Page 13 of The Earl's Hired Bride
“Barely,” she admitted.
“Well, we can have a dancing instructor in. I’ve no doubt you will pick it up quickly.” He cast a dark look at her ensemble. “I assume you are sound, under all of that.”
She laughed. “Sound enough to dance at a few balls. And you may laugh if you like, but this outfit is as good as armor.”
“Armor?”
“Yes. I am making deliveries later today. Ironic, that I’m delivering articles meant to enhance and bring attention to a girl’s looks—but the safest bet is to downplay my own. It’s best to be invisible, out here on my own. But I’m tall, and that makes it difficult. So I go for dowdy, harried, and hurried.”
“I see.” He did not like to think of her wandering the streets unprotected. Fortunate again, then, that her waggling eyebrows distracted him again.
“Sir?” she asked. “Can we please address theterms?”
“Oh. Yes. I had offered my cousin a respectable dowry in return for her help. I will offer you the same amount, of course.”
“A dowry.” He rather thought she was holding her breath. “How much?”
“Two thousand pounds.”
It was her turn to gape. “Two . . .thousand. . . pounds?” she repeated weakly.
He nodded.
She went boneless and leaned back against the seat.
He laughed. “Satisfactory, then? Good. In return, you will stay with my mother through the Season. We’d already decided that we would keep it a quiet stay. No court presentation or large, fancy betrothal ball. We’ve put it out that Emmaline was not used to going about in Society much, but you will be expected to go along with many of the other usual activities—teas, calls, the occasional ball or night at the theatre, walks in the park, etc.”
She stared at him for a moment, then sat straight again. “And us, my lord?”
“Us?”
“What will we do together? As a newly betrothed couple?”
“Oh. Well, I suppose I shall take you for a ride in the park, send you a posy or two. Dance with you when it cannot be helped. That sort of thing. Fortunately it’s not fashionable for engaged couples to live in each other’s pockets.”
“Fortunately,” she repeated wryly.
“I daresay you won’t see much of me at all.”
“If that is what you wish, then it will be as you say,” she promised with the air of someone making a vow.
He thought about it. “I suppose I just want you to keep your head down,” he mused. “I wish you to be seen but to move quietly through the next few weeks, and I shall do the same, if there is any justice in the world.”
She thrust her hand out. “Shall we shake on it, then, my lord?”
He took her small, white hand in his—and was dismayed to feel the calluses on her gloveless fingers.
Oblivious, she continued. “Now, when and how shall I arrive at your home?”
He shook himself back into the present. “I’d like to maintain the illusion that you’ve come from America, even with the servants. If you could, get yourself to this shipping company’s address at ten o’clock tomorrow morning . . .”
***
Emily liftedher chin and allowed Madame Lalbert to fuss with the buttons of her new pelisse. The hackney swayed horribly as they navigated the narrow streets of Wapping, but the modiste and her needle persisted. “There,” she said at last. “You are ready, and a fine job of it I did too, in just a few hours.”
“Thank you, Madame,” Emily said fervently.
“It will be well worth it when you come in to order your new wardrobe.”
