Page 15 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
“The point...” Emily said, with great precision. “...is that I would make a brilliant duchess. That is the point.”
Theodore looked at her. Really looked at her, the way he had been doing all evening without meaning to. He felt the thing hehad been feeling since she stepped into his path earlier and told him not to ruin this for her. There was something underneath all of this. Something she was holding carefully.
“Why did you come to me?” he said. His voice was different now. Quieter. “Truly. Maybe I will consider it if you tell me. Of all the names in London, all the titles, all the qualifying candidates. You said it yourself, you would have no problem finding a good match. A love match.” His eyes held hers. “Why this list? Why now?”
Something flickered across her face. “I told you. I am in a hurry to get married.”
“You are hiding something.”
“I am doing no such thing.”
“Lady Emily.”
“I am simply in a position where marrying sooner rather than later would be advisable. That is all.”
He watched her. She looked back at him, and he thought in that moment that she would have made an extraordinary card player.
“All right,” he said. “Convince me then.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”
“You say you would make an exceptional duchess.” He lifted a shoulder. “Convince me.”
Emily straightened, which he would not have thought possible given that she was already perfectly straight, and spoke. “I speak three languages.”
“Boring,” Theodore said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Boring?”
“Half the women on Lady Birks’ list speak at least two languages. There’s one who speaks four. Try again.”
Emily paused for a moment, thinking. “I am an accomplished pianist. I have been told my playing is —”
“Boring.”
“I have not finished.”
“You were going to say exceptional or something adjacent to it,” he said. “Every accomplished young woman in London plays the pianoforte exceptionally. It is practically a requirement of the Season. Next.”
Emily looked at him with an expression that was working very hard to remain neutral. “I am very good with accounts. Ledgers, staff arrangements...”
“Other ladies can do that too,” Theodore said. “In fact, most duchesses have an entire staff to do it for them. That is rather the point of being a duchess.”
“I am patient,” she said, and the slight edge in her voice suggested she was drawing on that particular quality at this very moment.
“I would not call that a good thing,” Theodore said. “Patient women tend to store things up. It comes out eventually. Usually at the worst possible moment.”
Emily glared at him. “You are the most infuriating man I have ever met.”
“Now that...” Theodore said. “...is not boring.”
She made a sound that was not quite a word. Her composure, that magnificent, impenetrable composure of hers, had developed several small but visible cracks, and he could see her working to seal each one as it appeared, which was, he thought privately, one of the most interesting things he had ever watched anyone do at a dinner party.
“I am loyal,” she said, through her teeth.
“Boring.”
“I am discreet.”
