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He nodded. “Mother insists. Every year I think they add more.”
Emalyn felt an odd burst of shyness, her chest tightening. “There are more in the gardens?”
The smile that crossed his face this time held a twist of mischievousness, and he slowly dropped his gaze to her face. “Yes, especially the ones near the veranda steps.” He paused. “Ten?”
Emalyn gave a single nod, too afraid to speak, worried that she would blurt something totally inappropriate. It certainly would not be the first time.
Behind Philip, a footman cleared his throat. “My lord, your horse is ready.”
Philip stepped away from Emalyn. Then he winked at her and turned away, following the footman down the hallway.
Emalyn’s vision danced, and her head spun. As Philip disappeared through a far door, she dashed up the stairs. Her hand cupped her cheek where he had touched her, his fingers warm and gentle. She would see him in only eight hours.
*
Philip’s fingers fumbledover the knot yet again, and the cravat wilted, the ends cascading down his chest. “Damn.” He dropped his hands to his side in frustration.
Hodges, his valet, stood nearby, his fingers twitching. “Perhaps, sir, if you would let me—”
“I have to learn to do it!”
“You already know how. I have seen you tie a perfectly adequate cravat. Perhaps you might practice when you are less nervous?”
Philip cut his gaze toward his valet, who wasn’t much older than he was. “You think I’m nervous?”
“Some things are obvious, my lord.” Hodges stepped closer. “You are meeting Miss Benjumeda tonight?”
Philip hesitated, then nodded. “After I follow Father and Mother around the ballroom for an interminable amount of time. They want me to receive with them, of all things.”
“You are the heir, sir.” Hodges gestured toward the cravat.
“And they have mumbled any number of times about all they want me to achieve before marriage. I doubt I will be allowed to take a bride before I’m thirty.” Philip’s shoulders dropped. “All right. You do it.”
Hodges moved immediately in front of Philip and removed the strip of silk from around his neck. “This one is crushed. I will return in a moment.” He disappeared into Philip’s dressing room.
Philip let out a long sigh. Hodges was right. Hewasnervous. He had not seen Emalyn in almost a year, and at the end of the spring term, he would leave Eton and matriculate to Cambridge. As the Kennet heir, he did not have to attend university, but both he and his father felt at least two years there would be beneficial to his future duties as a duke. He had gained two stone in the last year as well as two inches, and his lessons in boxing and fencing had given him a strength he had never expected to have.
Emalyn had changed as well, in ways that made his heart thrum and his loins tighten. Although she still stood less than five feet tall, her figure had filled out even more over the past year—her breasts were fuller and her hips rounder—making him want to touch her more than ever. Those dark curls and flashing black eyes drew him as if they were magnets, the light within her making her tawny skin seem to glow whenever he was near her.
But she had changed in other ways as well. Her father had emphasized education for all his children, even his daughter, and her letters had often groused about her strict tutors and governess. Emalyn and her family traveled extensively, and although they were not nobility, they kept a rented townhome in London, as well as their estate in Spain.
When he had met her four years ago, she had been little more than a child at twelve, but with an intelligence, humor, and charm that had captured his attention. They had both escaped the children’s Christmas activities to spy on the ball from the garden, bumping into each other near one of his mother’s rosemary trees. She had teased him—“What a lanky hound you are!”—and he had dared her to dance with him. Instead she had thrown a snowball at him, making him laugh. They had become friends and had exchanged letters until her mother had forbidden it. Philip knew his own parents would have disapproved as well, had they known. Since then, those letters traveled via her maid Mary and his valet Hodges. Letters that had become increasingly sophisticated and knowledgeable as she studied and traveled. He had challenged her, and she had responded with witty travelogues that made him hoot with glee.
Philip grinned as he thought about her backing into him that afternoon. He had known she would be in the ballroom—for the past three years she had slipped in to watch the final preparations—and later would find her way to the gardens to peek in on the festivities. It was why he had prepared a surprise for her later tonight.
He wanted to please her, to make her smile. He wanted to be with her.
“Here we are, sir.” Hodges emerged with a starched length of gold satin that appeared as if it might slice into Philip’s neck.
“That looks dangerous.”
Hodges gave a fleeting smile. “Only during the first hour or two, sir. It will wilt by midnight.” Hodges deftly twisted, wound, and tied the cravat, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. “I believe that will suffice.”
Philip checked his image in the small looking glass over his washstand. The gold cravat accented the embroidery in his ruby-colored waistcoat as well as the gold satin cuffs and lapels of his emerald-green woolen topcoat. “Thank you, Hodges. Enjoy the rest of the evening. I see no reason for you to wait up for me.”
Hodges nodded. “Very well. I will be up promptly in the morning to take care of things then.”
“Just nottoopromptly.”
