“Wait! What’s this?” Joshua demanded, springing upright in the bed.
Nicholas strode over to him and braced his hand on Josh’s shoulder. “You stay right where you are, young man.”
“Fetch your weapons, sir,” Josh growled, “I demand satisfaction for my sister’s honor.”
Emily could have laughed at Nick’s expression of dismay if she had not been so worried Josh truly would do something foolish. Nick would never allow a duel of any kind, but her brother’s beet-red face and clenched jaw told her he would neither forget nor forgive until he had acquired some sort of satisfaction.
“Josh, he didn’t—Nicholas did not dishonor me,” she hurried to explain. “I spoke only of the kiss. You’ve known of that for ages. Everyone knows of it. Nothing else happened, I promise. Not ever.”
Except for Nicholas making her feel treasured, acting as if he loved her, actually saying how he would never want anyone else but her. However, she couldn’t let herself dwell upon those lies at the moment or she’d be demanding the pistols herself.
“Just the kiss? You swear?” Josh directed his question to Nick.
“On my honor, I swear,” Nicholas replied. “And I would have married her then if circumstances had not prevented it. I will marry her now, so there is no need for all this uproar. Do you want a relapse when you are nearly well?”
He would have married her then? What an outright lie! How dare he say such a thing? She wanted to scream at him for it, but Emily could tell Nick’s patience was already thin enough to read a book through. Josh’s trembling now looked more a result of exhaustion than anger.
Her brother was not up to this. Nor was she. And Nicholas ought to be more careful where he flung his half-baked proposals.
“When?” she asked, commanding their sudden and undivided attention.
“Tomorrow,” Josh answered without pause.
“As soon as your father comes here looking for you,” Nick amended. “I regret I cannot allow anyone to go and inform him and request his presence. You both know the reason. He will come tomorrow or the next day, surely, for there are too few places you could have gone other than here.”
“Very well,” she agreed, sounding as reluctant as she felt. Once they were married, she fully intended to be a good wife to Nicholas, but she could not help regretting how the marriage was to come about.
The main problem was, she had not realized just how frightfully angry she still was with him. For several years now she’d believed she had forgiven him for the most part, and that he no longer mattered so much to her. Now that she’d seen him again, she knew that neither was true.
Pride insinuated its ugly head, as well, she thought. It galled her that he acted as if he had done nothing to ruin her life thus far and was now doing her a huge favor.
Also, she did not relish explaining the necessity of the marriage to her father. It only underlined her greatest fault, her impulsiveness. “You will make the explanations,” she told Nicholas in no uncertain terms.
“I expected to do so,” he assured her. “I will ask for you as is right and proper.”
“‘Right and proper,”’ she repeated to herself, shook her head at the irony of it all, and turned away from the doorway to Josh’s chamber. She did not even wish them good-night.
It would serve them both right if they didn’t sleep a wink. She was certain she would not be able to close her eyes.
“A moment, Em,” Nick called as she crossed the garden to the house. She kept walking. “Wait, I say! We need to talk about this.”
“Why?” Emily asked over her shoulder. “You have my consent. What else is required?”
He caught up to her and fell in step. “Look, Em, I am sorry things have turned out as they have. I want you to know—”
“That you wish I had kept myself outside your walls,” she interrupted. “I realize that. So do I, but I did not, and now we are stuck with the consequences.”
“No,” he protested vehemently. “That’s not what I mean at all. Marriage is not such a dire fate, now is it? You have already admitted there’s no other man whom you wish to wed.”
“Ah, true enough,” she began sagely, “but there is another woman who thinks she is a part of your future.”
“There was never an understanding between Dierdre and myself,” Nick insisted, running a hand over the back of his neck. “Certainly nothing legally binding. Even if Lord Worthing ever expected a marriage between us, he would say nothing publicly. Fear of scandal would prevent him.”
“So one would hope,” she said. “And what of the scandal that will affect your good name, my lord? A common bride gained under rather common conditions?”
Much to her surprise, he laughed. “Everyone will doubtless assume we’re a love match.”
“But we, of course, will know better, will we not.” She did not ask it as a question, for they both knew the answer.
He reached for her hand and held on, even when she would have pulled away. “Emily, I know how you feel about me now, but marriage will be the best thing. Think, you’ll not have to serve as a governess to make your way and support your father and Josh. You may have whatever you need, whatever you want. As a matter of fact, I am nearing thirty and it’s past time I wed. So you see? We shall both benefit.”
She could not believe what she was hearing from the very man who once oozed charm as if he owned the patent on the commodity. “Convenient, is it?” she asked in a clipped voice.
Nicholas inclined his head thoughtfully. “Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.”
He supposed? And she was expected to smile sweetly and open her arms to him now? Surrender all her pride, forget what he had done and thank him for the privilege of becoming his wife? Devil take him!
“Fine!” she announced, jerking her hand away and clenching it into a fist, which she shook at him forcefully. “Then let us make it imminently convenient for the both of us! I shall keep to my own bed after the sham vows are recited and you shall keep to yours! Or anyone else’s bed you fancy, for all I care!”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” he demanded, his dark brows coming together to make a vicious V over his angry eyes. His lips drew into a firm line and she could see a muscle work rhythmically in his jaw.
She propped her fists on her hips. “Well, if you didn’t understand what I said, my lord, perhaps it is you who need a governess. Since we are to have a loveless union and it is all for outward show, there will be no consummation of it. Do you understand that, sir, or need I make it plainer still?”
For a long moment fraught with tension, he said absolutely nothing. Then his features slowly smoothed out into an unreadable expression. “I did promise that you could have whatever you wanted,” he said softly. “Whether you believe it or not, I am a man of my word. Just be certain you really want what you demand.”
He pushed past her and entered the house. She did not see him again until just after the brute called Wrecker came the next morning to summon her to the front gates.
“Good thing ye donned a fancy frock,” he told her as soon as she opened the door of her room. “Yer Da is here ta make a honest woman of ye.”
Emily gathered up the slightly too long skirts of the countess’s mint-colored muslin morning gown and followed Wrecker down the stairs. She could swear she heard a voice softly singing “Greensleeves” in a sprightly off-key soprano. A voice that the burly sailor either chose to ignore, or else could not hear. It sounded amazingly like the countess.
Emily