His Convenient Marchioness

Louisa tittered. ‘Good heavens! Is the child backward?’

Harry beat Emma’s choking rage into speech. ‘She is not!’ He glared at Louisa. ‘She’s only six and she didn’t even know we had a grandmother!’

Louisa opened her mouth and Emma braced for battle.

‘Harry?’ Hunt’s voice was quite calm. ‘Would you take your sister upstairs and get ready?’

His face crimson, Harry nodded. ‘Yes, sir. May Fergus come with us?’

Hunt glanced at Emma. ‘If your mother says so.’

Saying a silent prayer of thanks for a storm delayed, if not averted, Emma nodded. ‘Yes. That’s all right. Off you go.’

Harry took Georgie’s hand. ‘Come on. Let’s get Fergus.’ He tugged her along, then seemed to remember something. Executing a very stiff bow in Louisa’s direction, he said, ‘Good day to you, ma’am. It was very nice to meet you again.’

* * *

Having drunk a cup of tea she barely tasted, in an atmosphere brimming with arctic ice and unvoiced feminine outrage, Emma saw Hunt off with the children.

‘Mama, I didn’t mean to be rude,’ Harry whispered, none too softly. ‘But—’

‘Papa would expect you always to stand up for your sister, Harry,’ Emma said, checking his gloves.

‘And I didn’t know we had a grandmama!’ Georgie was sucking her thumb, her gloves clutched in the other hand.

Emma hugged her. ‘Never mind, sweetheart.’ She removed the thumb from Georgie’s mouth and tugged on the worn little gloves. ‘Enjoy your walk.’ She rubbed Fergus’s silky ears and he licked her hand enthusiastically. ‘You have fun, too,’ she told him.

Straightening, she looked at Hunt. ‘Thank you.’ There was so much more she wanted to say, but with the children listening it was impossible.

His eyes were grave, but he took her hand—the one Fergus had not anointed—and kissed it. Her pulse did a great deal more than skip at the touch of his lips, and her breath caught.

His fingers tightened for an instant, but he said only, ‘You’d better not rub my ears.’

She managed a weak chuckle as Harry shouted with laughter. Georgie smiled around her thumb. Her glove was off again, the thumb back in her mouth.

‘Right.’ Hunt looked at the pair of them. ‘Fergus is in charge, so stay close until we reach the Common. Come along.’

Emma closed the door behind them and leaned on it for a moment, resisting the temptation to abandon her mother and bolt out the door after them. After not bothering to write or visit since just after Peter’s death, Louisa had to pick this afternoon.

Summoning up all her restraint, Emma went back to the parlour.

Louisa was poking into the drawer of Emma’s little kneehole desk. She looked around unblushing and shut the drawer.

‘Well, I’m relieved you know better than to keep incriminating letters, but you should not permit Huntercombe to visit in broad daylight!’

Emma took a very careful breath. ‘He came to take the children for a walk.’

Louisa snorted. ‘Oh, the pair of you did a creditable job of passing it off, but when one already knows—’ She waved an airy hand.

‘Knows what, Mother?’ Did Louisa think she was having an affair with Hunt?

Louisa’s laugh tinkled. ‘Why, that Huntercombe is your latest paramour. Everyone is talking about it.’

‘What?’ She tried to think. Latest? Of course it was possible people had seen them together and she supposed Hunt’s servants were as likely to gossip as anyone else’s, but latest? ‘Just to be clear, Mother,’ she said flatly, ‘Huntercombe is not my lover. Nor,’ she added, her temper rising, ‘has anyone else been my lover!’

Louisa’s amused smile sliced to the bone. ‘Emma, we’re both grown women—we all have lovers after we marry, but it’s best if we are discreet.’ She sat down again. ‘I was quite in demand in my day.’

Emma could not find a single coherent thought, let alone word. She didn’t want to think about Louisa—her mother—having sex at all, let alone with a parade of faceless and nameless—please, God, let them remain nameless—gentlemen.

‘Your mistake, dear,’ Louisa continued, ‘was to insist on marrying Lacy. No one, including Bolt, would have minded in the least had you conducted a discreet affair once you were safely enceinte. And he would not have cared about any other petits pacquets once you had provided an heir and a spare.’

Sickened, Emma found something that resembled her voice. ‘Is that what you did?’

Louisa shrugged. ‘Of course. I couldn’t swear that you are Dersingham’s get yourself.’

Emma struggled with that for a moment. ‘And my brothers?’

‘Oh, they are. Naturally I made sure the first two were his. So convenient that they were both boys, so I had the heir and the spare out of the way.’

‘And who do you think might have sired me?’ Emma demanded.

Louisa appeared to give that serious thought. ‘Oh, well. Eltringham comes to mind as the most likely. But it could have been Havelock. Or even Dersingham for that matter. Although that is not very likely.’ She pursed her lips. ‘He was quite taken up with that dreadful Amaranth Hayes-Boyle at the time.’

Belatedly Emma recalled that she didn’t want to think about her mother having sex, or know the names of her lovers, let alone Dersingham’s lovers. She pulled herself together. ‘Mother, surely you didn’t call merely to inform me that the world believes me to be engaged in an affair with Huntercombe.’ She’d be damned if she’d tell Louisa why Hunt was calling on her. It was none of her business.

Louisa’s mouth thinned. ‘Your father—Dersingham, that is—is renewing his offer to take you back. We both feel that you have had sufficient time to come to your senses. He is willing to reinstate your dowry.’

Emma stilled. ‘In return for what?’

‘That you sign over guardianship of both children to him.’ Louisa’s lip curled. ‘Hardly a sacrifice one would think. Then you may make a marriage of sorts. Dersingham has some merchant in mind. You will have to be a great deal more discreet than you have been with Huntercombe and Pickford, of course.’

‘Pickford?’ She had stamped on Pickford’s insulting offer with less thought than she would have accorded a cockroach.

Louisa sighed. ‘My dear Emma. Everyone knows that Pickford was your lover earlier in the year. He certainly makes no secret of it. Now, this merchant has agreed to the marriage, but he refuses to be bothered with the children. You couldn’t expect that.’

‘No?’ She heard the snap in her voice and took a steadying breath.

Louisa shrugged. ‘A widow in your circumstances cannot be choosy. Dersingham will arrange schools for them.’

Emma was startled to find herself on her feet, fists clenched. Fury burned in every fibre of her body. A clear, cold voice spoke at a slight distance, telling her mother that she might go to hell and take Dersingham, along with his offer, with her.