Page 69 of The Forbidden Lord
“The dinner party was her idea. She promised to press my courtship of Sophie with Nesfield. But first she wanted some idea of my potential as a husband.”
Ian’s words caught Jordan by surprise. “What do you mean? Have things advanced so far with Lady Sophie? Why, you haven’t even seen the girl in weeks!”
“That doesn’t change anything. I still have very serious intentions toward her.”
Jordan remembered what his butler had told him that morning. “I think there’s something you should be aware of, my friend. When Hargraves was asking Nesfield’s servants about Lady Emma, he discovered that Lady Sophie isn’t in town. She hasn’t been for some time. I’m not even sure she’s ill.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You know?”
“Lady Dundee told me. Apparently Nesfield whisked his daughter away to the country to protect her from ‘scoundrels’ like me.” He smiled. “But the countess has decided that her brother is a fool. She says that if I prove acceptable, she’ll find a way for me to get around Nesfield’s objections.”
“Ah.” That made perfect sense. It was just like Nesfield to do something so dramatic, and just like Lady Dundee to do as she pleased. So Sophie’s absence apparently had nothing to do with Emily’s masquerade. Or else the countess and the marquess hadn’t wanted Sophie around mucking up things while they finished their plot.
But whatwastheir plot?
Inviting Pollock was Lady Dundee’s idea.Devil take it, this had something to do with Pollock. Otherwise, why would Emily ever have gone near the man? And now that he thought about it, she’d spent a great deal of time with Pollock at that first ball as well.
The thought of Pollock and Emily together made his skin crawl.
“Are you all right?” Ian asked. “You’re looking pale.”
“I’m fine. Just a little hungry.”
“Then I guess we’d best go down to dinner.”
Jordan followed Ian out of the room. He was hungry, all right. Hungry to know what was going on.
At least now he had a way to make Emily tell him the truth. He had a little surprise to spring on Emily once he could get her alone. And no amount of tears and begging would put him off this time.
Emily glanced across the dining room table to where Jordan sat beside an attractive and decidedly well-endowed young widow. Thank heaven his attention was drawn to his companion. Perhaps the wretched woman would even convince him to leave the party early. Emily would be quite happy if she did. Truly.
“You want to scratch her eyes out, don’t you?” Mr. Pollock whispered in her ear.
A curse on Lord St. Clair for seating her next to Mr. Pollock. The daughter of an earl wasnotsupposed to be taken in to dinner by a mere mister. Perhaps Lord St. Clair, being a bachelor, didn’t know such things. Hehadsaid this was his first time to give a dinner party. Still, Lady Dundee should have set him straight in the drawing room.
Of course, the viscount hadn’t erred in the least with the rest of the seating. Oh, no. That’s why Jordan was seated between Lady Dundee and the beautiful countess. The countess whose eyes Emily indeed wanted to scratch out, although she’d never admit it to anyone.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she blithely lied to Mr. Pollock as she concentrated on slicing a piece of roast beef.
“The merry widow sitting with Blackmore. She’s just his sort, you know.”
Emily’s hand on the knife shook. She knew only too well. The woman was perfect for him: sensuous and lush and obviously available, if one was to judge from the way she kept thrusting her ample breasts up in his face and leaning on his arm. Well, let the widow have him. Since the man only seemed to want tarts, he deserved her.
“I know we got off to a bad start,” Pollock whispered again, “but we could put all that behind us. I promise I’d do better by you than Blackmore.” He laid his bandaged hand on her thigh. “Any man who prefers common crockery to fine china is a fool.”
The scoundrel never gave up, did he? Laying her knife carefully down, she slipped her hand under the table to grab his wounded one and squeezed it just until she heard him curse under his breath. “Mr. Pollock, if you touch me again, I will smash a piece of fine china on your head. Do we understand one another?”
Lifting his hand, she dropped it in his lap, then returned to cutting her meat.
“You’re saving yourself forhim,I suppose,” Pollock said in a nasty voice as he nursed his hand. “Well, he won’t marry you.”
“The last thing in the world I want is to marry Lord Blackmore.”
What a blatant lie. For days now she’d pretended to herself that she didn’t care what he thought or did, that his lack ofinterest in her as a prospective wife didn’t matter. And all the time, she knew she cared far too much.
She wanted to ravage the face of the woman across from her, the one with the good fortune to be an attractive widow. She wanted to rail at Jordan for his coldness and his absolute control over his emotions. She wanted to hate him for believing all the nasty things Pollock had probably said about her.
