Chapter 8

"It's going to be fine," Emily insisted to her sisters with more calm than she felt.

"I really don't think it's going to be fine," Rose fretted.

Unsurprisingly, it had taken no time at all for the twins to learn of what Emily was calling, in the privacy of her own mind, the incident.

"It's going to be fine," Emily reiterated for what had to be the dozenth time that morning already. The three sisters were seated around the breakfast table, having all arrived at an hour far earlier than their usual repast. Emily had come down early because she'd been plagued by restless dreams of firm hands clutching at her and steadying weights pressing down upon her, only to be unceremoniously snatched away as she bolted into wakefulness.

Rose had evidently come down early because she was worried.

Amanda had come down for the sole purpose, it seemed, of delighting in the entire situation.

If Emily had worried that Amanda might be upset over Emily being caught in a compromising position with the Earl, such effort had apparently been wasted. It had taken Emily only a few minutes, the night prior, to break away from the scandal erupting around her and press through the crowd to find her sisters. If the Earl of Moore had called after her, she'd resolutely ignored him.

Emily only had her own two legs to carry her, however, and even those were shaky from the earl's kis—from the incident. Gossip had wings.

By the time she found the twins, they clearly already knew what Emily had just been up to. Rose looked stricken. Amanda could barely contain her laughter.

Rose had, to Emily's undying gratitude, taken Emily's side over Amanda's in the short, tense carriage ride home, urging her twin not to bother their elder sister with probing questions about what had really happened. Amanda's forbearance had been for one night only, it seemed, as she'd arrived to breakfast with a gleam in her eyes.

"It simply doesn't seem fine," Rose insisted. "I mean…you've been compromised, Emily. Surely someone has to do something."

"Nobody is going to do anything," Emily soothed. "There will be gossip, and it will be unpleasant. We will withstand it. That is all."

"Yes, Rosie, don't be so stodgy," Amanda scolded absently. "We should be pleased that Emmy has finally done something exciting for once. Tell us, Em, how was it? Leave out no detail."

Rose looked like she was about to faint.

"It was ill advised," Emily said firmly.

"Spoilsport," Amanda complained, slumping into her chair with a pout.

"It will be fine—" Emily directed this part of her comment at Rose. "—but we shouldn't dwell on it or make more of the matter than is necessary." This part was for Amanda.

"But your reputation, Emmy!" Rose explained, exasperation tinging her concern like she couldn't quite understand how she was the only one to see the problem with the prior evening's events.

"You're probably right that nobody is going to want to marry me after this," Emily said kindly to her sister, who was gnawing at her lip. "But nobody wanted to marry me before this, either. I am rather on the shelf; this just confirms things a bit."

Emily dabbed smartly at her mouth with her napkin, determined to put an end to this whole debacle. The sooner things went back to normal, the better.

"Besides, it's all for the best," she said decisively. "The Earl had it in his head to marry Amanda?—"

"He what?" Amanda yelped, sounding horrified.

"—something that Amanda clearly did not intend," Emily continued with a pointed look at her sister, who was muttering furiously under her breath about "innocent flirting" and "having a nice time" and "stupid gentlemen and their stupid ideas."

Emily decided to leave Amanda to work through that matter herself and turned, once again, to Rose.

"This might not have been the tidiest conclusion to the matter, but it is quite final. I highly doubt any of us will ever see the Earl of Moore again."

Rose was just opening her mouth, no doubt to argue further, when a knock in the doorframe drew their attention. A footman stood in the doorway, a look of polite apology for the interruption on his face.

"Excuse me, miss," he said, "but the Earl of Moore is here to see you."

Amanda yelped and shot to her feet. "No!" she exclaimed. "I'm not in. I'm not ever in. Tell him I died—no, that won't work. Tell him I've become a nun—no, drat, that's bad, too?—"

The footman cleared his throat in the gentlest interruption.

"Here to see Miss Emily," he clarified.

"Oh good," Amanda said with a sigh. Emily shot her sister a betrayed look which did not affect Amanda in the least. "Better you than me," she said with an unrepentant shrug. Then she piled three pieces of toast together, buttered side in, and made for the rear door to the breakfast room. "Still, I'm going to make myself scarce, lest that lunatic see me and get any bright ideas about matrimony. Good luck, Emmy!"

And then she was gone, the disloyal little thing.

Rose, at least, stayed though she did look on the verge of being sick.

Emily wondered if she, too, could claim to have joined a convent. She was not particularly religious, but surely a life of feigned piety was better than having to face the man who had made her…feel…things.

Before she could calculate her likelihood of escape, however, the Earl of Moore appeared directly in the doorway because he was precisely the sort of man that did discourteous things like wandering about someone else's home uninvited or kissing someone until they made embarrassing sounds.

His glower, Emily couldn't help but notice, was exceptionally pronounced this morning. She declined to think any other thoughts about his face, mouth, or overall person.

"Very well," she said with a sigh. "Good morning, My Lord. As you can see, we are at breakfast. Would you care to join us?"

The Earl looked as astonished as if she'd asked him to join him in a light spot of murder. This felt a bit much, even if Emily allowed that it was somewhat irregular to ask a near stranger—and no matter what they'd done the night before, she refused to think of him as an intimate—to the breakfast table.

But she was tired, hungry, and sullenly opposed to making concessions for a man who really should have been anywhere but at Drowton House this morning.

The Earl shot a glance at Rose, who was pointedly looking at her plate as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

"I'd prefer to stand," he said.

Emily shrugged. He really was being most absurd. Didn't he know that the best way to make gossip continue was to feed it? She'd never had a scandal of her own before, but even she knew that. Given the Earl's, er, colorful mother, he should have realized that the best course of action was to stay away from her.

The Earl, apparently unimpressed with this response, cleared his throat pointedly.

"Miss Rutley," he said emphatically.

Emily set down her piece of toast. She wouldn't be able to enjoy it with him grumbling at her, not even if it was coated with a generous helping of her favorite orange marmalade.

"Yes, My Lord?" she asked, managing to hide most of her exasperation.

He did not even try to hide his exasperation.

"Could you please pay attention, Miss Rutley?" he asked hotly. "I am trying to ask for your hand!"

Rose squeaked.

"Good God, why?" Emily asked.

The Earl looked at her as though she was being purposefully obtuse which—oh, all right, fair enough. But she hadn't meant why was he asking as much as why would he think that a reasonable solution to this conundrum.

"Because it's the right thing to do!" he exclaimed.

"Ugh," said Emily.

The Earl looked a bit like he was choking on his own tongue…or perhaps like he would like to choke some sense into Emily. When he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth.

"I compromised you," he said, sounding as though it hurt him.

"So?" Emily asked.

This proved more than the Earl could take, apparently.

"So!" he burst out, throwing his hands up in the air. "So? So, Miss Rutley, when a gentleman compromises a lady, he marries her unless he is no gentleman at all. I cannot fathom why you are pushing me to explain this. You know this. You know nobody else will wish to marry you with this scandal hanging over your head."

Emily did know that nobody else would wish to marry her—with or without the scandal, frankly. She'd just been saying as much to her sisters. Still, she felt it impolite for the Earl to point it out.

"You needn't trouble yourself," she said with a sniff that she hoped sounded prim, rather than wounded. "I had no intention of marrying anyone else."

"Correct," said the Earl sharply, "because you are marrying me."

"No," Emily said, just as sharply, "I am not."

"Yes, you are."

Except this time, it wasn't the Earl who had spoken.

It was Emily's father.

Clayton Rutley, Lord Drowton, made only rare appearances in his daughters' lives for all that he lived in the same house with them. He had, Emily always assumed, never recovered from his wife's death. Though he was forever consumed with matters of business, finances, and status, she had a few memories of him being playful, of laughing, in those years before her mother's death.

In the years since, Emily could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen her father smile—and this was always directed at her. The twins, born the day their mother had died, were never graced with his approval.

Part of Emily hated him for that, even as part of her clung to hope that he would somehow, someday, treat all his daughters with love and care.

No matter how much Emily normally resented his absence from their lives, however, she wished he had not chosen this moment to make a reappearance.

The Earl recovered more quickly from the shock of the Viscount's appearance. Emily noted that Rose had vanished; had she fetched their father? Traitor.

"Lord Drowton," the Earl said with a polite incline of his head. Emily wanted to smack him. He was never polite like that with her, but now, he planned to use manners to sway her father. Blasted man! "I'm so glad you have joined us. Perhaps you could entreat your daughter to see reason?"

"I certainly shall," the Viscount said, nodding smartly at the Earl and not even looking at Emily.

Men! Lord, but they were completely wretched, the lot of them! Even halfway decent ones like Diana's husband had clearly been planted as a scheme to better the perception of the whole of their cursed sex.

"But Papa—" Emily began. Her father cut her off with a sharp shake of his head.

"You have," he said gravely, "spent the last several Seasons in search of a husband, have you not, Emily?"

His fixed gaze warned that she should not dare attempt to lie.

"Yes, Papa," she admitted, "but?—"

He cut her off again.

"And I am to understand from your sister's hysterical explanation that there was some manner of scandal that occurred?"

It really was a shame that Emily was going to have to murder Rose.

"It really wasn't—" she tried, but this time the Earl interrupted her.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," he said, somehow managing to sound both firm and apologetic.

"And now the man is here to do the right thing and request your hand?" the Viscount continued, eyes fixed on his daughter.

She didn't bother answering. Clearly this conversation did not actually require her participation, and if one more man interrupted her, she was going to start screaming and never, ever stop.

Indeed, the Earl proved quick enough with a response. "Yes, My Lord. It would be my honor—" How he managed that with a straight face, Emily would never know. "—to ask your daughter to be my wife."

"She accepts," said the Viscount promptly.

"I do not," Emily interjected, and this time she was not so much interrupted as ignored entirely.

"Come to my study," the Viscount instructed, no longer even pretending to involve Emily. "And we shall sort out the details."

"Papa!" Emily tried again. She had to. She just had to.

Naturally, it had no effect.

Or, rather, it had no effect on her father. The Earl, on the other hand, took only one step in the direction the Viscount indicated before pausing.

"I would prefer, My Lord," he said in that imperious tone of his that brooked no argument, "if Miss Rutley were present for this conversation."

Lord Drowton looked faintly confounded by this, as if the Earl had asked for something baffling but ultimately harmless, like he had asked to show the portrait gallery to his pet rabbit.

"Yes, very well," he said impatiently. "Come along, Emily."

Emily considered protesting—it was the principle of the thing, really—but decided to save her protests for the really important matters. She would give in to this command to join them; it was harmless enough.

She would stand firm, however, on the things that mattered.

She would not end this meeting engaged to the Earl.