Chapter 2
A lady’s age does not define her or her worth, and any gentleman who thinks it matters is no man whose affections you should seek…
Mrs. Matcher
A Lady’s Guide to a Gentleman’s Heart
Nearly ten years ago, Lady Emilia Aberdeen had gone from being almost a duchess, to a jilted bride.
The tale of her jilting had proven to be Society’s favorite scandal to drag forth whenever there were no new tastier on dits to consume. After all, the world believed Emilia’s heart was still crushed beyond repair. It was why, even now, the guests in attendance at the Duchess of Sutton’s winter house party believed Emilia had shut herself away in her rooms.
None, however, would dare suspect that Emilia was, in fact, responsible for one of the most successful columns in the London Post.
Tapping the corner of her lip, Emilia fished another letter from a stack of five—
Alas, both peace and solitude proved altogether too short-lived.
“You had better be ill, Emilia Abernathy Aberdeen.”
With a little shriek, Emilia jammed the handful of notes into the back of her journal. The Duchess of Gayle stood framed in the doorway. “Mother,” she greeted.
“You do not appear ill to me, Emilia,” her mother clipped out, closing the door with a measured calm that only a duchess could muster.
Emilia feigned a belated cough. “Mother,” she repeated in faint tones.
Ever graceful, the Duchess of Gayle glided over, her silver satin skirts swirling about her ankles as she walked. “You are a horrid liar, which is a good thing.” As if to punctuate that point, she tapped her fan atop the corner of Emilia’s temporary desk.
Given the secrets she’d managed to keep from her mother, father, and younger brother, she’d rather venture she was a good deal more capable at subterfuge than any of the Aberdeens credited. Or mayhap they just wished to see something in her other than what was really there. “I simply sought some privacy.”
“You’ve had ten years of privacy,” her mother said with an unexpected bluntness about a topic no one spoke of, let alone danced around. “No one wants a melancholy wife, Emilia.”
“Which is fine, as I’ve no wish to be anyone’s wife.”
Her mother snorted and rapped the desk again.
Emilia dragged her book protectively closer, folding her arms around the cherished pages.
“Do not be silly. Everyone wishes to be a wife. At least, eventually.”
“Actually, I do not.” At one point, she would have agreed with her mother. And at one point, Emilia had fit into that neat, societal mold. She’d desired a husband. Nay, not just any husband: a witty, charming, roguish man… And for a brief time, in her betrothed, she’d had him.
Until she hadn’t. “I’m quite content with my circumstances.” The blighter had broken it off by letter and marched himself off, traveling… wherever it was bounders traveled.
“I do not like what you’ve become, Emilia.”
“And what is that?” she drawled. “More discerning?”
“More cynical,” her mother said flatly.
Which was also, surprisingly, on the mark for her mother. Since that long-ago day, Emilia was more cynical. She was also wiser. More guarded. “I’m also more content with my current spinsterish circumstances.”
Her mother choked and stole a glance at the doorway. “Hush. You are not a… You are not a…” The duchess’ lips moved, but this time no words came out.
“Spiiinster.” Emilia delighted in stretching out the two syllables.
“That one. You’re not”—her mother gesticulated with a gloved fingertip, jabbing at the air—“that.”
“I’m nearing thirty years old, Mother.”
Her mother slapped her hands over her ears. “Mm. Mmm. You’re some years away from that.”
Emilia lifted two fingers. “Two.” When her obstinate parent refused to take her hands from her ears, Emilia waggled those digits under her nose.
“We are not talking about your age,” she said, her voice slightly raised and discordant because her palms muted her hearing.
“Actually, we are,” she said, cupping her hands around her mouth. “I was pointing out that I’m twenty-eight—”
“Do hush.” The duchess at last let her arms fall to her sides. “We are talking about your marriage.”
Which had been the purpose of the last house party she’d attended here at her godmother’s. To coordinate a match between Emilia and the Duke and Duchess of Sutton’s youngest son… a scapegrace son who’d hightailed it off to avoid that fate… and who’d instead found another young woman to marry.
Setting aside her book, Emilia stood. “I do not wish to marry. I am more than content with my life as it is.”
Are you truly? Living with your parents still. All your friends scattered throughout England now, living their own lives.
While Emilia was escorted to the same events she’d been escorted to since she was a girl just out for her debut.
The duchess’ eyes softened. “Oh, Emilia,” she said with an uncharacteristic tenderness. “Eventually, you are going to find the man worthy of you. The one who makes you laugh and smile and love again.”
“Thank you, Mama.” Emilia studied the relaxed lines of her mother’s ageless face. “But I still have no intention of joining the festivities this evening.”
Her mother let out an unduchesslike squeal and yanked her hands back, the façade of earlier warmth shattered. “You are impossible, Emilia Abernathy. Impossible. Imp—” A knock at the door interrupted the third impossible.
There was another knock. This time, firmer and slightly impatient.
Smoothing her palms down the front of her skirts, the duchess swept over and, plastering a serene smile on her lips, drew it open. “Oh, you.”
“Hardly the warmest of greetings for one’s beloved son,” Barry, Emilia’s younger brother by two years, drawled.
“I’m in the midst of speaking to your sister about very important matters.”
“Indeed?” Angling his head around the duchess, he mouthed, “Marriage?”
“What else?” she silently returned.
“Your sister”—as if there might be another sibling in question, the duchess slashed a hand in Emilia’s direction—“is sitting in her rooms. Alone. Writing in that silly book. People are talking.”
“Imagine preferring the company of oneself to a house full of Society’s leading lords and ladies,” Barry said dryly.
Emilia’s lips twitched in amusement at the droll response.
“Precisely!”
A droll response that their mother did not properly discern.
Barry cleared his throat. “Never one to interfere in the ever-important discussion of Emilia’s wedded state—”
“Unwedded, Barry. The state of your sister’s circumstances is unwedded.”
“I am, however, the dutiful godson,” he went on over the interruption, “and promised Lady Sutton that I would see what kept you, as she was requesting your company.”
Emilia’s heart lifted. Saved by the least likely of rescuers—her younger brother. A rapscallion who’d previously taken great pleasure in tormenting her over the years.
“I love you,” she mouthed.
He touched the corner of his eye. “You owe me,” he whispered back.
The duchess continued on oblivious to that exchange. “Lady Caroline is looking for me? Why did you not say so immediately?” Because even as Emilia’s spinster state took precedence over many issues, their mother’s devotion to her obligations as a leading societal hostess and deference for rank trumped most. “Perhaps you’ll speak to your sister and see if you can talk some sense into her.”
Barry inclined his head and pressed a hand to his chest. “You have my word,” he vowed with mock solemnity.
Emilia made a show of wiping some imagined speck from the corner of her mouth to hide another smile.
“I saw that, Emilia,” the duchess called, not even glancing back.
How…?
As soon as the duchess had gone, Emilia dissolved into laughter. “How does she manage that?” They’d long speculated that she’d been born with eyes in the back of her head.
“I’ve told you since we were children that she’s part witch.”
They shared another laugh. Barry glanced back at the door. “I should indicate that the Duchess of Sutton was not looking for Mother, and by my accounts, with her duchesslike, mincing steps, combined with the distance between your rooms and the music room, you’ve no more than twenty-five minutes to find yourself another hiding place.”
A wave of gratitude swept through her, and she wished she hadn’t been such a miserable elder sister to him when they were younger. Emilia offered him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Barry.”
His cheeks flushed red, the same way they had when he was a boy who’d been caught in midprank. He held his hands aloft. “Lest you shatter my reputation as a bothersome brother, it’s not purely altruism on my part. As long as she has a spinsterish-in-age daughter to worry about wedding off, she’s far less concerned with her still-unwed ducal heir.”
Emilia stuck her tongue out. “Oh, hush.”
“What? I said ‘spinsterish in age,’ which is vastly different than calling you a spinster.”
They shared a smile.
“Twenty-two minutes,” he pointed out, lifting his timepiece.
“Thank you, Barry.”
“Oh, and Emilia?” he said as he opened the door. She stared quizzically back. “If I might suggest, in the future you might consider choosing an altogether more reliable hiding place than your rooms.” With a wink, her brother left.
The moment he’d gone, Emilia scrambled to gather up her book and two of the pencils her mother’s thumping had scattered over the desk. Her belongings tucked in her arm, Emilia abandoned the guest chambers.
Using the servants’ stairway, Emilia made her way down the darker, more narrow space until she reached the second level of the duke and duchess’ sprawling manor house. The moment her slippers touched the plush crimson carpet, Emilia took off running.
Despite her parents’ desire to see her married to, really, anyone at this point, Emilia had every intention of not only preserving her freedom, but also helping other young ladies to avoid making the same mistakes she had.
The problem with being a woman—of any station—was that the world, her parents included, had their own expectations about what said women wanted.
Emilia reached the end of the corridor and peeked around the corner.
Empty. She raced off once more.
Yes, everyone trusted they knew what a lady wanted:
A husband at eighteen.
A parcel of children to soon follow.
A career as Society’s leading hostess.
Everything came down to marriage: Who would make one the best union? Which familial connections were most valuable? Would one settle for security or risk all on a love match?
What Emilia really wished for… was freedom.
That discovery had come compliments of the broken heart she’d suffered at the hands of a feckless cad. Her family, also Society, would not dare to believe her, because to all of them, all women invariably wished to marry. It was a lie perpetuated by the world, many women included.
Slowing her steps, Emilia crept down another one of the Duke and Duchess of Sutton’s endless corridors.
Voices drifted from the intersecting corridor. Voices that grew increasingly closer—those of Lady Lauren Grace and Lady Ava Smith, two of Society’s leading diamonds and nastiest gossips.
Oh, bloody hell. She abruptly stopped.
“They say Lord Whitworth ran off and married the first woman he could find.”
Emilia’s face pulled.
So that was what they were saying about the Duke and Duchess of Sutton’s youngest son and his wife.
“Why ever would he do that?” Lady Lauren piped in.
Yes, it was, in fact, a fair question: Why would a notorious rogue rush off to marry… anyone?
Lady Ava lowered her voice to a still-loud whisper. “They said he did it so he couldn’t be forced into marriage”—there was a pause—“with her.”
Emilia froze.
“Lady Emilia Aberdeen?”
There it was.
“Of course, who else?”
Yes, who else? What other lady present for the gathering was almost thirty and lacking in suitors and seemingly reliant upon familial connections to make a match?
The pair of footfalls stopped.
“Well, that hardly makes sense.” Lady Lauren, who’d ceded all superiority in the current discussion, spoke with far less confidence than before. “Why would they marry her to Lord Sheldon?”
“They wouldn’t anymore, silly.”
Emilia would have wagered her coveted freedom that Lady Ava had just given an impressive roll of her eyes.
“Because he’s married now. But he was… is the lesser of the brothers.”
Lesser?
Emilia furrowed her brow. And then it dawned.
“Ahh.” Lady Ava’s tones indicated she’d also quite caught on to her friend’s thinking. “Lord Heath. Because he is—”
“A future duke,” Emilia mouthed as the busybodies spoke in unison.
“A future duke.”
Yes, because that was what every lady craved: marriage to a duke. Emilia stared blankly at the crimson silk paper adorning the wall across from her with faint spadelike shapes etched in gold. She traced one of those almost-hearts beside her.
Nay, that isn’t what you craved. You wanted the heart of a duke. Altogether different, and yet, at the same time, not. Because Emilia should have, even then, known that those lords just a smidge below royalty weren’t men to entrust one’s heart to. They lived for their own pleasures and thought nothing of breaking hearts or even legal contracts, such as the betrothal the Duke of Renaud had severed.
Someday, I shall have the heart of a duke.
Giving her head a shake, she forced aside foolish thoughts of the cad from her past. It had been all the talk of marriage that had brought the memories back this night. She’d heard enough gossip from the pair.
“Yes, I have it on the authority of my mother that the Duke and Duchess of Sutton didn’t wish to waste the ducal heir on a spinster.” The ducal heir also happened to be the best friend of the man who’d stomped all over Emilia’s heart. “Which quite means—”
Again, the girls spoke as one. “He is available.”
And they were welcome to Lord Heath. Even when she’d been betrothed to Connell, his closest friend in the world had been as aloof as Lady Jersey welcoming a courtesan to her soiree. Distant. Always turning on his heel to make a hasty retreat. Increasingly so the closer she’d gotten to her wedding day.
How happy he must have been when his friend threw her over.
The miserable blighter.
“He is quite… handsome.”
They dissolved into a fit of giggles.
Ah, giggles. The sounds of innocence and naïveté and childish dreams.
In fact, Emilia would have managed to feel a modicum of regret in knowing that these two would one day have their hearts crushed by life—if they hadn’t already been horridly unkind.
Even with that, there was a sliver of sadness for the inevitable fate that awaited them. It awaited them all.
Emilia sighed.
“What was that?”
It took a moment to register that the giggles had faded, and then the footfalls resumed, coming closer. More quickly.
Bloody hell. Springing into movement, Emilia darted in the opposite direction, her skirts whipping around her ankles.
“…I saw,” one of the gossips was saying, and by the direction of her voice, the young woman was at the corner. Oh, hell. “It was her skirts. I’m sure of it. The Ice Princess in her ice blue.”
Heart racing, Emilia grabbed the nearest door handle. It gave way with a satisfying click. Relief flooded through her as she stumbled into the room and hurriedly closed the door behind her.
Safe.
And then she went absolutely still.
Oh, bloody hell.
Of all the three hundred and twenty-six rooms in the Duke and Duchess of Sutton’s property, Emilia had chosen the one that was occupied.
By him.
Hovering over the billiards table, frozen midway through his shot. Sans jacket, no less.
Lord Heath Whitworth, the Marquess of Mulgrave.
By the horror settling on the angular planes of his face, the marquess looked about as pleased to see her as she was to see him.
For the briefest of moments, she considered taking her chances with the enemies on the other side of the door rather than with the enemy within.
After all, she and Heath had been anything but friendly toward each other… ever.
“…she was listening,” Lady Lauren hissed from outside the billiards room. Or mayhap it was Lady Ava. With the high whine muffled by the panel, it was nigh impossible to sort out who was who.
In that moment, it was also settled—she chose the enemy within.
Emilia locked the door.
Pressing a finger to her lips, she urged a still motionless Lord Heath to silence.
“…in there,” the other friend said. “Hello?” The impressively bold creature gave the door handle a jiggle.
Even knowing she’d turned that latch, she felt a brief moment of panic. Keeping close to the wall, Emilia inched slowly away from the door.
When it became clear that her hiding space was safe after all, some of the tension went out of her.
“We saw you eavesdropping,” one of the gossips charged from the opposite side of the panel.
Her stomach sank. Bloody hell. They knew it was her. She was rubbish at this subterfuge stuff, after all. It wasn’t her work for the London Post that would be her downfall, but rather, being caught sneaking about.
“I’ll have you know,” Lady Ava schooled, “it is quite bad form listening in on two young women in the midst of a private discussion.”
It took every last shred of restraint she’d mastered over the years to keep from pointing out that private discussions were better off not conducted in a hallway. Regardless, Emilia rather thought she might have too hastily judged that particular gossip. Anyone bold enough to call out a stranger, sight unseen, in a duke’s household had more gumption than she’d credited.
The girl jiggled the handle once more. “Show yourself.”
From the corner of Emilia’s eye, she saw Lord Heath motion to her.
Hurriedly tugging his jacket from the chair resting at the sideboard, Lord Heath pointed in the direction of the door.
Emilia followed the gesture.
For one horrifying moment, she believed he was ordering her to face the women on the other side.
With his right arm partially within the sleeve of his black evening coat, he impatiently jabbed his finger.
She widened her eyes. The French Louis XVI three-fold giltwood floor screen. Collecting her skirts, Emilia darted behind the panels just as one of the gossips tried the door handle again.
Then there was the faint whine of the door being opened. “May I help you?” he asked in cool tones.
A long silence met the query. Emilia’s heart pounded so loud she was certain the two women could hear it.
One of the women broke the silence. “My lord,” Lady Ava whispered with such an obsequiousness in her voice that Emilia rolled her eyes. “We didn’t… We believed…”
“I was listening in on your gossip?” he asked in icy tones.
“No…” the young woman was saying. “We were… That was… mistaken,” she squeaked. “We were mistaken.”
Lord Heath’s impressively frosty inflection must have been passed on from duke to ducal heir. Lord Heath wielded it with the ease of one who’d been born to this world knowing precisely what fate one day awaited him. Had she ever before heard those tones from Connell’s best friend? She wrinkled her brow. For that matter, had she even heard him speak more than a handful of sentences? He’d always been in a haste to be free of her and Connell’s company. Granted, her own friends had been rightfully nauseated by Emilia and her then-betrothed’s fawning.
After a flurry of stammered goodbyes and no doubt deeply dipped curtsies from the women, Lord Heath closed the door and locked it once more, shutting Emilia in with him.
She remained hidden by the folding screen, her book clutched tightly to her chest, long after the pair had gone.
Waiting for an indication that it was safe to emerge from her hiding place.
Craack.
Emilia puzzled her brow.
Why… why… had the gentleman simply just resumed his game?
As if in confirmation of the wonderance, there came another craack.
Why… why… the bounder intended to play his damned game as if she weren’t even there.
At last, after she’d been struggling with her latest column, inspiration struck.
Sinking to her haunches, Emilia opened her journal, and after tucking one of the pencils behind her ear, she began to write.