She’d failed them all, and she’dfailed Samuel.
But most of all, she’d failed herself. She’d had one chance to offer something to all the lost young girls—a chance to do somethinggood, to prove to herself she was more than just a whore and a murderess. One chance to carry a torch and stride triumphantly through the flames like Thaïs, and she’d let it slip through her fingers.
And for what? Some childish dream she’d long since given up on.
She’d been a fool to believe even for a moment the fragile tenderness between her and Samuel would flourish, when it was destined from the start to wither on the vine. She should have known it would end the same way it had started—with him wishing he’d never laid eyes on her.
One way or another, it would always end that way.
“Emma?”
Emma looked up to see Lady Crosby hovering by the door to the drawing room, her face drawn with worry. “I’m sorry, my lady. Am I very late?”
“It’s all right, dear.” Some emotion flickered in Lady Crosby’s eyes, but the hallway was too dim, and Emma too exhausted to decipher what it was. “Did you find Helena?”
“I did, and not a moment too soon.” Emma swallowed at the memory of Helena’s torn gown and bruised neck. “Daniel’s taken her toLady Clifford.”
Lady Crosby sagged against the door frame in relief. “Thank goodness. But you look done in, you poor thing. Come to the drawing room, and sit withme for a bit.”
Emma took the hand Lady Crosby offered, and allowed herself to be led to the drawing room as if she were a child, and seated on a comfortable settee by the fire. Lady Crosby called for refreshments, then proceeded to fuss over Emma like a mother hen until a footman arrived with a silver tray bearing a bottle of sherry and two glasses.
“Sherry, my lady? At…” Emma glanced at the mantel clock. “Six o’clock in the morning?”
“I’m a great lover of tea, as you know, Emma, but there are occasions when it isn’t quite sufficient.” Lady Crosby poured a hearty measure of sherry into each glass, and handed one to Emma. “This feels like one of those times.”
Emma couldn’t argue with that. She raised the glass to her lips and took a grateful sip, but Lady Crosby’s next remark had her chokingon the sherry.
“You’ve been with Lord Lymington all night, haven’t you, dear?” Lady Crosby took a calm sip from her own glass. “He followed you from Vauxhall, and I imagine he caught up with you. He’s not the sort of gentleman one easily escapes, is he?”
It wasn’t a question, despite Lady Crosby’senquiring air.
From the start, Emma hadn’t kept any secrets from Lady Crosby. Emma’s questionable origins, her memorable year at the Pink Pearl, and her history with Lady Clifford—Lady Crosby knew it all, as indeed she must if she and Emma were to work effectively together.
But even so, an unaccountable shyness overtook Emma at mention of Samuel’s name, and she found herself stumbling over her reply. “He,ah…we weren’t—”
“Now, don’t get flustered, dear. Lord Lymington returned to the supper box to deliver your message to me, but he hardly managed to get one sentence out before he shot off again as if his heels were on fire. Of course, I knew he was going after you.”
He’d gone after her to help her, and what had he got for his trouble?
Lies,and betrayal.
Emma flushed with shame.
Lady Crosby seized her hand. “There’s no need to look so chagrined, my love. I was young once too, you know. We’d hardly embarked on the season before I realized the way that particular wind was blowing.”
“Wind?” Emma echoed. “I don’t—”
“It’s a figure of speech, dear. But it’s curious, isn’t it, how things come to pass? You’d chosen Lord Lovell for this scheme, but then fate chose Lord Lymington foryou, and so it goes.”
Emma let out a bleak laugh. “Fate has her way in the end, doesn’t she?” Fate, or divine justice. They could call it whatever they liked, but in the end, the result was the same.
Fate hadn’t chosen Samuel to reward Emma. She’d chosen himto punish her.
Samuel wasn’t under any illusions about her any longer. What better way to castigate her for her sins than for her to be cursed to tell one lie after another to a man destined from the start to despise her, a man she’d fallen hopelessly in love with—
Love? No, that wasn’t…she wasn’tin lovewith Samuel. She’d made mistakes these past weeks—a shocking number of them—but surely she couldn’t have been such a monumental fool as to fall in love with the Marquess of Lymington?
Emma set her glass aside with shaking fingers when the sherry threatened to comeback up again.
