Chapter 14 - Emily
Emily
Once Emily had Juliet in the perfectly adequate bedroom provided by their host, she investigated the portmanteau and was relieved to find it contained all the things necessary for the comfort of a young lady, and a lot of other things besides.
A servant girl brought hot water for Juliet to wash in, then, when she was safely ensconced in one side of the big bed in her nightgown and nightcap, a posset for her to drink.
Emily gave her filthy clothes to the maid to launder and sat down on the one chair beside the bed.
Juliet sipped the hot liquid with caution, a white moustache forming on her upper lip.
“Well,” Emily said. “This is a turn up for the books.”
Juliet nodded. Now she was clean and warm, she was contrite. “I’m very sorry I’ve put you and my brother to such trouble. If I’d known what Rupert was really like, I’d never have let him talk me into this.”
Emily eyed her with suspicion, doubting whether an elopement had been all her brother’s idea.
“Never mind,” she said. “You’re safe now.
We caught you up before anything untoward occurred that would have led to you having to marry him.
I’m sure your brother and I can smooth this all over. No one need ever know.”
“Ye-es.” Juliet did not sound convinced, but of what, Emily wasn’t quite sure.
She felt she should defend her brother. “Rupert is considered quite a catch, you know.” She paused. “From the hurried tale he told me, it sounds as though he had some terrible bad luck today.”
Juliet’s shoulders drooped. “You might say that meeting me was one of them, I suppose.”
Emily patted her hand. “I wouldn’t worry about anything now if I were you. Theo and I will sort everything out for the pair of you. Give me that empty cup and snuggle down in bed. I’ll be up later, but I’ll endeavor not to disturb you.” On an impulse she bent over and kissed Juliet on the cheek.
A tear slid down the girl’s pale cheek. “Thank you for being so kind and not cross,” she whispered.
Emily straightened up. “How could either of us be cross when you’ve both had such a horrendous time? Good night.”
She found Theo in the private parlor he’d taken, sitting in a high-backed chair before the blazing hearth. Spring nights could be chilly still, and she was glad of the warmth.
He looked up with a smile. “You need have no fear. Your brother is still in one piece. I felt further castigation was unnecessary in consideration of my sister’s avowal that she now hates him.”
Emily sat down in a matching chair and stretched her feet out toward the fire. “I felt much the same about your sister. She’s sleeping now.”
“As is your brother. And you’ll be pleased to discover I’ve ordered dinner for us. It should arrive within a few minutes.”
What a relief. Both the lack of any punishment for Rupert and the arrival of dinner. Her stomach did a loud rumble. A long time had passed since they’d taken that brief luncheon. “I’m very happy to hear you’re no longer as angry as you were when we first met this morning.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Which is in no small part due to you.”
A glow began in her stomach and rose to encompass her chest, in particular her heart. A glow she’d never felt before. “I’m flattered I could be so influential.”
His smile widened. “I’m sure you know you can be.
I must apologize for the way I treated you only this morning.
Good God, that seems a lifetime away now, a different lifetime.
” He shook his head, the smile gone, and fixed her with the same intense stare that had unnerved her before.
“And I have a confession to make, before our dinner arrives.”
She raised her eyebrows, her heart beginning to hammer, for what reason she had no idea. “You have?”
He nodded. “I do indeed.” The hint of a smile returned. “I find I must actually thank your brother, and I suppose my hoyden of a sister, for without their having chosen to elope like this, I would never have met you.”
She could only stare back at him, bereft of words.
He had clearly braced himself for this admission. “Our families have long been estranged, shunning one another and even refusing to acknowledge one another’s existence. This, in case you didn’t know, lies at the doors of our respective fathers.”
She nodded. “I do know.”
He bowed his head. “A ridiculous feud over a woman. Your mother. Both of them wanted her, and only one could ever have succeeded. I freely acknowledge that my own father was a bad loser in this. He was a vain man, convinced of his own supremacy, and could never understand it when your mother chose your father, a humble viscount, over him, a duke of the realm. And so began our feud, of which I suspect my father was the instigator. I must apologize for him and his ridiculous jealousies.”
Emily sighed. “And for his part, my father was quite happy to enter into the feud himself. I never heard him speak a good word of your father, despite us being near neighbors. But I only discovered the cause when I wormed it from my mother this morning. I felt I needed to have all the facts.”
“The facts are that they were two foolish men who should perhaps have fought it out with fists and put it to bed. But they didn’t, and we, their children, have suffered for it.
” He paused. “I think I became the man you saw this morning, and, I’m ashamed to say, for much of the day, because of my father.
Thanks to you, I have made a resolution to become a better man…
” His voice trailed off and suddenly he was on his knees in front of her chair, his hands gripping hers.
Her heart surged faster, galloping like the fastest horse.
“But I can only hope to do that if I have a good wife by my side.”
She stared down into his beseeching dark eyes, at the firelight dancing in them, at the planes of light and shadow across his face.
“Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, Emily Montague, and sealing the end to a generation of feuding?”
In her sheltered life she’d met few men, none of whom she could ever have contemplated marrying.
Her sisters’ husbands were kind, upright men, but oh, so boring.
She knew she could never have been happy married to a man like them.
And she’d been happy at home with Mama up until now, feeling no necessity to look for a husband.
It seemed one had come looking for her.
And yes, this molten sensation in her stomach, this leaping of her heart at the sound of his voice, this admiration she felt for him, they all added up to love, she was sure. This was not a man with whom life would ever be boring.
“Yes,” she said, her mouth dry. “I accept your offer.” She paused. “Theo.”
He leapt to his feet and pulled her up with him, his face suffused in joy.
Not an expression she’d thought him capable of only this morning.
“Then, with your permission, I should very much like to kiss you. Something I’ve been contemplating since mid-afternoon, when it dawned upon me that I’d finally met a woman I wanted to marry. ”
She chuckled. “And I would also like you to kiss me. But I must tell you that I’ve never been kissed before.”
His face became suddenly serious and his hands came up to cup her face, turning it up to his. “Then, allow me the honor of being the first and only man to ever kiss you. Close your eyes.”
She did as he said.
His breath was warm on her face, with a slight scent of brandy to it. He must have had a glass while he was waiting for her. Warm lips brushed hers, light as the touch of a feather. A shiver of pure pleasure cascaded down through her body, and for a moment she feared her legs might give way.
As if he’d guessed, one hand left her face and she felt a strong arm about her waist, holding her to him, yet gently, still. She relaxed into him, confident he could hold her up if necessary. Rather wanting to swoon into his arms, if truth be told.
His lips pressed harder and she felt her own part as his did. So this was kissing?
It was not.
His tongue came exploring, invading her mouth, tasting her, and now she did almost faint away from the ecstasy running through her.
So this was kissing? No wonder people liked it.
Did her sisters all do this with their husbands?
Had Mama done it with Papa, whom she’d loved so much, Emily had missed her Season and never been allowed to return to London?
The kiss went on and on, making her head spin and setting her whole body on fire.
Unbidden, her arms went around his broad back, feeling the muscles beneath his tight-fitting coat, and then up, so that her fingers could run through his thick, curling hair.
Just as he was doing to her hair. It would be a mess, but she didn’t care.
At last, he released her mouth, but didn’t relinquish her body, and she was glad of that, for her legs were still decidedly untrustworthy.
She reached his chin, so had to tilt her head back to look up into his face.
That this man had been living all of her life only a few short miles away astonished her.
How could her senses not have told her he was there, waiting for her?
How could she not have been drawn to him as if to a magnet?