“The maids will have it ready soon,” she said, standing beside Emma.
“Tell me about the girl I’ll be meeting tomorrow.”
“Ah, yes. She lives just there, across the way.” She tapped the glass. “See the window blazing bright on the second floor? That’s the duke’s residence. Perhaps you might help him as well. He’s an old bachelor. Every year, we think he’ll take a bride, and every year, he disappoints the London ladies. He’s clearly not found what he’s looking for yet.” She reared back a bit and considered Emma. “Hm. Perhaps he has simply failed to look in the right place. Perhaps… he should have been looking more north.”
Oh no. Emma knew that look, that tone. “I’m afraid I must ask you to banish those thoughts. I have no intentions of marrying until my sisters are happily wed.” She couldn’t leavethem alone with her father. She could take them with her, of course, but she’d yet to find the man who would gladly take on three young women in addition to a wife. Besides, she did not want an old bachelor who likely enjoyed employing the same control over his family that her father did.
And if he’d come to advanced years without taking a wife, perhaps he did not hold affection for the opposite sex. If Glenna felt affection only for women, surely there were men who preferred only men. Not that she could say it out loud. Glenna’s secret was not Emma’s to give away, only hers to keep safe.
Thank goodness, she had a convenient excuse for rejecting the man before she’d even met him. “At one and thirty, I am already on the shelf. And by the time Diana is married, I will well and truly be a spinster. I am beyond the age of admiration.”
“Nonsense. You are lovely. He might take a shine to you. Any man could.”
“Please, Aunt Georgie. I am here to help his sisters marry, not to court him, or any man, myself. Besides… I’ve read his articles on courtship. He’s a—” She bit her lip. Her aunt considered the duke a friend. “An interesting fellow whose mind is not in agreement with my own. We would not suit. I promise you. Please do not make things… awkward.”
“Very well.”
“I should not defy you so strongly right away. You’ll become tired of me before I’ve been here a full day.”
“Never. I admire a woman who speaks her mind.” Lady Macintosh winked. “Never silence yourself in front of me. That way, I will come to know you better and sooner. Now, I believe the bath is ready.”
“But what about the girl? The duke’s sister?”
“Lady Felicity is a lovely little thing.” Lady Macintosh tapped on the glass and watched the house as if she could see the lady she spoke of across the way. “She has a bright soul, airy. Despitelosing her parents at a young age. I believe her brother and her older sisters protected her innocence as best they could from grief.”
“How many other sisters does he possess?”
“There are eight in total.”
A veritable plague.Emma laughed.
“I assure you,” Lady Macintosh said, “it is not funny to the duke. You’ve read the articles. You know he’s tried his best to do his duty toward them.” She huffed. “I do wish I had not sent you those clippings now. I thought you might find his writings useful, but I see I prejudiced you against him instead.”
“He did that all on his own. I can, however, appreciate how he treats marriage with the gravity it deserves and realizes courtship is a science. It is only he has a long way to go before he masters it. Perhapsthatis why he remains unwed.”
Lady Macintosh chuckled. “Could be, dear. Now, off to bed with you. You meet the duke and Lady Felicity tomorrow.” She wrapped an arm around Emma’s waist and guided her through the dressing room into the bedchamber her sisters would share. A large tub rested beside a blazing fire, the water inside steaming.
Emma’s joints and muscles ached for the burn of it. She greeted a waiting maid and turned her back to be undressed.
Lady Macintosh stepped into the hallway. “I am glad you’ve come. More for myself than for others. I am a selfish old woman, I freely admit.”
“I am delighted to be here, Aunt Georgie.”
The viscountess squeaked and grinned and wiped something wet from beneath her eye. “You enjoy your bath and climb into bed. I’ll worry over the girls tonight.”
The door closed, the maid finished her task, and Emma sank into the silky warm water. How odd to let herself float for a breath or two, to put the care and worry into someone else’shands. She would enjoy it now because tomorrow her challenge began. Match a brokenhearted woman with a man who knows her worth. And tolerate a duke who thinks he knows everything at the same time.
London was entirely new, but humans were the same. They wanted to feel important and needed and safe. If she could figure out what Lady Felicity needed, she could find the right man to provide that. And if Lady Felicity provided what her suitor needed… a perfect match! Just one of many she’d made, but this one the most important. It would rebuild her reputation. If a duke sang her praises, the people of Edinburgh must listen. If they would not, the people of London would. She could simply… remain here.
Only her father would not like to live so far from his golden goose.
She set to work scrubbing her hair and her limbs with a soap that smelled like lemon and lavender, and by the time she’d dried her hair by the fire, the girls were tumbling into the room, yawning and sleepy-eyed. She said goodnight as they tucked themselves into comfortable beds and then found her own, shutting the door behind her softly. She’d left the curtain open, and a slight chill washed over her. Hugging her wrapper tightly about her body, she strode to the window. The other window in the house on the other side of the garden was still lit, though the light dimmed and flickered.
A shadow stepped into the candle-soft glow. A man’s shape, and it leaned against the frame, clearly peering into the darkness outside. The duke?
She let the curtain fall. He could not see her. At least not in any detail. But it felt as if he could, as if that shadow man across the way could pierce right to her very secret-most self.
The men of London, so far, were terribly disconcerting.
