Page 11 of A Foolish Flirtation

He nodded. “Oh God, I can hardly tell you this. You see, I cannot marry you, Emmie. That—all that must be at an end.” He swept an arm in a most un-Humphrey-like gesture.

Emmie was speechless. She regarded him with some concern. “Won’t you take a seat, Humphrey?” she asked gently. “You are clearly under some strain and—”

“I cannot marry you, Emmie,” he repeated with emphasis. “Clara will not let me.”

“Clara?” Emmie echoed in bewilderment. She had never heard him mention a Clara before. “Who, pray, is Clara?

Humphrey gulped. “Clara is my wife,” he said hoarsely.

“Your wife?” Emmie repeated dumbly, not quite believing her ears. “You—but when—?”

“My wife of twelve years,” he confessed shakily, jerking at his necktie as though to give himself room to breathe.

“Twelve years,” Emmie cried. “But we have only been engaged for ten!”

“I know.” He winced. “My marriage predates our engagement.”

Emmie blinked up at him. “Forgive me, I do not understand,” she said, groping for the arm of her chair and clutching it.

“I was married to Clara at nineteen. We had already been married for two years when I met you.”

Emmie heard a rushing in her ears and wondered for a moment if she might actually faint. “I don’t—but how—why? Why would you do this to me, Humphrey?” she asked in horrified wonder. “Why in heaven’s name would you propose marriage to me when you were not in the position to do so?”

He dropped into a chair. “God, I don’t know,” he moaned, scrubbing his eyes with his palms. “I was so flattered when your father started inviting me to dine at your big house in Porchester Square. I—I was dazzled. I hoped for promotion, and I wanted to ingratiate myself.” He threw her a desperate look. “Can’t you try to understand, Emmie? Your father was such a force of nature. When he suggested marriage to you, I was too intimidated to object.”

“Intimidated?” she repeated. “Intimidated or ambitious?”

He flushed hotly. “Both, I suppose,” he admitted wretchedly. Then after a pause said fervently, “How you must hate me now!”

“Hate?” she said shakily. “In truth, I feel too numb for so strong an emotion.” Humphrey’s eyes dropped from hers. Silence reigned for a minute or two until Emmie heard herself ask inconsequentially, “How is it you arrived in Bath so early?” It was surely too early for the stagecoach to have arrived from London.

“I arrived last night,” he answered. “Stayed in a hotel nearby. I set out a dozen times to see you but could not face the interview until this morning.”

“Does Clara know about me?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject. He nodded. “Always? Has she always known?”

He gulped. “Yes.”

“And yet she—?”

“Please try to understand, Emmie,” he appealed to her. “We wanted to get out of her mother’s house. To get a little place of our own. She wasn’t happy about the deception but—”

“Ten years you let me wait for you,” she interrupted. “Ten whole years!”

“The time just never seemed right. You see, we needed to save a little nest egg,” he gabbled, “and then the baby came—”

“Get out, Humphrey!”

He rose shakily to his feet. “I realize that at this moment you must—”

“Please just leave!”

Resolutely, Emmie covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes tight shut. She huddled down in the chair and stayed like that for as long as she dared. She wished she could sit there all day. She wished she could stop time for another ten years or no—turn it back. Turn it back ten years and then tell Humphrey Stockton to go to hell with his offer for her hand.

She was not sure how long she sat there, willfully unseeing and unhearing of the world. It must have been a couple of minutes at least. Before opening them, she told herself she would see everything quite differently now. She was an older and more jaded woman.

She was a woman who had been jilted at the altar. Nay, not quite that. A woman, then, who had been snared by a bigamist! But even that was not quite true. Humphrey was not a bigamist for his Clara had not let him become one. What was she, then, she wondered, aside from bankrupt?

As her blurred vision swam back in view, she found, to her astonishment, that the chair opposite her was still occupied. It was no longer Humphrey who sat there, looking distressed and pale. Instead, it was Jeremy Vance, who looked as beautiful and wicked as ever, clad immaculately in a pale gray lounging suit. “Good morning, Emmeline,” he said.