Emma pushed into the townhouse and stood still in the entryway as the door closed behind her, listening. Nothing but silence. Perfect. She tiptoed up the stairs.
“Emma!”
Blast. Not only was her father home, but he knew she was, too.
Keep tiptoeing. Pretend you heard nothing.
“EMMA!”
No use hiding now. He’d keep crying out like a banshee until she appeared, or he’d stumble after her, risking his neck on the stairs. She crept back downstairs into his study and found him foxed.
“How many whiskies tonight?” she asked, standing as far from her father as she could.
“Don’t judge me, lass.” The Earl of Glenhaven sprawled across a low sofa near the crackling fireplace, a leg dangling over one end and his arm dangling over the back. He snapped it toward the ceiling, the index finger extended. “Come closer and tell me why you’re home so early.”
She crept closer, but not enough for him to grab her should he take it to mind.
He lifted his head to consider her with glassy blue eyes, then dropped it back down. “You found a mark so quickly, then? Who? Tell me.” He hiccupped.
The truth might send him into a rage. But what choice did she have? “I have not. I’m afraid I will not.”
“Nonsense.” He hiccupped. “You merely do not wish to make a little effort. You’re being a stubborn, selfish girl.”
“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.”
