“Oh, that was you—in Bath, wasn’t it?” The little woman grinned. “She said she wanted something special for a favorite teacher who was gettin’ married. Glad you liked it.”
Now, with the carriage headed home, Emm sat back, a little dazed at all they’d ordered from Miss Chance. She hoped she hadn’t made a terrible mistake.
Chapter Twenty
They come together like the Coroner’s Inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week.
—WILLIAM CONGREVE,THE WAY OF THE WORLD
There was no news at Whitehall. Joe Gimble had made no attempt to communicate with anyone, made no attempt to come forward. A discreet round-the-clock watch was being conducted at the aunt’s house. He hadn’t been sighted there, either.
The women and children were still in custody.
Frustrated, Cal found himself an hour later staring across the road at the house in Whitechapel where Joe Gimble’s aunt by marriage lived.
He waited for an hour, saw nothing suspicious, saw the drunken former sharpshooter, whose bottle of gin was now gone. Again the man saw him and spat. He was a pathetic sight. Cal turned away.
He didn’t know why he’d gone to Whitechapel in the first place. There was obviously nothing he could do. He couldn’t exactly magic Joe Gimble out of thin air.
In any case, according to Gil Radcliffe, Joe Gimble and the Scorpion were no longer Cal’s business.
He was wasting his time to no purpose. Cal decided to visit Aunt Agatha and beard the dragon in her den. Until they’d arrived in London, Cal hadn’t realized Emmaline had never even visited the capital. She would need help launching the girls.
***
“You bring me a badly dressed nobody of no particular beauty—and no wealth!—a gel who has no aristocratic connections—no connections at all as far as I can see!—and you expect me to launch her and your two pert half sisters as well as Henry’s impossible tomboy—all in this coming season?”
“No, I expect you to help Emm launch the girls—you are their aunt, after all. I hope you will also help my wife find her way in the ton—you know you could if you tried. There’s no one better connected or more fashionable,” he finished, laying it on with a trowel.
She considered his words, pouting a little. “The girls are one thing—of course I will do all I can to assist Rutherfords born. That goes without saying. But this woman you have married—”
“Lady Ashendon,” he interrupted in a hard voice. He was pleased to hear her refer to George as a “Rutherford born,” but he’d had enough of her complaints against Emmaline.
His aunt gave him a baleful look. “I will admit she has a certain raw potential for elegance,ifshe would take advice from one who knows. But she won’t! She’s stubborn, willful and headstrong—”
“Tautology.”
She held up her lorgnette and withered him through it. “I beg your pardon?”
“Apology accepted, Aunt Agatha,” he said smoothly, ignoring her swelling indignation. “A tautology is when all the words mean the same thing—stubborn, willful, headstrong—two of those words are redundant. There’s no need to list all of them.”
“You, sirrah, are being frivolous!”
“Aunt Agatha, there is no use continuing to rail at me for my choice of wife. What’s done is done—and I am well content.”
She sniffed.
He decided to try a different approach. “Are you saying it is beyond you to assist her in launching the girls?”
There was a short, pithy silence.
“I’m sorry, it was thoughtless of me. I’d forgotten how much you’d aged since I left England. Things must be getting more difficult for you and—”
She cut him off. “Nothing is beyond me,” she said with lofty hauteur.
“Excellent. Then I’ll leave you to get on with it. Thank you, Aunt Agatha.” He kissed her hand and made a hasty exit.
***
