A Valentine Wedding by Jane Feather

Author:Jane Feather [Feather, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9781587242373
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1999-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“Emma love, I’ve been so worried. Wherever have you been?” Maria, dressed for the evening in lavender silk and a ruched butterfly cap, hurried out of the salon as Emma came into the house. It was already dark and the rain had not abated. Alasdair had hired a chaise in Richmond to bring Emma home, himself riding back, leading Swallow.

“We were caught in the rain,” Emma explained. “We had to take shelter in Richmond.”

“Look at your habit!” Maria flung up her hands in distress. “It’s so creased!”

The attentions of Eliza had been less than skilled, Emma reflected ruefully. Her riding habit was certainly bedraggled. “I was soaked. But Tilda will be able to retrieve it,” she said. “Did you put dinner back? It’ll only take me half an hour to dress.” She moved toward the stairs, for some reason finding it difficult to meet Maria’s eye.

“Perhaps we should stay in this evening,” Maria suggested doubtfully. “After such an ordeal, you mustn’t put yourself in the way of catching cold.”

“Since when does getting caught in a shower qualify as an ordeal?” Emma scoffed, running up the stairs. She called over her shoulder, “But I think I shall take a bath to warm me up. Half an hour and I’ll be down.”

Maria shook her head over this, but Emma could be a whirlwind when the need arose. However, to be on the safe side, she told Harris to set back dinner an hour. It would still give them ample time to arrive at Almack’s well before the witching hour of eleven o’clock, when the doors were firmly barred to all latecomers.

Not even the Prince of Wales would dare to challenge such an inflexible rule. Not that he was likely to appear at Almack’s under any circumstances, Maria reflected, returning to the drawing room. Dancing, not cards, was the entertainment offered at Almack’s, and the refreshments were not of the kind to appeal to a robust and bibulous appetite.

Tilda exclaimed and lamented over the condition of the riding habit as footmen toiled up the stairs with jugs of steaming water for Emma’s bath.

Emma stripped off her clothes with a sigh of relief and stepped into the copper tub. The hot water laved her skin and eased the slight soreness engendered by a long afternoon’s play.

She smiled rather dreamily as she rubbed verbena-scented soap between her hands. How she had missed this wonderful feeling of languid fulfillment, the sense that every part of her body had been touched with passion. She felt soft and open and aglow. And she would not yet spoil the feeling by allowing herself to think about where it was going to lead.

“The green crepe gown, Tilda,” she said. “The one with the white half-slip.” She rose dripping from the bath and took the towel Tilda handed her. She could smell the faint fragrance of the soap on her skin, and she could still feel Alasdair’s body against her own. She’d noticed in the past how her skin and muscles seemed to have memories of their own.

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