Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride (22 page)

“You really should tell her, you know. The both of you should just end this façade.”

Of course, Emmaline would be the best of friends with this opinionated, very vocal creature. “Façade, Miss Winters?”

Sophie
pointed her eyes toward the ceiling. “One minute you love her. The next you push her away. The next she is weepy. Then happy. It is enough to exhaust a soul.”

“I have never said I loved her,” he blurted.

Sophie gave him a wide, knowing smile. “You didn’t need to, my lord.”

Did he
love
Emmaline? He cared very much for her. He’d missed her when she’d been out of his life. She had brought him so much happiness. But love? Could Miss Winters be correct?

“I am indeed correct.” Sophie echoed his unspoken thoughts.

Drake was never gladder for the end of a set. He bowed over Miss Winter’s hand. “Will you deliver a message to her? Will you remind her I owe her a picnic?”

With that, he left.

Chapter 31

My Dearest Drake,

Oh, God. My father has died. Where are you? Why have you not come to me?

Ever Yours,

Emmaline

Lord Sinclair perused the long, pale pink marble foyer.
“A bachelor’s residence,” Sinclair murmured. He fell into step alongside Drake.

Sir Faithful trotted along at their heels.

Sinclair glanced back. “A dog, as well. My, my, you truly are a bachelor.”

“Stuff it, Sin,” he muttered, leading his friend into his new office.

Drake crossed to the drink cart in the corner of the room and availed himself to a glass of whiskey. He held the bottle up to Sin.

At Sin’s nod, Drake poured a healthy amount into a crystal tumbler.

Sin accepted the glass and he and Drake claimed a seat on the set of leather winged chairs.

They drank in companionable silence. Sin polished off his drink before he spoke. “You do know you have set the
ton
on its ear?” He didn’t wait for Drake’s response, instead rose, and crossed the room, helping himself to another drink.

Drake sipped his more conservatively and absently eyed Sin’s movements. “To hell with the
ton
.” He waited until Sin had reclaimed his seat. “I want to court Emmaline.”

Sinclair sputtered around a mouthful of whiskey. “Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh? As in the same young lady you were betrothed to as a child? The same lady you ran off to war to avoid? The same—”

His hackles went up. “I believe you’ve made your point.”

Sin shook his head. “I don’t think I have. After years upon years of complaining about Lady Emmaline, you choose to court her
now that she has cut you loose?”

Drake was well
aware that courting Emmaline now, after she’d broken off their betrothal, would be met by Society with derision and speculation. The
ton
only knew Drake to be consumed by his own pursuit of pleasure. What they didn’t know, what he’d kept carefully concealed, was the madness he battled.

Sin sighed. “So when is this courtship to ensue?”

Drake shook his head. “Not right now. Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Soon.”

Sinclair tapped the edges of his chair.

The rhythmic sound grated until Drake snapped. “You must have something to say.”

“I’m certain Mallen won’t go for it.”

Drake gazed into the depths of his drink wishing he could divine the answers within the swirling amber liquid. “No, no, that is a certainty.”

Sin leaned forward in his chair. “
What makes you certain the lady will be amiable to your suit?”

Recent memories of last evening’s waltz filled him. He could still feel the heat of her skin, still see the smile playing on
her lush, seductive red lips, hear her laughter. “Last evening at the Thompson ball—”

Sin slashed the air with his hand. “Yes, yes. I heard all about the Thompson ball. Anyone who is anyone has, in fact. A waltz, however, does not a courtship make.” He inched again to the edge of his seat. “As much as I want to see you happy, I
don’t want to see you hurt again by Lady Emmaline.”

Drake tossed back the contents of his glass and growled. He didn’t like the way Sin was pinning the state of his unhappiness on Emmaline. “I was the one responsible for Emmaline’s decision to sever the betrothal. Not the young lady.”

Sin cradled his drink between his hands, studying Drake over the edge of the glass. “I understand the lady is entitled to her sense of injury. You, however, are my main concern. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve known enough hurt.”

“You’re mothering me, Sin.”

Sin bristled. “Well, you are in desperate need of mothering.”

Drake glanced at a point just over Sinclair’s shoulder, unable to meet his eyes. How could Sin ever know that the
ache of losing Emmaline was far greater than any physical pain? “I need her.”

Sin didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Do you…love her?” The word came out halting. Men didn’t speak of these things.

Drake grimaced. There it was again. That question. Did he love her?

“I don’t know.”

Sin held up his tumbler in mock salute. “You’d better have more of an answer for the lady than that.”

“I will not lie to her. I want there to be honesty between us.”

His friend snorted. “Trust me, when presented with the choice of honesty or love, a lady will always choose love.”

In spite of his friend’s words, Drake had already made up his mind to share with Emmaline the demons that had held him back.
He’d confess to her about the affliction that had haunted him since he’d returned from war. He would, as his father suggested, allow her to decide for herself if it was too much of an albatross.

Still the idea that she might reject him
…sweat popped up on his brow. What if it were too much for her? What if she wisely decided he was not worth it?

After all, what had he brought her other than heartache?

“What is it you require of me?” Sinclair asked, his tone, uncharacteristically sober. “You know I will do anything to help you.”

Drake reached down and stroked Sir Faithful between the ears.
“I need guidance on how to woo a lady.” He sat up and then fished around his front pocket. Drake stared at the parchment a moment and then handed it over to Sinclair.

Sin
laughed and accepted the parchment. “And you think
I
might be able to help
you
? You, the one recognized throughout Society as being an expert with matrons and debutantes alike?”

Drake shifted
in his seat. “That is a gross exaggeration.” He nodded to the paper in Sin’s hands.

Sin glanced down at the heavily marked sheet with extensive cross-outs and too much ink. His brow furrowed.

“It’s a poem.”

“Uh, yes, I see that
,” Sin said.

Drake
snatched the sheet back and proceeded to study it. “It’s rubbish.”

“I take it the poem is for Lady Emmaline?”

It didn’t escape Drake’s notice that his friend didn’t counter his statement about the quality of the poem.

Drake
set the paper aside. “No, it’s for Mallen. Of course it’s for Emmaline.”

Sinclair laughed
until tears streamed from his eyes.

“So glad you’re amused,” Drake muttered. “Emmaline wanted to be courted. She deserves to be courted.” His eyes went to the impressive bouquet of flowers he’d had delivered earlier that afternoon…to himself. They
rested on his desktop, or rather they sat
wilting
on his desktop.

Sinclair followed the direction of Drake’s stare. “Uh,
they’ve begun to wilt.”

“Yes, yes they have.”

Drake had spent last evening and the better part of the morning laboring over a poem. Then, he’d ordered the flowers. He looked over at the buds again. The
dying
flowers. The poem, though shit, was finally complete. Who’d have figured it would be so bloody difficult to put words to paper?

Sin cleared his throat. “So when you said you intended to court Lady Emmaline, just not today or tomorrow…that wasn’t altogether true.”

Drake surged from his chair and strode across the room. He shoved back the damask curtains and stared out the window into the dark night sky.

“I don’t know how to take the step,” he
said.

Sin
’s visage reflected back in the glass pane. He remained seated. “You just…do it, Drake. You tell your brain to tell your feet to move one at a time, and march up Mallen’s steps, and demand to see Emmaline. Then you read her your poem.” He picked up the poem in question and grimaced. “Well, maybe not this one, per se.”

Drake
pressed his forehead against the cool window.

Could it be that simple? He glanced over his shoulder at the bouquet of
cerastium and the poem still held in Sinclair’s hand.

He’d fought a bloody war…how hard could this be?
In one of her notes to him, one of the notes that had never been sent, she’d called herself a coward, but it was he who was the coward.

He picked up the dreary looking flowers from his desk.

“You can’t go now,” Sinclair stuttered.

Drake pause
d. “Whyever not?”

Sinclair blinked several times. His eyes landed on the ormolu clock on the fireplace mantle. “It is nearly eight o’clock in the evening.
Mallen is hosting an intimate dinner party with Waxham. Whyever not, indeed?”

A fiery pit of jealousy
flared in Drake’s stomach. “Waxham, you say? Why, then I can’t think of a better time to pay a visit.”

“Mallen’s going to give you hell,” Sin
predicted with a grin.

Drake smiled. “She’s worth it.”
With that, he turned on his heel and marched out of his office. Sir Faithful gave a yap of approval.

Sin hurried after him.
“Rude leaving your friend and all. Perhaps you’d like some company along the way? Just to make certain you’ve thought through everything you are going to say when you interrupt the duke’s intimate dinner party.”

Drake growled low in his throat. “Stop calling it an intimate dinner party.”
Intimate was the last word he wanted to come to mind when thinking of Waxham and Emmaline.

He flung back the front door and marched down the steps. Sin trailed
after him.

“Not the thing, opening your own doors, you know. Your first order of business really should have been to set up at least a butler and housekeeper. Oh, and of course a chef. Not one of those French fellows that seem all the rage—”

Drake paused mid-stride.

It took a moment before Sin
, who’d been prattling on, took note. He looked over his shoulder. “Have you forgotten something? Changed your mind?”

“You do know the last thing on my mind right now is assembling a
staff for my new residence? You, of course, remember I am heading out to humble myself before the lady who severed our betrothal?”

“Yes, yes,” Sin paused. “In the middle of Mallen’s intimate dinner with Waxham.”

He growled. “Stop referring to it as…”

“I know, I know, an intimate dinner party. Really, you must do your best to hide that nasty sneer when you march into Mallen’s. It will neither win you the lady nor make you a fast friend of the
duke.”

“I am not looking to make friends with Mallen.”

Sin quirked a brow. “I might remind you that you require Mallen’s approval just as much as your require the lady’s approval.”

Damn, he hated it when Sin was right. Which meant Drake needed to win over both Emmaline and the foul-tempered Duke of Mallen. He didn’t know which was going to be a greater challenge. And he only had a matter of moments to settle on a course of action.

Sin cleared his throat and motioned to the townhouse in front of them. “Here we are.”

Drake stared up at the white façade
. “Already?”

“Already.”

Apparently, he’d run out of time to develop a proper plan of attack to win over Emmaline and Mallen.

Drake stood rooted to the pavement,
and continued to stare up at the elegant white townhouse, its windows aglow with soft candlelight. He recalled marching up the very same steps as a boy filled with anxiety. He’d been terrified at the prospect of seeing his betrothed. It would appear, in fifteen years, not much had changed in that regard. Only now he feared rejection at her hands.

He glanced down at the sorely wilted bouquet in his hands, and froze. With his freed hand, he frantically felt around his jacket.

His frenzied search was met with a beleaguered sigh from Sin, who brandished a scrap of paper and waved it about. “Here it is. I’d rather hoped you’d forgotten about the poem.”

Drake took it with a word of thanks, re-reading through the terrible attempt. He grimaced. It really was quite horrendous.

“Ahem,” Sin cleared his throat. “I said, ah—”

“I heard you,” Drake bit out.
He continued to stand there.

Sin tapped a finger to his chin. “I suppose you could always wait until tomorrow, say after the intimate d—”

Without a word, Drake abandoned his friend to the pavement and took the stone steps two at a time.

He’d be damned if he heard the word
s
intimate dinner party
one more time.