“No amount of work will save me.”
“Is this about what happened last Season? With Parkington? You said no one saw.”
“They did not. But he has decided to talk. Whatever influence I possessed in the past is dissolved entirely in Parkington’s slander.”
He laughed, swinging his foot. “Didn’t know he had it in him. Should’ve married ‘im last Season. You’d’ve survived.” His words slurred one into the other.
Good thing she’d never expected pity from her father. He would give none.
“He was supposed to marry Miss Dunn.” He should not have even been on Miss Dunn’s list of potential suitors. But he’d seemed a charming gentleman before he’d revealed his sharp-toothed, slithering nature. He’d proved Emma fallible. And there was nothing society loved more, or hated more, than a fallible woman.
Her father pushed upright. His thin gray hair was wild about his head, and the grooved brackets around his thin mouth seemed even more deeply carved tonight. He grabbed the half-empty glass bottle on the table beside the sofa, dragging a bit of the jeweled liquid from its depths before wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He pointed the top of the bottle at her. “What are we supposed to do, then? Hm? If you can’t make matches, I can’t gather the fruit of your labor. Do you want the world to know we’re paupers?”
Emma wished she’d known about being paupers sooner than she had, wished she’d known her matchmaking was the thing keeping them afloat in an ever-intensifying storm of debt. She’d thought it a hobby.
It had been survival.
“Do you want,” her father sneered, “your sisters to know?”
“No.” It would not matter to Elizabeth. Married to a good man with two bairns, she was happy. And safe from their father. But the others… they needed Emma.
“What do you plan to do about it, then, eh?”
“What do I plan to do?” Rage boiled through her, white and quick as lightning. “Why didyoulose every penny? Gambled away everything not entailed, including the profits from my matches that I did not even know existed! You are why all of Edinburgh calls me the Glenhaven Harlot when they think I’m not listening. Perhaps Parkington’s assault would not matter so much had you not been selling my advice without my knowledge!”
He slammed the bottle to the table and rose, unsteady on his whisky-wobbling legs. But his hands were big, and they made dangerous fists. “Act less like a strumpet and you won’t be mistaken for one.”
She wavered backward. “I did nothing to encourage him.” Yet everyone thought she’d stolen Miss Dunn’s suitor from her, a cardinal sin for a matchmaker. Who would trust a woman who might break your heart?
“Earn their trust so I can earn their pounds.”
“My reputation is ruined.”
“Not my bluidy fault, lass.” His brogue had thickened. A good sign the drink was in control. “Marry Parkington.”
“No.”
“Worthless. You’re my golden goose, but you’reworthlessas you are. If you dinna find a way to make yourself profitable, I will.” He stroked his scruffy chin. “I would have forced your hand with Parkington last Season if I’d known he’d bark up gossip like a bluidy dog. I should have married you off years ago. But you’re too damn good for the coffers. Might be too long in the tooth now. Hm. Not if it’s an older man. To a man of sixty or more, you’re nothing but a spring chicken.” He cackled. “Doesna have to beyou, though. Glenna and Briar are old enough. And young enough.” Another dark chuckle.
“Briar is butfifteen. And Glenna seventeen. Not nearly old enough.” Age not the only reason to avoid marriage, not for Glenna. Butthather father would never discover, not if Emma had to give her life to keep it secret.
He lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “Excellent ages. Perfectly ripe for many a man. That’s three daughters to the highest bidder, and only one of them with the stain of a scandal to question her maidenhood and lower her price. Diana is yet too young but five years at most, and she can prove her value, too.”
Oh God. Perhaps it was only the whisky talking, but if it wasn’t… She backed toward the door. He didn’t always follow through with his threats. Often he forgot them. Sometimes… he did not.
“No. I’ll find a way.” She had to. “I… I have an idea.” A last resort. “London. I’ll visit Mother’s cousin there. Macintosh. There are more matches to be made in one London neighborhood than all of Edinburgh.”
Her father hiccupped, grinned, then fell backward onto the couch. “Do it, then. Or I’ll find a more lucrative use for you. Parkington—”
“No. You marry me to him, and he’d soon become tired of giving you money. You keep me unwed, you gain with every match I make.”
“Hm. Makes sense.” The last word slurred into a snore.
She trembled as she climbed the stairs and slipped into her dark, cold bedchamber. She never had a fire. Her sisters in the next chamber needed it more. She used to have Elizabeth’s warmth to beat back the chill. Better cold limbs beneath freezing sheets, though, if it meant Elizabeth was warm and loved and safe. Far away from their father’s greed.
She knelt by her bed and reached beneath it, pulled out a wooden box, and opened it. Where was the letter, the invitation? She’d laughed at first. Her mother’s cousin in London, Viscountess Macintosh, had offered Emma a ridiculous, impossible position last year. Help the Duke of Clearford find husbands for his remaining sisters? Why would she? She had read that ridiculous column he’d written years ago. That same cousin had sent it to her, thought she might find it interesting as she, too, worked to bring hearts together.
Duke Clearly Lacking did not work to bring hearts together, however. He worked to help men trick women into marriage. She and he were not at all the same.
