The Silver Squire

With a flourish, a scrap of paper materialised from a greasy pocket. ‘My dear young lady, the good news is that a gentlewoman in Bath is seekin’ a genteel and modest companion. She is a pampered lady and bored…’ Mrs Keene acted the part, shielding a yawn with a fat hand then simpering behind it. ‘Soon as I heard I put meself out to speak to me friend and sing your very praises. She in turn spoke to the maid who had words with her madame. The lady has sent you this little note with her address. Now, what do you say to that good luck and good friends like meself?’

Emma’s small white teeth caught at her full lower lip. What did she say to that, indeed? She had been at Mrs Keene’s lodging house for a few days and had certainly been curiously flicking through the Gazette for local positions.

But it had been a half-hearted investigation: she had little idea where to start, or if indeed she wanted to start at all. She had been gently reared and nothing in that refinement had prepared her for at some time toiling for a living. She balked at the idea of being an assistant to a mantua-maker or a haberdasher and she had seen little else advertised.

Stung by her boarder’s lack of effusive thanks and enthusiasm, Mrs Keene huffed, ‘Well, if it don’t interest, I’ll give this appointment to the new lady as arrived yesterday. She’s fair desperate for a position and workin’ for a foreign madame in quite the best part of Bath will probably seem like heaven dropped in her lap.’

‘It’s very good of you to remember me, Mrs Keene. I am very grateful.’ Emma gave the woman a conciliatory smile as she held out a slender hand for the note. Interview details were written in an elaborate script. ‘I shall attend and if it seems the position will not suit I can try elsewhere…’

‘O’ course…but I reckon it will suit, an’ I reckon you’ll always remember wot good friend managed to winkle it out for you.’ Mrs Keene nodded good-naturedly at the subdued young woman smiling vaguely back at her. Sharp eyes dissected her waif-like appearance: a slender body that looked too delicate to tempt a man but such rich caramel hair and liquid honey eyes set in a complexion that was pure peaches and cream. Not that it was none of her concern, o’ course, but it was puzzling for a body to decide if she was a raving beauty or plain as a pike-staff. Pike-staff, she plumped for; the pretty foreign madame wouldn’t like a rival.

‘Do you know what you’re doing, Emma?’ Matthew demanded shortly.

‘No,’ Emma admitted with a nervous smile as she straightened her bonnet and pulled on her gloves.

Matthew had called earlier that morning and on hearing she had an interview for employment looked startled and then disapproving. But he had offered to convey her in his little trap to South Parade on the opposite side of Bath to where Mrs Keene’s lodging house was situated.

On now alighting at the top of a quiet, elegant crescent, Emma squeezed Matthew’s fingers in thanks and affection. ‘I need a little income while I decide what I must do.’ She slid a glance at his tense profile and again lightly pressed his hand. ‘And seeking employment doesn’t mean that I am rejecting your proposal. Please understand that I need more time…’

With a slightly martyred air he offered, ‘Shall I wait?’

Emma shook her head. ‘I shall hail a ride. I’ve no idea how long I might be—perhaps only a few minutes, if Madame hates me on sight.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps an hour or two if Madame tests my good nature with a protracted wait while she prepares to interrogate me.’

She had been jesting when she’d told Matthew she might be kept waiting. Emma raised her wide golden gaze to the sonorously chiming clock as it marked the half-hour she had been seated in a cool hallway on a hard-backed chair. It was now after three-thirty in the afternoon and she was becoming increasingly disillusioned and restless. She peered about for the dour-faced butler who had allowed her into the house. Madame Dubois was expecting her, he had intoned as he’d shown her to a seat, and had then disappeared with a stiff-legged gait.

Emma abruptly stood up and flexed her shoulders. She took a few tentative steps and peeked along the hall. When all remained still and silent, she meandered, admiring the tasteful decor, to the huge gilt scrolled mirror and studied her appearance. She straightened her bonnet this way and that, then glanced down at her fingertips trailing a glossy satinwood star inlaid into a rich rosewood console table. Swishing around with an impatient sigh, she returned to her chair. She would tarry just another few minutes then depart. A person inconsiderate enough to leave her totally ignored for so long would not make a good employer in any case, she impressed upon herself. She was on the point of reseating herself when a door along the corridor opened.

The figure that emerged was male and tall and very blond and had her gawping idiotically at his handsome profile. She had very recently seen those chiselled bronze features just visible beneath a fall of lengthy sun-bleached hair: it was the foreign count she recalled had been travelling on to Bath from the Fallow Buck posting house.

She quickly sat and folded her hands neatly on her lap, her thoughts racing. Of course! She had never made the connection that the madame in question might be this French nobleman’s wife. The memory of the small blond boy he had lifted in his arms had her frowning at her hands. Would she be expected to nursemaid children? She had no experience of young people…but she could no doubt tutor, if need be…

Firm footsteps echoing against polished mahogany had her attention with the man approaching although her eyes stayed with her entwined fingers. His pace slowed and she knew he’d noticed her.

She glanced up demurely, politely, from beneath the shielding brim of her bonnet. Her face swayed back at once and she felt as though ice had frozen her solid to the chair. Her ivory lids drooped slowly in horrified, disbelieving recognition. French count! Her fingers spasmed as she sensed a hysterical laugh bubbling. No wonder he had seemed familiar! No wonder she had thought she knew him! She did!

But he had changed. It wasn’t surprising she had not immediately been able to place him. His hair was no longer fair and stylishly short but long and white-blond, his complexion no longer city-pale but a deep golden-bronze.

An ostler at a rustic tavern had described him as Quality with a queer name…well, it had been perfectly correct. It was her whimsical romantic imagination that had concluded he must be a French nobleman instead of an English one.

On a misty September morning four days ago she had sensed meeting him somewhere before and fancied it to be in fiction rather than fact. Oh, how she wished that were so! For she had indeed seen him before. And on each occasion she had made it her business to insult him. Now she found herself sitting meekly in his house, hoping to be taken on. The sheer farce of it had the back of a hand pressing to her mouth to stifle a horrified choke.

She was aware of impeccably styled black hessian boots drawing into her line of vision. Please don’t let him recognise me, she silently prayed, casually swivelling sideways on her seat, away from him.

He changed direction, veering off to the console table she had recently admired. From beneath the brim of her bonnet she watched long buff-coloured legs turn, the toes of his boots point towards her again and knew he was studying her.

It’s been three years! she exhorted herself while an unsteady hand shielded her face by tidying stray tendrils of light tan hair into her dark tan bonnet. He’ll never recognise you. Or if he does…he’ll pretend he doesn’t. They weren’t married! This jolted into her consciousness at the same time. The woman’s name was French-sounding, too, but not the same as his! God in heaven, she was auditioning as a companion to one of his…his women! Perhaps also as tutor to one of his bastards!

She sensed a writhing, seething indignation mounting. Three years ago when they had come together in London as social equals he had managed to instil in her just the same angry emotion. The fact that he had always been perfectly civil whilst with her, never meriting her hostility and sarcasm, had always flustered and shamed her. She could neither justify her aggression to him, when he’d casually enquired why she liked to insult him, nor to herself, nor to her best friend, Victoria.

She explained it away easily to herself now: it had been simple disgust at his hypocrisy and his condescension. Suavely charming he might have been to such homely spinsters as she, who he no doubt believed secretly swooned at the memory of his smile, but she knew him for a lecherous degenerate and had not been too coy to hint as much. She would have told him outright, in no uncertain terms, had the opportunity ever arisen.

Much to her mother’s delight, he had seemed to show a friendly interest in her, but Emma knew it was all designing and insincere. For at that time his friend, Viscount Courtenay, had been laying siege to her own dear friend, Victoria Hart, and David had wanted Emma occupied so he could trap Victoria alone.

Despite the two men having infamously shocking reputations, they had been polite society’s most popular bachelors, keeping the ton in a constant state of fascinated curiosity as to their philandering and drunken brawling. No scandal had seemed base enough to deter top society hostesses from fawning over them and sniping at each other to secure their coveted presence at balls and soirées. Once they were lured across the threshold, no freshly circulating gossip regarding that week’s carousing had deterred ambitious mamas or their debutante daughters from beelining towards them with seriously immodest intent.

Emma felt her face stinging with heat on recalling how, at her twenty-fourth-birthday ball, her own mother had gladly foisted her upon this man as though she had been so much unsaleable baggage. Yet even now, despite that mortifying memory…or perhaps because of it…she could feel again the aggravating need to throw back her head and antagonise him. Perhaps acidly comment that it was obvious his morals hadn’t improved along with his looks since last they’d met. What? What concern or consequence were his looks?

Her lids pressed closed again as the still silence throbbed with more intensity than the cased clock in the corner. Why won’t he go? Why won’t he say something? I know he’s staring, she fretted.

‘Are you waiting for Madame Dubois?’

His low, level tone was exactly the same; still it resulted in a jump and fluttering stomach. Her bonnet nodded at him. ‘Yes, sir,’ was stiltedly muttered in a voice even she didn’t recognise. He remained quiet on learning that. Relief sang through her. Had he remembered her he would surely have mentioned the fact or swiftly removed himself.

Dainty footsteps tripped along the corridor and Emma managed to face the woman approaching without once revealing her face to the man standing opposite.

‘So sorry to ‘ave kept you waiting, mademoiselle…Are you still ‘ere, chéri?’ The woman interrupted her address to Emma on noticing the man, her voice taking on a completely different, husky inflection. The hem of a rose-pink gown was immediately sweeping away again as, ignoring Emma’s presence, Yvette Du-bois diverted her attention to him.

Involuntarily, Emma’s head raised a little to watch them. She stared at the blonde woman’s pretty profile, a delicate, pleased flush on a softly rounded cheek as she talked in a quiet, pouty way to her lover. An arch smile, then Yvette was onto tiptoe to whisper in his ear while a small finger trailed his dark sleeve.

Richard Du Quesne frowned at his mistress as though this untimely display of intimacy irritated him, then an icy grey glance shifted sideways. Emma was too late to avert her face and their eyes met and held.

He didn’t know her! There was nothing at all in his expression that showed the least interest or recognition. The release was enervating, as was the desperation to be away from this house, these people. She glanced at her nervous hands on her lap, wondering how on earth she could extricate herself.

Yvette realised straight away that she had failed to lure Richard’s eyes from the mouse-like creature seated on the hall chair. She was incessantly alert to a possible rival deposing her. Within a second a very female assessment had raked her prospective employee from head to toe. With intense satisfaction she concluded that the woman was as drab as she could possibly have wished, and no threat whatsoever.

A tilted blonde head draped ringlets over a pretty pink shoulder and a tight, malicious smile formed a rosebud of pink lips. Richard was unused to being in the company of such dowdy women and probably feeling some curiosity and sympathy for the thin little thing. La pauvre looked as though a nourishing meal would go down well, Yvette spitefully noted as her blue eyes narrowed on those fragile white wrists resting neatly on the girl’s duncoloured lap. It made her happily examine her own plump, bejewelled hands as she said sweetly, ‘I must apologise for the delay, ma’mselle, and for ‘aving forgotten your name. A moment ago I ‘ad it and yet now…it is gone.’ She gave a careless, continental shrug. ‘Miss Woodman, is it, per’aps?’ she guessed a trifle impatiently when Emma didn’t immediately offer up her identity.

‘Yes,’ Emma confirmed after a further silent second. ‘Miss Eleanor Woodman,’ she quietly, firmly lied, and raised her face to them both.

The doorbell clattered shrilly, making Emma start and the butler appear from nowhere. He opened the door and received the post.

An enticing glimpse of sun and sky and a rattling coach drew Emma to her feet and towards freedom. ‘I’m sorry, I have another appointment and am already a little overdue. If you will excuse me…’ The words tumbled out breathlessly, for she was obliquely aware of the butler starting to push shut the large white door, cutting off her escape route. She also glimpsed Madame Dubois’s pout slackening as she realised she had been summarily rejected. But it was Richard Du Quesne’s pitiless grey gaze following her that hastened her nimble dodge through the shrinking aperture.

Once in the air, she sped down the elegant steps and, skirts in trembling fists, was running without thought for direction. What halted her several streets away was the need to gasp in more breath to put further distance between herself and those narrowed silver eyes. She backed against a wall and wrapped herself concealingly into her cloak as though still afraid she might be exposed as an impostor. A trembling hand went to the coldness on her face and came away wet. She angrily scrubbed away the bitter tears and slowly, sedately walked towards an area of railed park she could see in the distance.

She had no idea where she was but had a depressing, sinking feeling that Mrs Keene’s boarding house in Lower Place was some considerable way away and probably in the opposite direction. As she took a second slow turn around the small recreation area, she slipped unobtrusive glances at fashionable people promenading; nurses tending their young charges, while taking the late afternoon air. Most were now making for the exit, mentioning teatime or the need to be home now the air was cooling.

Emma scoured the skyline for a familiar spire or rooftop that would point her home. She sighed on finding nothing but lowering storm clouds in the west. She should really ask someone for directions but was loath to bring herself to anyone’s attention.

She approached a small wooden bench as a young couple vacated it and strolled away arm in arm. Seating herself, she drew her cloak tight about her. The sun was setting behind that purply-grey nimbus, spearing golden rays into the chilling atmosphere. She’d obviously been lost for some while. She should have accepted Matthew’s offer to wait and deliver her home, she inwardly chided herself. She would, by now, have been back at Mrs Keene’s with the prospect of eating soon.

Thinking of food made her stomach grumble. The exertion of sprinting so fast and so far had sapped her energy and left her quite light-headed. She would be late and miss her dinner…and she had already paid her shilling for it. Well, it would be salt bacon again, she wryly consoled herself.

She searched in her pocket and drew out her small pouch. Tipping the coins into her palm, she carefully counted, wondering whether she could afford to purchase something to eat on the trek home. The idea of something tasty and different made her stomach roll hollowly again, yet even that consuming thought couldn’t completely drag part of her mind out of that opulent, cool hallway and away from a man with piercing metallic eyes.

The shock and humiliation at meeting him again under such degrading circumstances were receding, allowing another worry to compete for notice. If Richard Du Quesne had recognised her but had been unwilling to embarrass himself in front of his mistress by saying so, he might not display such reticence in London on his return there.

He owned a smart residence in Mayfair; she knew that. Should he soon go to London and mention he’d seen her in Bath and Jarrett Dashwood came to hear of it…She recalled dark olive eyes sliding over her body with sly, nauseating inspection. That blackguard would make a vicious and vengeful enemy; of that she was absolutely sure. She swallowed a bitter lump in her throat, pocketed her coins and fairly bolted up from the seat as though the vile man might even now be on his way to fetch her. She would forgo food this evening and use her money for the safety of a carriage ride home, she decided.