But not for long. The footman stuck his head through her open doorway, holding out the letter.
“Were you not able to deliver it?” she asked.
“Yes, my lady. I delivered it. But he told me to wait and sent a reply immediately.”
“Oh, well, thank you.” She took the letter, and when the footman’s footsteps disappeared down the stairs, she opened it.
What about my letter opener? Must that go too?
Laughing so hard she clutched her belly, sat once more, and wrote.
Samuel was pacing his study when Emma’s response arrived.
“Wait in the entry hall,” Samuel ordered the footman. “I’ll not be long.”
Sitting at his desk, he unfolded the paper, and the sweep of Emma’s letters curved a smile across his face.
Must I raid your study for potential projectiles and possible pointy weapons? Or can I trust you to act like a sensible duke?
Likely she could not trust him because the first response to that sentence which popped into his head was a query over whether she’d raid his person, too. To search for knives, naturally. Slender fingers roaming everywhere across him.
He shifted in his chair, arranging himself to relieve the pressure of his hardening body, and wrote a response.
Emma waited at the window, palms and face almost smooshed into the glass as the footman ran around the garden square back toward her. She met the man at the top of the stairs.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the paper.
“Wait for another?” he asked, breathless.
She nodded, shut herself in her room, and unfolded the paper, her heart dancing.
I do not think I can be trusted. Not a bit. I wish you could join me. I would behave for you. I know it.I know, too, I should write none of this, but apparently, once you find your heart, it’s rather difficult to silence it.
I fear I do nothing but confuse you and reveal myself a rogue.
I should crumple this paper and throw it away. But I will not. Instead, it will serve as a reminder to the both of us of how shameless I am, of how important it is for you to despise me.
Tell me, what boon shall I give your father for loaning us your services? I do not think there is anything valuable enough.
Oh. Oh, yes… he was a rogue, wasn’t he? He must be! So easy to forget when laughing with him, talking and thinking with him, came so easily, so naturally. Yet he courted another woman while writing things likethatto Emma. He made Emma’s heart trip, and he made her wish for things she’d never wished before. That a man would abandon one woman to chase Emma instead. If he valued her so highly, why continue courting Lady Huxley,the friendly Rosalie? Either he was a man who played with women’s hearts, or something else compelled him.
She pressed both palms to her heart. “I do not care. He does not truly care. ‘Tis words and nothing more. A rogue, a cad, a scoundrel.”
She believed none of it. But why? She should! Except something deep within her seemed to understand something deep within him. She knew him the way she knew herself.
What was it he’d written…? She hovered the pads of her fingers over the script—once you find your heart, it’s rather difficult to silence it.How painfully true. She squeezed a fist against that thumping, wailing organ and sat and wrote.
The letter trembled in Samuel’s hand as he read it a third time.
You must stop. I cannot believe you to be the sort of man to play with a woman’s feelings. Perhaps if I tell you a bit of my truth, you will not find me worth playing with any longer.
You ask what my worth is, what I charge for my services. I say you must ask my father.
After a match, my father hopes for money most. I am not supposed to speak of it or pretend it exists, but he needs it. We need it. You will, perhaps, shun the association with me and my family now. Usually, he is the one to do the negotiating. I never know what is exchanged. Cigars sometimes, I think. A residence once, oddly enough. And, yes, banknotes, too, some of which have gone to paying off my father’s vowels.
If I do not keep my reputation whole in London and find your sister a husband, he will find a rich man to pay for me.
If you continue as you have… keeping my reputation whole may not be possible. If you esteem me as you say, teach your heart to keep its silence.
