Page 68 of To Marry and to Meddle
“She’s very young—barely twenty, I believe?” Emily said softly, feeling a pang of sadness for the lonely, fearful days she must have experienced before Lord Eastvale appeared. And feeling admiration, too, for a girl who was bold enough to chase happiness, even if it ended up not amounting to anything. That was who she wanted to be, too. Someone who chased her own happiness, no matter the risk.
“Oh, I know,” Julian said. “I don’t blame her. Well,” he amended, “I do blame her—she did run off on me, in the middle of rehearsals for a show that’s going to be the biggest role of her entire career.” He shook his head in exasperation. “But Delacre is a blackguard; she’s hardly the first woman to be taken in by a charming smile.”
“And calves,” Emily said thoughtfully.
“Emily,” he said sternly, then paused, a slight frown wrinkling his brow. “As in, his legs? Or baby cows?”
“His legs,” she clarified. “I could not speak to his livestock holdings.” She sighed. “I do not like the man at all, but I was recently advised to carefully consider a gentleman’s calves, and I could not help but notice that he has very nice ones.”
“I thought the fairer sex was supposed to be above such earthly concerns,” he said, his mouth twitching a bit at the corners. “More interested in a communion of souls.”
“I don’t see why a communion of souls can’t also involve nicely muscled calves,” she said primly, then added, trying to call upon a bit of the inner boldness she’d been cultivating of late, “Yours are very nice, Julian.”
“Emily Turner,” he said mock indignantly.
“Belfry,” she reminded him.
“Emily Belfry, have you beenoglingme?” He put his hands on his hips, and Emily, all in a rush, had a flash of recollection of the feeling of having her own hips gripped firmly by those very hands, in the darkness of their bedroom, nothing but the sound of their own breaths between them.
“It’s rather difficult not to,” she said, perfectly honestly—he was many things, including at times incredibly frustrating, but he was undeniably an extremely handsome man.
“I know the feeling,” he murmured, his intent gaze causing a blush to rise to her cheeks.
“But that is rather beside the point,” she squeaked, taking a hasty step backward and glancing at the door leading to the solarium, where she knew their friends would be eagerly waiting to interrogate her. “You were saying that your father has convinced Miss Simmons to return?”
“Yes,” he said on a sigh, his gaze losing its molten heat, hisexpression suddenly businesslike. “It’s Frannie’s fault, of course—that blasted letter she sent that Robert mentioned. She must have explained the entire situation, not merely our marriage, and apparently my father took it upon himself to intervene.” There was a strange note in his voice that Emily wasn’t entirely able to interpret; it wasn’t quite bitter, nor was it angry, but it wasn’t happy, either. It almost sounded… regretful.
“Julian,” she said hesitantly, wondering if she was badly putting her foot in it, but determined to try anyway, “don’t you think that this is further proof of what your brother was telling you? That your father wants to make amends?”
She wasn’t certain what response she expected from him—men could be so maddeningly difficult to predict, she was learning—but it wasn’t what came: a brief pause, a raised eyebrow, and…
“Perhaps.”
“Are you… agreeing with me?” she asked, taken aback.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, looking amused.
“I just didn’t realize it was possible for a man to realize that his wife had made a reasonable point and concede it promptly, without dragging it out into a dramatic ordeal.”
“That,” he said darkly, “is because your friends set terrible examples.”
“That—” She said indignantly, then paused to consider. “—is actually fair.”
“In any case,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “I will concede that you might have a point.”
“What do you intend to do about it, then?” she asked, the wheels of her mind already turning.
“I don’t know,” he said frankly, his blue eyes serious, the line of his jaw tight—she could practically see the tension and uncertaintyradiating off of him, and, entirely on impulse, she reached out a hand to clutch his.
“You know your parents have returned to town, don’t you?” she asked quietly; she had heard the news that very afternoon from the Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, whom she’d encountered at the circulating library, and who was always a reliable source of gossip.
He gave a jerky nod. “Robert told me.”
“What if we invited them to dinner?” she said, trying to make the words casual, not lace any of her desperate hope into her voice as she spoke. “We can invite my parents too. And our closest friends—it can be a party.”
He gazed at her for a long moment, rubbing the back of her hand in a slow, soothing motion.
Finally, he said, “All right. Why not? If it’s a disaster, well—at least we’ll have a story to laugh about later.”
