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Emily frowned at her sister, feeling that Amy’s anger was something that was somehow misplaced. After all, did Amy not want to see Emily brought down? Why was Amy standing in Emily’s room now, railing at her?
“I thought you wanted to see me fail,” Emily replied glumly. “Congratulations. You have accomplished it. As soon as word of what happened last night gets out, nobody will ever want to marry me.”
Except for Lord Chaney, but for as long as she had not heard from Daniel, she did not want to accept that her fate rested solely on the Viscount.
“You did not have to go and drag His Grace into the mud with your stupidity!” Amy yelled, stamping her foot on the floor angrily. “He would never want to be with someone as plain and boring as you, so you had to go out and seduce him in that harlot’s dress!”
Her sister’s words stung, ripping open wounds she had thought had already scarred over. Indeed, compared to Amy, she could be regarded as completely uninteresting with her ugly clothes, and the fact was that before her “lessons”, her social skills could only be considered abysmal.
“Yes, you are right,” she told her sister. “You might consider me plain and boring, but that dress last night was a gift from His Grace. And I did not seduce him—it just happened.”
“Any other woman, it could have ‘just happened’,” Amy sneered at her. “Not you, Emily. Everyone knows you are an unmarriageable wallflower withnoprospects. You were fated to become a spinster ever since your coming out last year.” Her lips trembled. “Why can’t you just accept the fact that you will never be good enough?”
Emily tore her gaze away from her nearly hysterical sister. “Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you?”
Why? Why can you never accept me as your sister? Why must you put me down at every turn?
“Because you always take everything I ever wanted!” Amy screamed at her. “Father adored you because you are his ‘darling angel,’ and now…now you’ve seduced the Duke!”
Emily’s eyes widened in realization. “You—you are in love with His Grace?”
Amy lifted her chin haughtily. “Ever since I was fourteen, I have wanted no one but him. But how could he ever see me when you are always in the way?”
“I—I did not know, Amy—”
“Of course not,” her sister sneered. “I made it so that you would never notice because I knew that you would take him away from me if you knew I wanted him!”
Emily looked at her pitiful sister, and for the first time, she did not envy the beautiful girl who felt that she had to compete with her older sister for everything.
“I do not know how you arrived to such conclusions,” Emily told Amy slowly, “but you have to realize that the Duke of Gilleton is his own man. He makes his own choices, Amy, and neither you nor I can make up his mind for him.”
“Yes, which is why you resorted to such cheap tricks!”
Amy…Amy has gone mad. Nothing I say will ever make her understand,Emily thought sadly.
From the very start, her younger sister had set herself against Emily.
“Amy, I think you should leave. This conversation is pointless,” Emily told her softly. “I wish to be alone.”
She turned her gaze back to the roiling clouds beyond her window and smiled bitterly to herself. What a mess everything had turned out to be!
But Amy was not to be so easily brushed aside. “No! I’m not yet done—”
She would probably have gone on and on to heap a torrent of abuse on Emily if it had not been for the arrival of Jenny, who was bringing a tray of soup with her.
The maid’s eyes were wide with astonishment, and her mouth hung open when she saw Amy acting out.
“Leave, Amy,” Emily told her in a firm voice. “Before you embarrass yourself any further.”
Amy shot her a fierce glare before stomping out of the room.
As soon as she was out of earshot, Jenny released a sigh of relief. Emily watched woodenly as the maid set down a tray bearing a bowl of soup and a glass of water.
“You can just leave it there, Jenny,” Emily told her. “I have no appetite for food at the moment.”
“Well, ye might want to eat even a little, Milady,” Jenny smiled mysteriously at her, “because His Grace wanted me to pass something to ye.”
She walked towards Emily and handed her a simple piece of paper. There was no seal or anything that could hint at who sent it.
