The sofa creaked, and he shot upright, hands dropping into his lap as his aunt groaned and she sat up. She rubbed her eyes and chuckled and didn’t even bother to smooth her skirts or hair before making her wobbly way toward the door.
“That was quite dramatic, Nephew. Thank you for the show. And good luck. With all that.” She smacked her palm twice on the doorframe before disappearing into the hallway.
Hell. Not quite as sleepy as he’d thought, the wily old woman.
And him? Not quite as in control as he’d assumed.
A wreck, he was. Completely, utterly wrecked.
He cleaned up his knives, closed the box, and swept up the parcel Lady Emma had brought before leaving the gallery. In his own bedchamber, he dropped it on the dressing table and collapsed onto his bed.
Friends. Friends? With Lady Emma.
Yes. Apparently so.
If friendship was all he could have with this woman, he’d take it and find some way to be grateful instead of wallowing in grief.
Chapter Nine
Something more than hurling knives had happened in Clearford’s portrait gallery. But what? The danger of sharp projectiles, the discussion of a match with someone actually interested in the strategy of it all, and the snoozing chaperone in the corner. It all produced a heady and irresistible energy that still thrummed through Emma.
Emma snagged a glass of champagne from a passing tray. The crush in the Coldpepper ballroom was the biggest she’d experienced yet in London, hot, pressing, and stifling, beading sweat on the back of her neck.
Hot and pressing… like Clearford had been against her when teaching her how to throw.
He’d been headier than the rest of it. His sincere gaze, his sun-hot touch. The man made gentle seem dangerous and made the sharp tips of knives feel safe. Something dangerous certainly buzzed between them, something born that night in the garden. Something they had promised to forget.
The duke had touched her more today than any man ever had. She did not have to concentrate to relive the feel of his hard body pressed at her back. But more intense even than that, the memory of him cradling her wounded hand. Gentlesparks had leapt like a growing fire. A new sensation, one she’d not even known had existed, one she perhaps had missed in her matchmaking equations. This leaping, living thing—safe yet dangerous, burning and sweet—did it guide the heart more than practical matters did?
That would explain her failure with love matches because—
Love matches? No. If this flame in her belly for the duke was the same forged at the heart of a love match…
No. He had another woman in mind for marriage, and he’d been at her side all evening.
She must focus on something other than her duke-heavy delusions.
Such as… the opportunity to be had in London! The men and women dancing and trading gossip here did not gossip about her. They did not even look at her, a Scottish peer’s daughter below their notice. Not a shadowed disregard, though. Arriving as the close relation of Lord and Lady Macintosh and at the same time as the duke and his sisters, she had, apparently, passed muster. The family’s familiarity with Emma’s sisters had elevated them immediately, strangers and Scottish though they were. And Emma’s plain gown, downcast face, and whispers of her advanced age had worked well with the debutantes and their mamas. Lady Emma offered no threat for the duke’s affections.
Though he certainly threatened hers. With his excellent aim and gentle touch, and…
None of that mattered. Only Lady Felicity mattered. There was where Emma's attentions must lay. To the side of the dancefloor, her charge was speaking with Mr. Sinclair and Sir Rexley. They had been her most consistent suitors so far, but she had shown little particularity for one or the other. She laughed at both men's jokes equally, and she accepted their favors and gladly allowed them to write their names on her dance card.
When the gentlemen disappeared to lead other ladies out to dance, Emma inched closer to Lady Felicity. “Do you feel, perhaps, any hint of jealousy as the gentlemen leave your side?”
Lady Felicity fidgeted with the gold cord that secured her dance card to her wrist. “No. Sir Rexley looks rather well turning about the room with Lady Allison, and Mr. Sinclair is likely having a difficult time with Miss Baxter. She steps on toes, I’ve heard. But look, he smiles every time he winces. I think he finds her lack of rhythm charming.”
Sometimes jealousy helped to see where a lady’s affections lay, but clearly that particular emotion was not in play here. “Can you see what your future would look like with either man by your side? How you would rub along, what you would do together, how you would solve problems? That sort of thing.”
“I suppose,” Lady Felicity said, choosing her words carefully, “if I were to marry either of them, it would be much of the same. I would take care of the house and the children and probably run some charities and spend my days with my sisters and friends. And he—either of them—would be doing whatever it is men do all day, and we would meet to make an heir.”
“That sounds terribly isolated and not at all affectionate. Are you no longer in pursuit of a love match?”
“I am.”
“So, we must look for other suitors. Ones more likely to interest your heart.”
“Per—haps.” Lady Felicity’s entire body went tight as a wire strung in a harp. She opened her mouth as if she might speak, but she did not. Her tongue touched her top teeth as if they meant to shape a sound, but no sound emerged. Her gaze had shot across the ballroom to the doors. A man stood there, tall and lean and golden, a definite lack of merriment in the thin slash of his lips.
