Chapter 7 #2
Emmeline understood it then with sudden clarity.
Women’s voices changed around him, and their glances kept slipping toward him and back again, while bitterness sat only half-hidden beneath their smiles.
Perhaps they had not wanted the Duke in any tender, foolish sense, but they had wanted what stood beside her now—the title, the fortune, the broad-shouldered force of him.
A man appeared through the press at the most opportune moment, all easy charm and wickedly bright eyes.
“Lady Emmeline,” the Duke said, “This is Lord Calham, my oldest friend.”
Lord Calham bowed over her hand with theatrical elegance. “Your Grace has spoken of little else for days.”
The Duke’s head turned so quickly that Emmeline nearly laughed. “That is a lie, Frederick.”
Lord Calham lifted both hands in mock surrender. “A shame. It would have been so flattering.”
For the first time all evening, the knot in her chest loosened enough for amusement. “Then I must content myself with the ring.”
Lord Calham grinned. “A sensible lady.”
He was easy to speak to. Within moments he had made her father laugh, and even the Duke seemed less severe, though Emmeline noticed that his gaze kept returning to her whenever someone else spoke to her too long.
The thought was warm and absurd in equal measure.
At last Margaret managed to reach her.
“Come,” she muttered. “If one more woman with a false smile tells me how delighted she is for you, I shall overturn a floral arrangement.”
Margaret led her to a quieter corner near one of the side pillars, half-screened by palms and a pair of older ladies far too occupied with cards to bother looking up.
“Well,” Margaret said at once, catching her hand and holding it toward the light. “I cannot deny the man has excellent taste in diamonds.”
The ring flashed cold and bright.
Emmeline looked at it too, a strange trembling moving in her. It was beautiful. No use pretending otherwise. But the weight of it on her finger still felt a lifetime crystallized into stone.
“At least now,” Margaret went on, lowering her voice, “you look alive.”
Emmeline blinked. “Alive?”
“With this duke. Certainly, more alive than you ever did with Foxdale.”
“That proves nothing.”
Margaret gave her a look. “I saw the way you danced.”
A hot wave moved through her chest. “We danced appropriately.”
“No,” Margaret said. “You danced like two people trying very hard not to notice that they were touching.”
“That is absurd.”
“Is it?”
Emmeline looked away, though too late, because Margaret’s smile had already sharpened with victory.
“It was only for the ton’s eyes,” she said, noticing how weak that sounded as she spoke.
Margaret rolled her eyes. “Then enjoy it for the ton’s eyes. Enjoy the handsome duke and the scandalously beautiful ring and the fact that every woman in this room suddenly wishes she were you.”
Emmeline gave a short laugh. “They do not.”
“They do. At least for tonight.”
Against her better judgment, Emmeline let her gaze move back across the room.
She found the Duke at once.
He was speaking to a gentleman she did not know, yet the moment her eyes reached him, his lifted too, as though some invisible line had tightened between them and drawn his attention without permission.
The look lasted only a second, perhaps two, but her heart changed under it, beating harder, fuller, in a way that made her almost angry with herself.
Nervousness, she told herself.
Then Lady Amanda arrived.
Emmeline knew her by sight, if not well by acquaintance—a polished beauty, dark-haired and exquisitely dressed, with the sort of carefully arranged loveliness that made men turn and women remember her. Her smile as she approached was perfect.
“Lady Emmeline,” she said warmly. “My congratulations. What a surprising turn everything has taken.”
Margaret stiffened beside her.
“Lady Amanda,” Emmeline replied, every bit as smooth.
Amanda’s gaze dipped to the ring with suitable admiration, though the look in her eyes remained bright and hard. “One must admire your resilience. After such a… disappointing misunderstanding with Foxdale, to recover so swiftly is really quite impressive.”
Margaret inhaled deeply.
Emmeline answered before her friend could. “How kind of you.”
Amanda’s smile widened by a fraction. “Oh, I do not mean to pry. I only imagine it must have been difficult, being so nearly married one day and engaged to another duke the next.”
Margaret opened her mouth—
“Lady Amanda.”
The Duke’s voice cut in so cleanly that even Amanda started slightly. He had come up behind them without Emmeline noticing, and his presence altered the little corner at once, making Amanda’s bright malice look smaller than it had a moment ago.
She turned toward him, and all the false edge in her expression melted instantly into flustered softness.
A hot, sharp feeling rose in Emmeline’s chest at once.
“Your Grace,” Amanda said, dropping into a delicate curtsy.
The Duke did not smile. “If you have offered your congratulations, then I am sure Lady Emmeline has received them.”
Lady Amanda colored. “Of course. I only meant—”
“I know what you meant,” he said.
The flush deepened. Margaret, to her credit, looked ecstatic.
Lady Amanda recovered herself only enough to murmur a brief apology, though plainly it was given to him rather than to Emmeline, and then retreated with as much dignity as she could salvage.
Silence sat in her wake for half a beat.
Emmeline turned to the Duke. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “Though you did not need to intervene.”
His gaze rested on her with that same grave directness that still felt too much every time.
“I did,” he said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on her arms stand up. “You are mine to protect.”
The words went straight through her, her stomach dropping. He had said it simply, but she felt the meaning of it all the same.
Whatever this engagement was or was not, he had claimed her before all of them, and he meant for no one to question that claim.