Page 29 of His Tempting Duchess

He sat beside me earlier. Not that it meant anything.

To her horror, the lump in her throat was making tears prick her eyes. She swallowed again, trying to compose herself, but composure had never come easily to her. Or to Daphne, but Daphne generally had to fight down tides of anger, whereas Emily often found herself battling tears.

Her mother and her sisters were not paying attention. Anna had wandered off and was deep in conversation with the rest. Nobody seemed to notice or care what the duke was doing.

Abruptly, the duke got to his feet, the conversation between him and the baroness growing a little more heated. Emily was mesmerized, unable to look away. At last, the conversation seemed to end, drifting away to an amicable resolution. And then the baroness nodded in her direction, and the duke followed her gaze.

Before Emily could do the sensible thing of pretending to be looking elsewhere, she found herself caught. The duke’s gaze bored into her, his eyes languid and amused. Swallowing thickly, she pointedly glanced away. The ballroom was blurring, however, and none of the conversations made sense.

“Mama,” she whispered, tugging at her mother’s sleeve. “Mama, I feel a little too hot. I might go to the library down the hall and rest for a moment. I’ll find a book. Beatrice won’t mind.”

“As you like, dear,” Octavia responded, looking a little concerned. “Are you well?”

“Quite well, just hot and tired.”

“Hm. Don’t be long.”

“I won’t,” Emily lied.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the duke was once again wrapped up in conversation with the baroness. This was her opportunity, then. She turned and dived into the crowd, pushing her way across the ballroom and towards the yawning darkness of the hallway beyond.

It was much cooler out in the hallway, and much quieter, too. There were footmen posted at intervals, most of them smothering yawns. She passed a few other guests, too. There was a portly gentleman slumbering in a chair, a girl with a swollen ankle and tears on her cheeks, and a gaggle of young women pinning up the hair of another woman whose curls had come down and hung around her shoulders. They barely looked up as Emily walked by, pins bristling from their mouths like hedgehogs.

The hallway encircled the ballroom entirely and branched off in various directions to the rest of the lower floors of the house.

Emily had been to Beatrice’s home long enough to know where she was going. She took a narrow turn and found herself in a low, wallpapered corridor, with closed doors set at intervals. The final door was the one that opened up onto the library.

It was dark inside the library, with only a few candles set here and there for illumination. It was not expected that guests would venture this far into their hosts’ home. There were card rooms and quiet rooms for those who needed them, and alcoves set directly off the ballroom.

Those rooms were never entirely private, of course. A lady who found herself alone with a man—intentionally or otherwise—would find herself ruined the next morning, regardless of what had happened, or whether there was an entire ballroom of people on the other side of a curtain. Reputations, as Emily knew all too well, were paper-thin and fragile.

Her own reputation, of course, was in tatters. She had been invited tonight only because it was Beatrice’s party. A great many of her former friends had pretended not to see her, or cut her entirely. Aside from the duke and his polite cousin, nobody had asked her to dance. The implication was clear—she was not forgiven. No man would risk marrying a woman who had jilted another man at the altar.

No, it was worse than that. She had sent hertwin sisterto wed him in her place. It was beyond humiliating.

Swallowing back her misery, Emily stepped into the library and closed the door behind her.

You don’t have to think about this tonight.

Picking up a candlestick, she brought it over to the books on the shelf. She was looking for one title in particular, one Anna had recommended to her. Surely Beatrice would?—

Aha!

Brightening, Emily carefully plucked the book off the shelf. Setting the candle aside, she eyed her prize.

Frankenstein.

It was a short, sharp title, a little aggressive, and rather menacing. Anna had said that the story had the London book clubs in a chokehold, and critics were infuriated by the book. Well, there could be no better recommendation for a story, could there be?

The author had, of course, stayed anonymous. Anna and Beatrice were convinced that the author was a woman, but apparently, modern critics laughed at that idea. The story, they said, was so horrifying that no woman could have conjured it up. Intriguing, to be sure. Sir Walter Scott, apparently, adored the book.

Carrying the candlestick and the book over to a low sofa beside a long table, Emily prepared to settle down and spend the rest of the evening reading. However, she was barely able to open the cover before a floorboard creaked outside the door. She was on her feet in an instant.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, trying to sound outraged.

The door clicked open, and an all too familiar figure stepped over the threshold, eyebrows quizzically raised at her. Her shoulders sagged.

“Oh, it’s you, Your Grace,” she muttered.

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