There was a moment of silence.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” Bethany added morosely. “One is not supposed to discuss babies or bellies with unmarried ladies.”
“Don’t be a ninny,” her sister said absently. “Mrs. Mor rison in the village had her baby last week, by the way.”
“Oh, were you there? Is it a lovely babe?”
“Just like his father, if without the beard, but rather adorable nonetheless. Of course I was there. Dr. Placket arrived a half hour late, as usual, and stinking of gin. Do you really mean that Kerr said precisely that sentence, Bethany?”
“Or thereabouts.”
Emma laughed. “I said he was intelligent, didn’t I? Well-read it seems, as well.”
“Who cares for his brains? He’s intolerably rude to speak of you in such a fashion.”
“The man was quoting Shakespeare,” Emma said. “I can’t remember the exact quotation, but the line is from All’s Well That Ends Well. A perfectly loathsome specimen of manhood, the Comte de Rousillon, announces that he won’t accept his wife until she has the ring from his finger and his child to boot.”
“I never liked Shakespeare. The plays are so long and invariably lurid.”
“Don’t be such a philistine, darling,” Emma said with amusement.
“Why do you have that look about you?” Bethany demanded.
“I’m thinking. . . . Don’t you suppose that Kerr’s parents sent Father a ring at some point in the betrothal negotiations?”
“Negotiations?” Bethany repeated. “You mean, back when you were five years old?”
“Precisely.”
“Well, I can tell you that John’s family never sent me a rin
g. The only ring I received was the one he gave me when we married.”
“It seems to me that there was talk of a ring,” Emma said, puzzling over it. “I shall have to root Father out of his study and ask him.”
“Why does it matter?” Bethany asked. “You may have the ring, but you still don’t have the baby. And you can’t—” She caught sight of her sister’s face. “Oh, Emma, you can’t!”
“He’s challenged me,” Emma said with a grin, a diabolical, mischievous, laughing grin. “He’s thrown down the gauntlet, Bethany. You heard it yourself!”
“No, he didn’t mean that!”
“You said that I need to marry quickly.”
“But not—”
“And you said that I should have gone to London and forced him to marry me.”
“Yes but, Emma, I didn’t—”
“But darling, I’m just going to obey your express desires. I shall go up to London and force the man to marry me. I’ll go on my own terms—or rather, on his. Where is my Shakespeare?”
Chapter Four
March 22,1817
Lady Dyott to Miss Loudan, St. Albans, Hertfordshire
Dear Emma,