Chapter 3
E mily kept the gentleman in sight as he moved through the ballroom and out toward the terrace.
She wasn’t doing anything serious here. She was only finishing what she had started. The list had not instructed her to succeed gracefully. It had merely required an unsuitable man, a private moment, and enough boldness to make the moment worth remembering.
She would be able to tick this off her list in no time.
The Duke of Huxley had proved unsuitable in a way she had not anticipated. He had looked at her as though something about her displeased him, answered her in a rather blunt and dreadful manner, and left her standing there with her fan in hand and her confidence in pieces.
This would do instead.
This gentleman had already spoken with her once that evening. Her mother had introduced them in passing. He had seemed agreeable enough at the time, if rather pleased with himself.
If she followed him now, if she spoke to him in private, if she proved to herself that the game still belonged to her, then the Duke and his strange coldness could go back to being what he ought to have been in the first place: a brooding man chosen for a dare.
The cold night air hit her face the moment she stepped onto the terrace.
It felt cooler than the ballroom and easier to breathe.
Behind her, music and laughter drifted through the open doors in slow fragments, and before her, the gentleman slowed his pace and glanced back with a smile that seemed too innocent not to invite pursuit.
Emily kept walking anyway.
The garden path was lit well enough near the house, and the lamps threw warm light over the floors and the clipped hedges beyond. Farther out, the sense of company thinned with the light. Emily noticed it. She also noticed that she did not stop.
The gentleman turned fully at last. “Lady Emily.”
His tone carried satisfaction, as though her presence confirmed something flattering about him.
“My lord.”
He bowed a little, too casual for the gesture to mean much. “You have made me feel singularly fortunate.”
Emily lifted her chin. “Have I?”
“To be followed into a garden by a beautiful lady during a ball. I cannot imagine a man asking for better luck.”
The words were smooth enough. So was the smile that accompanied them. Emily remained wary, though a small part of her, the bruised foolish part still smarting from the Duke’s retreat, tried to insist that perhaps she had not entirely mishandled the evening after all.
“You assume a great deal from very few steps,” she said.
He laughed softly. “Then let me be more modest. I am pleased by your company.”
That at least was better said.
Emily almost relaxed. Not fully though, just enough to let the conversation continue.
“You seemed equally pleased by the ballroom,” she noted.
“I am much more pleased here.”
He came a little closer as he spoke, and Emily felt her feet suddenly ache out of nowhere. Her grip tightened on her fan. “The ballroom is safer for compliments. One has witnesses there.”
A smile that almost seemed to be straight out of a storybook appeared on his face. “But you would agree that some compliments prefer privacy, would you not?”
Something in the way he said it made the air shift.
Emily held his gaze. “I have found that those kinds of compliments are the kind the speaker ought to keep to himself.”
He smiled again, and this time his smile sharpened even more. “You do not strike me as a woman frightened by honesty.”
She felt the first stir of dislike.
Oh, great.
“I just do not admire bad manners, no matter what they are disguised in.”
He seemed amused by that. “Very good. Then I shall be plain. You must know what effect you have.”
Emily said nothing.
His eyes moved over her with a hunger that made her skin crawl.
“A man would be a fool not to want you,” he said. “Though, of course, one does not look at you and think of a wife.”
The words hit her with enough force to root her where she stood.
He kept speaking, perhaps imagining himself bold, perhaps imagining this passed for seduction in his world.
“A mistress, certainly. Something warm, hidden, and very grateful. That sort of figure was made for pleasure, Lady Emily. You must know that too.”
The shock burned off so quickly it left nothing but pure fury.
“Excuse me?!” Her voice cracked through the garden path more sharply than the music from inside ever could.
“You understand what I mean, now, do you not?”
Emily swallowed and took a step closer to him. The fan dropped from her hand, and she struck at him with her open palm. The sound echoed through the garden.
He stared at her for one second, then laughed. For some reason, that laugh cut deeper than the insult had.
Emily’s whole body went rigid.“You vile creature.”
He stepped closer, and for the first time that evening, she saw what she should have seen earlier—his size.
She was helpless out here, and she knew it. Worse, he did too.
His voice dropped. “Come now. You sought me out.”
Emily stood her ground, though the alarm had begun to push hard beneath the anger. The music from the ballroom sounded thin from this distance. She could still hear it, but she could no longer imagine it helping.
“I sought conversation ,” she hissed. “Not filth.”
He smiled as if he enjoyed the distinction. “A woman in your position should learn to take admiration where it comes. Even if it is on a bed.”
Her breath caught hot in her throat. She hated him. She hated the words that escaped his lips and hated even more the fact that it had been her fault.
“So… do you intend to keep fighting this, or are you going to be a good little girl and—” He was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps.
Emily blinked, and the gentleman’s expression shifted. Then, his attention flicked past her shoulder, causing her to turn.
Her lips parted as her eyes settled on the tall and broad figure approaching them.
Is that the Duke of Huxley?
Emily had only the space of one hard breath to register him properly before he reached them.
It was him. He looked as though he had arrived, understood everything worth understanding, and found the whole matter beneath contempt.
The gentleman straightened, some of his easy boldness slipping into offense. “Your Grace, this is hardly your concern.”
The Duke came to a stop a few feet away and looked first at Emily’s fallen fan on the gravel, then at the gentleman, then at Emily herself.
Her hand still stung from the slap, and heat burned in her face. She could not decide which part of the moment she hated most: the insult, the laugh that followed it, or the humiliating knowledge that the Duke had arrived in time to see all of it.
His gaze dropped briefly to her hand, then went back to her face. “I am afraid you are doing it wrong.”
For one stunned second, she could only stare at him.
The gentleman frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
The Duke did not look at him. Instead, he moved forward, placing himself between them with such certainty that Emily felt the entire air shift at once.
She had not realized until that instant how close the other man had come. Now, there was someone else between them. Someone strong and ready to fight. Someone who had served in the army for years.
It should have embarrassed her to feel relief so sharply.
The gentleman tried again, with a laugh too brittle to pass as genuine. “You misunderstand. The lady and I were merely speaking in private.”
Adam turned his head slightly then, enough to let the man know he had finally been granted notice. “I understand perfectly.”
The words landed with quiet finality.
Emily stood just behind his shoulder. She could see the line of his jaw, the hard calm in it, and the way one gloved hand had already curled loose at his side as if he had made a decision and was only waiting for the right moment to carry it out.
The gentleman’s tone sharpened. “This is absurd.”
“Yes,” the Duke said. “It is.” Then, with unnerving courtesy, he half-turned toward Emily and said, “Allow me, my lady.”
The gentleman made a short, incredulous sound.
Emily could not have answered if she tried.
The Duke looked down at her hand once more. “If you intend to break a man’s nose,” he said, in the same tone another person might have used to explain the proper way to carve a turkey, “you must not strike wildly. There is very little use in anger without direction.”
Emily’s breath caught.
The gentleman stared at him. “Have you gone mad?”
The Duke continued as if no interruption had occurred.
“The aim is not the cheek. It is the nose itself, and with enough force to drive it back and flood the eyes.” His gaze stayed on Emily’s face, calm, direct, instructional. “A clumsy blow merely offends. If you wish to discourage a man, accuracy is kinder to everyone.”
The gentleman took a step forward. “You insolent bastard.”
At that, the Duke’s attention fully shifted to him. Emily had seen his silence in the ballroom and mistaken it for mere coldness. Now, she saw what sat beneath it.
Violence.
The gentleman’s outrage looked shabby beside that composure. He had seemed large enough a minute ago. Now, he seemed overpainted and foolish, a man who had relied on her isolation and found himself exposed the instant another man entered the scene.
“You cannot speak to me in this fashion,” he protested.
The Duke’s mouth twitched by the smallest degree. “And yet I am doing it.”
The gentleman grew even redder. “The lady followed me here willingly.”
Emily stepped out just enough to be heard. “I would sooner follow a rat.”
His head snapped toward her, and the Duke shifted half a pace, blocking her from sight.
The gentleman gave a laugh, though fear had entered it. “You are making a spectacle of nothing.”
The Duke’s voice remained level. “Something tells me that I am not. Especially since that same thing made me listen to your conversation about Lady Emily back in the ballroom.”
Emily stared at him. She knew well enough what most men said behind her back. What surprised her was the fact that a man like the Duke would defend her nonetheless.
That had rarely happened. The highest form of sympathy she had ever received was from men who kept quiet while others made fun of her, as if their silence was all the pity she needed.
A wave of heat rose under her skin again, though now it had little to do with shame.
The gentleman’s face had gone pale under the anger. “I demand an apology.”
The Duke looked at him for one long second. “No.” Then, he glanced back at Emily. “As I said, my lady, one must be precise.”
She barely had time to understand that the lesson was ending because his hand came up with brutal speed and perfect control.
“Your Grace—” she tried, her hand outstretched, but it was too late.
His fist connected with the gentleman’s face.