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“The Earl,” Amanda said. Her eyes, usually gleaming with mischief, were uncharacteristically serious. “If he’s so terrible, we’ll help you find something—some way of fixing it.”

Emily’s heart twisted in her chest. God, but she did love her sisters. Yes, they drove her mad, and she was already afraid tolook too closely at her own hair, lest they had already given her gray hairs.

But she loved them, she really did.

“No, sweetheart,” she said with a soft smile. “He’s not that bad. Everything is fine.”

Amanda, bless her, looked disappointed.

“Very well,” she said with a sigh. “Though I feel I could have done a splendid job figuring out how to get rid of him. I suppose my talents shall be wasted again.”

Emily chuckled along with her sister even as she felt the steel return to her spine. Amanda’s offer was precisely why Emily couldn’t indulge in any further scandalous behavior—including wearing hideous hats. She had spent a lifetime acting as the perfect role model for her sisters, and they still tended to pursue chaos at the slightest provocation. She’d let herself get caught up in…sensations twice now. She would not do so again.

She would not make another decision that could compromise her sisters’ futures.

She would be proper, she reminded herself. She would beperfect.

She repeated this to herself like a prayer as she politely greeted the Earl as he arrived at Drowton House, and as theyrode together to Hyde Park, their silence only occasionally interrupted by the odd comment about the weather or other passersby.

It was, Emily allowed, a tad boring. But it was proper. Perfectly so.

It was, in fact, so perfectly proper that she did not even notice that the Earl was looking fine in his well-tailored jacket or that the crisp line of his trousers made his tall, strong form look even taller and stronger. Who even knew what his cravat looked like? Not Emily because she had not so much as glanced at his throat, which might have tempted (in a less perfect person, of course) thoughts of the way he had nibbled againstherthroat.

When they arrived at the park, she, of course, had no choice but to touch him when he offered his arm. But that, too, was proper.

“Miss Rutley,” murmured the Earl after they’d gone a few moments with Emily exhibiting a truly marvelous level of self-control, “could you please look abitless like I’ve abducted you?”

Her mouth dropped open, and she whipped her head around to look at him.

“I—that’s not what I look like!” she protested hotly—but quietly. Impropriety didn’t really count if nobody overheard it.

“It really is,” he said grimly.

“It was an expression of serenity!” she objected.

“It really was not,” he returned.

Her perfection slipped; she blew out an irritated huff. Her eyes must have been deceiving her when she thought she saw the Earl’s mouth twitch as though he were tempted to smile. He drew them to the side of the path, so they could confer quietly.

“Listen,” he said, and it sounded more like exhortation than command, “I understand that this situation is…unexpected. And I further recognize that I have not, perhaps, behaved in the most gentlemanly manner possible during our previous…encounters.”

If he referenced the incidents—God help her, it was now incidents,plural—she was going to die right here on Rotten Row. Fortunately, he made no further allusions to anything untoward.

“But,” he added, and she recognized that he was putting in considerable effort towards sounding reasonable, “the best way to cut off the circulation to the gossip is to act like nothing is amiss. We must act as though we lo—” He cleared his throat. “Like one another.”

“Right,” Emily said, ignoring how ugly it felt that he couldn’t evensaythe word love. This was the height of foolishness since it wouldn’t apply to them in any case. And really, liking one another—or even pretending to—was ambitious enough. “I can do that.”

The Earl looked unflatteringly doubtful.

It was thus a matter of pride when Emily made her next, ill-advised decision.

She thought about what it would be like if shedidlike the Earl. Hell, she thought about what it would be like if she even loved him. She thought about the incidents and the way she felt when he held her. And then, for good measure, she thought about other things she loved, too, like the feeling of being tucked tight into bed, snug and safe, like the patter of rain against a windowpane, like that pure feeling ofhomewhen the people you loved surrounded you.

She took all those emotions, and she channeled them into the smile she shot in the Earl’s direction.

He looked like he’d been slapped.

“Right,” he said. “Good. Let’s carry on, then.”