A Companion for the Count: A Regency Romance by Britton, Sally (open ebook TXT) 📕

moments before she had caught his eye as the race was about to start. Although catching him at it disappointed her, Emma pushed aside her feelings to focus on their friendship. She could help him overcome whatever regret might linger.

There were other titled ladies who might take a fancy to him.

Not that she intended to introduce him to any of them.

Ever.

Emma winced as the vehement thought crossed her mind, the silent conviction far too telling.

Luca slowed his pace, with Sir Andrew walking ahead at a rapid speed as he called to a friend. Then the handsome Sicilian turned to her, his voice low. “Emma, are you well?”

She forced her eyes wider and put on her usual smile. “Perfectly well. Why ever do you ask?”

“That face you made—it appeared morbid.” Though his expression remained concerned, she saw the twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

Emma laughed, and then brightened when he offered her his arm. “I take it you meant to use that word instead of the other.”

“This time, yes.” Luca gave her hand one quick press where it rested in the crook of his arm. “But you did appear unsettled. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You needn’t worry. I had a stray thought I did not like.” She waved her hand before her to waft away the topic as one might an unpleasant odor. “Have you ever seen a Punch and Judy show?”

“I am certain you mean Punchinello e Joan.” He narrowed his dark eyes at her. “You English, always taking what you like from others and turning them…well, English.”

She laughed despite her earlier disquieting thought, then pointed to the middle of the little town where a large expanse of green marked the place for the community to gather. A hasty theater had gone up, with cheap curtains, and children already sat on the ground looking up as a puppet Punch took charge of the baby while his wife went away.

“We cannot help ourselves, I think.” Emma saw Josephine, Simon, Andrew, Alice, and Rupert standing together near the marionette’s stage. “Oh, there they are. Come, let us see if Punch gets all that he deserves for his horrid crimes.”

Luca took her to her friends, and when she began to remove her hand from his arm he covered it again with his own. Only briefly, his touch so light she barely felt it, but Emma’s gaze rose to his with uncertainty. Did he mean for her hand to stay there, the two of them nearly as coupled together as Alice and Rupert?

No, he could not want that.

She slipped her hand away and busied herself with her reticule, finding pennies to pay when Mr. Wheaton, the baker, brought pies and rolls about. Luca bought several sweet rolls and nodded to the children at the front of the audience, instructing the baker to take the treats to them.

Mr. Wheaton’s grin grew larger than she’d ever seen it as he distributed the treats to the children—only to be yelled at by Punch for “encouraging little brats to eat things meant for their betters.” The audience shouted back their disagreements, and the children laughed when Punch fell over at the fervor with which they shouted him down before taking up the story again.

“I never understood why people like this so much,” Alice said from where she stood next to her husband, nibbling at a mince pie. “Punch is horrid, beating everyone with that stick. We would never put up with it in reality.”

“I think that must be the point.”

Everyone looked at Luca, including Emma.

“What is?” she asked, and had the pleasure of watching that slow, understated smile of his appear.

“Punch acts in a way that is improper, shocking us into laughter, but we can all see that he is the villain of the story. No one likes him for his behavior, and sometimes he is hanged for it in the Italian shows. Sometimes he escapes, but the wife and constable remain happily with the baby. So while he might think himself the victor, he loses everything that most of us require to find happiness.”

Emma’s lips parted, her agreement ready-formed.

“You learn all of this from a story with wooden-faced dolls bashing each other with sticks?” Andrew’s snort wasn’t quite derisive, but certainly disbelieving.

Screams of laughter came from the children as Punch mishandled his baby, turning it upside down and trying to feed it through its toes. Emma gestured to the stage. “It’s far too ridiculous for anyone to think it realistic, Andrew.”

“I agree with Lord Atella.” Josephine glared down her nose at the baronet before turning to Luca with an approving smile. “The subtleties are in every story. No child watching this will think it a grand thing to be Punch, when all the world calls for his demise. He’s a horrid creature.”

Emma finished her baked treat, watching Luca from the corner of her eye as Josephine rained her approval upon him. Luca nodded in appreciation of her agreement, then folded his arms and watched the marionettes.

The others in their little group continued chatting, with Andrew and Simon speaking of the race and the rider whose horse had stumbled. Emma listened to them with half an ear, her eyes upon the stage but her mind on other things. Luca stood between Josephine and Emma, occasionally chuckling at the show, and sometimes pointing out a way in which Punch had been thwarted. To Josephine.

The pie Emma had eaten didn’t seem to agree with her after long. She gripped the strings of her reticule and murmured her excuses as she went in search of something cool to drink. Vendors were set up along the principal street in temporary stalls or carts, selling their harvests and handiwork.

At a cart full of baskets of apples, a woman also had large barrels of cider. With no wish to feel tipsy, Emma started to go on, but a hand at her arm stopped her. She looked back, pulling in a deep breath in case she might need to give someone a