Page 25 of The Viscount's Promise
“Have you gotten to know her very well, then?”
The faint suggestion had Malcolm seeing red. He seized Tristan’s cravat. His friend’s eyes bulged in shock.
“I would have you speaking better of the girl,” he said quietly. Tristan must have heard the menace in his voice, for he held his hands up in the air, glass and all.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he rasped around the pressure of Malcolm’s fisted fingers pressing into his windpipe. Once released, Tristan stepped back and rubbed at his neck, his blue eyes wary as he regarded his friend.
It was that look that made Malcolm realize how excessive his reaction to Tristan’s taunts had been. Not that the man hadn’t deserved it. Even so, for Malcolm to lose control like that was worrisome indeed. He cleared his throat. “Damn it,” he said gruffly, “but this day is getting to me.”
“It was a quick affair,” Tristan soothed. “As much as we teased him about his interest in Imogen, I’m sure neither of us thought he would ever get ensnared.”
Malcolm sensed the tentative truce for what it was. He attempted a smile. “No, you are right in that.”
“Though I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the man so happy in his life,” Tristan went on quietly. “We certainly cannot look too harshly on her for that, can we?”
“I suppose not,” Malcolm admitted with reluctance. But enough of this sentimental claptrap. “We’d best return,” he said gruffly. “There’s food to eat, a cake to cut, and dancing to commence.”
Tristan smiled slyly, his eyes once more twinkling with their typical lighthearted mirth. “And you’ve a job to do in watching over Lady Emily, haven’t you, old man?”
“Indeed.” As they rounded the topiary and made their way to the ballroom and the throng within, however, Malcolm wondered why the prospect didn’t seem as dour a thing as it had just days ago.
• • •
Emily had been having a lovely conversation with her new sister—an idea that warmed her soul in the most wonderful way. But Imogen was the bride and in much demand at the moment. All too soon, Emily found herself alone again in a corner of the ballroom. Which was as she typically preferred it. So why did her solitary state have her feeling agitated? A foreign urge rose up in her to leave her corner, to seek out company. But it was not any company she wished for in that moment. No, it was Lord Morley’s.
That thought brought her up short. It was not as if the man had made her life easy since his arrival. Yet in the past days something in her had shifted. A realization hit that had her reeling.
She was coming to care for Lord Morley.
The breath left her in a rush. Oh my. How in the world had something like this happened? She was meant to live out her life alone. She had always known no man would be interested in her. She would never be a wife or mother, would never have a home of her own. For who could ever look past the imperfection of her features or her painful shyness?
But Lord Morley had, she realized. He had never once, in all the days they had known each other, looked on her with disgust. From the very beginning he had pushed and prodded and tormented her until she found herself forgetting about her scar, facing him down, and standing up for herself.
For the first time in a decade, she felt like a woman and not a thing to be pitied. It was wonderfully freeing.
All thanks to Lord Morley.
Her heart light and hopeful, she scanned the ballroom and its mass of people. His dark head, however, was not visible amidst the revelers. Frowning, she began to move through the crowd, for once heedless of the volume of people. Still she could not find him. Frustrated—for why was it the one time she wished to find him he was nowhere to be seen?—she stepped to the wide bank of windows that looked out onto the courtyard. Suddenly she caught sight of him, partially hidden behind a topiary. Smiling, she slipped out the open doors and headed his way.
The voices should have alerted her to the fact that he wasn’t alone. Yet so intent was she on reaching him that she was nearly upon them before she realized. It was the words themselves, however, that stopped her cold.
“The truth of the matter is, Willbridge asked me to stay close to Lady Emily.”
Emily’s blood turned to ice in her veins, her heart seizing painfully in her chest. What was he talking about? Caleb asked Lord Morley to do what?
His companion spoke up then, a voice Emily belatedly realized was Sir Tristan’s. “Willbridge asked you to pay court to his sister?”
“No, not that. He asked me to stick close to her, to watch over her.”
“I don’t understand.”
There was a low growl from Lord Morley. “You have met the girl, I presume?”
“Yes.” There was a pause. And then, “Ah, I see now. It’s that scar.”
A great roaring filled Emily’s ears. She didn’t want to hear Lord Morley’s answer, didn’t want proof of this great betrayal.Move, she told her feet. At long last they obeyed, backing her up, away from that damning conversation that was breaking her heart. But she was not quick enough. Before she was out of earshot, she heard it, the one word that could destroy her.
“Yes.”
