Well he’d royally mucked that up.
Ten hours later and Will was still brooding. Sitting in a corner by himself in Rodger’s study he stared into the amber contents of his brandy while the other men smoked cigars and talked about women and the women played whist in the parlor.
He had looked for Emma at dinner but she hadn’t been there. Not that he could blame her after the way he’d behaved and things he’d said. With a groan he threw his head back and stared blindly up at the ceiling through a haze of cigar smoke. Had he really asked her to marry him after rolling about with her on the floor?
Bloody hell. No wonder she’d looked at him as though he were some sort of monster who’d just crawled out of a muddy pond. Her reaction had been no less than he deserved for acting like a sodding idiot.
What had he been thinking? He still couldn’t fathom it. Twenty-five years of his life spent avoiding holy matrimony and after less than a day he was ready to take a veritable stranger as his wife. It did not make any damn sense. Then he supposed love rarely did. If that’s even what this was. But what else could it be? Will knew the taste of lust. The feel of it. The need. And this was not that. It was… it was more, he decided. It was as if he’d been walking around his entire life with both eyes closed and then he met Emma and his eyes opened for the very first time, letting in a rush of colors he had never known existed.
She was his orange and his red. His blue and his green. His yellow and his purple.
She was his rainbow.
You couldn’t say that when you asked her to marry you?
Disgusted with himself he took a long swallow of brandy before setting his glass aside and staggering to his feet.
“I say, where are you going?” Rodger asked when Will brushed past him on his way to the door.
“Out,” he said brusquely before he proceeded to do just that. Stopping in the foyer he waited for a footman to bring him his greatcoat before he stepped outside and into the snow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
If Emma hadn’t chosen that precise moment to glance over her shoulder she never would have caught a glimpse of Will walking past the window. Certain her eyes were playing tricks on her she blinked and shook her head, but when she looked again he was still there, albeit a little further away.
“Excuse me,” she said, setting her cards down on the table. “I – I am not feeling well.”
“Again?” Vivian exclaimed. “Emma, whatever is the matter? You have been acting strangely all day.”
“Let her go,” Eleanor said without looking up from her cards. “One last person to beat, I say.”
“Please watch Hamlet for me!” Pausing only to pick up her shawl from the back of the chair, Emma raced out of the parlor. Not wanting to waste time waiting for her cloak to be brought to her – and not wanting to be seen – she slipped outside using a side door.
The first thing that struck her was the wind. It was much colder than it had been the night before, or maybe it was because she was sober. Swinging her meager shawl around her shoulders she gritted her teeth against the icy slap of wind and proceeded along a narrowly shoveled pathway. After walking around the entire front of the house (ducking every time she passed a window) Emma spied a light flickering in the game keeper’s cottage. Knowing the game keeper was staying in the main house with his wife and children until the storm passed, she bent her head and fought her way through the snow until she reached the front door of the little stone cottage.
It opened inward before she could reach for the handle. Will stood silhouetted in the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly touching the frame. He squinted at her in confusion. She could tell when recognition dawned for his eyes widened and he sucked in a sharp breath.
“Emma?” he said incredulously. “What the devil are you going out here?”
She could have asked herself the same thing. What was she doing out here in the cold and the snow and the bone-tingling wind? Better yet, why had she come?
“I wanted to see you,” she blurted out before her sudden surge of courage failed her and she turned on her heel and fled back inside the house. “I have been thinking about you all day and I – I needed to speak with you. May I come in?”
Belatedly Will seemed to realize he was blocking the door. Snatching hold of her arm he pulled her inside and instantly folded her against his chest. Burrowing his face into her snow flecked hair he said, “You little fool. You could have frozen to death wandering around out here.”
“The thought did cross my mind,” Emma admitted. She tilted her head back. “Do you mind if I stand by the fireplace? I am afraid this shawl did little in the way of keeping me warm.”
Will’s answer was to scoop her right off her feet and carry her the hearth where a fire was crackling cheerfully away, the only source of light in an otherwise dim and shadowy room. Sitting her down in a leather chair he yanked off her shawl and threw it over the back of another chair to dry before standing behind her and rubbing warmth back into her shoulders. His hands also helped to ease the tension that had been knotting up her muscles all day and Emma could not help but sigh with pleasure.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “That feels wonderful. I – I wanted to apologize for the way I acted earlier when I received your… proposal.” She felt his hands hesitate ever-so-slightly before he resumed rubbing the aches and pains from her tight neck and back.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I do. I should have been kinder.”
“And I should have mentioned the sodding colors,” he muttered under his breath.
Certain she’d misheard him Emma frowned and twisted in her chair. “Pardon?”
“Nothing,” he said abruptly. “If you came all the way out here just to tell me that then you’re a bigger fool than I thought. You should go back, Lady Emma. Back to your tea and your whist and your perfect life.”
“But I don’t want to go back,” she burst. Firelight danced in her hair as she jumped up out of her chair and spun to face him. “That is what I came here to say. I am twenty-two-years old.”
“I had no idea you were a spinster,” he said dryly.
Emma shot him a look. “I am twenty-two-years old,” she repeated, “and in the seven years since I made my debut no man has ever looked at me like you do. No man has ever made me feel like you do. No man has ever kissed me like you do.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “I should bloody well hope not. I’d have to kill the bastard.”
“Violence is not trait I am looking for in a husband,” she chided gently.
“Then what is? What are you looking for, Emma? What do you want?”
“I want – that is say, I thought I wanted – a husband with whom I shared common interests. A quiet, staid man who would never argue or disagree. One who wanted a simple life free of sin and vice.”
Will looked positively aghast. “That sounds awful.”
“And then I met you and you were none of those things and yet… and yet I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I still can’t.” She took a deep breath. “I suppose what I came here to say is that I want to give us a chance. To give this a chance… whatever this is.”
He was silent for a moment, his green eyes impossible to read in the flickering light. “What are you trying to say, Emma?”
What was she trying to say? For once in her life she did not have a plan or a clear road forward.
And she felt all the more alive because of it.
“Will you court me, Lord Prescott?”
“Court you?” he repeated warily, looking for all the world as though she’d just asked him to join a traveling circus.
“Yes.” Her mouth curved. “I believe that courtship, not marriage, is the next step after mutual interest has been decided upon. You will first have to meet my parents, of course, and ask for my father’s permission. I imagine he will be more than happy to give it since he fears I will never marry.”
“The devil I do,” Will exclaimed. “I have never met
anyone’s parents before.”
“After a suitable length of time has passed,” she continued, fighting back a grin, “and we are still of the same mindset as we are now, you may ask me to marry you.”
“How long is a suitable length of time?” he asked suspiciously.
Emma thought about it for a moment. “Six months,” she decided. “Mayhap seven.”
“Six months?”
“Mayhap seven.”
“That is more than half a year! How can I be expected to wait as long as that?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Emma murmured as she stepped up to him and pressed her hands flat against his chest. “The best things are always worth waiting for.”
EPILOGUE
Six or Seven Months Later
“Wait!” Emma called out frantically. “I cannot forget Hamlet.”
Vivian paused in the middle of arranging a bouquet of cheerful white daises. “Were you serious about carrying him down the aisle? I thought you were joking!”
Marching over to where Hamlet was sleeping in a pool of sunshine Emma plucked him up and tucked him inside a wicker basket she’d fashioned with a bright blue ribbon. “Of course not. It would hardly be a wedding without him.”
“And what does Lord Prescott think about this?”
“It was his idea,” Emma confided as she, Hamlet, Vivian, and Lady Sterling all piled into a gleaming black carriage. A flick of the reins and they were off, trotting briskly down the dirt road that would take them into the village square and the small church where she and Will had chosen to speak their vows.
It was a beautiful day; the sky a deep, endless blue and the sun brightly shining. A far cry from the snow and the bitter cold on the night Will and I first met, Emma reflected. A smile danced on the corners of her mouth as she recalled everything that had brought her to this moment.
A stranger’s heated glanced across a crowded room.
Far too much elderberry wine.
A kiss… or three.
And a proposal, one from him and one from her.
“Are you ready, my dear?” Practically beaming from ear to ear Lady Sterling held the short train of Emma’s dress as she descended from the carriage.
As Emma had predicted, both of her parents had been absolutely delighted when Will, looking quite disgruntled, had asked for their permission to court their daughter. Since then the two families had spent time together on several occasions and Emma was proud to say that she’d help Will mend his tattered relationship with his father to the point where the two could be in the same room without yelling.
When she stepped into the church a hush fell over the small crowd of family and friends that had gathered to see her and Will become husband and wife. Emma did not notice a single person as she proceeded down the aisle. She only had eyes for one man.
Will was not perfect, and she feared he never would be. They argued from time to time and he teased her more than he should have. He was still far too impulsive and stubborn for his own good, but he was also kind and loyal and whenever they kissed her blood burned and her heart threatened to pound out of her chest. He made her feel alive in the best possible way and even though he wasn’t what she’d been looking for she wouldn’t trade their love for the entire world.
“You brought the cat, I see,” Will said with a narrowed glance at Hamlet. His black tailcoat and white linen shirt concealed a scratch that Hamlet had delivered the night before when Will had tried to sneak into Emma’s room and climb into her bed. He had been furious, Hamlet had been inordinately pleased, and Emma had laughed so hard she’d cried.
“No getting rid of him now,” she said.
“I could get you another cat,” he offered. “A better one. A nicer one.”
As though he could somehow understand every word Will was saying Hamlet flattened his ears and hissed. Emma just grinned. “I like this one just fine, thank you very much.”
Will gave an exaggerated sigh. “I thought you’d say that.”
“You knew I’d say that,” Emma corrected.
“Yes I did, which is why I brought this.” And from his pocket he removed a glittering cat-sized emerald collar that matched the emerald ring he had given her when he’d proposed a second time. “Here you are good sir,” he said, leaning forward into an exaggerated bow before he slid the collar over Hamlet’s head.
“What?” he said defensively when Emma merely stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment. “I did not want Hamlet to feel left out. Our house has quite a few curtains, you know.”
Her laughter rang out through the entire church. “How I love you.”
“And I you.”
The priest cleared his throat. “Do you mind if I get started now?”
“Please do,” Emma said.
She was finally ready to marry her rake.
The Winter
Duchess
Chapter One
As Caroline stood beside the man she was about to marry, she wasn’t thinking about him. She was thinking about her mother. Specifically, what her mother would do if her only daughter suddenly turned on her heel and bolted out of the church.
She wouldn’t scream. Lady Patricia Wentworth never raised her voice. But she would no doubt deliver The Look, which was a thousand times worse than a screaming tirade, and Caroline – being the good, dutiful daughter that she was – would meekly return to the altar to pledge herself to a stranger she knew positively nothing about…except that she was terrified of him.
Unfortunately, she was also afraid of her mother. And if she had to choose between the devil she knew and the devil she didn’t, she would rather choose the one who – so far, at least – hadn’t given her any sorts of looks aside from mild disdain.
While the priest read a passage from The Book of Common Prayer, Caroline dared to sneak a quick glance at her husband-to-be. Her pale lashes flicked up and then down, skimming across the top of her cheeks upon which the smallest spattering of freckles rested.
Her mother had tried all sorts of remedies to get rid of the freckles, from lemon juice to a ginger paste that had stung horribly, but the small brown dots had been stubbornly resilient. For the wedding she’d dusted Caroline’s entire face with a powder that had made her sneeze repeatedly, much to Lady Wentworth’s general annoyance.
“Stop that,” she had said with exasperation, her long, skeletal fingers wrapping around the jutting bones of her hips as she’d met her daughter’s watery gaze in the dressing mirror. “You cannot sneeze your way through your vows! Just imagine What People Would Say.”
Lady Wentworth had always been exceedingly concerned with What People Would Say. Caroline was never quite sure what people she was referring to, but whoever they were they must have been very important.
“Perhaps we can postpone the ceremony?” she had asked hopefully. “If we wait until spring-”
“Do not be absurd. We are not postponing anything. Now hold still, these curling tongs are hot.”
As she peeked at her husband-to-be, Caroline couldn’t help but wonder if he had powder on his face. She sincerely doubted it. He didn’t seem at all like the sort who would have something as common as freckles.
The Duke of Readington stood still and straight as a statue with his face turned slightly away, giving her a clear view of his profile. Eric was, if not a handsome man in the traditional sense, a very distinctive one with bold, slashing brows set above clear blue eyes that made her think of a frozen lake in the middle of winter. His nose was long and straight. His rigid jaw impeccably clean shaven. In fact, everything about him was rather impeccable from the sable locks swept back from his temple and set in place with a bit of pomade to the fold of his cravat and the lines of his black tailcoat. He must have had an excellent valet.
And a very brave one, Caroline thought silently. Every one of her encounters with the duke thus far had been fraught with tension and anxiety. She could not imagine the nerve it must have taken to attend to him on a daily basis.
As i
f he could sense she was thinking about him, his head swiveled and she found herself the unwilling recipient of his glacial stare.
He said not a word. He did not have to. The hard set of his mouth and the line between his brows spoke volumes. With a tiny squeak she directed her gaze forward, hands trembling ever-so-slightly as she adjusted her grip on the bouquet of white lilies her mother had thrust upon her before she’d entered the church.
For Caroline, the rest of the ceremony passed by in a bit of a fog. When the priest asked her to recite her vows she did so automatically; her lips and tongue forming the words that would bind her to the veritable stranger standing beside her until death did they part even as her mind remained detached, as if she were observing herself from a great distance.
She woke from her daze when the duke reached for her hand. She instinctively pulled back, her entire body leaning away from him like a sailboat caught in a stiff westerly wind. He frowned, those cold blue eyes of his narrowing to icy slivers of disapproval, and with a deep breath she forced herself to give up her limb. After all, what was one small hand when she was surrendering her entire body?
The gold band he held poised at the tip of her left ring finger was very plain, making her wonder if it was a family heirloom. Had it belonged to his mother? Had she stood right here, in this very church, and recited the very same vows? Had she been frightened? Or elated? When it was over had she cried tears of happiness? Or wept with sorrow?
Caroline was distracted from her thoughts when Eric began to speak, his deep voice resonating from one end of the church to the other. He stared not at her, nor into her, but through her, as if she were as translucent as the gossamer coverlet draped over the front of the altar.
“With this ring I thee wed.”
Oh dear, she thought weakly. This is it.
“With my body I thee worship.”
You’ve really stepped in it this time, Caro.
“And with all my worldly goods I thee endow.
Regency Christmas (Holiday Collection) Page 30
