The Historical Collection 2018. Candace Camp
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excursion had gone all wrong. She was meant to be enthralled with the prospect of an idyllic country life without him, and he was supposed to remind himself of his original intentions. Marry her, impregnate her, tuck her away in the country, and reunite with his heir a dozen or so years down the line.
Instead, now she was tucked securely under his arm, and he didn’t want to let her go. To make it worse, he couldn’t stop sniffing her hair. It smelled like honeysuckle. He hated that he knew that.
He should have blamed Jonas, or the entirety of his staff. But in truth, this was his fault.
Like everything else in his life, it had backfired in spectacular fashion.
Emma woke with a start.
Where was she?
Oh, yes. Tucked under her husband’s arm. Bang in the middle of a disaster.
When she thought of her pitiful trembling last night, she cringed. Of all the times for one of those episodes to strike. In the past year, she’d suffered only a few bouts of the violent shivering, and the last one had been several months past. She’d thought perhaps they’d finally gone away.
Apparently not.
She turned her head stealthily and looked up at him. He was still asleep, thank goodness. His spare hand lay neatly on his chest. His legs were outstretched in an arrow-straight line, crossed at the ankles. The pose was very male, very military, and it made Emma acutely aware of her own ungainly sprawl of limbs. It wasn’t only his posture that made her self-conscious. Why was it that men woke up looking just as handsome as they had when falling asleep—if not more so? Ruffled hair, an attractive shadow of whiskers. It wasn’t fair.
Sliding out from under his arm, she made a few hasty efforts to repair her own appearance. She quickly unpinned her hair, combing it with her fingers, and pinched color back into her cheeks.
When he stirred, she flopped down on the opposite side of the settee, laying her cheek atop her hands and pretending to be asleep. When she was certain he’d awoken enough to notice, she allowed her eyelashes to open with a gentle flutter. She rose to a sitting position, stretching her arms overhead in a gentle salute to the rosy dawn. Then she shook out her hair, letting it tumble about her shoulders in waves.
She cast him a shy smile and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “Good morning.”
His gaze roamed her face and body.
Why yes, I do wake up this beautiful every morning. When you leave me at night, you should know this is what you’re missing.
He scratched behind his ear like a flea-bitten dog and yawned loudly before reaching for his boot. “I’m dying for a piss.”
Emma blew out her breath. Fine. Sleeping Beauty and her prince they were not.
In that case, she would stop pretending. “That was the worst night imaginable.”
He shoved one foot into its boot. “If that’s the worst you can imagine, your imagination is lacking.”
“It’s hyperbole,” she said. “You know what I mean. It was terrible.”
“Perhaps. But we survived it, didn’t we.”
He rose to his feet and offered her his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet.
“You’re right.” She tried to smooth the wrinkles from her skirt. “I’ve been through worse in the past, and I know you have, too. At least we had each other.”
His gaze changed, the way it did in rare moments. Their icy blue melted to pools of deep, unspoken emotion. Compelling and dangerous. She was drawn to them. She could drown in them.
“Emma, you—” He broke off and began again. “Just don’t get used to it. That’s all.”
“The thought never crossed my mind,” she lied.
“Good.”
Emma had no logical reason to feel hurt by his words, but she did.
The rumble of carriage wheels coming down the drive rescued them from the charged silence.
He tugged on his waistcoat. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some eviscerating to do.”
“Come in, come in. I’m so glad you’re here.” Emma handed Alexandra’s rain-spattered cloak to the maid. “I can’t believe you came in such a downpour.”
“I’m always punctual,” Alexandra said, taming the rain-frizzled wisps of her black hair.
“Yes, I suppose you would be.”
“I’ve brought the chronometer.” She opened her valise on a nearby bench, withdrawing a brass instrument that looked like a giant’s pocket watch. “I can assure you, the time is accurate to the second. I take it to Greenwich once a fortnight to be synchronized at the meridian, and once a year it’s calibrated by—”
“You don’t need to sell me on your services, Alex. I have every confidence.”
Alexandra smiled. “Thank you.”
Emma drew her into the sitting room. “First, tea. You need something to warm you after coming in from that rain. Then we’ll make a survey of the house and take an inventory of the timepieces.”
“You needn’t do that. The housekeeper can take me around.”
“Believe me, it will be a useful exercise. There are wings of this place even I’m not familiar with yet.”
“Yes, but in the other fine houses, I only set one or two clocks, and then the butler—”
Emma cut her off. “This is not one of the other fine houses. You alone will set each and every timepiece in the house. Weekly. And you will bill us at three times your usual rate.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Very well, then. We’ll multiply it by five.” The maid brought in a tray with cups and a teapot. Emma waited until she’d left, then lifted the pot to pour. “I know—all too well—what it’s like to be an unmarried young woman in London, working for a living at criminally low wages.”
Alexandra accepted the teacup and stared into it. “If you’d truly like to do me a favor . . .”
“Anything.”
“I need a new walking dress. Something a bit smarter, for when I go calling on potential customers. Perhaps you’d be so good as to advise me on the style, or help me select the fabric?”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll sew it for you myself.” She held off Alexandra’s objection. “I would love nothing more.”
“It’s too much.”
“Not at all. Other ladies have the pianoforte or watercolors. My one accomplishment is dressmaking. Strange as it sounds, I miss the challenge. It’s you who’d be doing me a favor.”
Many of the ladies who visited Madame’s had been elegant and fashionable to begin with—but Emma’s favorites were the ones who weren’t. The quiet girls, the spinsters, the simply overlooked. Dressmaking wasn’t superficial with them. A well-made, flattering gown had the ability to draw forth inner qualities: not only loveliness, but confidence.
Alexandra Mountbatten was a beauty in hiding.
“If you insist,” she said shyly.
“I insist. I’ll only need to take your measurements, and then I’ll draw up a few sketches.”
“Goodness. We had better see to the clocks before all that.”
They began a survey of the house. It became