“Yes, ill-suited,” Oliver said, frustration in his voice now. “And ill-conceived. After so long in my company, do you truly think I am well matched with your sister?”
“You thought so yourself before we kissed!” she snapped. Shame sank deep inside her, turning desire to ash. In that moment, when he’d been standing over her, she’d been reminded of how it felt to want something—for so long, she had not allowed herself the luxury of need, but it had found her then. Need and heat.
Marlbury had seduced her with pretty words and promises, but Oliver had made her feel as though he wanted her just as much in return, and the feeling was intoxicating.
She shut it down.
“The kiss?” He tossed up his hands. “The problem is not that we kissed, Emily. It’s that I wanted to kiss you. I have been wanting to kiss you for days now, and if you do not think that an impediment to your sister’s happiness, then I do.”
Emily covered her face with her hands. This was her fault.Shewas the impediment to Isabella’s happiness; if she had not got in the way of Oliver’s plans, Isabella would be married by now—and yes, seventeen was too young for marriage, but Oliver was a good man, far better than she’d imagined. Her sister would have been cared for.
An impatient sigh, then Oliver’s hand wrapped gently around her wrist. “Emily,” he said, soft again. “You can’t blame yourself for this.”
“On the contrary. Without me, none of this would have happened.”
“Your sister would have been desperately unhappy, as would I.” His thumb swiped across her skin, and she remembered belatedly that she had not replaced her glove since stroking Doris. “Time has been her enemy, not you. I arrived in Dalston angry at my brother and determined to spite him, and Isabella was a means to that end.”
“You wanted to marry so you would not have to admit to your deficiency,” she said, muffled through her hands.
“Yes, true. And yet I would not have confided that truth in her the way I did to you. Now I’ve had some time to think and reflect—and be here, with nothing to do but help with the chores and speak with you—I see how much of a damnfoolI was.”
“Isabella deserves better.”
“Perhaps,” he said, his voice wry. “But I fancy she will find herself someone new in time, and will spare me very little thought. If I were a pig farmer, no matter how handsome, she would not have looked twice. Believe me when I say she doesn’t love me. And she knows I don’t love her.”
Isabella, that conniving? Could she believe it? Isabella had never wanted the life they shared, and if she had come across Oliver in Dalston, so evidently a gentleman, young and handsome and ready to be flirted with—was it so surprising that she had taken the opportunity fate had presented to her?
It was just . . . Emily had seen the glow on her face when she came back from meeting with him, and she had recognised it; she had worn the same one when meeting Marlbury.
She freed her wrist from his hold and paced away from him. Distance, that was what she needed—distance and clarity.
“Em,” Oliver said, pleading now. “Even if she had intended to fall in love with me, she barely saw me. I have spent more time with you than I ever did with her, and are you in love with me?”
She whirled. “I am not my sister! Nor am I seventeen.”
“That doesn’t change reality. I saw her a handful of times, barely so much as kissed her, and I hardly promised her the world. We talked of a runaway marriage and of coming into my inheritance, and I assure you that is what she loved far more than me.”
Emily pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the rapid pounding of her heart. Fear coursed through her veins, that Isabella might endure the same things she had—but reason and logic soon took hold. When she had been with Marlbury, she had sneaked away to spend every second of every sunlit day with him. Their mother had, in retrospect, been ill, and no one had paid attention to her comings and goings. There were no chores, no responsibilities, and her governess paid far more attention to her sister.
The same could not be said for Isabella now.
Emily had lain with Marlbury, several times, offering him her body as well as her heart. He had promised her everything, and she would have taken him for her husband even if hehadbeen a pig farmer, because love did not come armed with conditions.
“For the first time in my life, I feel as though I have a purpose, being here,” he said. “Working on the farm,doingsomething worthwhile with my time. It is a new sensation, admittedly, but one I enjoy. Isabella wants me to be an idle lord whose purpose in life is to buy her pretty dresses and take her to elegant balls. But that’s not the life I want.”
“Then whatdoyou want?” A new fear entered her heart, and her next words were jagged and sharp. “I won’t marry you.”
He held up both hands. “Did you hear me asking you to? One kiss does not a marriage make. Besides, you told me you had no intention of marrying. Love is poison, remember?”
She let out a sigh of relief, her shoulders loosening. If he was telling the truth and Isabella didn’t love him, she might be disappointed by his changed mind, but at least she would not go through the same heartbreak she had.
Lovewaspoison.
She prayed if Isabella ever came to love, it would be in moderation, and when she was old enough to truly comprehend the risks.
“If Isabella does love you, you ought to keep your promise to her,” she said.
“Is that what you want?” He came to her now, cupping her face in his hand and looking deep into her eyes. His were every colour under the sun, split through with gold. “Even if it makes her unhappier in the long run?”
