Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“Oh, Lady Birks, I think you might be underestimating the lady's memory. Or perhaps mine.”
Theodore didn't move from the mantelpiece.
He stayed draped against the marble with a glass of dark amber liquid in his hand, looking every bit the indolent rogue he was.
He didn't offer a bow or a polite smile.
Instead, he just watched Emily with a heavy, hooded gaze that felt like a physical weight against her skin.
“Lady Emily and I have already survived several introductions,” he continued, his voice low. “Though I suspect she was hoping the most recent one — last November, was it not? — would be her last. I believe her exact words to the Duchess of Pembourne were that I was 'exhaustingly predictable.'“
Emily felt the familiar, sharp heat of irritation prickle at her throat, but she kept her expression as still as a winter pond. She didn't look at Julia; she kept her eyes locked on Theodore, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a flinch.
“Your Grace's memory is as selective as ever,” Emily said, her voice crisp and perfectly modulated. “I recall saying that your wit was predictable. The rest of you, I find, is merely... consistent.”
“Consistent!” Theodore let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh and finally pushed himself off the mantel.
He moved toward her with a fluid, predatory grace that made the small drawing room feel suddenly very cramped.
“You hear that, Aunt? I am being complimented on my consistency. Most women find me flighty, but Lady Emily has seen right through to my solid, dependable core.”
He stopped just a few inches too close, forcing Emily to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. The scent of sandalwood and expensive brandy invaded her senses, making it harder to hold onto the composure she had spent the morning perfecting.
“Tell me, Emily...” he said, dropping his voice to a pitch intended only for her ears, “...What on God’s green earth are you doing here?”
He was prodding the wound. He was trying to get her to snap, to show Lady Birks the temper that lurked beneath her calm exterior. He wanted her to show her teeth.
“There is no need to cross-examine the lady, Your Grace,” Lady Birks interrupted, her fan snapping shut with a sharp clack as she stepped toward them.
“I invited Emily. I found her company quite refreshing during her visit after an unfortunate carriage business, and I thought a proper dinner was only right.”
Emily offered a graceful, silent nod of thanks to the older woman, though her pulse was still racing.
The invitation had arrived at her father's estate three days ago, embossed and smelling faintly of lavender.
It had sent a jolt of pure, cold adrenaline through her veins.
To be invited to a private dinner at Faithcourt so soon after her “accidental” visit meant only one thing.
She was definitely on the list. All the young ladies in the room either were, or Lady Birks was considering them.
Theodore, however, did not look satisfied. He turned his head slowly toward his godmother, his eyes narrowing in a way that made Emily want to take a step back.
“Invited?” Theodore repeated, his voice trailing off as he glanced from Lady Birks back to Emily. He looked as though he were solving a puzzle that didn't quite have enough pieces. “Lady Birks, surely you aren't suggesting... is she on it? Is Emily on your list?”
Lady Birks cleared her throat, her gaze suddenly becoming very interested in the pattern of the Persian rug. “Now, Your Grace, this is hardly the time for such talk. Our guests will be expecting us in the dining room, and the mutton will be getting cold. We should —”
“No, no,” Theodore cut her off, his confusion turning into a sharp, incredulous laugh.
He turned fully toward Emily, his shadow looming large against the silk-covered walls.
He looked her up and down as if seeing her for the first time, his expression one of pure, unadulterated disbelief.
“It’s impossible. You? On a list of potential brides for. .. me?”
He stepped closer, the playful arrogance gone, replaced by a raw, genuine bafflement.
He knew Emily, or at least, he knew the version of her that had spent years treating him like a particularly bothersome gnat.
He knew she found him intolerable. He knew she was a woman who supposedly wanted nothing to do with a man of his reputation.
“Tell me, Emily,” he said, dropping his voice down a pitch. “Surely it cannot be true.”
Emily met his gaze, her jaw set. “I am here for dinner, Your Grace,” she whispered back. “I suggest you find a way to reconcile yourself to the fact that your godmother’s taste is far more refined than your own,” Emily whispered back, her voice like a thin sheet of ice.
Theodore looked at her for a moment. “Says the lady on the list.”
“Lady Birks...” Emily said, glancing warmly at where Julia stood.
“...is a woman of extraordinary discernment. Remarkable taste. One of the most respected and admired women in London, I think you will agree.” She paused, just briefly.
“If she saw fit to place my name on any list of hers, I would consider it nothing short of a privilege.”
Theodore stared at her.
She watched something move behind his eyes. Not quite surprised. It looked more like the expression of a man who had reached for something he expected to find in its usual place and found it missing.
“Also,” Emily continued, keeping her voice light, pleasant, the voice she used at dinner parties and morning calls and every situation that required her to be entirely gracious.
“I imagine the gentleman who warranted this list is quite the catch.” She tilted her head.
“Handsome, they say. Who wouldn’t want to be on such a list? ”
The statement cost her something she would not be examining too closely later.
To offer Theodore even a shred of a compliment, however hollow, felt like a small betrayal of her own senses.
She felt the phantom weight of her pride shifting, adjusting to the uncomfortable reality that she was now required to praise the very man who had spent the last season being the primary thorn in her side.
Theodore blinked. “Did you just... compliment me?”
“I simply agreed with popular opinion, Your Grace.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Theodore Merrick, who had an answer for everything, who moved through every conversation like a man who had read the ending in advance, stood by the fireplace of his godmother's drawing room and said absolutely nothing for a full three seconds.
It was — Emily thought privately — the most satisfying three seconds she had had in a while.
“You do not think I am handsome?” he said at last.
“I just said you were,” Emily said serenely.
“I don’t like how you said it.”
Emily’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. “Then I apologize.”
He narrowed his eyes. She smiled back at him with all the warmth she possessed and none of the satisfaction she felt, and watched him recalibrate.
She could see it happening. He had expected resistance, a stiffened spine, a clipped word, the particular frostiness she reserved almost exclusively for him.
He did not like it. She could tell he did not like it, which meant, naturally, that she intended to keep doing it indefinitely.
“You know,” Theodore said, his voice dropping again, shifting into a different register. “I have always thought you held yourself rather too tightly, Lady Emily. All this...” he gestured vaguely at her general composure. “...decorum. Propriety. Does it not exhaust you?”
“Not in the least,” she said. “I find it rather restful.”
“You should let loose occasionally. Breathe a little.”
“I breathe quite regularly, thank you.”
“I meant —”
“I know what you meant, Your Grace.”
He smiled. Slowly. “Do you?”
“Are you two acquainted?” Julia chimed in, slightly startling Emily, who was just on the verge of losing all composure.
“Vaguely,” Emily said.
“Intimately,” Theodore said, at precisely the same moment.
They looked at each other.
“Vaguely,” Theodore amended, with great pleasantness.
Julia looked at him. Then at Emily. Then back at him. “Right,” she said slowly, in the tone that signified she was filing something she noted in their response away for later.
“We have met a couple of times, Lady Birks. But we barely know each other.” Emily glanced at Theodore. “As you know, His Grace is a good friend of the Duke of Pembourne. So we have been introduced to each other.”
“Introduced,” Theodore repeated. “Yes. I suppose that is one way to describe it.”
Emily looked at him. “Is there another?”
“I simply recall our introductions being rather more...” he paused, as though searching for the word. “...eventful than the term suggests.”
“I cannot imagine what you mean.”
“Can you not?”
“No,” Emily said pleasantly. “I genuinely cannot.”
Theodore smiled. It was the smile of someone sitting on a very good hand of cards.
“Lady Birks,” he said, turning to his godmother without taking his eyes off Emily.
“Did you know that Lady Emily once told me, at Lord Pembourne's dinner table, that she had met lapdogs with more self-awareness than me?”
Julia blinked. “Did she?”
“She did,” Theodore said. “Entirely unprovoked.”
“It was not unprovoked,” Emily said.
“I was simply conversing.”
“You were holding court,” Emily said. “There is a difference.”
“I was sharing an anecdote.”
“You were sharing several anecdotes,” Emily said. “About yourself. In succession. Without pause.”
“People were listening.”
“People were being polite,” Emily said. “There is, again, a difference, Your Grace.”
Theodore opened his mouth.
“It was a jest,” he said finally.
“It was a monologue,” Emily said pleasantly. “But yes. Very amusing.”