Read Online The Adventuress: HFTS5 by Marion Chesney, M.C. Beaton - Free Book Online Page A

Exquisite before. Fitz was so extravagantly dressed with his nipped-in waist, his embroidered waistcoat, and his huge starched shirt collar that he did not seem quite real to Emily. Mr. Fitzgerald’s face, she noticed, was as highly painted as that of a female member of the Fashionable Impure. I am, thought Emily with an inward shudder, facing Decadence on the Hoof!
    There was a noisy altercation in the back parlour and then the sombre music died away.
    Lord Fleetwood was just deciding the fun had gone on long enough. It was time to bow and leave. Then the jaunty, dancing melody of a popular Italian song filled the room, with Joseph’s sweet tenor singing the words.
    A faint tinge of colour appeared on Emily’s white cheeks and she smiled suddenly. The amused look left the earl’s eyes and he stared at her, much as his friend had been staring at her.
    “By Jove, that’s a jolly tune,” said Fitz.
    “May I have some champagne, Rainbird?” asked Emily.
    “I would like a glass as well,” said Mrs. Middleton.
    “I think I’ll sit down,” declared Mr. Goodenough. “What do you think, gentlemen? Will our new Prince Regent settle down, now he has attained the regency at last?”
    Fitz crossed over to Mr. Goodenough’s side and began to gossip. Emily took a glass of champagne and smiled again, shyly this time, at the earl. “I think I should like to walk about for a little,” she said.
    Emily promenaded up and down the small room with the earl while Mrs. Middleton fell into step behind her, anxious to correct any lapses in genteel speech if need be. But it was very hard to remain unobtrusive because of the very smallness of the room. Mrs. Middleton would no sooner get behind Emily and the earl than the couple would both turn and swing round, nearly colliding with her. Mrs. Middleton decided Emily appeared to be doing very nicely and so she retreated to a corner and sat down.
    Mr. Goodenough was becoming quite animated as he discussed his hero, the Prince of Wales, who had only just been made regent. Fitz humoured Mr. Goodenough by listening politely to his praises of the prince, although he reflected cynically that the dissolute and greedy Prinny hardly deserved such accolades. Also, half Fitz’s mind was occupied in wondering what the earl was saying to Emily.
    “You appear to be lucky in your chef,” said the earl to Emily as they swung about to traverse the room for the sixth time. “There are some delicious smells arising from the kitchen.”
    “He is very good indeed,” said Emily. “Not only with French dishes, but with our traditional English ones. His sirloin of beef is done to a cow’s thumb.”
    “Indeed!” said the earl, startled at the common expression which had dropped so gently from Miss Emily’s pink lips.
    Rainbird passed with a tray of glasses of champagne. Emily put her empty glass on the tray, took a full one, and drained it in one gulp. “I was very thirsty,” she said apologetically, remembering too late she was supposed to sip it.
    “It is a problem finding a genuine French chef,” said the earl. “So many of them claim to be French who have never been south of Dover.”
    “MacGregor, the cook, is Scotch,” said Emily, “but a real treasure and not a bale of flat cater traes. I mean,” she explained with a deep blush, “that he is genuinely a good chef and not …”
    “Like false dice,” said the earl, completing her explanation. “I am well versed in cant, Miss Goodenough, but I am surprised that
you
are so well acquainted with it. Do you plan to bring it into fashion?”
    Emily took a deep breath and decided to lie. She was already acting a lie. What would one more falsehood matter?
    “You must forgive me, my lord,” she said. “English is not my first language.”
    She looked up into his eyes as she spoke and saw little imps of mischief dancing in them as those blue eyes of his looked down into her own.
    “You are fortunate, Miss Goodenough,” said the earl,