Emily knew this was one confidence she would never share, even with her friends.
‘Are you quite well, Em?’ Diana asked. ‘Your cheeks are very pink.’
‘Perfectly well,’ Emily answered, giving her hand a careless wave. ‘I’ve just been sitting in the sun too long.’
Alex held out a straw boater hat. ‘You did forget your hat again.’
‘Oh, drat it. I certainly don’t need another lecture from Miss Grantley about freckles.’ Emily took the hat and pinned it on her dishevelled hair, glad the wide brim could hide part of her face. Her expression.
‘Maybe we should go inside, find some cool lemonade?’ Diana said.
‘Or maybe we should take you to the nurse?’ Alex asked, her tone full of her usual quiet worry. Alex always wanted to take care of everyone. ‘Too much sun can be dangerous.’
‘Of course I don’t need to see the nurse, I’m perfectly all right,’ Emily answered. She scooped up her tennis racket from where she had dropped it in the grass. ‘Let’s just have a game before we have to go in to tea!’
Alex and Diana exchanged another long glance, before they nodded. ‘Maybe Millie or Elizabeth could join us,’ Diana said.
Emily took a deep breath and made a couple of fierce practice swings with her racket. She imagined they were landing right on Chris Blakely’s golden, handsome head...
* * *
Chris was very much afraid that, when he looked back on this one instant years later, he would see his life divided into ‘before’ and ‘after’. Before Emily Fortescue and after.
He stood in the shadows of a grove of trees at the edge of the sun-splashed green tennis lawn and watched her play with her friends. She leaped into the air, her white skirts billowing around her, her racket wielded like a young Athena charging into battle. Her chestnut hair, red and gold and amber in the sunlight, was tumbling from its pins and she was laughing.
Her face, sharp-chiselled and angular as a cat, was usually so serious, so deep in thought and watchful, as if she saw deep into people’s thoughts and read their deepest secrets—and didn’t quite approve. But when she laughed, she was utterly transformed. The rich, merry, uninhibited sound of it would draw anyone closer. Like a siren.
But sirens drove men to their deaths with unfulfilled longings. They pulled men in even as they shoved them away. Chris feared that was definitely the case with Emily.
He raked his hands through his hair, leaving the over-long blonde strands he was always meant to trim properly standing on end—another disappointment to his parents. But he couldn’t dislodge the memory of that kiss.
That kiss.
What had he been thinking? Had he gone sun-mad in that moment? But he knew the truth. He had not been thinking. Just as his father always shouted at him, Chris never thought about what he was doing. Yet kissing Emily was hardly like missing his tutor’s lecture to go for a lark on the river or drinking at the Dog and Hare. Kissing Emily was...
Was the stupidest thing he had ever done. And the most wonderful. For just that one moment, when their lips touched and he tasted the tart sweetness of lemonade, felt the lithe grace of her under his touch, it was like breaking free and soaring. Like the drunken, sparkling magic of a Bonfire Night. Like he was just where he should be.
Only for a moment. Then it all crashed down again. This wasn’t a chorus girl, no matter what wild ambitions she proclaimed. Not a tart at the Dog and Hare. It was Emily. Emily Fortescue. His cousin’s friend. A young lady of education and wealth. Being involved with her would mean promises, expectations. Serious promises. And he was no good at serious.
Not that she would have him even if he was. She was far too good for him and everyone knew it.
He watched her now, laughing in the sunlight. She had picked up the ball from where it fell by the net and was casually tossing it high and catching it again as she chatted with her friends. Graceful, easy, her mobile, sensual mouth smiling. Her hair like autumn leaves, shimmering, heavy, enticing a man to pull it free from its pins and see how long and luxurious it was. Feeling it under his touch. She was so enticing, beautiful and smart and serious...
And he was someone in danger of being sent down from Oxford unless he mended his careless ways and started behaving like a Blakely, according to his parents. He was someone who excelled at making parties merrier and not much else. Emily was clever, beautiful, smart enough to run her father’s business one day, if she wanted. Smart enough to marry anyone she liked. His cousin Alex said Emily was sure to even expand her father’s already lucrative business and become an even more wealthy heiress one day.
He could certainly believe it, after how angry she became when he suggested marriage was her best option, a lady’s only choice.
Yet if she didn’t marry, he thought ruefully, it would be quite a waste. What a kisser she was. It made him wonder what else she would be brilliant at, in the privacy of a bedchamber...
Chris shook his head hard to dislodge a sudden image of Emily Fortescue dressed only in a thin silk chemise, laughing amid a billow of white pillows, her glorious chestnut hair spread mermaid-like around her. He had no business thinking about her that way.
And when they were together, they always seemed to argue. She was definitely not for the likes of him and he was not for her. Maybe they would have fun in the bedroom, if that wild kiss was any indication, but they would quarrel each other to death everywhere else. She was too strong-minded, too gloriously goddess-like, for everyday use.
And he was sure he would never quite measure up to her.
Yet, oh, she was so beautiful. He watched as she gracefully drew her arm back to serve, the long, lean line of her body. How had he never realised that before? Oh, he had always known she was pretty, that was impossible to miss. But she was actually incomparable.
‘What are you doing lurking out here, Chris?’ he heard his brother William say.
He glanced back to see Will walking towards him along the pathway between the trees, his brother’s dark suit and dark hair blending into the shadows. He looked impeccable, responsible, the always-serious one. ‘Just hiding for a moment before I plunge into all that Miss Grantley’s schoolness, I suppose. I have a newfound allergy to academia, even if this isn’t quite Oxford.’
Will gave a wry chuckle. ‘I’m rather surprised you showed up at all. It doesn’t seem like your sort of scene.’
Chris glanced at Emily again, her white skirts a blur as she dashed along the net. Her laughter floated back to him on the breeze. ‘Lemonade and deportment lessons? No, thank you. But I thought Alex might appreciate someone here besides the Duchess.’
Will smiled. ‘Yes. Poor, sweet Alex.’ He, too, studied the tennis game and for one awful instant Chris wondered if he, too, admired Emily. But then he realised Will watched Diana Martin, her hair a bright red in the light, waving her racket in mock-threat at Emily. Will’s smile seemed uncharacteristically—soft in that moment.
Interesting.
Will turned away from the sun-dappled scene and aimed his piercing blue gaze at Chris. Much like Emily, Will had an uncanny ability to see too much. Even when they were children, Chris could never pull off pranks on Will. And now Will had left university with a First in the Classics and worked for the Foreign Office, respectable and perfect.
‘Are you sure nothing is amiss, Chris?’ Will asked.
Chris shook his head, making himself give his trademark careless grin. It always seemed to throw everyone off. ‘Amiss? Whatever could be amiss on such a bright, sunny day, far away from any work at all?’
‘Yes,’ Will said quietly. Quiet with him was always