Page 5 of A Spinster for the Rakish Duke (Notorious Sisters of London #3)

Chapter Five

H er Aunt Barbara agreed to sit in on the tea as Emma’s escort, but she sat so far back that Emma might as well have sat at the table alone with him. The first few moments were heavy with awkward silence. Finally, Mr. Dole cleared his throat.

“I’ve been looking forward to this since your Aunt has made these arrangements on my behalf. A dear friend, she is. And doing me such kindness by finding me a pretty wife.”

Emma smiled weakly, thanking Mr. Dole for the compliment. “My brother Benjamin tells me you are a solicitor?”

Mr. Dole nodded, “Though I don’t take nearly as many cases as I used to.

I find the work too... challenging now. Perhaps my age has shortened the fuse of my temper, but I find an old man has little patience for modern litigation.

” He laughed lightly. “That is, in part, why I have chosen to search out a wife now. I will have the time for a family that I didn’t have before. ”

“The time, Mr. Dole?” Emma asked uncertainly.

“Why, yes. I have had many passions that took priority before becoming the head of a family. By the time I was ready to sort it out, I had become an old man.” He laughed heartily again.

“Not to be overly contrary, Mr. Dole, but such remarks from my betrothed are concerning me. My family has always been so important to me. I can’t imagine anything possibly taking priority over them.

To hear you talk of our theoretical future family together almost as if they are an afterthought does not put my mind at ease,” Emma said politely but firmly.

She didn’t want to risk miscommunicating anything to the man she could end up spending the rest of her life with.

Mr. Dole nodded and raised a hand. “There is nothing to worry about at all, dear. I understand my inexperience with such matters may not be viewed favorably in a future husband. Rest assured that you will be overseeing all of the family matters, so nothing will be occurring without your approval.”

For the rest of the teatime, Emma remained tight-lipped and slightly cool. His answer had not comforted her at all. She didn’t mind the idea of having a family, but she did mind being pandered to, being patronized.

Emma told herself that she was being too harsh to Mr. Dole.

He was simply trying to comfort her. She might have even misunderstood what he meant by that.

She couldn’t let a bit of a ruffled early impression make their courtship more difficult.

He deserved the same chance as anyone. Emma affirmed this to herself, but Mr. Dole was quick to use up his chances with her.

It was at their next meeting, a garden luncheon, that her betrothed would show more of his true colors. The talk started politely at first, but the point of the matter was to become more intimate, so it soon turned to more personal matters.

“Your aunt mentioned that you were the one that raised your brother and sisters, and that your marriage late in life is because you committed so much to your family,” he said with a somewhat gentle tone that suggested that this was a lead-in for praise.

“That is true. My siblings and I lost our mother when we were young, and I knew that they would need someone to look after them.”

“Good. That's very good,” he nodded assertively.

“Good?” Emma hesitated, “I’m not sure I agree, Mr. Dole.”

“Well, of course you do, Miss Bradford. You know that your siblings turned out to be good people and all due to your natural motherly instincts. That's something I find very admirable. There is no need for you to be humble and no need for a woman to deny what comes to her by nature.”

Emma shook her head. “I’m not being humble, Mr. Dole.

I think you lack some specific perspective on the situation.

What I did, I did out of love, true, but also of necessity.

Three children were not old enough to care for themselves.

What was I to do? Let them run wild and uncared for?

I think nature has very little a role to play into it.

No, sir, Mr. Dole. I think you very much have the wrong impression. ”

“I in no way meant any offense,” Mr. Dole stated flatly, neither sounding perturbed nor apologetic.

Emma only acknowledged his non apology with a slight nod of her head before returning silently to her lunch.

When Mr. Dole realized that Emma was no longer acknowledging his attempts at conversation with her outside of the minimum one-word answers, he turned to converse with Aunt Barbara while he finished his lunch.

When he thanked them both and left, Emma expected her Aunt to give her a firm talking to, but it never came. Instead, her Aunt just went about like the lunch wasn’t a complete disaster. Emma could not understand it.

Emma did make a point of not confirming more arrangements with Mr. Dole. She was not yet at a point where she would call off the betrothal. Two bad impressions left a sour taste in her mouth, but Mr. Dole hadn’t done anything untoward.

Emma was considering how to proceed with Mr. Dole and how to talk to her Aunt Barbara when she came down to find them both conversing over breakfast one morning.

“Ah, Emma, we’ve been waiting for you. Come, join us.

” Her aunt waved her over excitedly, both of them sitting opposite one another with Mr. Dole at the head of the table.

The younger woman was shocked that her betrothed had been invited over without her permission or her acknowledgment.

Again, the conversation was primarily carried out by Mr. Dole and Aunt Barbara while Emma tried to find her footing in the situation.

“I personally find it a rather silly matter. What do you think, Emma?” Mr. Dole asking her a question suddenly pulled her from her fog of disbelief.

“I’m sorry?” Emma asked.

“I said that my most recent work involves a railway.

The local Lord is disputing the lease of the land allowing the railway to tunnel through some hills on his land.

Says it will disrupt the view. Hogwash, says I.

As an old man, I feel like there's something wrong with the younger generation, if I have to be the one who advocates for the march of forward progress.”

Emma did not have it in her to argue with her betrothed but did want to make certain she understood. “You think that preserving the view is a waste?”

“A view as a trade for a train? I’ve explained to the Lord he is going to lose hundreds if not thousands, but he is more concerned with preserving the land's natural beauty. Absolute hogwash,” Mr. Dole grunted again.

“I see. It does seem like there is an issue with priorities between you and your client,” Emma said before returning to her breakfast. She had not particularly warmed to the idea of a marriage in the interim, so the thought of breaking off her betrothal was one that was becoming quickly comfortable inside her mind.

Which brought Emma and her concerns back to the meeting yet to come to pass.

The meeting which her aunt tried to arrange several times after Emma insisted that Mr. Dole not be brought to the house again without specifically asking her beforehand.

Emma was passive at first in her deflections, but then as her aunt became more insistent, Emma, in turn, became more adamant.

Which is how they found themselves arguing on opposite sides of the guest room door, Emma trying to collect herself while her aunt pleaded her point.

“I understand that this marriage is not ideal, but consider the circumstances Emma dear. What other options do you have?”

“Would it not be best to wait? To accept that my love may never arrive, rather than to not marry for love at all?” Emma asked, voice almost pleading.

“There might be some honor in that but…” There was a tone in Aunt Barbara’s voice that Emma couldn’t quite place. It was vaguely sad, but there was more there. “But take it from me, Emma. I know what it is like to make that choice, and it's not one I want you to endure as well.”

Emma felt sadness and pity weigh heavy on her heart. She had always seen Barbara as a pillar. Maybe not as kind or as caring as other women, but a strength that could not be replicated in anyone else.

Just as she was about to open the door and reconcile with her aunt, pulled by the tight grip her family had on her heartstrings, she spotted movement out the window.

When she moved to the window to see what it was, she was surprised to see Benjamin’s carriage.

After the ball, he had made it perfectly clear that he had a lot of important work to catch up on in London.

Emma watched the window closely, seeing if she could gauge the seriousness of the matter that brought her brother to the house.

But it wasn’t her brother who exited the carriage but instead a young man, a lean and almost diminutive lad who had to hop from the carriage.

It was the urgency in which the young man ran for the door that had Emma turn to open her own.

“I think something may be wrong with Benjamin,” she told her aunt as she stood startled in her doorway.