Chapter 17

CHAPTER17

“Well, it’s a beautiful gown.” Bridget put on a buoyant tone though Emily could see right through it.

She pushed back the modiste’s curtain she had just stepped out of and strode toward a stall standing platform in front of three standing mirrors.

“Do you not think?” Bridget said with a broad smile as she stepped up behind Emily, her smile appearing over her shoulder in the mirror. “It suits you so well.”

Emily could barely concentrate on the gown. The gold silk was molded to her body, with a cream lace overlay that hung under her bust before falling past the curve of her hips to the floor. Short, capped lace sleeves hovered at her shoulders, revealing a lot of her collarbone and neckline. Small gemstones studded across the neck glittered in the morning light through the windows.

“Do you not like it?” Bridget asked, bustling around her and adjusting the skirt of the gown.

“It is very beautiful,” Emily muttered woodenly. She toyed with the skirt, creasing the material.

Rachel appeared in front of her and took her hands, loosening her fingers from the material so it laid flat again.

“The modiste will not be happy with you,” Rachel said in jest and winked. “There, stand still whilst she puts in the final pins.”

The modiste appeared from behind a curtain with a pin cushion studded with many pins. She dropped to her knees in front of Emily and adjusted the hem of the gown, taking it up an inch or so.

Already one week had passed since she had last seen Jacob, and in that time, her family had rallied around the idea of the wedding. The gown was being quickly prepared, as were flowers and invitations for a small group of family and friends. Rachel and Bridget seemed to have taken care of the guest list single-handedly, and when they had appealed to Emily for whom she had wanted there, she had shown little enthusiasm for taking part.

“Have you heard from him at all?” Emily asked, shifting her gaze in the reflection so she could catch Rachel’s gaze as she stood behind Emily.

“No,” Rachel murmured, clearly not needing to ask who she spoke of.

Jacob will still not write.

From what Emily understood, two days ago Jacob sent her father a note with the details of the date and time for the ceremony. He had not written to Emily, nor to Rachel and Daniel. Everything had been business-like and plain.

How can I miss him when I have started to wonder if I know him at all?

She started to crumple the skirt again, her nervous habit, but one dark look from the modiste made her drop the gown.

“He will write,” Bridget said as she walked around the small dressing space. She reached into an open cabinet of tiaras and gems for the hair and took them out one at a time, admiring them. She reached for a veil last and ran the thin material through her fingers, her eyes widening in awe. “He will, eventually.”

“It is eventually that is the problem,” Rachel said without much restraint in her voice. It was plain she thought ill of Jacob indeed at this moment.

Emily chewed the inside of her mouth, holding back her own thoughts and feelings. Part of her still wanted to hate Jacob, not only for initially refusing to marry her, but now his staunch denial to talk to her at all.

What kind of marriage will this be?

Yet hating him was a hard task.

“Well, we must turn to matters at hand,” Rachel said, moving to Bridget’s side and they stretched out the veil between them. It was a long one indeed, that would stretch down over Emily’s train. “We must have something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.”

“Oh yes, so important,” Emily muttered wryly though her sisters didn’t appear to hear her.

“I have some gems I wore in my hair for my wedding,” Rachel said, gesturing to her hair. “I could bring them for the ceremony.”

“That is the borrowed sorted then,” Bridget nodded. “The gown is the something new.”

“Yes, of course. Then the blue?”

They both frowned in thought.

“My heart,” Emily whispered to herself. Still neither of them heard her, though she suspected the modiste did for she glanced up toward her. Hurriedly, the modiste broke off from what she was doing. She hurried to the side of the room and retrieved a handkerchief from a dresser that she pressed into Emily’s hands.

Emily didn’t even notice that a tear had slipped down her cheek until the handkerchief was presented to her.

“Th-thank you,” she managed to stutter. When the gasping began, her sisters turned toward her. Rachel dropped one end of the veil and Bridget hurried to grasp it before it could fall to the floor.

“Could you leave us, please?” she asked the modiste.

“Of course.” The modiste offered a comforting smile and slipped away beyond a curtain, into the body of the shop.

Emily dried her cheeks, but more tears came.

“What is all this?” Rachel asked as she threaded her arm around Emily’s shoulders. “Emily, we have sorted out everything now.”

“Sorted them out?” Emily said in disbelief.

“Yes, your reputation is intact. You are to marry the Duke. By the time the scandal sheets realized why the Duke of Thorne and Daniel were to duel in the first place, the news of your marriage had been announced. You two are safe,” Rachel said with feeling, “you need not worry.”

“That is not what worries her,” Bridget exclaimed hurriedly. She pushed the veil back into the cabinet and crossed toward them. “This is not just about reputations, is it?”

Emily didn’t answer her sister but stared at Bridget, knowing that every step of the way Bridget had seen something that she had not.

“That evening when he first came for dinner,” Bridget whispered, taking Emily’s hand, “you two looked at each other in such a way it was plain something was there between you.”

“How could you see it so plainly?” Emily muttered between her tears.

“Sisters, we see everything,” Bridget declared with a laugh. It momentarily made Emily smile too.

“So, this is not just about attraction, or stolen moments of indulgence. Nor even rebellion on your part, is it?” Rachel asked, raising her eyebrows.

“No,” Emily muttered, pressing the handkerchief to her eyes. “Why does he not write? He could even call on us. He could do anything, yet he has stayed as silent as a dark night.”

“Men,” Rachel said as she rolled her eyes. “They are not half so pleasing as we would wish them to be.”

“This from the woman who is madly in love with her husband,” Emily pointed out as she raised her face from the handkerchief.

“That does not mean Daniel is perfect. Far from it! Especially in the early days of our marriage. He was a conflicted man indeed, so conflicted that I never knew where his heart was.”

“No?” Emily whispered. “But you two are so…” She couldn’t find the words so just locked her hands together.

“We are now, but it was not always the way.” Rachel shook her head and stepped toward her. “May I judge from this outburst of tears that there is more to what you feel for the Duke of Thorne than just affection and attraction?”

“Are you in love with him, Em?” Bridget asked, closing in on Emily’s other side. Feeling so boxed in by their intent gazes, she stepped back, nearly falling off the platform she stood on.

“No!” she said hurriedly, but they took her arms and pulled her back, so she was not in danger of falling. “No, no, of course I do not love him.”

“There’s a ‘but’ here somewhere,” Rachel said to Bridget.

“Oh, there must be. Can you not see the venom of her refusal?”

“What’s that old saying about a lady protesting?”

“She protests too much, methinks!”

“I am here, you know,” Emily said, glancing between her two sisters who now each had hold of an elbow.

“Then stop protesting and tell us the truth, Em,” Rachel urged her. “What is it you feel for the Duke after all?”

“I…” Emily hung her head. It was hard to deny that she had missed him so much this last week. “I would not say I was in love with him, but I was certainly at risk of it. I like him. Very much indeed.”

“Goodness,” Bridget murmured, releasing Emily’s arm and clasping her hands over her mouth.

“And I didn’t think this wedding could get much worse,” Rachel said wryly.

“Yes, thank you for summing up my pain, sister.”

“You know what I mean.” Rachel waved her hand dismissively at Emily. “I am trying to make you smile. Just because you have not heard from him does not mean the Duke does not feel anything for you in return.”

“No? Do you think not? Then let us examine the evidence.” This time, Emily wrenched her arm free of Rachel’s grasp and managed to totter back off the platform. She hitched up the skirt of her gown, for it was still too long to walk with easily and hurried back toward the cover of the curtains. “Here is a man who first pursued me when he did not know who I was. When he discovered it, he didn’t do much about it.”

She broke off, momentarily, not wanting to reveal to Bridget that she was the one who had pleaded with him not to marry Bridget in the first place, out of fear of her sister being hurt by everything. “He pursued me in secret still, and when discovered, he blankly refused to marry me. For days! Even risking a duel just to avoid being married to me.”

“Yet he changed his mind on that front,” Bridget called after her. “He cannot be all bad to have agreed to marry you now.”

“God knows how Daniel achieved that,” Emily muttered as she took hold of the curtains. “Perhaps he merely threatened to hurt Jacob there and then.”

Both Rachel and Bridget looked sharply at her, their eyes wide.

“You think so too?” she said, about to step back out from the curtains when they shook their heads in unison.

“She did not notice what she did,” Bridget murmured to Rachel.

“No, she did not.”

“Oh, why do you keep talking as if I am not here?” Emily asked wildly.

“It is something the three of us have often done,” Rachel explained in dismissal. “As you have not noticed what you have just done, allow us to point it out to you, Em.”

“What?” she demanded, her impatience growing by the second.

“You called him Jacob. You used his Christian name,” Bridget whispered, as if it was a great crime indeed.

Emily’s jaw fell slack. She had done it naturally, and the name had fallen from her lips without restraint. After all, he’d asked her to call him Jacob once. She’d moaned his name that night in the orangery that had changed everything between them.

Now, it was seen as something wrong indeed.

Backing up, she returned to the safety of the curtains.

“Emily, where are you going?” Rachel called to her. “The modiste isn’t finished with the gown yet.”

“I need a few minutes.” She closed the curtains tightly around her, refusing to let Rachel and Bridget come to her. She needed this second alone, to think of what she had done, and why Jacob would not write to her or talk to her at all.

Sitting down on a stool, she buckled forward, burying her face in the handkerchief the modiste had given her.

Despite her confession to her sisters, she knew the situation was graver than she revealed. She wasn’t just at risk of someday being in love with Jacob, but she had very much been on the path already to that feeling. Nothing else could explain why his absence hurt her so much.

* * *

“Well, it’s one hell of an invitation to get at short notice, I’ll say that.” Seth jumped down off the horse with the wedding invitation in his hand, swinging it back and forth between his fingers.

Jacob stared at his friend and sighed heavily. He’d been prepared for this moment and knew it had to come sooner or later.

“Let’s talk outside,” Jacob urged. “I do not want my mother to hear this conversation.”

“Very well.” Seth left the reins of his horse in the hands of a groomsman nearby and followed Jacob around the house. They passed into the formal gardens, and the whole time Seth turned the invitation around in his palm as if he could not stop reading it. “I knew this was coming,” Seth broke the silence between them as they entered the walled garden. “Didn’t know it would come quite like this though.”

“What? That I would have to marry Emily?”

“Have to? Pah!” Seth laughed, to Jacob’s surprise. He stopped walking and turned to face his friend. “A couple of days ago, you were prepared to face death in a duel just to avoid this eventuality, now look at you? Sending out fancy invitations like these?” He purposefully held up the card once again. “This is a particularly fine invitation for one happening under a special license.”

“It was necessary,” Jacob said. “My mother insisted that it is still a fine wedding, despite its rushed nature, and we have no choice but to make it a special license after the news of the duel came out. What else would you have me do?”

“Nothing. On the contrary, I think you are making the right decision.” Seth folded up the card and put it back in his pocket.

“I beg your pardon?” Jacob stumbled on the path, nearly falling into the rosemary bushes beside him, with their scents wafting up to meet him. “You think this is right?”

“I do, but I had to come and see you for another reason.” Seth stepped forward, lowering his voice. “Tell me this, what happens when you are married?”

“I thought you knew that, Seth,” Jacob said, reaching for a jest. Seth barely smiled before shaking his head.

“I am asking you about Lady Emily. If you are to marry her, then I take it you have let go of all these strange fears of yours, yes?”

Jacob didn’t answer. He walked around the rosemary bushes and further down the walled garden path. Seth’s quick footsteps on the gravel behind him showed he was being pursued.

Jacob got as far from the house as he could before turning on the spot to face his friend again, nestled in a nook in the far corner between clematis bushes.

“I am marrying her because I have to, Seth. That is the line here.”

“No? Not because you want to then?” Seth challenged, folding his arms. “Listen to me, my friend.” He stepped forward. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. You have the chance to be happy, truly happy. Do not tell me now you intend to retreat from your wife once you wed her.”

“It is a promise I cannot make.” Jacob slowly shook his head. He might as well have struck his friend, for Seth stepped back as if he had been winded, turning on the spot and rubbing his stomach.

“I do not believe this,” Seth muttered, eventually turning back to face Jacob. “You’re going to divide yourself from her? When you have every chance of being—”

“I am protecting her!” Jacob snapped, breaking off his friend’s words. Seth halted, staring at him. “That is the kindest thing I can do for her, is it not? Protect her?”

Seth couldn’t argue against it, clearly. Instead, he chose not to say anything for a minute and just stared back at Jacob.

“It has to be done, Seth. Surely you see that?” Keen to have at least one person in his life who understood his decisions, Jacob stepped forward, lowering his voice further. “You lost someone once.”

The reminder made Seth stand tall, a muscle twitching around his eyes.

“You know what that feeling is like. Better than anyone, you understand what is going on up here.” Jacob tapped his own temple. “You can understand wanting to avoid future pain, can you not?”

Jacob stared at his friend, waiting for an answer. Seth looked away, deeper into the walled garden and the herbs that lined the paths.

They both knew they had different reasons for why they had ended up in their rakish ways and perhaps one of the reasons they had been such good friends over the years was not so much their similar habits as their ability to understand one another’s pain.

When Seth was young, he’d lost the woman he was betrothed to. Since then, Seth had numbed that pain by never settling his heart on one woman. That lady was not lost to this world, but lost to him, for she had eloped with another, and it was a pain that Seth had never moved past.

“You once declared to me that you would do anything to avoid such pain again,” Jacob whispered. “Can’t you see that is what I think too? I do not want Emily to go through what my mother went through.”

Slowly, Seth nodded, though there was no trace of a smile or comforting gesture on his face.

“Just take care, my friend,” he whispered. “I fear the path you’re treading will cause pain anyway.”