“Yes, I’d heard that.” The woman tilted her head, watching Emm with an odd little smile. “Incredible.”
“Have we met before?” Emm asked, puzzled by the woman’s behavior.
She shook her head with a little laugh. “Oh, no, but you were pointed out to me once when I was a girl and visiting my cousin.”
“What is your cousin’s name?”
“She’s married now, you wouldn’t recognize it.” Her smile was sly as she added, “But she used to live in Bucklebury.”
Bucklebury.A sour taste flooded Emm’s mouth.
“My cousin knew all the best gossip. Some quite shocking scandals happened in the sleepy little village of Bucklebury. You’d be amazed.” Her smile was now openly malicious. “Or perhaps you wouldn’t. So nice to chat, Lady Ashendon.”
Emm didn’t say a word. From being overly warm a few minutes before, she was suddenly chilled to the bone.
Bucklebury was her home village.
She breathed in the chill night air, taking deep, slow breaths until she’d regained a semblance of composure, then returned to the party.
She felt it the minute she stepped back into the light, the attention of a small knot of young women, heads together, whispering. They turned to look at Emm, their expressions avid, almost gleeful, then they returned to their whispering.
It was starting again.
***
“Are you feeling unwell?” Cal asked when he saw her. “You’re very pale. Do you want to leave?”
Emm nodded. She was feeling sick, but not the way he thought. Gossip had ruined her life once, and now it wasback. She’d thought she’d been able to put it behind her, move on. She’d been wrong.
She was going to have to tell him. Tonight, before someone else did.
“Take me home, please, Cal.”
In minutes they’d made their farewells to their host and hostess and were in the carriage heading home. Cal looked worried, his eyes dark and full of questions, but Emm didn’t want to talk, not here, not in the carriage. She closed her eyes and leaned against him, finding refuge in his strength and warmth and the dear, familiar smell of him.
She loved him. She’d resisted it from the first but hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d fallen, head over heels, and it was as unlike her first experience of “love” as anything could be. She knew now the difference between infatuation and love.
But of course, she couldn’t tell him. They’d made a marriage of convenience—he’d made it perfectly clear what his expectations were, and they didn’t include love. So it was not for her to burden or embarrass him with unwanted emotion.
Besides, if she told him now, and then he heard what people were saying, he’d probably think she was saying it out of desperation. That she was lying to save herself.
They arrived home and he walked her up the stairs. “Is there anything I can do? I don’t like to see you so pale. Shall I fetch your maid?”
“No. Just give me a few moments and then come in. We need to talk.”
“Talk?”
She felt another pang of guilt, remembering the unspoken promise of lovemaking after the party. Lovemaking was the last thing on her mind.
“I’ll just take this coat off.” He left her in her bedroom and went through to the dressing room. Emm stripped off her jewelry and the lovely dress, pulled out her hairpins and pulled a brush quickly through her hair, then slipped on her thickest, warmest, most unseductive flannel nightgown, wrapped her lovely cashmere wedding shawl around her—for comfort as much as warmth—climbed onto the bed and waited.
“So, what’s this about?” he said when he returned wrapped in his favorite dressing gown. “I take it you’re not actually sick.”
“No. Sit down.” She indicated the end of the bed. “It’s going to take a while.”
He sat, closer than she’d intended.
“You asked me once why my father disowned me.”
