“Meg. Of course.”
“Let me guess, they were discussing my brother’s reluctance to marry?” Meg continued.
Emma nodded. “Lady Frances said she heard he will not marry this Season. They were quite disappointed in that potential outcome. He’s, as you know, considered quite a catch for women like them.”
“Women like them,” Meg mused. “Nasty title hunters? I hope he won’t marry someone like that. If he marries at all.”
“Is thattrulya possibility?” Emma asked with a shake of her head. “That he would not marry?”
Meg shrugged. “When he thinks I am not listening, he sometimes says things that make me think he is pondering a life lived alone, yes.”
Emma just barely kept her mouth from dropping open in surprise. It was a ridiculous notion that a man like Abernathe would refuse to do his duty. More than that, he could have virtually any woman he desired. Any one of them would fall at his feet if he asked for their hand. And any woman he so much as looked at would have the entire focus of Society on her.
“Your mother must be upset at that notion,” Emma said, shivering as she thought of her own mother. Violet Liston was a ball of manic energy, and when she began to roll down a hill toward Emma, there was no escaping her schemes.
Currently her focus was on seeing Emma married. This Season. As soon as was humanly possible.
Meg’s face fell. “My mother is…differentfrom others. I doubt she would care what James did or didn’t do.”
Emma tried not to show any reaction on her face. She sometimes heard little whispers about the Dowager Duchess of Abernathe, but never anything entirely untoward.
She shifted and fought to find some way to change the subject from the obviously uncomfortable one. “Youwill marry, though, and soon from what everyone says.”
Meg smiled, but there was a tightness to her lips. “Yes, I suppose it shall be soon. Northfield and I cannot be engaged forever. My brother is insistent that we make a date for later this year or early next at the latest.”
Emma stared. She’d hoped she would find a more positive subject with Meg’s engagement. After all, everyone knew that the Duke of Northfield was one of the Duke of Abernathe’s closest friends. He and Meg had practically grown up together and their marriage had been arranged for years.
And yet Meg’s smile was false and her eyes dull as the subject was broached. Emma barely resisted the urge to shake her head in disbelief. Hereshewas, her mother pushing her to find a match, her prospects weak at best, nonexistent at worst, and Meg had a duke in her pocket, a man who would let her want for nothing…and she was unsatisfied.
She would never understand the popular.
She sought yet another subject, but before she could find one, someone bumped into Meg and Emma from behind. Both of them turned and Emma was shocked to find the Dowager Duchess of Abernathe, herself, standing behind them. She had a drink in her hand and it sloshed in her glass as she staggered.
“Well, well, well,” the duchess said. “If it isn’t my dutiful daughter.”
Emma caught her breath as she looked toward Meg and saw the color draining from her cheeks.Thiswas what Meg had meant by her mother being different, apparently. And suddenly Emma understood a great many things she hadn’t fully grasped before.
Chapter Two
“Meg, I’ve been looking for you,” the Duchess of Abernathe said, rather too loudly. She slugged down another gulp of her drink before she hiccupped.
Meg’s face had now lost all color, and she stepped forward. “Mother, I thought we talked about how much you would have to drink tonight,” she whispered with a quick look toward Emma.
Emma’s eyes went wide at this entirely unexpected development. Indeed, the duchess did look deep in her cups. Her eyes were bleary and her body swung.
“You aren’t my mother, Margaret Elizabeth Elinor Rylon,” the duchess slurred. “You can’t tell me what to do while you sit on that high horse of yours.”
A few in the crowd close to them were beginning to stare and Meg clutched at her mother’s arm. “Please lower your voice.”
“Embarrassed, are you?” the duchess hiccupped again.
Emma stared. No lady she knew would make such a scene at a ball, of all things. She had no idea what to do. She could turn away so that Meg wouldn’t have to be even more embarrassed, but then she’d leave the other woman to deal with the situation herself. She knew how horrible it could be to have others watch you, talk about you.
She shivered at the thought, and in that moment she made a decision.
“Your Grace,” she said with a bright smile. “You may not know me, but I’m Emma Liston, a friend of your daughter’s. We were about to go to the retiring room to rest a moment. Perhaps you would like to join us.”
Meg jerked her face toward Emma and she nodded slightly as if to encourage her. “Yes, Mother. The retiring room is just the place.”
