Page 18 of Emma & Edmund

Chapter 5

Margaret had not been exaggerating. Nearly the same moment Emma left the bedroom, she would be called to, asked to join conversations, pulled this way and that to retell her story over and over again.

Luckily, the lie she had given Margaret had been close enough to the truth that it hadn't been hard to remember. Some were delighted to hear of an angel healer in the woods, while others inquired about her wellbeing. It was true the headache never truly abated, but it was easy to forget about with such constant distraction.

“There's my darling sister!" Jonathan even managed to show his face at one point, stumbling out of the billiards room with a cloud of cigar smoke wafting out behind him.

"Desperately concerned, I see," Emma shot back, her smile tightening as she embraced her brother.

"Oh, I knew you would show back up. The butler told us not to worry, so I didn't." The suppressed roll of the eyes had her temples pounding all over again.

Even with her brother's predictable flippancy, she couldn't deny the evening was thrilling.

She commanded the room, and her will was the priority. When her glass needed refilling, it happened immediately. When the conversation lulled, another partygoer would arrive to ask Emma to tell her tale all over again.

And when it was time for bed, her eyelids heavy with a day well lived, she fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

???

Glittering chandeliers dropped from the vaulted ceiling of the Belmont ballroom. Flaming candles highlighted the hundreds of roses strung up in garland throughout the room, casting pink, white, and red curtains down the long walls, parting only to frame the massive familial artwork. If she had bothered to look for more than a moment, Emma might have been surprised to see a new, familiar character featured in the paintings.

Instead, she was far too busy twirling around the dance floor. She did not recognize the dance, but her feet knew every step, her arms knew each position. Although the music ran at a tempo far faster than anything she could have danced to normally, a gleeful smile commanded her cheeks as her hands switched from partner to partner, the faces of those she danced with blurry and unfocused.

Until she was dancing with no one at all.

Like a wild pagan, Emma's head tilted back as she twirled and spun and stepped alone. Colors and people swirled around her, music dulled against the wind in her ears.

When two large hands came to grip her waist, just above the flair of her hips, she thought nothing of it. Instead, Emma leaned into the body behind her with abandon, allowing her head to roll back onto the solid chest of the larger man holding her. As the music swelled, they resumed the dance, swaying out of rhythm.

Far from the scandalous shame she should have felt, the taste of freedom coated her tongue.

"Emma," a husky whisper pressed into her ear. The voice made her name sound sweet, rolling around his tongue like the most delicious candy. Prying open eyes she hadn't even realized had closed, it almost wasn't a surprise to find the beastly form of Lord Edmund Lockhart holding her.

What other hands could encompass her so entirely, what other person's voice could fill that register so smoothly?

And when he dipped to her level and covered her lips with his, only warmth bloomed at the phantom pressure. No shocked gasps reached across the crowd; no tittering gossip began. It was almost as if they were invisible, lost in the cacophony of other bodies.

Emma, on the other hand, was soaring. Her feet barely felt like they were touching the ground, fire poured through her veins. Wrapped in the feeling of his kiss, the world fell away.

It truly wasn't much more than a press of skin against skin, but she could feel the softness as clear as day, felt where the hard tusks pressed into her cheeks, where his thumbs played small circles through the thick fabric of her gown.

Just as she thought she couldn't feel more elated, Edmund brushed a thick tongue across her lips.

With a strangled cry, Emma bolted awake, panting against the memory of her dream.

"Emma, what is it?" Margaret mumbled, sleep still captivating her, eyes barely opening. The other bed stirred, but if Grace roused, there was no indication.

"It's nothing, go back to sleep." It wasn't difficult to convince her bedmate, Margaret was snoring before Emma had truly even finished speaking. Emma longed to join her, to rid herself of the dream with a new, perfectly innocuous one. She been optimistic for such, laying her head on her pillow and closing her eyes, waiting for sleep to claim her.

Her skin burned with the memory of the improper touch; her lips tingled no matter how hard she tried to ignore them. It was most definitely a dream, it had to be, but the imprint left on her was undeniable.

Delayed shame washed over her, cursing her dream self for just about everything under the sun. Or the moon, as the case may be.

It had been a week since she met Edmund, with the days lazily slipping by, leaving plenty of time for her mind to play tricks on her. Why now?

Worst of all, whyhim? Emma groaned, burying her face in her hands. The house was quite literally swarming with eligible men that she could have a wayward fantasy about, why did her fallible mind drum up the single most unbecoming being she had ever met?

Was he truly, though?Her traitorous thoughts asked. Lord Lockhart had been nothing but kind and courteous, clean and well-dressed. Edmund had been no less than the perfect gentleman.

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