Page 63 of The Viscount's Promise
“Yes.” Close enough, anyway, in that the lie did not seem a lie at all.
“Well,” Tristan said, “I did not know the girl had such fire in her. I must say, it puts her in a whole new light.”
Malcolm froze, stumbling to a halt in the gravel path. Was that interest in Tristan’s voice? He could not remember the last time he’d felt the urge to punch his friend, but he was dangerously close to it just then. “What the devil does that mean?” he snapped.
Tristan stopped and looked at Malcolm in alarm. “Nothing at all. What the hell has gotten into you?”
Another loss of control, Malcolm thought with frustration. Damn, but Emily had the worst effect on him. He let out a pent-up breath and ran a hand through his still-damp hair. “If you must know, I’m through with this place. It was the reason I searched you out in the first place. Willbridge is gone off on his wedding trip, my job of looking after Lady Emily compromised. I see no reason for us to continue here. Can we not return to London?”
Tristan frowned. “You seem awfully worked up, man. Is something else bothering you?”
Damn it, he’d let his emotions show through. Drawing up his typical mantle of bored cynicism with effort, he gave his friend a haughty lift of his eyebrow. “We are surrounded by debutantes and are being lorded over by a troublesome viscountess who should not even be playing hostess. What do you think is wrong with me?”
Tristan did not seem mollified. If anything, he appeared even more curious. “You know,” he murmured, “I do think something has happened that has spooked you.” Then he sobered, his clear blue gaze sharpening. “Was it Lydia?”
The trouble with having a friend with whom you had grown up, who knew you almost as well as you knew yourself, was that they often caught even the slightest tell. Malcolm deepened his frown. “You are delirious. She can no longer have any hold over me; you must know that by now. Now, what say you? Can we leave this hellhole or not?”
Tristan considered him for a long moment in concern before shrugging. “You may go if you like. I, however, have found there is much to recommend Willowhaven to me.”
Meaning Lady Daphne. Malcolm very nearly gave voice to the thought in his frustration. At the last minute, he halted his tongue. To bring it out in the open would be sure to sharpen the man’s interest in her.
“Besides,” his friend went on, “I would not want to miss the ball tomorrow night for anything.”
There was enough of a glazed, dreamy look in Tristan’s eyes that Malcolm realized there was nothing on this earth he could say to sway his friend. Even so, he could not give up as easy as that without a fight. “You cannot think that a country ball would be more exciting than an evening in London. Come on, man. I know how you thrive on that stuff. You’ve never been content with something so tame.”
“Somehow I doubt the evening will prove tame at all. In fact, it promises to be positively thrilling,” Tristan drawled with a sparkle in his eyes.
Well, apparently there was no choice for it now. Malcolm would have to stay for the entirety of the house party whether he wished it or not. For, if he wasn’t mistaken, the man was planning something foolish the following evening. What, he wondered, was his idiot friend going to do, and how would Malcolm prevent it?
The greater question, though, was whether he could withstand Emily’s pull on him, which no amount of heartbreak seemed to be able to lessen.
Chapter 23
Nothing could hold Emily’s attention, it seemed, since the accident. Not the book she had attempted to read, nor the embroidery she’d been trying to work on prior to that. Even her pianoforte held no draw. In one last bid to distract herself from troubled thoughts, she had taken up the music sheets borrowed from Imogen with the intent of copying the pieces into her own music book. Surely the focus needed for something of that nature would draw her in. After just half a page, however, she slammed down her quill with nearly enough force to break it.
Throwing up her hands, knowing she would fail at anything else she tried just as spectacularly, Emily retreated to her chair before the unlit hearth, staring sightlessly ahead. Bach lay at her feet, his warmth against her leg a welcome thing, keeping her from feeling quite so alone.
Again and again her thoughts returned to that scene by the river. Being in Malcolm’s arms again, his mouth hot and desperate on hers, had been achingly wonderful. She had been filled with need for him, a fire that had fairly scorched her from the inside out.
Would she have been able to pull away from him had he not done so first? Would she have dragged him back to her had he not lashed out? She would never know.
“Fool, fool woman,” she whispered, even as tears stung her eyes.
A knock sounded at her door. She jumped, her heart faltering in her chest, her thoughts immediately veering toward Malcolm. But it would not be him. He would know that he was the last person she wished to see in that moment.
“Come in,” she called out, wincing at the hoarseness in her voice. When Daphne entered, slipping into the room and quietly closing the door behind her, Emily knew she should feel relief. She had no wish to see him ever again, after all. The tiny fissure she felt work through her heart, however, told her how traitorous her emotions were on the subject.
Her sister approached and sank into the chair next to Emily, the small smile on her lips doing nothing to disguise her worry. “How are you faring?”
“As well as can be after falling into the River Spratt. And no better than the last two times you were in here asking after me.”
“You forget, I’ve taken many a dunking in the river myself,” Daphne said, her eyes twinkling. “I know the toll it can take on one.”
Which was nothing but the absolute truth. Daphne was notorious for her inability to sit still in a boat. Emily could not count the number of times her sister had returned to the house looking like a drowned rat. “I pity Drew for all the times he’s had to fish you out,” Emily teased, before quickly sobering. “Though thank goodness you are a much stronger swimmer than I. Truly, I cannot remember the last time I was so frightened.”
“I admit I was lucky that Drew never took me into the deeper parts of the river. For me it was simply a matter of planting my feet and standing.”
“Though you kept your seat today,” Emily stated with a small smile.
