Accidentally in Love by Claudia Dain Page A

are in Town, you must call him Mr. Culley,” Mama said. “We do not want to look the rustic, do we?” Before anyone could answer that clearly rhetorical question, Mama continued, “Mrs. Culley and I will be going to the shops this afternoon, Emeline. I do think you should accompany us. You are too much in Mr. Culley’s company.”
    “Mr. Culley,” Harry said, chortling.
    “Don’t be vulgar, Horace,” Mama said.
    “Is it vulgar for Kit to call me Harry?” Harry asked.
    “Mr. Culley, as a gentleman with whom we are warmly acquainted,” Mama said, “may call you what he chooses. You, as a child of eleven, must address him as he deserves.”
    “I’ve been calling him Kit since I was a baby,” Harry mumbled, his mouth full of muffin liberally coated with butter. “He’s been calling me Harry for just as long.”
    “That was in Wiltshire,” Mama said. “We are in Town now. Certain adaptations must be made.”
    “I don’t see why I have to be the one to make all the adaptations,” Harry said.
    Harry, or Horace, his proper name, was not one to go down without a tussle. Emeline sometimes wondered if Harry was the reason Mama had closed the door to Papa at four children. Papa had taken his banishment in apparent good will. Of course Emeline was hardly pressing her ear to Mama’s bedchamber door so perhaps she did not have all the facts. She was quite certain that she did not want all the facts, not about that.
    “That is quite enough, Horace,” Mama said. She used almost the exact same tone and phrasing when speaking to her husband. “Emeline? The shops?”
    “What are we shopping for today?” Emeline said. She did not have anything against shopping, in fact, she quite enjoyed it. But not everyday. And not when Kit was living a mere three doors down the street.
    The Culleys, Kit and his widowed mother and his younger brother, George, were leasing a house on Dover Street for the Season. The Harlows were borrowing a house from Mama’s second cousin for the Season. It was an act of divine mercy that Kit’s house was just steps from hers. Surely God must sanction her heart’s desire. Every day, when she made it a point to walk past the bright red door of the Culley house, she felt her heart leap and her blood race.
    Blood red. Heart red. His door.
    It was a sign. It had to be.
    Kit would awaken from his torpor and realize that she was the woman of his heart and blood, the woman who would make passion race all the days of their lives.
    She had no actual experience of passion, racing or otherwise, but she had read Moliere and she put her trust in that. If only she knew how to awaken his passion for her. Even Moliere had his limitations.
    “We are visiting the shops, Emeline,” Mama said. “One needn’t be so militarily precise about it. We shall look about and, perhaps, you shall attract the gaze of a likely gentleman of good family. That is why we are in Town for the Season, is it not?” Another rhetorical question. Mama excelled at posing rhetorical questions.
    “Will Mr. Culley accompany us?” Emeline said.
    Kit’s mother was a widow, perpetually without escort. Kit was a good son and escorted his mother without complaint, even cheerfully. Kit, aside from his Greek god looks, would make a wonderful husband, she was certain of it.
    “I shouldn’t think he would,” Mama said. “Mrs. Culley informed me yesterday at tea that her son had an appointment to meet with Lord Raithby today.”
    “Lord Raithby?” Emeline asked. “Does Kit know Lord Raithby?”
    “Mr. Culley,” Mama corrected, “knows Lord Raithby, slightly, I believe. Some sort of school connection. I am unaware of the details. I shouldn’t think it any of our concern, Emeline.”
    Not her concern? Anything pertaining to Kit, however casually, was her concern. How to get him to marry her otherwise? She might be militarily precise, as Mama put it, but she did not think it a bad trait at all. Not when dealing with the elusive,