Page 16 of Lady Like

“What?” Emily’s heart jumps and she nearly seizes Rochester’s hand to pull him back down to the bench beside her.

The conversation hadn’t exactly been sparkling, even she can admit that, but she hadn’t expected it to end so abruptly.

Where was her invitation to join him for a waltz?

Sit by him at dinner? His question of when might be best to call upon her? She had done everything right!

“You’ve leaving?” she says.

“Only going back inside,” Rochester says, though he might as well have declared himself en route to the moon for how hopeless and small the words make Emily feel. “We can have our dance another night, yes?”

“But…” Panic rises in Emily’s chest, the suffocating, trapped feeling of being stuck inside a too-small sweater.

This cannot be happening. She has a duke alone in a London garden, for God’s sake!

He sought her out! What in their meager interaction has soured him to her so quickly? “What have I done wrong?”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Rochester says.

“You’re, ah…” He clasps his gloved hands before him, considering his next words carefully.

Though unless they are a proposal of marriage, Emily knows she’ll be incapable of receiving them as anything other than a criticism.

Just another way she is ill-suited to be a bride, her past be damned.

“Miss Sergeant, you are very beautiful. And with manners like yours, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding a man who would love to make you his wife. But you’re just so…dull.”

The word dull strikes her like an apple thrown at the back of the head. The surprise registers more than the impact. “Dull?” she repeats.

“I wish you all the best,” Rochester continues, his obliviousness another apple, this one straight to the nose. “Perhaps our paths will cross again this Season.”

“And upon that crossing of paths,” Emily calls as he begins to make his way back to the hothouse. She knows desperation does not flatter a woman, but she cannot let the Season’s most eligible duke slip away so easily. “Might we continue our acquaintanceship?”

Alexander raises his hands in exasperated acquiescence that Emily chooses to read optimistically as at least adjacent to continued interest, until she hears his response. “Of course, Miss Sergeant. Seek me out again should you find yourself a personality. Or meet a horse.”

Emily still has her wits enough about her to wait until Alexander is out of sight before she tips sideways onto the bench, pressing her face into the stone. She shoves her fist against her mouth, suppressing a scream while also wondering what it would matter if anyone heard her.

“Miss,” she hears someone call behind her, footsteps crunching upon the gravel path. “Miss, are you quite well?”

For a wild moment, Emily thinks Alexander has changed his mind and returned.

But when she sits up, she sees a different gentleman, this one dark haired where Rochester is blond, trotting toward her with a hand extended in concern.

“Yes, thank you,” she says, quickly brushing off the front of her dress.

The gentleman stops, hand still extended though he does not touch her. “Has someone hurt you?”

Yes, Emily thinks, many years ago.

“No,” Emily says. “I’m quite well.”

The gentleman looks unconvinced, for which Emily cannot blame him—she’s a poor actress and can hardly play off a face-forward plunge into a stone bench as an expression of contentment.

“Will you allow me to sit with you for a spell?” the gentleman asks. “Until you’ve recovered.”

“I’m afraid I’m a poor conversationalist at the moment.”

“We needn’t converse.” He takes the spot on the opposite end of the bench from her. The cast-off light from the orangery highlights the gray around his temples, though he cannot be past forty. “I’d be a poor gentleman if I left a lady in distress.”

And then he smiles, so kindly that Emily finds herself speaking without sufficient consideration. “Are you married?”

His mouth twitches. “I’m not. Though I’m afraid I’m not looking for a wife at the moment.”

“But if you were looking,” she says, “what qualities would you say you find becoming in a woman?”

“Ah. That’s…quite a broad question.” He ponders for a moment, hands resting on his knees, then says slowly, “I suppose I myself am drawn to women who are kind and intelligent. Who speaks freely but not wantonly, and can admit when she’s wrong.

Who does not act with haste or carelessness, but when she does, makes sincere attempts to make amends.

Who is forgiving of herself and others.”

“What traits do you want in a wife then?” Emily asks, for that answer was almost entirely abstract and thus terribly unhelpful, and made no mention of skills on the pianoforte.

She almost lets out a bubble of hysterical laughter at the thought.

How much time she had wasted on that blasted pianoforte.

“Someone I enjoy being with,” he says. “A partner. A friend. Someone I laugh with, but to whom I can also confide in. When something happens in my life, she should be the first person I think to tell, be it good or bad. And I should want to share everything with her. Someone interesting and clever and funny and remarkable. When standing in front of the Colosseum in Rome, my thought should not be of its majesty, but how much better it would be if she was there to see it with me.”

Damn, where was all that in the etiquette books? Emily slumps. “You mean you don’t want a quiet mouse with no character of her own?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s nothing.” Emily presses her feet into the grass, savoring the chilly prick of the blades. “Only, I’m afraid I’ve spent a good deal of time learning to be all the wrong things. That’s all.”

“Did someone say something to you? About your demeanor?”

Emily nods. “A gentleman I had an interest in called me dull. Apparently girls need hobbies and opinions and a knowledge of horses, or at least a knowledge of why she doesn’t like them.

” She sniffs, then adds, “Which I suspect doesn’t negate the fact that she also must have a tiny waist and a perfect bosom with no effort or artifice. ”

“Is this gentleman so important?” the man asks. “I do not wish to make assumptions, but I noticed you spent quite a lot of time on the dance floor this evening with a great number of men. One man is not the world.”

Perhaps not, Emily thinks. But only one man’s land and title this Season can trump Robert Tweed.

“Are you in love with him?” the gentleman asks.

“Good heavens, no, I just met him,” Emily says.

“Though I suppose I am in love with the life he could offer me.” She presses her wrists delicately to the corners of her eyes, though she knows her cosmetics are already ruined.

“But I will continue to pursue him. I cannot be discouraged so easily, even if it means I must alter myself entirely to tempt him.”

The man stares up at the sky, considering for a moment, then asks, “Are you living here in London?”

“For the summer.”

He runs a hand along his chin, then glances at the house, like he is checking to be certain no one is coming their direction, before turning his body toward her and saying confidentially, “Forgive me if this is forward, but I have a bit of a mad idea. I think I know someone who could help you. If you really are the conventional lady your gentleman seems to think, she—my sister—may provide a counterbalance. She could show you a bit of London you wouldn’t see otherwise.

And you might be good for each other—God knows she could use some refined company. ”

“That would be helpful,” Emily says, when really what she wants to say is Yes, please, show me the woman who has mapped the expanse between what men say they want and what they actually want in a wife !

“Perhaps you could come for tea at mine tomorrow and meet her? You’re welcome to bring a chaperone. Influence aside, it might do your heart good to have friends in the city.”

“That would be lovely. I’d be glad to attend.” Emily holds out her hand to him. “I’m Emily Sergeant.”

“Collin Lockhart—a pleasure, Miss Sergeant.” She expects he might kiss her knuckles, but instead he shakes her hand as he might another gentleman’s. He looks her up and down, then nods, chuckling quietly. “My Harry is going to love you.”