If it was here.
Once she found it, she’d know it, but there was one difficulty.
Only about half of the roses in Lady Fosberry’s garden were in bloom, and the rose she needed to complete the perfume wasn’t among them. So, she’d have to wait and hope one of the unopened roses was the one she was searching for.
If not…well it would be, that was all. Surely she hadn’t gotten this far for fate to cruelly disappoint her in the end? If she could only find that rose, she could recreate the perfume, and persuade one of the shops in London to sell it, just as her father had intended. It would be a fitting tribute to the father she’d adored and lost, and her final gift to him.
A single perfume wasn’t likely to eradicate her family’s financial difficulties, but if she could make enough to keep them all together, it would lift the great, crushing weight from her chest.
What was sneaking about a dark garden, compared to what she stood to gain? A midnight wander was harmless enough, surely? It wasn’t as if anyone was going to see—
A rattling sound caught Emmeline’s attention, and she jerked her head toward the drive to see yet another carriage making its way toward the glowing entrance of Lady Fosberry’s estate. She stuffed the ribbon and the linen into her pocket and ducked down just in time to elude the sweep of light from the carriage lantern.
Dear God, all of London must be at Lady Fosberry’s ball by now. Emmeline couldn’t imagine a single ballroom could be large enough to contain them all. An image of aristocrats crawling over every available surface of Lady Fosberry’s house like ants over a rotting bit of fruit rose to Emmeline’s mind, and an involuntary shudder skidded down her spine.
Perhaps it was time she retired to her bedchamber.
She peeked over the top edge of the rose bush she’d darted behind, and waited until the carriage disgorged this new group of revelers—ladies this time, in silks and flashing jewels—and they vanished into the house.
Emmeline glanced down the drive, but she didn’t see another carriage approaching, so she ventured forth, creeping from her hiding place among the roses to the south wing of the house. She’d done a thorough search of it this afternoon, and found a narrow passageway from the music room that was connected to a back staircase that led to her bedchamber. She could use that without having to go anywhere near the ballroom.
After all, she hadn’t made this cursed wager, and she certainly hadn’t agreed to actually talk to anyone. It wasn’t as if she intended to be betrothed by the end of the season.
There was, after all, only so much science could do.
She was here for the roses, nothing more.
Well, that and to keep an eye on Juliet.
She paused when she reached the door leading from the garden terrace to the corridor beyond. The last thing she wanted was to risk running into some simpering miss, gossiping matron or arrogant lord, but all was dark and quiet.
Nearly there…
Just a quick nip into the library first to fetch the copy of Thomas Whateley’s Observations on Modern Gardening she’d left there this afternoon, and she’d be back in her bedchamber without anyone being aware she’d ever left it.
The library door stood partially open, and the last embers of a fire were still burning in the grate. Now, where had she left Mr. Whateley? Emmeline closed the library door behind her and hurried over to the bookshelf, pressing her nose close to the spines of the books on the third shelf from the top, squinting in the gloom.
Ah, yes, there it was, just where she’d left—
Creak.
Emmeline froze at the sound of the library door opening slowly behind her.
For an instant, she had the ludicrous thought that she might duck behind the heavy silk draperies framing the window beside her before she could be seen, but that hope was shattered when a deep, disturbingly male voice murmured, “Ah, at last. I thought you’d vanished. You weren’t running away from me, were you?”
A thousand different responses crowded into Emmeline’s head at once—that she didn’t know him, that she hadn’t been running away from him, but from all of them—and nearly fell from her dazed lips before she realized he wasn’t talking to her, but to another lady.
The one he’d mistaken her for.
It should have been simple enough then to turn around and tell him the lady he’d followed into the library had indeed run away from him, but as soon as she spoke, he’d demand to know her name, and all it would take was a single word—Templeton—before the gossips would gleefully pick up where they’d left off three years earlier, and she’d be caught in the midst of another nightmare.
…Templetons back in London… lured the poor man into a dark library… the daughter just like her mother…
So, Emmeline remained as she was, silent and paralyzed by indecision, her heart thrashing about like a fish on a hook, and wished with everything inside her that this gentleman would realize his mistake and be on his way.
There was a pause in which it felt as if the entire world hung suspended in a single, tense moment, followed by the soft tread of footsteps against the thick carpet, and then he was behind her, so close his warmth heated her chilled skin, his breath drifting over the back of her neck, a hint of sweet, rich brandy teasing her nose.
She sensed he would touch her before he did, felt the subtle shift in the air behind her, but his caress, when it came, wasn’t anything like she’d imagined a man’s touch would be.
