Page 116
And before he lost himself completely, Garrick turned and attempted to converse with his hosts.
It would be a long meal indeed.
* * *
Emma had not been nervous all evening.
She should have been before the meal, before knowing how Garrick would react. Whether he would, indeed, forgive her. Or mayhap when she’d pulled Geoffrey aside after the scene in the solar and begged him to accept Garrick. Or the moment when she’d pledged herself to him, forever.
Nay, she’d not been nervous then, but she was very much so as she stood in her chamber with her lady’s maid, preparing for the night ahead.
“Yer poor fingers,” Edith said, standing back to look at her as if she were a prized horse. “If ye keep doin’ that to ’em, you’ll have old lady hands.”
Edith despised Emma’s penchant for squeezing her fists so tight the knuckles cracked. She’d done it so often as a young girl, for the simple pleasure of annoying her brothers, she no longer realized when she was doing it.
“You look lovely, despite that awful habit.”
Edith had helped her prepare, knowing what was to come. She’d never been so thankful to be separated from Geoffrey and Sara, whose bedchambers were far away from her own. While she and her earl were now pledged to marry, her brother would hardly approve of what she was about to do. Of course, Sara had said—
“Now remember,” Edith said. “Don’t let him go too fast, or ye’ll likely have a babe in your stomach before ye even wed.”
As Edith lit yet another candle, Emma burst into laughter.
“How do you know so much since you’ve not done it yourself?” she teased.
Edith shrugged. “The maids talk,” she said.
Garrick was coming to her. He’d made that very clear at dinner. And though they’d been intimate before, this would be different.
“Perhaps I should wear another shift,” Emma said. “Mayhap the cream one, or any of the others with slightly more fabric.”
Edith shook her head vigorously as she placed a final candle and stood back, presumably to view the effect of her efforts.
When Emma had shared the evening’s events with her maid after the meal, Edith’s high-pitched squealing had risked summoning the entire household. Once she’d recovered, however, Edith went to work immediately. Where she’d found the fresh lilacs, Emma couldn’t guess. But the room smelled like a garden in the middle of spring and looked more like the hall during a great feast than it did her bedchamber.
A fire roared in the hearth, and wood for the entire evening was stacked next to it, courtesy, of course, of Edith.
“You are a wonder,” she told her, and Edith knew it. She strutted around the chamber, turned down the coverlet on her bed, and with a final wink, moved to the door. Before she could leave, a knock at the door startled them both. Edith opened the door, revealing Faye in the doorway, and Emma’s heart started racing for a different reason. What was she doing here?
“Good evening, my lady.” If Faye noticed the altered state of the chamber, she didn’t comment. Instead, she handed Edith a box. “My lady wishes for Lady Emma to open it at once,” she said, already backing away. “A gift for her future husband. And she bids you both a good evening.”
And just as quickly as she had come, Faye was gone.
Edith brought the box to her, and they both stared at it for a spell. Painted white with a decoration of small blue flowers, the box, no larger than her hand, was nearly too lovely to open.
“’Tis beautiful,” Edith said, handing it to her.
Hesitating for just a moment, Emma finally opened the lid.
“What is it?” Edith asked.
She knew this ring.
Though simple and unadorned, other than a fine gold line that wound its way around the ring, its quality was obvious. She lifted it from its velvet bed to look inside. Sure enough, its inscription was still there.
“Look,” she said to Edith.
As the maid peered inside, Emma read the script aloud for her.
