Dratted louse.
Good Morning, Miss Goodnight
Emily awoke to the distant sounds of a lone rider approaching the estate. The sun still sat low on the horizon. She buried her head in her pillow but all the events of the previous day, all the frustrations of her situation, pricked her fully awake despite the early hour. What a mess! Why couldn’t her mother simply allow her to continue to live with her and her father at home? Why didn’t her father care enough to stand up for her?
Why did Lord Blakely have to be such a rake?
She reached to the side table for her spectacles and remembered her other problem. Vision, or lack thereof.
What had she done to deserve this? Groaning, she again buried her face in the downy softness. Perhaps she would lay abed all day. She could send word to Sophia that she had some sort of… megrim. Although she never suffered megrims.
Rhoda and Sophia would pounce on her without fail.
She needed tea. And something to eat. She hadn’t eaten much at dinner and now felt the emptiness of her stomach.
If she could locate Sophia’s kitchen, convince the cook to take pity upon her… Emily slipped out of the bed and located her slippers. Where had she left her dressing gown? Feeling around like a blind person, she experienced some small satisfaction when her hands fell on the thicker cotton wrap.
Now, to locate the kitchen.
Er, first the door.
Feeling around the room again, she identified some paintings, some impressive wood molding, and grew quite familiar with the texture of the wallpaper. Where in tarnation was the door?
As though answering her question, a quiet tap pulled her a few feet to the right. Ah, yes. Emily bent over and, oh, indeed. A latch!
She swung it open, expecting either a maid or perhaps Rhoda and was instead met by… Blakely?
“Lord Blakely? Is that you?” He must have changed his mind. After contemplating marrying Rhoda overnight, he simply couldn’t do it. He’d come to withdraw his promise already.
Turning his head to the left and then the right, he then pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Hush,” he whispered. Once the door closed behind him, he reached into a pocket and then…
Her spectacles!
“How? When?” She stuttered in disbelief as he fit them behind her ears and smoothed her hair out of her eyes.
“Do they work?” His baritone voice chased her melancholy away. And oh! She couldseehim again! In the early morning light, wearing riding clothes with his hair in disarray, he looked handsomer than ever.
Was that a word?
Handsomer?
Usually, she wouldn’t contemplate anything, even mentally, using improper grammar. No, handsomer was proper. She cleared this controversy in her mind before shaking her head. What had he asked?
“Can you see better now?”
Oh, yes.
“I can. Lord Blakely, thank you. You can’t imagine.” And then… tears? She turned her face away from him and crossed to her vanity. Peering into the glass, she pretended to consider the new spectacles but actually dabbed at her lashes to remove any traces of moisture. “Thank you.”
She would not be forced to go through another day in a fog. She would not need to rely on others to guide her from room to room. He’d not only fetched a new pair of spectacles for her, he’d given her back her freedom.
“I didn’t think you should have to navigate through another day without the benefit of sight. Puts you at something of a disadvantage, I imagine.”
The rider she’d woken to must have been him. She turned and studied him closely. Dark moons shadowed his eyes and although he’d not shaved today, her attraction to him was as strong as ever. “Did you not sleep at all?”
He didn’t’ answer her but shrugged one shoulder, allowing her to steer him, without any objections, to a chair and then push him into it. “This business with your father, it bothers you more than you let on, doesn’t it?’
He’d made it possible for her to see clearly again this morning. This poor tortured reprobate of a man. Half the time she hated him and yet the other half she wanted to save him from himself. At her words, he chuckled ruefully but his eyes belied any humor.
