Page 59 of The Matchmaker Meets her Duke
"Oh, Darling. Everybody knows."
He chortled. "I'll take your word for it," he answered, and returned to the tender subject at hand: "And so of course he was the prized child. Vincent, that is. Perfect. Could do no wrong. But when my father wasn't looking… well. Let's just say he wasn't the most perfect brother."
"I see how that could have played out."
"One day I decided if I couldn't be a white sheep then I would be a very black sheep. If I couldn't please him, I might as well–"
"Excellently displease him."
"Very much so," he said and trembled lightly in her embrace at the distant memories. "Vincent passed in a coach accident when I was fourteen. A heart attack claimed my father's life a year later. I always felt as if I had a hand in it. As if the disappointment that was my not-at-all scholarly life had broken his heart."
"It didn't," she said strongly. "It's not your fault, Emmett."
"Oh, I know. It just felt that way. And I mourned him and missed him but I also felt resentful. I blamed him for the turbulent vehicle that had been our relationship, even though I'd had a part to play in it as well. And for the longest time, I lived my life trying to displease him in the grave still."
"You didn't," Pandora said disbelievingly. She huffed a laugh and felt the curve of Emmett's smile as he took his lips to her neck.
"Oh yes, I did."
"Please tell me you do not live your life trying to annoy a dead man still."
"I did exactly that and more. Anything that would make him shake his head and grunt in that grave, I did it.What would Vincent do?I would think, and do the exact opposite of it."
"Sounds like a workload."
"Oh, it was. The mistresses, the women, because father would disapprove. My formerly betrothed, Lady Vermont, because he would have been unable to stand her."
"I thought Lady Vermont was rich."
"She was," he allowed. "But also quite very vacant in the head."
"Emmett!"
"She'd never picked up a book in her life. And father liked his people intellectual. Even his women."
"You, Sir, are astoundingly unbelievable," she said and planted a kiss in his ear.
"Well, I aim to dazzle." He was teasing, but she poked his chest with her finger and said, "Would Vincent have ever resorted to blackmail?"
"Never."
"So, 'Find you a wife or have me exposed,' that was also in tribute to your brother and father."
"No, that was all me." To her surprise, Emmett heaved himself off his back. He sat up and gently guided her up as well. He took her hands in his. "It's been all me since you," he said. "And that's the way it's going to remain. I want to be done with it all. Iamdone with it all." He squeezed her hands lightly. No matter his history or the demons of the past that raged in his head, he was gentle. He was ever thoughtful and tender with her, and Pandora loved this about him. She loved him so much, she felt full and brimming with it. She was afraid that her heart might burst out open from her chest.
"When you hold me like this Emmett, I can hardly breathe," she said.
"I'll resort to holding you less like that henceforth."
"I can't imagine why," she said, playing along.
"We don't want you choking on air, even for my sake."
"No, we can't have that," she said, and they laughed into each other's mouths. His lips took hers, telling her without words that she was loved. Pandora's heart thudded in her chest.
She had found a beautiful man, in and out, and he was all hers, and they had a lifetime sprawled ahead of them. She couldn't wait to start.
He kissed her mouth, her hair, the crook of her neck. She kissed him back and fell asleep in his arms.
