How to Tame Your Duke(27)

Clack, clack, clack, came the brisk female footsteps, perhaps fifteen feet behind her.

A gust of wind burst between the buildings and struck Emilie from the  side. She clutched her hat with one hand and staggered around the corner  of Shoe Lane.

The frozen wind howled in her ears all down the length of the lane. She  couldn't hear the footsteps now; she couldn't hear anything except the  wild voice of Yorkshire, turning the few square inches of her exposed  skin to ice. She quickened her steps.

In the hotel, it would be warm. Ashland would have arrived an hour  before (she had watched him leave the Abbey from the library window,  with his back straight and his powerful legs steady against his horse's  sides) and made certain the coals were sizzling and the tea was ready.  He would lead her to the chair nearest the fire and tell her to warm  herself, never knowing that her body heated instantly when she sensed  him near. That his large frame looming above her, his long, hard bones  and his heavy muscle, turned her skin to flame.

A cart rolled past ahead, wheels rattling loudly, making its way along  the high street. Emilie forced her legs to remain at a brisk walk,  though she ached to run.

What had Miss Dingleby's weekly note said? All is well, or something  like that, and then a few noncommittal lines about Emilie's sisters, and  then, at the end: We hear that an inquiry has been made in your  neighborhood, though gossip is so hard to trace. Remember that a true  gentleman always speaks and acts with discretion.

What did that mean? An inquiry has been made. Miss Dingleby and her  wretched passive constructions, which told one nothing. What sort of  inquiry? Who had made it? Was this inquiry part of Olympia's  investigation, or did her unknown pursuer make it?

Emilie glanced back over her shoulder, as if looking for traffic. A  dark-clad woman walked behind her, perhaps ten yards away, thickly  veiled.

A widow, no doubt, making her way home after a day's employment.

Emilie walked on determinedly. She was a princess of  Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, made of stern German stuff, and not to be  alarmed by a mousy Yorkshire widow dogging her footsteps.

Dogging.

Dogging.

Emilie dropped her cold-numbed hand to the pocket of her gown, where a  thin stiletto lay in its sheath. Miss Dingleby had shown her how to use  it ("skin is much tougher than you might think, my dear, so slice across  the neck with vigor"), and she had practiced the movement diligently.  Unsheathe, lunge, slice. Unsheathe, lunge, slice. Surprise was the key,  of course. Surprise was always the key, according to Miss Dingleby.

A faint white mass began to interrupt the darkness ahead. Emilie drew a  relieved breath. The hotel at last. The lamps were lit along the drive  and the portico, in eerie pools of blue white light. From behind came  the sudden rattle of hooves and wheels, the warning shout of the driver.  An instant later, a carriage bounced past at a smart trot, drowning the  sound of the widow's footsteps. It swung into the drive of the hotel  with an eager tilt.

Just before the drive lay the path to the back garden. Emilie turned  sharply through the black wrought-iron gate and strode down the neat  paving stones, her legs straining against her heavy woolen skirt.

The path was unlit, bordered by young trees. Emilie inhaled the frozen  silence, the hint of impending snow. The branches shone faintly in the  reflected light from the hotel, like skeletal fingers. A high and  trilling laugh came from the front portico, cut off abruptly by a  closing door, and then Emilie heard the decisive and unmistakable clack  of a woman's half boots on the paving stones behind her.                       
       
           



       

She went on, faster now, her hand clutched around the stiletto in her  pocket. If she could just reach the back entrance. Through the garden,  across the drive and stableyard: A minute or two was all she needed.

She pushed her footsteps a little faster. The paving stones were uneven,  left in picturesque disorder by the hotel gardeners, and her heel  caught on an unexpected edge. She staggered forward, caught herself, and  went on.

A sharp voice called behind her. "Ma'am!"

Emilie strode out, nearly running, and then the world lurched and  streaked around her, and she hit the ground with a bone-rattling thud.

"Ma'am! Ma'am!"

Emilie didn't wait. She scrambled up, found the stiletto in her pocket, and flashed it out in front of her.

"Why, ma'am!"

The voice was high and surprised. The woman stood a few feet away, her  veil thrown back, her face shadowed. She held her hands out before her,  as if to beg.

"Who are you?" Emilie demanded breathlessly.

"Why, nobody, ma'am!" The woman took a step back, and one of the hotel  lights moved across her face, revealing a flash of young features and  wide, astonished eyes.

"You've been following me!"

"I haven't! Not a-purpose, anyroad. I . . . I have business here, that's  all." The woman nodded at the sprawling building to her right.

"Business! What sort of business?" Emilie lowered her hand a trifle. Her pulse beat rapidly in her ears.

The woman drew herself up. "Why, that's my own affair, it is. I'm a respectable woman."

"Indeed! And what sort of respectable affair brings a woman to a . . ."  Emilie let her words trail away. Understanding began to dawn.

"No less respectable than yours, ma'am, begging your pardon." Her tone was laden with irony.

Emilie tucked Miss Dingleby's stiletto away in her pocket. "I do beg  your pardon. You've come for Mr. Brown, haven't you? The fourth Tuesday  of the month."

The woman hesitated, and then said, a little defensively, "Why, yes, I have. Though I don't see it's any of your business."

Emilie peered through the darkness, searching for details. The woman had  a sort of dignity to her, carrying herself with elegance, though her  speech marked her somewhere in the middle rank, neither gentlewoman nor  worker. One of those many nameless women holding precariously to  respectability, as the economic ground shifted and split beneath their  feet: a widow, or perhaps never married, or perhaps married to a  drunkard or scoundrel or worse. Ashland's fifty pounds a month would  lift her from penury and into a comfortable life, with a genteel house  and a few servants. It would make all the difference.

The woman's head was tilted at a proud angle. Did Ashland admire that  about her? How well had he known her? Had he simply watched her read  books in her chemise, or had he been moved to do more? To touch her, to  kiss her?

A surge of jealousy rose up in Emilie's chest, so sudden and violent it burned the back of her throat.

"I'm afraid there's been a change," she said. "Mr. Brown and I have come  to an understanding. I have been seeing him weekly since just before  Christmas."

"What's that?"

"I mean your services are no longer required. I'm very sorry," she added, after a brief pause.

"Why, that's . . . That's when I was badly, at Christmas. When I  couldn't come. I told them, I'm sure I did, I sent a telegram . . ." The  woman shook her head and said plaintively, "And now you've crowded me  out, have you?"

"It isn't that. I had no intention of . . . We simply got along so well . . ."

"Every week, you say?" The woman's dark-clad shoulders sagged in the  faint rim of gaslight. She locked her hands together at her belly. "He  must fancy you proper, then."

"I don't know about that." Emilie spoke quietly. "He's not a man easily overcome by emotion."

"No, he's not."

Emilie reached for her pocket, and the woman stumbled back warily. "No,  no," she said. "It's just this. I haven't touched his money. You can  have it, if you want. Two hundred pounds."

The woman gasped. "Two hundred pound? In your pocket, ma'am?"

"I couldn't touch it." Emilie drew the envelopes from her coat and held them out. "Please. Take it all."

"I couldn't, ma'am."

"Please take it. I'm sure you were counting on the money." Emilie thrust her arm insistently.

The woman stood quietly. Her breath came out in ghostly clouds, uneven  and somewhat rapid. "Two hundred pound," she said again, quite softly.  "It would set me up, it would."                       
       
           



       

"Take it." Emilie stepped forward and placed the envelopes against the  woman's knotted hands, until her fingers loosened and accepted the  precious cargo.

"I shall miss him," the woman said, "though he were such an odd one."

"Yes." The word stuck in her throat.

"I always thought, maybe, if we kept on . . ." She shook her head. The  veil trembled around her shoulders. "Every week, you said?"