spoke as they made their way along the brick path to one of the many sets of French doors leading into the large formal saloon. The captain held open the door for her, and Emmaline stepped inside to see that not only was the silver tea service already set up on the table between the two couches near the center of the room, but that both Grayson and the housekeeper, Mrs. Piggle, were standing just outside the room, pretending not to be watching for her.
She shot them a look they both seemed to understand, and the double doors were closed. Not that Emmaline didn’t feel certain that both servants had stepped no more than an inch away from the doors. Knowing Mrs. Piggle, the woman was probably already down on her knees, one eye to the keyhole.
“This is about my brother, isn’t it?” Emmaline asked as she sat down and waited for the captain to take up his seat on the facing couch. “What have he and his sons done? Did they somehow ram and sink one of His Majesty’s boats? Has the navy put them under arrest?”
“No, ma’am,” the captain said, reaching for the teapot. “May I?”
“Oh! I should have offered. I’m so sorry...yes, please do. Would you rather some wine?”
He looked across the table at her, those blue eyes unreadable. “I’m pouring the tea for you, ma’am. You might consider it a restorative, unless you’d rather a glass of wine. I’m afraid I’m the reluctant bearer of very sad news.”
“Yes, I believe I’ve rather sensed that, Captain Alastair. Please forgive me for attempting to delay delivery of this very sad news. I’m trying to keep my wits about me. Unfortunately, I believe I’m sadly failing at the effort. I’m imagining all sorts of things, none of them very palatable.”
“Then please allow me to say this as quickly as I can, and I apologize now for being so abbreviated. Lady Emmaline, it is my sad duty to inform you that your brother and his sons were lost at sea last evening off Shoreham-by-Sea. My own ship arrived on the scene just as the yacht was disappearing beneath the waves with all save one soul still on board. I’m... I’m profoundly sorry we could not save them.”
Emmaline sat very still. She may have breathed, but she couldn’t be sure. Her mind objected in the most ridiculous way: But it’s my birthday. Isn’t it just like them to do this to me on my birthday? She twisted her hands in her lap, and then pinched herself, just to be sure she was awake, and not in the middle of a nightmare that incongruously somehow included a man best described as the perfect lover of her more pleasant dreams.
“Lady Emmaline? May I please summon someone now?”
She shook her head, unable to speak. She waited for the tears, but they didn’t come. In all, she felt rather numb. What had been the last words Charlton had said to her five days ago before climbing into his traveling coach behind George and Harold? Oh yes, she remembered. Make me a happy man, sister mine. Run off with one of the grooms before we get back!
Her nephews had laughed hard and long at their father’s joke. She could still hear them laughing as the coach moved off down the drive.
Emmaline snapped herself back to the moment at hand.
“Was...um, was there a storm?” She didn’t know why she asked this. But she felt it was something at least halfway sensible to say, something to break the oppressive silence.
“No, ma’am. Not anything I’d call a storm, at least. As I understand the thing from speaking with the survivor, a Mr. Hugh Hobart, the captain was intoxicated and belowdecks at the time, and one of your nephews was at the helm. Waves are powerful things, ma’am, even on a day that could only be called choppy from the wind along the Channel. Ride with the waves and you fly across the water. Hit one of them wrong, and even a sturdy ship can crack like an egg.”
He looked at her, wincing. “I’m sorry. That was stupidly clumsy of me. I shouldn’t say that the tragedy could be laid at your nephew’s door.”
“The yacht was a recent...acquisition. I can’t imagine what either George or Harold could have been thinking, to attempt to take the wheel like that. But that’s what this Mr. Hobart told you?”
The captain nodded. “The man was rather overset and unintelligible. But, yes, he said his friend Harold was at the helm. That is—was—one of your nephews, correct?”
Emmaline nodded, still waiting to cry. She should be crying, shouldn’t she? Clearly Captain Alastair believed she should be weeping, in need of comfort. She was an unnatural sister, that’s what she was, and an unnatural aunt.
Because all she could feel, of the little she seemed capable of feeling, was relief...
JOHN ALASTAIR WAS certain he’d felt more uncomfortable in his lifetime, but at the moment he could not recall anything that measured remotely close to the impotence he felt as he sat across from the bravely stoic Lady Emmaline Daughtry.
He wasn’t certain what he’d been expecting from the woman once he’d delivered his terrible news. Tears, protestations that he was wrong, slightly buckling knees or even an outright swoon necessitating burnt feathers being passed beneath her nose to revive her.
He was in considerable awe of the woman, even as he was grateful that he wouldn’t have to deal with a hysterical female, as he did not believe playing the role of sympathetic comforter was one of his stronger suits.
Although the thought of having Lady Emmaline in his arms as he comforted her probably appealed to him more than it should.
The late duke’s valet, whom John had run to ground at a tavern in Shoreham-by-Sea, had rather grudgingly informed him that Lady Emmaline was the late duke’s closest relative, and then gone back to drinking himself under the table, bemoaning the loss of his master. John had asked that the man accompany him to Ashurst Hall, but the valet had demurred, pointing out that there was nothing for him there anymore so he’d stay where he was for the nonce before returning to Ashurst Hall, thank you very much, and then maybe take himself to London to find a new position. When the valet began loudly complaining that he’d have to find that new employment without aid of a written recommendation, considering that the duke was currently fish food, John left the useless man where he was, and good riddance.
He left feeling certain that whatever belongings of the duke and his sons had remained in their rooms at the tavern would soon be sold in order to line the servant’s pockets, but it wasn’t as if he could command the fellow to show him the way to Ashurst Hall. Instead, he’d commandeered the duke’s crested traveling coach and set out to be the Bearer of Sad News.
News Lady Emmaline Daughtry seemed to be taking exceedingly well. What sort of men were the late duke and his sons? The valet had cried...the sister had not?
John studied her as she spooned sugar into her tea and then added cream, her hands steady, her movements graceful. She was a mature woman, little of the girl about her. Her blond hair was styled very simply, swept up and back, away from her face, which showed her smooth chin line and remarkable cheekbones to his admiring eyes. Her brown eyes were rather long, their shape definitely bordering on the exotic, although she did not use them to their best advantage.
Not that he’d expected her to flirt with him. For the love of heaven, what was he thinking? This was probably what happened when a man hadn’t stepped foot onshore, let alone been in the company of a beautiful woman, in more
