“Emma, please, there is no need to stand in the street and let them see you. We can wait.”
“For what?” Emma kept her eyes on her own reflection. “For him to find a better reason to be absent?”
Melody’s voice dropped. “You do not have to be brave. Not right now.”
“I am not being brave,” Emma said. “I am being exact.”
She unhooked the bodice and stepped out of her gown with care. Then she folded the skirt over the chair. She snatched a plain day dress from the screen and pulled it on. She buttoned it to her throat and toed off her slippers, then took her walking shoes out of the trunk.
Melody moved to help, but Emma shook her head. “I can do it.”
“Emma—”
“I do not know what I thought was going to happen. For a second there, I thought he was going to come. I thought since he agreed in his letter, he would appear, and we would proceed with the ceremony.”
“Emma, you do not have to think?—”
“I cannot believe I let myself hold onto hope,” Emma cut her off. “I cannot believe I let myself think I actually stood a chance because of a clearly misguided notion I had about Scottish men being more honorable.”
Melody sighed, drawing the curtains by the windows. “Maybe he changed his mind. I told you not to be too forthcoming in your letter. Maybe he got apprehensive about the scandal and thought he could not bear it.”
Emma laughed, flattening her palms against the dress. “I could not hide something that significant from a man I am supposed to marry. I needed him to find out, and it needed to come from me first.”
Melody exhaled again and opened her mouth to speak, when a knock sounded at the door, followed by Aunt Agnes’s voice.
“Emma, say the word, and I will tell them all to go. We will send notes tomorrow. We will arrange something quiet for next month.”
Emma opened the door and looked at her aunt for a long moment. “No,” she said. “There will be no quiet arrangement.”
Aunt Agnes swallowed. “For all intents and purposes, I do believe he is a coward. Maybe this is a good thing. A man like that does not deserve you anyway.”
Emma straightened, feeling a chill skitter down her spine. “No.”
Aunt Agnes blinked. “What?”
“I am tired of hearing a bunch of maybes.” Emma threw her hands up in despair. “The vicar, Melody, you. Everyone seems to think they know why he did not appear.Maybeit is this,maybeit is that.”
A brief silence followed, before Emma spoke again, her determination growing.
“I do not intend to live the next few days onmaybes. I want the truth this time, and I intend to find it out.”
Aunt Agnes adjusted the hem of her gown. “Whatever are you talking about, dear?”
Emma cleared her throat. “I will go to him. To Scotland.”
Melody’s head snapped up. “What?”
“If he thinks I am not worth the journey, I will make it for him,” Emma declared.
Aunt Agnes stared at her, saying nothing.
Melody reached for Emma’s cloak and draped it over her shoulders. “Emma, you cannot possibly be serious.”
Emma shook her head. “There is nothing left here for me anymore. I want to look that bastard in the face while he tells me why he did not come to his own wedding.”
The silence that followed was more tense than the weather.
Melody broke it first, the resignation in her voice clear.“Well, you cannot go alone.”
