“You said this place was your mother’s?” Emmalina asked. The duke nodded though he didn’t speak. He stared at the pond with an unreadable expression. Emmaline’s stomach twisted with guilt. Perhaps she ought not have mentioned her.
“She did. It was her favorite place on the estate,” he said, still gazing across the pond.
Curious as a cat, Emmaline asked, “What happened to her?”
The duke stiffened at the question. “She passed a long time ago. I do not wish to talk about it.”
The way he spoke through a clearly clenched jaw spoke of the pain he still felt at the loss of his mother. Emmaline wondered whether he felt the same for his father.
Of course, he must. Every child mourned their parent's death. The mere imagining of losing her own father made her nauseous. It had come incredibly close this week.
“I have come to learn, Your Grace, that it does not matter how long it has been,” Emmaline said gently, and she reached out instinctively to grip his hand on the bench between them.
He flinched and for a moment, she feared she had overstepped her bounds once more. Then, the duke's grip tightened on her fingers, and he pulled her hand up to his chest.
“I suppose we have at least one thing in common then,” the duke said, looking at her over her knuckles as he kissed them.
Emmaline shivered. She wasn't sure that the similarity of their both having no mother was exactly a good thing to have in common. Though she supposed shared grief might be a place to start to get to know one another better.
And yet, she also shivered because of something else entirely. The way the duke looked at her over her hand, how his eyes penetrated her’s, set butterflies fluttering about her stomach as they never had before.
“You know, my dearest Emmaline, I have refrained from saying so before now as I did not wish to make you uncomfortable but,” the duke said, lowering her hand into his lap so that there was nothing between them. “Right here and now, I feel I must tell you, you are quite beautiful.”
Emmaline's breath hitched in her throat. The way the duke was leaning in, how he continued to meet her gaze with unrelenting desire, made her quiver.
“Your Grace… Alex…” she had no idea what to say to such a compliment. Ordinarily, she might simply have thanked him as she would any gentleman. But no other gentleman had ever been this close before.
And when he reached up to stroke a strand of hair back behind her ear, his fingertips brushing the height of her cheekbone, she started to blush.
“Here in this garden,” the duke said, leaning in ever so close now, so close that their noses nearly brushed, “I do not know what has come over me, but I feel I must tell you that you are the most beautiful creature I have ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes upon.”
He whispered, their noses touching now. His breath was sweet, seductive, and Emmaline willingly closed her eyes. Anticipating what came next, she quivered uncontrollably. This felt like the moment she had been waiting millennia for.
Her heartbeat quickened until she believed it might well give out entirely. The duke raised her hand to his chest and placed her palm against it as if he wished for her to know that this was beating just as frantically.
The gentlest caress of his lips barely brushed hers. She groaned with the desire for it to deepen.
Then, just as she thought it might, just as the duke cupped her cheek with his free hand, someone cleared their throat.
Emmaline was so shocked by the sound, her eyes flew open wide, and she threw herself off the bench. Feeling as if she had just been caught in the gardens with an inappropriate gentleman by her father, she dipped her head, blushing uncomfortably.
The duke rose more slowly and demanded, “What is it, Sean?”
Emmaline gulped. Sean, why did it have to be Sean? Of course, he acted like just another one of the servants much of the time, pandering about for the duke, but he wasn't one of them. He was a nobleman as much as the duke was and somehow, that made his finding them in such a manner all that more difficult.
“Forgive my interruption, Your Graces, but I am afraid your uncle is here,” Sean explained, dipping his head. Emmaline did not miss the smirk he gave the duke as he raised it once more.
“Blast him!” the duke cursed under his breath but when he turned to Emmaline, he was smiling with the good side of his face. He added much more clearly, “I suppose it is time for you to meet some of the family.”
Emmaline struggled to wrap her head around it. One minute they had been about to kiss, what she imagined would have been a long and passionate kiss, and now he was offering her his hand to meet his uncle. It was a terrifying notion. Until now, she had only been introduced to his acquaintances, and Sean, but to meet a family member was utterly terrifying.
Still, what other choice did she have? She would have to meet whatever family he had at some point. Though he had been a recluse to society for a long time, there was no doubt in her mind he cared greatly for his family, his staff included.
The meeting of the uncle did not go at all as Emmaline might have anticipated.
Though entirely too nervous to do much talking, she had hoped to at least make a good impression.
Upon entering the drawing room where Lord Black awaited them, Emmaline sensed it would not be possible, no matter how good a first impression she tried to make.
