“They are not lies, Your Grace,” she snapped, facing him again, her arms folded in defiance and her eyes filled with tears.
“How many times has he told you the very same thing?” he whispered. “How many times has he promised you diamonds and pearls, fidelity and calm?”
Her expression told him everything he wanted to hear and he shook his head slowly. “Emma cares for you, despite all you have allowed during her life. And if she would like to support you, I will never argue against it. But her father…that man willneverreceive a penny from my purse. And I will doeverythingin my power to make sure he never hurts her again. Take a little advice, Mrs. Liston, from someone who knows it all too well. People do not change. And you will only be disappointed if you believe your husband’s tales one more time.”
She stared at him, her hands clenched at her sides and her bottom lip trembling. In that moment, he saw Emma in her. Emma in twenty years, if she was denied safety and security…love.
He could give her the first two, but the last? Would marrying him doom her as much as marrying Sir Archibald would have done?
He shook off the troubling question as Mrs. Liston stepped up to him. “You owe us,” she whispered.
He arched a brow. “I oweEmma. Everything else is optional.”
She huffed out her breath and raced from the balcony back into the house, leaving James alone again. He stared off into the distance once more. The servants were almost finished with their preparations for his wedding.
And now he did not know how to proceed with Emma once she was truly his. Because the idea of anyone’s happiness belonging to him—or worse, his happiness belonging to someone else—was terrifying.
Emma hardly recognized the woman who stood looking at her in her mirror. Meg’s seamstress had done wonders in a short amount of time, creating an exquisite gown stitched through with sparkling silver thread and a finely braided bodice. Her hair had been twisted, curled and piled in a beautiful fashion. Her cheeks had been pinched, her lips very lightly rouged, despite the naughtiness of that action.
She looked…different.
Shealmostlooked like a duchess should.
“You are gorgeous,” Meg said, leaning in to kiss Emma’s cheek. “My brother will be enraptured!”
Emma bent her head. Enrapture James? That seemed almost impossible. He was marrying her out of duty, out of some sense that he had to save her. Soon enough whatever desire he felt for her would fade, and they would be left with…
Resentment. Perhaps one day even hatred.
She shivered, and Meg rubbed her bare arms gently. “Are you cold?”
“No,” Emma said, covering her friend’s hand. “Not cold. Thank you.”
The door to her chamber opened and her mother stepped in. Emma rose to her feet as she stared at Mrs. Liston’s drawn face. She was upset, that was clear. Dread rose up in Emma’s chest, washing away any other good emotion she might have felt as she wondered in terror what her father might have done now.
“May I have a moment with my mother?” she said, smiling at Sally and Meg.
“Of course,” Meg said, and turned to the maid. “Sally, youmusttalk to my maid. I would someday love to have my hair styled as you did Emma’s. It is perfect.”
They exited the room together, and Meg shut the door as they did so, leaving Emma alone with her mother. She moved toward her a step. “What is it?”
Her mother shook her head. “Awful man. You don’t even know, Emma!”
Emma drew in long breaths and tried to keep her voice calm as she whispered, “What did he do? What did Father do now?”
“Your father?” Mrs. Liston burst out with an angry cackle. “No, it wasn’t him who upset me.”
Emma blinked in confusion. “Then who?”
“That future husband of yours,” Mrs. Liston ground out. “Do you know he dared to say he would not support your father? He claims Harold doesn’t deserve it after what he did to you. What he did? Well, he’s the reason you’re marrying a duke at all, isn’t he?”
“Because he forced James’s hand when he lost me in a bet?” Emma barked. “How wonderful of him, yes.”
“Don’t be impertinent,” her mother snapped. “He saved you, in a roundabout way. But Abernathe isinsistentthat he shall not spare a farthing for your poor father.”
Emma swallowed. Her mother meant for her to be upset by this knowledge, but she was creating an opposite reaction. As she stood there, listening to her mother rail about James’s set down of her father, she felt…protected. Like she had finally found the champion she had prayed for all her life.
“Mypoorfather,” she repeated softly. “Is that what you have convinced yourself he is, a victim in all this?”
