Page 67

“Sorry,” Emily wheezed when she’d finally gotten a hold on her laughter. “I couldn’t help myself. What do you need, sweets?”

“Well,” Rose said delicately, sitting on the settee across from Emily. Amanda dropped onto the chaise with considerably less grace. “We were hoping for some advice.”

Emily closed her eyes briefly, relishing her vindication. “One does so love to be proven right,” she commented to herself.

“I told you we should have asked someone else,” Amanda grumbled.

Rose ignored them both.

“We went to a ball with Papa last night, you see,” she explained, sounding as though she were treading very carefully though thisconversation. “And I fear that he is not…behaving in the most sensible manner as pertains to your recent marriage.”

If Emily hadn’t been swearing in her head with all the foul oaths she knew, she might have allowed that Rose would make a fine wife to a diplomat, given how tactfully she’d phrased that.

Instead, it was all she could manage not to let her internal ire become external.

“What did he do?” she asked tiredly.

“He won’t stop bringing it up!” Amanda exclaimed, sitting up sharply. “He seems to have this idea that if everyone is talking about your scandalous tete-a-tete anyway—which, honestly, Emmy, I really don’t think they are because Lady Bowdoin wore the mosthorridhat to church on Sunday; truly, she nearly put out Mr. Clayton’s eye with the dangly bits she’d stuck on there?—”

“Amanda,” Emily prodded.

“Right. Well, Papa seems to think that if others are talking about it, he should talk about it first?” Her tone clearly conveyed her doubt as to the wisdom of this strategy.

“He keeps sort of shouting that it’s lovely to have an earl in the family,” Rose explained, wrinkling her nose. “I think he’s trying to make it sound likelovelyis the same aslove matchand that this is the reason for…everything,” she surmised. “But it isn’t really working.”

“I should think not,” Emily muttered, nearly impressed with how dramatically her father had erred. “That will accomplish nothing except extending the talk.”

Rose winced. “There has been something of a…renaissance on the topic.”

“And,” Amanda interjected, sounding deeply aggrieved, “my dance card was scarcely more than half full because of it. Half, Emmy! Can you imagine?”

Emily, in recognition of her sister’s evidently genuine if vaguely silly distress, did not mention that she had neveroncehad a dance card that even came close to being half full.

Besides, dramatic delivery notwithstanding, Amanda did have a legitimate point. Their father was damaging the twins’ social—and therefore marital—prospects. And he was using Emily to do it.

“Right,” Emily said, rubbing her temples. She hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in days, and while she wasn’t preciselycomplainingabout it, a clear head would likely have been helpful at the moment. “Right. Well, clearly we can’t let Papa continue to be your chaperone.”

“I knew you’d solve it,” Amanda said triumphantly, conveniently forgetting that she’d been convinced of no such thing not two minutes prior.

“I suppose,” Emily went on, mind spinning, “that the best thing would be for us—Benedict and myself that is?—”

Amanda paused her crowing to gasp. “She calls himBenedict,” she whispered gleefully to her sister.

Emily ignored this.

“—to gradually return to Society and just act…normal about things. People will see us together, will get their muttered comments out of their systems, and then everything will return to normal.” She looked at Amanda. “Including the fullness of your dance card.”

“Yay,” said Amanda without an ounce of self-consciousness or irony.

Rose’s reaction was more measured but no less heartfelt. “Thank you, Emily,” she said sincerely. “I know we are bothering you while you’re meant to be spending time with your new husband?—”

“Benedict,”Amanda repeated in an awed whisper, and Emily wondered how long it would take before Amanda became bold enough to use Benedict’s Christian name to his face. Unfortunately, it would likely not be long at all.

“—but we really do appreciate it,” Rose concluded. “It has been a touch, ah, challenging with Papa.”

“I understand,” Emily said graciously. “Don’t think on it a minute longer.”

Despite this advice, Emily herself had to think on the matter for many, many more minutes. Making the promise to her sisters had been, after all, the easy part.