Chapter 25
She reached for the letter—and dropped it again.
Emma did it once more before huffing at herself and snatching it up. Good gracious, it was paper, not a viper.
The weight of the envelope felt less like the actual heft of the paper and more like the emotions she feared were carried with it. Calmly, she opened the letter and laid it flat on the table.
My Dear Emma,
I have tried many times to put these thoughts aside, but they return so forcefully that silence now feels dishonest. I remember the moment we met as clearly as if it happened this very morning.
The night of the ball, when I first saw you beneath the gentle light, I swore you were an angel descended from the Heavens.
And when you agreed to dance with me, I felt a kind of quiet pride I had not known in years.
You moved with such ease, and you spoke with such spirit, that I found myself wishing the evening would stretch on indefinitely.
It was the first time in years I felt truly seen.
Unbidden, Emma felt a warm, syrupy feeling in her chest. She had never received a love letter in her life, but if she had ever imagined one, surely it would have sounded something like this.
Your beauty first drew my notice, yet it was your calm, thoughtful manner that held me fast. You match my own nature so closely that I can picture no future more fitting than a lifetime spent at your side.
That is why the news of your engagement struck me so deeply. I will not dress the truth in finer language than it deserves. I was gutted. I had believed, wrongly, that I might one day have a place in your life. Instead, I find myself standing outside it, trying to make sense of the lost.
Emma felt the warmth begin to dim, and the strains of dread were starting to thread through her heart.
What was he leading to?
I will not pretend indifference; your marriage has struck me like a blow, and I cannot reconcile myself to it. I had believed, perhaps foolishly, that our understanding was strong enough to withstand the demands of family and society.
To see you joined with another has left me bereft, and each day I carry the grief of knowing that what could-have-been has been denied me.
So, I shall speak plainly.
I am aware of the ill-begotten circumstances surrounding your marriage, and my part to play in them for reneging on attending with you that afternoon.
If you desire to part from your husband, I will challenge him to the duel that was left unmet.
I will come out the victor, I promise you.
In the future, if ever you should find yourself released from the vows you have taken, I would ask you to consider me.
I would marry you without hesitation and devote myself to your happiness.
My estate, my name, my future—all would be yours, if you would have them.
I know these words may trouble you, yet I cannot remain silent. To bury this grief would be to deny the truth of my heart, and if my suspicions are correct, your own, too. I cherish the chance and hope that one day, you will have a marriage of love and not from societal pressure and duty.
Yours in hope,
Ashton.
Emma clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the gasp of utter shock. A cold spike went up her middle, and she felt the hollow scrape of a crater forming in her breastbone.
Scrambling, she dropped the letter into a drawer before hurrying out of the room to enter her private washroom and splash icy water on her face.
Only then was she able to gasp in a breath over her burning lungs. Nothing could have prepared her for such a thing, what amounted to a love note from… a spurned suitor?
“What do I do about this…” she whispered, reaching blindly for a towel.
Returning to the drawing room, she sat and drew out a fresh sheet of paper to pen a firm reply to Ashton.
Then paused.
Was this not what Vincent had meant when he’d said they would part eventually? He had spoken of setting her up for another marriage after theirs had run its course, spoken of it so plainly she had wanted to box his ears.
Shaking her head, she dipped her pen in ink; it mattered not what Vincent wanted for her; this was not something to be encouraged.
She had to be sensible. She was a duchess now, terrifying as that still sounded, and this fragile marriage carried more than their confusion. It carried Vincent’s name, James’s future, Grandmama’s peace, and enough gossip to feed every drawing room in London until Michaelmas.
Any lady in her right mind would stop this before it became uglier.
She could only hope Marquess Windham would listen.
“How does one meeting turn into three days?” Keaton groaned as he sank into a chair in the House of the Lord’s dining room. “I’ll need a week to recover from this.”
Benedict was already calling for whisky while Vincent pressed two fingers to his temple, where a headache had taken root sometime between the second speech on revenue and the third doddering earl who mistook volume for argument.
“At least we killed that inane bill,” he muttered.
Benedict lifted his hand, leaving barely an inch between his forefinger and thumb. “By that much.”
“A victory is a victory,” Keaton grunted. “Better that men with twelve chimneys pay for their own smoke than some dockhand lose another penny from his bread.”
“Easy for you to sound so hale,” Benedict chuckled, accepting his glass. “Some of us have a life to be returning to.”
Keaton cut him a dry look. “Do not pretend your suffering is political. You are only cross because Parliament kept you from Lady Patience Stenton.”
Benedict nearly choked on his whisky. “That woman is not my—”
“Ah, Duke Highminster.”
At the pompous drawl, Vincent turned to see the Marques Brookstone approaching, accompanied by his usual pack of perfumed dandies. His bright flaxen hair was immaculately pomaded, and the pink cravat tied beneath his chin was a study in neatness.
“Marriage seems to agree with you, eh, old boy?” he added, his smile laden with viper’s poison.
Vincent rolled his eyes. “How would you know, Brookstone? You have been fleeing commitment like a mouse scurrying from a goshawk for years.”
“Variety is the spice of life. Why limit oneself to one meal when there is a buffet to sample?”
His cronies tittered.
“That might be true, seeing as you have a legion of by-blows,” Vincent levied wryly.
Brookstone’s smile fixed sharp enough to cut glass.
“Listening to vapid rumors, I see? Care to know what isn’t a rumor?
A certain marquess was at White’s last night and almost over a wheelbarrow.
” The man gave his cuffs a lazy tug. “He was bragging that he means to marry a certain duchess the very day she unencumbers herself from a certain duke…
“And that this certain lady is writing back to him, promising her eternal love and devotion.” Brookstone dropped his trump card with a nonchalant shrug. “No one took him seriously; the man was in his cups after all, but I, for one, found it hilarious.”
Vincent kept his expression neutral, though his grip on the thick glass could shatter a brick. “Is that so.”
“Scandalous, is it not?” Brookstone grinned, plainly delighted to have thrown his little grenade and still have all his fingers. “Anyway, I must go.”
“Early morning meeting?” Keaton asked.
“God, no,” Brookstone shuddered. “After dawn? Such an uncivilized hour. No, I’m off to the Whist table with my partner, Osgood, here. Have yourselves a lovely evening, gentlemen.”
As the pissant took himself and his perfumed court away, Keaton and Benedict both turned to Vincent.
Vincent said nothing.
Benedict, having the patience of a gnat, lasted all of three seconds. “Well? Aren’t you going to rush home and confirm that accusation?”
“No,” Vincent muttered. “You heard him. Windham was drunk.”
“Drunk words are a sober man’s thoughts,” Keaton warned.
Vincent leaned back, wearing nonchalance like a clean cravat while something hot and ugly moved beneath his ribs. No, Emma would not go behind his back in such a way—despite their agreement.
“It’s utter tripe,” he shrugged off. “Brookstone was only trying to get under my skin after I reminded him of all the children he has scattered about England and never sent a farthing to.”
“That would get under his skin…” Benedict nodded tiredly.
While Vincent finished his drink and ordered his food, he felt Keaton’s eyes graze the side of his neck—but did not acknowledge it. He decidedly steered the conversation away from Windham and Emma and back to the topics of the day.
“All I know is the industrialists are going to be far from happy with the new law,” Keaton said. “Especially the men holding a chokehold on the new railway situation.”
“As they ought,” Benedict yawned, rubbing his eyes. “Custor and his men have been dragging their feet on that innovative steam engine they’ve been bragging about developing for years.”
“I wonder if that is because the three are all a bag of air,” Vincent put in, and at Benedict’s questioning look, added, “Think of it, a steam engine that can power a six-hundred-ton boat across the channel on its own, without sails. Doesn’t that sound like fantasy to you?”
“You’re saying it cannot be done?” Benedict asked.
“No, I’m saying they can’t do it, that they sold the Crown and the people a dream while lining their own pockets,” Vincent answered while mentally shoving the secret of Custor’s exploitation of his family to the back of his mind.
Keaton’s face tightened. “You’d think the Crown would have looked into that.”
“Good point,” Benedict frowned. “My folks bought stock in that operation, and if it’s going to be nonproductive, I think we need to raise a motion to get it investigated.”
“Oh, don’t give them any more ideas today,” Vincent groaned. “I need sleep, lest I make good on my promise to burn this place to the ground.”
“Are you going back to St. John’s Wood tonight?” Keaton asked.
“No.” Vincent cut into his meal. “Early tomorrow morning.”
Wiping his mouth with a table linen, Benedict sighed, “Shame. I was hoping you’d stay about long enough for a round at Gentleman Jackson’s.”
“Are we still on that?” Vincent exhaled, sitting back as the thought of a bout made his very bones object. “You will have to find me in a sourer mood before you can convince me into that ring to bash your face in.”
Benedict snorted into his glass. “Cowardice dressed up as mercy. How very ducal.”
Vincent gave him a flat look, but the barb barely landed. He wanted out of the dining room, out of London, away from Brookstone’s poison and Windham’s drunken boasting and every man who thought a woman’s name was a thing to toss across a card table.
I do not believe she is talking with Windham… but if she is, it stops now.