Alexander finally turned to face Emily. She searched his eyes for any sign of disgust or judgment, but there was none. All she saw was confusion and something very like sadness. What could he be so upset about? The two of them had never been very good friends. Honestly they spent more time trying to avoid each other than getting to know each other. Until lately, that is.
She was beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake.
“I do regret the outcome of my actions with that Poulett fellow, Emily. If I could have anticipated the punch bowl”—Alex pantomimed the bowl spinning over in the air—“I would have changed tactics, but the man’s behavior was abominable. I will not apologize for standing up for you.”
Smiling ever so slightly, Emily said, “I owe you an apology as well. I should not have blamed you for what was clearly an accident. And you did rescue me from that horrible scoundrel. I had no idea he would act the way he did.”
“He has long been a man of dubious character, and you would do well to stay away from him.”
“Rest assured, I have already learned that lesson.”
“You have always been of quick wit, Emily Moss.”
“Why, Alexander,” Emily teased, “I think that may be the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”
Alexander laughed, and Emily forgot how to breathe for a moment.
In her addled recollection, Emily was quite sure she had seen Alex smile, chuckle, grin, and joke—if not precisely with her, then with others—so she had no idea why his sudden laughter could affect her so. But it did. All at once, Alexander became the most handsome man she had ever seen.
Alexander Bredon!
What was happening to her?
“Are you all right?” Alex asked once he had stopped laughing.
Emily quickly smiled and said, “Yes, ah, absolutely. I just thought I needed to sneeze again.”
She had no idea what look had passed over her face, but she hoped that excuse would cover it.
“How rude of me,” Alex said, standing. “I shouldn’t have come in the first place, and now I have overstayed. Shall I go out the way I came or take a chance leaving through the front?”
Although there was an air of teasing in his words, Emily had to seriously think about the answer. While it would certainly be safer for him to descend the stairs rather than the side of the house, if her aunt were to discover a man had been in her room—unsupervised, no less—she would find herself married to him. And while she was beginning to think she and Alexander may be reevaluating their contentious relationship, she was quite sure neither of them wanted to end up betrothed.
Apparently, her concern was evident, because Alex walked over to the window.
“I don’t know why I even considered the other,” he said. “The least I could do is leave your reputation intact.”
“Thank you,” Emily replied with sincere gratitude.
Alex smiled. He opened the window and ducked through. He stuck his head back in, gave her a jaunty salute, shut the window, and then he was gone.
Emily got up and went over to secure the latch and to ensure he made it down to the ground safely. When she was satisfied, she turned around and headed back to bed. She was in desperate need of a nap.
As she passed her dresser, Emily happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
Good Lord, she thought. Is that what I look like?
How on earth had Alexander looked at her with a straight face? Her hair was both matted and sticking out all over the place. Her nose was red and raw, as were her eyes, and her cheeks were so rosy they bordered on clownish.
It was a travesty.
And for a reason she couldn’t quite comprehend, she was mortified that Alex had seen her in such a sad condition.
Why should it suddenly matter so much that he find her beautiful?
Chapter Thirteen
Love gives you a part of your soul that you never knew you were living without.
~The Duke of Lancaster
Alexander walked through the grounds of the church lost in thought. His mind was still on his visit with Emily from the day before. The plan to simply apologize and leave looking none the worse to the girl had utterly failed. If anything, she probably thought he was crazy, and now she was even more embroiled in his every thought than she had been before. Only now she was in his thoughts in her bedclothes. Sick or not, she was still the most adorable thing he had ever seen. And, despite her condition, he had wanted to kiss her…and more. Granted, since finding out she was the person he had been writing and especially after their kiss, Alex was more committed than ever to convincing Emily to think on him fondly, but the strange thing was how he seemed to be unable to get her out of his mind and not necessarily the other way around.
Alex sighed. This was getting him nowhere. His mind kept running around in circles. It was like the debate in school he had with his friends about the chicken and the egg. He decided to leave another anonymous letter with the angel. Getting letters from Emily may be the only way to really know what she was feeling.
It had been a number of days since he had visited the little angel in the cemetery. Now that he knew Emily had really been sick, he didn’t feel quite so guilty for not having written sooner. Knowing now that the mystery writer was none other than Emily, he hadn’t truly thought of responding to the last letter until this morning when his mother had asked him to post some letters for her. It had been nearly a week since he had last written her, and he didn’t want her to think anything was amiss.
He walked over to a nearby bench while unfolding the sheet of crisp paper. He sat down and wrote…
My dearest Grace,
I must apologize for my delayed response. To say your last letter caused me a fair bit of consternation would be an understatement. You see, I too am consumed with thoughts of you. I have imagined hundreds of scenarios of us meeting, and every one is more fantastical than the previous.
Am I the only one concerned that reality will not live up to fantasy? On the other hand, how long can we continue as we are? I want to know you…I want to know everything about you. If we proceed under our established terms, I will never know these things.
Therefore, I have made a decision. I think we should meet…
Until I have seen you face-to-face, I do not believe I will be able to move on in my own search for a wife.
I hope you will not think me crass or forward to suggest such a thing. I will await your response with patience.
Yours with affection, John
Despite what Alex had written, he was torn about meeting Emily as John. If they did so too soon, she would just laugh at him and dismiss his newfound feelings. If he waited too long, it would look as if he had been playing a cruel joke on her. Either way he would lose her.
He was tempted to write her then and there revealing the truth, but common sense won out. He would go and talk to someone about this. He hadn’t told any of his friends about the letters before now, because he was rather sure they would tease him mercilessly, but this was becoming too real, too serious.
He had to get another opinion before taking the next step. And it had to be David Rochester’s.
David had been his best friend since they were students at Eton. Their relationship had always been one of jokes and irreverence, but above all, Alex knew that he could always count on David’s friendship and council. They had grown up together, literally and figuratively.
Ever since the smuggling debacle, they had both made a huge change in their lives. David had gotten married, and Alex was now a responsible landowner. The two had come a long way and, if anything, had grown closer as a result.
His mind made up, Alexander wasted no time getting to his friend’s house.
…
“Alex!” David exclaimed, when he saw his friend on the stoop. “This is a nice surprise. Did we have plans?”
Alexander grinned as he followed David into the house.
“No, Rochester, I just needed to talk, and yo
u drew the short straw.”
“Then I did it on purpose, brother. I am always here for you.”
It was hard to beat that as the perfect answer. Alex considered himself very lucky to have a friend like this man.
“David, who was at the door?” Sarah asked, walking into the entryway. “Oh Alex…hello.”
Sarah came forward and gave Alexander a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Are you here for lunch? I can have something prepared and brought up from the kitchen.”
Laughing, Alex said, “I am not always here for the food, Sarah.”
“I am going to accept that as a ‘yes’,” she replied. “David, the parlor?”
David looked at Alex, and he shook his head.
“I think my office might be better, love.”
“Oh,” Sarah said, nodding, “I see. It shall be done. You boys have a nice chat.”
With that, Sarah left the room in the direction of the kitchens.
“How do you two do that?” Alex asked, in awe.
“Do what?”
“Talk as if you know exactly what the other is thinking.”
“I suppose it is because we do know.”
“Know what?”
“What the other is thinking,” David replied, as if it were obvious.
“But how do you know?”
David slung his arm over Alex’s shoulders as they headed toward his office.
“That is the great mystery of love, my friend.”
“Then I suppose I have come to the right place.” Alexander sighed as he sank back into the deep leather armchair that sat across from David’s dark cherrywood desk.
“Oh” David said, sitting down in his own chair. “Is this going to be a conversation about love?”
Alex shrugged, “I suppose that is what I am here to find out.”
Leaning forward, David looked as prepared as he was ever going to get, so Alexander launched into his tale of secret missives and his mystery woman. He stopped just short of telling David that he knew it was Emily writing him. That was one secret he wasn’t quite ready to share with anyone. Even his best friend.
“Well, I’ll be foxed,” David said when Alex had finished talking. “How long has this been going on?”
“A few weeks, I suppose.”
“Hmm, this explains your wandering thoughts lately.”
“Yes, thanks for all the jokes at my expense, by the way,” Alex said ruefully.
It was David’s turn to shrug, “It had to be done, friend. You did the same to me when I was falling for Sarah.”
His friend had a point. And to be fair, Alex may have been even worse. Though, in his defense, who could have predicted David Rochester would fall in love with Sarah Jardin? The girl had been in love with him her entire life, and in one fell swoop they were forced to marry. Everyone thought David had gotten the raw end of that deal, but as it turned out the two were perfect for each other.
Fate was a funny thing.
An image of Emily looking just the way she did before he had kissed her leaped unbidden into his mind. Alex pushed it aside.
“So what do you think I should do?”
“That is an excellent question. What do you really know about this girl? Is she even a girl?”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Do you think I had not considered that possibility? Of course she is a woman. A lady, in fact.”
“And how did you come to that conclusion?”
Alexander almost told David the truth. That the letter writer was someone they both knew, but at the last minute he decided to keep that to himself. It wasn’t his place to divulge the information that surely Emily thought was private. David didn’t need to know to offer advice. Or so Alexander hoped.
“More than one of her letters discussed the necklines of ladies’ dresses at some ball or another.”
“You realize that could just mean she was at the party. She could very well be a chaperone.”
“At least you can admit she is at least a she,” Alexander said dryly.
David laughed. “Yes, I will concede to that. And owning to everything else you have told me, I am willing to agree that she is probably a lady.”
“Thank you.”
“I still am not sure how to advise you further, however,” David said, looking at Alex. “What would you like to happen?”
Alex opened his mouth to respond but realized he had no idea. What did he want to happen? He knew he wanted the feud between him and Emily to end. He wanted them to be friends, at least. But more than that, he wanted to explore the feelings of affection he had been having of late. Could it be possible that he wanted to love Emily and have her love him in return? It was all too new and unexpected for him to really know for sure.
“I suppose I want, well, what you have,” he said, lifting his hands in the air. “All of it. And I want what William has, and Simon, and even Michael.”
His friendly feud with his brother’s best friend, Michael, was well known and legendary. When William was courting Hannah, Alex and Michael had battled over the role of best man with the victory going to Alexander. The two men continued to pretend to fight over William’s affections, but the truth was they had become good friends in their own right.
“Do you think this woman could give you that?”
“To be honest, I am not sure,” Alex replied, “but I do know that I didn’t start dreaming of a life like yours until she came into my world.”
“Can I ask you a strange question?”
“Considering the topic, I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
David gave a little smile but sobered as he asked, “In your dreams, what does this lady look like?”
Emily, Alex thought immediately, but caught himself before saying it out loud. But it was true. His mystery girl had gone from a faceless entity to knowing it was Emily in one fell swoop. And it was Emily’s face that haunted his dreams.
“Why do you ask?” Alex replied carefully.
“Oh, no reason,” David said. “I suppose I thought it would be interesting if your subconscious had shown you the face of a stranger or of someone you already know. It might have told us something about what you want in a love match.”
That certainly gave Alex pause.
“Did your dreams convince you that what you felt for Sarah was love?”
“Well, my dreams and my loins, yes,” David laughed. “No one was more surprised than me when I suddenly woke up one day hard as a rock for my new bride.”
Alexander chuckled, “I bet.”
Behind him, there was a knock on the door.
“All I’m saying is that you need to be realistic about this,” David said, getting up to open the door. Bringing a tray laden with every type of food imaginable back to the desk, he continued, “by all means meet with the girl, but don’t hang your hat on her being your future wife. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but more likely it will just burst the perfect bubble you have created.”
Taking a large bite of a roast beef sandwich, Alexander considered what David was saying.
“What if it turns out to be someone I already know?” he said once he had swallowed, “Would that change anything?”
David shrugged. “I have no idea, but take it from me…sometimes it is the girl you least expect.”
Alex had another bite of food and chewed slowly.
The girl I least expect, huh?
He couldn’t help but grin. If his friend only knew…
Chapter Fourteen
Solving the ultimate mystery is often getting to know one’s own self.
~The Duke of Lancaster
“Tell me one more time why I needed to attend this event?” Emily asked wearily. She still wasn’t back to full strength after her cold, and the last thing she wanted to be doing was standing around at the Falmouth ball watching everyone else having a nice time.
She was in an abysmal mood. The whole encounter with Alexander had left her confused and unsure of her own feelings. Emil
y did not like being uncertain about things.
“We are here to rout out your mysterious correspondent,” Sarah replied. “And we couldn’t very well do that without you, now could we?”
“Actually, I am pretty sure you could.”
“Oh Emily,” Rose said. “Where is your sense of adventure? Besides, I thought you wanted to know who the gentleman is.”
“I do, but I don’t see how we are going to figure it out just by being here.”
“We shall use our reasoning skills,” Hannah stated. “We should be able to learn a lot by simply observing.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Have you seen this crush of people? There is no possible way to watch every man here. And what, pray tell, could he do that would indicate he is my anonymous friend?”
“I am beginning to think you are not behind this idea,” Sarah said, rather unnecessarily.
“I just don’t understand how you plan to accomplish your proposed goal.”
“Well,” Hope began, “we are looking for a gentleman who will be closely watching all the eligible ladies here.”
“Exactly,” Hannah agreed.
Waving her arms around like a crazy person, Emily exclaimed, “We are at a ball, ladies! Every man here is looking at eligible ladies.”
“Not the married men, surely.”
Emily skewered Sarah with a sharp look. “I am quite sure you take my meaning.”
“Although, now that I think about it,” Sarah continued, “many husbands take a mistress, so I suppose any number of them could also be looking for a woman.”
“Sarah…” Emily growled.
“Not our husbands, of course,” Sarah prattled on, apparently unaware that Emily was about ready to strangle her. “We are lucky in that regard…”
“Sarah!”
All four of her friends calling her name at once finally stopped Sarah’s rambling. She looked at them and blushed. “…but I don’t suppose that signifies.”
Hope patted Sarah’s arm. “Actually you both make good points, but Emily’s is more appropriate at the moment. And she is right. I don’t think we are going to learn anything by just watching. We are going to have to take more action if we are to have any chance of solving this mystery.”
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