Page 74 of Bound By her Earl

“Ready to go?”

Her husband’s words nearly made her jump out of her skin.

There Benedict stood in the doorway, perfectly dressed for an evening out.

Emily frowned. “I thought you were staying in tonight.”

Benedict scowled back, but there was no heat in it. “A man can change his mind, can’t he? Do come along, Emily, we shouldn’t want to be late.” And, without waiting for her response, he headed for the door.

Emily bit back a smile as she followed meekly behind. Very well, she would permit him his pride. But she knew—and suspected he did, as well—the real reason why he had suddenly taken an interest in thehaut tonthis evening.

Benedict supposed he could admit that he was having amarginallyless awful time than he’d anticipated. He might have attributed this comparative enjoyment to his lack of a headache or the fact that he’d been givencarte blancheto scowl irritably at any wagging tongues.

But the truth, he had to admit, was that he was just happy being with Emily.

He’d never imagined the difference between attending Society events before and after his marriage because he’d never imagined deigning to attend another Society event once he was wed. But there was a surprisingly pleasant difference between seeking eligible young women upon whom he intended to pin all his hopes for the future and watching the woman who was his actual future diffuse the cloud of gossip with seeming effortlessness.

“Oh, my poor Papa,” Emily laughed to an elderly matron wearing a truly heinous piece of headwear. “I think he is merely struggling to adjust to the reality of having one of his daughters wed. Mothers prepare for such things, you know, but fathers…” She trailed off suggestively.

The woman chuckled indulgently. “So it is, so itis, my dear. Why when my own Lord Bowdoin—who was quite the stern fellow indeed—walked our eldest daughter to the altar, he very nearly shed a tear! Gentlemen can bemosttrying, can they not?”

Emily pressed a hand to her chest. “You shan’t catch me out, Lady Bowdoin; agreeing with you now would make it seem as though I am anything less than delighted with my own matrimonial state. But I will confirm thatfatherscan be trying; will that satisfy?”

At this, Lady Bowdoin glanced over at Benedict, the many feathers in her headpiece bobbing furiously as she took him in.

“Yes, dear girl, I can see why you might wish to make that distinction.”

Emily deftly turned the conversation to the woman’s children and from there to various other topics that concerned Benedict not a whit.

“She’s terribly talented at all that, isn’t she?” A voice at his elbow drew Benedict’s attention to his new sister by marriage. Amanda, wearing a more thoughtful smile than he was accustomed to seeing from her, watched her elder sister. “At managing others, I mean.”

Benedict frowned. “She is dispelling gossip to preserve you and your sister’s reputations,” he reminded the younger woman. “At your request, I might add.”

Amanda looked up, first in surprise, then in chagrin. “Yes—of course. I didn’t mean it as an insult, you see. I find…” She sighed. “I find myself with a new appreciation for Emmy’s way of doing things.”

Benedict was reasonably sure that he was meant to ask further questions about what she meant. Should he be offering…some sort of brotherly advice? He was pretty sure, given his history of saying the precise wrong things to his wife, that he’d muck that one up right quick.

“Is that so?” he offered cautiously.

Amanda’s lips quirked, the motion oddly reminiscent of her sister, as if she knew what he was doing.

It seemed impossible to Benedict that, not long ago, he’d considered this woman a viable candidate for marriage. Oh, yes, he knew that technically she was—such was the role of debutantes and all that. But even now, when she was acting with more maturity than he’d before experienced from her, she seemed so terriblyyoung.

“It is so,” she said pertly, “since you seem so terribly interested in knowing.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. She would have made a highly inappropriate wife for him, that much was now evident, but he could not at all say he regretted having Amanda Rutley as a sister.

“Though you may also be fascinated to hear that I did not actually approach to seek your counsel; I have come to talk to Emmy.”

“Blessings upon you,” he said with feeling as she grinned.

“Talk to Emmy about what?” This was Emily, who had disentangled herself from the dreadful hat and its chatty owner.

As her sister appeared, Amanda let her grin drop into a dramatic pout.

“Rose has asuitor,” she said in the same tone that one might use to announce a painful and untreatable illness.

It fascinated Benedict to realize that, though her expression scarcely changed, he could practically read Emily’s thoughts in her eyes. As she drew in a breath, he saw her desire to intervene. When she blew it briefly out again, he recognized her holding herself in check against any hasty action. And when she drew back her shoulders, it was to gather the fortitude to discuss this reasonably (always a fraught concept with Amanda) with her sister.

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