Page 54 of If I Loved You
“I don’twantto want you! Why can’t you understand that? And...and it doesn’t matter now. That’s done,” she said, her voice breaking on a renewed sob. “I blame myself, for being weak, for being in—” She stopped suddenly, her gaze frantic, fingers covering her mouth while she silenced another sob. Seeming to both mentally and physically gather herself, she took a step backward and presented squared shoulders and a lifted chin. “You had no right to take away my job. You don’t get to say who my friends might be. You have no right to me, no claim to me. None at all.”
Zach’s eyes widened at the coolness of her tone.
“This was a mistake, but it was my own,” she continued. “Yet it means nothing, do you hear? You do not own me. And I want you gone.”
He lifted his hand in supplication, an imposing mournfulness overwhelming his anger. When he opened his mouth, while he stared, frankly alarmed at such wild hostility from her, as he’d never seen before, he said what he supposed might have been true for some time now, “Emma, I am in love with you.”
A breathless and disbelieving cry was her response. Her lips moved for several seconds before words came. “No,” she said in a weak voice. She began to shake her head now. “You are not. You cannot be.”
“You’re going to tell me how I feel?” He stepped closer.
Emma held up her hand, which stopped him from reaching her. “I’m telling you I do not—would never, actually—believe it. And let us focus on the matter at hand—”
“The matter at hand?” He returned sharply, incredulously. “The matter at hand? Is it not this?” Again, he indicated the bed, “What we’ve just done? Are you supposing I coerced, or—or forced you? Is that why you’re upset?”
Emma jabbed her own finger at the bed, and shouted at him, “I’ve told you it means nothing! The issue here is your high-handedness, and me having reached the end of my rope in all regards to it. I was forced—Bethany and I were forced—to trudge home, the entire two miles, in the dark and in the rain, because you thought you had some right—” she broke off and turned her head toward the side door. Her lips parted while she listened.
Zach’s gaze followed hers, and he, too, heard the soft whimper of Bethany’s cry. Throwing him an accusing glare, Emma rushed into the next room, where he heard her cooing tenderly and consolingly.
Frustrated beyond words, he ran his hands through his hair, and stared at the floor. He understood her anger to some degree. He shouldn’t have acted with such disregard for her desire for that position at Madame Carriere’s. But he’d told her it was a bad idea. He’d made clear all the reasons it would not suit. Whatever his methods, he had only her best interest at heart.
After what they had just shared, how could her rage still be so enormous? Zach was at a loss. For the amazing step forward he’d taken with her tonight, he also knew he’d suffered an impossible setback, taking many huge steps in reverse. It did not completely make sense to him. Not that he’d purposefully used it as a means to hopefully lessen her anger over his part in the loss ofthe damn job, but it seemed to him that their lovemaking should have softened her wrath a bit. She couldn’t possibly and actually mean what she’d said, that what they’d just done meant nothing to her.
He turned, lifted his own weary gaze to her when she reappeared, clutching Bethany to her. He supposed this, now, meant their discussion was at an end. Likely to Emma’s chagrin, Bethany realized his presence and reached her chubby little hands out to him, whimpering still as she called his name. Zach walked toward the pair, intent on soothing her daughter, but Emma shook her head.
“No, darling,” she said, her voice gentled for Bethany, “the earl was just leaving. Say goodbye to him.”
Notgoodnight.
Bethany accepted this, and turned her head, laying it upon Emma’s shoulders, mumbling something, which he guessed was his farewell.
Ignoring Emma’s still wrathful mien, he did approach, and pressed a kiss onto Bethany’s head. “Goodnight, moppet.” Pivoting, his movements angry and brusque, he scooped up his boots and jacket and strode to the door. There, he turned and faced Emma again. “I’ll be gone to London for a while. We’ll talk when I return.”
“There is no need.”
“Nevertheless, we shall,” he said. With his hand on the door handle, he added, “I meant what I said, Emma.” He was keenly aware of the dejected exasperation saturating his tone.
Chapter Sixteen
THREE DAYS LATER, RAINShaving kept Emma and Bethany rather trapped inside the cottage, she was very surprised by a knock at the front door. She stared, rather dumbstruck, at the door, the first time she felt vulnerable, living alone. There was no window close enough to the door to see who might be standing upon the stoop so then she hadn’t any choice but to open the door, if she wished to know who came.
Pulling the door open showed only a young man, his shirt and breeches travel worn, carrying a large leather satchel, strapped over one shoulder and leaning against the opposite hip. He lifted his hand and presented an envelope to her. “From the post, ma’am.”
“A letter?” She said, further compelled to wonder, “For me?”
“If you’re her,” the boy said, pointing to the script on the envelope.
Indeed, her name,Miss Emma Ainsley, was scrawled across the paper, along with her direction.
“I am.” She smiled at him, bemused by this circumstance. She had never received a letter, or anything at all, from the post.
The lad tipped his cap to Emma and left, climbing up onto the nag waiting just outside her little gate.
Closing the door, Emma considered the bold script, and the very happy occurrence of receiving a letter. It dawned on her suddenly that this must be from the Smythes; perhaps they were ready ahead of schedule. She stepped into the front parlor while she carefully slid her finger between the fold of the envelope, loosening the wax seal. Sitting upon a wooden armed side chair,whose upholstered seat had frankly seen better days, she pulled several folded pages from within, and flipped these open.
The same bold script of the envelope was found inside, the strokes sure and neat.
MISS AINSLEY,
