Page 34 of The Matchmaker Meets her Duke
"I should hope not," he said. "None that I was aware of, anyway."
A stillness overcame the dark of the room. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence. If anything, Emmett was more than happy to sink deep in this silence and let the oblivion of sleep do its work.
But beside him, Pandora cleared her throat and said, "What about your parents? You never speak of them."
Emmett's clasp over her shoulder loosened a little. "There isn't much to speak of."
Pandora started to say something vague, then trailed off. He felt her hesitation almost like a physical presence beside him, and he wished she would let her reluctance win. He did not want her to inquire about his parents. He did not want to speak of them.
"I would still like to know the little there is," she said. He pretended to be asleep.
"Emmett." She poked his chest gently with a finger.
"I'm asleep."
"Sleeping people don't talk."
"Good wives don't poke."
"Good husbands don't sleep before their wives."
"Says who on Earth?"
"Says me," she said imperiously, and Emmett would have shaken his head if it wasn't buried in the pillow. "My mother died a few months after Rose's birth," he allowed.
"And… your father?" He turned away from her. The pillows cradling his head did not feel so soft and welcoming anymore. They felt like stones, dark and cold.
"My father wanted many things." He selected his words, measured his tone carefully. He tried at the same time to sound as irreverent and airy as possible. He couldn't have her thinking he was somehowwoundedby his past or any sort of nonsensical idea like that. "Large things. And I was not especially gifted in affording him the fatherly joy of watching his little boy grasp for large things, and my brother was, and so you can imagine what a–"
"You have a brother?" Emmett felt rather than heard Pandora sit up. Ah. He had piqued her curiosity, the very opposite of what he had intended. He didn't know what to do with that.
They should be sleeping. They should not be talking about a dead father whose gazes – few and far in between as they were – held only disappointed and grudging sorrow in them, and an older brother whose all too constant gazes held in them a reminder of his floundering inadequacy.
Emmett read, but Vincent read faster. Emmett painted, but Vincent painted brighter. He spoke, and Vincent spoke louder. Emmett huffed and stopped his train of thought before he could descend further into a territory that he would rather leave caged up and buried in his chest.
"It's all in the past now," he said.
He gathered her in his arm. She was supple and warm, and so soft. Gratitude. It was the name of this feeling that swelled in his chest, that covered him like a blanket. He felt grateful to have her by his side, warming and lighting him, even if she didn't know it, in all the dark places that still controlled him.
Pandora let him scoop her in his arms, and they lay like that, two bodies splayed on a bed, their limbs entangled, the rise and fall of their breathing filling the room. Emmett relished the bliss of silence and the relief that came with safely tucking back unwanted memories of the past.
"But what happened?” she asked again, unprepared to let it go just yet. “To your brother, that is."
Emmett felt his fingers clench and unclench over a fistful of bedding. "He died," he said.
ChapterFourteen
Behind Pandora, Rose patted her chest with grim dissatisfaction. "I don't much like this necklace," she said.
Pandora did not know what to say to that so she said nothing. But Rose's icy glare was fixed on her. It was level and direct as if she were somehow to blame for her displeasure with the necklace that Pandora thought to be rather beautiful.
"Perhaps you can try another," she suggested, lifting her arms as Jemima fastened her corset. She sat still as Jemima coiffed her hair, fussing over her chemise, her stockings, and her gown while Rose sulked on the bed across from them.
"Grandmother insists it goes well with my hair.’’
“And it does," said Pandora, hoping that she sounded convincing enough. She turned to her ladies’ maid. "Wouldn't you agree, Jemima?"
"I would, Your Grace.’’ Jemima steadied her hand as she applied a light brushing of rouge on Pandora's cheeks.
