Lady Salter snorted. “Love! Tawdry middle-class sentiment.”
“Butsooooromantic.” Emm produced a gusty sentimental sigh and fluttered her eyelashes.
“Pshaw! Blood is what counts in marriage. Blood, breeding and land.”
“Really? How interesting. It’s important when breeding pigs too,” Emm said brightly. She rose from her seat. “Are you sure you can’t stay for luncheon, Lady Salter?”
The old lady glowered at her, and for a moment Emm could see the resemblance both to Cal and to George. “Send for my carriage, gel.”
Emm inclined her head. “With the greatest of pleasure.”
***
Cal, feeling soured and depressed by the morning’s events, needed a distraction, and as he wandered past Covent Garden, he decided an evening at the theater was just the thing. Among the various entertainments listed on the playbill wasAs You Like It, which he felt would please Emmaline, who, as a former teacher on her first visit to a London theater, might want something Shakespearean, but since it was also comedy, it should suit him and the girls.
He sent a message to Ashendon House to let them know he’d be home for an early dinner before escorting them to the theater.
He then decided to visit Tattersalls and came away quite pleased with himself. He’d conducted several very satisfactory transactions and had also run into two old friends who, learning he was here with his new bride, invited him and Emmaline to a party and a musical evening in the following week.
The commencement of the season was still several months away, but a few small parties would ease his wife into the London social scene gradually and by the time the season started, she’d be much better prepared to make her way in London society.
***
“I met your aunt today,” Emm said over dinner. “Lady Salter.”
Cal almost choked on his soup. “Damn—I mean blast. I meant to warn you.”
Her brows rose. “Did you know she would visit, then?”
“No, but she was waiting when I came downstairs this morning. According to Burton she’s been coming every day around eleven.”
She nodded. “To check up on the domestic arrangements before we arrived, yes, Burton told me after she left. It was very kind of her.”
“Kind?” Cal gave her a cautious look. “Youlikedher, then?”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure we’re going to become fast friends. George dear, could I trouble you for the salt, please?”
“Fast friends?”Cal repeated, stunned. Aunt Agatha’s few friends were a small collection of well-born but downtrodden ladies whom she ruled with a rod of iron. Unfortunately some of those ladies were very influential in society.
“Yes, indeed,” his wife said enthusiastically. “We had a thoroughly delightful exchange. I enjoyed myself immensely.”
Cal could hardly believe his ears. “You’re sure it was Aunt Agatha you met, not some other lady? Skinny, elegant, dressed in black and white, tongue like an asp?”
“That’s her. She was utterly charming. We simply adored her, didn’t we, girls?”
It was at that point that Cal realized his sisters and Georgiana were smothering giggles. And that his wife was teasing him.
“Ah, I see. Well, sorry I didn’t warn you beforehand.”
Emmaline laughed. “I quite enjoyed myself, as a matter of fact.”
“You should have been there, Cal,” Rose interjected. “Emm gave Aunt Agatha as good as she got, but so perfectly politely there was no way the old horror could take offense. I mean, she knew Emm was saying cutting things back, but they were, on the surface of things, polite, so she had nothing to get hold of. It was brilliant, Emm.”
“You shouldn’t call your aunt an old horror,” Emm said. “Whatever you think of her, outwardly at least, we will all show her the utmost respect.”
“Sheisan old horror,” Cal said.
Emm shrugged. “You can’t choose your relatives.”
