“He seemed conflicted,” Georgina said, shaking her head. “As I told you he would be. He read it in front of me--I told him you wouldn’t be satisfied unless you knew he’d read it--and then he sent his valet away and sat with his head in his hands for a minute, saying nothing.”
“Didn’t you ask him what he thought?” Emery asked impatiently.
“Of course, Em, but I was also trying to think about his feelings as well.” She pursed her lips and folded her arms over her chest. “You forget, he is my friend too.”
“But not as much, surely,” Emery argued. “You and him only became friends through me in the last few years. You and I have been best friends for much longer.”
“Still, I care about Lord Henry’s feelings. He is a good man. And he doesn’t deserve to get a letter from his bride on the day of their wedding asking him to call it off.”
“He wants this wedding as little as I do,” Emery insisted. “Believe me, Georgie, I’m doing him a favor!”
“It didn’t seem that way, from what I saw.”
Emery grit her teeth. She didn’t know what to say. As much as she wanted to be understanding of Henry’s feelings, who really was a dear friend of hers, there wasn’t really time. And while Henry might be hurt or confused, this marriage was not nearly as dire for him as it was for her. As an earl and the younger brother of a duke, he would always have power and freedom. Meanwhile once she married him, she would be his legal property, with no ability to control her own life. She would go from being controlled by her parents to being controlled by a man that, while a friend, she did not love.
It was not the same thing, and she couldn’t let it happen.
“At least he didn’t get a letter from me saying I’d run away this morning,” Emery pointed out. “I wanted to, you know, but my mother was fussing over me all morning and I couldn’t get away.”
“Upon my word, Emery, you really have lost your mind completely!” Georgina exclaimed. “Run away? To where?”
Emery opened her mouth to respond--although she wasn’t sure what exactly she was going to say--but she never got the chance. At that moment, the doors to the chapel flew open and the Duke of Dredford swept inside, a stormy and resolute look on his face.
At once, Emery’s pulse began to quicken. The Duke of Dredford had long been the mysterious, somewhat frightening older brother of her close friend and confidant, and although she’d known him for years, she had never really looked at him as she did now.
He was tall. Very tall. With broad shoulders and long, dark hair that fell rakishly in front of his pale, chiseled face, making him look more like a character out of a romantic novel than a flesh and blood Duke. He was dressed today in black velvet that made his pale skin glow, and the power and authority that he brought with him into the room was enough to make her stomach lurch with nerves.
His eyes found hers at once. She wanted to try and meet his gaze--to confidently and without apology stare back at him--butshe couldn’t. His gaze was too intense and accusatory, and the shame of what she had done last night, how she had seen him with his shirt open, made her cheeks burn, and she looked down.
“He looks furious at you,” Georgina whispered in her ear.
“He has every right to be,” she muttered back. “Oh, what a disaster! I swear, I will never drink wine again.”
“You might have to if you are to spend next Season looking for a husband, which it seems as if you might have to, considering how angry the Duke looks right now.”
Emery’s heart leapt. She had barely allowed herself to feel the faintest flicker of hope when the Duke reached her. She looked up, only to feel her throat go dry. The Duke was standing right in front of her, the most outraged look on his face that she had ever seen.
“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself,” he muttered, for just her and Georgina to hear. Then he looked away and, raising his voice, said to the room at large, “My brother will not be marring Lady Emery today.”
There was a heartbeat--maybe two--of shocked silence, then Lady Hillsborough let out a terrible, wrenching scream.
“Your Grace, say it is not so!” She cried, swaying on the spot as if she might faint. “Your brother cannot have--it is a disgrace! How could he dishonor my daughter like that?”
At the sound of the Countess’s scream, the guests inside the chapel had all turned around, and now Lord Hillsborough was hurrying back up the aisle, a worried expression on his face. He burst out into the chapel foyer and stared around. “What is happening?” he demanded.
“Lord Henry--he’s run away!” His wife moaned, and he went to her at once, staring at her in bewilderment as she continued to sway with faintness.
“How is that possible?” Lord Hillsborough shouted, turning angrily to the Duke. “There must be some mistake.”
“There is no mistake.” The Duke held up a piece of paper. “He left a note. He has run away and begs us all to forgive him, but he cannot go through with this marriage which, he says, would be like marrying his own sister.”
Emery felt it then: a great, deep rush of relief and joy. As shocked and angry as her parents looked, she couldn’t help but smile weakly and sag against Georgina for support, who wrapped her arms protectively around her.It’s over! He agreed with my letter, and he’s called off the wedding. I’m free. I will finally attend a season, and take my life in my own two hands!
Her parents, meanwhile, had begun to yell at the Duke. Yet to her it sounded oddly like the ballroom music she so desperately dreamed of.
“You cannot allow this!” Her father was shouting, his face red with indignation. “You promised us that this was a sure thing!We would not have kept our daughter from participating in the London Seasons if we had not trusted your word. But we kept her away from it, so as not to distract her from her duty, and even waited until Lord Henry had gone on his Grand Tour--until he said he was ready. Meanwhile our daughter has only grown older, and now it is too late! She is too old to find another husband! You have ruined her, Your Grace! You and your worthless brother!”
Emery wasn’t sure she agreed with this, nor with her parents' reasons for keeping her from the Seasons.It’s because you were stingy, not because you didn’t want to ‘distract me’ from my ‘duty.’
