To Love a Tormented Earl - Bridget Barton Page 0,12
you?' Lady Charlotte said, and Emilia could hear a note of doubt in her voice.
Miss d’Este was none the wiser. 'Oh, yes!' The younger lady exclaimed. 'You were just telling me what you’ve planned for your ball. You simply must invite Miss Whitmore and her companion Miss—?'
'Bromley,' Emilia supplied absently, uncertain she had understood the young lady’s words.
'Quite. Miss Bromley!' Miss d’Este said. 'You must invite them both to attend, Charlotte. I insist. Oh do, please. Invite them to your ball!'
Well, now I really do need that ballgown, Emilia thought with a sense of bewilderment.
Emilia never mingled with the nobility, as a lady of the gentry, but it seemed Miss d’Este had no qualms about pushing the boundaries of social expectation.
Lady Charlotte looked nonplussed as well. 'Certainly,' she murmured.
'Are you walking, Miss Whitmore?' Miss d’Este asked Emilia brightly, seemingly unaware of either lady’s discomfiture.
'That I am, my lady,' Emilia said, mustering her outward calm. 'My companion, Miss Bromley and I, intend to enjoy the footpath in the north-west enclosure.'
'Oh how delightful!' Miss d’Este exclaimed, and to Emilia’s shock she looped the reins around the dash rail and began to climb down. 'Come along, Charlotte,' she cried as she did.
Do they mean to walk with us? Emilia wondered with growing panic.
It seemed the answer was yes.
Miss d’Este alighted with a cry of satisfaction, 'Ah!' and faced Emilia and Alice as Charlotte followed with visible reluctance. 'I’ve always, always wanted to see the inside of the north-west enclosure,' the young lady exclaimed. She was wearing a carriage dress wholly unsuited to a promenade, Emilia realized. 'Neither Mama nor Miss Rumsley ever entertained the notion of descending for a walk in the Park, and they won’t allow any carriages into the enclosure.'
'Miss Rumsley?' Emilia murmured, feeling quite out of sorts. She could only imagine the way the Duke of Sussex, Miss d’Este’s father, would react if he saw his daughter now.
'Miss Rumsley is my governess—my chaperone now, since my debut,' Miss d’Este explained without hesitation. She hooked her arm in Emilia’s and they began to walk. 'And I’ve said over and over, ‘Dear Mama, dear Miss Rumsley, surely taking the air is most effective if one has a bit of exercise as one does so.’ But they wouldn’t hear a word.'
Emilia nodded, uncertain as to how to respond, or what twist of fate had brought her to this moment in time, walking arm in arm with the natural granddaughter of the king, through Hyde Park. Charlotte and Alice had fallen in step behind them.
'So I must say, I am very pleased with myself today,' Miss d’Este continued, apparently quite happy to carry the conversation without very much assistance from anyone else. “Miss Rumsley, why not wait here in Lady Charlotte’s carriage?” I said. She looked fatigued, you see. She dislikes such warm weather. “Why not allow Lady Charlotte to accompany me?” I said. And here we are. No one to gainsay us.'
***
'Am I cursed?' Max demanded of Roberts, thoroughly out of temper.
Jollyboy took this as being addressed to him and responded by bounding over, scattering gravel, and trying to jump on Max. The latter dodged him with a scowl.
'Down, Jollyboy!' Roberts intervened, taking the lead from Max and wagging a finger at the dog, who responded by making a leap in an effort to lick his face.
Even Jollyboy’s antics weren’t enough to cheer Max, however.
Between discovering that Miss Whitmore might well have a paramour, and then seeing his cousin, Lady Charlotte Emery, join her for a walk, he was quite beside himself. Under no circumstances could Max approach Miss Whitmore now—Charlotte would inevitably recognize him just as Miss Whitmore had, and there would be no hope of containing the news of his return from the dead then.
And yet he found himself unwilling to turn back and give up on his pursuit of Miss Whitmore. ‘Twas his confounded stubbornness at work, no doubt.
Something has to be done to separate Miss Whitmore from my cousin, Max mused. I must come up with some sort of plan.
Jollyboy yanked Roberts after him as he spotted a squirrel in a tree.
That gave Max an idea.
The ladies were nearing the north-west enclosure, where they would have to slow to pass through a gate, if they wanted to take the footpath beyond.
Max was pleased to see that another group was at the gate, as well as a carriage, which should cause a delay.