Chapter Seventeen

"BUT MY DEAR," SAID Mrs. Conklin, giving Emma that familiar frown that tipped her head downward, highlighting her disagreement, "you must glass the fruit if you care to preserve it properly."

"But I haven't enough glass jars, Mrs. Conklin, and the Smythes and I wondered what other vessel might be employed."

The housekeeper was shaking her head even before Emma had finished her statement. "'Tis no other that will do. Now we've spares, to be sure. But you'd be needing to return on the morrow, as I couldn't put my hands on them right at this moment."

"You are very kind, Mrs. Conklin," Emma assured her, "but I cannot continue to forage and gather right here at Benedict House. Yet Perry Green doesn't seem to stock or sell them that I can find. I only wondered what else might substitute."

"You fret too much, my dear," said Mrs. Conklin. "We've plenty to share and when you do eventually locate some for purchase, you'll return the borrowed ones."

"You are too good to me." Emma kissed the old woman's cheek and said she must be on her way. "But you won't forget about dinner Sunday, will you, Mrs. Conklin? We're very excited to have you and Mr. Thurman as our guests. Mama Smythe will dazzle you with her pike with the pudding in the belly."

The housekeeper's eyes lit up. "Oh, we'll be there. Looking forward to an evening of ease and fine company. "

Emma waved and left the kitchens, trotting up the steps to the main floor, coming into the foyer just as Thurman was pulling open the door.

Lady Marston was welcomed into Benedict House, which saw Emma frozen just near the grand staircase, so stunned was she by the woman's presence. Emma would not have said the woman showed an equal surprise to find her here.

"Just the person I was looking for," Lady M intoned, removing her gloves and flapping the pair into Thurman's hands. "We'll take tea, for two, in the drawing room, if you please, Thurman."

Recovering, Emma gave a quick and mediocre curtsy. "Pardon me, my lady, but I'm not dressed for tea, and must get back to the—"

"Nonsense. I just sat uncomfortably in an ancient carriage for more than an hour. You can spare twenty minutes."

Ignoring then both Emma and the butler, who lifted his brows to Emma, though showed no exact emotion, Lady M mounted the stairs, using both the cane and the bannister to see her further up the steps.

Her shoulders fell, but she could not refuse, and so Emma followed the lady and joined her in Benedict House's impressive drawing room. She glanced down at the thick Aubusson carpet, where the earl had entertained Bethany. Or had it been the other way around?

Lady M sat nearly at the edge of one of the more-pretty-than-comfortable side chairs and Emma took the other. Hoping she wouldn't be delayed too long, she swept the hat from her head, laying the pretty, wide-brimmed article on the arm of her chair .

"I cannot imagine why you should have sought me out," Emma said, when the lady only stared at her with that familiar, not entirely enjoyed, pinched look about her lips.

Lady M did not squander any more words than necessary. "I hear you've met, on more than one occasion, with Hadlee."

"I have," Emma answered, exhibiting some hesitation. Was this woman, like her godson, about to tell her whom she may or may not befriend?

"About some confounded letters, I am to understand."

"Yes." As Lady M's tone was indicative of her mood, and her tone was prickly, Emma would leave off giving more than asked, having no idea why the subject should concern her.

The Lady's thinning brows bent further over her sharp eyes, possibly unappreciative of Emma's short replies.

"Did he mention me?"

This confounded Emma yet more, certainly as the query was attended by so hesitant a voice, something Emma was sure not many could claim to have heard. "Um, he said only that you were acquainted with Caralyn Withers, but...but that you hadn't any idea where she might have gone."

"So, it's true?" She said, stamping her cane onto the floor. "They were love letters."

Still unaware of why this should bother the lady, Emma could only nod. She wasn't comfortable sharing George Fiske's story with Lady M.

"And that's all he ever said about me?"

Emma nodded. "I don't understand—pardon me, my lady, but I'm not sure what you're looking for, or why George Fiske's letters to Caralyn should be of interest to you?" Even as she believed she'd recognized some affection for George Fiske from Lady M when she'd observed their brief encounter at the ball, she couldn't imagine why the woman had driven an hour to put these vague questions to her.

Drawing a deep breath, which lifted both her shoulders and her chin, Lady M announced, "I was in love with him myself." She set her cane aside, leaning it on the side of the chair, and retrieved a handkerchief from some unseen pockets in her voluminous gray skirts.

Emma admitted, "I gathered as much," which returned the frown to the matron's face, prompting Emma to explain, "I saw your reaction to him at the ball."

"You are very clever, indeed."

"But...but what do you want to know?" Emma persisted.

"I wondered if he truly did love her."

"He did," this, without hesitation, having read those letters, having borne witness to George Fiske's grief over the loss of his Caralyn. "This still doesn't answer why—"

Lady M cut her off, her voice thin as she murmured, "I won't take it to my grave. I cannot. It has eaten me alive for forty years."

It was a calamitous prelude, uttered with such anguish as to beg from Emma, "What did you do?"

The gray crepe of the veil that hung down over her hat swayed on her drooped shoulders. "I told her—Caralyn—that he loved me. I told her we'd been...intimate, that she was only a toy to him—"

"That was not true!" Emma argued, instantly outraged.

Lady M tossed her head back, worrying the handkerchief in her hands. "No," she fairly hissed "it was not." And then her black eyes misted, and her chin quivered. "I was right there," she whispered brokenly, "right in front of his eyes. He never saw me. And I was so in love with him."

"But you had taken up with Lord Marston."

The hankie waved in front of her face. "I did that to make him jealous, when I thought I was losing him to her. My God, he never noticed. He couldn't care less. He saw only her." And then, with some disgust, "She was naught but a servant."

Emma sat back, gaping at the old, suddenly very frail woman. It was indefensible, what she had done. Emma could feel no sympathy for her.

Seemingly of a need to exorcise the entire circumstance from her memory, Lady M continued, "I told Caralyn he'd been only amusing himself, that she and Marston meant nothing, was just a little game we played before we settled down. She was... distraught. Lindsey's mother, believing my lies as well—though I think later she might have suspected—helped me find Caralyn a position with some family—Baron Grantham, if I recall. He was the ambassador to Spain. We sent her there. I—I never heard from her again, not until just a few years ago, when I happened upon news of her death. She'd stayed in Spain, had married I believe. Lived there for thirty years."

Emma's lips twisted while her hands fisted. She felt a rage engulf her, for what this selfish woman had done. It occurred to her that mayhap the woman had come today seeking a certain acquittal of her crimes. "I'm glad to hear it has given you no rest. I hope it never does."

Lady M glanced sharply at Emma, but then quickly melted with renewed weakness. "You are right. I don't deserve it."

"If this were my house, I would kick you out," Emma said, her voice tight. "As it is— "

"Miss Ainsley!"

Emma jumped and turned to face the door, finding the earl standing there.

She squared her shoulders against his clearly displeased expression.

Her breath caught, two calamitous events in one day nearly unraveling her—the matron's unforgiveable folly and now the return of Zachary. If she'd questioned at all if she'd missed him, if she'd wondered if she might have become starved for only a glimpse of him, if she'd forgotten how impossibly handsome he was, all these things were resolved just now, at the sight of him. The air was thick with outrage and sorrow, but Emma found herself irrationally, inopportunely pondering if any circumstance in their lives would see her running to him, throwing herself happily in his arms after so long an absence.

He strode across the room, stood beside Lady M, his brow furrowed in such a way that at one time would have alarmed her.

"Apologize at once, Miss Ainsley. We cannot have Lady Marston believing you to be—"

Emma gave Lady M a humorless smirk. "I do not care what she thinks of me. And as I cannot have her removed, I shall take my leave." She swiped her hat off the floor, where it had fallen, and left the room.

"Miss Ainsley!" The earl called after her. "Emma!"

Emma left the drawing room and ran down the stairs, sailing through the door that Thurman pulled open for her.

A fine day for a walk, she decided, with little other choice, and marched across the drive and onto the lane. She plopped the hat upon her head and tied the strings under her chin .

She'd not thought he'd have chased after her. She thought he'd not leave Lady M unattended. But he did. She heard him call her name, heard his boots tearing up the gravel of the drive.

"Emma!"

She continued walking.

He yanked on her arm from behind, spinning her around.

"What has gotten into you? Whatever would possess you to alienate and infuriate Lady—"

Emma shoved at his chest, used both hands to push him back, bringing him to a jaw-gaping standstill.

"What has gotten into me? Me? I'll tell you what has gotten into me. The bloody nobility! In your fine homes with your fine manners and your rules about everything, and not one of you have any idea how to practice a little human decency, or—do you know what that woman did?"

At his blank stare, she informed him, "She is the reason George Fiske and Caralyn Withers are not together. She lied, to both of them, had Caralyn sent away, because she, herself, was in love with George and couldn't imagine that he could possibly be in love with a servant."

"But that was years ago—"

"She ruined the lives of two people!" Emma raged. "Who cares if it were yesterday or a hundred years ago? She's awful, looking down her nose at me, telling me that you would never lower yourself to marry a chambermaid. Give me ten chambermaids, I'll bet they're each and every one of them a better human being than her."

"Emma, calm yourself. Let's put this into perspective."

Emma stared at him. He didn't get it, either. "Oh, you're a fine one to talk. You're as bad as she! Running around, thinking everything rightfully belongs to you, having no care for all those left weeping in your wake when you're done with them. But you'll wind up alone and lonely, just like George Fiske. At least he tried. He didn't let so absurd a notion as class distinctions imperil his heart. But for her—" she thrust her hand back toward Benedict House, "—he would have been happy rather than miserable, all these years." A wave of grief overtook her, the complete impact of Leticia Marston's vindictive betrayal crashing around her. That poor man, believing all these years that Caralyn had never loved him, having married another whom he could never love, having born that idiot of a son. All because Lady M wanted it her way, thought she was more deserving than a lowly servant. Emma began to sob. How could that woman live with herself? "She's so rotten," she murmured through her tears.

Zachary reached out a hand, mayhap meant to be soothing.

Emma slapped it away. Anger overran her tears. "Get away from me." She began walking again, stomping actually, swiping angrily at her tears.

He caught up with her once more. Perhaps fearful any touch might be rebuffed harshly again, he came around in front of her, and stopped suddenly. Emma was forced then to stop as well, lest she crash into him. She stepped left, and he did, too. Giving him a warning look, her lips curled with the height of her anger, she delivered through clenched teeth, "Let me pass."

"Marry me."

Emma went completely still, her startled gaze fixed on his face, seeing nothing but her own amazement. She ignored him, and whatever that was meant to be, and tried again to move around him. He shifted accordingly.

"Let me by," she ground out slower, with more force .

"Marry me," he demanded again, his own tenor rising.

Planting her hands on her hips, she faced him, squinting up at him, "Why? So you can prove you are above your lot, that you are a better person than you actually are? Show the poor, pitiful Miss Ainsley that you're just a regular bloke so she'll let you...plow her again?" The most disbelieving jolt overtook his features. She had never seen his eyes so huge. Her use of plow might have been the cause, she supposed. She ignored this, keeping her anger close. "Pardon my disbelief, my sincere doubtfulness. Now, move."

"Marry me," he insisted again, recovering himself. "Because I love you. Because I want you. Because you belong to me."

Admittedly, this weakened her. Weren't they just the words every girl dreamed of hearing one day from the man they loved? Certainly in that tone. Truly, he must practice this often to hit that very sincere note so adeptly.

"Because I don't want to be George Fiske," he continued, "pining away for forty years. I can't...not love you."

Luckily, the mention of George Fiske compelled further resentment.

"Very pretty, my lord."

"You are in love with me as well," he accused with a growl. "I know you are. I know you wouldn't have made love with me, if you were not."

Emma ignored the emphasis attached to his words. She ignored the fact that he was right; she was insanely and irrationally in love with him. Yet, she staunchly refused to consider even the possibility that he might be genuine .

He was just like Lady M. They only wanted their way. They expected it, with little regard to the consequences. He would only break her heart. He wasn't sincere. He just couldn't be.

He'll say he will, or would, wed with you, of course; that's part of the game.

"You are afraid, and I get it. Your sister, Caralyn Withers, George Fiske, your very own heart. But Emma, I promise you, I—"

"Good day, my lord." She finally stepped around him, fairly concerned the pain in her chest might be fatal.

He allowed her to walk away from him.

IT WAS INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT that evening to pretend nothing at all troubled her. Yet, she had no choice, seated at the dining room table, surrounded by all her friends, their usual merriment in stark contrast to the hollowness of her heart. But she smiled, even if she did not participate so freely in the conversation, her mind overtaken still with the events of the day. Naturally, her altercation with the earl led the charge across her mind. She certainly hadn't dismissed Lady M's confession, but to some degree, the earl had been right: it was years ago, too late to fix it now. She could do naught but write to George Fiske, at least give him this news, finally cure his heart of the pain of unrequited love. She only prayed that anger, which most certainly must accompany the receipt of such bitter news, would not then prey upon him.

But the earl... .

"You're frightfully quiet this evening, miss."

Emma glanced up, instinctively widening her false smile as she looked to her left at Callum MacKenzie.

"Apologies, Callum," she said, laying her hand over his, but only briefly. She glanced next to him, where sat his new love, Miss Fiona Gall, who, ironically, had recently found employment at Madam Carriere's, and who had quite obviously stolen Callum's big heart. "And to you, Fiona. We are thrilled to have you join us, do not let my wandering mind tell you otherwise."

"Been quiet since she returned from the big house," said Mr. Smythe, at the head of the table. He lifted a worried brow to her. He was so much softer and lovelier since he'd come to the Daisies. She absolutely adored him.

Shaking off her melancholy, which had proved debilitating for most of the afternoon, she said, "Mrs. Conklin insists we can only use glass jars, and when I told her we were unable to find any in Perry Green, she said of course that I must return tomorrow and collect whatever spares she might find by then."

"Then we'll start the picking right away," Mr. Smythe decided, enlivened.

"But what do you think about the grocer's notion of adding cinnamon to the apples?" Mrs. Smythe, seated next to her husband, wondered.

"My mum doesn't do aught with her apples, but with cinnamon," Fiona mentioned, her heavy Irish accent the prettiest thing Emma was sure she'd ever heard. Her lovely green eyes and how clearly besotted she was with Callum only added to her beauty.

"I don't think I've ever had cinnamon," Langdon admitted, taking peas off his plate—the ones Bethany had deposited there—and returning them to the child's plate. This was a nightly occurrence, for which darling Langdon showed infinite patience. No one, not one person, could cajole Bethany to eat her vegetables as Langdon eventually did, every night.

"I say we try it, maybe in half the stock?" Emma suggested.

The room went silent. Emma followed the direction of their unnerved gazes and found Zachary Benedict standing at the door to the dining room. She wouldn't have said his expression brimmed with disfavor, perhaps only showed a bafflement to match the faces of her friends.

Bethany broke the prolonged silence with a shrill but happy cry of, "Zach'ry!"

"Hello, moppet," he said, and a smile came readily to him then.

With his words, everyone at the table, as one, jumped to their feet. Save for Emma, who drew a weary breath before she stood as well. While the men bowed their heads to the earl and the women bobbed brief and nervous curtsies, Emma faced the earl, showing him no such deference.

"My lord, I wasn't expecting you. You have caught us in the middle of dinner, en famille ," she said, with some emphasis, lest he think to instruct her on how she should go about managing her own home.

She was surprised by Bethany, who must have scooted from her chair, dashing between them to throw herself at Zachary. His smile grew, scooping Bethany into his arms. She could think whatever she liked about the earl, but she could not deny his sublime pleasure at seeing Bethany again. He hugged her tight and kissed her rosy cheeks several times. "I've missed you, Bethany."

"Missed you," Bethany parroted .

"Oh, but you must join us, milord," cooed Mrs. Smythe, likely swayed by the earl's unmistakable fondness for one of her favorite persons.

It was inconceivable, of course, to think that the earl would accept, more baffling indeed, than Mrs. Smythe's inexplicable invitation.

Apparently, this was to be a day chock full of surprising turns.

"Would it be too much trouble?" The earl asked, while Emma stared now with steadfast concentration at Bethany, and not at him.

Mrs. Smythe tittered happily and dashed into the kitchen.

Zachary stepped around Emma and returned Bethany to her seat, taking a moment to marvel over the smaller seat upon the dining room chair, which Langdon had fashioned so that she needn't sit upon stacks of books.

Emma turned back to the table, stood near her own chair.

"That's some fine craftsmanship," the earl was saying, before moving Bethany's chair forward a bit.

He shook Langdon's hand and then further shocked Emma by reaching his hand across the table to Callum. "Good to see you again, Mr. MacKenzie." If Callum were surprised by this, he gave no indication, stretching his hand under the chandelier to meet with the earl's.

"Likewise," he said evenly, and then recalled, "This is Fiona. Fiona, this is Lord Lindsey."

"Oh, gracious," squeaked Fiona, and then giggled as she curtsied again.

Mrs. Smythe returned to the dining room, setting a place beside Langdon, and near her husband at the end of the table. The earl moved to where she set him up and struck his hand at the old innkeep. "Mr. Smythe, Emma tells me you're making great progress out in the orchard."

Not many things surprised old Mr. Smythe, but this clearly did. His eyes lit up, and then came a rare merriment about his face, shown so beautifully in his jowly grin. He slapped his hand into the earl's, pumping enthusiastically, before proclaiming, "I am indeed. Emma said I've you to thank for the fine beginning. Oh, but you've got to see the fruit that's come!" Emma had never seen the man so animated in all the years she'd known him.

"I should like that," said the earl.

Soon, everyone was seated again, save for Mrs. Smythe, who still scurried around, adding glassware, and another utensil and finally a steaming plate of her lamb stew to the setting before the earl.

And all was quiet, the housemates and regular guests seemingly struck dumb by the earl's presence. He appeared unperturbed, or pretended ignorance of this, lifting his gaze, scanning the table, inquiring of Fiona if that linen covered basket contained bread.

Fiona, having no history with the man, this being her first dinner at the Daisies as well, nodded eagerly and passed the basket to him.

Zachary lifted the linen, his brows rising happily at the steam that rushed out, and said to Langdon, "Do you have formal training as a carpenter? Those seams are well-joined and the entire chair itself, so smooth."

The lad blushed a bit at this fine praise. "No, milord. My da worked wood before he died, is all I know. Guess I recall a few things he might have taught me. "

These few words put the table, and the dinner, back to rights. Mr. Smythe joined in that discussion with the earl and the lad. Mrs. Smythe engaged Fiona, next to her, with some question about a frock she had seen in the window at the modiste's, while Callum said in a low voice to Emma, who had quite a time of it trying to keep her gaze off Zachary, "You said, not one week ago, how pleased you were that all your favorite people were gathered ‘round your table. Would it be true still if you said those words now?"

Emma turned sharply to her friend, showing him a pathetic unease. No part of her imagined that his Fiona had anything to do with his very pointed query. To Callum, it was easy to give the truth. She nodded, silent, willing to give up nothing else.

"Shame then, that you look so outrageously miserable." Callum made a face, wrinkling his brow and twisting his lips, all without harshness. "If I were you, I wouldn't want ever to regret that I hadn't at least tried."

She didn't bother to pretend that she knew not of what he spoke. "I am frightened," she whispered, thinking she might not have admitted as much to many other people.

"But that man is sitting here, rather without fear. It's not too his liking, but he'll do it, probably a hundred times more if you ask, for you."

Primly, she said, still keeping her voice low, "It's all for show, I'm sure."

"Might be, but the point is, he's doing it. You think an earl wants to dine with us? He doesn't, trust me."

Emma felt compelled to confess, "I think it's beyond repair at this point. "

Callum shook his head. "He's here, so that cannot be true. But let's find out." He straightened, pulling away from Emma, and called across the table, "Hey Lindsey, you ever get to fishing in that big lake of yours?"

The earl did not even blink at Callum's nearly rude address, only shrugged his broad shoulders and answered, "Not as often as I'd like. But I've been assured there's good brown trout, and plenty of eels. Feel free to test it out."

"I might, at that. Care to join me?" Callum persisted.

"Sure. Let me know when. I'm home for the remainder of the year."

Callum smiled, first at the earl, and then at Emma. When Mr. Smythe brought Zachary back to their conversation about the orchard, Callum said to Emma, "There, now you know. I've got a bloody fishing date with an earl, but at least you've got your answer."

Emma swallowed, digesting this, everything. She didn't think he'd come specifically to sit down to dinner with persons so far below him in class to prove a point to her. He couldn't have known he'd have found them here. She'd been an absolute harridan on the last two occasions that they'd met, and yet here he was. He had, by now, said that he loved her and that he desired to marry her. She'd be a fool to at least not investigate the possibility that he might be telling the truth.

He won't marry you. He cannot marry you .

But as she learned so depressingly today, Lady M liked to tell lies when she deemed a certain part of a pair unacceptable.

With her hands flat on the table, one on each side of her plate, she closed her eyes. She felt as if her mind could not yet sort and analyze and assess everything that she did know to be true.

Emma lifted her gaze, found the earl watching her, even as conversation continued around them. His gray eyes, made golden by the candles burning overhead, warmed her with the serenity of his gaze.

Mayhap, the only thing that was important was that she loved him.

"I don't want to be Caralyn Withers."

The table fell silent.

Emma's attention was fixed with such constancy on Zach, that she didn't think she misread the ever-so-slight quirk of his lips.

"What's that, dear?" Inquired Mrs. Smythe.

Fiona, bless her and curse her, offered, "She said she doesn't want to be someone named Caralyn Withers."

"Is that the miss who sells the oysters on High Street?" Asked Mr. Smythe, with a furrowed brow, trying to place the name.

"No, that's Mary Mac-something or other," recalled Mrs. Smythe. "Remember the grocer told us about the accident she'd had, something to do with a saw and rowboat? Made no sense to me, but there she is, limping along the lane to the lake."

Zachary grinned at Emma. She wasn't there yet, could not respond in kind.

"Do you want to take this somewhere private?"

Emma shook her head, panicked. She could not be alone with him, not for so weighty and decisive a conversation. She didn't trust herself. My God, if he kissed her, even touched her at all, she might find herself upon her knees, begging him to just keep pretending that he loved her, that she could live with that.

"I apologize for my most recent unseemly behavior," she said to him, from one end of the table to the far corner of the other. "On the last two occasions that we'd met."

The quality of her expression and tone, both being rather severe, might have been what quieted everyone else.

"After some consideration," the earl returned, his voice level and sure, while all eyes turned toward him, "your reaction this afternoon seems to have been warranted, the cause of it so damnably intolerable. Regarding the first incident of which you speak, I will allow that the circumstances were unprecedented, neither of us having been in that exact position ever, not once, in all our lives."

Five sets of eyes swiveled toward Emma. Bethany was picking the remaining potatoes out of the stew with her fingers and putting the pieces on Zachary's plate.

It took Emma a moment to understand, to deduce that he meant because it had been her introduction to sex, and his first declaration of love.

"I don't want to be Caralyn Withers," she repeated, and explained, "acting and reacting on the probably false words of another."

Here, his mouth did tighten marginally. "Might I inquire what probable falsehoods you were given?"

She summarized, "I was told that you only toyed with me, that your career would prohibit you from wedding me. Yet, I was informed that you would say that you would like to marry me, as that was part of the game you played. "

The dinner guests turned their rapt gazes to the earl, awaiting his rebuttal.

"That sounds frightfully familiar to words I compelled from another earlier today, after you and I had parted, so I needn't ask from whom they came. Do you believe them still?"

"I don't... want to believe them."

In her periphery, Emma thought she saw Mr. Smythe lift a finger, as if he'd like to contribute to the discussion. Mayhap he had a question. Mrs. Smythe, saying not a word, covered his hand with hers and lowered both to the table.

"I didn't bring you to London only to be of assistance with the Hindrance, but because I wanted you there with me," the earl said, "because I didn't like the idea of being away from you. I wanted you to stay, even as I realized you were pining for Bethany. And I understood, even before I brought you to London, that I wanted to marry you. Lady M tried to dissuade me, it's true. And when I found you talking to Beckwith, yes, I reacted poorly. And when I kissed you at Clarendon's ball, I'll admit that was brutish and unpardonable."

Fiona made a sound; Emma couldn't say if it were a gasp or a sigh.

The earl went on, "I cancelled your employment with the modiste because I thought it too dangerous, and unnecessary. True I should have gone about it differently. Christ, this list is getting on to be shamefully long," he acknowledged with a twitch of his lips, to which Mr. Smythe and Callum nodded, with some commiseration.

Mr. Smythe interjected idly, "Makes a man wonder what you might have done right by the girl."

Several nods followed this speculation .

"Oh, surely, many things," Mrs. Smythe cooed. "Wrote her some lovely letters, he did, which she's likely read a hundred times by now, always grinning like a silly fool when Langdon came with the notes. Set her up nice in this house," she added, nodding to accent her words, "could've just tossed the money at her and sent her on her way."

Langdon inserted, "Didn't have to give me the fine work up at the big house, but mayhap only did so to please her, I always thought. Lent us the fine rig and nag. We'd probably, all of us, have to save for a year just to buy the horse."

Zach was grinning outright now, pleased by the unexpected support.

Emma remained expressionless, even as her breathing had quickened while her heart raced.

"But I meant what I said, then and now. I am in love with you."

This time Fiona, and Mrs. Smythe as well, clearly made sounds of blissful sighs.

She accepted all this with a thoughtful nod, absorbing it slowly. "Do you realize, or admit, that you are high-handed and autocratic, sometimes unreasonably so?"

"I do not like this spoon," Bethany said to no one in particular. Langdon replaced it with his own, which Bethany then handed to Zachary.

The earl took the spoon and set it on the table. When Bethany then lifted her arms, Zach pushed his chair out a bit and took Bethany into his lap.

When his compelling gaze met Emma's again, she detected a hint of a smile therein .

"I do. Do you, likewise, admit that you are stubborn—at times purposefully and irrationally so—and unwilling to accept that in some areas I might actually know a thing or two more than you?"

"That may be true," she acknowledged. "Occasionally."

Callum snorted next to her, trying without success to control his chuckle over this.

"So now," said the earl, "I've several times told you that I am in love with you, and just today I asked you to marry me—"

This summarizing was interrupted by Langdon's hoot of surprise and Mr. Smythe's quietly given, "Well, I'll be damned." Mrs. Smythe and Fiona sighed again, the older woman clasping her hands to her bosom.

"—and you've yet to respond appropriately—certainly not favorably—to either of these," the earl finished.

"Oh, why not, dear?" Mrs. Smythe asked sadly, her hands falling away from her breast, listlessly onto her lap.

Emma only briefly considered other eyes, fixed on her with varying degrees of disbelief and question before she met Zachary's tender and confident gaze. Emma realized that he knew he would triumph, even as she knew she must finish it properly.

She needed to tell him all, admit her foolishness. She was nervous still, likely wouldn't be cured of that until he took her in his arms.

"Of course, I have been in love with you for quite some time."

Fiona clapped her hands together, a faint whimper of joy escaping .

Biting her lip, Emma considered what else he should be told. "I am sorry that I believed not your words, but those of a nasty old woman. I was afraid, of course, as you so astutely guessed. And I should like to marry you, if you are still agreeable, even if it means that one day you will break my heart."

"Should've led with that negative, not finished with it, I'm thinking," Callum said, finally entering the dialogue. When Emma turned a good frown on him for his critique, he shrugged. "Just saying."

Zachary Benedict stood with Bethany in his arms, and said, "Here are many witnesses who can hold me accountable to this vow: I will never break your heart."

"He won't, I'm sure," concurred Mrs. Smythe.

"He better not," Callum cautioned.

Fiona turned to Callum and glowered with some aversion to his words. "Clearly, he will not."

"Mrs. Smythe, would you kindly hold Bethany," the earl said as he walked around the table, "while I take my future wife in my arms and seal this betrothal?" He handed Bethany off to the giggling, teary-eyed woman, and continued around the table until he stood beside Emma.

Zachary held out a hand to her.

She hesitated only a moment, more embarrassed than anything just now, and rose from her chair. Evidently of a mind that if she'd insisted her friends witnessed all they just had, that they might as well see it through to its finale, Zachary pulled her possessively into his arms and met her lips in a fierce and not-so-chaste kiss. Emma's knees failed her, but he held her firmly, and she knew the tightness in her chest was unbearable happiness, nothing more .

Cheers went up, laughter and joy sounded throughout the room, but they ignored them all. When finally he pulled his lips from hers, he said against her mouth, "Say it again, for me alone."

"I love you, Zachary," she whispered.

Another kiss followed, energizing the delighted watchers.

When he next looked into her eyes, shiny and wet with her elation, he said, "Tell me you always will. Tell me you won't doubt me. I'll love you forever and never give you cause to question it."

Emma nodded shakily. "I won't. I promise."