Page 50 of To Marry and to Meddle
Resisting the impulse to give him a congratulatory pat on the shoulder, she instead made her way down the hallway toward Julian’s study, a room she had only visited once or twice so far. Julian had never seemed irritated by her presence there, but she had spent her childhood in faint terror of her father’s study, and she was realizing that this was a difficult emotion to shake. Her father only ever called one of his children into his study to reprimand them, or to deliver bad news; Emily herself never did much to earn her father’s ire, but she had vivid memories of shouting matches between her elder brother and her father echoing from behind the closed study door. It was also the spot where her parents had informed her that, for the first time, Mr. Cartham would be her escort for an upcoming ball.
Studies, in other words, were not Emily’s favorite rooms.
Shaking aside these memories, she pushed the door open a few inches, peering inside. Julian was seated behind his desk, jacketless and cravatless, reclining in his chair, a tumbler of brandy in hand. Opposite him sat a gentleman of similar height and build with hair a few shades lighter than Julian’s, slouched comfortably in his seat with one leg crossed over the other. Upon hearing the door open, both heads turnedto look at her, and she realized that the earl had eyes of the same clear blue as both his younger siblings, though the effect in his face was somehow warmer and less rakishly dangerous than it was in her husband.
Both men rose, Julian coming from behind his desk to usher her into the room. “Emily, come meet my brother—Robert, this is Emily, my wife.”
“I believe you and I danced together once, long ago,” the earl said, offering a perfectly correct bow over her hand before straightening to give her a once-over that instantly made his resemblance to his brother stronger. “It must have been your first or second Season, you might not recall.”
“I must confess that I’m surprised you do, then,” Emily said, laughing a bit as Julian nudged back a chair with his toe, and she proceeded to sit down. She always tried to seat herself as quickly as possible upon entering a room, knowing that the gentlemen present could not sit until she did and always anxious not to be a bother to anyone. “I would not think a gentleman would recall a dance with a blushing debutante, years later.”
“Hard not to remember the most beautiful debutante of her year,” the earl said, smiling at her as he resumed his seat next to her, and Emily smiled back at him.
“You’re just as charming as your brother is, when he wants to be,” she said, dimpling at him.
“And quite a bit less dramatic, too,” he said with a grin. “Are you certain you don’t wish to file for an annulment and run off with me instead?”
“I’m right here,” Julian said mildly, taking a sip of brandy.
Emily frowned thoughtfully. “It’s a tempting prospect,” she began.
“Directly across the desk,” Julian added. “Three feet away. With perfectly functioning ears.”
“But I must confess, I’ve had enough of carriage travel of late, and I fear we’d have to flee town to avoid the scandal,” she concluded.
“Fair enough,” the earl said, nodding solemnly. “We’ll simply have to content ourselves with the knowledge of the happiness that could have been ours.”
“You’re even drinking my brandy,” Julian put in. “I wouldn’t have broken out the good stuff if I’d known you’d attempt to steal my wife out from under my nose the moment you arrived.”
“In the interest of strict honesty, I believe it was technically the momentIarrived,” Emily said primly, and the earl laughed out loud at that. “What is the reason for your visit today, my lord?”
“None of that,” he said, waving a hand. “You must call me Robert, if you are to be my sister now.”
“And I have already met your true sister. It’s delightful to see you—I wasn’t aware—” she added, but broke off hastily.
Robert, however, seemed to guess what she’d been about to say.
“You weren’t aware that I saw very much of my brother?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow in another gesture eerily reminiscent of his younger brother.
“I was under the impression that Julian was somewhat distanced from his family,” she said carefully. Frannie aside, of course.
Robert snorted. “It’s our parents, specifically,” he said, tossing a glance at Julian that Emily couldn’t quite read, but which Julian could apparently decipher with little difficulty, since he offered an eloquent eye roll in return. “And when word started spreading that Julian had taken it into his head to marry, I had to come see it for myself.”
“Word started spreading,” Julian repeated, his eyes narrowing. “Word from whom? You were at Everly Priory, were you not?”
“I may have been,” Robert said, would-be casual, rotating the cut-glass tumbler in his hand. “You know how gossip spreads.”
“Gossip,” Julian repeated.
“Gossip… or letters, perhaps,” Robert said, which was apparently all the confirmation Julian needed.
“Frannie,” he pronounced darkly.
“Come off it, Julian,” Robert protested. “You didn’t possibly think she would keep it from us.”
“I suppose not,” Julian muttered, taking a large sip of brandy before setting his glass down. “Did she even bother to wait until we’d left, or was she scribbling away whilst we were innocently enjoying an afternoon walk one day?”
“I believe she sent the letter the morning you left to return to town,” Robert said, then added, “Don’t be angry with her, she’s done nothing wrong.” There was a slight protective note in his voice when he spoke of his sister, whom Emily realized must be more than a decade his junior, and she liked him all the better for it.
