Reforming Lord Ragsdale (Carla Kelly’s Regency Romances)

Chapter 20

I mpulsively, she took his face in her hands and touched her forehead to his. “Somehow, I knew you would,” she murmured, and she meant it.

Lord Ragsdale picked up one of the lists and placed it in her hand. “They were on the Hercules ,” he said, unfolding the papers. “Wouldn’t you know I would go through the Minerva ’s list first.” He scanned the second page and then ran his finger in practiced fashion down the second column. “There.”

She looked where he pointed, read the name, and allowed herself to breathe again. “David Upton Costello,” she read out loud. “My lord, that is my father.”

“I thought as much. And look here,” he said, pointing farther down the list. “There were several Costellos. Samuel—I cannot make out the middle name, but it starts with an A.”

“Ainsworth,” she said, touching the name. She folded the paper carefully, tenderly, then leaned against Lord Ragsdale’s shoulder and closed her eyes, unable to say anything.

“They sailed in April of 1804,” Lord Ragsdale said as he put his arm around her shoulder. “Now you know, Emma.”

She opened her eyes then and sat up, her mind suddenly full of questions. “But where? How? What magic is this?”

He laughed at her and raised his hands as though to fend her off. “For two people who think themselves at least more intelligent than dahlias, we were remarkably thickheaded on this one, Emma.”

“Tell me!” she demanded, ready to pluck at his sleeve like a child.

“During my third night in Bath when I was tossing and turning—oh, by the way, you may congratulate me on my forthcoming nuptials,” he said, interrupting himself.

“And I do congratulate you,” she replied, then looked at him shrewdly. “And why, pray tell me, if you are so happily engaged, were you ‘tossing and turning’?”

He was silent a moment, and she almost wished she had not asked. “It is merely that I prefer my own bed here in London.” He tugged at her hair under its cap. “That is none of your business and has nothing to do with my narrative!”

“Very well, my lord. Pray continue.”

“It suddenly occurred to me that the most logical place to look for a ship bearing Irish convicts was Ireland itself.” He smiled at her openmouthed amazement. “Impressive, ain’t I?”

You went all the way to Ireland for me , she thought, even though you have sworn to me how seasick you get in a full bathtub, and I know you really don’t care to exert yourself. “Very impressive,” she said quietly. “Lord Ragsdale, you are a wonderful man. Have I ever told you?”

In reply, he took her hand and kissed it. “No, you have not, but it’s nice to hear. I made up some fancy lie about business that could not wait, placated Clarissa with an obscene diamond—”

“I’ve seen it,” Emma interrupted, “and you are right.”

“—And caught the next ship to Cork.” He pressed his hand to his stomach. “I can only marvel how anyone survives a sea voyage. Emma, the things I have done for you. . .”

“I told you I was grateful,” she said, twinkling her eyes at him and holding the lists closer.

“I combed the docks for any record of our missing ships but found nothing. It only remained for me to catch the mail coach to Dublin.” He looked up as the gallery clerk motioned to them and then tapped his pocket watch. “Emma, we’re being ejected. Shall we?”

She put her arm through his and strolled with him into the gardens. She stopped then and looked at him. “How did you know I was here?”

He took her arm again and moved her in the direction of his curricle. “Simple. I went to the bank, and the senior clerk said he thought he heard you tell the hackney driver to take you to Kensington.” He looked around him at the flowers. “It’s much nicer now than it was the first time I brought you here.” He sat her on a bench. “Back to the story.”

“But aren’t you in a hurry to get home? This morning Miss Partridge mentioned something about a party.”

“There will always be a party,” he said, dismissing his fiancée somewhat callously, she thought. “I want to tell you here.”

“Very well, then,” she replied, mystified.

“I went to Dublin.” He paused then, as if wondering how much to tell her.

Her hand went to his cheek. “I want you to tell me everything, my lord,” she said simply. “You just said that you would, and I have waited so long.”

“Of course.” He spoke quickly then, as though the news he bore pained him to the quick. “I checked the records at Prevot. Your mother died of typhus, much as you had thought.”

She waited for the news to slap her, but she felt instead a peaceful calm. Mama must not have suffered long then , she thought. Ah, well, she is at rest now, and the soldiers cannot touch her.

“Eamon?” she asked.

He put his arm around her again. “He was hanged in the Prevot Prison courtyard in October, about the same time Robert Emmet was beheaded.” He twined his fingers in hers, and she clung to his hand gladly. “Emma, the United Irish dead, or Croppies, or whatever you want to call them, were all tumbled into a common grave. Do you know, it’s become a shrine of sorts.” He smiled at the memory. “Blamed if the British don’t try and try to keep it from happening, but flowers are forever turning up on that mound.”

“I wish I could add mine,” she said softly.

He kissed her hand again. “Consider it done, Emma. The guards there are really slow, even though I left a regular florist’s shop.”

The tears came then, and she clung to him as he patted her back and let her cry. They were cleansing tears, and when she finished and blew her nose vigorously on the handkerchief that Lord Ragsdale always seemed to have ready, she knew she would not cry that way again. She would remember Eamon always, but she would not mourn him anymore, now that she knew a nation in the making held him dear too.

Lord Ragsdale looked at the sky. “I think we will continue this as I drive.” He stood up and held out his hand for her. “I knew I would find the ships’ rosters in Dublin, and I did,” he said as he helped her into the curricle. “Both ships had Dublin registries.” He spoke to his horse, and they started back to Curzon Street. “I actually spent an evening with the captain of the Hercules . He assured me that there was little loss of life on the voyage to Australia.” He looked at her. “Of course, you won’t know until you get there. . .” His voice trailed off. “Emma, it’s a long way.”

“I know.”

They were both silent for several blocks. “I had to hurry back to Bath,” Lord Ragsdale said finally, continuing his narrative. He nudged her shoulder. “By the way, I stopped in to see Fae Moullé’s millinery shop, and it is a fine one. How pleased I am that you both cheated me.” He laughed out loud at the look she knew was on her face. “She gave me a rather elegant bonnet for you, which I was hard put to explain to Clarissa.”

Emma joined in his laughter. “You have my permission to give it to her as a wedding present. ”

He nodded. “I expect my wife will wear it,” he said enigmatically. “But, Emma, I have not finished my Irish tale.”

“What more can there be?” she wondered. “Everyone is accounted for now.”

“Not everyone, Emma.”

What can he mean? she thought as the traffic claimed his attention. I have no hidden relatives waiting to give me a fortune so I can travel to Australia.

“I took the mail coach for the return trip to Cork,” he continued when the traffic abated.

He looked at her, and she found the expression unsettling. There is such tenderness in your face , she thought. There can be no more bad news, so it must be good news. “I wish you would tell me,” she urged.

“I thought I would stop in Diggtown. I remember you said that was where you left Tim.”

She nodded, afraid to speak, allowing herself the tiniest glimmer of hope after years of none.

“I thought to find his grave, so I could give you a complete report, but, Emma, there was no grave for Timothy Costello. I tried all three cemeteries.”

She took his arm. “That’s all right,” she soothed, worrying at the emotion coming into his voice. “It really isn’t necessary for you to absorb all my troubles, my lord.”

“Oh, Emma.” He shook his head. “Well, I tried the better part of the day to remember the name of that family you said you had left him with.”

“Holladay,” she said automatically.

“Yes. I remembered it just when I was about to climb aboard another mail coach.” He chuckled to himself. “I think the other passengers thought me daft when I leaped off that thing and ran back into town.”

“Please tell me,” she pleaded. “Surely they did not toss him into a common grave with no marker. I could not bear such news.”

“Emma, you can bear anything,” he murmured. “That is the wonder of you. I found the house—a nice one, by the way—and knocked on the door.” He paused, then covered her hand with his. “Emma, the young lad who answered the door looked a great deal like you.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded. “Tim is alive.”

Tim is alive , she repeated in her mind as she clutched Lord Ragsdale’s hand. She closed her eyes to let the words sink into her brain. Tim is alive. She had carried him ten miles through a driving rainstorm, and him burning with fever. She shuddered, remembering all over again the death rattle in his throat, reverberating so close to her ear as she staggered along, one shoe on, the other lost in the mud, her clothes plastered to her, and soldiers everywhere to prod and poke if she slowed down with her burden.

“It cannot be,” she whispered.

“Then I can’t imagine who it was there at the Holladays who held open the door and asked would I like to come in,” Lord Ragsdale said mildly as he pulled up in front of his house. “He has charming freckles, marvelous green eyes, and an appealing way of cocking his head to one side when he listens.”

“Tim,” she agreed. She folded her hands in her lap, wondering why it was so difficult to absorb such news. “Then I must return to Ireland.”

Lord Ragsdale smiled and shook his head as he took her hands in his again. “I wouldn’t, Emma. When I told him who I was, and what had happened to his family, he wouldn’t settle for less than coming with me.”

She looked up at him and swallowed, wishing for words but unable to think of any.

“My dear, he’s inside.” He tightened his grip on her hands. “I just wanted to break it to you out here before you did something silly like faint or succumb to hysterics.” He smiled into her eyes. “Tim said he doesn’t like girls to make a scene, and I assured him you would not.”

She sat in silence, her senses reeling. How do I put into words my gratitude , she thought as she looked at Lord Ragsdale. I hated you at first because you are English, and now I have such profound regard for you. I will never be ignorant of your faults, but you have borne mine with uncommon grace. I wonder if I will ever be out of your debt, even if you release me from my indenture and I travel thousands of miles.

“Emma, I am not handsome enough to stare at for such a length. Is my patch over the wrong eye? Spinach between my teeth?” he teased. “Come, come. You have some reacquaintance to make, and I do believe he is looking out the window right now, wondering about his sister.”

She leaped from the curricle, even as he tried to help her down, gathered up her skirts, and ran into the house. Tim stood in the hallway. How tall you are , she thought as she just stood there, taking in the sight of him, hugging him in her mind and heart even before she held out her arms.

He walked toward her slowly, as if checking her out with every footstep, looking for the sister he remembered when he was five.

“Emmy?” he asked finally.

Without a word, she grabbed him fiercely into her arms. In a second his arms tightened about her, and she felt his tears on her neck.

“I waited and waited for you to come for me,” he sobbed, even as she kissed his neck and clung to him. “I kept hoping.”

“Such watering pots,” Lord Ragsdale commented as he handed each of them a handkerchief, then pressed a third to his eye. “See here, you have set me a bad example.” He grinned at Tim. “But I will practice economy and cry out of only one eye.”

Tim laughed and blew his nose, then allowed Lord Ragsdale to give him a hug of his own.

“Good lad,” Lord Ragsdale said as he put his arms around both of them and steered them toward the book room. “Do you know, Emma, he does not get seasick.” He ruffled Tim’s hair with a familiarity that made Emma smile. “He assured me that I would not die and ignored me when I threatened to throw myself overboard and end it all.”

“You did not say that!” Tim declared. “Hush, lad!” Lord Ragsdale said with mock sobriety. “If you and I are to rub along together, you must realize I enjoy giving a tale a good squeeze.”

“Like Da,” Tim said.

“Why, yes,” Emma agreed, wondering why she had never noticed that tendency about Lord Ragsdale before.

In the book room, Lord Ragsdale ceremoniously seated himself at the desk and rummaged about in one of the drawers. “I know it’s here, unless you have organized the very marrow out of my bones,” he grumbled.

“I would never,” she protested as she possessed herself of Tim’s hand. “In fact, I think I will advise Clarissa to give you ample room to maneuver, my lord. You do your best work on a spontaneous basis, I believe.”

“So glad you finally recognized it,” he murmured as he pulled out a document. “Here we have your indenture paper. Tomorrow it goes to the bank to be signed down here and notarized, and then it goes to you, my dear.” He folded his hands on the desk. “I think you should frame it, so you can tell your children someday how you reformed a rather dingy member of the peerage because of a card-game wager.” He winked at Tim. “It’s a story worthy of the Irish, lad.”

She accepted the paper from him, looked at it, and returned it to the desk. “I would like to continue working for you for wages, until I earn enough for passage for two to Australia, my lord.”

“I fear that is quite impossible. Clarissa has told me on several occasions that she thinks I need a male secretary,” he replied.

Emma nodded, remembering her conversation with Clarissa only that morning. “Well, then, can you give me a character reference?”

He smiled at her. “Before I came looking for you, I wrote this character. Perhaps it will suffice. Take it, Emma, and with my blessings.”

She held out her hand for the letter and held it so Tim could read it too. He can’t be serious , she thought. “My lord, this is addressed to Lachlan Macquarie”—she looked closer—“the governor of Australia. . .”

“. . . Who said he would be delighted to provide you with employment in the colony. When I went to the trouble of finding out who he was, I was only too delighted to discover that he is sailing on this next supply convoy. Apparently, the Colonial Office thinks Macquarie is just the man to take over from the unfortunate William Bligh,” he said. “It seems that Captain Bligh cannot weather mutiny on sea or land, and there has been trouble in Australia.”

“But”—she frowned—“that may be, my lord. Don’t think you will scare me off from making the journey.”

“I would never!” he exclaimed, his voice shocked. He winked at Tim and quite ruined the effect.

“Lord Ragsdale, do be serious!” she said. “This paper is well and good, but I need employment here to pay for passage there. It is quite simple. I cannot swim there!”

“You probably could,” he disagreed. “But to spare Tim any possible embarrassment, I intend to pay your passage and his, if I can’t talk him into coming with me to Norfolk.”

“You can’t, my lord,” Tim said.

“You sound just like your sister,” Lord Ragsdale said mildly. “I didn’t think I could.”

“I never asked you to pay our way,” she protested, all the while knowing that he was going to do what he wanted.

“I know you did not. I want to do it, and I don’t want a lot of argument, and please, no pouts. I am already steeling myself for a lifetime of those from Clarissa. Don’t you do it too,” he concluded with some finality.

He rose to his feet, as though signifying the end to his audience. Very well, my lord , she thought. Our relationship has changed yet again. Now you are formal and dignified and in control of things. I know this is what I worked for, but I miss the rascal a little. She held out her hand to him, and they shook hands.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing, Emma.” He looked at Tim. “Lad, go tell Lasker not to hold dinner any longer. I want the two of you at my table tonight.”

“Oh, that isn’t necessary,” she said as Tim grinned at Lord Ragsdale.

“I want to, so don’t argue. The convoy leaves in a matter of ten days or so. When I visited with the new governor. . .”

“You visited with him?” she interrupted.

“Of course!” he replied, sounding genuinely indignant this time. “You don’t seriously think I would just turn you over to the vagaries of life at sea without looking into the matter!”

“Such exertion,” she murmured, touched at his interest.

Lord Ragsdale appealed to Tim. “See how she baits me? Was she this way at home?”

“I can’t quite remember,” Tim said and then brightened. “But my brothers were.”

Emma laughed and pulled Tim closer. “Very well! If you must be solicitous, I suppose there is nothing I can do about it. Go on now, Tim, and speak to Lasker.”

“There isn’t anything you can do about it,” Lord Ragsdale agreed after Tim left, his equanimity restored. “I learned from Governor Macquarie that the lord inspector will sail too. You will be in quite distinguished company, so you might brush up on your manners.”

“You seem determined that I remain firmly in your debt,” she protested with a smile.

“Of course,” he agreed cheerfully. “I like to have people owe me.”

It is more than I could ever repay , she thought, but a burden I gladly bear. She went to the door, then turned back on impulse and kissed him .

Why am I doing this? she thought as his arms went around her and held her close. He was incredibly easy to kiss, and once begun, difficult to leave off. Her hands went to his hair then. She had always admired his thick hair, and she wondered if it felt as good as it looked. It did, to her gratification, and to his pleasure, obviously, because he sighed and continued kissing her.

We simply must stop this kiss , she thought, and then didn’t think anymore, finding herself more occupied with the rapidity of her heartbeat and the pleasant feel of him. I am being kissed by an expert , she thought. It was nice before, but this is infinitely better.

He seemed in no hurry to end the experience, except that someone had the bad timing to knock on the book room door. Lord Ragsdale released her and began to straighten his neckcloth. “Drat!” he muttered, even as she went to the window and stared out, hoping that the intruder did not have intense scrutiny in mind. Her cheeks felt flaming hot, and she stood there, astounded at her own temerity. This indenture is not ending a moment too soon , she thought as Lasker opened the door, announced dinner after a quick look around, then took himself off again.

“Dear me,” she murmured when the room seemed awfully silent.

“Dear me, indeed,” said Lord Ragsdale, sounding quite as out of breath as she felt. “If I had known how you felt about release from your indenture, I’d have signed that blooming document once each day, maybe twice.”

The enormity of her indiscretion nearly removed what breath she had left. I must be losing my reason , she thought, measuring the distance between the window and the door and wondering why it looked so far away. And there was Lord Ragsdale, his face flushed, his eye decidedly bright.

“I cannot imagine what you think of me,” she said, feeling such intense shame that she thought she would melt with it. “Dear me,” she said again, her voice more faint this time .

To her acute discomfort, Lord Ragsdale came no closer but continued to regard her, his expression thoughtful. He started to smile then, and her shame deepened. He sat on a corner of his desk.

“How odd, Emma,” he commented, not looking at her now but gazing over her shoulder. “You have worked so hard to redeem me, but I wonder if you have succeeded.” He grinned at her stupefied silence. “I suppose that would depend on what your aims were. Did you really plan for me to fall in love with you?”

She shook her head, astounded at his words, wishing he had not said them. “I was out of order,” she said when she thought she could manage complete sentences.

“Well, no, actually, I thought you followed through in remarkably fine order,” he commented as he gave a final tug to his neckcloth.

She edged toward the door. “You simply have to disregard my behavior.”

He shook his head. “I am able to forget a considerable number of things, but I don’t think my amnesia would extend that far.”

“I was improper,” she said.

“Decidedly. I wonder why I am not bothered by that?” he asked, more to himself than to her.

What can I say to this man? she thought miserably. I can only wish that ship were leaving in fifteen minutes. In another moment there was no need to decide. Someone knocked on the door.

“Cut line, Lasker,” Lord Ragsdale snapped, giving her reason to suspect that he was not so calm as he appeared. “We won’t perish if the peas are cold.”

I will if this conversation continues , she thought. She went to the door and opened it, not turning around when Lord Ragsdale called her name. In another moment, he grabbed her arm.

“Emma, please,” he insisted. “We need to talk. ”

“There is nothing to say, my lord,” she replied, retreating behind her formal exterior again. “I will remind you that you are engaged to Clarissa and I am bound for Australia. Good night, my lord. I think I would rather eat belowstairs with Tim. We came somewhat close to forgetting ourselves, didn’t we?”