Joanna Maitland - Marrying The Major

Emma was not best pleased to be dancing a second set with Mr Mountjoy. She told herself it was because a hostess should not allow herself to be monopolised by a single guest—but out of the corner of her eye, she found she was watching Hugo’s every move. She felt very proud of him—even though she knew she had no right to be, for she was nothing to him, not even a friend. She had feared he would snub silly Miss Mountjoy—or her equally silly brother—but he had shown remarkable restraint. Probably he had been used to dealing with rash young subalterns during his army days and knew just how thin-skinned they could be.

Noticing Hugo slip out of the room, Emma remembered that he, too, was thin-skinned. It was not surprising that he wanted to escape from the Mountjoys and the dancing. Emma wondered, while she mechanically executed the steps of the figure, whether Hugo had liked to dance before his injury. All the more distressing for him, if it were so. Poor Hugo.

No, not ‘poor Hugo’. She was beginning to feel sorry for him—as he was feeling sorry for himself. But it was wrong to encourage him to withdraw even further into his shell. No matter how dreadful his injuries, he should not hide from the world. No true friend would permit him to do so. It was already obvious that he was making some progress; he climbed the stairs much more easily than before. Surely he could learn to ride again—and to drive and to shoot—if he were but prepared to make the effort? Emma resolved to enlist Richard’s help in making Hugo face up to the future. Between them they could help Hugo to become more like the man he had been. Why—he might even be able to dance again, one day.

At that moment, Emma thought she heard the sound of the front door being opened. Hugo could not be leaving, surely? He would not be so impolite. And besides, he could not leave without Jamie and Richard. No. Someone else must have called.

Emma gratefully excused herself to Mr Mountjoy and hurried out on to the landing to see what was happening. Looking over the balusters, she saw that a complete stranger had been admitted. A tall dark man was lounging carelessly against the delicate spindle-legged table in the hallway and lazily twirling an ivory-handled quizzing glass. On his face was an expression of acute boredom.

But he was, without doubt, the most beautiful specimen of manhood that Emma had ever beheld.

Emma stood transfixed on the landing, unable to tear her eyes away from the gentleman’s finely chiselled features. Then, from the vicinity of her father’s study, she heard Hugo’s voice exclaim in surprise, ‘Kit! What on earth are you doing here?’

The newcomer raised a mocking eyebrow, but did not move an inch from where he stood. ‘Why, waiting for someone to relieve me of my coat,’ he replied in an affected drawl. ‘What else did you think I might be doing, brother?’

Emma was still standing as if frozen when her father—probably alerted by her hurried departure from the dance—appeared at her side. He took one look into the hallway below and rushed down the stairs as fast as his bulk and his tight satin breeches would allow.

Sir Edward strode across to the newcomer, hand outstretched. ‘Welcome, my boy, welcome,’ he boomed, clapping the new arrival on the shoulder. ‘What brings you here at this hour? Something important, I’ll be bound.’ Without giving anyone a chance to reply, Sir Edward turned in the direction of the servants’ door. ‘Godfrey! Where the devil are you, man? Do you not know we have guests?’

The butler materialised almost immediately on the landing behind Emma and glided down the staircase with no appearance of haste or of concern. He bowed politely to the visitor. ‘May I take your coat, sir?’

Emma watched in trancelike immobility as the newcomer allowed himself to be relieved of his caped driving coat and curly-brimmed beaver. He had smiled at Sir Edward’s greeting, but the expression of lazy disdain had returned to his handsome face a moment later. It seemed he was too bored to speak—or even to look around him.

Sir Edward did not appear to have noticed anything amiss. ‘I am sure you’d like a private word with your brother,’ he said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Hugo who was standing motionless in the shadow of the gallery, leaning on his cane. ‘But I hope you will join us upstairs when you’re done. We are entertaining a few friends—quite informally, you understand—and the young people are dancing. My Emma would—’ He broke off, looking round suddenly. The butler had disappeared as quietly as he had come. ‘Where on earth is she?’ he said in a burst of irritation.

From her vantage point above them, Emma stirred at last. ‘I am here, Papa,’ she said, trying vainly to tear her eyes from Hugo’s incredible brother.

Three heads turned. Three pairs of eyes looked up at her. The brothers were remarkably alike, even though they did not have the same degree of beauty. Nor did they share the same colouring, Emma noted absently. The younger man’s hair was lighter—dark brown, highlighted with glints of red, like finest rosewood. His clear blue eyes were skimming over the female figure above him, making a rapid assessment of her face and form. Emma felt herself beginning to flush under his all too obvious scrutiny. His faintly lifted eyebrow and curling lip did nothing to reduce her embarrassment. She was behaving like a chit just out of the schoolroom, both thunderstruck and tongue-tied at the sight of a handsome male face.

She tossed her head in annoyance. The spell broke. This young man was too well aware of his effect on hapless females, Emma concluded with sudden insight. Let others fall at his elegantly shod feet. She most certainly would not.

Lifting the hem of her cream silk gown with one hand, she laid the other on the polished banister rail and moved serenely down the staircase into the hallway. She knew the newcomer’s eyes would fix on that tantalising glimpse of a shapely ankle. And she made a play of dropping her skirts and straightening them demurely before she looked at him. Women, too, could use the tricks of flirtation, she reckoned. She doubted that young Stratton could be more adept than she at the arts of allure.

A movement behind her reminded Emma that they were not alone. There was the click of a cane on the chequered marble before Hugo’s voice said politely, ‘Miss Fitzwilliam, you will allow me to present my youngest brother, Christopher—usually known as Kit.’

Kit took a small step forward so that he could take Emma’s hand. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss it—that would have been totally in character, she decided uncharitably—but he did not. He simply bowed gracefully and relinquished her hand. There was nothing to cavil at in his company manners. He would be the perfect gentleman—were it not for that calculating look in his eye.

‘Your servant, Miss Fitzwilliam,’ Kit said.

Emma dropped the tiniest curtsy, but did not bow her head by as much as an inch. ‘I am delighted to welcome any relative of Major Stratton’s,’ she said with a polite smile. ‘You already know my father, I take it?’

‘Indeed, I do,’ replied Kit. ‘We have had—’

‘Belong to the same clubs, m’dear,’ broke in Sir Edward quickly. ‘Had one or two encounters over the card table. Young Stratton here seems to have the devil’s own luck—playing against me, at least.’ Sir Edward laughed good-naturedly. He loved to gamble, Emma knew. And he could afford to lose. But what of Kit Stratton? Could he?

‘Where are you staying, Kit? You can’t mean to drive on again tonight.’ Hugo was smiling indulgently at his younger brother.

Kit smiled back with genuine warmth. ‘Don’t worry, brother. I shan’t be importuning the Hardinges. Arranged to rack up at the White Hart. Got to make an early start in the morning. Things to do, you know.’