The butler stopped and turned. “I’m sorry, my lord, but his grace is away for the evening.”
“Do you know where he’s gone?”
“He mentioned that he intended to have a few hands of cards with the Marquess of Glengarmon.”
“If he returns before I leave, please tell him that I would like to speak with him before he retires. I can find my own way to Lady Emily,” Stephen added as he turned and headed across the dimly lit hall and down a drafty corridor toward the east wing.
On the way, he tried to envision a convivial card game between Lansberry and Glengarmon, but it was beyond imagining. The two men were approximately the same age, but while Lansberry was forceful and brusque to the point of rudeness, William Lathrop, the Marquess of Glengarmon, was a straitlaced bachelor whose unbending formality and strict adherence to every social and political ritual made him the brunt of endless jokes. His ninety-year-old father was still clinging to life—and to the cherished ducal title that should have passed to Lathrop years before.
All those thoughts vanished completely as Stephen neared the drawing room and the beautiful girl he loved. Girl. Even though Emily was nearly twenty and possessed a grace and elegance that made her seem almost aloof to strangers, Stephen knew that underneath that façade was a winsome girl who was intimidated by her father and confused by all the attention her stunning looks had brought her when she first appeared in English society. She was warm, intelligent, and well-read. She challenged, amused, and excited Stephen and at the same time she brought out a wide streak of fierce protectiveness in him.
He opened the door of the drawing room and caught his breath at the sight of her. Emily was bending by the fire, stoking the flames with a poker, the firelight turning her hair to molten gold as it spilled over her shoulders and back.
Smiling, she stood up and put the poker aside. “I was trying to stir embers into flames,” she explained with a laugh as he crossed to her.
“You could do that with a smile,” Stephen said.
He waited for her to catch his meaning and he knew the moment she did, then he watched her try to pretend she didn’t know at all. “You’re looking very well,” she told him.
Stephen was tired of cat-and-mouse games. He was in love with her and he knew damned well she was in love with him. He realized their two-month separation was making her feel a little awkward, but he was adamantly unwilling to let her retreat behind the same barrier of formality that he had spent weeks dismantling before she went away. In reply to her comment about the way he looked, Stephen said pointedly, “My looks haven’t changed since last evening.”
“Yes, but you were only here for a few minutes, and . . . and I suppose I didn’t really have a chance to . . . to really study you.”
Instead of going to her and taking her in his arms, which he knew was what she expected, he propped a shoulder against the fireplace mantel and folded his arms over his chest. “Then take all the time you need to scrutinize me.”
She looked completely taken aback. “On the other hand,” Stephen said with a slight smile, “you could put that time to better use and study me at much closer range.” He unfolded his arms and opened them to her. Emily hesitated, then she laughed and rushed into his waiting embrace.
Many minutes later, Stephen reluctantly lifted his mouth from hers and forced his hands to leave her breasts. Sliding his arms around her, he held her crushed to him while Emily laid her flushed cheek against his chest. He smiled over her shoulder, his body rigid with desire, his heart filled with delight at the passionate response he could always awaken in her. Lifting his head, he tipped her chin up and smiled into her languourous violet eyes. “I know your father is away from home, but I asked the butler to tell him when he returns that I’d like to have a word with him tonight.”
Her answering smile froze and her body stiffened. “A word with him about what?”
“About you,” Stephen replied with puzzled amusement. “It’s time to prove to your father, and to the gossips, that my intentions are completely honorable.”
“But you don’t care about gossip, you’ve said so yourself!”
More intrigued than alarmed by her reaction, Stephen tenderly brushed his knuckles over her smooth cheek. “I care about gossip that affects you,” he said gently, “and there will be plenty of it—all of it unpleasant—if we don’t announce our betrothal now that you’re back in England. We were constantly in each other’s company before you left, and the partiality you showed to me will cause a scandal if we don’t act very soon.”
“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. The only one who matters is my father, and he never hears any gossip. We can go on just as we’ve been doing!”
“Like hell we can.” Stunned by her irrational attitude and her apparent naïveté, he caught her by the shoulders. “Emily,” he said bluntly “at the risk of seeming inexcusably crude, I have to ask you if you understand the definition of the physical act of lovemaking.”
She flushed and nodded and tried to pull away from his grasp, but he held her imprisoned. “Then you also ought to understand that going on as we have been is not an option. The passion we’ve shared in this room leads to a bed chamber. My bed chamber. I want you there, as my wife. Answer me, Emily,” he said, watching her intently. “Are you in love with me?”
“Yes, but I can’t marry you!”
“Why in hell not!”
“Because my father has betrothed me to Glengarmon!”
Stephen stepped back as if scorched by the words. “When?” he snapped.
“The night before we left for Spain.”
She was so overwrought that she was beginning to tremble and wring her hands, and Stephen struggled to keep his rage under control for her sake. “The idea is unthinkable, obscene. He can’t force you to marry that old man. I won’t allow it.”
“You have no choice and neither do I. Glengarmon’s land marches with ours, and my father wants that land. He’s wanted it forever, as did his father, and his father’s father. The only way he can have it is by marrying me to Glengarmon. Glengarmon wants me badly enough to agree that the land and house would be transferred to me as part of the marriage settlement. I will have it as a dower house.”
“This whole conversation is insane, and so must your father be. But you aren’t insane, Emily. Your father can’t compel you to wed the old fool.”
“It is a daughter’s duty to wed in accordance with her family’s wishes.
Everyone knows that. You know it, too,” she cried.
“I’ll tell you what I know—I know that no father has the right to martyr his own daughter by wedding her to a disgusting, passionless old man for the sake of a few acres of dirt. And I am going to tell him that to his face tonight!”
“Stephen,” she said brokenly. “Even if you could persuade him of that, which you can’t, you could never persuade him to let me wed you.”
“Don’t underestimate my powers of persuasion.”
Tears spilled from her eyes and raced down her cheeks. “Don’t give either of us false hopes, because you won’t succeed. You can’t succeed. Can’t you see—don’t you understand—?”
“Understand what?”
“My father is a duke. Glengarmon will be a duke when his father dies. My father wants me wed to him for that reason, but if Glengarmon died tomorrow, he still wouldn’t let me marry you. He’d look around for another suitor with the loftiest possible title.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, sobbing. “Oh, God, how could you do this to me? How will I live with Glengarmon, knowing that you truly wanted me for your wife? I knew the gossips were saying that you did, but they—they also said there were many girls who’d believed you—you were going to offer for them, and you never did.”
Her tears were soaking through the front of his shirt, and Stephen laid his hand against her face, holding it pressed to his heart. “Don’t cry like this, sweetheart, you’ll make yourself ill. I’ll find a way to work this out, you’ll see.”
She continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “You were like a fairytale prince to me—handsome, gallant, and as unattainable and as out of reach as yesterday’s dream. I never let myself think that you really loved me.”
Stephen’s reply was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Yes, what is it?” he demanded impatiently.
“A footman from Grand Oak has delivered a message for you, my lord,” the butler replied. “He says it is of the utmost urgency.”