with keys hanging at her waist, Emily dipped a curtsey.
“I’ve a parcel for his lordship,” she announced, mimicking the broad accent of the Hampshire peasantry among whom she’d grown up. “Mistress says as how I was to deliver it personal.”
“Lawks, missy, you’ve a far piece to walk, then,” the woman replied with a laugh. “He ain’t in Lunnon now.”
Damping down a rush of relief, Emily made herself utter instead a dismayed squeak. “But Mistress’ll box my ears iff’n I don’t get this to ’im. He be back today, ma’am?”
“Not likely. Seein’s how he sent half the staff on holiday, tellin’ ’em he’d fetch ’em back later, we don’t expect ’im anytime soon.”
Emily couldn’t believe her luck. “He be gone that long?” she asked faintly.
“Aye. Last week, you mighta caught ’im, but he left out suddenlike, and Mr. Daryrumple—that’s the butler, lass—told us he’d not be returnin’ afore Easter, ’n likely not afore summer.”
Emily hid her excitement behind a woebegone look. “Mistress’ll be that unhappy.”
“Nay, don’t fret yourself. She canna expect you to make here what’s gone by wishin’ it. A reg’lar dragon, is she?” The woman clucked. “Have a mug o’tea and rest your bones, then, afore you go back to face ’er.”
“Thank ’ee kindly, ma’am, but I daren’t. Mistress’ll rap my knuckles iff’n I’m not back by seven.”
Amid sympathetic murmurs from the staff and a general grumble about the unreasonableness of employers, Emily bobbed another curtsey and made her way out.
Once outside the back gate, she tore off her servant’s mobcap, threw it in the air and hugged herself fiercely.
He was not in London. She could begin.
Chapter One
“Fetch a bonnet for your mother? My, what a dutiful son!”
Evan Mansfield, Earl of Cheverley, widened the swinging arc of his walking stick just enough to whack the speaker behind his ankle. Over the ensuing yelp, he replied, “Since your own mother had the good sense to expire when you were an infant, you have no idea how to care for a lady.”
Grinning as his friend Brent Blakesly shot him a baleful glance, he continued, “Actually, Mama intended to collect the bonnet herself, but I wouldn’t hear of it. She’s not yet fully recovered from that putrid cold. There’s no need for you to come, though. Why not hie on to White’s, and order us wine? Charge it to my account.” Evan directed a look at Brent’s ankle. “’Twill ease the pain.”
Brent’s frown smoothed. “Feel better already. Mind you hurry. I should hate to drink all your wine before you arrive.” Tipping his hat, Blakesly set off.
“I’ll not be long,” Evan called after him. “Madame Emilie’s shop is just off Bond Street.”
Brent halted in midstep. “Madame Emilie?”
When Evan nodded, his friend strode back. “On second thought, I’ll accompany you. Let’s be off, shall we?”
Evan raised his eyebrows. “What possible reason could you have for visiting a bonnet shop?”
“Let’s just say I might find it…interesting.”
As they strolled, Evan pressed him again, but Brent would vouchsafe nothing further, only shaking his head and saying Evan must see for himself.
After a few minutes, they reached the neat shop front. Entering to the tinkle of a warning bell, Evan murmured to Brent, “Shall I now discover what great myster—”
A tall woman in the shop’s shadowed interior turned toward them. As Evan’s eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, the rest of his sentence dissolved on his lips.
Shapes and colours blurred; the mutter of voices faded to a distant hum. He saw only Her: a slender figure in lilac, her pale oval face framed by dusky curls above full, petal-pink lips. When she raised inquiring violet eyes to meet his mesmerized gaze, a frisson of pure energy flashed between them, rocking him to his toes and riveting him, speechless, to the spot.
A faint scent of lavender teased his nose. His heartbeat stopped, then stampeded.
“Damme, Ev, she’s as enchanting as Willoughby claimed!”
At his friend’s awed undertone, Evan shook his gaze free. Aftershocks darted to every nerve. “She’s perfection,” he agreed, his voice unsteady.
“Fortunate sod, to have a perfectly unexceptional reason to speak with her,” Brent murmured. “Well, get on with it!” He gave the earl a shove.
In truth, Evan could not have stayed away. As if compelled, he walked toward her, only dimly aware of shouldering aside a heavyset matron who appeared to be conversing with the Vision. “Lord Cheverley, Madame Emilie.” Seizing her hand, he brought it to his lips.
He felt it again, that…current, passing between them. By the faint pinking of her porcelain cheeks, Evan knew Madame must have felt it as well.
Amazingly, she gave no other sign, her pansy eyes expressionless now as she fixed a cool gaze upon him. After a moment, she frowned and tugged at her gloved hand, which he continued to retain in rather too tight a grip.
With a mumbled apology, he released it.
“Lord Cheverley?” she repeated in cultured tones. Then her forehead smoothed. “Ah, yes. I received the note from your lady mother, and her bonnet is ready. A moment only, my lord.”
With a nod to him, she turned to the stout woman beside her, who was regarding Evan with a frosty air of outrage. “Lady Stanhope, I’m honored the bonnet pleases you, and grateful for your patronage. Now, if you will excuse me?” She made a deep curtsey. With a disdainful sniff in Evan’s direction, the client stalked off.
“This way, my lord.”
He followed Madame closely toward a small office, his eyes glued on her graceful sway of hip. When she halted inside the door, he nearly ran into her.
She turned to him with a quizzical look, her long, alabaster fingers holding out something. “Is the bonnet acceptable, my lord? Shall I box it?”
The fullness of her moving lips, the tantalizing glimpse of tongue fascinated him. Her subtle lavender scent, stronger now, clouded his brain. A nearly overpowering urge filled him to touch that ivory cheek, to feel those lips yielding under his own. He would pursue her elusive tongue into its warm wet haven, trace his fingers toward that swell of bosom…. His body hardened and moisture broke out on his brow.
“Yes, well. Mama…I’m sure,” he murmured from within a suddenly too tight neckcloth, trying to yank his thoughts back to conversational channels. “’Tis fine—exquisite. The, ah, bonnet.”
Madame arched a dark eyebrow and studied him. Evan gazed back, thinking he could stare forever into the depths of those wood-violet eyes. No, more like sweet violets, or the pure blue-tinted petals
