.
Emily refused to call the evening a disaster, but that was because she could not bear to call something that had made her aunt so happy a disaster. Winnie chattered all the way home, talking about how Sir Eugene was so dashing, and how similar their taste in simply everything was, and how she would never marry again, but goodness, wasn’t he sweet, not that she trusted men who spoke sweetly.
Emily nodded along at all the right times, and Victor... Victor watched them both with a thoughtful expression on his face. When he went to drop them off, he held Emily’s hand for a moment, making her pause after her aunt had disembarked.
“So, are you ready to call this all off yet?”
“What do you take me for?” she retorted.
Victor sighed. Really, why did he think the scar such a terrible disfigurement? He was quite handsome, scar or not.
“All right. Shall we say Tuesday at three to discuss your hunting prospects?”
“Please don’t call them that, and yes. That sounds fine.”
Emily expected another wakeful night, but to her surprise, she fell asleep almost immediately. She dreamed of being on a stage, trying to deliver lines to a faceless audience, which would have been terrifying if Victor hadn’t been in the wings, hissing desperate and ridiculous instructions to her. It turned out to be rather funny in the end, and she woke up feeling lighter than she had in ages.
On Tuesday, she dressed in one of her favorite gowns, a mulberry morning dress trimmed in pearly gray, and she and her aunt took the carriage over to Grosvenor Street. The butler who answered the door looked a little put out for some reason, which made Emily wonder until they were brought to the drawing room and she heard the booming voice coming from within.
“And I’ll tell you, Wellford, those horses never trusted an apple tree again! And Lieutenant Almsford took that goat all the way back to Herefordshire with him when he mustered out. You know it’s still alive?”
Victor and Sir Eugene came to their feet when they entered, but it was clear that Sir Eugene only had eyes for Winnie.
“Well, there’s a fine sight,” he marveled. “Lady Caverly, the dawn can’t compare to you.”
“My goodness, Sir Eugene, and here I thought flirting was a young man’s game.”
“No experience for it, Lady Caverly. For the finest compliments, you want an old man like me.”
Emily listened wide-eyed, because this was what she should have been doing along, wasn’t it? The easy glances and natural humor that flowed between Aunt Winnie and Sir Eugene left the artificial flirtations of the ton in the dust. If only she could learn this for herself.
“Lady Emily, Lady Caverly, I was thinking today that we could walk in the garden,” Victor said.
Sir Eugene nodded.
“Fine idea. I’ve taken up enough of your time, Wellford. I’d stay to walk, but with my leg, you know...”
“Oh, what a shame to be left out over such a small thing,” exclaimed Aunt Winnie indignantly. “Emily, your grace, I will stay and keep Sir Eugene entertained. You two go see the garden.”
The garden in the back of the Grosvenor Street house was small and utterly unremarkable in the early spring. There was no water in the fountain, and the flower beds were bare.
Emily shot Victor an unimpressed look.
“These are beautiful, your grace.”
“I’ve been told they will be,” he said, looking around. “And it’s Victor. For some reason, your grace sounds wrong when you say it.”
“All right then, Victor. Did you plan what happened in there?”
“As a matter of fact, Sir Eugene did. He’s had rather too many ladies turn away when they realize he cannot walk so well on his false leg, you see. He was curious as to whether she’d abandon him or stay.”
“Well, I can’t see any sign of Aunt Winnie abandoning him. She’s quite besotted, and once she loves something, it never matters what it looks like. Wait, Victor... did you expect me to be disgusted by Sir Eugene’s leg?”
Victor hesitated, and Emily felt a surge of anger when he wouldn’t look at her.
“I suppose I had thought that you never really considered what you were asking for. Sir Eugene is about the right age, about the right condition. But Emily, he is old enough to be your father, easily, and he’s—”
“And he’s fat, and missing a leg, is that what you’re going to say?” demanded Emily indignantly. “And he’s charming, and interesting and kind, and I’ve never seen my aunt smile the way she does when she’s with him, and she couldn’t stop talking about him. Were you really going to... to expose your friend to someone you thought might be awful just to make a point to me?”
“When you put it that way, that sounds terrible.”
“It is terrible! Sir Eugene is a good soul, and he deserves better than to be dangled in front of someone you think of as a harpy!”
“I never said that you were a harpy!”
“You might as well have! My God, I do not care what you think of me, but your friend deserves better! At the very least, he deserves better than your petty little machinations.”
“Emily, what in the hell do you want me to do? Should I just inflict you only on men I don’t like? You’re not some kind of punishment!”
“You shouldn’t treat your good friends as punishments either! It shows poorly on you, and it makes me think far, far less of you!”
The walled garden rang with their words, and they both went very still. Emily wrapped her fichu a little more securely around her shoulders, glaring at Victor and wondering why she felt so much like crying.
“I’m sorry,” Victor said at last. “I... shouldn’t have done that. You don’t need me trying to teach you a lesson.”
“And for Sir Eugene.”
“It was wrong of me to present Sir Eugene up as some sort of horror, but I am not going to apologize for introducing him to the woman he kept singing Spanish love songs about at the club last night.”
Emily couldn’t stop a slight smile from stealing over her lips.
“Did he really?”
“God, yes. He wouldn’t stop, and when some young bloods tried to tell him to shut up, he cursed at them so vividly they actually ran away. He used to drill soldiers, you know. But yes, he sang about her all night, and he kept me there to listen to him all night, and he kept trying to tell me what love was, and I lost the thread sometime before dawn.”
“Oh, dear, no wonder you look a little done in.”
“I am. Feel sorry for me.”
“No, I don’t think I’m going to do that.”
Peace had been restored between them.
“I really don’t think you’re a harpy, Emily. You... you are doing what you think you need to do, and you are doing it with a good spirit. That’s better than a lot of people do.” Victor smiled, a sweetness in his voice she wasn’t sure she had heard before.
Emily took a deep breath.
“Thank you. I really am. It feels surprisingly hopeless some days, but I do think things will work out. They have to. I’ll make them work out.”
“I swear, Wellington was less determined at Lisbon. Well, let’s continue plotting, er, planning.”
They sat on the edge of the dry fountain and talked about who he knew, what they might try next, where they might go, and somehow, they started talking about Spain. By now, Emily had heard the rumors, of course. She had heard that while he was a good commander and a loyal soldier, he had also done dark things in the war, things that, it was whispered, should prevent him from ever being admitted into polite society.
Instead, Victor told her the story about Lieutenant Almsford and his vicious goat, about the sun painting the Sierra Morena mountains a gleaming gold in the dawn, and how French was utterly beyond him, but Castillian Spanish had come as naturally as breathing.
“You sound almost like you miss it,” Emily said.
He thought for a moment.
“I do, sometimes. I’m aware of how awful it sounds, and if I could stop the whole thing dead and send the soldiers from both sides home to their wives, I’d give up the title and the lands in a heartbeat. But I will also say that I was... more myself out there perhaps. Or that I was allowed to figure myself out? Something like that. The only time I’ve ever felt as sure of myself back in England is, well...”
“When do you feel as if you are sure of yourself?” Emily instinctively knew that Victor seldom spoke like this, if he ever did at all. She didn’t want to break the spell that had fallen over them.
“When I’m with you.”
He uttered the words starkly, as if he were saying the sky was blue.
Emily looked into his eyes and absently noticed that they weren’t black at all. Instead, they were a rich arm brown, and this close to him, she could see the gold in them as well.
“Victor...”
Before she could finish her thought, he cupped her cheek in one hand. His hand was rough, calloused from riding and shooting, but when she felt his skin against hers, she trembled with a silvery kind of pleasure.
Then he was kissing her, and there was no one to stop them or look at them. He tasted good, and when his tongue slid along her lower lip in a sly caress, she couldn’t stop herself from whimpering softly into his mouth. They couldn’t do this, her position was precarious enough without adding Victor to it, but she also couldn’t stop herself. She clung to the lapel of his jacket because if he drew back from her, if he stopped kissing her, she would surely die.
He pulled her closer to him, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body. When she reached up to touch him, her fingertips pressed against his pulse, which she could feel beating fast and hard.
“You see what you do to me.”
“I don’t understand why,” she murmured.
Victor laughed.
“I have a few guesses, but they’re not fit for a lady’s ears.”
Abruptly, as if his words had broken a spell that hung over her, Emily pushed him away, lurching up to her feet. She must be insane. There was no good reason in the world to fall all over Victor.
“This is sheer madness,” she said. “We cannot do this.”
Victor tilted his head back to look at her.
“Why not?”
“Because... because you are not what I have been searching for.”
“Ah, yes, your famous requirements for a good husband. Well, I am well off, if not old or particularly doddering, and I have no children. Assuming I do not run mad and slaughter my household in a rage, as Society seems to think I will inevitably do, tell me what the matter is.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you at all, I promise, Victor. Not... not really. I’m... I’m the one...”
For a moment, overheated from the kiss that they shared and her wits feeling as scrambled as eggs, Emily wondered if she was going to tell him the whole sorry story. Then she came to her senses, drawing herself up to her full height.
“Victor. I am sorry, but we do not suit. That is the end of that. I do not want you.”
The last sentence felt like something barbed coming up her throat. It hurt to say, and then it hurt even more when she saw the hurt in his dark eyes. The hurt was burned up with something furious, almost immediately, and he stood as well.
“Forgive me, Emily, for making such a damned fool of myself. Thank you for answering my question with such shining honesty.”
“Victor...”
“I’ll find you a prospect before the end of the week. Parliament is in session, and I’m sure I’ll meet someone appropriately elderly there for you.”
He gave her an abbreviated bow, and without offering her his arm to guide her back into the house, he strode away. Emily followed him for a few steps, and then shook her head. Her eyes were foolishly stung with tears, and she sat back down on the fountain.
She had done the right thing. She knew she had. Why, then, did it feel so very wretched?
“Dash it all, I almost thought they had figured themselves out,” growled Sir Eugene.
“I swear, Emily is usually a smarter girl than this,” said Lady Caverly, shaking her head. “Do you suppose they’ve ruined things?”
“Well, I’ve seen Wellford pull a victory out of worse straits, but whatever they were talking about down there, it looked dire.”
“What a mess young people make of their affairs,” sighed Lady Caverly. She leaned closer to the baronet and silently thanked her stars that she had no such issues.