Page 25 of Married Off by the Duke
There was no time to rue what might have been.
Her throat closed around a tangle of emotions. Regret. Envy. Pride. Emma shook it off and bent to check that her money was well hidden below the loose floorboard she’d found the day she moved in, then went down to a disappointing breakfast of a single egg and stale bread. The ladies’ boarding house was a respectable establishment, but no more comfortable than Mrs. Quarrie’s had been.
“Good morning, Mr. Gill,” she said with determined cheer upon entering the shop, dropping her umbrella into the holder.
“Morning, Miss Willis. Would you mind restocking the cart? Once the weather clears, we’ll try putting it out again.”
Emma took a steadying breath. If she must live with the consequences of her decision, she needed a higher wage to support herself.
“Now that I’ve demonstrated my reliability and value to the store, Mr. Gill, I was hoping for a wage increase. You see, my financial circumstances have changed, and I cannot make ends meet on three hours of work each day.”
“The owner won’t countenance it,” he said without looking up from the ledger where he was reviewing the previous day’s sales. “Moreover, the shop can’t financially support a second full-time employee. Perhaps in a few months my uncle would consider it.”
“But I know the trick of putting out this cart helped to boost our receipts,” she protested. Not to mention how her clever window display had increased the number of curious customers drawn inside to browse. “I can prove it.”
“Yes, but it isn’t as though we’re going to give you all the profits, Miss Willis.” He placed his hat upon his head and thrust his arms into the sleeves of a weatherproof coat. “I am off to evaluate a collection. Some toff selling off his grandfather’s library. I expect there to be a number of interesting rare books to acquire. I’ll be back before your shift ends. If the weather clears, remember to put the cart outside.”
The bell jingled merrily, a striking counterpart to Mr. Gill’s dismissiveness.
Emma busied herself by taking the opportunity to examine the accounts book in her employer’s absence. What she discovered made her see red.
“What a lying cheat!”
She slammed the leather-bound ledger closed. “An eight-per-cent average daily sales increase would more than pay for a few more hours each week. The greedy git.”
If she were the Duchess of Ardennes, no one would dare to take advantage of her this way.
There was being useful, and there was being used. This was the latter.
Teaching hadn’t been fulfilling, and dusting books was even less so. Mr. Gill didn’t need her; anyone could wield a duster. The sense of belonging she’d felt while working here wasn’t real.
Remembering Max’s crestfallen confusion when she turned down his proposal brought tears to her eyes now. For years, she’d wanted him to notice her—but when he did, she panicked and ran away. Emma had been so dedicated to protecting herself from rejection that she’d inflicted the same pain on the man she…
…loved.
Emma would not cry. She was angry and aching and all she wanted to do was fling herself into Max’s arms and hear him say, Everything will be alright, darling. She missed his teasing. He’d have cracked a joke about stingy shopkeepers and made the whole situation moot by buying the entire bookstore for her, purely out of spite.
Max supported her dreams, no matter how outlandish or expensive, yet she’d been too blind to see that he expressed his love lavishly. He was simply too shy to say it with words.
As soon as Mr. Gill returned, she would go find Max and tell him how sorry she was for being such a stubborn fool.
One o’clock came and went. Her stomach rumbled. The bell over the door rang only a handful of times. She recorded two modest sales. There simply weren’t many people out shopping on a soggy spring day.
By midafternoon, Emma was so hungry she thought she might faint.
She found a board on a string with a clock painted on it, set the moveable hands to indicate she would return within a quarter-hour, and hung it in the window facing outward. There was a tea house across the street where she could procure a sandwich.
Outside, she realized she had no way to lock the shop. Tears scalded her eyelids. Cold rain dripped down the back of her neck. Emma had never been so hungry in her life, but she couldn’t leave the store standing open and unguarded.
What was she going to do?
“Miss Willis?”
“Max?” Emma whirled. Sure enough, there was her beloved duke, striding down the street, a full head taller than any other man around. Unforgettable. Her heart skipped a beat.
“I wondered if I would find you here. I meant to come earlier, but…” He trailed off, looking as if he was torn between scooping her into his arms and turning back the way he’d come. “I was unsure of my welcome.”
“I am so happy to see you, Max,” she said in a rush. He scooped her into his arms. “This business of making my way in the world is hard,” she mumbled into his shoulder, breathing in the damp wool scent of his clothes. She didn’t want to be alone. She wanted to be loved.
