Page 52 of The Matchmaker Meets her Duke
"That's not Pandora."
"I'm sorry to tell you that it is." She couldn't. Pandora wouldn't.
He shoved the paper down on the table. "It can't be."
"She's been hosting her matchmaking parties behind your back too."
Emmett shook his head. What absolute nonsense.Pandora wouldn't. But even as he said the words to himself, he knew that she would. Pandora was the most beautiful and funniest woman he had ever come across in his life, but she had a decisively stubborn heart like a mule when she set out to. Yet he refused to grapple with this, with the repercussions, with what this meant for him. For them.
Emmett clenched his fists and reared back in his chair by sheer force of fury. He felt choked with betrayal. He feared he would not be able to contain this, to survive this level of scorn from a woman he had, despite himself and to his pleasant surprise, fallen absolutely, irrevocably in love with. He grasped the handle of his chair, his fingers balled up in clenched-up fists, tight and squeezing until his knuckles turned white.
"Emmett?" Rose's voice sounded small across him, so close to him and yet so distant.
"Where is she?"
"She left for–"
"Tell me where she is!" In one swift motion, his hand swept his books, his bottle of ink, his quill, his letters and letter tray, his lamp and candle holder off his desk. Thudding, clanging, clattering to the floor, a rainbow of a mess by their feet. But Emmett didn't care.
He turned away from his sister, hating for her to see him like this. He pressed his burning head against the cool wall of his study. But Emmett didn't feel cooler or better. He felt mad in the head. He felt as if the rug had been pulled from under him.
Would Pandora really do this to him?
He loved her. He found delight in her soul, in her husky and open laugh, in the way that the corner of her mouth quirked up the slightest bit when she was about to tease him hard and tease him back. Her presence in his Manor… in his life, was bringing him back to life in ways he had never imagined. Her body, her mind, her soul, he had treasured all of it. He had fallen in love with her.
But he had fallen in love with a woman who thought nothing of him. He had fallen in love with a lie. No, there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. He knew the way that he felt about her, and he wasn't deluded about the way that she felt about him.
Emmett reached for his coat and shrugged into it. "Take me to her," he said to his sister.
Without a word, Rose nodded, and they left his study in heavy, foreboding silence.
The column was some inexplicable sham, Emmett knew it. A joke, a prank, a colossal mix-up, it had to be. It was the only sense to it, yes. There was no Lady Datura column, no matchmaking parties being held behind his back. Rose was taking him to a matchmaking party that did not even exist.
They would find nothing.
ChapterTwenty-Four
Pandora bit her fingernails. She knew what Edward would say about such poor manners, but she could not help it. Surely one could understand and forgive it in this instance. Not even Peter's abandoning her at the altar had left her wallowing in such boundless misery. She felt as if her life was coming undone before her very eyes.
A knock rang in her ears, and the butler's head poked through the door. "Your Grace, his Lordship is occupied with Lord Crawford at the moment but he will be with you shortly."
"Thank you," Pandora said and watched her butler or former butler shut the door heavily as he departed.
She crumpled into one of the hard-backed chairs in the library. The sight of all these books with their colorful leaves and spines had always brought joy to her soul since she was a child, but not this time. No, this time even books could not make Pandora feel better. And after a short moment that understandably felt to her like forever, the hinge of the door creaked open and Pandora nearly jolted out of her chair.
"Edward!" she cried, rushing into his arms. The familiar smell of her brother's soap-scented clothes welcomed her. Pandora crumpled in his embrace.
"Pray tell, what have you done this time?" he said with mock exhaustion. Cupping her cheeks in his hand, he inspected her face like a merchant inspects fabric. "I have so many questions. Why come to the library and not downstairs? What took you so long? I don't appreciate being left all by myself to those merciless mamas… Pandora?" He cast a harder gaze upon her. "What's the matter?"
Pandora untangled from her brother's embrace and returned to her chair, collapsing wretchedly in it. She didn't know where to start. She was still half certain that she was dreaming, that any moment from now somebody would gently nudge her awake and this would all be over.
She bit her nail. "Stop chewing your nails."
Pandora wrung and unwrung her hands, at a loss even from where to start. "Have you seen it?"
"Seen what?"
"The paper?"
