His Convenient Marchioness

‘Trumble would not countenance otherwise,’ Letty said. ‘No doubt Amelia would visit the child, but she is not unduly sentimental.’

The memory of Emma’s face as she accepted her son’s shamefaced apology slid into his mind. Unduly sentimental?

But...he didn’t dislike Amelia. She just didn’t interest him. Did that matter? If Letty and Caro were satisfied he’d done his duty...

‘Very well. I’ll consider your suggestion. By the by, are you acquainted with Lady Emma Lacy?’

She blinked. ‘Who is—? Good God! Emma Brandon-Smythe, you mean? Giles, she may be a widow, but you are not considering an alliance with that dreadful creature, are you?’

‘What?’ Hunt stared at her. ‘No. Of course not.’ Dreadful creature? ‘I ran into her in Hatchard’s, that’s all. It took me a moment to place her.’

Letty snorted. ‘No doubt the shameless hussy presumed upon your acquaintance with Dersingham and forced herself upon your notice. She ran off, you know—from the altar, no less!—to live openly with young Lacy. And then persuaded him to make an honest woman of her. Dersingham cast her off regardless and naturally the Keswicks do not recognise her.’ Letty shuddered. ‘If she approaches you again, you must ignore her as everybody else does. I wonder at Hatchard allowing her in the shop. I shall have a word with him about that. Disgraceful that she is permitted to mingle with her betters!’

‘Oh, that won’t be necessary, Letty.’ Hunt’s mind spun. Lived openly with Lacy? In sin? Ran off from the altar? That had to be exaggeration. ‘I doubt she will approach me again.’ Not after she’d come close to telling him to go to hell. In fact, she hadn’t approached him at all. He had spoken to her. How the devil could he deflect Letty? The last thing he wanted was to have Letty force John Hatchard to refuse Emma admittance! ‘Ah, is Amelia in town?’

Letty looked gratified. ‘Dear Amelia is not in town just yet, you know. Would you wish me to—?’

‘No. Absolutely not.’ Hunt fixed her with a steely look. ‘You will say nothing whatsoever to anyone about this. Is that quite clear?’ Thank God he’d deflected her from Emma Lacy. ‘Just let me know when Amelia is expected in town.’ Letty was right; for a man who wanted a convenient wife, Amelia would be the perfect choice. Convenience was often a trifle dull.

However, he would return Miss Georgie’s handkerchief. He was going to make quite sure Lady Emma understood that the Marquess of Huntercombe only trolled for books in Hatchard’s.

Chapter Three

Disappointment and rage lashed at Emma over the next two days. Disappointment that Huntercombe’s apparently disinterested kindliness towards the children had been anything but disinterested and rage that he had used them in his attempt to get close to her.

Harry and Georgie could talk of little but Lord Huntercombe and Fergus. Emma even overheard Harry tell his sister what a jolly good idea she’d had with the handkerchief. ‘Because no matter what Mama says, I’m sure he’ll bring it back!’

Georgie, openly smug about the predicted success of her scheme, asked Emma, ever so casually, just how long it took to launder a handkerchief. ‘In a big house, Mama.’

It might have been funny had Emma not been so angry. And if she were honest, angry with herself for feeling even for an instant that betraying flicker of interest. Had she accidentally encouraged him? Did she have to be rude to every gentleman who spoke to her to avoid this sort of thing? And somewhere in all that there was hurt. Why she had thought Huntercombe would be different, she had no idea. After eleven years she knew how society viewed her.

She did not have the heart to disabuse the children of their conviction that Huntercombe would call. How could she, without giving an explanation as to why she was so sure he would not? Six and ten was far too young for them to realise how gentlemen viewed their mother. Instead she took advantage of any dry weather to get them out for walks as much as possible, trying everything she could think of to keep them busy and distracted.

And yet walks inevitably brought on chatter of how fast Fergus could run, how he twisted in mid-air to catch the ball and when they might see him again.

So the knock on the door on the third morning was as unwelcome as it was unexpected. Nor did Emma appreciate the involuntary leap of her own pulse. Harry and Georgie, just sat down for their morning lessons, looked up, eyes bright.

‘It might be him, Mama!’

Emma gave Georgie a quelling look. ‘Him? The cat’s father?’

‘Fergus!’

She changed her snort of laughter into a cough. The Marquess of Huntercombe, outranked by his own dog. Bessie’s footsteps hurried down the short hallway and the door creaked open. A velvet-dark voice spoke, the tone questioning, and Emma’s pulse skittered. Anger, she assured herself. Unfortunately it didn’t feel like anger, but that did not change how she was going to deal with this.

‘Yes, yer honour. What? Right. I’ll ask her then.’

‘Mama!’ Georgie and Harry jigged in their seats.

‘Stay where you are.’ She held them in place with a raised hand. ‘It might be a complete stranger.’

More hurried steps and Bessie opened the door, face pink. ‘It’s a lordship, mum! Do I let him in?’

Despite her anger, Emma suppressed another laugh. The Most Noble Marquess of Huntercombe left kicking his heels on the doorstep...

‘It is him!’ Harry and Georgie let out a unison shriek of delight, surged from their seats and stampeded past Bessie and into the hall.

‘Sir! Good morning!’

‘Look! It’s Fergus!’

Bessie held out a visiting card. ‘Said ’is name was Huntercombe, mum. Not Fergus.’

‘The dog,’ Emma said. Damn his eyes! Must he make it so difficult? But it was not only Huntercombe who was making it difficult. She had repelled other men with ease. It was her own unruly attraction to him that was difficult. The others had been annoying. Huntercombe’s approach infuriated her.

Huntercombe’s deep, quiet voice returned the children’s greetings.

‘Come in, sir!’

His lordship’s response to Harry’s invitation was dismissed by Georgie. ‘Of course she won’t. It’s this way.’

A moment later his broad shoulders filled the doorway. ‘I beg your pardon, Lady Emma.’ A tinge of colour stained his cheekbones. ‘I did ask your servant if you were at home, but—’

‘We’re nearly always at home,’ Georgie said. ‘Except when we aren’t.’

Huntercombe’s eyes crinkled. ‘I see. The thing is, Miss Georgie, a gentleman should always give a lady the chance to send him to the right-a-bout if she does not wish to see him.’

The smile in the grey eyes as he looked at Georgie was completely disarming. Emma had to remind herself that he was married, that he had no business calling on her alone, disarming her—even unintentionally—or causing her pulse to skip with that smile that stayed in his eyes and warmed her from the inside out. And he was years older than she was, although that didn’t seem to matter as much as it had when she was twenty. To Emma, at twenty, the greying hair on Sir Augustus Bolt, the man her father had decreed she was to marry, had horrified her. But now, curse it, on Huntercombe the greying dark hair—especially those silvery patches, just there at the temples—was simply gorgeous. And unlike Sir Augustus, who had run sadly to seed by forty-nine along with a pronounced stoop to his shoulders, Huntercombe was still straight, broad-shouldered and looked as though he kept himself fit.

She forced her mind to function. What mattered, she reminded herself, was that he was married and she had two children to protect. Very well. He’d called. So she’d take his advice and send him to the right-a-bout. And since there was no way she could be even remotely private with someone in a house this size—

‘As it happens, sir, we are about to go for a walk,’ she said. ‘Would you care to join us?’

Harry stared at her. ‘You said we had to do our lessons.’

Emma wondered why children always contradicted you like that. ‘I’ve changed my mind. The sun is out now, but I wouldn’t care to wager upon it staying that way.’

‘But, Mama,’ Georgie looked up from patting Fergus, eyes wide, ‘When Harry said that at breakfast, you said—’

‘Don’t you want to come for a walk?’ Huntercombe asked mildly.

‘Of course we do,’ Harry said.

Huntercombe nodded. ‘Then stop reminding your mother about lessons. Her conscience may get the better of her.’

Emma stifled another laugh, wishing his dry sense of humour wasn’t so wickedly appealing.

Harry grinned. ‘Yes, sir. Come on, Georgie. We’ll fetch our things.’

* * *

He’d meant to return the handkerchief, assure Lady Emma that she had been thoroughly mistaken and leave. But now he was going for a walk with the dreadful creature. Although he had to admit explaining Lady Emma’s mistake in that tiny house with two children present might have been awkward.

Hunt noted that Emma again kept the conversation in the realm of polite generalities as they waited for the children. Nor by so much as a flicker did her demeanour suggest that she had received him in anything less than the most elegant drawing room.

Whatever he had expected of her home, Hunt realised, it had not been the reality of this shabby-genteel, whitewashed parlour. It was spotlessly clean and he wondered if she did the dusting herself. The floorboards—no carpet, just scrubbed, bare boards—were swept. The furniture, what there was of it, was polished to a gleam and books crammed a battered set of shelves beside the window. An elderly lamp stood on the table and a plain wooden clock ticked on the shelf over the clean and empty grate. The chill in the room suggested that the fire was lit only in the evenings.

Emma Lacy, he realised, lived on the edge of very real poverty and that puzzled him. Surely she had something to live on? Unless Lacy had muddled their money away. That was quite possible. Anyone brought up as Lacy and Emma had been would struggle to manage on much less. The younger sons of dukes, having been raised to luxury, then left with relatively little, were notoriously expensive and debt-ridden. A very pertinent reason why fathers preferred not to marry their daughters to them.

She invited him to sit down and chatted about the renewed war with France. Not for long though. Harry and Georgie appeared in their outdoor things very quickly.

‘We brought yours, too, Mama.’ Harry had a brown pelisse over one shoulder and Georgie clutched a bonnet and gloves.

‘Thank you.’ Emma smiled at them. ‘That was very thoughtful of you.’

‘We wanted to have lots of time to throw the ball for Fergus,’ Harry explained.

‘Ah. Silly me.’ Emma’s eyes danced and something inside Hunt warmed as he saw again the open affection in her face. Whatever else this house might lack it was not deficient in love. And the thought crept up on him: this was not a woman who would leave her children to marry again.

‘That reminds me—’ He drew Georgie’s laundered handkerchief—God knew what his valet had thought when handed it with a request for an immediate wash—from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Thank you. I’ve brought an extra one of my own today.’

‘Oh.’ Georgie looked crestfallen as she tucked the scrap of cambric into her sleeve. ‘I wouldn’t have minded lending you another.’

Emma cleared her throat. ‘Georgie, Lord Huntercombe cannot keep visiting merely to return your belongings.’

Shards of ice edged her voice, but this was not the moment to launch into explanations. Time enough for that when the children were out of earshot. ‘Shall we go?’ he suggested.

* * *

The children raced ahead with Fergus, but obeyed Emma’s injunction not to get too far in front. A biting wind whipped around them, bringing bright colour to her pale cheeks. She had ignored his offered arm, tucking her gloved hands into a threadbare velvet muff. He wondered just how old it was, if she had owned it before her elopement.

‘You should not have come,’ she said.

Hunt raised his brows at the cool, not to say imperious, tone. She had dropped the veneer of affability like a brick. ‘No? Why not, ma’am?’

Anger flashed in her eyes. ‘I told you the other day that I am not interested. And I resent you using my children to force my compliance this morning!’

He raised his brows. ‘I am sorry to contradict you, ma’am, but I had no intention of going for a walk. You informed me that you were going for a walk and invited me to join you. However, since you have raised the issue, let us be very clear on one thing; I am not looking for a mistress!’

She stopped dead and he halted obligingly. Amused, he saw that her eyes were blank; he’d managed to shock her. ‘That is what you thought, is it not?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice sounded strangled, as if she were having trouble getting any sound out at all. ‘But, still, even if that is true—your wife, what will she think if anyone sees us together?’

He froze. ‘My wife?’

She glared at him. ‘Yes. I may have been out of society for a long time, sir, but I remember Lady Huntercombe perfectly well.’

‘Do you?’ How did this equate with the dreadful creature Letty assumed had accosted him boldly in Hatchard’s? A woman furious with him because she believed he was about to make improper advances to her and doubly furious because she remembered his wife?

‘Yes. I liked her. She was kind.’

He couldn’t help smiling at her. ‘She was, wasn’t she?’

Emma stopped, stared up at him. ‘Was?’

He nodded curtly. ‘I have been a widower for some years, Lady Emma.’

‘Oh. I’m... I’m very sorry, sir.’

He felt himself stiffen. ‘No need. A misunderstanding. As you said, you have been out of society. You weren’t to know.’

‘I meant,’ some of the astringency returned, ‘that I am sorry for your loss. She was lovely.’

It was a very long time since anyone had offered their condolences. Of course, it had been a long time since Anne and the children died.

‘Thank you.’ He let out a breath. Eleven years gone and he was thinking about marrying Amelia Trumble. Maybe. If he could screw his good sense to the sticking place.

‘Mama! Watch this!’

They turned to watch Harry hurl the ball far and high. Fergus raced underneath, leaping with a lithe twist to take the catch in mid-air.

‘See, Mama! Just like we said!’

Fergus came racing back, spat the ball out at Harry’s feet.

Emma turned back to him, laughter dancing in her eyes. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry I was so rude. But I’m not going to be sorry that I accidentally forced you to come for a walk. This is such a treat for them.’

A treat. Taking a dog for a walk and throwing a ball. And she had been about to give them their morning lessons when he arrived. Amelia had a child. A young boy who would remain in his grandfather’s custody if his mother remarried, doubtless with a nanny and tutors, but still...without his mother. He hadn’t really thought about it. Just that it was helpful to know she was fertile... He hadn’t thought about the child, or children. Was it right for a woman to be forced to abandon her children? Would Trumble allow the child to spend time with them if he did marry Amelia? She is not unduly sentimental. Wouldn’t Amelia want the child with her?

‘Tell me, Lady Emma, if you ever remarried, would you consent to leave your children behind?’

‘What?’

What insanity had prompted him to ask that? ‘An academic question.’ There. That was better—a calm, logical approach. ‘You see, I am considering marriage and I wish to know what is reasonable to expect of a woman. Should she be expected to leave her children if she remarries? If, say, her father-in-law is their legal guardian?’

Those dancing blue eyes chilled. ‘No. But the law doesn’t agree with me. Nor would most men.’ Her mouth flattened. ‘You, for example, seemed to assume that Keswick must be my children’s guardian. He is not.’

Hunt frowned. ‘He is not their legal guardian?’

‘No. I am. Keswick has nothing to do with them.’

He tried to imagine Amelia, virtuously conventional, spurning her father-in-law’s authority at all, let alone so brazenly. He ought to be shocked that Lady Emma had done so. Instead, he was shocked that he wasn’t shocked.

‘So a gentleman offering you marriage would have to take the children?’

‘A very academic question, my lord, but yes. And I would retain guardianship.’

An iceberg would sound warmer. Yet somehow all his calm, logical reasons for considering Amelia were sliding into ruin. And in their place...

No. Impossible. Emma Lacy was not at all the sort of bride he ought to consider. And if he were to consider her he would need to know her a great deal better. But how could he further their acquaintance without her believing that he was, after all, pursuing her with less than honourable intent?

He took a very deep, careful breath. ‘I should make it absolutely clear, ma’am that I am not, at this moment, offering you marriage.’

‘I never imagined that you—’ She stared. ‘“At this moment?”’

‘However, I must marry again and you fit my...requirements.’

He heard the sharp intake of breath and braced.

‘Requirements?’

He was not fool enough to be lulled by those dulcet tones.

‘A clumsy word, Lady Emma, but honest. I am too old—’ and too emptied out ʻ—to be tumbling into love, so I am not looking for a giddy young girl. I require a woman of maturity, but still young enough to bear children.’

There. That was perfectly logical and rational. He’d touched on all the relevant points.

‘I see. You want a proven breeder, not an untried filly.’

His mouth opened. He knew that. Unfortunately nothing came out.

‘Speechless, my lord?’

He laughed. He simply couldn’t help it as that warlike glint in her eyes started to dance again. Eventually he stopped laughing. ‘Touché, ma’am. At this point I should probably do better if I cut my own tongue out.’

‘Yes.’ She gave him a puzzled glance. ‘So, you wish to remarry—’

‘Yes.’

‘And for some reason you think I might do.’

He winced. ‘I beg your pardon if I gave the impression that it was a matter of you might do. I was trying to be sensible, not insulting. But, yes, you do, er—’

‘Fit your requirements.’

The long-forgotten burning sensation informed Hunt that he had actually blushed. ‘Something like that.’ Why did the ground simply not open up and swallow him?

‘And along with your requirements are you also going to ask for references?’ Her chin was up. ‘Because I am afraid I cannot offer any. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

He looked at her. Really looked at her. The brief hint of laughter was gone again. In its place was...bitterness? No, not that. Resignation. As if she expected a rejection. Letty’s words burned into him: ‘Dersingham cast her off regardless, of course. And naturally the Keswicks do not recognise her.’

‘If you will forgive the impertinence, Emma, I think your children are your references.’

She stared at him. ‘Oh.’ Just that. Oh. And that lovely, soft mouth trembled into a smile that shook him to his very foundations. Was he insane? Hadn’t Letty warned him? He wanted a wife who would not turn his life inside out. Now it would serve him right if he found himself fronting the altar with London’s most notorious widow! Only...could she really have done anything truly scandalous? He was finding it harder and harder to believe...

* * *

Emma swallowed. Your children are your references. Just words. Probably meaningless ones. Yet she was melting like a puddle! He had not offered for her. She had to remember that. ‘Then this is in the nature of a...courtship.’

He frowned. ‘I suppose so. In a way. I—that is we—would need to know each other better. If I were to offer for you, I would be offering a marriage of convenience. I need an heir. In return, Harry and Georgie would be provided for and you would have a generous settlement and jointure. However, I have not done so.’

She flinched. His voice was cool, unemotional, his eyes shuttered. Totally at odds with the man who had enchanted Harry and Georgie, and kept his dog’s revolting cricket ball in his pocket. The man who had said the children were her references.

His mouth tightened. ‘I did not wish you to think my intentions were dishonourable.’

‘No. I quite understand that—’ Children... I require an heir... ‘Sir, you say you need an heir, but I thought—’

‘Smallpox.’ He said it in a very distant voice. ‘My wife and all three of our children. Then my half-brother died last year.’

Sometimes distance was all that could protect you from pain. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said simply.

For a moment he was silent. Then, ‘It was a long time ago. But you see why I must marry again.’

She did. It was exactly the sort of marriage her father had arranged eleven years ago, and that she had fled from. Or was it? Was Huntercombe really offering what Augustus Bolt had offered? She didn’t think so and now was not the time to discuss that. But Huntercombe was a very different man from Sir Augustus. Bolt had been arrogant, condescending, seeing her only as a well-bred, hopefully fertile, vessel for his political ambitions...and Dersingham had approved Bolt as exactly the man to curb a headstrong girl... That brought her back to reality with a jolt. Did Huntercombe know the whole story?

She took a deep breath. ‘Are you aware that I was betrothed to Sir Augustus Bolt?’

Huntercombe frowned. ‘I knew there had been another betrothal. It was to Bolt? I dare say Dersingham wanted the match.’

She nodded. ‘I might have agreed in the end, but I had met Peter, you see, and—’

‘You fell in love.’

Emma heard the guarded tone. She could imagine what he’d heard and she doubted the truth would be any more acceptable to him, even if he believed it.

‘The wedding with Sir Augustus was set for my twenty-first birthday. But when Dersingham delivered me to the altar I refused my vows and walked out of St George’s.’

There. It was out. And judging by his stunned expression he hadn’t known. In a moment, when he had recovered from the shock, he would take his leave politely and she’d never see him again. No well-bred young lady jilted a man at all, let alone literally walking out on him at the altar straight into the arms of another man. Only now, when she had burned all her ships and bridges, did she know exactly how much she had wanted this chance. How much she had wanted someone to understand. Not forgive. She had never considered her marriage to require forgiveness.

* * *

Hunt could only stare at the woman before him, her chin up, defiant. He tried, and failed, to imagine any other young lady he had ever known doing something so utterly scandalous. Letty hadn’t exaggerated at all. For once the gossip had been literal truth.

Although... Gus Bolt? The man must have been nearly fifty at the time. Exactly the sort of marriage Letty and Caro had assumed he would make. If the idea had horrified him, how must it have looked to a girl of twenty-one?

He stuck to practicalities. ‘Was Lacy waiting outside the church?’

She flushed. ‘In a way. We hadn’t arranged it, although my parents thought we had. He had no idea what I was going to do. He just wanted to see me.’ Her eyes became distant, remembering. ‘I didn’t know I was going to do it until I walked out. And, well, there he was. We didn’t stop to think. He took me to his great-aunt, Lady Bartle. She loathed Keswick and I stayed with her while the banns were called.’ She gave him a very direct look. ‘No one ever remembers that, or that Peter went to my father, asked permission to marry me and was refused. According to most of the stories Peter and I lived openly in sin until he deigned to make an honest woman of me.’

Hunt was silent. She had handed him what any sane man would consider sufficient cause for withdrawing. She was not at all an eligible bride for the Marquess of Huntercombe.