At the close of their shopping adventure, Milli—despite the perverse injustice of costly feathers and fans—had acquired herself an elegant pair of gloves, as well as a bandbox containing yet another bonnet, and a vastly overpriced muff besides.
As these costly items were being packaged, Emma drifted towards the window to look out at the straining grey clouds that pressed upon the chimney stacks with foreshadowing twilight. In the quickening shadows across the street, she descried a black carriage. It was drawn by four black brutes that pawed restlessly at the cobbles with massive hooves, and was presently parked alongside a boot-maker’s shop with two forbidding footmen of matching livery and broad-brimmed hats standing sentinel beside it.
On the door of the vehicle was emblazoned a very singular coat of arms with a passant red dragon, atop which rested not a helmet but a castle shaped distinctly like a rook. The shield and mantling was supported either side by two identical black wolves, both of which were chained in gold. Inside the silver banderole at the base, only two words served as the motto: Vitam Aeternam.
Spontaneity was not a trait to which the elder Miss Rose had ever been much inclined, but on this occasion, without considering the impulse that suddenly spurred her to cross the street, Emma found she was very much compelled by a powerful need to discover the name to which that crest belonged. When she had stepped inside the boot shop, Emma scanned the rooms without much hope of knowing whom exactly she was searching for. Erelong, she perceived that she herself was being avidly watched, and thus turned to discover whence the strange sensation seemed to emanate.
The source of the impression, she realized, was a tall gentleman—leastwise he appeared to possess an uncommon length of frame even seated as he was—in the corner of the shop where the bedimmed light through the glazing offered very little illumination. He was dressed to match the shadows, his clothes as black as his shock of cropped curls, the ivory neckcloth and his pale skin contrasting diametrically. He was very striking, thus indolently reposed in his chair, one leg bent over the other and his beaver hat and cane resting on his knee. She found herself gaping at him like a pigeon until she suddenly realized that he too was staring. Staring right at her! She nearly gasped aloud at being so boldly scrutinized, but collected her senses enough to avert her eyes quickly.
Milli chose that moment to burst in like a gale through the shop door, panting. “Oh! It’s a boot shop. Well, that’s all right then,” she said, looking around with a relieved grin. “I should have been obliged to sit on your head and restrain you if you’d been in here replacing those horrid spectacles.”
“Did you not take a moment to read the sign printed on the window,” Emma chided, shooting her younger sister an embarrassed glare when Milli drew up alongside her.
“You know I do not mind boring signs.” Milli favored her sister with a patient shake of her head. “Not especially when there is a four-in-hand blocking the shopfront! Good Lord! Who is that gentleman?” Milli spilled her words with little care for their volume or for the horrified blush that consequently lit Emma’s cheeks afire. “And why are your cheeks so flushed, Em?”
“For Heaven’s sake, lower your voice!” There was no doubt in Emma’s mind that the stranger had heard them.
The man’s features, though excessively grim, were handsomely chiseled and bold. In fact, he wanted only a smile to make him exceedingly attractive. She might have considered him the most handsome of men were it not for the harsh slant of his black brows or the cold glint of those dark eyes. Even the turn of his mouth she considered disagreeable.
“How romantic!” Milli whispered loudly.
“What is?” Emma found herself inspecting a pair of shiny Hessians that she had randomly picked up to disguise her motiveless presence there.
“The way he keeps staring at you, silly!” The choleric look Milli’s answer received did nothing at all to quell her transports of delight. “How very exciting! A coup de foudre!”
“Nonsense, it is not love at first sight.” She cast a furtive gaze over her shoulder to see that he was still watching her intently, his long fingers drumming casually on the arm of the chair he occupied. She lowered her eyes back down to the uninteresting boots. “At all events, he is more than likely looking at you.”
“Do you think me such a wet goose as to mistake the direction of a man’s regard? Believe me, if he were looking at me, I’d know it.” She nudged Emma’s shoulder with her own. “Moreover, if he were looking my way then it would be my cheeks in bloom and not yours. Even the lady beside him has noticed his attentions and is whispering in his ear even now.”
What lady had she overlooked? Emma glanced up, intrigued, but upon finally seeing the lady in question her stomach dropped with unfounded disappointment. How could Emma not have remarked that stunning creature before now? And how on earth was her meager looks to be measured against such an exotic nonpareil? A diamond of the first water. The lady was garbed in the highest fashion. Her carmine silk was elegantly embroidered and embellished with scalloped lace edging along the hem and sleeves. It draped beautifully over her lithe frame. Emma was positively dowdy by comparison.
Together they were the most elegant pair of patrician beauties Emma had ever beheld—seemingly made for one another. She watched from beneath her lashes as the lady leaned down to whisper again into the dark stranger’s ear, her eyes sparkling with amusement as she glanced over at Milli and Emma. His mouth, however, flattened in response to his lady’s remark.
Emma nowise wished to be considered self-deprecating, since another’s beauty had never inspired her resentment heretofore, nor would it ever again if she could help it! She did flatter herself that she was at least rational nine times out of ten and that being said, it was time to leave. She had no business here now that she’d satisfied her curiosity. Furthermore, she convinced herself, there was naught wrong with being plain—it was beneficial to the development of a good character. The world could not very well be peopled only by beautiful gauds. Beauty was nothing to intelligence.
There was no reason she and Milli should continue loitering in the shop like a pair of pullets gawking after the cock. And the weight of those dark eyes upon her person was tangling her nerves into knots. Yes, it was time to leave. But before Emma could put thought to action, her sister gave an excited gasp.
“Oh my!”
Emma fidgeted with the drawstring of her reticule as a feeling of sharp foreboding settled between her shoulders. “What is it now?”
“Quick! Pinch your cheeks, Emma! He’s coming this way!”
Chapter Seven
An Asylum in Chelsea
Milli had no sooner issued the warning, and taken it upon herself to pinch Emma’s cheeks into bloom, which Emma negatived with a few sharp slaps, when they were both startled from behind by a deep male voice.
“Miss Rose, what an unexpected pleasure.” Those rich and sultry tones Emma well remembered from the night of her rescue.
She gave a little gasp and spun around, her pinched cheeks aflame. She must have stammered an acceptable reply, for Lord Winterly answered with a leisurely bow—a nod really.
He gestured to the grinning woman beside him. “Allow me to introduce my sister, Miss Victoria Winterly.”