Chapter 20

In all her planning and convincing her husband, Emily managed to forget, right up until she was preparing to go to the first ball since her marriage, one very important thing.

She hated Society events.

Well, she allowed as a whisper of movement alerted her to her husband's presence in his bedchamber, perhaps hated was strong. Her husband really hated Society events.

He'd clearly been trying for her sake. When she'd mentioned that she planned to chaperone her sisters that evening, he'd offered to accompany her, despite the expression on his face saying that he'd rather eat his own hat. She'd taken pity on him.

"Let me see what's happening before I drag you into it," she'd said soothingly as he tried not to look drastically relieved. "Then we can strategize how to quash gossip without you having to attend too many of these evenings."

"If you're sure, dear," said his mouth. Thank you forever, said his eyes.

Now, hearing him move in his bedchamber while she sat at her vanity, fretting that she would never have enough hairpins to keep her coiffure steady, she regretted that decision. She'd much rather have him with her that evening—or, even better, stay home here with him.

When he caught her watching him through the open doorway, he paused and smiled.

"You look beautiful," he complimented, lounging in the doorway.

They'd taken to leaving the door between their bedchambers open, something that had scandalized Emily's maid speechless when she'd first seen it. It was only practical, though, Emily reasoned, for all that it was unconventional. They slept together nightly in Benedict's chambers, but Emily's things were still in this room.

"Thank you," she said, forcing herself to drop her hands despite the temptation to endlessly fuss with her curls. "Though I think you're a bit premature. I'm only half dressed. I know it's only been a few weeks, but somehow it feels like a lifetime since I've worn a proper ballgown." She gestured down at where she wore her dressing gown over her chemise.

Benedict's gaze turned thoughtful, assessing. "You're nervous," he observed.

She shrugged one shoulder. It was foolish, certainly. She was a married woman now. And, yes, there would no doubt be some measure of gossip, given what her father was apparently up to, but there had been gossip before her marriage, too, and she'd survived.

It wasn't, she realized with a start, that she was uncommonly nervous for a Society event. It was, instead, that she'd been uncommonly relaxed in her new home, so the difference was just starker than usual. That made for strange thoughts, piled one atop the other, that she had been uncomfortable in her father's house for all those years and that she no longer felt that stress here.

The idea was all the more remarkable considering that Priscilla had not warmed in the slightest to Emily over the last several days. She'd kept her comments to herself, apparently heeding Benedict's threat of expulsion from the house. She had not contained, however, the disapproving sniffs she gave whenever she and Emily happened to cross paths. Emily had pointedly not reacted, even as the sniffs had gotten louder and louder.

And if she got a childish thrill out of knowing that her nonreaction was driving the Dowager mad…well, Emily felt she could be forgiven this lapse.

"I might be slightly nervous," she allowed.

"You could stay home," he suggested, sounding entirely too hopeful at the idea, coming up behind her to lay his hands on her shoulders.

Reaching backward, she swatted lightly at his fingers. "I could not," she scolded. "I promised my sisters."

He leaned down to speak close to her ear. "But I am so very good at distracting you from your nerves when you're here," he purred.

She didn't know what made her shiver more, the sensation of his breath against her cheek or the promise in his words.

It didn't matter, she reminded herself, because she was going out.

"You are not as tempting as you believe yourself to be," she lied.

He laughed and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "You can't blame a man for trying."

She smiled at him through the mirror. "No, I suppose not." Then she sighed. "I really should keep getting dressed, though. I haven't much time left, and donning one of those dratted gowns takes an age."

Her gaze wandered over to a nearby armchair, her corset draped across it and waiting. Benedict followed her look.

And then he got a very, very intriguing look in his eyes.

"Do you know what I think, my dear wife?" he asked, sliding his hands down from her shoulders all the way to her wrists. The movement brought his front to nestle firmly against her back, his arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace.

After so many subsequent days and nights of lovemaking, Emily's body was primed to respond instantly to this kind of binding embrace.

"What's what?" she asked, instantly breathless. Lord, he had better not ask her again to skip that evening's ball. This time, she was liable to agree. Her poor sisters would be furious.

"I think," he murmured, trailing featherlight kisses up from her ear, "that it is my duty as your husband to help you get dressed for a night out. Don't you agree?"

Emily wasn't sure what he meant with this offer; as far as she knew, the proper way to don a ballgown was not the standard part of an earl's education. But she knew with even greater certainty that she would have agreed to anything her husband suggested in that tone of voice.

"Quite," she agreed, her voice coming out breathless. She met his gaze in the mirror and had a wild flash of certainty that he could see more than her reflection revealed. That, somehow, he could see into the depths of her, into parts of her soul that perhaps even she did not fully comprehend.

Though that was foolishness, certainly, she chided herself.

Benedict gave her wrists one firm squeeze before releasing them, leaving behind ghosts of his touch even as he crossed and grasped her waiting corset. She eyed him with bemused expectation.

"On your feet," he guided gently as he returned to her. When she was standing steadily, he whisked away her chair, so she was standing in front of the mirror with no barrier between them.

He plucked at the sleeve of her dressing gown. "Remove this, darling," he urged.

Emily could not have disobeyed if she tried. She let the heavy fabric drop until it pooled at her feet.

Emily had been naked before her husband scores of times by this point. He'd seen her in all manner of ways that made her blush if she dared to think of them too long. And he'd praised every inch of her, even the ones she felt reasonably certain could not be nearly as lovely as he claimed.

Somehow, however, she felt utterly revealed standing before him in her thin chemise. Something about the way the fabric scarcely revealed the jut of her nipples as they hardened under his gaze, the way it only hinted at the shadowy space between her legs—this made Emily feel more exposed than simple nudity might have done.

The feeling made her blush though not in an unpleasant way. The hungry look in her husband's face only made this sensation increase.

"Damn," he murmured, ghosting a hand down her side, not quite touching her but nevertheless leaving gooseflesh in his wake. "You are divine, my darling."

Then he shook himself, as if remembering his purpose, and hefted the unlaced stays in his hands.

"I am meant to be helping you, not admiring your beauty. Lift your arms for me, if you please."

She obeyed, and he pulled the corset into place around her.

"Can you hold it in place?" he asked.

"Yes, but—" she paused, adjusting the fit. "Yes. There."

There was no need for quiet, but her voice had dropped instinctively into a whisper, one that quickly shifted into a soft moan when Benedict began, with surprising acumen, to lace her corset strings.

Emily, like any proper young lady, had been wearing stays since her adolescence. They were not typically her favorite item of clothing; even when fitted and worn correctly, they were not particularly comfortable.

But this, now, was unlike anything she'd experienced before. No, that wasn't quite true—this was quite like when Benedict bound her to their bed, safe and open and laid out before him. Her body did not seem to care that he was lacing her into her clothes instead of taking her out of them.

Benedict's fingers paused. "Not too tight?" he asked.

She shook her head, not daring to risk her voice in response. She feared it would come out in a terrible whine of desire.

Yet her husband seemed to understand her perfectly. Now that the lacing had begun, and the stays would stay in place without her constant attention, he reached up and guided her hands to the edge of her dressing table. It was, Emily realized with a flash, an inverse of the way he'd positioned her that day in her family's drawing room, the movement bending her forward instead of back.

Her breath hitched as he pressed a lingering, hot kiss to the back of her neck. "Watch yourself," he commanded.

It was a herculean effort to raise her head. But Emily did so, watching her reflection as Benedict, with painstaking movements, laced her stays around her.

The more he tied, however, the laces rasping through the eyelets with quiet hisses that brushed along Emily's every nerve, the more the image before her shifted. After all, this woman before her, with eyes bright with longing, cheeks bright with pleasure—this woman was lovely. She couldn't be Emily, could she? And how could that tower of a man, straight backed and somber even as his breaths grew more labored, fighting the weight of his own desire—how could this man truly be hers?

By the time he tied off the laces, she was struggling to breathe, not because he'd tied her too tightly but because she knew she'd be feeling his hands on her all night long, even when half of Mayfair separated them. She felt brave, light as a feather, and utterly safe.

Not to mention hideously aroused. It would be an exercise in temperance, behaving normally all evening instead of rushing home and into her husband's arms.

With hands on her waist, Benedict guided her to standing. "All right?" he asked, mouth near her ear.

"Yes," she gasped, not even bothering to hide how drunk with pleasure she felt. "I feel—thank you, Benedict."

Despite her stumbling words, he clearly understood her. It was so utterly bizarre how he always seemed to understand the core of her. She didn't understand how it was possible, given how frequently they butted heads, yet it remained undeniable.

"Always," he said, the words a promise.

As a timid knock announced the arrival of Emily's maid, Benedict released her waist, stepping back. She felt his absence far less than she might have otherwise, not with the way the remnants of his touch clung so tightly to her ribs.

"Oh!" her maid said, struggling to hide her surprise. "You've your stays on already, My Lady. Right." Benedict was quietly retreating to his own bedchamber. "Shall we help you into your gown, then?"

Emily drew her attention away from her husband. "Yes," she said, trying not to sound utterly distracted. "Yes, let's."

It was perhaps another half hour before Emily was ready to leave, her gown fixed in place, her jewelry polished to a shine, her coiffure triple checked against escaping curls. She took in a deep breath, taking comfort in the way her chest expanded against the boning of her corset, then stood.

"Ready to go?"

Her husband's words nearly made her jump out of her skin.

There Benedict stood in the doorway, perfectly dressed for an evening out.

Emily frowned. "I thought you were staying in tonight."

Benedict scowled back, but there was no heat in it. "A man can change his mind, can't he? Do come along, Emily, we shouldn't want to be late." And, without waiting for her response, he headed for the door.

Emily bit back a smile as she followed meekly behind. Very well, she would permit him his pride. But she knew—and suspected he did, as well—the real reason why he had suddenly taken an interest in the haut ton this evening.

Benedict supposed he could admit that he was having a marginally less awful time than he'd anticipated. He might have attributed this comparative enjoyment to his lack of a headache or the fact that he'd been given carte blanche to scowl irritably at any wagging tongues.

But the truth, he had to admit, was that he was just happy being with Emily.

He'd never imagined the difference between attending Society events before and after his marriage because he'd never imagined deigning to attend another Society event once he was wed. But there was a surprisingly pleasant difference between seeking eligible young women upon whom he intended to pin all his hopes for the future and watching the woman who was his actual future diffuse the cloud of gossip with seeming effortlessness.

"Oh, my poor Papa," Emily laughed to an elderly matron wearing a truly heinous piece of headwear. "I think he is merely struggling to adjust to the reality of having one of his daughters wed. Mothers prepare for such things, you know, but fathers…" She trailed off suggestively.

The woman chuckled indulgently. "So it is, so it is, my dear. Why when my own Lord Bowdoin—who was quite the stern fellow indeed—walked our eldest daughter to the altar, he very nearly shed a tear! Gentlemen can be most trying, can they not?"

Emily pressed a hand to her chest. "You shan't catch me out, Lady Bowdoin; agreeing with you now would make it seem as though I am anything less than delighted with my own matrimonial state. But I will confirm that fathers can be trying; will that satisfy?"

At this, Lady Bowdoin glanced over at Benedict, the many feathers in her headpiece bobbing furiously as she took him in.

"Yes, dear girl, I can see why you might wish to make that distinction."

Emily deftly turned the conversation to the woman's children and from there to various other topics that concerned Benedict not a whit.

"She's terribly talented at all that, isn't she?" A voice at his elbow drew Benedict's attention to his new sister by marriage. Amanda, wearing a more thoughtful smile than he was accustomed to seeing from her, watched her elder sister. "At managing others, I mean."

Benedict frowned. "She is dispelling gossip to preserve you and your sister's reputations," he reminded the younger woman. "At your request, I might add."

Amanda looked up, first in surprise, then in chagrin. "Yes—of course. I didn't mean it as an insult, you see. I find…" She sighed. "I find myself with a new appreciation for Emmy's way of doing things."

Benedict was reasonably sure that he was meant to ask further questions about what she meant. Should he be offering…some sort of brotherly advice? He was pretty sure, given his history of saying the precise wrong things to his wife, that he'd muck that one up right quick.

"Is that so?" he offered cautiously.

Amanda's lips quirked, the motion oddly reminiscent of her sister, as if she knew what he was doing.

It seemed impossible to Benedict that, not long ago, he'd considered this woman a viable candidate for marriage. Oh, yes, he knew that technically she was—such was the role of debutantes and all that. But even now, when she was acting with more maturity than he'd before experienced from her, she seemed so terribly young.

"It is so," she said pertly, "since you seem so terribly interested in knowing."

He couldn't help but chuckle. She would have made a highly inappropriate wife for him, that much was now evident, but he could not at all say he regretted having Amanda Rutley as a sister.

"Though you may also be fascinated to hear that I did not actually approach to seek your counsel; I have come to talk to Emmy."

"Blessings upon you," he said with feeling as she grinned.

"Talk to Emmy about what?" This was Emily, who had disentangled herself from the dreadful hat and its chatty owner.

As her sister appeared, Amanda let her grin drop into a dramatic pout.

"Rose has a suitor," she said in the same tone that one might use to announce a painful and untreatable illness.

It fascinated Benedict to realize that, though her expression scarcely changed, he could practically read Emily's thoughts in her eyes. As she drew in a breath, he saw her desire to intervene. When she blew it briefly out again, he recognized her holding herself in check against any hasty action. And when she drew back her shoulders, it was to gather the fortitude to discuss this reasonably (always a fraught concept with Amanda) with her sister.

"Right," she said shortly. "Well, Amanda, you do realize that is the whole purpose of this?" She waved a hand at the swirling ball behind her.

Amanda's pout intensified.

"But she really likes him!" Amanda made this, too, sound like a hideous fate.

He struggled not to smile as Emily practically twitched, clearly desperate to demand details.

"Again," she said, measured, "you do recognize that this is positive, yes?"

Amanda crossed her arms sourly, and Benedict quickly sought out several of his most irritating Parliamentary opponents to stop himself from laughing.

"I suppose," Amanda said with extreme reluctance. Then, in a much smaller voice, she added, "But what if Rosie leaves, too?"

"Oh, darling." Emily's sigh was laden with love as she stepped forward to hook arms with her sister. "Even if she does marry this suitor of hers, Rosie won't be leaving you. And I haven't left you, either." She squeezed the younger girl closer. "I'm right here. And even if Rose decamps to live in—oh, I don't know—the hinterlands of Scotland, we shall visit and write and love her perfectly well from afar."

As if she were much younger than her actual years, Amanda leaned over and laid her head on Emily's shoulder briefly.

"I know," she said, sounding more accepting this time around. "I just wanted you both with me to do all the fun things of being out. Dancing, flirting, that sort of thing. Now, you're married already, and Rosie is just such a sweetheart that no doubt she'll be snapped up next, and then I'll have to have fun all on my own—which is no fun at all, really."

When Benedict glanced back towards the sisters, he saw Emily looking straight at him, mirth in her gaze. It was nice, he decided, being the one she looked to when sharing a private joke.

"Well, my dear girl, I am three and twenty," Emily reminded Amanda. "I'm not sure you can call it ‘already' when I was half on the shelf."

"No, you weren't," objected Benedict and Amanda in unison. This time, it was the younger sister who shot him an amused, conspiratorial glance, and he found he liked that, too. Who knew that family could be a boon rather than merely a millstone around one's neck?

"And," Emily went on as if they hadn't spoken, "neither Rose nor I was ever going to go in much for flirting."

Thank the saints and all the martyrs, Benedict thought pleasantly, feeling smugly superior to all the idiot men that had been stupid enough to overlook his Emily.

"No, I guess not," Amanda agreed, lifting her head until she stood upright again. "The two of you are dreadfully boring in that way."

"Thanks ever so," Emily said dryly.

"And it's not as though Rose would disappear." Now it was Amanda's turn to act like her sister hadn't spoken. To an only son like Benedict, it was like a trip to the menagerie, watching how the siblings had, over their lives, affected one another. "The gentleman is a Londoner, I believe. A Mr. Lionel Cartwright?"

"Oh," Benedict said, surprised to find himself with something to contribute. "I know him. Fine fellow. A bit on the old side for Rose—thirty, perhaps? But shy and retiring more than anything else, not the kind of man who has spent his bachelor years gadding about."

"Yes," Emily agreed thoughtfully. "I have danced with him several times over the years. He'd make a good fit for Rose as far as I know."

Benedict retracted his compliments. Cartwright was a louse who should have kept his grubby fingers far away from Benedict's wife. Any logic that might have suggested that Emily had not been his wife at the time declined to make itself known.

"They did have quite a lot to say to one another about books," Amanda said without enthusiasm. Then she perked up. "Although, if Rosie marries him, then she probably won't make me talk about books quite so much anymore."

Emily lost her battle with laughter. "Yes, as you see, there's a silver lining to all things."

Amanda nodded smartly, clearly satisfied with this turn of events.

Even with his limited knowledge of the younger woman, Benedict might have expected her to flit off at this point. Amanda was not so much unkind as easily distractable; she was always seeking something new and engaging for her clearly clever mind to turn over and over. Instead, however, she took a half step sideways, so she was pressed more closely against Emily.

"We miss you at home, Emmy," she said quietly. Benedict turned his gaze to look out over the room, offering the sisters a modicum of privacy. "I know I've complained dreadfully over the years about how you hovered over us, but, well…I suppose now that it's gone, I miss it just a bit."

"Oh, sweet—" Emily began, but Amanda gently interrupted her.

"Shush, Emmy, let me finish. I am being terribly mature; don't ruin it." Emily chuckled quietly. "As I was saying, it's much less fun without you home, and though I'm dreadfully happy for you and all that other guff, I miss you lots. You were the best mother I could have asked for. And I forgive you for all the times you were even more boring than you needed to be."

When it was clear Amanda was finished, Emily pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

"Thank you, my darling girl. I love you very much, you know."

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Of course, I love you, too, you goose. Don't be maudlin. Oh! I have also decided that I'm not going to miss you any longer. I am simply going to visit all the time. You'll be positively sick of me."

"Never," Emily promised.

"What about him?" Amanda prodded. Benedict took this as his sign.

"Certainly not," he said. "You shall always be welcome."

The grin he got from his sister by marriage was fleeting, but the beaming smile he received from his wife did not fade, not even after her sister had left on the arm of her next dance partner.

He could feel the happiness practically coming off his wife in waves as she stepped up beside him, looping her arm in his.

"She said they missed me," she said in a happy whisper. He was fairly certain she was talking to herself, but he didn't mind that, either. He liked being part of her private sphere.

"Of course, they do," he said simply. "How could they not?"

"And she said she loved me," Emily said boastfully, this time speaking more directly to him.

How could they not? He almost asked the question again, but the words died on his lips. He feared it would reveal too much, would awaken something he wished to let slumber.

Fortunately, Emily was too lost in her familial triumph to catch the way he'd clumsily cut himself off.

"She did call me boring," she went on with a laugh, "but then, I'd have to fear she was an imposter merely posing as Amanda if she hadn't." Her expression changed as she caught sight of someone. "Drat. There's Mrs. Marchmain. She's eyeing us with a great deal of intrigue. Quick, look as though you are positively enamored of me."

Benedict bent his head down to do as she'd asked, even as he feared that his face had already been showing such an emotion, quite of its own accord.