Arabella shot a keen glance at her. “It would look stunning on you,” she murmured.
Emilia withdrew her hand with a sigh. “I have no reason to own a dress made of that.”
“There is always a reason, sooner or later,” put in the dressmaker. She held up a bit of the silk near Emilia’s face. “Itwouldbe very striking.”
“Oh, you would look so beautiful in that, Miss Greene!” gushed Charlotte.
Emilia laughed. “Beautiful, to supervise French verb conjugation and outings to the duck pond!” She shook her head at Madame Brissotte, who put away the silk without further comment. Arabella, bless her, immediately asked for paler colors, suiting Charlotte’s age, and no one else said anything about Emilia ordering a new dress.
Still, she thought about it, while Charlotte undressed to her stays and petticoat and stepped up on the stool to be measured. It would be so lovely to have one fine dress—nothing as fine as that aquamarine silk, but something pretty. Something that fit, that wasn’t years out of date. Mr. Dashwood had paid her first quarter’s wages. Emilia did have money. And she couldn’t stop thinking, in a dark and secret corner of her heart, about the searing way Mr. Dashwood had looked at her when they danced...
“Let me buy it for you.”
Arabella’s whisper made her jump guiltily. “Oh, goodness, don’t be silly.”
“Don’tyoube silly and refuse a friend’s gift.” Her friend touched her arm. “It would make me so happy, to give it to you. I have accepted that you won’t have Oliver, the hopeless wretch, but I still think of you as my sister.” She paused as Emilia bit her lip. “I’ve missed you, Em.”
She caught Arabella’s hand and squeezed. “And I you, Bella. Thank you so much for coming today.”
The other woman laughed. “Of course! I haven’t forgotten the pleasures of shopping for someone else.” They both glanced at Charlotte, who was currently pinned into a long swath of sprigged muslin and admiring herself from every angle. “You will have your hands full.”
“Nonsense,” said Emilia stoutly. “She’s a charming girl with good sense.”
“Hmm. And her guardian?”
Without warning Emilia’s memory conjured up another moment during the quadrille, when her hands had clasped his, pulling them close together, when they’d been moving together as one. He’d looked down at her with such focused attention, as if he wanted to see right to the bottom of her soul...
“He trusts me to guide her properly,” she said repressively, before leaping from her chair and heading for the door. “I need a breath of air.” She grabbed her bonnet and bolted.
On the pavement of Bond Street, she inhaled deeply and flexed her fingers. She couldn’t be so big a fool to fancy her employer. That would be mad. He had behaved honorably, scorching glances aside. She, on the other hand, had all but blackmailed him into supporting Lucy, made a fool of herself arguing with him, and nearly drooled at him when dancing. She had far more to lose by forgetting herself.
“Why, bless my soul,” exclaimed a man behind her. “Can it really be Miss Emilia Greeneborough?”
Emilia froze. All worries about Nicholas Dashwood vanished in one painful lurch of her heart.
He strolled around to face her. “It is, indeed!” Geoffrey Parker-Lloyd said in a tone of false delight. “Howdoyou do, Miss Greeneborough?”
Spine like steel, she raised her chin. “Perfectly well, thank you.”
His smirk grew broader as she said nothing else. “What a delightful surprise to cross your path. It’s been an age, hasn’t it?”
Emilia said nothing.
“Yes,” he mused, resting both hands on the head of his cane and tipping back his head as if in deep thought. “It must be... a dozen years? No, it cannot be so long. Eight? Ten?”
Emilia stayed silent.
“Ah, yes, I do recall now,” said the man in triumph. He was toying with her. “I’ve not seen you since you broke poor Fitchley’s heart.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Emilia cursed herself for not being more alert. She was standing on Bond Street in broad daylight, too distracted by scandalous thoughts about her employer to pay attention to her surroundings, and now she was paying for it.
Parker-Lloyd bent forward, over his cane. He was a little taller than she, and lean, posing to show his elegantly tailored burgundy coat to perfection. Emilia had always thought he looked like a fox, with thick auburn hair slicked back from his pale face, and nothing about him had changed in the intervening years. His long, narrow nose practically twitched with the prospect of mischief.
“What a treat, running into you. And looking so...” His gaze ran down her figure, one brow rising in frank disdain for her simple dress and pelisse. “So like yourself,” he finished. “Fitchley will be delighted to hear you’re in town again.”
Was that a threat? It sounded like one.
