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Eloisa raised an expectant eyebrow. ‘I want to know how your sworn enemy is going to become your husband in a fortnight’s time.’

‘I do not know where to start.’ That, at least, was honest because Emily still wasn’t sure how it had happened either.

Oh, she was aware that she had been caught with her arms around Freddie’s naked chest, with his lips locked with hers, as her hands had tried to touch as much of his flesh as humanly possible, but she really wasn’t sure how that had come to pass.

They’d been on their way to becoming something less than friends but better than enemies and now they were going to be married.

It had all happened faster than it took her to read a novel.

‘Start with his courtship. I mean, the last time we spoke properly, he was asking you to dance, but I had the feeling that was as much a surprise to you as it was to me.’

‘Yes, I had not expected him to want to do that.’ She really hadn’t; they had barely been able to tolerate one another at that point.

‘Although we had spent a few pleasant moments together with his niece.’ She reached up and touched her neck.

Her pulse was racing. That dance had only been around a month ago and they had been foes before that.

However was this marriage going to work?

‘And then…’

‘Then he made me a bench.’

Eloisa frowned. Emily could understand why. A bench was not the same as a bouquet of flowers, although in her opinion it was far more lovely .

‘How did he ask you to marry him?’

Emily’s chest squeezed. He hadn’t asked, he had merely stated.

But she didn’t find any fault with that.

After she had almost mauled him in the garden, he’d not had a choice.

In their brief talk after his proposal, she had tried to tell him that she wouldn’t hold him to his promise, but she wasn’t entirely sure she had been coherent.

She had cried, her heart breaking that Freddie was going to be tied down to a woman with whom he had nothing in common.

Not even she had fully understood what she had been saying as she’d cried into his shoulder.

He’d stroked her back, the gesture calm and gentle.

They’d only spoken a handful of times since, but each time he had been gentle with her, as if the teasing comments he’d once made to her might make her crack.

Once she had found him to be the most irritating man of her acquaintance, but now that part of their relationship seemed to be over, it made her heart hurt.

‘He was very kind,’ she mumbled, knowing that Eloisa wanted some response and that was more than true.

He hadn’t had to offer for her; he could have asked her mother to sweep the whole thing under the carpet and ultimately, she was sure her mother would have done so.

She wouldn’t want Emily ruined. However, if Freddie hadn’t made his offer, then Emily would have had to live with her mother having seen her in the arms of a half-naked man.

She shuddered. The lectures had been bad enough with Freddie’s proposal; she couldn’t imagine how bad her life would have been without it.

Eloisa lightly touched her arm. ‘That does not sound like a passionate declaration of love and your face is pulling the most alarming expression. Are you being forced into this, my dear?’

Eloisa’s sympathy was almost Emily’s undoing. She blinked, forcing her tears not to fall. ‘No. I am not being forced.’ It was Freddie who was being made to do something he didn’t really want to do. ‘ Freddie is not the man I thought he was. He’s a good person and he will be a pleasant husband.’

Good and pleasant sounded bland and did not come close to explaining what had happened between them in the garden.

There had been nothing comfortable or pleasant about that.

It had been fire and passion and it had caused her many sleepless nights since.

Sometimes, when she had a break between panicking about being married and cringing from a horrendous lecture, she worried that Freddie would be expecting her to be like that all the time.

That had been her first kiss and she had no idea what it was truly like to be with a man.

Other times, she would lie there imagining what it would be like to be like that all the time.

To be able to touch Freddie with the confidence she’d had on that afternoon.

Those nights were very different from the ones in which she worried.

‘What about how you feel about this, Emily?’ her friend asked. ‘You do not look like a radiant bride about to be married to her one true love.’

Emily sucked in a breath. Eloisa was the only person who had asked her this question and, in truth, she did not know how to answer. ‘I… Freddie is…’

‘I am not asking about Freddie, my dear.’ Eloisa took her hand and squeezed it. ‘I am asking about you and how you are feeling. You are a sweet soul and I know that you will want to please people around you, but you must not do that at the cost of your own happiness, Emily. Do you love him?’

‘I… I…’ She didn’t think so, but then she did not know what it meant to love.

She thought about him a lot, especially the heat of his skin as she had run her hands over it.

Lust did not equal love though. ‘I think he is a better person than I ever gave him credit for and I think that he will be kind to me, kinder than my mother.’

‘A trout would be more pleasant than your mother. ’

Emily laughed, glancing guiltily over her shoulder as she did so. ‘It happened very quickly and I have not been given much time to think about it. I care about him. I want him to be happy and I am going to make sure that it is not me who stops that from happening.’

‘Emily.’ Eloisa said her name full of warning.

‘What is that tone for?’

‘You are still not convincing me that this marriage is what you want. It sounds to me like you are sacrificing yourself again.’

‘I kissed him.’

Eloisa’s grip tightened. ‘You mean he kissed you?’

‘No. It was very much me. I threw myself at him.’ She had thought about that afternoon in the garden a lot, could remember every detail. She had been the one to move first. It was she who had pressed her mouth to his. It was he who was being forced into this marriage, not her.

‘Emily, you cannot leave it at that. You must tell me everything.’

There was no way that Emily was going to tell her friend about Freddie’s bare chest; there were limits even in the very best of friendships.

‘He was… it was…’ She couldn’t really describe how it felt; she only knew that what had happened in the garden was why she was not completely dreading her marriage.

She was very much looking forward to kissing Freddie Dashworth again.

‘Ah,’ murmured Eloisa. ‘That is the look I was hoping to see on your face. Now you look like a woman looking forward to her marriage.’

Heat crept up her neck, but even so, she could not help remarking, ‘It was rather delicious.’

Emily and Eloisa giggled.

‘Do you know what happens between a man and a woman on their wedding night?’ Eloisa asked .

Emily’s heart flipped, her humour leaving her immediately. ‘Not exactly.’

‘We do not have long. Do you know or not?’ They peered down the long corridor towards the ballroom door. Nobody was coming out of the room, but that would not last. Emily pressed a hand to her stomach as nausea swelled. ‘What do you know about it?’

‘I bribed Frannie, one of our maids, to tell me.’ Emily laughed, for a moment distracted from all her other worries at the idea of her friend being so resourceful.

It had never occurred to Emily to do such a thing.

‘I think,’ continued Eloisa, ‘there should be someone who passes the information along. I do not think it will be your mother because…’ Eloisa wrinkled her nose ‘…it all sounds rather disgusting and I am having a hard time believing your parents had three children.’

‘I know what happens between a stallion and a mare,’ Emily said.

Eloisa’s mouth swung open. Emily’s skin burned at the naivety of her statement. ‘I read about it in a book; it was all very vague but I think I have the general gist.’ A very hazy, somewhat confusing gist.

‘I see.’ Eloisa giggled nervously. ‘Well, I know nothing about horses, but I imagine some of the anatomy is the same.’

Emily made a noise that came from deep within and sounded a little like a dying cat.

‘Quite,’ agreed Eloisa. ‘Let me tell you what I know and then you can confirm how similar or not the two things are.’

For the next few minutes, Emily only listened in growing horror. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked when Eloisa had finished.

‘I am afraid so.’

‘And women enjoy this?’

‘Not as much as men apparently. ’

‘Oh dear me.’ Emily went hot and cold simultaneously as she tried to imagine Freddie and her doing the acts as Eloisa had described them.

‘Well, is it?’ Eloisa prompted.

‘Is it what?’ Emily asked weakly.

‘Like horses?’

‘Unfortunately, in some respects, yes.’ They sat for a moment digesting this. ‘I just don’t see how it is going to fit.’

‘No,’ agreed Eloisa.

‘Do you think they go as big as a stallion?’ Freddie would likely rip her in half if that were true. Maybe she would have to call off the engagement after all. There was no way she could go through with this.

‘No!’ said Eloisa and then less confidently. ‘Surely not.’

‘It is going to be awful, is it not?’

‘Frannie says so long as the man knows what he is about then it is not so bad.’

The thought that Freddie would know what to do didn’t sit well with Emily either.

Eloisa squeezed her hand. ‘I am sure that Freddie will not be unkind to you. It was he who told me where to look for you.’

‘He did?’ Emily had thought no one had noticed her slip from the ballroom.

‘Yes. He came to find me to say that he thought you might need me.’

‘Oh.’ That was thoughtful. Although why had he not come to see her himself? Was it because he was too busy with his friends or because he thought she would need her friend in this moment? Whatever the answer, she rather wished he had come to her.

‘And, he is always smiling,’ Eloisa added, before Emily’s thoughts could scatter .

‘Yes, he seems to be a very happy man.’ Although not historically when she was around.

Emily wasn’t going to think about all the times they had crossed swords.

She resolved not to tease him and if he truly hated books that much, she would not read in front of him either, not if she could help it.

She was sure he would often be out; he was much in demand in Society and all those people who were surrounding him now would want him to remain part of their circle.

She and Freddie need not spend all that much time with each other and if that thought was not as reassuring as it should have been, then she would have to learn to accept it.