Page 65 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
She felt her face go approximately ten degrees warmer.
“I am not,” she said.
“You are,” he said pleasantly. “Quite considerably. It is very becoming.”
She looked at his mouth.
She had not meant to. It was entirely involuntary, the way her eyes moved there, and she was aware of it happening but could not seem to stop it. His mouth, which she had watched say a hundred infuriating things, which curved so easily into that particular smile of his, which was currently doing nothing at all except existing at a distance she could measure in inches. A maddening, illogical curiosity seized her, that she wanted to know what it felt like. An absurd craving to know if his lips would taste of the cool afternoon air or the heat of the fire that seemed to burn behind her ribs. She found herself wondering if that firm line would give way beneath her own, or if the pressure of him would be as unrelenting as his will.
She drew in a shuddery breath as panic flared in her chest, not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of how much she wanted it.
Theodore seemed to sense the exact moment her breathing changed, the exact second her pulse turned. He went still, his fingers lingering on her jaw for a heartbeat longer than necessary before he abruptly let her go.
The sudden cold where his hands had been made her shiver.
He stepped back and looked at her, just once, with an expression she could not read, and then he looked at her dress, at the mud along the hem and the sleeve, and something in his face settled into the practical, easy gaze.
“I will send for the modiste,” he said. “This week. Whatever you need. As many gowns as you like.”
Emily blinked. “That is not necessary.”
“It is,” he answered and forced a smile. “Frederick, I think you’ve tormented Harrison enough for today. Should we go back and finish the game?”
Emily remained rooted to the spot as Theodore and Frederick continued to play, her fingers clutching the damp, stained silk of her skirts. The silence of the garden rushed back in to fill the space he had occupied, but the peace she usually found here was gone. Instead, her mind was a frantic hive of activity.
A sharp spike of frustration flared in her chest. She had wanted to peel back his layers, but he had somehow managed to expose hers instead. What was that look? Why had he held her long after the game had ended? The order she craved felt further away than ever. As she watched the man and the boy disappear through the stone archway, she realized with a sinking heart that she had returned to the very beginning. She was left with more questions than she had started with, and the most maddening one of all was why, despite the ruined silk and the lingering confusion, she found herself wishing he hadn't let go.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“So, how was it? You must tell me everything!”
Emily looked at Euphemia over the rim of her champagne glass and thought about how to answer her question.
They had found a corner of the Ashby ballroom that was not precisely private but was as close to it as two women could manage during a ball of this size, tucked behind a large arrangement of hothouse flowers near the far window with the noise of the room a comfortable distance away. The dancing had paused between sets, and the crowd had redistributed itself toward the refreshments, which had given them approximately ten minutes before they would be expected to redistribute themselves back.
Euphemia had been waiting to ask this question since Emily arrived. She could tell by the way she had appeared at her elbow within four minutes of Emily walking through the door, which suggested she had been watching for her.
Emily looked at her champagne. “Effie,” she said. “I do not know how to answer your question.”
“Just be honest,” Euphemia said. “You can tell me whatever detail you want. How was the honeymoon? Was it as magnificent as the books claim?”
Emily looked at the ballroom, at the crowd moving between sets, at the candlelight on the ceiling, at Theodore somewhere across the room doing what Theodore did in rooms, which was make every person within ten feet of him feel like the most interesting person he had ever encountered.
“You know the circumstances,” she said to Euphemia. “You were present for a significant portion of how we arrived at the marriage in the first place.”
“I know how it started,” Euphemia said. “I am asking about after. There is a considerable difference between the beginning of a thing and the living of it.”
Emily was quiet for a moment. “It was...” she said carefully. “...not what the books describe.”
Euphemia's eyebrows furrowed. “How far from what the books describe?”
“We spent the better part of the first week barely occupying the same room,” Emily said. “We ate separately. We moved around the house in a very large orbit that did not often intersect. Therewas a great deal of ledger reviewing on my part and a great deal of study occupying on his.”
Euphemia stared at her. “That is it?” she asked. “I had such ideas about it. About what it would be like. I know that is foolish, given everything I know about how marriages are made and what they generally are. But I had read so much and heard so much, and I thought—” She stopped. “I thought surely there must be something to it. Some truth underneath all the description. Some reason everyone talks about it the way they do.”
“It's different for everyone, trust me. You cannot use my marriage to decide what yours would turn out to be.”
“Mine?” she scoffed. “I might die a spinster at this point.”
