Page 55 of The Matchmaker Meets her Duke
"Pandora–"
"I'll be fine. Please. I can take care of this."
"Do you want me to come with you?"
"No. Absolutely not. You've done more than enough."
Pandora's brother nodded, but he didn't look very convinced to her. Still, he let her go, asking that she write to him as soon as she could. He bid her off with a gentle wave.
ChapterTwenty-Five
The ride back to Willcrow Manor felt like the longest of Pandora's life. Every screech was like a sharp pain in her ear, every bump like a blow to her chest. When she arrived at the Manor she was met with absolute silence. She took off her gloves and took in the silence in the halls of the Manor, dark and foreboding with the curtains drawn shut as if the whole world had died. But it was merely late afternoon.
"Your Grace." Jemima bowed as she took her hat from her.
"Thank you, Jemima. Where is everyone?"
"The Dowager's having tea in her chamber."
"By herself?"
"I'm afraid so."
Pandora hesitated a moment. "And His Grace?"
"His chambers, Your Grace. Shall I come with to undress you?"
"No, Jemima, thank you," she said, making for the staircase. "It'll be all me tonight." And Emmett. It would be all her and Emmett tonight. She hoped that it turned out as she wished. But she feared that it wouldn't.
This was it. This was where she looked in the eyes of this man who had swept into her life like a force of nature and had come to mean so much to her. This was where she told him that she loved him, that it wasn't her behind that gossip column. Pandora hoped that he already knew that, that it would be needless for her to say. She hoped she would be able to bring him around and make him understand why she had gone behind his back with her parties.
She did not want to cast her eyes upon him and find him filled with that same pained look of hurt accusation. She would be unable to bear it. She should have come home to Emmett first.
She should have left her own party much sooner before he arrived. He shouldn't have met her there. All thoseshouldn'ts.So many wishes, so many different ways that she could have done things.
But now was not the time to entertain regretful thoughts. She reached Emmett's chambers and drew in a sharp breath. She knocked twice and over again. Pandora was met with nothing but a cold, unforgiving silence.
But he was in there, he had to be. Jemima has assured her so. With a final breath and a small, heartfelt prayer she whispered to herself, Pandora twisted the handle of the door and went in, her heart beating in her mouth.
Emmett was lying on his bed, a philosophy book clasped in his hands. He had taken off his coat and undone his buttons. A fine mat of dark curls peeked out from the triangle of skin that his chest flaunted.
"Are your chambers in ruin?" His tone was purposefully measured, his voice devoid of whatever flurry of hurt and accusation and anger was swirling through his head. Pandora had never seen his eyes so aloof, so cold. She feared that she had ruined something that had hardly started. And she yearned for the Emmett that she come to know and grown to love, the one whose presence lit up a room and her heart from the inside out, the one who had wormed his way underneath her skin.
"What?" she answered him. "No, I wante–"
"Then you should leave. I think it's best if we slept apart tonight and henceforth."
Pandora scoffed her disbelief. "You can't mean that."
"Don't speak as if you know my heart, Pandora."
"I do," Pandora said. Her decisive forcefulness surprised even her, but she was charged with determination and she would not back down now. She drew toward the edge of the bed until she was inches from him. She could smell the clean yet dangerous scent of him, the one that she had grown familiar with and come to love, the one that she yearned for in his absence, and relished in his presence.
"Emmett. Whatever it is that you read, it's not true. And it's not me. You know that, don't you?"
"I don't know what to believe."
"Emmett." She had forced the thought from her head, she had wished against it. Yet, faced with the reality that Emmett did believe she was capable of it, Pandora felt small and helpless. Her lips trembled, and she clamped them tight and steadied herself before she spoke next. "How could you possibly believe that I would do such a thing?"
