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“It’s me,” Aunt Clara called. “May I come in?”
Emily opened the door, stepping back to let the other woman in. Clara had changed, her outfit more sedate, her hair neater. She sashayed into Emily’s room, her gaze flicking over the papers. “Learn anything of interest?”
“That I ought to have paid more attention sooner,” Emily said, then grimaced as she looked down at the sheets.
Clara crossed to the bed, lounging back on it. “It is really amazing what happens when you take control of your own life.”
“Is that what you did?” Emily asked, as she replaced the letter she’d been reading into its envelope.
“Yes. My brother, Jacob’s father, was terrible with money and he’d married a woman intent on spending as much as she could. I could have married, of course. Found another man to take care of me but I was too restless for that. I wanted freedom, a lack of confinement, and control.”
Emily stopped straightening the papers as she glanced over at Clara, fascinated by the woman’s words. She’d had moments where she felt the same. “Do you like living on your own?”
“Not always,” Clara answered, looking up at the ceiling. “But I would have liked being married less.”
Emily nodded. She hadn’t wanted to marry either. That wasn’t true. She’d like to marry, just not the men her mother had paraded in front of her. But she wanted to be with a person who respected her. Who allowed her to think and participate in her own life not just wish for her to be a pretty ornament. “It’s not marriage I object to. It’s not having a say in who the man might be that bothers me. Or the choices he makes that affect me. I’m tired of being treated like I’m useless or unintelligent.”
Could she have both? Some measure of control and the security of a good marriage? It was a tempting thought…
“It’s difficult to find a man who’ll consider your mind equal to his. Even when it is.”
Emily stared at the window, knowing that Clara was right. “My last suitor, Lord Tinderwell, was a merchant by trade. He was different from other men who’d courted me. He listened more, I think. Granted, he looked at me as though he didn’t quite understand me, but at least he listened.” His gaze had always disconcerted Emily, though she didn’t understand what caused the feeling. “But he…” She shook her head, remembering the events that had transpired six months prior.
“What?” Clara asked, bringing her back to the present.
“He had eyes that disconcerted me, and one night he tried to kiss me. It frightened me and I refused to see him after that.”
“Are you questioning your reasons now?” Clara asked.
Emily frowned. He’d been older, not handsome but arresting, and there had been an air of danger about him. “When my parents first died, I was afraid to be alone. I wished I’d married him.”
But even after only a few days, she recognized that much of those feelings were desperation. Tinderwell had never made her feel like… Her breath hitched to think of Jacob. She’d not experienced any emotion like that before and so she’d had no comparison to weigh her feelings for Mr. Tinderwell at the time. “But that wasn’t real affection. I was afraid and I wanted comfort.”
Clara sat up. “Emily. Don’t be afraid to ask for the moon and expect a man to give it to you. You’d be surprised how powerful it can be to know your worth.”
Emily stared at the other woman, wondering about those words.
Aubrey had been a seamstress who’d married a duke because she’d been brave enough to demand he respect her.
She nipped at her lip, wondering how a woman demanded without pushing a man away. She opened her mouth to ask when a tapping noise at the window caught her notice. Strange. They were on the second floor.
Clara, hearing it too rose from the bed, crossing to the window and peering out into the night.
“Do you see anything?”
Clara shook her head, turning away when the noise sounded again.
Emily jumped, Clara cringing away. “Blow out the candle.”
Emily did as Clara asked.
“I’m going to get Jacob.”
“Good idea.” Emily rose too, tucking herself next to the wall as Clara left. Was she being silly? It might have just been a branch or a bird or…
The window gave a definite rattle as though someone were trying to open it. She gasped and then covered her mouth with her hand, shrinking closer to the wall. Her other hand pressed to her corset where the jewels were tucked inside.
Her door burst open, Jacob filling the doorway for a moment before he let out a rumble, his gaze not on her but on the window.
