Thanks to Hal, said the little voice in the back of her mind.If he hadn’t interfered, you’d be Lady Gilbert right now, listening to florid poetry and sponging your husband’s un-fevered brow.
Suppressing a shudder, Gemma tried to focus on the earl in front of her, and block all awareness of the barman enjoying his night off behind her.The task was made more difficult by the fact that the earl’s gaze kept straying over her shoulder to scan the taproom.
Finally, he broke off in the middle of an anecdote about a colleague of his who’d plucked a gem-quality diamond from the waters of the Coolebrooke River in Ireland a few years before.“Ah, my valet has returned!”
The earl raised a hand, beckoning, and Gemma, who had actually perked up at the mention of a gem-quality diamond, blinked at the abrupt shift in subject matter.
Twisting round in her chair, Gemma spied a small, slim man in a three-button coat and high, starched collar carrying an enormous parcel wrapped with a ribbon of robin’s egg blue.That was the color of the earl’s household livery, Gemma recalled.
“I had to send him all the way to Newbury to get what I wanted, but I think—ah, there you are, Sanderson!Did you manage to find the—?Good, good, I never doubted you for a moment.”
As the earl took the large package from his valet and set it down on the table in front of Gemma, he said, “Sanderson is a wonder, he attends to all the mundane details of life that so often escape me.I should be a wreck without him.Open your gift!”
Despite herself, anticipation tingled up Gemma’s spine.It had been so long since she’d been in the position to receive an inappropriate gift from a gentleman!The box was so wide and flat, it had to be a gown.
She dithered for a moment over whether to accept it.Surely it would not reflect well on her to accept an expensive gift from an admirer.It was exactly the sort of thing that the patronesses of Almack’s frowned upon and tutted over.What if this was a test?
But Gemma liked presents.And as she looked across the table at the earl’s open, guileless face, she couldn’t imagine him playing the sort of game that would result in humiliating Gemma for accepting his gift.Especially here, in public, in the middle of her inn with a crowd of customers and villagers beginning to gather round.
The crowd included Lucy, and Hal, of course.Somehow he’d contrived to stand directly behind Lord Stonehaven’s chair, and he was watching Gemma with an expression she did not altogether like.
“What are you waiting for?”Lord Stonehaven urged, nudging the package closer to her.“Open it!”
Above his head, Hal grinned at her, his teeth very white in his tanned, bearded face.“Yes, open it!We’re all perishing to see what’s inside.”
Brimming with excitement, head full of visions of satin and silk, lace and beading—something new to wear, just when she’d resigned herself to falling hideously out of fashion in the interests of sinking all their profits back into the inn—Gemma pulled off the pretty blue ribbon and carefully coiled it up to keep.Her fingers scrabbled at the box a bit in her eagerness to see what was inside.
Flinging the lid aside, she tore through the top layer of tissue paper to uncover…a pair of the tall green India rubber boots recently popularized by the Duke of Wellington.They were clunky and ugly.
“But…these are gentleman’s boots,” she pointed out, bewildered.
“Actually, this pair is sized to fit a young boy.I hope I got the size right, I had to hazard a guess.”
“So they’re…for a young boy?”Gemma looked up in confusion only to see Hal nearly convulsed with silent laughter.She narrowed her eyes at him.
“No, no, you are the intended recipient, I assure you!So that you can join me tomorrow in my explorations without dirtying any of your nice slippers,” Lord Stonehaven explained earnestly.
“This is wonderful,” Lucy said loudly, the false enthusiasm of her tone making Gemma wince slightly.“Lord Stonehaven has truly divined your heart’s desire, Gemma!”
Gemma sent her sister a look that she hoped conveyed her true heart’s desire: for Lucy to stop “helping” at once.
A light frown creased Stonehaven’s high brow.“It can be quite muddy out there in the countryside, and the best thing one can do is to be appropriately prepared for the elements.But I do understand that these boots are not…the height of fashion, I suppose.Or even ladylike perhaps.Oh dear.I do hope I have not given offense, I assure you I meant no insult!I only meant to see you properly kitted out before inviting you to come exploring with me!”
Setting aside her disappointed longing for luxurious fabrics and fancy fripperies, Gemma smiled at Lord Stonehaven.“I’m not offended!Truly, this is an exceptionally thoughtful gift, and I thank you for it.”
“You’d better try them on, don’t you think?”Hal asked, arms crossed over his chest and eyebrow lifted challengingly.
Her vanity protested at once; the boots were inescapably unattractive, and they would look especially ludicrous sticking out from under the wine-colored skirts of the satin-trimmed dress she wore over the ruffled white underdress peeking out at the hem.
She would look an utter fool, wearing those boots with this dress.
Gemma shot a glare at Hal, only managing to convert the expression to a sweet smile for Lord Stonehaven at the last instant.“Yes, of course!I can’t wait to put them on!I love them!”
Still looking touchingly concerned that he might have insulted her, the earl had the rubber boots out of the box and was kneeling at Gemma’s feet before she could quite process what was happening.It was a shockingly intimate moment, played out in a very public space.
A ripple of delight ran through the crowd to see a highborn peer of the realm on his knees before the landlady of their local pub.
For a giddy instant, as Lord Stonehaven gazed up at her, a Wellington boot in his hands and a hopeful smile on his face, Gemma had the mad thought that he might be about to propose less than three days after renewing their acquaintance.With a pair of galoshes.
