Chapter Fourteen
Emma bent over her writing desk, attempting to pen another letter to Clearford. Six days since her previous one, six since the string of letters still residing in her trunk, better off forgotten in the dark. Six days of keeping her distance from the duke. Somehow she’d managed to avoid him entirely. Probably because she’d feigned illness all week. A cold, a megrim—excuses that allowed her to remain hidden in her room.
But she could not always avoid her duty. This letter would be her reentry into life, where she’d have to see Clearford and Lady Huxley happy at one another’s sides.
A pile of crumpled paper littered the floor at her feet. Every time she tried to write to Clearford of Lady Felicity and Mr. Sinclair and Sir Rexley and ask if he’d scheduled a time to speak with Lord Bransley, she wrote instead things she should not, words that continued the conversation from before. The letters all started with felicitations on nuptial happiness and ended withI would choose you, too.
Rubbish.
She laid down her quill. She would wait to write the letter. Wait until after she had more information on Lord Bransley. She would ask if Felicity knew anything.
Felicity had placed the last epistle in Emma’s hands.
If I were free to choose, I would choose you.
What chained him?
Not that thewhatmattered.
She would match Lady Felicity. Then, whether it welcomed her back or not, she’d return to Edinburgh. Cold Edinburgh which did not seem to want her back. Returning would be for the best, even if she left her sisters behind in London with Lady Macintosh to guide the way.
Yes, that’s what she would do—tell her father to marry her off as he wished, so long as he left the girls in Aunt Georgie’s care.
She’d barter her future for theirs.
Hunger growled inside her, though she’d just eaten, and she whipped out a clean sheet of paper, set her father’s name atop it. He’d sent three inquiries all the way from Scotland, and she’d not answered a single one. If she didn’t do so soon, he’d either forget about them—the preferred outcome—or he’d show up on the Macintosh’s doorstep, fury in his eyes and a bottle in his hand.
A knock on the door tore her from the task easily as one of Samuel’s knives could cut through the paper.
“Yes?” she asked, opening the door.
“Lady Emma,” the butler said, “a Lady Huxley is here for you.”
Lady Huxley? But… why? “Yes. I’ll be right down. Please bring tea.” It was quick work to pull on her stockings and shoes and throw a shawl over her shoulders, and she found Rosalie in the ground-floor drawing room, peeking out the window at the square beyond.
“Good afternoon,” Emma said as she entered. “Will you take a seat?”
“Oh, I will. Thank you.” Rosalie dropped into the offered chair near the fireplace as Emma sat opposite her. “You are looking well, but I have heard you are not.”
“I am better.” Though not free from guilt, making this lovely woman worry because she couldn’t bear to see her happiness. She should offer her congratulations. But the words would not form on her tongue. They lodged like chunks of meat in her throat, cutting off her air. “What brings you here, Rosalie?”
“You, naturally.” Rosalie stripped her gloves off. “To see if you are well and because you have potential.”
“Potential? I’m afraid you will have to explain.”
“Do you like books?”
“Yes.”
“All books or only certain types?” Rosalie leaned forward.
“Ah… only certain types. I think. What types do you mean?”
“I’m a member of a book club, and I think you might be a likely prospect for joining it. We are selective about our membership because we only read a particular sort of book.”
The tea came, and Emma busied herself pouring Rosalie a cup and handing it over. “Scientific tomes?”
Rosalie threw her head back and laughed. When her mirth threatened her tea, she plopped the cup and saucer onto the table beside her and held her belly.
