Page 25 of If I Loved You
The earl sat next to her and they were off.
“Why did we not simply use the carriage and horses we arrived in less than half an hour ago?” Emma wondered.
“The point of driving is Hyde Park is to be seen, and be seen well,” the earl enlightened her.
Ah. “Hence the fancy vehicle and expensive horses?”
“Precisely.”
“Do you visit Hyde Park often? Like this?”
“Not at all,” he admitted, glancing sideways at her. “I thought you might enjoy all the pandering and posing of thebeau mondeduring the fashionable hour.”
Emma was struck immediately with two thoughts about this. First, it was very kind of him—which was not specificallyin keeping with what she believed of him—to consider that she might enjoy this outing. And then, as hinted by his rather sardonic tone and word choice, she imagined he thought it all very silly, which made her even more grateful that he’d indulged her so.
She was not prepared however, for exactly what he’d meant bypandering and posing, and then neither was she prepared for the number of people doing just that. As they entered a queue of carriages crawling along one road just inside the park, Emma was again made aware of her own gaucheness, feeling terribly underdressed for this occasion.
A greater number of carriages than she had ever seen assembled all at once, were gathered just here, inside the park: two-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles; led by a pair or a foursome; some with drivers, some without; and a few sporting the family crests identifying the riders. And within these fine carriages, a dazzling display of color and fabric and design were shown to the best advantage by persons who sat regally, their noses tilted skyward, their marked condescension clearly in contrast to their very attendance.
Additionally, people crowded and ambled along the sidewalks, and single mounted riders easily maneuvered in between and around the wheeled conveyances to reach different people.
“Posing, indeed,” Emma muttered, watching one young woman rapping her closed parasol against the side of her own carriage. A man, riding close and gripping the door of her open carriage, yanked his hand away as if he’d actually been wounded, and the young lady erupted into a stomach-turning fit of giggling.
The earl laughed and pointed across Emma, to bring her gaze to a woman walking a dog that stood as tall as her hip. Both lady and pet wore matching spencers of pink plaid.
“Oh, my,” Emma gasped.
“Lindsey!” Came a call from their left, which turned both Emma’s and Zach’s gaze in that direction. “Do my eyes deceive me?”
“Lady Marston,” said the earl, amiably to an older woman, riding solo inside an ancient carriage that moved in the opposite direction, but stopped just now beside them.
“Never thought I’d see the day the much-admired Earl of Lindsey toured the park with the rest of us commoners.”
“Pity the man who believes there is anything common about you, Lady Marston,” returned the earl.
Emma considered his tone quite favorable, understanding that he must admire or enjoy the Lady Marston very much, as she sensed in his voice a genuine affection.
“Allow me to introduce Miss Ainsley,” the earl said. “She has graciously consented to spend a few days in London with me.”
Emma smiled at the matron and offered a, “How do you do?”
The woman, dressed severely in dark gray, and in many layers it appeared, that surely underneath she must be wilted in the fine June sun, passed a critical green-eyed glance over Emma. For her part, Emma had the immediate impression that the woman only appeared malevolent, narrowing her eyes, and pursing her lips as she took her sweet time forming opinions of the earl’s present company. However, when her perusal persisted, becoming almost rude, Emma dared to lift a brow at the woman.
And only then did her lips loosen and crease in a smile. “I do very well, my girl. The question is, how did you do it? Getthisman intothispark atthistime of day?”
Emma shrugged. “He invited me.”
“Oh, did he now?” Asked the woman with a lifted brow aimed at the earl. She held a cane in both hands, just in front of her knees. She thumped this into the floor of her carriage, and her smile grew. “I suppose that does well to answer any other questions I might have had.”
Unperturbed by the lady’s presumptions, the earl informed her, “My cousin had just come up from Hertfordshire and, as she’s never been to London, I thought it a fine way to introduce her to the pageantry of our city.”
“Pageantry? You mean vile spectacle,” harrumphed Lady Marston.
“Oh, but I think it’s splendid,” Emma joined. “I don’t know any of the persons here today but find myself enamored of their...zeal for so simple an occasion as riding in a park.”
The lady’s lips blew out a bemused snort. “Ah, a diplomat. You’re to be commended, Lindsey. Only you could manage to attract so similar a character that her words sound so pretty until you assess all of them to know the slander tangled within. Well done. Now off with you! I dislike those carriages who park too long, making useless small talk when no one listens to what we say anyway.” She spanked the cane onto the back of her driver’s seat and off they went, the woman not even calling out a respectable farewell.
They moved on, the carriage crawling forward. The earl tipped his tall hat to several persons, both men and women. Emma caught the interest of more than one pretty young lady steadiedbreathlessly upon his person. Of course, this came as no surprise to her. Zachary Benedict was an enormously handsome man, clearly meriting second glances. And third, it seemed. Emma rolled her lips inward, preventing a knowing grin, while she wondered what some of these fawning ladies might have thought or done if they had come upon Zachary Benedict, shirtless and god-like, as she so marvelously had. Marvelous, it had been until it had becomeHer Inglorious and Reckless Blunder,that is. Invariably, the besotted gazes left the earl and fixed on Emma, their brows immediately dropping, leaving no doubt that they considered Emma’s person unworthy of the company she kept.
