knew you wouldn’t.’
Emma gasped in spite of herself. ‘You are the most brazen girl. You would have ruined yourself for a couple of hours of pleasure.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. I would have worn a mask. No one would even know who I was.’
‘So, is he taking you?’
Amy half turned away, giving her sister a look from the corner of her eyes. ‘And if he is?’
‘Don’t goad me, Amy. I am not in the mood for it.’
And she wasn’t. Already she found herself wanting to lock her sister in her room with only bread and water, but Amy wasn’t a child anymore even though she acted like one. Next, she wanted to land Charles Hawthorne what her brother Bertram would call a facer. But she would do neither.
‘You are never in the mood for fun, Emma. That is the problem with you.’
Emma glared at Amy.
‘Oh, all right. No, he isn’t taking me.’ Her voice fell. ‘I was surprised. He is always game for anything.’
Emma silently groaned at her sister’s naiveté. ‘And what if you had been recognised? He might be reckless, but he’s not stupid. Your reputation would be in shreds and someone might start thinking he should marry you—something I very much believe he has no intention of doing.’
A flush spread across Amy’s fair face. ‘He certainly made that plain.’ She smoothed the fine white muslin of her gown, her eyes not meeting Emma’s. ‘But men change…if they want something badly enough.’
‘No, they don’t.’ Emma snapped the words, hearing the fatal misunderstanding so many of her sex seemed to have regarding men. ‘They don’t change.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Amy persisted. ‘Besides, Em, I am tired of this conversation. And he is not taking me to the masquerade. So, as far as you are concerned, things couldn’t be better.’
Emma would have begged to differ, but knew it did no good to argue with Amy when she had her mind made up. All she could do was try her best to be an obstacle in the young girl’s reckless path. To lecture Amy would only make her sister try harder to achieve what she ought not.
Chapter Two
E mma alighted first from the hired carriage they rented when need dictated. They lived in a genteel yet shabby part of London. The walk to Lady Jersey’s ball would have been too far, even for women raised in the country. Delicate ballroom slippers were not made for long distances and wearing one’s half boots and carrying one’s slippers to a fancy ball was not done.
Amy followed Emma. ‘Em, what engagements do we have tomorrow?’
Emma turned to pay the coachman, who tipped his hat before driving away. She moved to the front door, pulling a key from her reticule. ‘I believe we are at home tomorrow afternoon, Amy. At night, we should have been at a rout at the Princess Lieven’s but it has been postponed until the next evening.’
‘Nothing tomorrow afternoon,’ Amy murmured.
Amy’s voice held impatience and something else that Emma always dreaded. Excitement. She didn’t need Amy to say any more to know her sister had arranged or was planning something that would not be to anyone’s liking but Amy’s.
‘Why do you wish to know?’ Emma worked to keep the growing apprehension from her tone. Provoking Amy to further indiscretions was the last thing she needed to do.
‘Oh, nothing.’ Amy waved her gloved hand in an airy sweep. But there was a sparkle in her blue eyes that spoke of mischief.
Rather than press the issue, Emma said, ‘Then you had best get some sleep.’
A glance at Amy showed the young girl had missed Emma’s irony. Yes, Amy was definitely concocting something.
Emma inserted the key in the lock and pushed open the door. No servants waited up for them. It wasn’t fair to ask their old butler, who did many other things now because they were short of staff, to wait up. Nor would she ask the housekeeper who now filled in as lady’s maid. They rose at dawn, so she would not ask them to stay up until dawn.
Emma watched Amy trip blithely up the stairs, a bounce in the girl’s step that spoke of suppressed energy and excitement. Amy was enjoying her first Season immensely.
Emma remembered her own and wished she had been as young and unconcerned. But she had been twenty during her first Season. Her debut had been delayed three years while she nursed Mama and then for the year of mourning. When she’d finally come to London, she had known above all else that she needed to marry well.
The only man with the position and wealth to help her family and who had proposed to her had been Charles Hawthorne’s older brother, Lord George Hawthorne. It was to have been a marriage of convenience and both of them had known that. Then Hawthorne had met another woman and his actions with her had been so blatant that Emma had felt herself constrained to call off their engagement. While she had not expected a love match and had not been heartbroken, she had been humiliated. Nor had she wished to keep another person from finding happiness. For the most part, the only thing she regretted was that now Amy needed to marry well. Amy deserved better than that.
Her shadow wavered against the wall, catching her attention from the corner of her eye. A single candle burned in a brass holder set on a table. Nothing else adorned the entryway of the rented house. Her father and brother had sold off the silver long ago to pay gambling debts. Debts of honour.
She stared at the flame for only a few seconds. Crying over spilt milk or badly needed money frittered away for pleasure that did no one any good was not going to change anything. The best hope Amy had was to marry well. If the man could also pay to get their father and brother out of debt, then so much the better.
Charles Hawthorne could not fill either of those requirements. No matter that he was a devastatingly attractive man with a devilish charm even she found hard to resist.
Thank goodness he had not agreed to take Amy to the masquerade. Emma knew too well she would be hard-pressed to keep so close a watch on her sister that Amy could not escape or make it uncomfortable for Emma to prevent her. She nearly chuckled aloud at the picture of herself stretched on the floor across Amy’s bedroom door, for that is what she would have to do to keep Amy in check. Or tie her sister to the bed.
However, she had no doubt something else equally unacceptable would arise, for Charles Hawthorne had made it clear he had no intention of changing his atrocious behaviour where Amy was concerned. He would ruin her sister without a second thought, and Amy would let him.
Too much was at stake. She dared not let Charles Hawthorne and Amy continue down the path they were on. She had to do something to stop the man. The well-being of her sister and their entire family depended on Amy marrying well.
Yet, if she thought Amy loved the man she would think seriously about trying to convince their father to allow the match. But she knew her young sister well enough to know Amy enjoyed the notoriety of his attention because he was considered unattainable by every woman in society. Amy did not love Charles Hawthorne. Nor did he love her. That knowledge allowed Emma to entertain plans to sever the connection with a clear conscience.
But what to do about Charles Hawthorne?
A door opening down the hallway caught her attention. Who would be up at this hour? She had told all the servants to go to bed, and Amy had mounted the stairs. Footsteps echoed on the bare wood.
‘Who is there?’
‘Just your brother,’ Bertram Stockton drawled, his tall, skinny frame silhouetted by the light coming into the hall from the open door to the room he had just left. ‘Where have you been? It’s rather late to be out unescorted.’
His criticism raised her hackles.
‘We have been to Lady Jersey’s ball. We took a hired carriage since we do not have one of