Page 32 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
“We could try actually enjoying each other's company,” Theodore said. “As a novel alternative.”
“Merrick!”
The voice came from behind them, and Emily felt Theodore go still for a fraction of a second before he turned, his hand leaving her waist in the same motion, and the warmth that had been sitting there went with it, causing her to feel cold all of a sudden.
Alistair Locke, the Duke of Pembourne, was crossing the room toward them, his wife, Yvette’s, hand tucked through his arm.Beside him, a step behind, came another couple, the man dark-haired and broad-shouldered.
Emily felt the smile on her face become real before she could stop it.
“Yvette,” she said.
Yvette Locke detached herself from her husband's arm like she had been waiting to do exactly that and crossed the remaining distance to take both of Emily's hands in hers. She was small and bright-eyed and had the particular quality of making every room she walked into feel warmer than it had been before she arrived.
“You look absolutely beautiful,” Yvette said, squeezing her hands. “We have a lot to discuss. What is this I hear about you and His Grace?”
“Well..” Emily said and giggled. “It all happened so fast.”
“Mm,” Yvette said and squinted her eyes. It looked as though she was not entirely convinced but was too fond of Emily to say so directly.
Alistair reached them and clapped Theodore on the shoulder. “I did not believe it until I saw it with my own eyes,” he said. “Theodore Merrick. Courting. Actually...courting a lady.”
“Your faith in me is touching,” Theodore said.
“It is not faith. It is astonishment.” Alistair turned to Emily with a smile that was genuine and easy and carried nothing complicated in it, the smile of a man who had made peace with the past and found it left a great deal of room for warmth. “Emily. You look wonderful, as always.”
“As do you, Your Grace,” Emily said. “Marriage suits you.”
“Yvette suits me,” he corrected pleasantly. “You have apparently achieved what the rest of London could not.” He turned to Theodore. “So... Marriage?”
Theodore looked at him. “I’m thinking about it.”
“You?” Alistair pointed at him with some emphasis. “Are getting married?”
“Don’t sound so shocked, Alistair.”
Theodore shifted beside her as he said it, and his hand found the small of her back.
Emily did not look at him. She kept her eyes on Alistair, her smile exactly where it was, and her breathing entirely her own business. The hand was warm. That was all she was willing to acknowledge about it. Warm and steady and sitting at the precise spot where her spine made its most inconvenient decisions.
She kept her eyes on Alistair. She kept her smile in place. She kept every single thing exactly where it belonged.
She was very good at keeping things where they belonged.
But the problem was that she was too aware. The warmth of his palm seeped through the silk of her gown. The slight pressure of it, not holding her so much as anchoring her. She was perfectly composed and perfectly comfortable, and the only evidence to the contrary was the fact that she had taken a breath approximately four seconds ago and had not quite finished it yet.
She breathed out. Quietly. Evenly.
Alistair tilted his head to the side. “Theodore, you told me at my own wedding that the institution was a beautiful fiction best appreciated from the outside —”
“I was being poetic,” Theodore said. His thumb moved once against the small of her back. Barely anything. The smallest possible motion. She was not certain he had even done it deliberately.
She was absolutely certain she had felt it.
“You were being insufferable,” Alistair said pleasantly. “Which in your case is often the same thing.”
Theodore opened his mouth.
“He has completely changed his mind,” Emily said.
