Page 38 of Dukes Do It Better
Phee’s eyes sharpened. “More inspiring, Em?” She quirked an eyebrow in a silent demand for more details.
Emma glanced around. Thankfully, the hall was empty except for them. “So inspiring. I have no doubt I’ll be perfectly content for the next few weeks.”
Lady Agatha cackled. “Well done. Who is the lucky gentleman?”
Lottie wagged her eyebrows up and down. “I think our darling Lady Emma has found herself a pirate.”
Emma rolled her eyes at Phee. “Good Lord, do you tell her everything?” There was no heat in the question, only exasperated affection.
Phee shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t mind Lottie knowing. Besides, he earned the nickname while doing her dirty business.”
Lottie said, “There is a certain symmetry to it all. Everything is coming full circle. Rather tidy. And we all know I love tidy.”
Adelaide looked at the ladies, shaking her head. “I’m lost in this conversation. I think you’re talking about Lord Trenton—who is terribly piratical in all the best ways. But how does he connect to the rest of you?” She waved a hand around the circle of women.
Lottie leaned closer, then everyone else did too, until their faces were mere inches from one another. She whispered, “I had a troublesome suitor several years ago. We needn’t go into details, but he was an absolute beast. Emma’s Duke of Trenton—who was not a duke then, but a captain—was most helpful in disposing of the suitor in question.”
Emma interjected, “A delicate way of saying they paid Mal to ship the bastard off to the penal colonies.”
Adelaide’s mouth opened in a little O. “That is both the most brilliant and awful thing I’ve ever heard. Well done.”
Lottie grinned. “It was my husband’s idea. I wasn’t even there. I think Ethan and I were pleasantly engaged in a bedroom somewhere while it happened.”
Phee raised her hand. “It was my husband, Cal, Emma’s brother, who hired the pirate.”
Adelaide nodded, making the connection, then turned to Emma. “And now this man is courting you. Quite successfully from what it sounds like.”
Emma started. “Oh, we’re not courting. We’re merely enjoying one another until he returns to sea.” Between leaving his bed and now, she’d slept, played with Alton and Freddie, had a fitting for more wardrobe pieces at Madame Bouvier’s, then made a batch of bread and biscuits before meeting her friends here. Yet still, an ache in her muscles and a tenderness in delicate areas ensured she wouldn’t have a moment without thinking of Mal.
“Affairs have their time and place. But be sure, child, you don’t mistake a man worth marrying for one who is good for nothing beyond an affair,” Agatha said, absently polishing the brass head of her cane. With her tall, thin body clad all in black, the older woman made quite a picture.
Marriage? That wasn’t something she could think about. Not now. Emma shook her head, perhaps too sharply, and rushed to correct Lady Agatha. “We entered into this arrangement with clear parameters. When he returns to sea, we go our separate ways with smiles on our faces and goodwill in our hearts. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Lady Agatha raised an eyebrow, silently compelling Emma to honesty.
She tried not to squirm and continued. “Marriage is not something I’m looking for. What need have I of a husband? Besides, I believe he’s already married to Athena.”
In one movement, each woman turned toward Emma and said, “Athena?”
“Are you telling me that bastard is already married?” Phee demanded.
“I’ve disposed of one man. We can dispose of another,” Lottie growled.
Emma grinned at her friends, who stood with clenched hands, ready to go to war for her. “Athena is his ship. He wants to get back to sea. Mal has no desire to be a duke or to live in London.”
Lady Agatha tapped her cane on the floor and harumphed. “Fate rarely takes our plans into consideration. Lord Trenton would do well to remember that.”
“Has there been a new law written forbidding sea captains from marrying?” Phee asked dryly.
Lottie added, “Like it or not, Lord Trenton holds the title. He has a duty to fulfill. Naval officers marry all the time.”
Holding a hand up, Emma spoke. “I like Mal, I truly do. I enjoy him, and I certainly enjoy being in his bed. But I will not act like a simpering ninny over a man, hearing wedding bells where there are none. Not again. I’m determined to enjoy what I have right now, even though it’s temporary.”
She’d said her piece in a far more clean and concise way than her emotions felt at the moment. The women would pounce on the information if she told them marriage had crossed her mind more than once since seeing him last night, that she worried a couple weeks might not be enough to purge him from her system. Upon waking this morning, the first thought she’d had was to wonder if they couldn’t have a sort of long-distance agreement. Then he would be hers when he stopped into port in Olread Cove. A part-time lover, so they didn’t have to say goodbye.
“Help us understand. You’re willing to take him to bed, but won’t consider more. That’s rather odd, love,” Lottie said.
“I don’t need to marry,” Emma repeated, keeping her tone bland.
