Page 65 of If I Loved You
Fiona made a sound; Emma couldn’t say if it were a gasp or a sigh.
The earl went on, “I cancelled your employment with the modiste because I thought it too dangerous, and unnecessary. True I should have gone about it differently. Christ, this list is getting on to be shamefully long,” he acknowledged with a twitch of his lips, to which Mr. Smythe and Callum nodded, with some commiseration.
Mr. Smythe interjected idly, “Makes a man wonder what you might have done right by the girl.”
Several nods followed this speculation.
“Oh, surely, many things,” Mrs. Smythe cooed. “Wrote her some lovely letters, he did, which she’s likely read a hundred times by now, always grinning like a silly fool when Langdon came with the notes. Set her up nice in this house,” she added, nodding to accent her words, “could’ve just tossed the money at her and sent her on her way.”
Langdon inserted, “Didn’t have to give me the fine work up at the big house, but mayhap only did so to please her, I always thought. Lent us the fine rig and nag. We’d probably, all of us, have to save for a year just to buy the horse.”
Zach was grinning outright now, pleased by the unexpected support.
Emma remained expressionless, even as her breathing had quickened while her heart raced.
“But I meant what I said, then and now. I am in love with you.”
This time Fiona, and Mrs. Smythe as well, clearly made sounds of blissful sighs.
She accepted all this with a thoughtful nod, absorbing it slowly. “Do you realize, or admit, that you are high-handed and autocratic, sometimes unreasonably so?”
“I do not like this spoon,” Bethany said to no one in particular. Langdon replaced it with his own, which Bethany then handed to Zachary.
The earl took the spoon and set it on the table. When Bethany then lifted her arms, Zach pushed his chair out a bit and took Bethany into his lap.
When his compelling gaze met Emma’s again, she detected a hint of a smile therein.
“I do. Do you, likewise, admit that you are stubborn—at times purposefully and irrationally so—and unwilling to accept that in some areas I might actually know a thing or two more than you?”
“That may be true,” she acknowledged. “Occasionally.”
Callum snorted next to her, trying without success to control his chuckle over this.
“So now,” said the earl, “I’ve several times told you that I am in love with you, and just today I asked you to marry me—”
This summarizing was interrupted by Langdon’s hoot of surprise and Mr. Smythe’s quietly given, “Well, I’ll be damned.” Mrs. Smythe and Fiona sighed again, the older woman clasping her hands to her bosom.
“—and you’ve yet to respond appropriately—certainly not favorably—to either of these,” the earl finished.
“Oh, why not, dear?” Mrs. Smythe asked sadly, her hands falling away from her breast, listlessly onto her lap.
Emma only briefly considered other eyes, fixed on her with varying degrees of disbelief and question before she met Zachary’s tender and confident gaze. Emma realized that he knew he would triumph, even as she knew she must finish it properly.
She needed to tell him all, admit her foolishness. She was nervous still, likely wouldn’t be cured of that until he took her in his arms.
“Of course, I have been in love with you for quite some time.”
Fiona clapped her hands together, a faint whimper of joy escaping.
Biting her lip, Emma considered what else he should be told. “I am sorry that I believed not your words, but those of a nasty old woman. I was afraid, of course, as you so astutely guessed. And I should like to marry you, if you are still agreeable, even if it means that one day you will break my heart.”
“Should’ve led with that negative, not finished with it, I’m thinking,” Callum said, finally entering the dialogue. When Emma turned a good frown on him for his critique, he shrugged. “Just saying.”
Zachary Benedict stood with Bethany in his arms, and said, “Here are many witnesses who can hold me accountable to this vow: I will never break your heart.”
“He won’t, I’m sure,” concurred Mrs. Smythe.
“He better not,” Callum cautioned.
