CHAPTER NINE

The following morning, Emilia had risen with the dawn’s first light.

She had spent several hours watching the ghostly, twisting snowflakes falling past her window in the darkness, her mind a maelstrom of thoughts giving way to unpleasant dreams.

When she finally got out of bed, the crackling of the fire greeted her ears, accompanied by the warm, enticing scent of cinnamon wafting from the kitchens below. There was a thick blanket of snow on the ground outsideand a significant layer upon her window ledge. She pulled up the sash, smiling at the sparkling diamonds before her. She thought of collecting a small amount and throwing it down to the gardens, but shedid not wish to disturb it.

Everything around the grounds was perfect, clean, and dazzlingly white. It appeared that a badger had trundled through the snow, leaving lumbering uneven footsteps below her, and she could see the evidence of birds having hopped about the flowerbeds.

She allowed herself the time to bask in the Christmas feeling of the season. The view from her window unfolded like a winter painting, frozen in time and unspoiled.

As she went down the stairs to the dining hall, a bustle of servants surrounded her. Many of them nodded in greeting, and she smiled at them in return, but her hands were plucking incessantly at her gown. She wondered whether, by the end of the week, she might have worn a hole through everyone.

The doors to the dining hall had been left open, the remaining guests helping themselves to breakfast. Emilia was grateful to take the opportunity to linger a little and not have to take a seat immediately. All of the Eastons had already arrived, and Penelope, Caroline, and Sophia were seated together, speaking in low voices.

The duke and his daughters were the most well-to-do of those who had remained. Emilia marvelled at how her mother could cope with twenty people all at once so close to Christmas, but as Lady Sternwood swept into the room, directing servants left, right, and centre, it appeared she was in her element.

As Emilia pondered what she wanted to eat for breakfast, someone cleared their throat behind her, and she tensed, expecting the duke. When she turned, however, it was to see her father standing rather awkwardly behind her.

“Are you alright, my dear?” he asked in an uncharacteristic show of affection. “You look pale.”

“I did not sleep all that well,” she remarked quickly. The last thing she needed was for her parents to worry about her to an even greater degree. “Are you alright, Papa? Have you enjoyed the party thus far?”

“Indeed I have; Bentley is a demon at cards, though. I had no idea the man played so deep.”

Emilia felt a gnawing sensation in her stomach. “Lord Adam Bentley is a gambler?”

Her father raised his eyebrows in apparent disinterest. “Hardly. But Frederick Bentley, on the other hand, most certainly is. I lost a handful to him late into the night, foolishness of the highest degree. Best keep that from your mother, if you would.”

He harrumphed good-naturedly and went to find his seat. Emilia could not hold back a chuckle. It was nice to be confided in by her father. Even though the circumstances of her union to the duke were not what she would ever have chosen, she had to admit that her parents were more relaxed this week than she had seen them in years.

An unpleasant sensation filled her at that thought. It was all very well for them to be relaxed because of her potential marriage, but they did not seem to care what her life would be like once it had happened. She looked over at the duke’s daughters and decided to try to get to know them today. They could not be all bad.

She went to take a seat opposite them and attempted a smile at Penelope. The girl gave her a long, baleful glare, and then all three of them turned away and began to speak amongst themselves.

It was a slight and not a subtle one.

Emilia pursed her lips, glancing about, noticing Mrs Verity Bentley watching them. Emilia quickly looked away, picking up her teacup to distract herself. She felt her cheeks flame as the cup clattered against the saucer.

As she sat watching the duke’s daughter deliberately avoid eye contact with her, the door opened, and her fingers clutched at the handle of her teacup even tighter as the other object of her thoughts walked into the room.

Adam Bentley looked impossibly good in a dark green waistcoat that perfectly enhanced the colour of his eyes. Despite breakfast usually being a more casual affair, he wore a neat cravat, and it looked as though his valet had cut his hair since the night before—he looked dashing, untouchable, and unfairly handsome.

Adam surveyed the room, feeling rather proud that he did not run screaming in the other direction. This house party was causing him to feel a continual jolt of nerves every time he came into a room. He tried to convince himself it was because of his lack of social experience recently, but he knew, in reality, it was the young lady in the centre of the table that was the cause.

Emilia’s hair was tied back in a simple ribbon today, a burnt orange colour to match her dress. Adam cleared his throat several times when he realised he had followed the ribbon all the way down her neck and over her shoulder twice.

Forcing his gaze away, his eyes fell on his aunt, who was sitting beside Lionel. Augusta looked at Adam pointedly and glanced at Lady Seraphina, who had just taken a seat beside Emilia. Adam clenched his jaw, feeling the weight of expectation settle on his shoulders.

He stoically went to the edge of the room to get his breakfast and determined to try and say as little as possible, unless Lady Emilia happened to speak with him.

From the opposite side of the table, Lionel buttered his toast and watched his cousin out of the corner of his eye. He knew his mother was trying to foist Adam onto Lady Seraphina and hoped that his cousin would take the initiative and sit at the other end of the table.

But he found himself distracted from his irritation with his mother when Miss Fairfax joined them, sitting opposite him with a demure smile.

To his delight, Miss Fairfax handed him a small leather-bound book.

“What is this?” he asked, enchanted to receive a gift from her.

“It is not mine,” Miss Fairfax said, her full lips curving in an apologetic smile. “I asked Emilia if she would mind lending it to me some weeks ago and I had intended to return it. However, before I do so, I wondered if you had read it?”

Lionel scanned the cover, noting the works of John Keats.

“I have not. Is it poetry?” he asked.

“It is. Some of the best I have read.”

“I thank you;” he said, examining the spine, “it is a very slim volume.”

“Keats has only published a few works so far, but I dearly hope he will do more. Emilia and I have been reading them together. It’s better than Blake.”

“Scandal!” Lionel said with mock outrage, and Miss Fairfax laughed prettily as she poured herself some tea.

“Pray, read it and tell me what you make of it,” she said.

“I should very much like to do the same,” Lionel’s mother piped up beside him. “I have been told of Keats myself, although the teller felt he was rather overblown and decidedly odd.”

“All the best poets are, Mama,” Lionel said teasingly and caught Miss Fairfax’s eye as he did so. He felt a violent jolt of desire in his chest as she smiled and looked down at her plate.

She was by far the loveliest thing he had ever seen. He had never been given a gift by anyone but his mother before and wished it were for him to keep. He had a foolish notion he would have it in his inner pocket, keeping the thought of her close to him all day.

Charlotte was thrilled as she watched the emotions bloom across Lord Spencer’s face. The night before, she had asked Emilia rather reluctantly if she might continue lending the volume a while longer. Unfortunately, their friendship was such that Emilia teased her relentlessly when she found out who she wished to lend it to. Charlotte felt that the cat was rather out of the bag when it came to her affection for Lord Spencer. Emilia was not stupid enough to believe she did not admire him.

“Lionel, you will read that book away from the table!” Augusta said suddenly, and Lionel bowed his head like a penitent child and put the book in his pocket.

As he did so, however, he caught Charlotte’s eye, and their gazes held for a long moment that seemed to stretch endlessly. As he kept looking at her, he smiled gently and patted his pocket. It was a tiny gesture, something no one else in the room would have seen, but it was a silent acknowledgement that he treasured her gift and would keep it close to him.

Charlotte barely tasted the food on her plate for the rest of the breakfast, her heart swelling to such a degree she could barely keep her own happiness from spilling out into the room.

After breakfast, the ladies returned to the drawing room to make Christmas wreaths.

It was a beautiful spread that Emilia had not seen for some time. Her mother appeared to have brought the entire garden into the little room, and the air was filled with the smell of pine and fir trees.

Many of the ladies present were so excited by the prospect of all this greenery that it took quite some time to get everybody seated. When she did manage to take her seat beside Charlotte, however, Emilia was distracted and could not manage her own wreath well at all.

The ivy and the holly that she was trying to place in a pleasing pattern about the laurel were sticking out at odd angles, and she could not get it to sit right. Charlotte, on the other hand, who was usually very bad at anything creative, had excelled herself. Her wreath was beautiful and perfectly proportioned.

“Are you alright, Emilia?” Charlotte asked. “Ignore them all if you can. They are wicked things.”

Emilia, who had just pricked her finger violently on a holly leaf, glanced at her in confusion. But it was abundantly clear to whom she referred as the giggling that had been on the edge of her hearing rose in volume as the duke’s three daughters leaned together at their table.

One of them appeared to be mimicking Emilia’s wreath by pushing haphazard pieces of foliage into her own, at which point they would all shriek with laughter.

Emilia’s resolve to try to get along with them was fading more quickly by the second. She knew nothing of their mother, save that she had seemingly failed to instil any civility or kindness in her children. In her mind, their father must be just as bad.

“Perhaps we should ask Papa to cancel Christmas,” Caroline was saying, her face twisted into a sneer. “We would be evicted from our townhouse with such a monstrosity.”

Emilia lowered her wreath to her lap and was mortified to find her lip trembling. Charlotte’s comforting hand came over her own and lifted the wreath away from her for a few minutes as she attempted to improve it.

Emilia took the time to compose herself, and when she looked back, Charlotte had transformed it, somehow allowing the ribbon to make all of the disorder look deliberate.

“Your skill is nothing short of magical,” Emilia said in a low voice, and Charlotte laughed, holding it up rather pointedly.

“Yours is far more unique than the others,” Charlotte said loudly. “I do grow so tired of these uniform wreaths that all look the same at this time of year.”

Emilia frowned at her but then glanced at Sophia Easton’s table. All of the sisters had made identical, perfect-looking wreaths, as though they had been purchased from a florist. Emilia hid her smile, glancing gratefully at her friend.

***

Across the house in the saloon, all of the men had congregated to play cards.

Adam was losing every hand and finding himself growing more and more frustrated as things progressed.

“You seem distracted,” Lionel murmured, as Adam groaned as he lost another hand. On the other side of the room, Frederick appeared to be winning everything, and Adam’s gut clenched at the likelihood that his wayward cousin would be ableto pay his vowels if he were called up.

“Bentley?”

Adam knew he was being horribly rude to his faithful friend, but he could not shake the distraction. In his mind’s eye, two women’s faces were entwined together, both Lady Emilia’s and Anastasia’s. He could not reconcile the twoor drag them apart, and in the background was his mother’s stoic form, all confusion at his indecision and betrayal of them all.

He felt as though he were not honouring Anastasia’s memory with his feelings toward Emilia, yet the alternative was unthinkable—that she might set her cap at another and be lost to him forever seemed even worse, somehow.

A sense of loathing and jealousy toward the duke washed over him, leaving Adam feeling like a stranger in his own skin. The whole thing was driving him to distraction, and he could not even see the cards in his hand anymore, let alone play them.

Lionel frowned at his cousin. Adam was glaring at the table with such a furious expression that their game partners were giving him strange looks, and Lionel nudged him pointedly with his foot, but it did no good.

“Bentley,” he hissed, and finally, Adam turned back to him.

“Yes,” he said curtly. “My apologies. Is it my turn?”

The other two men at their table excused themselves, clearly growing tired of playing against two men who were so distracted. Lionel raised his eyebrows at Adam.

“What troubles you? Care to confide?”

“There is nothing to confide,” Adam snapped, casting his cards onto the table. With a heavy sigh, he scrubbed a hand over his face and rose abruptly, walking away and out of the room altogether.

Lionel watched him with a sad hopelessness in his heart. He laid his own cards down and looked out of the large window beside him where the snow had begun to fall again. The curtain pulls had been tied with pieces of holly, and the bright red berries looked very cheerful against the scene.

He smiled to himself, a sense of contentment and satisfaction rolling through him that surprised him. It was strange to acknowledge that his cousin appeared to be in the most miserable state of his life when Lionel felt as though he were the happiest he had ever been.

His hand moved to his pocket, sliding inside and gripping the book Miss Fairfax had given him. Without anyone else to play cards just at that moment, Lionel drew out the book, sitting beside the window, reading the words of John Keats against a backdrop of virgin snow and utterly content with the world.