“I hate to disappoint, but I fear you are wrong. We are not at all meant for one another.” An earl’s daughter and a duke… theycould. Society would not object. But then the duke would have to be agreeable, and he agreed to Lady Huxley. Not Emma.
“Oh no. Your face is drooping. Is it because you and Clearford are star-crossed?”
“No!”
Lady Huxley, Rosalie, nodded enthusiastically. “Ill-fated. Yes, of course. My favorite kind. Do you know I dislike high emotion in real life, but I adoreobservingit.” Lady Huxley—Rosalie—chuckled. “Reading of it, too.” She tapped Emma’s shoulder with the rim of her glass. “I pray you make it to the altar with him before I do.”
“I have no plans to make it to any altar. And even if I did, he has no interest in me in a matrimonial capacity.”
Lady Huxley sighed. “Then you must stick by my side and advise me on how to deal with a gloomy husband.”
She did not want to think of this other woman living in the same house with the gloomy duke. And that was namely because she rather felt like she should live in a house with the gloomy duke, attempting to make him less gloomy.
What an absolutely ridiculous thought.
What an absolutely useless thought. The duke did not wanther. (Forget the garden. That had not beenreal. Not really. Even he had said so.)
“I'll help you,” Emma said.
“Excellent!” Rosalie tapped her flute against Emma's and threw the champagne down her throat.
Emma did the same, welcoming the bubbles, welcoming the warm haziness that wrapped around her. She wanted to float away. Far,faraway.
“Look.” A bit of a groan in Rosalie’s voice as she pointed with her flute across the ballroom. “The duke looks for me. Our second dance is coming up.” She held up her hand from which the dance card dangled by a gold cord. “If I do not go now, he willfind me here with you, and I have the distinct impression he will get all broody if he does that.” She weaved into the crowd toward Clearford. “We will chat again. Soon!”
Emma watched until the woman met up with Clearford and he led her out onto the dance floor, and then an elbow jabbed into her arm.
“What do you think of Lady Huxley?” Felicity asked.
“I think I’ve made a friend.” An unlikely one. “She's quite direct.”
“Just so. She always has very interesting ideas about books.”
“Oh? You read books with one another?”
Felicity stiffened, her mouth hanging open for just a second. “We belong to a book club. I like to read.”
“So do I. Perhaps I could join you.”
Again, Felicity's mouth hung open. “Yes, yes. But… erm… the club is on a bit of a hiatus, but I'm… bother. I think I see Annie over there, and I haven't talked to her for a whole week! Do you mind if I run off?”
Emma did not see Felicity’s sister, Mrs. Kingston, anywhere, but she shrugged. “Go, then.”
The young girl bolted away as quickly as she could through the crush, leaving Emma alone on the edges of the ballroom, two empty champagne glasses in her hands.
And for some reason, those empty glasses felt terribly heavy, their emptiness overflowing, drowning in something cold as the duke swept her new friend into his arms.
Chapter Ten
Clearford House was haunted. True, the ghost kept his distance, never approaching the front door, but Clearford House was his clear objective, his gaze always trained on the windows as they were now. He walked the perimeter of the garden, his face following Clearford House like a flower following the sun. Samuel considered throwing open the window and sticking his head out, waving and yelling at the man as if he were a bird about to befoul a newly cleaned street.
Instead, he propped a shoulder against the window frame and watched the ghost circle.
The Earl of Bransley, pale-faced and all too concerned with the comings and goings of Samuel’s home, was making a nuisance of himself, and if he did not stop lurking soon, Samuel would have to arrange a littlechatwith him. Felicity said the man was not lurking. But she said it with a small, satisfied smile. She knew. She liked it.
Samuel did not.
In the week since the Coldpepper’s ball, Samuel had taken to keeping watch out the windows, his gaze fastened on the ghost who never presented himself as a suitor, who had said—hadn’t he?—that Felicity was not good enough for him.
