Page 6 of The Matchmaker Meets her Duke
“Only as much as you have behaved yourself around my sister.” Emmett rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet, mud clinging to his back and knees.
Emmett bit down a teasing retort. He was hardly about to kiss Edward, and besides the Lord was vexed enough. “I can behave myself when I put my mind to it.”
Edward’s lips curled into a sneer as he tried to scrape mud off his face. He succeeded in smearing it further across his cheek, making it look like he had half a beard. “Can you? Your mind must have been elsewhere tonight, then.”
Pandora’s breast under his hand floated to Emmett’s mind, and this time he couldn’t resist a cheeky smile. “My mind was exactly where it should have been. I was merely attempting to help your sister out of this hole. If anyone should be in trouble, it’s the one who dug it.”
Edward clambered to his feet and watched as Emmett vaulted from the pit with ease. It was then that Emmett realized they were not alone. Several servants had followed Edward, including the butler that had been at the door earlier. He cursed internally. This would be all over London by mid-morning.
ChapterFour
The rest of the night was a blur for Pandora. The Duke was escorted off the property by the footmen, and Edward took her straight to her chamber through the servant’s passages so as to not cause further rumors to fly. Diana drew her a bath, and she tore off her soiled dress with a sigh of relief. Soiled by his hands.
‘His’ hands. She couldn’t even name him in the privacy of her own mind. She flicked at the water with her fingers and leaned forward for Diana to scrub her back. Tonight had been educational. Not the circumstances she would have liked for her first kiss, but it was certainly memorable. The way his hands had moved over her body, so confident. She knew he had experience, his reputation said as much, but to experience it first hand was something else.
And not something she was likely to experience again if she was being honest with herself. Her reputation was ruined twice over. No man would have a woman who had not only been jilted at the altar but had been caught with a rake in the gardens. She squeezed her eyes shut. Thinking of her failed engagement was still painful, even after six years.
Damn rakes and the poison they spread.No one would believe her side of the story, and the rumors would fly thick as a December blizzard. It was too late. She knew a thing or two about rumors after her time as a gossip columnist, and despite their loyalty, the footmen would have shared this tale with all the servants before her guests even left.
Oh God, her guests. The ball had been a disaster. Even if news hadn’t spread to them, which she was sure it had, it was still true that she never appeared to greet them. An absent hostess was an error she could correct. A scandal was one she could not.
Diana squeezed out her cloth and set it on the side of the bath. “Anything else, My Lady?”
Pandora shook her head, not trusting herself to answer without crying. It was so unfair. Not that she ever wanted to marry, but her parties. She would never be able to hold one again after tonight. Who would attend? Some of the gossipmongers, perhaps, looking to see what shame unfolded next. But none of the eligible young women and their potential suitors. No one would trust her to make a match for them if she only married to escape a scandal herself, surely not.
She sank as far into the water as deep as she could.What a disaster.
The next morning came after a night full of dreams of wandering hands and accusing faces. Pandora woke with a start when Diana entered her chamber to relight the fire. She laid still as her maid puttered around, logs crackling and popping as the fire took hold.
Her body was still, but her mind was not. Gone was the self-pity and moping despair. In its place was righteous anger. The Duke knew what he was doing when he kissed her. He put her in an impossible situation.
This had to be the revenge he had talked of. Ruin her, involve her in a scandal of her own. What kind of evil genius did the man possess to come up with such a foul plan? And he would come out of it unscathed, he already had no reputation to speak of.
But her? Her life’s mission to help young ladies find proper matches was at an end. Pandora flung the blankets back and gasped at the cold air of her bedchamber. The fires of anger did little to hold back the chill.
“Oh, My Lady, let me help you.” Diana had her dressed in a pale-pink morning gown before the chill could really set in, and ensconced in the wing-backed chair before the fire.
“You just sit here, My Lady. I’ll bring breakfast to you.”
“Eat in my rooms? Am I to be locked away for my shame?”
Diana blushed, her ruddy cheeks going darker and she looked away. “I thought you might like some privacy. You do look tired, My Lady.”
Pandora scrubbed her face in her hands and sighed. No doubt the servants would speak of this as well, but privacy did sound nice. “Breakfast in my room, it is.” But before Diana could fetch it, Edward burst into her room. Diana shrieked and spun, hand to her heart. Edward paid her no mind and jerked his head at her. Diana gathered her simple brown skirts and fled.
“Was that really necessary?” said Pandora from before the fire. “And haven’t you heard of knocking?”
“I’ll kill him. I mean it,” said Edward as he began to pace across her carpet.
“You’ll do no such thing.”
Edward jerked his head up. “He disgraced you! Laid his hands on you, destroyed any hopes you have of a future. What else can I do?”
Pandora rubbed her temples. A headache was forming, as sure as Sunday. “Adding murder to the list of family scandals is hardly the intelligent thing to do.”
Edward crossed his arms, jaw tight. “I wasn’t going to murder him. I was going to challenge him to a duel.”
“A duel, oh Edward.”
