Humming to herself, Emily arranged sandwiches and biscuits on the tea tray. Well pleased with the progress of her seamstresses, she’d returned home early today. She’d be able to report to Evan that “Créations Madame Emilie” would soon have its debut.
She expected that, as her primary investor, he’d greet the news with enthusiasm—though she wasn’t sure. His brief note, in a nearly illegible script so unlike his usual precise penmanship, spoke of the depth of his grief over his friend’s death. Vividly she remembered reeling from such blows, and poignant tenderness swelled in her breast. She longed for him to come to her, that she might let him talk it out, offer sympathy and wifely comfort.
The thought caught her up short. Cheeks heating, she reminded herself yet again, as she seemed to have to do with increasing frequency of late, that she had no right to intrude into his personal life. Such instincts were best firmly squelched, lest she slip into viewing her role as something it was not nor could ever be.
She heard his distinctive step in the hallway and a smile sprang to her lips. A gust of raw, rain-scented wind, memento of the wintry storm that had plagued the city all day, blew into the room with him.
His face worn and bestubbled, he came and drew her immediately into his arms. Compassion for his evident distress flooding her, she held him close.
He moved her to arm’s length, but instead of releasing her, bent to place gentle, lingering kisses on her brow, her eyelids, her cheeks, her chin. Finally he claimed her lips in a kiss so infinitely tender her guarded heart beat faster and a melting warmth spread through her.
Rather than extending his kisses into the interlude such ardor seemed to promise, he drew back, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. “My sweet Emily.”
’Twas so difficult sometimes to maintain her distance—but she must. Swallowing the “My darling Evan” that sprang to her lips, she reached instead to brush some errant raindrops from his dark hair.
“I’m so sorry, Evan.”
He opened his lips, then closed them and acknowledged her condolence with a short nod.
“Should you like tea?”
With a little sigh he released her. “Yes, tea would be good.” He walked toward the sofa, halted, paced to the window and stood staring out at the street.
She regarded him with concern. What could she say or do to help? Words, she knew, were meaningless at such a time. Instead, she brought him his tea.
“Here, drink this.” She touched his cold fingers. “You seem chilled—’twill help warm you.”
“Emily, I…I shall have to leave town shortly.”
Conscious of a sharp disappointment, she nodded. Settling his friend’s estate, probably.
“I see. Will you be away for long?”
“I’m not sure. We’ll…need a mourning period.”
“You must take all the time necessary,” she said, trying to damp down the hurt that he evidently chose not to seek her solace. “Grief can neither be ignored nor quickly mastered.”
Still standing, his gaze on the far distance, he took a sip. “When I do return, things…will have to be different. I…I shall be engaged.”
She was stirring her tea when the import of his words exploded in her mind like an unexpectedly tossed fire-cracker. Her heart stopped, the spoon dropped from her nerveless fingers and clattered against the saucer.
As the shock waves of meaning spread, her hearing dimmed, her eyesight blurred, she felt at once hotly dizzy and piercingly cold. She had the sensation of falling before Evan’s firm hands grasped her.
“Emily! Emily, are you all right?”
His words penetrated, barely. Taking deep, unsteady breaths, she locked her vision on small details and willed them to remain in focus. The teacup that lay shattered on the carpet where she must have dropped it. She should call Francesca to mop up…
Then Evan was lifting her, carrying her to the sofa.
“Emily, sweeting, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have just—blurted it out, but I didn’t know how to tell you.”
He laid her down, but with trembling hands, she pushed back to a sitting position. He took a seat beside her.
“Please don’t be angry with me, my darling.” Evan chafed her cold fingers, kissed them. “Taking this step has nothing to do with any change in my feelings for you! I’m here now, I’ll always be here for you, just as I promised. Anything you wish, anything you need, you have but to say it and ’twill be yours, I swear it. Please believe me!”
He gazed at her, face strained, his eyes desperate. “I’ve a duty to Richard—to his sister, Andrea. Her horse fell on her in a hunting accident several years ago and nearly crushed her leg. She’s a lovely girl, but shy, uncomfortable and fearful of strangers. Our families have always been close, and I’m all she has left. Before Richard died, I…I promised I would marry her.”
Emily’s numbed brain was finally beginning to function. “Yes, of course. I understand.” Over the rapid beating of her heart and the faintness that kept trying to overwhelm her, she endeavored to tell herself this was right. Sooner or later it would have to end.
Did it have to be so soon?
He drew her into his arms, kissed her fervently. “Things do not have to change between us, though I’ll not be able to be with you as oft as I have. I’ll have to be more discreet in my visits, but—”
As his meaning slowly penetrated her still-muzzy brain, a second shock struck her. She seized his caressing fingers. “Evan, of course things will change! You cannot think that I…that I would…No, ’tis not possible.”
“Sweeting, it’s not what I wish, either, what I would want for us. I know the…circumstances are distressing to you. But nothing would be as distressing as losing you altogether.”
Could it be he did not understand? That he thought his engagement—his marriage—would have no effect on their relationship? Had her coming to him given him that erroneous an impression of her?
The chilling thought focused her. She pulled her hands free. “Your marriage must mean the end of our—friendship, Evan, surely. There’s no other way. I’ve…sinned with you already, for which I’ll owe a lifetime of penance. I will not be an adulteress. I cannot.”
He looked from the hands folded on her lap to her set face. “You would send me away?” he asked, his tone aghast, disbelieving. “Refuse to see me again?”
She said nothing, unable to trust her voice to reaffirm the truth that cut like a saber’s slash into her heart. But if she did not stand firm now, she sensed the force of his persuasion and her own treacherous longing would sweep her into actions that would lead to self-loathing and destruction.
“Does what we share mean so little to you?” he whispered at last.
The anguish in his eyes echoed his tone, but she made herself meet his gaze firmly.
“Marriage vows mean more. ’Tis a holy promise, Evan, given before God, to love, cherish and keep thyself only unto one other. I would not wish you to break such a vow, could not live with myself were you to break it with me.”
He remained silent a long time, as if her words were so difficult he must struggle to comprehend them. “We shall have to part, then?”
“Yes.”
“Permanently?”
“Yes.”
“And there is no way, no circumstance under which we might be together?”
Tears scratching at her eyes, she shook her head.
“Even as friends…my dearest friend?”
’Twas as if a giant fist had clamped around her chest, squeezing, squeezing ever tighter. “Oh, Evan, could you truly pledge to meet me just as a friend?”
“I would pledge the world and everything in it not to have you tell me goodbye.”
The despair in his voice so closely mirrored her own she could bear it no longer. Clamping her lips together to hold back the words she must not say, she threw herself into his arms.
He crushed her close. Driven by the gale of imminent farewell, the sparks that always glowed between them ig
nited to a mutual hunger as elemental and irresistible as the forces driving them to part. Breathing her name in a sigh, he carried her to bed.
Their first coupling was fierce, frantic, the next so sweetly tender Emily felt she would weep. Afterward, again by mutual unspoken desire, they did not go down to dinner, did not attempt to play cards or chess or even exchange the candid, incisive commentary about current happenings that normally formed an enjoyable finish to their day.
Instead, they remained holding each other close, conscious of the mantel clock steadily ticking away the precious minutes and hours of their last time together. At length, the street noises outside faded and Emily dozed.
Sometime in darkest night she woke to Evan’s touch. With lips and hands he cherished her from the crown of her head to her toes, lingering where he knew her to be most exquisitely sensitive—her nipples, the soft cleft of her thighs—and bringing her to blindingly intense release. Then slowly rebuilding the tension again to couple her pleasure with his own.
Afterward, in the lightening dawn, still joined, Evan turned them to the side, then laid one hand between her chest and his.
“You feel it?” he whispered. “Even our hearts beat as one.”
The tears started as he left the bed to dress. Fisting them away, she rose as well, threw on a dressing gown and sat silently watching him. She should assist him as she had since their first night, but a listless languor held her motionless.
Her chest tight in that squeezing grip, she felt her heart match the tick of the mantel clock, each beat seeming to chip away at something deep inside.
Buttoning his last cuff, he turned to face her. “This is it, I suppose. For a few days. Then we shall have a month or so before the…event takes place.” He squeezed his eyes shut, took a shuddering breath. “A month…and then eternity.”
His words finally penetrated her lethargy. “A month? No, Evan, that cannot be. As soon as your lady accepts you, you are bound to her. Regardless of when the wedding occurs.”
“That fierce conscience of yours cannot give us even another month?”
Dying a little with the word, she uttered it anyway. “No. I cannot. I’m sorry. Probably even last night was a mistake.”
His head snapped up, his whole body instantly alert. “How can you say that? How can you feel anything—anything—for me, for us, and call what we shared together last night—for the whole of the time we’ve known each other—a mistake?”
His affronted tone nearly broke her resolve. “Oh Evan, did you really think there was a place in this world where an earl and a shopkeeper together would be right?”
“I thought we made it right.”
It was never right—but oh, how precious you are, she thought. But now that he was to marry, what good would it serve to admit tender feelings she shouldn’t have allowed herself to develop in the first place? Emotions that might encourage him to attempt dissuading her from the end she knew they must make.
No, better that he stay angry, better for him—and for her—to make the break swift and irreversible.
“We both knew from the first our time together would be brief. Now we should acknowledge it was…pleasant—” she uttered the insultingly tepid description with a slight tremor “—and move on.”
He stared at her as if she had spoken in tongues. “Pleasant? Move on?” he echoed furiously. “To a new novel, a new bonnet…a new lover?”
She swayed with the force of his derision, but somehow it reinforced her resolve to deal the final blow.
“Whatever is suitable.” Summoning some inner reserve of strength, she stood up and made him a deep curtsey. “May I wish you and your wife very happy, my lord.”
His lip curled, he raised one hand, and for a moment she thought he would strike—or seize her. Then, exhaling in a ragged rush of breath, he straightened. His voice, when he spoke, was barely a whisper.
“So be it. Thank you for your kind sentiments, Madame.” He swept her an exaggerated bow. “And let me add I will earnestly endeavor to forget you with as much dispatch as you seem eager to dismiss me.” Turning on his heel, he walked out.
After the echo of his retreating footsteps faded she staggered to the bed, collapsed on the edge with arms wrapped tightly around herself, eyes closed. This is better, this is better, this is better. To admit how enormous a loss his leaving was, how trenchantly deep the pain, would be to acknowledge an emotion that spelled disaster to any present or future peace of mind.
Must it have ended had she revealed her full identity at the outset, before his friend’s death? But even though her birth was better than he assumed, she was still unrecognized by both her husband’s family and her own, still virtually penniless, still engaged in trade. Any one of which factors would make her unsuitable to be his bride.
Nor in the midst of all his protestations of devotion had he ever hinted he desired her for that role. The only role she could in good conscience fulfill.
No, as parting was inevitable, better sooner than later, she told herself.
Of course it hurts, she soothed. Losing a friend, a very dear friend, is never easy. You will get through it. You’ve survived worse.
She’d almost convinced herself when Francesca entered. But when, after one glance, her friend gasped, “Mão de Deus!” and gathered her close, the fierce, body-racking sobs welled up and broke free. For a very long time she could not make them stop.
At midmorning, after he’d forced himself to down a Spartan breakfast and tea that might as well have been hemlock, Evan went to check on Andrea. He found her still abed, pale, but awake and composed.
“I’m glad you stopped by before leaving for Horse Guards, Evan. I wanted to thank you for…” She swallowed hard. “Well, for everything. I hate to ask anything more, but—could you take me home?”
Despite his own anguish, her distress moved him. “Of course, Andy. As soon as you feel strong enough.”
“I’m ready, whenever you can break away. I want—I need to be home.” She bit her lip, obviously struggling for control. “Maybe then I won’t be so afraid.”
He came to the bed and took her in his arms. “Don’t be afraid, Andy. I’ll take care of you.” Recognizing the moment, he sucked in a breath and made himself say the words. “I’d like to take care of you always. Will you marry me?”
She pushed herself back and studied his face.
“Are you sure, Evan?”
Evading that question, he said, “I already asked you once, you’ll remember.”
A smile lightened her face. “By the lake at Wimberley years ago. You made me a wedding ring out of daisies.”
“Yes. But you haven’t given me an answer.” His heart beat faster with crazy hope she might refuse.
“I’m sorry I’m so weak.” Was it an apology? She smiled again, tremulously. “If you’re truly sure you want me, then yes, of course I’ll marry you.”
The words struck his heart like a deathblow. Numbly he took her hand and kissed it. “You honor me,” was all he could manage in reply.
Several weeks later Evan sat at Richard’s desk in the library at Wimberley. He’d sorted through almost all his friend’s papers; the solicitor had called yesterday to inform him the will should go to probate.
Evan needed to return briefly to London, to finish estate details and check at Horse Guards. Though he’d received courier mail, he was anxious to see if headquarters knew any more about the progress of his friend Geoffrey’s mission.
London. Emily.
Savagely he crushed the wave of longing, as he had on each of the innumerable occasions it had seized him these past weeks. Emily was quite content to be on her own again. She’d made that point brutally clear.
“Evan, may I come in?”
Startled, he turned to the doorway where Andrea stood. “Of course. Come, sit with me.”
Slowly she approached with her awkward, uneven gait and took the armchair beside the desk. “I’m afraid I have another favor to ask. I know it’s quixotic
of me, after practically dragging you and your family out of town, but the fact is I…I want to return to London.”
Again, that instinctive leap of anticipation. Again he squelched it.
“You needn’t go back, Andy. I do need to return, for a few days at least, but Mama can accompany me and arrange all the wedding details.”
“No, I want to come. I thought being here at Wimberley would be better, but it’s not. Oh, Evan! Everywhere I turn, I see Richard—his horses, his books, his hunting rifle. Even that silly rapeseed blooming in the meadow he insisted we t-try….” She broke off, struggling with tears.
Once again he gathered her close. “Of course I’ll take you back. You needn’t go out or see anyone if you don’t wish to.”
“Actually, I think I should prefer going out. Not to balls or parties, of course, but you never took me to Hampton Court or to Astley’s or the theater. I have friends, too, who can help…divert me. I don’t have to worry now about making a good impression on gentlemen or their mamas.” She looked up to smile at him. “Now I have you. I’m just sorry I’m such a bother.”
He looked down at her gentle, guileless face. He should say, “Nonsense, you’ll be my wife soon, I want to care for you.”
The best he could do was, “You’re never a bother.”
Her smile widened. “Thank you, Evan. You’re so good to me. Well, I shall start to pack!”
He gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. Not seeming to mind that lack of ardor, she patted his hand and walked out.
If they were to depart soon, he’d best finish these papers. But as he worked, though he struggled to banish them, two words kept thrumming at the back of his mind. London. Emily.
Chapter Eleven
Emily sat at the desk in her new office, previously her bedchamber, and gazed over at the sitting-room-turned-design-studio where the first completed toilettes hung.
Her clients had responded with enthusiastic praise and a number of advance orders—in cash. She gazed down at the sum she was about to insert in her money pouch and sighed.
She ought to be delighted with herself and the business. In a detached way she was. In her head she could acknowledge satisfaction that her trust in her design instincts had been well placed.
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