High Seas to High Society. Sophia James

evening, Asher again met Emma Seaton. The result, he suspected, of their encounter at Jack’s ball and the host’s wife’s penchant for matchmaking. If he had liked the Learys less he might have left on some simple pretence, but George had been a good friend to his father and Flora was a woman of uncommon sensitivity.

      Today, as Flora Leary turned to attend to a question another guest had asked of her, Emma Seaton looked rather nervous. Asher saw that the lace on the top of one of her gloves had been badly mended and that the gown she wore was at least a size too big. The colour was odd too. Off-brown and faded in patches. None of this seemed to faze her, though, and her confidence in a room full of well-dressed ladies was endearing. The bruise on her cheek was barely visible today.

      ‘Lady Emma. You look well.’

      ‘Thank you, your Grace.’ Folding down the sleeve of her gown to cover the torn lace, she took a sip of the orgeat she was drinking. ‘I was certain that Lady Flora had mentioned just a small gathering?’

      He looked up. Only forty or fifty people milled around the salon.

      ‘At Falder a little supper would constitute thrice this number,’ he remarked and she coloured. But it was not embarrassment that he saw in her eyes when she met his glance, but irritation.

      Sea blue.

      Her eyes were turquoise and outlined with a clear sea blue. Here in the light it was easy to see today that which he had missed yesterday.

      ‘My family was a quiet and modest one. My father was religious, you see. Very religious. And time spent in the company of others was time that he could not spend in prayer.’

      ‘A devout man, then?’

      She nodded and fiddled with the fan she held. ‘With an equally devout family.’

      ‘You are Catholic?’

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘Catholic? The persuasion of your beliefs?’

      ‘Oh, indeed.’

      ‘And which church do you attend in London?’

      The fan dropped out of her hands and onto the floor, surprising them both. As he leaned down to fetch it for her, she did the same and her bodice dipped in the middle.

      She wore nothing beneath. No stays. No chemise. No bindings. Two beautifully formed breasts topped with rosy nipples fell into his sight and were gone again as she righted herself.

      He felt his body jolt in a way he had not felt for years and shifted his position to better accommodate the hardening between his thighs. God, he was at the house of a bishop and the woman next to him was completely naked under her ill-fitting dress. He could barely believe it. Heat and lust made the cravat he wore feel tight and he was annoyed when Charlotte Withers, a woman whose company he had once enjoyed, came over to him.

      ‘It has been an age, your Grace, since I have seen you in London. I had heard that you were here and I suppose on reflection you were down for Henshaws’ ball. The evening before last, was it not, and all the gossip of how the Duke of Carisbrook was cajoled into falling for the wiles of a green and fainting country miss.’

      ‘Not a faint, but a fall,’ he returned and moved forward, pleased to see a blush mark Charlotte’s cheeks when she saw who stood next to him.

      ‘Lady Emma! I did not realise you were here and I apologise for any hurt you may have suffered from my careless remarks. Are you quite recovered from your mishap?’

      ‘I am and I thank you for your concern.’ Emma Seaton’s reply contained no little amount of irony.

      ‘Your accent eludes me,’ Charlotte remarked as she recovered her equilibrium. ‘Where exactly are you from?’

      ‘My mother was French.’

      Asher frowned. She had answered another question without telling anyone anything.

      ‘So it is your father who is related to the Countess of Haversham?

      ‘Was. He died last year from the influenza. A wicked case it was, too, according to the doctor; it took him a long time to succumb to the effects of the infection. One moment hot and the next cold. Why, I pray nightly to the Lord above that I should not see another soul die in such a way.’

      ‘Yes. Quite.’ Charlotte looked away to the riper pickings of Percy Davies who had come to her other side and Asher, while silently applauding Emma Seaton’s skilful evasion, decided to up the stakes a little.

      ‘Charlotte Withers is a notorious gossip and an inveterate meddler. If you were to entrust any secrets to her I am certain that they should be all over town by the morning.’

      As the colour drained out of Emerald’s cheeks, the smile he gave her was guarded.

      Could he be warning her? For just a second she wanted to fold her fingers around his and pretend that he offered protection. Here. In London, where each battle was carried out with words and sly innuendos. Where the people said one thing and meant another. She didn’t understand them. That was the trouble. She had come to England woefully unprepared and desperately different. It showed in her accent, in her clothes, in the way she walked and moved and sat.

      Pity.

      She had seen it written all over his handsome face as his glance had brushed over the torn lace on her glove and the generous fitting of her gown. Pity for a woman who, when compared with the other refined beauties, personified by the likes of Lady Charlotte, fared very badly. Gathering her scattered wits, she tried to regroup.

      ‘Secrets?’

      ‘My sources say you arrived in England not from the country, but from Jamaica?’

      She laughed, congratulating herself on the inconsequential and tinkling sound. ‘And they would be right. I came back to England after sorting out my father’s possessions when he died, and setting his affairs into order.’

      ‘Your father was a scholar?’

      A scholar? Oh God, what was he referring to now? And just who were his sources? She was pleased when Lord Henshaw caught her attention.

      ‘Lady Emma. Are you feeling better?’

      ‘Yes. Very much better, thank you.’ Such a polite society, Emerald thought, as she gave him her answer. Such a lot unsaid beneath every question. She pulled her fingers away and laid her hands against the voluminous skirt of her gown.

      ‘Did you hear of Stephen Eaton’s problem the other night, Asher? He met with footpads by the dockside and has a wicked lump on his head. The local constabulary are out in force to try to find the culprits. Word is that it’s a shocking state of affairs when a gentleman cannot even ride around London without being robbed and beaten.’

      ‘He is saying he was robbed?’

      ‘Yes, though I cannot work out for the life of me what he was doing at that time and in that part of London, given he had left my ball only an hour or so earlier. His watch and pistol were taken and a ring he wore upon his hand that was a family heirloom. Diamonds, I think. He plans to spend the next few months abroad to recover from the assault, his mother says. I saw her this morning.’

      ‘A fine scheme. I hope he takes his time to make a full recuperation. If you see his parents, do acquaint them with my sentiments, and say that I was asking after him.’ Pure steel coated his words.

      ‘I will do just that. Does your sister know of his mishap?’

      ‘My sister?’

      ‘Lucinda. She has danced with him at several parties and I thought perhaps there was a special friendship…’

      Jack’s voice tailed off. Emerald was certain that he had just put it all together and also deduced that this was neither the time nor the place to discuss such things. She saw him chance a quick look at Charlotte Withers behind him before he changed the subject entirely.

      ‘My oldest sister was