“Marlbury?” Isabella looked even more confused. “From Bidlington Hall?”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“When I was seventeen, he and I began . . .” Emily hesitated, searching for the right words. “Well, we formed an attachment,” she decided on. “He told me he loved me and would marry me, and I foolishly believed him.”
Isabella’s jaw dropped. Emily could hardly blame her—after their mother died, when Isabella was just ten years of age, Emily had done her best to shoulder the burdens of the family—and that left her no space for entertaining romance. Not that she ever would have done: Lord Marlbury had been more than enough experience for one lifetime.
She had vowed then and there she would never fall in love again. No man would ever again have power over her.
“You andLord Marlbury?” Isabella said in a near-whisper. “Surely you can’t be serious.”
“I am. Of course, I did not know then what sort of man he was. We were both young and—oh, very foolish. I thought for certain we would marry and I would be with him for the rest of my life.”
Isabella fluffed her curls, glancing in the window at her reflection. “But you weren’t.”
“No. He left me, and then Mother died, and the rest of my life happened.” Emily didn’t mention how terrible those ensuing few weeks and months had been—in the midst of her family’s grief, she had to endure her broken heart and shattered dreams. For a time, she had wished she would go to sleep and never wake.
All the years since providing for Isabella could not eradicate her guilt that she had ever thought such a thing.
Isabella tilted her head. “Did you lie with him?”
“I—” Familiar shame tightened her throat. “Yes. And there has not been a day since then I have not regretted it.”
“Well, of course. You failed to convince him to marry you.” Isabella’s mouth tightened into a moue as she thought. “Of course, it is tragic that he used you in such a way, and I’m sorry for it.”
“Gentlemen often use ladies in such ways, especially gentlemen who think they will never have to bear the consequences—and many don’t.” Emily leant across the table, holding out a hand. “I know you are seeing someone, Bella.”
“And so you think to warn me away from him with the story of your tragic love?” Isabella asked, shaking her head. “Do you think I would be so foolish, Em?”
Yes. Emily didn’t say it. “I want you to be careful.”
“Then I shall be careful.” A smile burst across Isabella’s face, rendering her radiant. “And I vow to never fall in love. Such a promise is easy done. How is that?”
“Bella—”
“Don’t be so serious!” Isabella rose and dropped a kiss on the crown of Emily’s head as she passed, as though she were the older, wiser sister. “I know what I am doing, never fear. And I have a plan.”
“A plan for what?”
“You’ll see.” Isabella smiled mysteriously, and Emily’s heart gave another anxious lurch. “I doubt it shall be long now.” She blew Emily a kiss as she left the room, and Emily stared at her fingers on the table, knuckles cracked from scrubbing at their clothes in the cold. Once, she’d had ladies’ hands; she was, technically, a gentleman’s daughter. Only the gentleman in question was dead, and he had left his daughters with next to nothing to survive on.
If she could have saved Isabella from the fate of being penniless in a small village in the middle of nowhere, she would have, but not by having her sister ruined by a gentleman.
There were no lengths she would not go to in order to prevent that from happening.
“Tell me you’re not serious,” Marlbury said.
Oliver reclined across the sofa, the wineglass tipping dangerously in his lax fingers. “Why not?”
“Marriage.” Marlbury clucked his tongue. “And to the Brunton girl?”
“She’s the prettiest face I’ve seen since retiring from London, and more to the point, she’s amenable to the match. She wants an escape, and I will have property to bring her back to once my sister-in-law releases my inheritance.” Oliver loosed a long sigh. “She is the ideal candidate.”
“She is penniless.”
“It’s not as though I need an heiress,” Oliver pointed out, draining the last of his wine. “And I rather doubt an heiress would have me. My brother was right about one thing—there is rather a dearth of rich ladies lining up to wed me. I am not the eldest son of a marquess.” He looked pointedly at his friend.Lord Marlbury was the son of the Marquess of Rotherham, and when he came to marry, he would have his pick of theton. “Ido not have dowagers thrusting their daughters upon me.”
