Page 71 of The Viscount's Promise
“You are,” he insisted.
Daphne stepped up beside him. “You truly are, Emily,” she said.
“No!” she fairly shouted. “It’s everything I fought against. To go to London, to draw attention to myself. To court rejection...”
Sir Tristan looked on her with sorrowful eyes. “And yet, if you don’t, you both will live out the rest of your lives in the acutest misery. Always wondering what would have happened had you taken a chance on him. A chance on yourself.”
Emily looked from one face to another, feeling as if the walls were closing in on her. Her mind froze, and with it all coherent thought. She opened her mouth, willing something, anything, to emerge that could make them see how deluded they were.
A sharp, furious barking started up in the hall. Even with the heavy wooden door muffling it, there was no mistaking the warning note in it.
Emily took her silk skirts up in her hands and ran from the room. The sight that met her in the hall, however, had her skidding to a stunned halt.
Bach had Lord Randall cornered in an alcove. The dog’s very fur seemed to stand on end, his tail stuck straight out behind him, his teeth bared.
“Bach!” she cried, rushing forward and taking hold of the dog’s collar, pulling him back from the cowering nobleman. Bach’s barking ceased, his stance relaxing at her touch, though fierce growls continued to vibrate through him. He kept his eye trained on Lord Randall, who was looking at the dog as if he were seeing a ghost.
“Where did you find that creature?”
Something in the way he said it made Emily look at him with narrowed eyes. “Do you know this dog, then?”
“Of course I do,” he spat, straightening away from the wall and tugging at his impeccably cut evening coat. “My youngest tried hiding it in the house, thought to keep the thing as a pet. I put a stop to that. I won’t have such a damaged creature in my home.”
The hallway was quickly filling with people pouring from the ballroom, no doubt curious as to the cause of the commotion. Emily ignored them, her attention focused solely on the disgusting excuse for a man before her. “Do you mean to tell me,” she said, her voice low and fierce, “that you are the one to abandon him? You are the one who threw him out like garbage?”
“Certainly not,” he said, curling his lip. “I meant to put the fiend out of its misery and put a bullet in his head. It’s a travesty to let a creature such as he live with such an infirmity. But he bolted, and so I was unable to perform my duty.”
“Your duty? You call killing an innocent creature your duty? Well, sir, I do not know who you answer to, but I answer to God, and He would never condone such an inhumane act.”
There was a general murmur of agreement at that. Lord Randall opened his mouth, no doubt to give her a scathing set-down, when he became aware of their audience. At once he turned a putrid sort of green, for the faces surrounding him were not friendly.
“You are a despicable excuse of a man,” Emily went on, quite unable to stop now that she had started. “You have belittled me and tormented me for as long as I can remember, all because I lack the perfection you desire in life. And now I find you would have ended the life of a beautiful creature, all because it does not conform to what you believe beauty to be. Well, let me tell you, my lord, this dog has a pure heart, and a beautiful soul. Something I am sure you could never understand. For though your form and face is handsome, within you is nothing but the vilest monster.”
Gasps could be heard, and above the sudden roar of voices emerged a faint clapping. Gripping Bach tight, she pulled him away from the fascinated onlookers, past her gawking siblings and friends, and into the library. Once there, she let go of the dog’s collar and held her hands up to her burning cheeks. But it was not horror or distress that caused her skin to heat. No, it was elation that ran through her veins, that had her heart beating out a furious rhythm. She truly was stronger than she had supposed.
With that realization, another wild, amazing idea took shape. Perhaps shecouldgo after Malcolm, tell him how she felt and put her heart on the line. Mayhap she could take a chance to see if they could find happiness with each other.
Malcolm. Goodness, but she loved him. Wasn’t he worth the leap of faith? Wasn’t she?
“Emily?”
Trembling with excitement, she turned to face her siblings and friends.
“Ready the carriage, Brother,” she said. “We leave for London within the hour.”
Chapter 25
What have I done? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, what have I done?
It was not the first time that lamentation had spun dizzyingly about in her head during the lengthy journey to London, which, thanks to a broken carriage axle, had turned into a full two-day trip instead of the mere one-and-a-half she had been promised. Now, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the great city itself, she found that her doubts were growing so loud she thought her head would burst from the panic of it.
It was one thing to make an exciting exit in the wake of the glorious—and well-deserved—insults she had given Lord Randall. It was quite another to sit in a carriage for the next two days and contemplate the utter idiocy of that rash decision.
As if reading her volatile thoughts, Imogen reached across the carriage and laid a gentle hand on hers. “Emily, are you all right?”
“Fine!” she squawked. Blushing, she managed a pitiful smile. “I’m fine.”
“It’s late,” Caleb murmured, glancing out the carriage window. “We’ll retire for the night and visit Morley tomorrow.”
