Page 3 of The Viscount's Promise
Far from appearing offended, Imogen merely gave her a rueful smile. “My mother is very intense, I know.”
Which was putting it mildly. Lady Tarryton had been blessedly awed when setting foot in Willowhaven and thus silent. But as she grew more comfortable, she became more and more vocal. With everyone but Emily.
That should have relieved Emily. The woman frightened her silly, after all, yet she knew too well why the viscountess was leery of making conversation. Her eyes said it all. No doubt the woman had been forewarned about Emily’s scar. Her horrified and yet fascinated gaze seemed to be drawn again and again to it...as she was doing right now. Emily flushed hot and turned the ruined side of her face toward the wall.
“I do like your sister very much,” Emily said, trying to make up for her slight to Imogen’s mother. “Mariah truly is sweet. I can see why you love her so much.”
Imogen flushed with pleasure, transferring her gaze to the opposite corner of the room, where her sister sat in close conversation with Daphne, Emily’s younger sister. The two were fast friends mere hours after their introduction.
As her friend looked contentedly upon the sweet duo, Emily’s gaze slid away to study the rest of the Duncan family. There were a great many of them present, she thought weakly, and this invasion was only the beginning. As soon as tomorrow, all manner of family from both sides would be descending upon Willowhaven. Heart beating like mad in her ears, she said as calmly as she could manage, “Who else is expected to arrive?”
Her attempt at nonchalance didn’t fool Imogen one bit. For, nearly as shy with strangers as Emily was, she understood fully how this affected her. “We did try to keep the guest list down to the necessary people,” she said soothingly. “There is your cousin Sir Frederick Knowles and his family, my mother’s brother Sir William Gubler and his son, Lord and Lady Tabble and their grown children, who are cousins on my father’s side...”
The names went on and on, a seemingly endless litany of people. Emily’s mouth went dry as she attempted to keep track of the rapidly growing list. This was the necessary people? Was Imogen related to half of England?
After what seemed forever, Imogen finished with, “And my sister Lady Sumner and her husband, as well as your cousin Sir Alexander Mottram and his family, though neither will be staying here at Willowhaven, their homes being so close.”
With each name rattled off, Emily’s panic grew until it nearly choked her. What was that, nearly two score of guests? But no, she thought in an attempt to calm herself, more than a quarter of those mentioned she already knew. It could not be as bad as she assumed. No matter her reasoning, however, her heart pounded in her chest so violently Emily thought it would break through her rib cage.
That was when Imogen dropped the final shoe.
“Oh, and Sir Tristan Crosby and Lord Morley, of course. They are your brother’s particular friends and will stand up with him.”
The rush of emotion and memory Lord Morley’s name evoked caused the edges of Emily’s vision to go hazy. She dragged in a deep breath, clearing the light-headedness that had momentarily overtaken her. That, however, did nothing to banish the picture of him in her mind.
Lord Morley. Emily recalled her infatuation with him as a child, how she had thought he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He used to often visit Willowhaven on holidays with her brother. She had always been a bit awed in his presence. How could she not? Not only was he devilishly good looking, with his dark eyes and black hair, but he was kind as well. He’d always had a smile for her, a gentle word, or even at times a present of ribbons or candy. How could she not love him with all of her twelve-year-old heart?
Then had come The Tragedy.
As Caleb approached and claimed his fiancée’s attention, Emily dropped her embroidery back into her sewing basket and reached with shaking fingers for the glass of lemonade on the small table beside her. Instead of drinking it down, however, she pressed the cool glass to her damaged cheek. It had all been a horrible accident: the fall down the cliff that had not only ruined her face, but had taken her twin brother’s life. The events leading up to The Tragedy were crystal clear in her mind. She could not forget them if she tried. And she had tried. To forget those last horrible minutes with her brother, who had been everything to her, would have been almost a release. But what had come after, when she was out of her mind from grief and pain, was as murky to her as the silt-filled water at the bottom of the fishing pond. From that day, until the day she had woken from the fever that had nearly taken her life, everything was shadows, mere impressions. Everything, that was, but for Lord Morley.
He had been the one who had carried her back home. She could still see his solemn face above her, feel his arms like bands under her, hear the deep timbre of his voice in her ear as he tried calming her. But that memory was the crux of it, wasn’t it? As the years passed, that impression, her one clear recollection of that horrific time, had given him the attributes of a hero. One of the knights of old who would slay dragons and save damsels. He was the pinnacle of manhood, the one to whom she compared each and every male.
But with her brother marrying, Lord Morley would come again to Willowhaven in support of his good friend and force Emily to come face-to-face with whathadto be a figment of her overactive imagination.
It had been ten years since she had last seen him. At that time, she had been a twelve-year-old girl in the midst of unspeakable horror. He had been her savior, larger than life. He could not be as glorious as she had made him out to be.
That, however, did not ease her mind one bit. Her nerves, already pulled taut to their very breaking point, gave a warning twinge. She could not long keep her composure, she knew. Mayhap she could escape for a short while. Rising on shaking legs, she made for the door.
Just then the butler appeared, blocking her exit. His announcement, ringing through the cheerful cacophony, had her skidding to a horrified halt in the very center of the vast room.
“Lord Morley and Sir Tristan Crosby.”
Chapter 2
The air seemed to be sucked from the room. There was no place to run, nowhere to hide. Before she could draw breath, he was there, filling the doorway. And Emily was struck completely dumb.
Her memories, as wonderful as they were, didn’t do him justice. In the decade that had passed since the horrible day of The Tragedy, the Fates had been kind to Lord Morley. How was it possible he could be more handsome than before, when he had seemed perfect to her in every way? Her heart stuttered before starting up again in a pounding gallop. He was like a dream made real, so tall and broad shouldered he practically filled the doorway. His face, more chiseled, without the softness of youth, would have been at home on the most dashing pirate. His dark eyes settled almost instantly on her. And there they stayed.
Emily felt her face go hot. Her hand flew up, instinctively covering her ruined cheek. She willed her feet to move, but they seemed to have grown into the floor.
Just then Caleb approached him. “So you have both arrived, and a day earlier than anticipated,” he said, the smile evident in his voice. The sound of it, so normal, broke the spell Emily was under. She scurried back into a quiet corner and dropped into a tall wingback chair. Her gaze, however, did not leave the three men.
There was no doubt Caleb and his friends cared for one another; the ease between them that Emily remembered from a decade ago was even more pronounced now. Caleb guided his friends around the room, introducing them to some, reintroducing them to others. Throughout their meandering journey, Emily kept her gaze fastened to Lord Morley. She drank in the sight of him, recognizing that, for the first time in her life, she was looking at him with the mature eyes of a woman. Her body beat out a foreign rhythm of awakening quite unlike anything she had ever felt.
She was in desperate trouble, indeed.
Just then the trio came to her isolated corner.
