Harding held out an enormous array of flowers. Roses, gardenias, hyacinths, tulips, and every spring flower imaginable had been stuffed into the arrangement. It was easily three times the size of any bouquet she’d received thus far.
Once again, they were from Freddie. The ostentatious display made her uncomfortable, as though he were trying to prove his affections. More wasn’t necessarily better.
Emily pointed to the piano, for it was the only surface large enough for the monstrosity. “Please set it down over there, Harding.”
“There was, er, another arrangement of flowers for you as well,” Harding added. The young butler folded his hands behind his back and rocked to his heels.
Another one? Was Freddie trying to purchase every flower in London? She held back her irritation, wishing that the man would just stop. Like a clinging vine, he was smothering her.
“You may put it beside the other flowers. If there’s room.”
Harding bowed and returned a moment later with a simple posy of daffodils tied up in white ribbons. The bright yellow of the cheerful flowers lifted her spirits.
They were from her husband.
Touched by their simplicity, Emily fingered the blooms. He’d plucked a daffodil for her once before, when she was but a girl. And, oh, the scolding he’d received from his mother. She smiled, remembering it.
It hadn’t mattered then that he was an earl. He’d been the first boy she’d kissed, the one she’d fallen completely in love with. He had been everything to her.
And now? She didn’t know. A note of melancholy drifted over her, trouble encircling her spirits. She’d made such a mess of things.
Abruptly, she seized the large arrangement and threw the blooms onto the hearth. To encourage any other man was wrong. She’d been using Freddie to make Whitmore jealous, and that wasn’t fair.
Victoria began to fuss, so Emily picked her up and took her to Anna. The nursemaid opened her arms for the infant, and Victoria snuggled in, her eyes drooping shut. Emily’s heart caught at the sight of the baby. Victoria and Royce were her children now. She would do anything for them.
Their futures rested on her shoulders, and she had to ensure that they were cared for. Her nerves wound tighter. What if the society gossips resurrected the past scandal? They would not have forgotten her father’s unspeakable death. She couldn’t bear it if those secrets were revealed.
The matrons would ply her with questions, questions she didn’t want to answer. She was desperately afraid of the glittering world so far beyond her reach.
Playful shouts of delight sounded from Royce’s room. When Emily reached the door, she peered inside. The room was in shambles. Her nephew had stripped his bedding from the mattress, and one sheet dangled from a sconce upon the wall, perilously close to the gaslight.
“Ahoy, matey!” Royce yelled as she walked inside. His ash-blond hair flopped across his shining brown eyes as he bounced on the bed. “I’m a pirate!”
“Are you?” She reached up to untie the sheet, which had served as a main sail. “Do not tie these to the gas lamps, sweeting. Else you’ll set fire to us all.”
A gleam of mischief crossed his face. “I could burn the house down. Then we’d be rid of the earl.”
“Royce, how dare you say such a thing?” she scolded. “Without the earl, we’d be out on the streets.”
“But I want to live on the streets,” Royce said, slashing his shoe toward Emily, as though it were a sword. “We could rob the rich and give to the poor,” he said. “We’d be outlaws like Robin Hood.”
“And where would you sleep at night?” she asked, taking the shoe away.
“I’d sleep in a tree, of course.”
“In the park?”
He bobbed his head again, falling backwards onto the bed, his arms and legs spread wide. Emily began picking up the tin soldiers where Royce had left them strewn about the room. One of the soldiers had numerous dents and barely resembled its original condition. She scooped the rest up and set them upon a desk.
The battered leather shoes suddenly caught her attention. Royce had used one as a sword while he wore new shoes made of fine leather.
“Where did you get these?” she asked.
“They were here this morning upon my trunk.” Royce snatched a pair of tin soldiers and began a mock fight. Then he paused a moment. “Didn’t you buy them?”
Emily shook her head.
“It must have been the elves,” Royce said, nodding. “Like“The Shoemaker and the Elves”.”
