A Scandalous Proposal. Julia Justiss

me underfoot constantly.”

      She merely smiled, and he bent to give her a lingering kiss, which she returned, he thought, with some enthusiasm. “Until this evening, then.”

      Before he could pull away, she stopped him with a touch to his cheek. “I’d forgotten how beautiful loving can be,” she said softly. “Thank you…Evan.”

      His spirits soared to the rooftops. “Call upon me at any time.” Giving her one last kiss, he forced himself to exist. A few steps down the sidewalk, he turned to look back. She gave him a little wave, closed the door, and he heard the bolt slam home.

      ’Twas all he could do not to run back and knock.

      Chapter Four

      Several hours later Emily looked up from her worktable in bemusement. “Put them on the desk, I suppose,” she told the urchin with his paper-wrapped parcel of flowers.

      “Where, ma’am? There be’s a pow’rful lotta posies a’ready.”

      In truth, the top of her small desk was nearly buried beneath a floral avalanche. The bouquets—some small, some large—had begun arriving early this morning, and the parade continued steadily all day. Francesca had long since run out of vases, and the most recent offerings reclined in an odd miscellany of pots, mugs and bowls.

      The numerous bouquets contained only pansies or violets. Deepest purple, pale lavender, near white, the shimmering velvet blooms and their perfume filled the office and spilled out into the salesroom beyond.

      Searching for a spare inch, Emily surveyed the assortment with a mingling of amusement and exasperation. Lord Cheverley must have bought up every blossom in the city. They’d be reduced to water and cold mutton for dinner, as there was hardly a kettle or teacup left in the kitchen. She didn’t know whether to be touched or annoyed.

      The delivery boy still stood, flowers in hand, looking at her expectantly. Sighing, she laid down her scissors. “Just bring them to me.”

      The boy handed them over, but when she dug in her pocket for a coin, he waved her away. “The toff what sent ’em paid me good, ’n offered me an extry yellow boy if’n I wouldn’t try’n fob a tuppence off ya.” Tipping his grimy cap, he gave her a gap-toothed grin and ambled out.

      Francesca entered from the kitchen behind her and raised her eyebrows. “By the Blessed Virgin, Mistress, your noble lordling must be pleased with you.” Eyes twinkling, she leaned over to pat Emily’s cheek. “And you, querida, look like a woman who has been well loved.”

      “Enough, Francesca.”

      “Ah, you grumble, but me, I think it very fine,” Francesca replied with unimpaired good humor. “You are tired, no, mistress? Rest, and I will deal with the clientela. Then I cook another special dinner.”

      “Lord Cheverley is not invited for dinner,” Emily replied stiffly.

      “But he comes tonight, surely as a saint’s reward,” Francesca said shrewdly. “Go rest yourself, mistress. He must not see your beauty dimmed. Take the violetas—” the maid wrapped Emily’s hands around the flowers “—and sleep. I left upstairs a vase.”

      In truth, she was tired. With a sigh, she allowed Francesca to urge her toward the stairs. “All right. But for an hour only.”

      “Good, I will wake you,” the maid agreed. “A hungry work, this loving is. Tonight will I prepare a hearty paella.”

      “If you can find anything to cook it in,” Emily muttered as she walked out.

      Emily slipped the fragile, fragrant blooms—deep violet with tiny white eyes—into her favorite vase, a delicate piece of blue-and-white Portuguese pottery in a fanciful pattern of birds and animals. Setting it down on the desk that also served as her dressing table, she caught her reflection in the little mirror propped against the wall. Solemn eyes, somewhat shadowed perhaps, stared back at her over a straight, narrow nose and generous lips. I look no different, she thought. Should not becoming a Fallen Woman have left some tangible sign?

      Steeling herself, she picked the miniature off its easel beside the mirror. In defiance of convention, Andrew had wanted her to paint him relaxing rather than posing formally, and so she had. The neck fastening of his dolman was un-hooked, his capless hair tumbled as if in the ocean’s breeze. She’d managed to capture the sparkle in his emerald eyes, his high-spirited grin with just the hint of the devil.

      Oh, Andrew, what would you think of me now?

      The ache went too deep. Replacing the miniature on its stand, she wandered to the balcony. Wan sunlight, a feeble imitation of the fierce peninsular light that had bathed the quarters they’d shared in a score of different villages, cast a mellow glow. She leaned against the railing, gazing down into the garden below.

      When she first returned after years under the Peninsula’s bright sun and sharp blue skies, she’d found London’s mist, fog and smoke impossibly grim. ’Twas as if, she joked to Francesca, the city itself wept at her loss. Then she’d come upon some pots of lavender at a farmer’s market and set about turning the abandoned, weed-choked lot behind her shop into a replica of a peninsular garden.

      Now, pots of herbs surrounded a sundial fashioned from a broken milestone, an old deacon’s bench salvaged from the parish burn pile set invitingly near. Her beloved lavender thrived in the barren, rocky soil around the sundial, its scent, released by the gentle sun, floating up to her.

      How the smells of sun-baked earth and herbs brought it back—the sharp-cut scenery of rock and scrub, narrow gullies and steep ravines. The simple, whitewashed dwellings clinging to hillsides and gazing at the distant azure sea. How she’d loved to set up her easel on the wide balcony and work furiously to capture the changing light on those hills, that glimmer of ocean.

      She’d painted Andrew, too, of course, and Rob, his rascal of a brother and fellow soldier, and all their comrades. Canvases of men in uniform relaxing on the balcony, dining about her table or playing an impromptu game of cricket on the village square had begun to crowd her baggage, for when the troops were billeted in towns between engagements, the quarters of Lieutenant Waring-Black and his beautiful bride became a sort of junior officer’s mess. Many an evening had they laughed and played at cards, while Boyd or Matthew sang to Francesca’s guitar.

      Melancholy filled Emily’s chest along with breaths of lavender-spiced air. She loved this little garden, a tangible reminder of the happy sunlit days with Andrew. When accounts did not total, or a tradesman bickered, or some well-born lady puffed up with her own consequence belittled her, Emily would somehow find herself sitting on the bench below. She’d run her fingers along the stiff gray wands and inhale the herb’s sharp, cleansing scent. Whenever something troubled her.

      Like the thought of the tall, well-formed man returning tonight. Her lover.

      Her cheeks burned, her body heated and the thought escaped before she could check it: I’m sorry.

      Don’t be an idiot, she told herself crossly. You’ve chosen your course. There’s nothing to do but go on and make the best of it. Only children and cowards whine and regret.

      She was too honest to deny Cheverley’s lovemaking brought her intense—and sorely missed—pleasure. Nor could she deny the idea of receiving his caresses again, soon, sent a spiral of warmth to her very core.

      ’Twas just her pride that ached, and old memories she should have long since laid to rest. She should view the matter pragmatically, as Francesca suggested.

      A businesslike arrangement without long-term or legal complications might suit her very well. And if his lordship’s ardor lasted until she managed to build her income to such a level of security that she would never again be forced into this position, it would, as Francesca said, be all to the good.

      And just what does that make you? a little voice in her head whispered. She turned away from the garden, trying to shut out the ugly word that burned, unspoken, in her ears.