LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THREE

      EMMALINE SURREPTITIOUSLY TURNED her head toward her left shoulder and sniffed. Maryanne, her maid, had sworn to her that the black gown did not smell of camphor after being packed away in the attics these past half dozen years or more, since her father’s death, but Emmaline was still not convinced.

      What she was convinced of, however, was that the gown, never a favorite, was woefully out of fashion. According to her sister-in-law, Helen, it had been out of fashion the moment it had been stitched up by the seamstress in the village, as anyone with any sense knew there was no hope of cleverness to be found in Mrs. Watley’s hamlike fingers. To Emmaline, that had meant that Mrs. Watley had flatly refused to lower Helen’s bodice another two inches for fear that the deceased would take one look at those exposed bosoms and sit up straight in his coffin.

      The last time Emmaline had worn this gown (the one with the depressingly ordinary neckline) had been during her year of mourning for her father. That grief, although not overwhelming by any means, had been genuine, as it was difficult to fault the twelfth duke for being the man he had been: rough, gruff and fairly oblivious. Summoning up authentic grief for her brother and his sons was still proving problematic, however, and she’d once again felt a fraud as she’d come down to dinner in this gown.

      Emmaline paced the main saloon, unable to settle herself, wondering where she’d summoned the courage—no, the audacity!—to enlist a complete stranger’s assistance in dealing with the repercussions of her brother’s death. But there was something about Captain John Alastair that instilled confidence in him and his ability to, if not make things right for her, at least shepherd her through the next difficult days.

      She closed her eyes and thought about him, and the way he’d looked as he’d approached her out in the gardens. His tall, handsome form so splendid in his impressive uniform, his bicorne hat neatly tucked beneath his arm, the slight shadow of an evening beard on his lean cheeks. He’d looked weary, and more than a little nervous, most probably because he was certain he would momentarily be presented with a wildly hysterical, weeping woman.

      Emmaline walked along behind one of the couches, lightly running her fingertips over its curved back, and then stopped to look up at the portrait of her father that still hung in its place of honor above the fireplace. Yes, she’d wept when the twelfth duke had died. Why couldn’t she seem to weep for the thirteenth duke and his two sons?

      There had to be something unnatural about a woman who would see their deaths as a problem to be solved rather than the tragedy that it was. There had to be something perverse about a woman whose primary occupation since hearing of those three deaths had been to worry for her own future...when she wasn’t peering into every mirror she could find to assure herself she and this horrid gown wouldn’t frighten Captain Alastair when next he saw her.

      “Emmaline?”

      Emmaline turned in time to see Charlotte Seavers racing into the room, tossing her shawl in the general direction of Grayson, who was now wearing a black armband and a suitably stern expression.

      “I just heard the news,” Charlotte said, approaching Emmaline and taking her hands. “Is it true? Harold’s dead?”

      Charlotte, who lived on a small estate that bordered Ashurst Hall, was not only Emmaline’s dearest friend. She had also recently been betrothed to her younger nephew, a fate Emmaline had considered worse than death for that beloved friend. Indeed, for the past month, since Charlotte had become betrothed to Harold and she had learned the circumstances behind that engagement, Emmaline had lost any remaining love she’d harbored for her brother and nephews.

      “All three of them, yes. It’s over, Charlotte. You’re free.”

      “Oh, but I...that is, I shouldn’t...” Charlotte shook her head and sighed. “Surely I’m going to hell, Emmaline. I want to dance a jig!”

      “Oh, thank God,” Emmaline said, pulling Charlotte down on the couch beside her. “You’re the only one who understands how I feel, and I don’t have to pretend with you. We can travel to hell together.”

      “Perhaps not. Lord knows George and Harold and your brother are already there. Perhaps we’ll go somewhere else. Would you like to see Paris, Emmaline?”

      “I know you’re joking, but perhaps we could. It is imperative that Rafe be informed of his changed station as quickly as possible. Would you like to see Rafe, Charlotte?”

      The younger woman colored, her eyelids fluttering shut for a moment. “No. I... I wouldn’t know what to say to him. It has been six years. We’re no longer children, are we?”

      “He will be coming back here as the new duke,” Emmaline reminded her friend. “You won’t be able to avoid him. And if you were to tell him the truth, he’d certainly understand. Or I could explain everything to him for you.”

      Charlotte shook her head. “No, don’t do that, please. He can’t know. I couldn’t possibly look him in the eye once he knew, not knowing what I’d see. Please, Emmaline, let’s not speak of this anymore. Just take this,” she said, pulling off the heavy betrothal ring and putting it in her friend’s hand. “There, that’s better. It was as if I had a small millstone circling my finger. From now on, we shall pretend it was never there, and Rafe never needs to know. Are we agreed?”

      “Agreed, although I doubt such a secret will stand for long, not once Rafe has returned.” Emmaline examined the fine Ashurst ruby set inside a cluster of diamonds. “This ring has been in our family for untold generations. How often do you think such a pretty thing was employed to hide an ugly truth?”

      They sat silently for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts, before Charlotte asked what she might be able to do for Emmaline in the coming days.

      “I really can’t be sure. There are no...that is, there is nothing to be laid to rest in the family mausoleum. I suppose, for the sake of propriety, there must be a service of some kind at some point. The few relatives we have left need to be notified. Nicole and Lydia. Oh, dear. You know whom else that means, don’t you?”

      “Helen,” they said at the same time, and then Emmaline smiled.

      “I could say I sent a letter off to London and it became lost in the post?”

      Charlotte nodded, not quite suppressing a smile of her own. “The post has been notoriously erratic recently, hasn’t it? Why, by the time your letter arrived in Grosvenor Square, it could be whole days after the service, and with the Season already begun. No one could expect Helen to leave Mayfair in the midst of the Season.”

      “Least of all Helen,” Emmaline pointed out, her smile widening, until the two of them dissolved into guilty laughter, which is how Captain Alastair discovered them a few moments later as he entered the main saloon.

      “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”

      Emmaline wiped at her moist eyes and looked up at the captain, who appeared bathed and shaved and positively resplendent in his brushed and pressed uniform. “Oh, no, no. Miss Seavers and I were...we were just reminiscing about a family memory. Captain, may I introduce you to my dear friend and neighbor, Miss Charlotte Seavers. Charlotte, Captain John Alastair, who was kind enough to personally inform me of...of the tragedy.”

      She quickly explained

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