Page 15 of Crying Wolfe
Rosaline cupped his cheek, one still not capable of producing a full beard even at seven and twenty. His lot wasn’t much better than hers.
They’d both be consigned to loveless marriages.
Good lord. She was going to have ahusband. She was going to have to—to do what husbands and wives did.
She prepared to cringe with revulsion, but it wasn’t as forthcoming as expected.
“Emmett…” she ventured, drawing little whorls into Nova’s long, wispy coat with a fidgeting fingertip. “Do you find Mr. Wolfe handsome?”
His head snapped up and his brows drew together in approbation. “Don’t ask me such cruel questions, Ros.”
“I’m not meaning to be cruel. I just…” She leaned closer, pressing her forehead to his. “We could whisper about it if you wish. I don’t mind that you are—who you are.”
“What I am, you mean?” He winced as if to cringe away from himself, turning from her.
“No.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “Whoyou are… I think that who one loves is part of who one is.”
His throat bobbed with a difficult swallow, then another, his eyes never leaving the brawling kittens as he said, “I wish I could tear that part of me out. That I could be who everyone expects me to be.”
She cupped his jaw and let the moisture gathering in her lashes fall down her hot cheek. “I wish you didn’t have to.”
“None of that,” he crooned, extracting a handkerchief from his shirtsleeves to wipe at her tears. “Heishandsome, your Mr. Wolfe.” Emmett breathed the words like a gentle confession. “I…I liked the way his eyes creased at the corners, and the exaggerated shape of his jaw. He has a rather—I don’t know—vital way about him, does he not? Strong and um—well, he’s the sort that would be capable in a crisis now, wouldn’t he?”
“I suppose you’re right,” she agreed, the vise around her ribs loosening one notch. “Not as good a shot as Morley, I’m thankful to note.”
That summoned a wry smile to her brother’s lips. “I’m glad, too; I couldn’t imagine carrying on without you.” Instantly, he sobered. “Did you take something from him, Ros?”
She gulped in air once. Then again. Wringing her hands in her lap. “I-I…did.”
“Oh, Rosaline.”
“It was only this.” She rushed to where she’d shoved her treasures beneath the fluffy blankets in the kitten basket and extracted the odd half of a goblet. “You should have seen the mountain of treasure spread throughout the observatory. I didn’t think it’d be missed.”
“Still, you should return it.”
Rosaline couldn’t look up from the cup clutched in her clammy, frigid fingers. She couldn’t face the pitying censure she knew filled his gaze. Her voice was unidentifiable as she pulled it from the rotting grave of her undying shame. “I know.”
“What made you do it this time?” Emmett’s voice was gentle as it was long-suffering. “Was it Lady Brackenfeld? She’s been a rather terrible houseguest.”
Rosaline nodded, knowing her tolerant siblings didn’t understand her dreadful tendency any more than she did. “I—I hate that she’s going to be part of the family. I hate that she’s unkind and domineering to you. She reminds me of mother.”
“I can’t say that comparison hasn’t crossed my mind,” he muttered.
“At least you and your wife will have that to commiserate over… Poor Lucy.”
“Poor Lucy in so many ways.” Emmett reached down for the calico kitten who seemed unable to climb the coverlet as her more enterprising siblings had. Kissing her downy head he confessed, “I’ll never be able to love her.”
“I’ll never be able to love Mr. Wolfe. Eli…” Her husband’s name was going to be Eli.
Elijah Wolfe.
Mrs. Rosaline Wolfe.
“You could try, you know.”
She looked over at him, aghast. “Emmett, what are you saying?”
His shoulder lifted. “It’s not the worst thing I can imagine, having a man built like that to stand between you and the rest of the world.”
