A Woman of True Honor: True Gentlemen Book Eight Read online

  Valerian Dorning’s eyes held a question, and he expected answers Emily wasn’t ready to give. Not yet, maybe not ever.

  She pushed open the door to the master suite instead and marched into… what looked like a den of thieves. One knot of men was gathered around a set of dice, another held hands of playing cards. A dented silver flask was quickly slipped into the pocket of a fellow lounging against the stack of lumber.

  The lot of them regarded her with the sort of arrogant glee naughty schoolboys turned on the first former who’d never dare report organized cheating.

  “Mr. Ogilvy,” Emily said in her haughtiest tones. “Explain this idleness.”

  Ogilvy set aside his cards and bestirred himself to rise from an overturned half barrel. “Good morning, Miss Pepper. We wasn’t expecting you.”

  “That is not an explanation.”

  Valerian Dorning sauntered up on Emily’s right, and, bless the man, said nothing. He merely gazed about, looking like a headmaster condemned to the company of dull-witted scholars.

  “We was taking a break,” Ogilvy said. “A respite from our labors, like it says in the Bible.”

  Perhaps confrontation became a bad habit, or perhaps Emily refused to be disrespected when Valerian Dorning was on hand to witness the insults.

  “Are you the Almighty, Mr. Ogilvy, creating an entire universe such that you’ve earned the right to decree your own Sabbath here in my father’s house? The hour is not yet noon, and every man and boy in this room sits idle when there’s work to be done.”

  The cards disappeared, as did the dice, while Emily’s temper only grew.

  “A short break, miss,” Ogilvy said. “One in the morning and one after our nooning, just like it says in the contract.”

  His smile reminded Emily of Caleb’s, and that comparison did nothing for her composure.

  “Mistake,” Valerian said quietly, shaking his head. “Dissembling before the lady is a serious mistake, Ogilvy.”

  Was that amusement in Valerian’s voice? He certainly didn’t sound upset.

  “I can read,” Emily snapped, “in several languages, as it happens. The contract you signed was based on one my father has been using for several years. The terms contemplate no morning break. They contemplate no sitting about dicing and gambling while pretending to take pride in a job well done. They contemplate no quarter for thieves and charlatans.”

  Half a world away, Adam faced all manner of privation and shame, and as far as Emily was concerned, he’d done no wrong, while these thieves diced and drank for pay.

  “Now see here, miss,” Ogilvy said, stepping closer. “There’s no call for hysterics. I brung the bank draft for the books and whatnot. Thought you’d be pleased to have the coin, and now all I get is a cross female thinking she knows how a job is to be managed. You’d best run along and let my men get back to work.”

  Valerian snorted. Snorted.

  “The bank draft,” Valerian said. “You ought to surrender it before you’re ejected from the premises, Ogilvy.” He wiggled his fingers peremptorily, as if anything that had been in Ogilvy’s grasp was not to sully Emily’s hand.

  She liked that bit of playacting, liked it very much. She liked even better the suggestion that she sack the lot of these fools.

  Ogilvy fumbled in his pockets, first found his flask, and eventually located a piece of paper and passed it over.

  “You,” Emily said, walking past Ogilvy, “are a smirking, shirking reptile parading about as a tradesman. I have had enough of your sly tricks and disrespect. Pack up your tools and leave. Send a final invoice to my attention, and I will consider it for the sake of those unfortunate enough to be in your employ. You have fifteen minutes to vacate this house.”

  Silence greeted that announcement. Silence and, for Emily, a sense of immense satisfaction.

  “You heard her,” Valerian said pleasantly. “Stow the tools and away with you. The rain has let up, so you can all troop off to the inn where I’m sure Mr. Ogilvy will buy you a round in consolation for your self-inflicted misfortune.”

  The oldest of the workmen rose and collected a hammer from atop the stack of lumber.

  “You can’t do this, miss,” Ogilvy sneered. “You aren’t a party to that contract, and my agreement is with Mr. Pepper.”

  Valerian considered the bank draft. “Ogilvy, you are either very brave—which I doubt—or very stupid. Do you honestly believe that Osgood Pepper will take your dishonest word over that of the woman he has raised to have the finest instinct for business? The daughter who will inherit the lot of his properties and enterprises?”

  Valerian held the bank draft up to the light, as if he suspected a forgery. “You were lucky to get this job,” he went on, “and through your own graft and slacking, you have lost it. Find some dignity and leave, or I will be very certain to tell Mr. Pepper exactly what I’ve witnessed on every occasion when I’ve seen your work site—if one can call it that. You have lied to Pepper’s daughter, wasted her time, and disrespected her before others. Should you feel it necessary to discuss this situation with Mr. Pepper, he will first be put in possession of those salient facts.”

  The tone was pleasant, the observations almost cordial. The crew, who had been shuffling about, collecting tools and donning jackets, had gone still and silent. The two youngest workmen, mere boys, were as pale as Holland covers, gaping at Valerian openmouthed, while Emily wanted to applaud.

  “Out,” she said, pointing toward the door. “Either send a final invoice to my attention within fifteen days or don’t send one at all.”

  The oldest workman left first, pausing to tug his cap at Emily. Ogilvy had snatched up his hat and coat and joined the line of retreating men when a thought punctured Emily’s sense of righteous victory.

  “You two,” she said as the boys made for the door. “Stay here. Somebody will have to tidy up this mess and inventory the material on hand. Can you do that?”

  The larger boy, a sandy-haired youth with prominent front teeth, nodded. “Aye, miss. I can read and write, and Jasper can too. We’ll do a proper job for you.” He still had the high voice of a child, but the worry in his eyes was that of a young man who desperately needed his wages.

  “See that you do,” Emily said. “You have been subjected to a very bad example. You can either follow it to perdition or learn from it.”

  The last of the men left, and Emily’s sense of triumph left with him. She’d just sacked an entire crew of men, in the middle of the day, without permission from Papa or anybody.

  “What wages was Ogilvy paying you?” Valerian asked the boys.

  They named a paltry sum, and Valerian sent Emily a questioning look.

  She nodded. “You will take your meals in the kitchen. The household generally sits down for midafternoon tea at half four. Behave as if you’re in church, and the rest of the staff will treat you well. Violate my trust, as Mr. Ogilvy did, and your parents will hear of it before sundown the same day.”

  “Jasper don’t got no parents,” the taller boy said. “He’s my cousin. I’m Tom.”

  Jasper stared at the floor, and Emily was angry all over again. “I will leave the tidying up and inventorying to you two. You’ll find paper and pencil on the mantel. Ask in the kitchen if you need anything else.”

  She left with more haste than dignity and kept right on going across the corridor, Valerian at her side. She barreled blindly into a linen closet before the first tear had the effrontery to trickle down her cheek.

  “I am upset,” she said, feeling equal parts foolish and angry.

  Valerian accompanied her into the closet, and closed the door before passing her a handkerchief.

  “I suspect you have been upset for a long time,” he said, leaning against the door with his arms crossed. “I also suspect, in your situation, anybody would be upset.”

  Had he taken Emily in his arms, the tears would have overcome her, but he stood across the little chamber, looking as if women cried in linen closets regula
rly, which—come to think of it—they probably did.

  “I’ve never sacked anybody before.”

  “He needed sacking, Emily. Badly. The lot of them did. Why did you spare the boys?”

  Emily dabbed at her cheeks. The handkerchief was worn to exquisite softness and lightly scented with roses. The fragrance blended with the thick aroma of lavender in the linen closet, the combination clean, domestic, and soothing.

  She might have used that moment to tell Valerian about Adam, laboring for his very existence thousands of miles away.

  “Suffice it to say,” she began, “that I did not think those boys should suffer for the sins of the elders in charge of the situation. Neither boy has had enough to eat. Neither one is wearing clothes that fit him.” They were both pale, not as Saxon youth who tended to have fair complexions were pale, but as children who toiled indoors hour after hour were pale.

  Valerian pushed away from the door, grasped Emily about the hips, and hoisted her onto the counter running beneath the closet’s sole window. He hiked himself up to sit beside her, and a small, dimly lit room took on the quality of a secret hideaway. A safe place where friends could enjoy some much-needed privacy.

  “The lads are local,” Valerian said, “probably hired at the last minute when Ogilvy brought his pirate crew up from Bournemouth or Portsmouth. Keeping the boys on is both kind and just. Also very shrewd.”

  “Women aren’t supposed to be shrewd. Ladies aren’t.” They weren’t supposed to argue with tradesmen or with much of anybody. Weren’t supposed to raise their voices, intrude on men’s business, and cite contractual terms. “Lately, I haven’t made a very convincing lady.”

  “My sisters are ladies, as are my sisters-in-law. They are all very shrewd. So shrewd most men will never catch them at it, except for the fellows who adore the ladies for how effectively they use their wits.”

  “My brother didn’t adore me, but neither did he treat me like some porcelain angel.” She hadn’t meant to say that, but then, Adam hadn’t written to her in weeks, and her concern for him was at least part of why she’d grown so impatient with Papa, Caleb, and Tobias.

  And Mr. Ogilvy.

  And Briggs.

  But only part.

  “I adore you,” Valerian Dorning said, hopping off the counter. “I hope the sentiment is sufficiently reciprocal that you’ll go for a hack with me in the direction of Dorning Hall.”

  He helped her down, and Emily stood for a moment, wondering why a man who adored her wasn’t stealing a kiss in a linen closet. Adoration of the adult sort entailed more than kissing, though, didn’t it? Much more.

  “You’ll want to convey this to your father.” Valerian gave her the bank draft, which, upon examination, was for an appallingly paltry sum.

  Ogilvy had, indeed, needed sacking. “I am no sort of horsewoman, but I suspect riding is another skill needed for life in the country.”

  “We won’t go far, and we’re in no hurry.” Valerian opened the door, looked both directions, and preceded Emily into the corridor. “Miss Pepper, I will await you in the informal guest parlor, if you’d like to change into your riding habit?”

  Valerian adored her—perhaps that was teasing—but he also held doors for her, ensured no nosy servants were patrolling the corridor at inopportune moments, and asked questions that were genuine questions, not polite masculine commands.

  Those considerations alone would have provoked Emily to sincere respect, but add to them both honesty and an ability to admire feminine shrewdness, and she was moved to adoration too. And that was without any mention of Valerian Dorning’s dancing, conversation, or kisses.

  “I’ll need a quarter hour, no more,” Emily said. “And thank you.”

  “For?”

  For so much. For holding his tongue when Emily had exerted her authority, for standing with her rather than for her. For having a ready handkerchief and a penchant for honesty, for noticing how hard women worked to be both agreeable and effective, and for admiring that quality.

  “Thank you for being yourself.” She was tempted to follow up that compliment with a kiss, but instead turned on her heel and left him smiling in the middle of the empty corridor.

  * * *

  Years ago, the oldest of the two Dorning daughters, an estimable female by the name of Jacaranda, had declared to her seven brothers that if she was to drudge all day for the sake of heedless males, she’d at least do so for pay. She had quit her role as the de facto manager of Dorning Hall and gone into service as a housekeeper.

  An earl’s daughter did not go into service, ever, and had Grey known where to find Jacaranda, her plan would have been thwarted on the instant. Jacaranda, however, had declined to take a post in Town and had instead immured herself at the neglected country estate of one Worth Kettering.

  Valerian, along with all of his siblings, the entire Dorning Hall staff, and very likely the hounds, pantry mousers, and livestock, had been frantic.

  Frantic not with worry in his case, but with shame.

  Like his brothers, he’d blustered for a time about female foolishness and unnecessary drama, and also like them, he’d finally seen what Jacaranda had tried to convey for years: A gentleman did not take advantage of a lady’s devotion to family, such that she was expected to handle every chore, from planning menus to dipping candles and beating rugs, while the gent went for a pleasant morning hack, chatted away the afternoon over a pint in the posting inn’s snug, sat down to a hearty meal at the end of his day, and caught up on the London papers in the evening.

  The day Jacaranda had turned up missing, Valerian had found a renewed determination to make something of himself, something gentlemanly. Something honorable and worth respecting.

  For, as the days had turned into weeks, months, and then years without Jacaranda to civilize the household, the brothers had suffered. Humor had turned more grim, the Hall had become subtly less gracious. The tenants were polite but not quite as friendly as when Jacaranda had been on hand to fuss over a new baby or commiserate with an elder over sore knees.

  She had taken a light of integrity and decency with her and left behind—for Valerian at least—a lesson in valuing others, especially the ladies.

  Sitting in the Pepper Ridge guest parlor, he pondered that lesson as it applied to Emily Pepper. She and Jacaranda would get along famously, which was no small compliment. But then, Emily had the knack of getting along well with people generally, and that skill obscured how truly observant and insightful she was.

  The door opened, and Emily strode in, wearing a habit of dark blue velvet. “This will have to do. It’s the only habit I brought with me, though I have two others in Town.”

  Valerian rose. “The color is quite becoming.”

  “But?”

  “No buts. The gold embroidery about the buttonholes and collar is in good taste. The cut is flattering without impeding your movements. The hat is appropriately whimsical.”

  “Silly, you mean.”

  The thing affixed to her hair was a few peacock and pheasant feathers set at a jaunty angle. “You are still upset,” he said. “Let’s talk about that on the way to the stable.” Valerian wanted to get her out of this house, which was at once too quiet and too full of other people. He also wanted to kiss her. That impulse was a low hum in his blood that followed him even into slumber.

  “I am annoyed,” Emily said, stalking from the room. “With Ogilvy and with myself for allowing his thievery to go on for so long. Did nobody offer you refreshment? Of course not, because the only useful footman we have sits outside my father’s study, waiting on him and his acolytes.”

  She took a left turn. “If we go out through the conservatory, we won’t be visible from the study. Briggs is doubtless watching from the east turret, and I do believe I finally understand why occasionally a good, hard gallop has some appeal.”

  “Sacking Ogilvy might inspire your staff to be more attentive to their duties.” Or more attentive to the lady of the house.
>
  They entered the conservatory, a comfortably warm space illuminated by skylights, glass walls to the east and south, and glass doors opening onto a side garden.

  “Margaret Dorning came to call last week,” Emily said, bootheels rapping on the flagstone walkway. “She brought more medication for Papa and offered to send me some plants for my herbal, but I hadn’t any notion what I was supposed to do with them. Everywhere, I am faced with the reality that country life involves more than fresh air and clean laundry.”

  “Some things are the same in both Town and country, Emily.”

  She came to a stop before exiting into the side garden. “Such as?”

  “I wanted to kiss you in Town, I want to kiss you in the country.” Here and now.

  Emily gazed off across ferns, orchids, and potted lemon and orange trees. A fountain trickled somewhere among the greenery, and a swallow flitted overhead. Perhaps Eden had been like this, sheltered, private, quiet, and green.

  “I resist the impulse to stare at your mouth,” she said. “I deliver a tirade to Caleb Booth about insurance and Papa’s good name, and all the while, I’m thinking: I would not have to explain this to Valerian Dorning. I swill tea with your sister-by-marriage and discuss some weed that’s supposed to be a tonic for the female humors. I want instead to ask her if married life is as wonderful as I suspect it could be.”

  To hell with kissing, Valerian wanted to belong to this woman, heart and hearth.

  “My mind takes me down similar paths. What is Emily doing right now? Could I send her a book without appearing too forward? Could a woman who has had the pick of London’s dandies and heirs hold me in high regard when I am of such limited means?”

  “Means matter little if they are in the hands of someone without the sense to use them wisely.” Emily leaned near enough that Valerian could catch a whiff of camphor from her velvet riding habit and see the exact spot on the largest pheasant feather that matched the brown of her eyes.

  She should not have to be the one to take the next step with him, not only because convention required the male to do the pursuing, but because any man worthy of her notice ought to put forth effort, ought to risk at least his pride for the sake of winning her hand.