Chapter Three
Emily raced downthe corridor. Devon had betrayed her. How could he? Pain knifed through her. Light from the ballroom spilled into the hallway up ahead. She halted, vision blurred by tears and forced back gasping inhalations. Heaven help her if her crying transformed into sobs. With trembling hands, she smoothed down her skirt, fluffed her ruffles, and patted errant strands of hair. At last, she took a fortifying breath, then slipped into the crowded ballroom to retake her place in the emptiness near her mother.
Mother didn’t appear to have noticed her absence, so intent was she on her conversation with the viscountess. Tears threatened again. Emily squeezed her eyes shut. How could Devon have gone from a young man who wouldn’t kiss her without declaring his intentions to her father, to a rake who lurked in libraries waiting for unsuspecting young women?
“So?” Prudence’s smug demand brought Emily’s eyes open.
Fury swept through her. “How dare you send me there to be…” Emily halted, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “To be kissed? What sort of cruel game is that, Prudence?”
Gathered close on either side of them, Fanny and Liza exchanged startled looks.
Prudence frowned. “Kissed? I have no idea what you mean. You were to go and come back, likely getting in trouble with your mama.” Prudence gestured toward Emily’s mother. “But she didn’t even notice.”
“I was set upon,” Emily hissed.
“By whom? Who would dare enter the Viscount Millview’s library?”
“The viscount.” Emily frothed with anger. Prudence played a cruel game, even for a schoolmate prank.
Fanny gasped.
Liza’s hands flew to her mouth.
Prudence’s jaw fell open. “The viscount was in the library?”
Emily took in the three shocked faces. Her anger started to cool under their incredulity. “You didn’t know he would be?”
Prudence shook her head, vexation twisting her pinched features.
Fanny snorted. “If she’d known, she would have gone there to be kissed.”
“Did you really kiss him?” Liza asked.
“Did Fanny really kiss a duke to learn some secret words?” Emily countered.
All three shook their heads.
“It was all a lie?”
They nodded.
“Do you...” Emily wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but her lingering anger drove her on. “Do you send everyone who’s new off to the library?”
Prudence’s lips pressed into a firm line, her expression darkening.
“She plays some trick on them,” Liza offered. “Spills punch on their hem, starts rumors about them being foolish enough to kiss a frog in hopes they’ll get a prince. Sends them off into the house so they get in trouble with their mamas.”
“Not the library before, though,” Fanny added. She held up a hand, ticking off on her fingers as she continued, “The veranda, the garden, the fountain, the conservatory, the—”
“Enough,” Prudence broke in.
Emily pressed fingers to her suddenly aching forehead. Devon didn’t wait in the library to kiss women. How could she think he would? He was right, she did know him. She knew him nearly as well as she knew herself, and right now, she liked him even better.
How could she not see his sincerity? The joy in his eyes when he beheld her, the pain when he spoke of disappointing her? Those weren’t lies.
But she knew how. She’d thought to forgive him his years of bandying about. She knew most men did the same. To hear him confess it, though, even without detail, hurt. She loved him so much, she’d never been tempted by another man, and he’d been out…out…
“Emily?” Prudence’s tone held worry now. “Are you unwell?”
