Perhaps you did, at Penford Hall, where no one seemed to think in straight lines. The gatekeeper thought he was Che Guevara, the footman thought he was Dickens, the maid thought she was the next Chanel, and the duke seemed to think he was Father Christmas, showering the villagers with new roads and flying doctors, his servants with laptops and cellular phones. Emma’s own way of thinking was beginning to bend under the influence. For a moment there in the garden, she’d thought she was Marilyn Monroe, ready to do battle with the delectable Ashers for the blue-eyed Derek of her dreams. She might as well pretend to be Gertrude Jekyll for the summer. Who would notice?
I would, thought Emma, sheepishly. I’m no more a femme fatale than I am a long-dead gardening genius, and I can’t work in the chapel garden as an impostor. If I stay on at Penford Hall, she decided, it won’t be under false pretenses. She vowed silently to tell the duke the truth about herself at the earliest opportunity.
“Oh, and one other thing,” Kate added, as Emma walked her to the door. “Mattie’s only been here for a few months and, unlike her grandfather, she can be a bit overdramatic about Penford Hall’s ... colorful past. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what she says about that pop singer, if I were you.”
Emma’s understanding smile faded as soon as Kate had left the room. Great, she thought. Here I am, without a car, in a Gothic heap full of loonies, being warned off the subject of Lex Rex. What have the Pyms gotten me into?
Thanks to Crowley, who’d knocked on her door at precisely eight-twenty, Emma arrived in the library as the case clock in the comer chimed the half hour. She was relieved to see that she was neither the first nor the last to arrive. The duke was nowhere in sight, but Susannah had Derek pinned in a bay window beside a tall and quite beautiful harp, where she was lecturing him on—God help us, thought Emma—spirituality and good nutrition.
Derek had exchanged his worn jeans and blue pullover for an open-necked shirt and corduroys, and replaced his workboots with a pair of tired loafers. He seemed unable to tear his gaze from Susannah, who was wearing something black, strapless, and ankle-length that clung like paint to the places where most women had curves. Her makeup was flawless, her sleek blond hair pulled into a chignon at the nape of her spindly neck, and diamond studs glittered from her delicate earlobes. Neither she nor Derek seemed to notice Emma’s arrival.
Her entrance didn’t go entirely unremarked, however. Crowley had barely ushered Emma into the room when a shout rang out. “Hey! You the gal with the green thumb we been hearin’ so much about? Syd Bishop’s the name. Suzie’s manager. What’re you drinkin’?”
Syd Bishop was a paunchy American in his mid-sixties, with faded red hair plastered in long strands across his freckled scalp. His accent reeked of Brooklyn, and his voice was so loud that it almost drowned out the rumble of thunder as the first rush of rain spattered the windows. Syd’s tuxedo was black—Emma gave him credit for that much good sense—but the crimson trim on the wide lapels didn’t quite match the vermillion bow tie and cummerbund, or the pink-edged ruffles on the front of his white shirt.
Syd sat next to Kate Cole on a burgundy brocade couch. Kate’s wine-colored velvet gown had a tight-fitting bodice and a flowing skirt, a high collar and long sleeves. Syd Bishop looked as out of place beside her as a plastic gnome in the Chelsea Flower Show.
“I’ll have a sherry, thank you,” Emma replied.
Syd snapped his fingers at the bespectacled footman, who stood to one side, near the drinks cabinet. “Hallard, my man, a sherry for the lady.”
Emma crossed the room to sit in one of a cluster of leather armchairs facing the sofa. She tried not to gawk at Syd, but she must have failed, because, the moment she sat down, he let loose a loud guffaw.
“I know,” he said, with a self-deprecating grin. “Hey, a big-time operator like me, I should know what’s what in fashion, right? Wrong. Me, I’m a nice boy from Brooklyn. What I know is business. So I leave the glamour to Suzie and she leaves the bottom line to me. It works. You met Kate Cole yet?” He winked at Kate. “She’s the duke’s generalissimo. Great gal. If she had six inches more leg, she coulda been a contender.”
Midway through Syd’s speech, Hallard had come to stand beside Emma’s chair, carrying a glass of sherry on a silver tray. He remained there, staring myopically at Syd, long after Syd had fallen silent.
“Hallard,” Kate Cole said softly.
“Mmmm?” Hallard replied in a faraway voice.
“I believe Miss Porter would like her drink now.”
“Ah.” Hallard looked down at the tray, as though surprised to find it in his possession, then bent to offer the sherry to Emma. He retreated to his place at the drinks cabinet, blinking slowly and murmuring to himself, “... coulda been a contendah, coulda been a contendah ...”
“What that guy needs is a long vacation,” Syd muttered.
“Kate,” Emma said, “I meant to ask you earlier—Mattie mentioned that she was working with a Nanny Cole. Are you related?”
There was a snort from across the room as Susannah glanced in Kate’s direction. Kate colored, but replied calmly, “Nanny Cole is my mother. She’s been at Penford Hall most of her life. I suppose you could say that Grayson and I grew up together.”
Again, Susannah interrupted her monologue with Derek. “Weren’t you and your dear mother sent into exile, darling?”
Kate’s lips tightened. “We lived in Bournemouth for a short time,” she acknowledged.
“Ten years seems on the long side to me,” Susannah commented, and this time Kate bridled.
Emma spoke up quickly, hoping to defuse a potential argument. “Penford Hall must have been a wonderful place to grow up in.”
“You said a mouthful, little lady,” said Syd. “I was just tellin’ Kate, a classy joint like this’ud make a helluva set for a shoot. Whaddya think?”
Emma let her gaze travel slowly around the dark-paneled, high-ceilinged library. A thick Persian carpet covered the floor, and a pair of Chinese vases flanked the marble fireplace, where a fire blazed. Above the mantelpiece hung a portrait of an imperious, white-haired woman in a floor-length silver gown. Adorned with square-cut emeralds, she was seated beside a harp very like the one in the corner.
A mahogany staircase led to a broad gallery that ran the length of one wall. Arched floor-to-ceiling windows pierced the gallery’s walls, and the glass-enclosed shelves on both levels held thousands of volumes. Here and there, a book’s title, inscribed in gold leaf on a dark leather binding, gleamed in the firelight.
“So? Whaddya think? Am I right or am I right?”
Before Emma could answer, the hall door flew open and the duke rushed in. “Sorry, all,” he said breezily. “Beastly rude of me to totter in so late, do forgive me. Will you listen to that downpour? Makes one glad to be indoors, what? Syd, how kind of you to dress for dinner.” The duke, Emma noted, was wearing a tasteful but decidedly informal pair of flannel trousers and a fawn-colored cashmere turtleneck. “Emma, you are a vision in blue, and your hair! Your hair is like a soft mist rolling in off the sea.” Gesturing toward the portrait over the mantelpiece, he added, “My grandmother. As you can see, her interests were musical as well as horticultural. She played the harp beautifully.”
Syd’s voice rang out. “Those are some emeralds your grandma’s got on.”
“Her wedding jewels,” the duke explained. “My grandfather had a great fondness for emeralds.” He turned to the bay windows. “Susannah, you look ravishing. And treating Derek to a talk about—which diet deity is it this week? Never mind, I’m sure it’s a jolly fascinating one. Dreadfully sorry to interrupt the fun, but a higher power has informed me that our presence is required in the dining room.”