“I know, Emily, I know.” Julia took her arm tighter, urging her not to have to explain herself, just as they reached the family.
“Emily? Is something wrong?” Charity was the first to turn her eyes on her daughter. She did not need telling something was wrong, she could sense it. She put down her punch glass straight away and took Emily’s other hand.
“Mama, I need to get out of here,” Emily whispered.
“What has happened?” Archibald was the next one there, his manner and body so taut, he looked ready for a fight.
“I cannot explain it.” Emily shook her head and closed her eyes, unable to utter the words. Yet with her closed eyes the thought of what she had seen was back. It was dancing there in the darkness, the sight of seeing Aaron kissing Miss Drew. Her eyes shot open once again, dissipating the image. “I need to go home.”
“Trust me,” Julia spoke up, looking between Archibald and Charity. “We need to get her home. I can scarcely believe what we have just seen.”
“Say no more. I will arrange it.” Archibald nodded with the words and walked away, with purpose in his every step.
Charity did not ask what was wrong, but she took Emily away from the middle of the ballroom. They walked to the very edge of the floor, hovering by the door to the exit before she embraced her daughter. Emily buried her head on her mother’s shoulder, finding with desperation she needed that comfort, yet somehow it broke her as well. Her mother’s comforting embrace was the thing that tore down the last of the walls she had built around herself, and tears came.
“Whoever has done this to you, Emily, I will not forgive them for it,” Charity whispered, holding tightly onto her. “My daughter should not be reduced to such tears.”
“How could he do it?” Emily murmured between her tears.
“Who? Who did what?” Charity asked, clearly addressing her question to Julia at their side.
“I cannot tell them. You will have to tell them, Julia,” Emily said, turning her head away. As a handkerchief was thrust in front of her, she took it, using it to hide her face from the people at the ball that were looking their way, than bothering to dry her tears.What is the point in drying them? More will come along to replace those I dry.
“In the carriage,” Julia said calmly. “I will tell you there.”
Emily drowned out the words of her family as Archibald returned and arrangements were discussed. The carriage was being brought round for the family, but a separate phaeton carriage that belonged to the Duke of Parson would bring Arthur home later, who could not leave at this moment, not whilst he was needed.
Emily was too busy replaying what she had just seen. She was comparing the feeling of Aaron’s kiss, with how he had looked when he had kissed Jane. The two of them had fitted well together, with Aaron’s dark handsome looks and tall stature, beside Miss Drew’s fair-haired beauty and almost equally tall frame.They fit. I do not fit Aaron.
“Time to go,” Charity murmured softly, urging Emily out of the ballroom.
She eagerly trod the path out of the door and along the driveway to the waiting carriage. Inside, lit by one candle lantern, she sat between Charity and Julia, with Grace and Archibald perched opposite. Once the carriage lurched forward, Grace was the first to speak.
“Why did we have to leave like the fire of hell was at our heels?” Grace asked in panic. “Pray, tell us what has happened.”
“Well, it’s difficult to explain…” Julia fidgeted, clearly struggling with the words. Emily knew she could not ask Jane to speak of it for her, it was her task to do. She sniffed, halting her tears momentarily as she lifted her gaze to her family, ready to explain herself.
“It seems I was deceived in Lord Tattershall,” she said succinctly, to which her father shook his head, sitting back on the carriage bench.
“No, that I cannot believe, Emily. Any man can see he is besotted with you.”
“Then he is either a good actor or we will all mistaken, perhaps seeing what we just wished to see.” Emily explained as she looked down at the handkerchief in her grasp. “Julia, Lord Hugh and I found Lord Tattershall in the garden with Miss Drew, Lord Hugh’s betrothed.”
“What were they doing?” Charity asked.
“Charity!” Archibald’s word was sharp, but Charity would not back down.
“We must know. It is scandalous, yes, but we must know.” She looked back to Emily again. “Go on, sweetheart.”
“They were kissing, mother.” Emily’s words had a collective reaction on the carriage. Charity went off into a string of curses and Grace’s jaw dropped so far it was in danger of falling in her lap, meanwhile Archibald hung his head forward, hiding his face in his hands.
“I do not want to believe it,” Archibald said, his words muffled by his hands. “Lord Tattershall always seemed so genuine to my mind.”
“Then we were all mistaken,” Emily declared, sniffing, and trying to stop her tears for a short while. “This night is the proof of it. The courtship between Lord Tattershall and myself is over.”
As she uttered the words, a dark realization set in over her shoulders.
Whoever wrote those letters has gotten what they wanted; they just cannot have known this was how it would happen in the end.
