It wasn’t fair on Freddie to be bound to her for the rest of his life. He was all fun and laughter and she was quiet and bookish. They were two pieces from very different jigsaw puzzles; they would never fit together no matter how many times they rearranged themselves.
The moment in the garden had been one full of glorious insanity. For a wild, untamed moment, she had acted on instinct, she’d been daring and fun and had all but thrown herself at Freddie. Even now, she could still feel the thrill of his mouth on hers and the way he’d pulled her body against his, as if he had wanted nothing more than to become one with her. She had run her hands over his glorious skin and had shamelessly given herself over to the moment.
She was not normally like that. She was naturally cautious and quiet and her favourite thing to do was to stay at home with a book. Gregarious Freddie would be deathly bored being married to her. She’d wanted to tell him that, to let him know that she would not think badly of him if he broke their engagement, but now the world knew and she could not offer that release to him, not unless she wanted to face the humiliation of a broken engagement in front of the Ton. And, as she’d already realised, she was too much of a coward to do that.
‘Why do I always find you hiding?’
She yelped at the unexpected voice.
‘Sorry,’ said Eloisa, not sounding at all apologetic. ‘I did not realise you were not aware of my approach.’
‘I am not hiding; I am merely taking a breather from all the excitement.’ Emily wasn’t sure why she was lying to her best friend. They’d barely had time to speak over the last two weeks and she didn’t know how to tell Eloisa everything that was in her heart. It was too much to even think about, let alone share.
‘That is much the same thing,’ Eloisa pointed out. ‘But I am very glad to find you alone. We’ve not had time to speak privately and there is so much I want to discover.’
‘What do you want to know?’ Emily hedged. She had always shared everything with Eloisa, but the shame she was experiencing at how everything had played out was not something she wanted to tell even her closest friend.
Eloisa raised an expectant eyebrow. ‘I want to know how your sworn enemy is going to become your husband in a fortnight’s time.’
‘I do not know where to start.’ That, at least, was honest because Emily still wasn’t sure how it had happened either. Oh, she was aware that she had been caught with her arms around Freddie’s naked chest, with his lips locked with hers, as her hands had tried to touch as much of his flesh as humanly possible, but she really wasn’t sure how that had come to pass. They’d been on their way to becoming something less than friends but better than enemies and now they were going to be married. It had all happened faster than it took her to read a novel.
‘Start with his courtship. I mean, the last time we spoke properly, he was asking you to dance, but I had the feeling that was as much a surprise to you as it was to me.’
‘Yes, I had not expected him to want to do that.’ She really hadn’t; they had barely been able to tolerate one another at that point. ‘Although we had spent a few pleasant moments together with his niece.’ She reached up and touched her neck. Her pulse was racing. That dance had only been around a month ago and they had been foes before that. However was this marriage going to work?
‘And then…’
‘Then he made me a bench.’
Eloisa frowned. Emily could understand why. A bench was not the same as a bouquet of flowers, although in her opinion it was far more lovely.
‘How did he ask you to marry him?’
Emily’s chest squeezed. He hadn’t asked, he had merely stated. But she didn’t find any fault with that. After she had almost mauled him in the garden, he’d not had a choice. In their brief talk after his proposal, she had tried to tell him that she wouldn’t hold him to his promise, but she wasn’t entirely sure she had been coherent. She had cried, her heart breaking that Freddie was going to be tied down to a woman with whom he had nothing in common. Not even she had fully understood what she had been saying as she’d cried into his shoulder. He’d stroked her back, the gesture calm and gentle. They’d only spoken a handful of times since, but each time he had been gentle with her, as if the teasing comments he’d once made to her might make her crack. Once she had found him to be the most irritating man of her acquaintance, but now that part of their relationship seemed to be over, it made her heart hurt.
‘He was very kind,’ she mumbled, knowing that Eloisa wanted some response and that was more than true. He hadn’t had to offer for her; he could have asked her mother to sweep the whole thing under the carpet and ultimately, she was sure her mother would have done so. She wouldn’t want Emily ruined. However, if Freddie hadn’t made his offer, then Emily would have had to live with her mother having seen her in the arms of a half-naked man. She shuddered. The lectures had been bad enough with Freddie’s proposal; she couldn’t imagine how bad her life would have been without it.
Eloisa lightly touched her arm. ‘That does not sound like a passionate declaration of love and your face is pulling the most alarming expression. Are you being forced into this, my dear?’
Eloisa’s sympathy was almost Emily’s undoing. She blinked, forcing her tears not to fall. ‘No. I am not being forced.’ It was Freddie who was being made to do something he didn’t really want to do. ‘Freddie is not the man I thought he was. He’s a good person and he will be a pleasant husband.’
Good and pleasant sounded bland and did not come close to explaining what had happened between them in the garden. There had been nothing comfortable or pleasant about that. It had been fire and passion and it had caused her many sleepless nights since. Sometimes, when she had a break between panicking about being married and cringing from a horrendous lecture, she worried that Freddie would be expecting her to be like that all the time. That had been her first kiss and she had no idea what it was truly like to be with a man. Other times, she would lie there imagining what itwouldbe like to be like that all the time. To be able to touch Freddie with the confidence she’d had on that afternoon. Those nights were very different from the ones in which she worried.
‘What about how you feel about this, Emily?’ her friend asked. ‘You do not look like a radiant bride about to be married to her one true love.’
Emily sucked in a breath. Eloisa was the only person who had asked her this question and, in truth, she did not know how to answer. ‘I… Freddie is…’
‘I am not asking about Freddie, my dear.’ Eloisa took her hand and squeezed it. ‘I am asking aboutyouand how you are feeling. You are a sweet soul and I know that you will want to please people around you, but you must not do that at the cost of your own happiness, Emily. Do you love him?’
‘I… I…’ She didn’t think so, but then she did not know what it meant to love. She thought about him a lot, especially the heat of his skin as she had run her hands over it. Lust did not equal love though. ‘I think he is a better person than I ever gave him credit for and I think that he will be kind to me, kinder than my mother.’
‘A trout would be more pleasant than your mother.’
Emily laughed, glancing guiltily over her shoulder as she did so. ‘It happened very quickly and I have not been given much time to think about it. I care about him. I want him to be happy and I am going to make sure that it is not me who stops that from happening.’
‘Emily.’ Eloisa said her name full of warning.
‘What is that tone for?’
