Page 36 of The Odd Riddle of the Lost Duchess
“Be my witness,” Noah added flatly, “And the executor of my will after that.”
“Stop being dour,” Ian huffed, “I can bet my left arm she only fears for your life.”
“I told her I loved her, Ian,” Noah admitted as his eyes were latched onto the burgeoning evening star. “And the light in her eyes when I said it gave me all the hope. Do you know that I had even imagined running off with her to Gretna? I figured my reputation was in the pits, so what of it? But she dragged me to my senses.”
“And I am glad she did, or I would have been forced to injure you,” Ian added.
“Lady Emmeline is…” Noah paused as he considered his words, “She is everything I had hoped for in a woman–lovely in spirit and smart in mind, beauty to draw me and ignite a healthy jealousy, but not a temptress to keep me mired in it. She is my wife in my heart, Ian. I just need it on paper.”
His best friend was silent before he chuckled. “That is the closest I have heard you waxing eloquent, my friend. I fain I heard the making of a sonnet in that speech. Which is a lucky equivalent, Sir, as Lady Emmeline had played the master’sSonata No. 14for you after you were engaged with Stevenson.”
Noah’s head snapped around, “TheSonata 14?”
“The one and only–the tune of true love,” Ian smiled and saluted Noah with his glass before he rejoined the men in the den, “Think of that.”
* * *
The pink rays of dawn found Emmeline sitting in the window seat, curled up in her nightgown, with her hair set under its silken bonnet. For the first part of the night she had slept soundly, but after waking up to use the chamber pot, sleep had eluded her.
She ached to see Noah, but she wasn’t sure what she would do when she saw him. Dancing with him under the stars, away from prying eyes, and pressed on his chest had felt like heaven on earth to her, but then he sullied it by telling her of his plan to challenge her brother in a duel.
Her brother had been true to his word and had arrived at the Benwick house but late, near one in the morning. She didn’t think she could see him before the noonday meal, at any rate. She cast an eye over to Ann who was still sleeping, curled up on her side like a child. Briefly, she envied Ann. Her friend did not have to meander through the malaise of loving her family’s sworn enemy.
Breathing softly through her nose, Emmeline shook the dour thought off. Tonight was the last assembly, but also the night for her brother to begin seeing Noah as a fellow man and not an adversary.
The sunlight was steadily chasing the lingering darkness away, and Emmeline hoped that some fortuitous steps would be taken that eve. She and Ann had spent most of the night planning how they would approach George.
Emmeline knew her brother had some military training and would detect strategic tactics when they were being played on him, so an indirect approach was going to be used. The plan was for her to be disheartened about Noah, telling George in no uncertain terms that she loved him, and while George went to stew, Ann would approach him.
Ann was going to play the Devil’s Advocate, complimenting and disparaging Noah in a separate breath, but the coup de grace was when Ann would tell him that Noah, having let off with any chances of being with Emmeline, had started to court her instead. It was a perilous act, to both entice and then dance upon the thin line of George’s jealousy. Emmeline knew her brother was affectionate towards her friend, but they could not see any other way.
She hoped it would spur George to focus on winning Ann back and let the reins holding Emmeline captive loose. She even hoped that it would give George the impetuous to make peace with Newberry.
“Em, dear,” Ann’s testy voice came from the bed, “I know you are the human incarnation of a lark, but I am an owl, so please close the curtains or I will be forced to have you removed from my bedroom.”
Laughing under her breath, Emmeline pulled the drapery, and the room was shrouded. “Better, your Highness?”
“Much.” Ann yawned and snuggled back into her sheets. “Thank you.”
Marveling how Ann could sleep so suddenly after waking–an art she could never master–Emmeline found herself perusing the bookshelves in Ann’s sitting room.
Old poetry books, works of Greek mythology, and a few books she was familiar with:The Monk, Cecilia,andThe Vicar of Wakefield.Shooting a look at a still-slumbering Ann, Emmeline picked upCeciliaand started to read–actively distracting herself from worrying about what was going to play out later.
* * *
The ballroom in the Benwick house was marvelously decorated with luxurious greens, white, and purples. Clear and glistening mirrors bordered the dancefloor, reflecting the party-goers’ lavish clothes and the lights from the wide-curving chandelier.
Luxurious gowns paid for from ancestral coffers, were out and on display. Dresses of satin, silk, taffeta, and velvet were embellished by delicate lace, luminous pearls, glistening sequins, and hand-tooled embroidery.
“Oh, my dear,” Lady Alford fussed, “such a flurry by the gentlemen here to dance with you, Emmeline. Requests were coming in for introductions at luncheon, even.”
Emmeline’s eyebrows lifted, “I cannot fathom why that could be. May I examine whom you’ve approved, Aunt?”
Taking the card from her chaperone, Emmeline scanned it, her eyes skimming over Lord this or Viscount that, searching for the one name she both wanted and feared to see–Noah’s–but it was absent.
A dull pain went through her, but she forced her face to not show it. Handing the card back to her aunt, Emmeline smiled, “I hope it wasn’t too much of a task for you, Aunt.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” Lady Alford, dressed in a gown with colors that reflected her mature status, of dull ivory skirts with a bodice of light puce, with a matching puce scarf draped around her shoulders, and ivory gloves tutted, “This is why we are here. To find you an exemplary young bachelor.”
