“The staff is terrified of you, and Mama isn’t much better, though she’ll enjoy the attention from this for the rest of her life. Similarly, Father will remain mortified by the whole affair. I wish they would divorce themselves from the idea that everything Max and I do tarnishes them somehow. It’s true, of course, but not to the degree that they bluster about it.”
She paused to rewet the rag and set it back on Miss Wong’s forehead.
“I have no idea what this is doing to Max,” she said, her voice low. “He was there for the whole thing. The fight…”
She didn’t want to relive rushing into the guest bedroom. She didn’t want her mind to dwell on those first seconds. There was plenty to recall. She’d been the one to supervise the removal of the body. She’d been the first to speak to the Watch, and she’d be the one who would lie—eventually—and say that the room was completely cleaned such that no trace of blood or…
She shuddered as she mentally ticked off all the new things that would be needed for that room. She would completely refurbish it, including the paper on the wall, and still she would shudder every time she stepped inside it.
She looked down at her sketchpad, blank except for her first few strokes. “I’m going to have to marry,” she declared. It was the only way she might never step into that bedroom again.
“I was thinking much the same thing,” said a voice behind her.
Emma twisted to see Lady Kimberly entering the room. Her steps were quiet and her expression…well, her expression was what it always was when she was away from her beloved dogs. She was wary and tense. For all that she spoke carefully and moved with the refined elegance appropriate to a future duchess, Emmaline knew it covered a debilitating shyness that strained every aspect of the woman’s life.
Emmaline couldn’t understand why no one else saw it.
“Kim, you didn’t have to come back here,” she said.
“I promised Max I would.” Her gaze went to Miss Wong. Her brows narrowed as she gestured to the foot of the bed. “May I?”
“Yes.”
Emmaline helped her lift up the thin cover over Miss Wong’s feet. Kimberly gently touched the flesh, her lips tightening at the level of swelling.
“Best keep the blanket off. I doubt it will help much, but it can’t hurt.”
Emmaline agreed, so they stripped the covers off the bed. Miss Wong wore one of Emma’s nightrails, so there was no lack of modesty, but still it felt uncomfortable to have such hideously disfigured feet prominent in her vision. She didn’t want to see such ugliness, and yet what was a sickroom for but to face an illness and fight for health as best as one could?
Kimberly, on the other hand, didn’t appear to suffer the same affliction. She was careful not to disturb Miss Wong, but she spent a great deal of time studying the shape and character of the injury. In the end, she stood up with an audible sigh.
“The fever is a bad sign,” she said.
Emmaline had guessed as much. “I don’t know if it’s better for her to recover or not. I can’t imagine the life she will have if she survives.”
Kimberly’s brows rose. “You don’t think Max will marry her? It was Prinny’s express command.”
“Prinny says a lot of things that Max ignores. He won’t forget his promises to you.”
“It’s only one promise. And men are not known to be faithful creatures.”
Emmaline heard Kimberly’s unspoken words.Unlike dogs,men weren’t faithful or loyal or remotely dependable. She couldn’t argue that on a general basis, but she felt pressured to defend her brother.
“Max has neglected you, to be sure, but he’s promised to marry you in a thousand different ways. He’s never taken a mistress, never shown partiality to any woman above you. He’s danced three times with you in an evening. Indeed, thehaut tonregards you both as already wed.”
Kimberly nodded, but her lips were pressed together in doubt. And what could Emma say to that? The truth was that the two were not actually wed, and Kimberly was already too old to step into the marriage mart.
Of course, that was nearly true for Emma, and she was not promised to a soul. “I begin to think the life of a spinster would not be so bad,” she murmured, thinking of the eligible men this year. Unfortunately, her only other option was to wait hand and foot on her parents for the rest of her life. That sounded hideous. She wanted a household of her own. She wanted a smaller establishment with few servants constantly watching for gossip. And most of all, she wanted Christopher to notice her once and for all.
“Do you still long for Lord Christopher?”
Emmaline jolted, surprised and annoyed that Kimberly had remembered her youthful confession four seasons ago. She had always regarded the woman as her future sister-in-law, and so had been too forthcoming in her fantasies.
“He sees me as Max’s scapegrace younger sister. I doubt he thinks of me as a woman grown.” She had been a lonely girl, desperate for companionship when her paints could not distract her. It was only natural that she had spent her summers pestering her brother and his best friend. She rode after them when they went out, she intruded on their fishing during the day and billiards at night. She’d been a constant pest when she was young and a horrendous flirt when she was older.
She knew now that she’d merely been lonely. Her parents hadn’t wanted her to play with the local children and only occasionally allowed her school friends to visit. The only reason Max had been allowed Christopher was because the boy had arrived on his own and refused to leave. And she, of course, had thought such casual defiance to be the height of masculine power.
She now knew it had been because of some violent altercation between him and his father. Violent enough, it seemed, that he had been forced to flee.
