Miss Fortescue's Protector In Paris

She dropped on to a wrought-iron bench near the edge of the pond and stared out at the rowboats that dotted the water. It looked like a French painting, all dappled light and hazy figures in white lazing in the warm afternoon.

She heard the rustle of footsteps and Chris sat down carefully beside her. She glanced up at him and he gave her a sweet, placating smile that surely melted hearts all the way from Oxford to the Scottish border.

‘Do you really think that is all a lady can do?’ she asked, feeling so sad. ‘Marry and do charity work?’

He glanced out at the pond for a quiet moment, as if thinking over her words. ‘It seems to be what most of the ladies I know want to do,’ he said. His smile turned mischievous. ‘Except for ladies who aren’t really ladies, of course.’

Emily had to laugh. ‘Actresses and chorus girls? Women who work in cafés?’

‘And what do you know about that?’

‘Not nearly as much as you do, I’m sure. But maybe I should be an actress.’

‘You wouldn’t be the fun sort.’ He studied her closely, until she wanted to squirm. ‘You would be some terribly serious Shakespearean tragedienne, or maybe you would sing grand Italian opera. The sort that makes me fall asleep.’

Emily shook her head. ‘I can’t carry a tune at all, I’m afraid. I got tossed out of music class. And I can’t memorise a poem to save my life. I am the despair of our literature teachers.’ She felt a pang that there was something she could not, after all, excel at, when other classes came so easily. ‘I guess it must be marriage for me after all.’

She felt a gentle touch on her hand, and, startled, she glanced down to see Chris’s fingers over hers. His touch was warm, tingling, delightful. She looked up at him to see his cut-glass handsome face was serious, watchful, even more beautiful than ever. For just that one instant, she thought he might actually see her.

‘Some bloke will be so lucky, Em,’ he said softly. ‘And he had better work bloody hard to make you happy.’

Emily didn’t even notice the cursing, she was too lost in his eyes. Like drowning in endless blue. She felt like someone in one of the novels Diana loved so much, caught in moments that felt out of time, sparkling, delicate, perfect. His expression changed as he looked at her, darkened.

She was drawn closer to him, unable to turn away, as if invisible, unbreakable bonds tied them together. As if in a hazy, warm dream, she felt Chris’s arms come around her, drawing her so close nothing could come between them. Emily found herself longing to seize the moment, to make it her own and never forget it.

She looped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes, inhaling the warm scent of him, of fresh air, clean linen, faint lemony cologne, of Chris himself. It made her feel dizzy, giddy, like too much champagne.

She gently touched his cheek. He moaned a low, hoarse sound, and his lips claimed hers at last. She met his kiss with everything she had, all the emotion locked away inside her. It wasn’t a gentle kiss, as surely first kisses usually were, but one filled with heat, desperation, need. She wanted it to go on and on for ever.

A burst of laughter nearby broke into Emily’s dream and she pulled back from Chris’s embrace, hot and cold all at the same time. Flustered and panicked, and full of a strange, bursting—joy. Had she just kissed Chris Blakely? Where had such a fantastical thing come from?

She stared up at him in astonishment. He looked just as shocked as she did, a dull red flush over his sharp cheekbones. His eyes closed and he shook his head, an appalled expression spreading over his face.

Appalled? At the thought of kissing her? Had she been that bad at it? Emily suddenly felt so disgusted with herself.

‘Em,’ he said, his voice tight and strangled, so unlike his usual joking self. ‘I’m so very sorry. What a rotten thing...’

Emily wanted to hear no more. She couldn’t stand that something which had been, only a moment before, strange and wondrous and almost beautiful, had become something rotten to him. She jumped to her feet and backed away, trying not to scrub at her lips with her hand, to erase the memory of his touch. To try to erase those awful feelings.

Surely those London chorus girls he knew would never be such ninnies over a mere kiss. ‘Don’t think anything of it,’ she said, trying to laugh. To her own ears, she sounded high-pitched and frantic, like an ingénue on the melodrama stage. ‘How silly we are today! I must be getting back to the school.’

He stood up beside her, his hair tousled, his eyes wide. He held out his hand. ‘Emily, please...’

Her own eyes were starting to film over, making the sparkling water of the pond hazy, and she would rather throw herself into its depths before she let him see her cry. Before she would let anyone see her cry.

She whirled around and ran back down the path, ignoring the sound of her name as Chris called after her. She scrubbed furiously at her eyes and pasted a fierce smile on her lips. No one could suspect what a fool she had been.

Diana and Alex ran towards her as she came closer to the house. They both looked a little worried and Emily knew she couldn’t fool them entirely as to her emotional turmoil. They were her best friends and a smiling façade couldn’t quite conceal her thoughts from them.

But neither would they ever pry. All three of them would wait patiently until one had a confidence to share.

Emily knew this was one confidence she would never share, even with her friends.

‘Are you quite well, Em?’ Diana asked. ‘Your cheeks are very pink.’

‘Perfectly well,’ Emily answered, giving her hand a careless wave. ‘I’ve just been sitting in the sun too long.’

Alex held out a straw boater hat. ‘You did forget your hat again.’

‘Oh, drat it. I certainly don’t need another lecture from Miss Grantley about freckles.’ Emily took the hat and pinned it on her dishevelled hair, glad the wide brim could hide part of her face. Her expression.

‘Maybe we should go inside, find some cool lemonade?’ Diana said.

‘Or maybe we should take you to the nurse?’ Alex asked, her tone full of her usual quiet worry. Alex always wanted to take care of everyone. ‘Too much sun can be dangerous.’

‘Of course I don’t need to see the nurse, I’m perfectly all right,’ Emily answered. She scooped up her tennis racket from where she had dropped it in the grass. ‘Let’s just have a game before we have to go in to tea!’

Alex and Diana exchanged another long glance, before they nodded. ‘Maybe Millie or Elizabeth could join us,’ Diana said.

Emily took a deep breath and made a couple of fierce practice swings with her racket. She imagined they were landing right on Chris Blakely’s golden, handsome head...

* * *

Chris was very much afraid that, when he looked back on this one instant years later, he would see his life divided into ‘before’ and ‘after’. Before Emily Fortescue and after.

He stood in the shadows of a grove of trees at the edge of the sun-splashed green tennis lawn and watched her play with her friends. She leaped into the air, her white skirts billowing around her, her racket wielded like a young Athena charging into battle. Her chestnut hair, red and gold and amber in the sunlight, was tumbling from its pins and she was laughing.

Her face, sharp-chiselled and angular as a cat, was usually so serious, so deep in thought and watchful, as if she saw deep into people’s thoughts and read their deepest secrets—and didn’t quite approve. But when she laughed, she was utterly transformed. The rich, merry, uninhibited sound of it would draw anyone closer. Like a siren.

But sirens drove men to their deaths with unfulfilled longings. They pulled men in even as they shoved them away. Chris feared that was definitely the case with Emily.

He raked his hands through his hair, leaving the over-long blonde strands he was always meant to trim properly standing on end—another disappointment to his parents. But he couldn’t dislodge the memory of that kiss.

That kiss.

What had he been thinking? Had he gone sun-mad in that moment? But he knew the truth. He had not been thinking. Just as his father always shouted at him, Chris never thought about what he was doing. Yet kissing Emily was hardly like missing his tutor’s lecture to go for a lark on the river or drinking at the Dog and Hare. Kissing Emily was...

Was the stupidest thing he had ever done. And the most wonderful. For just that one moment, when their lips touched and he tasted the tart sweetness of lemonade, felt the lithe grace of her under his touch, it was like breaking free and soaring. Like the drunken, sparkling magic of a Bonfire Night. Like he was just where he should be.

Only for a moment. Then it all crashed down again. This wasn’t a chorus girl, no matter what wild ambitions she proclaimed. Not a tart at the Dog and Hare. It was Emily. Emily Fortescue. His cousin’s friend. A young lady of education and wealth. Being involved with her would mean promises, expectations. Serious promises. And he was no good at serious.

Not that she would have him even if he was. She was far too good for him and everyone knew it.

He watched her now, laughing in the sunlight. She had picked up the ball from where it fell by the net and was casually tossing it high and catching it again as she chatted with her friends. Graceful, easy, her mobile, sensual mouth smiling. Her hair like autumn leaves, shimmering, heavy, enticing a man to pull it free from its pins and see how long and luxurious it was. Feeling it under his touch. She was so enticing, beautiful and smart and serious...

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.