She wore a dark, forest green gown with a simple emerald pendant and drop emeralds in her ears. Her hair was up and loose, an unusual look since she'd pulled it back so tight in recent days to nurse Montgomery.
He hadn't really needed her for days now. She closed her eyes briefly as she walked, trying to shut out all the thoughts that assailed her: Montgomery, Hannah, Brody…she wondered how something so simple had grown so snarled.
Most of the guests had already arrived when she stepped inside. Hannah was sitting across the room with Lady Michelle; there was no seat beside her, and she turned away when Emelia walked in to spare them the requirement of greeting one another. Brody was at her shoulder in a moment with a warm little embrace and a bubbling cup of spirits.
"Come in! When I saw Hannah earlier I thought perhaps you were planning on skipping out on this whole affair, but she said you were coming; only you wanted to arrive a bit later for dramatic effect."
Emelia winced inwardly at yet another jab from her sister, but didn't want to give Brody the satisfaction of knowing that something was afoot. "You know me. Always preoccupied with my appearance."
"I'm not so sure about that." It was Montgomery's voice at her elbow. Emelia turned and saw him standing close at hand, dressed in a simple but elegant dark dinner jacket. His hair, for once, was combed back neatly from his face and the expanse of beard he'd grown during his illness was neatly trimmed and sophisticated. His eyes sparkled, and Emelia felt her heart quiver as it had often in his presence as of late. "When you were caring for me you didn't seem obsessed in the slightest with your appearance."
Emelia smiled genuinely for the first time that day. "Pardon me, sir, but it is hardly a compliment to tell a lady of my standing that she doesn't appear to give any attention to her looks."
Brody laughed and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "And now that you're well, old chap, you can't hide behind the guise of having a fever that blurs your meaning."
Emelia laughed at the look of alarm on Montgomery's face. "I knew what you meant, Dr. Shaw."
"Ah, we're back to that." Montgomery raised his glass. "I'm Dr. Shaw again, am I?"
Brody looped his arm into Emelia's. "I'm sorry, dear brother, but I have to steal our Emmy away for a moment. We'll be back before you can frown sufficiently at her absence."
Montgomery didn't, in fact, frown at all. He just watched the two with a look that Emelia couldn't decipher. It was almost longing, but not quite. More like disappointment. At the end of the room, half hidden by a fern sitting elegantly by a secluded sitting alcove, Brody rounded on Emelia.
"I feel like something's wrong between us," he said with his usual forthright manner.
"Me too," she answered. "Ever since that day you came home and found me with Montgomery things have been…odd."
Brody shifted and looked at his feet. "I just feel as though we can't be honest with one another anymore."
"Then let us try to remedy that." Emelia leaned in and looked at her long-time friend intently. "Tell me what happened when you were with Hannah. Something happened—I'm sure of that; something's the matter that I can't quite put my finger on, but it's messing things up."
Brody frowned in confusion. "If she's upset in some way, I can't vouch for the particulars of what might be bothering her, but perhaps it wasn't related at all to our conversation. She seemed agreeable enough when we were first talking."
"When will you learn, Brody, that it's not the beginning of a conversation but the end that matters to a girl," Emelia said, shrugging.
Brody tilted back his head and laughed. "There's the old Em. I've missed you."
"No," Emelia said stiffly. "The old Em would tell you that you're not getting off that easily. You can't just hand me some sparkling wine and make light jokes in the corner and expect everything to return to how it was. Tell me something real, Brody."
His face sobered. "I will. I really will, Em, if you tell me something real first."
She thought about turning him away as she had before, but she wanted at least the chance to mend things with him.
"Alright, I'll tell you. I'm in love with someone."
***
"Those two are thick as thieves." Lady Michelle raised a perfectly needless eyeglass up and peered through it. Eyeglasses were all the fashion in Paris now, Hannah had just learned from her illustrious guest, and even if they weren't necessary they were required in the fashion world. "Your sister and Brody. See there?" She sighed with exasperation. "When will those two admit to the world that they're meant to be together?"
Hannah looked over in the corner and saw Brody pull Emelia into the shadow of a large fern. His hand was on her elbow, and they were standing very close together and speaking in low whispers. At one point Emelia seemed the height of sobriety, and in the next a smile lit her features and she tossed her head back in a genuine laugh.
Hannah usually loved Emelia's laughs: there was nothing so refreshing and freeing as seeing her older sister truly happy. Tonight, however, each smile, each touch, each moment of closeness with Brody seemed like a twist of the knife.
"You never know from outward appearances what's going on in people's lives," she said lamely, mostly to make conversation that might distract her from the two in the corner.
"Oh, sweetie, appearances are exactly what tell you what a person really wants," Lady Michelle said, tapping Hannah patronisingly on the arm. "Take your sister, for example. She's been friends with that Brody forever. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some sort of little agreement on the side."
This was a bit too close to home. Hannah closed her eyes for a moment.
"Are you alright?" Michelle prodded her with one dainty finger. "You look a little pale."
"I'm quite alright." She opened her eyes again and looked at her sister. She knew she'd been cruel over the past few days, but she'd also been waiting for Emelia to finally come forward and tell her the truth of her affair with Brody and the marriage pact. Every day that Emelia kept it to herself seemed like another level of insult.
"Maybe you're right," she said slowly, the fog of fury building. "Maybe it is time they stop hiding in the shadows."
Chapter 30
"So you're in love." Brody frowned at Emelia. She could see that same boyish glint in his eyes that he used to get when he knew where she was hiding in hide and seek and was pretending not to so he could add interest to the hunt.
"Don't pretend you didn't suspect," she said quickly.
"Maybe I did," he said airily, "but even so I'm glad to hear you admit to it. Your honesty is touching. Please, tell me it's not with me."
Emelia had to laugh then. She shoved him hard in the arm, nearly spilling his fine glass of sherry. "No, you dense one, it's not you. It's someone else."
"Tell me who." He righted his dangerously sloshing glass and raised a devilish eyebrow. "I demand to know so that I may discover everything about them and tease you mercilessly. I will not rest until I have the intelligence required."
"You will have to rest, for I've proved my friendship by being honest with you about the state of my heart. I cannot reveal the name of the person."
"Why?"
Here was the rub of it all. Emelia bit her lip and felt the old feelings of inadequacy crowding in around her.
"Because I don't think the feeling is returned, or at least, I'm not sure."
Brody looked at her for a long moment in silence and then took a drink of his sherry. Swallowing, he set the glass aside and crossed his arms in front of him. "Then it's my turn to be vulnerable with you."
Emelia's heart warmed at this response. He was letting it go. He was accepting her back as his friend without requiring that she admit her feelings were for Montgomery—it was a kindness, just the sort of kindness that had made them friends in the first place.
"Go on then," she said, smiling.
"My confession is the same as yours, although I think I can be fairly certain the object of our affections is the same." He shrugg
ed boyishly. "I am also in love."
Emelia raised her eyebrow. "Those are strong words. Is this some lady you met in London? Is it an infatuation?"
"There will always be some infatuation with me and a person I love," he said with rare self-knowledge. "That's just the way that I operate, sadly, but in answer to your question, no, this is not a passing fling. I truly and deeply care about this woman, and I will not be able to rest until I am with her."
"And this person is not—?"
"No, it's not you." Brody paused and nudged her. "Don't be egotistical."
"You asked me the same question!"
The two burst into laughter; comfortable, happy laughter. "Can you imagine," Emelia said through her giggles, "that there was once a time where we genuinely considered marrying each other? You and I, forever in a mansion with little children running around underfoot."
"You are going to make me ill," Brody said.
"Well, it's not that bad," Emelia protested. Then, breaking into a fresh set of giggles, "Maybe it is that bad."
"So we will finally put this whole matter of our 'inevitable' union to rest?" Brody reached out and put a friendly hand on Emelia's elbow. "I confess that as much as I respect you, Emmy, I am relieved beyond measure."
"Charades!" Hannah's voice broke into their conversation. She was standing up across the room with Lady Michelle, and her voice came across just a little too loud for the circumstances. Her hands were clenched at her sides and she was looking with that same icy fury at Emelia. "Let's play charades."
There was a clatter of approval from the guests, who all arranged themselves in a neat arc around the hearth, where the person at the helm of the game would inevitably stand. There were about twenty-five or so people in attendance, and there was a bit of jostling and exchanging of seats before everyone was seated.
"Had you planned for charades?" Emelia asked Brody.
"No," he shrugged, seemingly nonplussed. "But it's a grand plan. Hannah's good at coming up with a bit of distraction."
Emelia found herself sitting between Brody and Montgomery on a low sofa, and Hannah called up Montgomery to start off the festivities.
"The person to your left will give you the clue," she said curtly, not making eye contact with Emelia. "And then you will act it out for the gathered guests."
Montgomery, who seemed to be momentarily free of Hannah's unexplained ire, turned to Lady Michelle. The woman leaned forward and whispered something in his ear.
Emelia felt a twinge of jealousy at how close and tender she was to him, but tried to banish those feelings as Montgomery stood up. His face was marked with a little wrinkle of disapproval, and Emelia guessed that whatever Lady Michelle had mentioned was distressing him in some way.
He paused for a moment and then made a motion from his mouth.
"A saying!" Lady Michelle cried gleefully.
"You can't guess," Hannah scolded her. "You gave the clue."
But Montgomery had already nodded, and the group chimed in together, "It is a saying!"
Then Montgomery wrapped his arms around himself.
"Hug!"
"Embrace."
He pointed to Emelia, who had spoken this last word, and there was a glimmer in his eye. Now his next few clues were directed as though only to her. He raised a finger, then, when she'd guessed "single," made the motion of a book."
Suddenly, Emelia knew what the "saying" was. It was something Lady Michelle had said often in her presence, but she wasn't altogether sure that it was a well-known cliché. She suspected the foppish lady had invented it for her own usage.
"A single embrace is better than a thousand books," she said dully.
Montgomery nodded and, to rippling applause, took his seat again by her side. Lady Michelle got up to perform next, and while she took what seemed like a lifetime to act out the word "jungle," Montgomery leaned over and whispered, "Thank you. I wondered if anyone would be familiar with that particular saying."
"You ought to have been more concerned about whether or not there was anyone in the audience willing to say such ridiculous words aloud," she said softly in response.
He stifled a laugh. Then, after another moment's quiet, he leaned over and whispered, "Have grace, Lady Emelia. Not all young women find beetles and scientific journals to be helpful for the expansion of their mind."
She smiled, warmed by his praise. After Lady Montgomery, two more people stood up to complete their own clues; then it was Brody's turn. Emelia leaned over and whispered in his ear the word, "panoply." It was a shared joke. Brody had once said that the word was useless because anyone saying "panoply" would say "parade" or "collection" instead. He widened his eyes in annoyance.
"That's too difficult."
"Not my problem." She shrugged.
He walked up in front of the group, and she saw him look helplessly over at Hannah. "You'll have to work hard," he said to her, not Emelia, which was of some interest to Emelia. Hannah smiled weakly.
"I'll try."
Brody then proceeded to act out a rather stunning rendition of a parade. In moments, people all over the room—including Hannah, were shouting the word "parade," at which point Brody indicated that they were almost right but needed a different word.
"Procession!"
"Spectacle!"
"Ostentation!"
Brody's distress was comical, and when the clock struck the end of the round without any success he turned to Hannah and said loudly, "It was panoply! It's completely unfair. Only Emelia would have known that."
Emelia saw it then, the blanching white on Hannah's face, and she knew in a dreadful, complete moment exactly why her sister was angry with her. She thought Emelia was somehow involved with Brody. Hannah stood slowly, her expression icy.
"My turn."
"But you haven't anyone beside you to give you a word." Brody's laugh died on his lips. He could sense it too—the change in the atmosphere.
"I've already come up with my own." She stepped into the center of the room, and then after a moment, pointed to Emelia. Then, with her other hand, she pointed to Brody. Then she slid her hand to her ring finger.
Lady Michelle cried out: "Marriage!" and Hannah nodded, taking a quick seat again, her face flushed pink. Emelia wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole, but for once Brody seemed willing to stand up for the truth. He stepped forward with a light laugh.
"Wait, why would you point to us for such a clue?"
"As long as we're asking questions," Hannah said, leaping up with her eyes flashing, "I have a few of my own."
"Hannah," their father interjected. "We are in a public place."
But all the thoughts of propriety and society that had bound Hannah for so long seemed to have stripped away. She stepped into the center of the room with her gaze leveled on Emelia and her words came out staccato and sharp.
"Why didn't you tell me, Emelia, that you were in love with Brody all along?" There was a gasp, but Hannah seemed not to hear it. Emelia watched the scene unfolding as if she was outside of herself; watching herself absorbing her sister's vehemence. "You were treacherous, you know that? Just like the villains in the books we used to read when we were children. You led me on—you let me tell you things that were vulnerable, and then you kept this to yourself? You play the perfect, unconcerned heroine who doesn't realise men are in love with her, and all along you have a secret wedding pact with that man."
A Lady's Perfect Match: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 22
