gave him a concerned frown and stepped forward to press his hand. ‘I confess I do. My marriage was not all it should have been, but still it was nice to know someone was there if I stumbled. But I am so much better off now and so are you. We are too good at our work to give it up.’

Chris nodded. He did know the score, he always had. He just had to shake away those wistful feelings and get on with what he was so good at doing.

‘Tonight’s party should be just the thing to chase the glooms away!’ Laura said, handing him his silk cravat. ‘Just think of all the lovely ladies who will be there, ready and eager for you to sweep them off their feet and learn all their little secrets...’

Chapter Two

Emily was running...running down the same endless dark alleyway lined with towering bales of cloth stretching so tall and so out of sight that she was sure they reached up into the sky that was always night. She couldn’t even see the starlight, only splashes of hazy, haloed gaslight that came from unseen lamps. She heard voices, but they came from so far away they only seemed like an echo of mocking laughter.

But the footsteps behind her were very clear. Slow, stately, unrelenting. Not hurried at all, not a panicked run like hers, but always moving closer.

Her lungs ached, her breath was strangled in her throat. Her hair tumbled into her eyes, blinding her.

She tried to run faster, but the alley was now choked with cobwebs, wrapping around her ankles, pulling her back. Making her trip. The footsteps grew louder and she fell, toppling towards the ground. He would surely catch her now and she was helpless, cornered like a fox pursued by baying hounds.

She was falling...

‘No!’ Emily cried, sitting straight up. For an instant she was sure the cobwebs had trapped her, holding her limbs immobile. Then she realised it was only the blanket, tangled around her. She was on her bedroom chaise, where she had gone for an afternoon rest, safe in her own chamber.

It was only that nightmare again.

With a cry of frustration, Emily pulled the blanket free and tossed it on the green-and-white-flowered carpet. She lay back on the tufted velvet cushions and closed her eyes.

For a time, after the event, the dream had plagued her almost every night when she tried to sleep. It had got so bad, she would just stay up every night and go over all the business ledgers in her father’s library. Her hard work, and begging pleas, had finally convinced her father to let her stop with her social Season and go into business full-time with him. With work, lots of work, the nightmare stopped and she almost forgot that one stupid event.

But it seemed it didn’t want to be forgotten. Not entirely.

She had been a foolish girl, thinking a man like Gregory Hamilton—handsome, highly connected, known for being something of a rake—would be truly interested in her. Yet it had been her first Season, fresh out of school, and she had wanted to dance and flirt, to laugh. Then he’d got her out on the terrace at that ball and she’d realised how foolish she really had been.

She had got away then and Gregory had gone away to Ceylon. Work had made her forget that cold fear, but still the dream came sometimes.

It was the last time she would ever be foolish over a man, Emily had always vowed, and she kept that promise to herself now. She’d had lots of suitors, some of them just as handsome and rich as Gregory had been, all of them quite dull. None of them could tempt her. She threw herself into her work, into making her father’s business even more successful than before.

Except whenever she saw Chris Blakely. When he came near, her vows to be sensible seemed to just fly out the window. They quarrelled every time they met, the last time at Alex’s wedding to Malcolm Gordston, and then Lady Rippon’s garden party. Chris was quite hopeless, given up as a wastrel by everyone. But when he kissed her...

‘No more,’ she cried, kicking at the blanket.

‘Miss Emily,’ she heard her maid Mary call out, as Mary knocked at the door. ‘Are you quite all right? Edna thought she heard you cry out while she was dusting down the corridor.’

‘Oh, yes, Mary, I’m fine,’ she answered, reaching for the dropped blanket. ‘It was just a bad dream. I must have fallen asleep.’

Mary hurried in, Emily’s dinner gown of blue silk and chiffon draped over her arm. Emily glanced at the half-curtained window and saw that the light was dark amber now, almost evening. Her father would be expecting her soon for their shared meal.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep so long,’ Emily said, trying to smooth her rumpled hair.

Mary laid out the dress on Emily’s green-brocade-draped four-poster bed and searched the wardrobe for the matching shoes. ‘It’s no wonder, Miss Emily. You were gone before breakfast this morning.’

‘I had to check that the Gordston’s shipment was ready to go,’ Emily said. Alex’s husband, the owner of two, soon to be three, very successful department stores, was one of their best business partners.

She sat down at her dressing table and reached for her silver-backed hairbrush. She tried to pull out the knots in her thick, chestnut hair, but it was hopeless.

‘Here, let me do that, Miss Emily,’ Mary said, taking the brush with a tsk. ‘You’ll have no hair left if you keep on like that. And then what would we pin your hats to?’

Emily laughed, some of the tension of her dream dissipating. She thought of the rows and rows of hats that sat on their own shelf in the dressing room, feathers and bows and fruit on straw and velvet and silk. It was part of her job now to be always super-stylish, to advertise the latest fashions, and she had to admit it was a part of her job she rather enjoyed. ‘True. I leave myself in your capable hands, Mary, as usual. Is my father already downstairs?’

‘He’s in his library, I think, Miss Emily.’

Where he always was when he was at home in Cadogan Square. ‘Working, no doubt.’

Mary tsked again as she swirled Emily’s hair into an elaborate coil at the nape of her neck and secured it with tortoiseshell combs. She handed Emily a pair of aquamarine earrings. ‘You both work much too hard.’

‘What else is there to do?’ Emily murmured as she slid the jewels on to her earlobes. She thought of what her friends did: Alex with her charity work in Paris as she helped Malcolm run his stores, and Diana writing her magazine articles in Vienna, where she hosted diplomatic receptions for her husband Will. They were busy all the time, too, doing useful things. Emily had to do the same. One day, her work would no longer be hers to do and she would have to find something new. She rather longed for what Diana and Alex had, but such longings did no good. Work was what she had.

Mary frowned disapprovingly, making Emily laugh. Mary had been with the Fortescue household for years, starting as a tweeny when Emily’s mother was still alive, and Emily knew she had opinions about how they should run their lives. Mary always thought Emily should follow her friends’ examples and marry. Emily knew her father felt the same way, though he rarely said so. He would love to see her settled with a good husband, a son-in-law to help carry on his work.

But Emily knew that was impossible. After Gregory Hamilton and his cold hands on that terrace, she couldn’t face intimacy with another man—except for Chris Blakely, who was impossible for entirely different reasons. And she could never give up her work.

‘For now, I suppose, Miss Emily,’ Mary said. She helped Emily out of her brocade dressing gown and into her dinner dress. ‘Is there anything else you need?’

Emily reached for her gloves. ‘Not now, Mary, thank you. After dinner, I’ll need to change into a tweed suit, though, something sturdy. I’ll be off to the meeting of the Women’s Franchise League.’

* * *

By the time Emily hurried downstairs, her father was waiting in the drawing room, a pre-dinner sherry in hand, reading through the day’s newspapers. The financial pages, no doubt, Emily thought as she crossed the room to kiss his cheek. After a day visiting suppliers, checking accounts and lunching with clients, Albert Fortescue liked to know what his rivals were doing.

Emily glanced over her father’s shoulder as the butler handed her a cut-crystal glass of the ruby-red liquor. She saw an advertisement, a full half-page, for Gordston’s Department Stores of Paris, London and now Brighton.

‘I’m very glad to see Gordston’s is doing so well,’ she said. ‘I see he is carrying the latest hats from Madame Fronde’s! Anything about the expansion of the Paris store?’

‘Not here, but I was looking over the café accounts; we are at beyond capacity there every day. It was an excellent idea of yours to go into such a venture with Mr Gordston, Emily. We will be opening one in the London store any time now, I am sure.’

Emily gave a satisfied smile, remembering the hard work of setting up the elegant café in the Paris store. ‘I am certainly glad to hear it. It was a stroke of genius on our parts, I must say, for both us and Malcolm. Ladies can shop even longer if they’re properly fortified for the day. Not to mention having a place to meet their friends for a cosy chat, without you men and your dreadful cigars stinking it all to bits.’

Her father laughed and folded his newspapers as he sat back in his armchair. Emily was a bit worried he was looking thinner than usual, his moustache showing traces of silver in the chestnut, and she wondered if Mary was right that work was not everything. Maybe her father could use a holiday, to Cannes or Portofino, some place warm. She did worry about his health and she knew that this caused many of his worries for her, for who would take care of her one day.

‘It was a brilliant idea,’ he said. ‘Cafés in department stores, it’s sure to catch on. In fact, that is something of what I wanted to talk to you about, my dear.’

‘The cafés?’

‘Paris. I had a note from Mr Gordston asking if we could have a meeting soon, to talk about the possible expansion.’