Page 29

‘Emily Rose Hawkins, are you laughing at me?’ Her mother’s voice could slice through worlds but, if anything, it urged the laughter on, pushing it through Emily’s body until it was almost unavoidable.

Emily pressed a hand to her mouth in a desperate effort to keep it inside her.

‘Believe me, Emily Rose Hawkins, there is nothing funny about this situation.’ Emily wondered fleetingly why her mother kept giving her full name.

It wasn’t as if there were another Emily in the clearing; she didn’t need to specify which one of them was in disgrace.

Somehow, this was even funnier still; her shoulders began to shake in the effort to keep her amusement from escaping.

Finally, Freddie seemed to see her once more; his eyes widened before his entire expression shut down. The blankness in his gaze killed her laughter and she dropped her hand, turning away from him.

For the first time, she caught sight of her mother.

The skin of her face was mottled, her lips so thin they were barely visible.

‘You are a disgrace,’ her mother hissed.

‘And you…’ Her mother whipped round to face Freddie, whose expression remained blank, as if the true Freddie had disappeared behind a mask.

‘You with your…’ She pointed to his chest, too appalled to mention the fact that Freddie was showing so much skin. ‘Where is your…?’

It was too much. The laugh Emily thought had gone burst out of her before she could stop it. She clamped her lips together, trying to stop it, but it was too late. The noise was out there and it had not helped.

Her mother’s eyes bulged. ‘Emily Rose Hawkins! Stop that immediately. You have always defied me, no matter how much time and effort I have put into trying to make you into a true member of the Ton, for you to become popular and well liked and you ignore it. Now, you’ve treated me with utter contempt.

You have always thought you are better than everyone else, that your love of books somehow makes you superior and yet you have failed to see the damage your behaviour has inflicted on our family and this…

this is beyond the pale.’ The amusement seeped out of Emily like a burst carriage tyre, leaving her flattened.

Of course, this incident would only reduce her stock within her family further.

She had always been fighting against the fact that she had been born a girl and not a boy and that she liked quietness and books rather than soirees and dancing, but now she had added shame and dishonour to her misdemeanours.

It didn’t matter that this was the one and only time Emily had done anything remotely like this.

It wouldn’t matter that, until recently, Emily had always done exactly what she had been told to do.

This would be what her mother always remembered.

Whether they would have been discovered anyway or whether her mother’s shrill voice had attracted attention, they’d never know, but then the situation deteriorated further.

‘What the blazes is going on here?’ Two of Freddie’s brothers emerged from behind him, appearing from between two trees like an unwanted smell.

She closed her eyes as she realised the duke was one of the two; she didn’t know how but somehow that made it even worse.

It wasn’t that she had truly set her sights on marrying the duke or fully believed that he would want to court her, but she respected him.

He may not be a verbose man, but he presented himself as a man with principles and kindness.

If he had been thinking about making her some sort of offer, then she had betrayed that by mauling his brother in his garden.

Not that he would know that. This moment could still be salvaged; it was only Freddie, Emily and her mother who knew that Freddie and Emily had been kissing.

They were the only three people who ever needed to know.

It was on the tip of her tongue to apologise for stumbling across Freddie and to try to sweep this whole incident under the carpet, when her mother decided to push the moment into a cataclysmic disaster.

‘Your brother has been… has been…’ Her mother’s pointing finger moved up and down Freddie to demonstrate what he had been doing, as if he had deliberately taken off his shirt to entice Emily into behaving in a wanton manner.

Edward’s mouth fell open as he took in the extent of Freddie’s undress and his rumpled hair.

Emily had no idea what she looked like, but her lips felt plumper than normal and the skin around them stung slightly where Freddie’s stubble had grazed against it.

If it had not been clear that something out of the ordinary had been going on, her mother’s words left no doubt.

Amusement flashed in Edward’s eyes, gone quickly as he turned back towards her mother.

Tobias’ expression remained blank.

Freddie said nothing.

‘I am sure there is an innocent explanation,’ Edward tried valiantly.

‘His hands were everywhere,’ her mother said shrilly.

‘That is not true.’ Everyone turned to look at Emily after her outburst. ‘It is not true,’ she repeated quietly, some of her insistence dying in the face of all that scrutiny, but she couldn’t allow Freddie to take the blame for this.

It was she who was in a garden that did not belong to her, it was she who had taken the first step towards Freddie and it was she who had reached out and touched him first. She had touched him everywhere; he had only held her against him.

If anyone was to blame for what had followed, then it was her.

‘I know what I saw,’ persisted her mother. ‘He was taking advantage of my daughter.’

Emily was shaking her head, but no one was looking at her, with the exception of Freddie, but he wasn’t saying anything or moving. It was almost as if he had been turned to stone.

‘He…’ her mother began again .

‘We will speak in the house.’ Tobias mercifully cut across her mother. ‘Get dressed,’ he barked at Freddie before he turned on his heel, not waiting to see if the others would follow him, but then he was a duke, used to having his orders undertaken without question.

There was a strange gleam in her mother’s eyes, something almost approaching satisfaction and Emily’s stomach dropped.

She had believed every word that had fallen out of her mother’s mouth, that she was utterly horrified by what she had seen.

But now seeing that glint, Emily began to doubt it.

Her mother almost looked triumphant. Surely she wasn’t expecting something good to come out of this situation?

The only thing her mother wanted, the only outcome to this that could possibly redeem Emily in her mother’s eyes was marriage to Tobias. But surely…

‘You heard the duke,’ she said to Emily, cutting off her train of thought. ‘Let us not keep him waiting.’

Emily needed a moment to speak with Freddie.

If they both denied anything inappropriate, then it was only her mother’s word against theirs and surely this moment could be forgotten.

She and Freddie had been caught up in a moment of sheer insanity, where the normal rules of their world did not exist. She was prepared to accept the shouting and the endless lectures that would follow, but Freddie and his family need not be a part of that.

Her mother would not be so angry with her and Freddie that she would be happy for the events of this afternoon to be made common knowledge.

There was no need for this situation to go any further than this moment.

She and her mother could return home where Emily could receive the scolding of a lifetime and that was how it would all end, not in some twisted marriage to the Duke of Glanmore.

‘Mama, please…’ Emily hated how weak and pitiful she sounded, but she needed time to stop and think, for everyone to stop and think.

Words were about to be exchanged, decisions made that couldn’t be undone.

Emily knew that she couldn’t allow this moment to somehow manipulate her into marrying the duke.

It should be impossible, but Emily knew her mother; she knew the lengths she would go to, to ensure she got what she wanted. It was as if she had not spoken.

‘Emily, do not disappoint me further. Come along right now.’ The gleam had faded from her mother’s eyes to be replaced by a steely anger. For all that she wanted to, Emily knew that she would not disobey her in this moment.

She glanced at Freddie, but he still had not moved a single muscle.

Emily had no idea what was happening to her, no idea of how the next hour or two would unfold, but with shaking legs, she followed in the direction that the duke had taken.