The Wicked Wallflower (26 page)

“I did not write it,” she said evenly. “I protested. I wanted to burn it.”

“And yet the news appeared in print in the most popular newspaper in town. And now you have inherited a fortune. Well done.”

“Who sent it?” she asked, oddly curious, considering. “You must know who sent it.”

Blake laughed bitterly. “You and your mother, in league with the most audacious scheme that has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.”

“My mother?”
Emma stood and stomped away, before whirling around and returning to plunk herself back down on the bench. She muttered angrily under her breath.

“A girl with no prospects, a family in need of money,” Blake said. “Why not announce your betrothal to a duke and rely on my honor to see it through? Were the Fortune Games part of the plan, or one hell of a boon?”

“Blake, I had no part in this!”

“Other than to protest,” he said, reminding her of her own story.

“My friends wrote it. I had forgotten about it until it was too late!”

“The point is, Emma, we have made the best of a ridiculous situation. But now there is no longer a need to pretend. It's time for our betrothal—­or whatever it has been—­to come to an end.” The words tasted like ashes to him. “Given the circumstances, we should be able to part without much drama. No one needs to be jilted. No reputations will be ruined.”

“But you are jilting me now.”

“I'm setting you free. The Fortune Games are over. You have won. You can now marry whomever you wish. Whomever you love.”

He loved her. He ached to pull her close and try to forget how he'd been a pawn in her game. Still, he wanted Emma to be happy. They had been given an opportunity to choose each other; it had to be seized. Even if this severing hurt now, the pain could not compare to a lifetime in which they both felt trapped and conned into marriage.

“Are you trying to do me some sort of
favor
?” Emma asked incredulously.

“I'm trying to do the honorable thing. When I left in the morning, Benedict was still there in the mews, waiting. I'm sure that he will still have you,” Blake said.

His word and honor as a gentleman compelled him to ensure she knew that.

“But we made love,” she whispered. “I am ruined for anyone else now!”

“You are an heiress, Emma. I'm sure most gentlemen will not be too concerned with your virtue.”

“It's not just that. I thought you wanted me,” she whispered.

I do, dear God, I do
. He wanted her more than anything, but not on these terms, not by default, not like this. Though this was killing him, he was certain it was the right thing to do.

“You made me love you,” she whispered. He nearly dropped to his knees, wanting to take back all the revelations and cruel words he'd spoken. But it was too late. “I gave myself to you,” she said, her voice low. “My innocence, my word, my heart. And I held back because of this. I was so afraid of this. It was just a dream, wasn't it?” Then she laughed and said, “To think the great Duke of Ashbrooke would bother with a plain little wallflower like me.”

 

Chapter 23

To the surprise of Lady Emma, she had fallen madly in love with the Duke of Ashbrooke.

—­
E
MMA'S INNERMOST
THOUGHTS

Emma's bedchamber

O
NCE UPON A
time nothing much happened to her. That was before The Letter. Emma stood and turned in a slow circle around her bedroom where The Letter had been written and lost. Where she had debated whom to marry, where she had given herself completely to Blake, and where she stood now, weary and exhausted not just from her travels but from her whole, entire life. All three and twenty years of it.

“Emma, darling, you're home!” her mother said, bursting into the bedroom where Emma moped while her maid unpacked and the servants drew a hot bath.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Well, is it true that you have inherited everything?” Her mother asked this anxiously. Emma could tell from her voice, the way her brow furrowed, and from her clenched hands.

“I did not get the fancy china,” she said flatly. Her mother appeared confused, which made Emma miss Blake terribly. He would understand. He would have shared the humor with her. Deadpan, he would have said, “Horrors” or “Tragedy” or “My life will never be complete without it.”

“You shall buy a dozen more sets, or purchase it from whoever inherited it,” her mother said. As if a china set
mattered.

“Nor did I inherit the house, which was given to Blake,” Emma said, and she was so glad of it, for Grey Manor belonged to him, truly. She could never have lived there without him.

“You shall still be mistress of it, once you marry. Awfully circuitous of her not to leave things to you two together. But she is known to have been . . . odd.”

Emma had to ignore the slight to Agatha, for she didn't have the strength to persuade her mother of Agatha's brilliance. She hadn't just left money to her and Harriet Dawkins, she had given them a chance, a choice.

In giving Blake the one thing that really mattered, Grey Manor, she had ensured that they might marry for love. If they married. Emma sighed. No, she could not explain any of that to her mother.

“We are not going to marry.”

“I beg your pardon? Not marry? Why on earth would you two not marry?”

Because he thinks I am a scheming fortune hunter, thanks to the cursed letter that was never meant to be sent!

Emma regarded her mother, noting the lines etched into her forehead and the embroidered handkerchief clutched in her hands. Could what Blake had told her be true?

“Did you ever wonder, Mother, about the announcement that appeared in the newspaper?”

“Why do you ask?”

Emma hadn't wondered, for it was done, and to speculate seemed pointless . . . until now, when whomever had done so had set her up for a monstrously broken heart.

“Did it not strike you as odd?” Emma mused. “After all, the duke and I had never met. You knew I had no opportunity to have a secret, whirlwind romance. You knew I loved another.”

Mother and daughter stood eye-­to-­eye in Emma's bedchamber. The maid busied herself with folding gowns. A hot bath was awaiting, steam rising.

“Rossmore's impoverished son you foolishly had your heart set on?” her mother said, laughing. “You couldn't marry him, Emma! He's too poor. And you could do better.”

“Which does not explain how a letter found in this bedroom made its way to
The London Weekly
,” Emma said, her curiosity growing when her mother did not deny it.

“I sent it,” her mother said with a shrug. As if it were nothing at all. As if the truth, uttered so lightly, hadn't brought her heart to a complete standstill.

“You sent it.”

“I did. And you are most welcome. Instead of throwing your future away on some poor, spineless boy, you have snared a duke. A duke! This family was desperate, Emma, and now we are saved.”

“
It's wrong!
We do not deserve this money! The inheritance should have gone to someone in the family. Not me. Not a stranger.”

As for Blake . . . her heart was still too raw, the hurt so overwhelming she could hardly breathe, let alone speak of him. She had loved and lost, twice, in little over a fortnight.

“I wanted you to be noticed, Emma. I was not sure how the duke would react, but I knew you would catch the attention of the ton. You never quite
took
even though you are so pretty and intelligent and a lovely girl. I wanted the world to know you as I do, Emma. I did this for you.”

“But I am ruined now!”

“Nonsense.”

“No, I love him, and he has left me because he thinks I have deceived him,” Emma said coldly. She did not need to say
because of what you did
. The words, unspoken, were understood. Her heart was wrecked.

“Tell him the truth,” her mother suggested. As if it were that simple! As if she hadn't tried to already!

“You tell him,” Emma countered, her anger spiking. “You are the one who has created this whole epic disaster.”

“Very well, I shall do so,” her mother said. “If it will make you feel better. With your new fortune, you really can't marry below a duke anyway,” she added, missing the point entirely.

“No! You have meddled enough as it is. Mother, how on earth could you do this?”

“I am sorry! I only wanted the best for you when you never wanted it for yourself!”

That silenced Emma. Because it was true.

“I gave her the letters, ma'am,” the maid said, nervously interjecting. “I found them whilst straightening your room. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, and you had gone off to Lady Olivia's home after the fire. ”

“It doesn't matter now, Emma. We have the fortune now,” her mother said, anxiously reaching out for her daughter's hand, which Emma snatched away.

But it did matter. Oh, it did. Because it wasn't about the money at all. It was about the love she never expected to know, and the love she had just lost forever.

“I'd like you both to go,” Emma said coldly.

To her surprise, they listened. But then she recalled that she was now worth ninety thousand pounds and their livelihoods depended upon her goodwill toward them. Everyone would do what she said now.

Except for Blake.

Or would he?

The very next day

Emma's bedchamber

“More sherry?” Olivia offered the bottle to Emma and Prudence, both of whom held out their empty glasses. The three girls lolled about on the new carpet in Emma's bedchamber. Other than that addition, it was much the same in spite of everything that had transpired within its walls: stacks of romantic novels from the circulating library upon every surface, a four-­poster bed, a window with a trellis leading up to it for the ease of burglars and devoted suitors.

“When you hear what I have in mind, you will need it,” Emma said, holding out her glass. “Liquid courage, they say.”

“I think that is whiskey. Or is it any strong liquor?” Prudence asked thoughtfully. “One can't quite picture a man downing
sherry
when he's off to face battle or fight a duel.”

“Sneaking into the cordial is one thing,” Emma said. “Stealing from my father's store of spirits is another matter entirely.”

“You could just buy some,” Olivia said. “You could buy lots. You could keep us drunk on sherry for weeks. Months. Years. Our entire Spinsterhood could be passed in a drunken haze.”

“I could, couldn't I? But it feels wrong to have this money. I cannot quite bring myself to spend it.”

“That is tragic. What is the use of ninety thousand pounds if one cannot spend it?”

“I don't think there is an answer to that question.”

“More sherry is the answer!” Olivia declared.

“Now to the matter at hand—­” Prudence started, then stopped. “Is it true that your betrothal with Blake is finished?”

“They are saying you jilted him,” Olivia said, with a dark glance at Emma suggesting she would be awfully disappointed if she had done so. “They are also saying he jilted you. No one can make heads or tales of the situation, which is not preventing anyone from gossiping about it extensively.”

“My mother sent The Letter,” Emma said, to the gasps of her friends. “However, Blake believes me to be behind it. He also has these ridiculous notions about us no longer needing each other. Thus, I have been jilted. Just as I feared. But worse.”

“How worse?”

Emma paused, for she knew that that once she uttered these words, there was no taking them back.

“I fell in love with him. I made love to him. Because he thinks I am an awful but successful schemer, he told me to run off with Benedict. But I don't want to anymore. I could, and I don't want to! What kind of wretched twist of fate is this?”

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Prudence murmured.

“Emma, what are we going to do? There must be some way you can make him see the truth and that you love him.”

“This is Ashbrooke we're discussing,” Emma said with a weary sigh. “Lots of women love him and he's not concerned in the slightest.”

“I really thought he loved you,” Prudence said.

“I saw the way he looked at you. I'd do anything to have a man look at me like that,” Olivia added.

“I thought he might love me too,” Emma whispered. That was the worst of it all. The confidence he had inspired in her made it impossible for her to believe that his seduction had been a game. No, she would bet her fortune that his feelings of love for her were true. Now she believed in him—­and herself. When it was too late.

“The question is, how do you win him back?” Olivia mused. “It goes without saying you must win him back.”

“We're right back at the start again, are we not? Puzzling over how to force a man to propose,” Emma said with a sad laugh.

“We managed that. Easily,” Prudence said, grinning.

“Thanks to my scheming, meddling mother,” Emma muttered. Her mother, with whom she had not spoken ever since her brazen confession to such a devastating crime.

No, Emma did not believe she was overreacting about it by locking herself in her bedchamber, save for her dearest friends and a bottle of sherry and a crippling heartache.

“If it isn't broke, why fix it?” Prudence suggested cryptically. Emma glanced at her friend nervously.

Olivia's eyes widened considerably. “Are you suggesting we send another engagement announcement to
The London Weekly
?”

“No, a
wedding
announcement,” Prudence said.

Emma groaned. “Not this again!”

“Prudence, I don't know how you come up with such wicked ideas!” Olivia said. “I quite love it.”

Prudence grinned. “It's the sherry. It inspires me.”

“Perhaps you've had enough,” Emma suggested. But to her horror, she didn't quite dismiss the idea of posting a wedding announcement, for she could see a certain poetry in the action. There was also a certain terror in the prospect.

“The duke must know that you have chosen him above
all
others,” Prudence declared. It was clear that by “all others” she meant Benedict.

“That's awfully wise,” Olivia said. “And terribly romantic.”

“You have to act quickly, before Benedict's wedding,” Prudence said, “Otherwise, Blake might think you are turning to him as your second choice.”

“This is all so complicated,” Emma said, heaving a sigh. She was weary from a sleepless night, tipsy from the sherry, and, quite simply, heartsick. She wanted nothing more than to crawl in bed with Blake and forget the world, but that was a silly dream. “Perhaps I shall take my fortune and retire to the country and read novels where other characters must bother with these sorts of troubles.”

“The more I consider it, the more I am convinced that you should post a wedding announcement to the newspaper,” Prudence declared, taking a hearty sip of sherry. “ ‘The Duke of Ashbrooke will marry Lady Emma Avery at eleven o'clock in the morning on Saturday at St. George's.' ”

“Ooooh,” Olivia said softly. “Can you just imagine it?”

Emma could. She shuddered. And took a hearty swallow of sherry.

“There is only one problem with that plan,” she said. “One horrible, massive, traumatizing problem. If he doesn't show up, I shall be jilted twice and publicly humiliated.”

“I would die if that happened to me,” Olivia said. “Honestly, I think I would just perish of mortification.”

“Thank you, Olivia, for your words of encouragement.”

“She's right to be afraid,” Prudence said. “If the duke did not come, Emma would be the laughingstock of London. It would never be forgotten.”

“And everyone would wonder why he jilted a woman to whom he'd been previously betrothed and who was worth ninety thousand pounds,” Olivia said. “They would assume the very worst about you.”