His brows rose at that, but he merely shrugged. “I would have canceled the booking.”
Or would he have gone off to find another hasty convenient bride? No doubt Bath was full of them—he’d only have to step into the Pump Room and lift his finger. But there was no point in pursuing that line of thought. She’d agreed to marry this man, and in so many respects it was everything she’d dreamed of as a girl. Almost.
If only the man himself were a little more...
Oh, he was as handsome a man as ever she’d dreamed of—handsome, and strong and powerful. But he was so... businesslike.
There wasn’t a romantic bone in the man’s body.
Though why she should dream of romance when she was six-and-twenty and should be beyond all that... They were schoolgirls’ dreams. Or spinsters’. Romantic and unrealistic. Pure fantasy.
He’d made it plain—more than plain—that this was a purely practical marriage. A job, no more, no less. And she had accepted the job.
She would no longer be a poor, unregarded schoolteacher, wholly dependent on the goodwill of her employer. She was going to be a titled lady—a countess!—with a home of her own and a family to care for. And since her husband would be somewhere on the Continent, Emm would be her own mistress. It was foolish to long for romance, pointless to dream of love. Security and independence were far more important.
She glanced up at him and caught him staring at her mouth, a dark intense stare that was almost like a touch. Warmth flooded her. Nervously she moistened her lips.
He looked up and met her gaze. His eyes were hard and gray and unreadable.
All the usual duties of a wife.
She shivered. In barely a week she would be married to this man. Her body would be his, to do with as he pleased.
Without a word, he held out his hand to her. Nervelessly she offered hers. As he had the previous day he enclosed her gloved hand in both of his, his grip sure and warm and firm. “It will be all right, I promise.”
Emm had no idea why that reassurance should rattle her more than anything, but it did.
***
“You arewhat?” Miss Mallard stared at Emm from over herpince-nez. She fumbled in her desk drawer, pulled out a vial of smelling salts and set it in front of her in an ominous warning. “Is this some frightful jest, Emmaline? Married? You? At your age?”
“I’m afraid it’s true, ma’am.”
Miss Mallard picked up the smelling salts and took a deep sniff. Her head jerked; she gasped, then blew violently into a lace-edged handkerchief. Emm, well versed in this ritual, passed her a glass of water.
The headmistress drank, then glared at her through streaming eyes. “How could you, Emmaline? After all I’ve done for you. You were to become headmistress after me!” Her head sank into her hands, and she moaned brokenly, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth... Oh, asp that pierces the bosom that has nurtured you all these years.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Emm murmured. Miss Mallard always did get her quotations mixed.
Miss Mallard took a deep breath, picked up herpince-nez, jammed them back on her nose and fixed Emm with a piercing glare. “And who, might I ask, is the blackguard who thinks to steal you away from me? Don’t tell me, it’s that dreadful old widower from church—the one who sent you flowers that time—I forget his name.”
“Mr. Bell, you mean? No, it’s not—”
“No, no, the other one. Short, fat and entirely bald. He has no fortune, you know. And a wandering eye.”
“No, it’s not Mr. Atkins, either.” Miss Mallard would hate the truth even more, Emm thought.
“Then who is it?”
Emm took a deep breath. “Lord Ashendon.”
There was a sudden shocked silence broken only by the sound of a pair of silver-rimmedpince-nezhitting the desk. Miss Mallard’s eyes almost popped from their sockets. She lifted the smelling salts, looked at them vaguely, as if unsure what they were, and put them down again. “Lord Ashendon?” she repeated in a failing voice.
“Yes, ma’am.”
There was a long silence. “Lord Ashendon, brother to the Rutherford girls?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
