Page 25 of To Marry and to Meddle
“You did what any daughter would be expected to do,” her mother said thunderously. “You supported your family.”
“My family,” Emily repeated, feeling a wild desire to laugh. She controlled the impulse with some difficulty, but could not quite suppress the ironic twist to her lips, so unlike her usual careful smiles. “My family, who thought only of themselves. My family, who never once thought of whatImight wish, ofmyfuture—”
“Your future was to make a brilliant match for the sake of this family,” her mother said shortly. “As you knew perfectly well, from the moment you made your curtsey before the queen.”
“Who, precisely, do you think would have married me, with no dowry, with Father’s debts unpaid?” Emily asked her mother incredulously. “I was going to spend my entire life squired around on Mr. Cartham’s arm, until perhaps he decided I was worth marrying after all, and Father would have agreed to it, just to solve all of our money troubles! Is that what you’d have preferred?”
“It never would have come to that,” her mother insisted, and Emily gaped at her, unable to comprehend how her mother so wholly failed to understand the situation as it had truly stood. She glanced at her father, who continued to look furtive—all the confirmation Emily required to be certain that this was, in fact, precisely what would have happened. Her mother, however, did not notice this, and added, “This business with Mr. Cartham would have been sorted eventually, andthen you could have gone on to marry a viscount or an earl—done your duty to us! And instead you’ve—”
“Instead, she married me,” Julian said, quietly but quite firmly, his gaze fixed upon her parents with an expression of unmistakable distaste upon his face. “And I’d suggest you not speak to my wife in such a manner again—not if you wish me to help you, as I’ve promised.”
Something within Emily warmed to hear Julian refer to her as his wife in such a proprietary, protective way. She had not fully realized how alone, how unprotected she had felt for so many years, that the sound of someone speaking up on her behalf should be such a novelty.
“I do not think we need discuss this further, at the moment,” she said carefully, something within her already weakening at the sight of her mother’s still-trembling lip. “Papa, I believe you and Julian can see to any financial arrangements at a later date; it has been a long day, and I should like to return home. I will send someone round tomorrow to collect my things.”
“Surely Hollyhock—” her mother began.
“Hollyhock will not be accompanying me to my new household,” Emily said shortly. “I will be hiring new help of my own.” She turned to look at Julian, who was watching her with an expression she could not quite identify. “Shall we?”
“After you,” he said, stepping back to allow her to pass him, and it was with some satisfaction that Emily swept from the room, her husband at her heels, leaving her still-stupefied parents in her wake.
Eight
Speaking one’s mind to one’sparents was most invigorating, Emily was discovering.
“I think I shall cherish the memory of their expressions for the rest of my life,” she said cheerfully that evening as she and Julian lingered over glasses of wine before the fireplace in his bedroom, a small table between them. They’d dinedà deuxon braised ham and an assortment of vegetable dishes, with a platter piled high with pastries for dessert; this had been presented to them by a footman who vanished as quickly as he’d appeared. He, like the rest of the staff, had fought to keep any visible sign of surprise from his face when the master of the house had returned home that evening with a new wife in tow, but Emily had not been fooled—out of the corner of her eye, she had seen Julian’s butler offer an infinitesimal raising of his brow, which, coming from an English butler, was the equivalent of garment-rending and hysterics from anyone else. For her part, Emily was grateful that they had skipped a formal dinner downstairs tonight; the knowledge that she was now mistress of a home was unexpectedly overwhelming, considering that she’d been preparing for this role for years. Now that it was a reality, however, she was finding the prospect a trifle daunting—particularly once she had laid eyes on the home in question.
“But this is so… respectable,” she had said as she’d stepped down from the carriage in front of Julian’s house on Duke Street.
“What were you expecting?” he’d asked, tucking her arm against his side as they ascended the steps to the elegant town house before them. “A den of iniquity? Tucked away down a seedy alley, scarlet curtains on the window, the odd scantily clad woman waiting nearby, ready to be of service?”
“Well,” Emily had said, blinking, “yes.”
Julian had laughed at that, and Emily, in turn, had laughed, too, and then there had been the rush of introductions to the staff, a brief tour of the house—which, while clearly lacking a female touch in terms of its decor, was undoubtedly the house of a gentleman, rather than that of a dissolute rake.
As dinner came to an end, however, Emily was increasingly aware of her own nerves—which were entirely centered on the fact that she and Julian had been married the better part of a week, and had yet to consummate their marriage.
Emily frowned as soon as the thought flitted across her mind. What a ghastly phrase. Diana and Violet had led her to believe that the marital act was quite enjoyable, but it didn’t sound like it when the wordconsummationcame into play. That word instead conjured the impression of the act that her mother had given her—in short, that it was an unpleasant but necessary experience to be borne without complaint, but ideally undertaken as infrequently as possible.
“Why are you frowning?” Julian asked from across the table, where he was reclining slightly in his seat, wineglass in hand, still chuckling over the memory of her parents’ astonished faces.
“I was thinking about the wordconsummate,” Emily said idly, andrelished the moment that followed, in which Julian nearly tipped his chair over backward.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“It’s not a very romantic word,” she continued. “It doesn’t precisely make one wish to fling their clothes off and fall down on the Aubusson rug in a passionate interlude.”
“What, precisely,” Julian asked, setting down his wineglass, “do you know about passionate interludes on Aubusson rugs?”
“Nothing firsthand, of course,” Emily said cheerfully, “but Violet has always been very fond of hers in the library in their house. She says it brings back happy memories.”
Julian let out a sputter of laughter as he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table, and Emily grinned at him.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to stand upon that rug without contemplating what horrors it’s witnessed, if we are ever invited to dinner with them,” he said, rising to his feet and rounding the table toward her, the telltale lines at the corners of his eyes indicating his amusement. “Though, considering the fact that the last time I was inside Violet and Audley’s home was when I was pretending to be a doctor giving Violet a dire prognosis, I’m still not certain Audley wants me under his roof.”
Emily had a sudden, lovely mental image of dinners with Violet and Lord James, Diana and Lord Willingham—of finally getting to experience London the way her friends did, out from beneath the protective, suffocating wing of her mother. What did it matter if hers was not a love match? If it made scenes such as long, lingering dinners with friends possible, she would never for one moment regret her decision to marry Julian Belfry.
“You shouldn’t complain about that scheme,” she said to him lightly. “If Violet hadn’t convinced—”
