Page 91 of Trouble

‘I told you I would let it lie,’ Captain Edwards said, his voice rising. ‘I said I had misunderstood, I apologised, and I don’t understand why you insist on bringing this up again unless it is to humiliate me.’

‘To humiliateyou?’

‘I made it perfectly clear that I loved you, and you made it equally clear that my feelings were not returned!’

This was delivered with such force that, for a moment, Emily was trying to work out exactly how she had been insulted. When she realised what he had actually said, she gaped openly at him, incensed.

‘You most certainly didnot,’ she exclaimed, when she was able. ‘At which point did you think you were telling me you loved me? Was it when you were trying toseduceme in your study? Was it when you were making preposterous noises aboutmarriage, a promise you could never hope to keep?’

‘Yes,’ Captain Edwards said forcefully. ‘When I asked you to dance, and I asked you to stay, and when I wanted to kiss you, I was telling you andtellingyou. And .?.?. if you had let me, I would have told you that the idea of the two of us, betrothed, does not seem preposterous to me at all.’

Emily felt a little sick. ‘Well, itispreposterous. You need .?.?. You needfunds. Someone of status. I cannot give you anything at all.’

‘If you don’t want me, Emily, then why are you still standing here at all?’

She did want him. Obviously. But she had told him too many lies for there to ever be anything real between them. It was impossible, and the impossibility of it was breaking her heart.

She had never before been sorry for anything she’d done to help her family, to help Amy – but standing there, she wished she could turn back the clock and refuse Charles’s offer; that she could put that hideous baroque box back on the shelf where it belonged. Captain Edwards was trying to give her something she thought she had never wanted for herself. Now that it was within reach, she knew the truth – that she had told herself she needed nothing, again and again, so that it didn’t hurt when her hands remained empty.

‘You know me to be a liar,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘You know I came into this house under a false name, under false pretences – and you think youloveme?’

‘What Iknowis that you are prickly, stubborn – funny when you want to be, and cutting when you don’t. I know that you care very deeply for people, and I know that you want to kill me for saying so. I know that this house felt empty without you while you were gone. Are you trying to tell me that all of that is a lie?’

‘No,’ said Emily, shaking her head. ‘But you don’t understand. There are things that I have done that you would not so easily forgive—’

‘I think you would say anything to try to dissuade me. That perhaps you find it almost .?.?. repulsive that I amnotto be dissuaded.’

‘Yes,’ Emily said. ‘Yes, I do, because it is foolish of you to think that you know me or couldloveme after a few months of my acquaintance, and doubly foolish for you to think you know the depths of my sins. I could have killed a man!’

Captain Edwards laughed, a little huff of disbelief, and it broke the escalating tension somewhat. ‘Haveyou killed a man?’

‘No!’

He stepped towards her. ‘Do you want to tell me what it is you’ve done that you think is so unforgivable?’

She did. She wanted to tell him, so that it could be done with and he could go ahead and start hating her, but she was feeling weak and tired and at war with herself with no idea what each side was actually fighting for.

‘.?.?. No.’

‘Then let me ask you, now that you know exactly how I feel with no room for misunderstandings – what do youwant, Emily?’

She did not know herself, or have a hope of putting anything she was feeling into words – so she kissed him. Again.

She was not unaware of the fact that it was a very bad idea, or that it was becoming somewhat of a pattern, but it was hard to think too much about the morality of it all when he immediately pulled her into his chest and held her there, as if he’d simply wanted to embrace her as much as he’d wanted to kiss her. It was too sweet, too kind – and Emily didn’t feel worthy of either of those things.

She kissed him hard, and pressed herself closer, and felt his breath catch in his chest as her hands found their way up into his hair. She found that she liked knowing that she could do this to him – that she could bite down gently on his lip and feel him shudder in response, and that when she pulled away, his eyes flew open so that he could look at her, fierce and molten.

‘What are you doing?’ he said, the words coming out in a gruff half-whisper.

‘What I want,’ said Emily.

She walked him backwards to the edge of his bed, and marvelled at how willingly he went, how easy it was to move this man so much taller and broader than her; he was watching her carefully as he sat down, following her lead, and yet he sounded so surprised when she sank down onto his lap that she could have laughed.

Shedidlaugh. It sounded breathless and wild, and nothing like her.

‘Emily—’

‘Captain.’