Page 5
“I beg to differ with you. You do write fiction.”
He regarded her narrowly. “You’ve done something to yourself since this morning.”
She could not repress a smile. “I’ve been reading my husband-hunting guide.” She batted her lashes at him. It was more difficult than she had imagined.
He stood and crossed the room, reaching down and taking her chin in one hand and producing a handkerchief in the other hand. “Do you have something in your eye?” he asked.
Emily snatched the handkerchief and pressed it to the side of her face. Did he not understand the most basic weapon in the arsenal of the flirt? Against her skin the square of linen was crisp and clean and smelled of sage and cardamom and him. She handed it back. “Thank you.”
“It’s your hair,” he said, frowning. “I thought our betrothal saved you from enslaving yourself to that book.”
Emily sighed. “You cannot blame me for being uncertain as to the genuineness of your intentions or for wanting to do all in my power to secure...happiness in marriage.”
He reached in a pocket of his waistcoat and produced a ring.
Emily stared. Lying in his palm was a large, square amethyst set in gold surrounded by tiny diamonds—well, not so tiny. Each was the size of a respectable grain of sand. Such a ring was not a joke. Her throat felt too dry for speech.
“It’s not customary,” he said, “but I think it will suit you, you know.”
Emily looked up at him. She had been sure not two minutes earlier that he was teasing her and treating his proposal as a joke. Now she did not know how to read him. Reason said he was not a man in love, but he was plainly in earnest about their engagement.
She could take the ring. She could let it flash and dazzle on her finger as she made her way through the Season her mother wanted her to have, but she had to remember that no matter the beauty of the gem, his rash suit could not be motivated by love. He could not want her. She had to hold on to that idea as firmly and resolutely as she had ever held on to her understanding of gravity. Failing to grasp that one could not walk on air could be fatal.
She extended her left hand. He took it, letting it rest in his larger hand a moment. Then he slid the ring down her finger, and she lifted her hand from his. She caught a look of relief in his eyes at her acceptance.
“Tonight, then?” he said.
“Tonight?” She looked up at him.
“A supper and dancing at Lady Ravenhurst’s.”
“My father’s cousin?”
“I hear she gives a good supper.”
She nodded. Whatever else the Season now held, it was her chance to figure out what he really was up to.
* * * *
Emily sat down to review her strategy. She kicked off her shoes and swung her feet up onto a nile-green striped sofa from Mama’s early Egyptian phase and stretched out her hand. The diamonds on her finger winked up at her with all the deep concern of distant stars for the doings of men. Her first attempt to put off Ajax Lynley had only landed her deeper in the briars.
She tried not to think about the conversation happening in her father’s library between her betrothed and her about-to-be-quite-surprised father. Papa liked order and sameness, not surprises.
If she examined her feelings at the moment, she had to admit that the low spirits she usually felt at the prospect of an evening among the fashionable elite of London had evaporated.
The prospect of a Season as an engaged woman intrigued her. The bold ring on her finger wiped away past Seasons of failure. She would not be an object of pitying looks. No one would shun her lest the awkwardness of her situation prove catching. People would wonder, of course, how she, of all wallflowers, could have managed to snare such an eligible man.
How to enjoy confounding the doubters while working to free herself from the baronet was the dilemma. Her first effort of overcomplicating her hair with ringlets and braids had hardly slowed him down at all. He had noticed the change and gone ahead with his plan to announce their engagement, just as if she had not resembled Medusa on a bad day. Apparently, he did not require beauty in a wife.
She had got so far in her thinking when the drawing room door burst open and her papa strode in. He had a handsome, affable face warmed by a full head of golden brown hair and smile lines around his eyes, but he could frown, and when he did, what one noticed were his stiff bearing and slashing dark brows. Emily swung her feet to the floor and stood up.
“Girl, what have you done?”
“Why, got engaged, Papa. Nothing remarkable in that.”
“After five years of resisting and avoiding suitors, you chose today to give in?”
“Mama encouraged me to go forward.” Emily resisted the desire to curl her bare toes into the carpet.
