Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride (21 page)

Chapter 3
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My Dearest Drake,

You have returned! I long for the day when we would again meet!

Ever Yours,

Emmaline

Emmaline surveyed the crowded ballroom and upon spying Sophie, squeezed her brother’s arm, halting his movements. “I see Sophie.” She gestured subtly in her friend’s direction.

Sebastian’s gaze lingered on Sophie and then he looked back at Emmaline. “You know you do not need to sit with the other wallflowers,” he said, a frown on his lips.

Since Emmaline had severed her betrothal, she’d spent her evenings not very much different than so many others—amidst the other wallflowers.

She pinched her brother’s arm. “Hush. Sophie is not a wallflower.”

He made a non-committal sound. “I’m merely saying
—”

“Don’t say anything
.”

Sebastian closed his mouth and proceeded to guide her
toward Sophie.

Sophie seemed to notice Sebastian first. Her eyes went wide and a small tremulous smile hovered on her lips before her gaze landed on Emmaline. She climbed to her feet and curtsied. “Em. Your Grace.”

Sebastian bowed. “Miss Winters.” He turned a wary look on the hopeful wallflowers, who eyed him with a desperate intensity, and beat a hasty retreat.

“Coward,” Emmaline muttered for Sophie’s ears.

Her friend laughed and claimed Emmaline’s hand. Just then, a swell of eager suitors converged upon them. It had been much the same way since word of her broken betrothal had become fodder for the gossips. Emmaline didn’t delude herself into believing these gentlemen cared about anything beyond her dowry and a connection with the Duke of Mallen. It might not matter to the other wallflowers who smiled almost gratefully in Emmaline’s direction, but it mattered to her.

“May I fetch a glass of punch?” Lord Abbott, one of her more erstwhile suitors
, offered a desperate pitch to his voice.

The
third Earl of Stanwick puffed out a broad chest, a chest Emmaline highly suspected was compliments of substantial padding provided by his valet. “I said I would fetch the lady punch.”

“Oh dear, this has the makings of an
all-out fight,” Sophie murmured beneath her breath. “Why don’t you race and see who brings it back first?” Her suggestion resulted in an exodus of some of the young swains.

Emmaline turned to the expectant crowd of suitors. “Gentlemen, I fear I turned my ankle and will not be dancing any more sets for the remainder of the evening
.”

The popinjays groaned in disappointment and shuffled off, earning Emmaline censorious looks from her fellow wallflowers.

“Did we ever truly want this?” Emmaline mused.

Sophie’s lips twitched. “There must be a happy in-between, no?”

A happy in-between? What exactly would that look like? One would have to actually have a care for one or any of the suitors to be happy, no?

Over the years she’d given so much thought to being courted. She’d dreamed of becoming the recipient of a man’s admiration. Oh
, she’d hoped it would be her betrothed, but had yearned to know a real courtship. That had been before she’d fallen in love with Drake. Now, every gentleman she met was a pale shadow of his impressive, inspiring figure. Not a single gentleman she’d met had managed to make her heart trip a beat, or set her stomach aflutter with shades of longing.

Only one man thus far had ever
prompted such a response in her…and he was gone.

Sophie claimed her hand again. “You look so sad.”

Emmaline swallowed painfully. “I ache for just one sight of him. It is as though he’s disappeared from Society. I wonder what he is doing. Wonder if he ever has any thoughts of me.”

Sophie snorted. “Of course he thinks of you.”

A thrum of whispers rose amidst the crowd. Sophie glanced across the ballroom. Her golden brows shot up to her hairline.

“Sophie?”

“Uh, what would you do if you saw Lord Drake?”

Emmaline cocked her head.
“Well, I imagine I’ll eventually have to see him because we do travel in similar circles.”

“Because he’s just arrived.”

Emmaline’s heart quickened and for the first time in weeks, soft joy filled her. She told herself not to search for him, but could no more stop herself from looking about than she could stop breathing.

He stood at the top of the stairwell, greeting Lord and Lady Thompson. Attired in all black
and with his halo of golden hair, he may as well have been a fallen angel. He inclined his head in acknowledgement of something Lord Thompson said, before bowing, and pressing ahead. He appeared immune to the hum of whispers, the gaping stares. His intent emerald green gaze swept over the room, searching, searching, searching.

And then finding.

Even with the distance separating them, the hot intensity of his focus as he settled his stare on her scorched her like a noon sun.

“Breathe,” she reminded herself. Sophie nudged her in the arm but Emmaline ignored her.

“There is no way a man can look at you the way the marquess is looking at you and not feel
something
.”

Aware of the intrusive way in which they were being scrutinized, Emmaline forced herself to look away.

Sophie groaned. “Oh dear, your brother is headed this way.”

Sebastian rapidly crossed the room, even as the crowd parted for Drake. “What do you want me to do?” Sophie urged. “Do you want to see him?”

“I do,” Emmaline whispered. She heard the consternation in her own words.

Sophie hopped up from her seat and crossed the room, intercepting Sebastian. She held her empty dance card up to his inspection. Her boldness was met with scandalous gasps. His brow furrowed with a blend of annoyance and confusion. Sophie jabbed her finger at the card and showed him an invisible mark. Sebastian directed a pointed glare in Emmaline’s direction, before taking Sophie’s arm
with seeming reluctance and leading her to the dance-floor.

Oh, Sophie. Emmaline’s eyes slid closed in gratitude.

“She is a good friend,” a quiet voice said, just over her shoulder.

She gasped, a fluttering hand covering her breast, and turned to face her former betrothed.

***

Drake claimed Emmaline’s hand and bent low over it. He placed a slow, lingering kiss on the top of her
knuckles, even as his fingers caressed her inner wrist. What he wouldn’t give to remove the fabric that separated their skin.

“My lord,” she murmured.

With some difficulty, he swallowed around a swell of emotion lodged in his throat. “After all we’ve shared you might call me by my given name.”

She traced her lips with the tip of her tongue. “In front of a room full of strangers awaiting my misstep?”

Drake glanced around the room and pinned the peering lords and ladies with a collective glare. The crowd immediately redirected their attention.

“There, better?”

Emmaline’s lips twitched but still refused to arc in a full smile. “Would that you could make them all disappear.”

He inclined his head. “I shall work on that.”

An awkward silence descended. They stood there, studying each other, like two strangers meeting for the first time.

“Will you do me the honor of this set?”

I have wanted to hold you in my arms, since the moment I walked out of your home, out of your life.

She went to place her hand in his, and then pulled it back. “I—I,” she stumbled.

His stomach tightened under the bite of rejection. “Forgive me for burdening you,” he said lamely. He should turn away. He should—

“Oh no, no,” she hurried to reassure him. She motioned down to her slippered feet. “You see, I told the gentlemen I turned my ankle and was unable to dance. How would it appear if I were to suddenly strike out the next set with you?”

A wave of relief washed over him. “That is the reason for your hesitancy?” He laughed; the sound burst from him from a place he’d thought had ceased to exist, a place full of unrestrained hope.

Without allowing her another word on the matter, he commandeered her to the ballroom floor for the
current dance—a waltz. He settled his hands on her waist.

“My brother is flaying you to ribbons with his eyes.”

Drake arched a brow. “The last person I’m thinking about right now is your brother.”

Emmaline
looked toward her brother. A small frown marred her lips. She continued to study the glowering duke as he waltzed Miss Winters across the dance floor. “He is not happy.”

Drake
glanced at the duke and then back at Emmaline. “Really? I’m amazed you can tell. That is the only expression I’ve ever seen him wear.”

She giggled.

Drake’s lips twitched at her infectious laughter. “No, really. He must have been born with that terrific glower.”

Another giggle escaped her. “He’s practiced it since he was a young boy,” she
said in a conspiratorial whisper.

He nodded somberly. “Of course he has. It is a requisite course for all heirs to dukedoms.” Drake
narrowed his eyes and studied Emmaline down the length of his nose in his best impression of Mallen’s expression.

A gurgle of laughter bubbled up past her lips. “
That is a rather impressive rendering.”

“Or there is this one.” Drake drummed up the disapproving glower his father had directed his way, many a
-times when Drake had been a small boy.

“Please, s-s-stop. It isn’t seemly if I…” The
floodgates opened and Emmaline’s giggle became a resounding laugh that earned a multitude of stares from the
ton
. The full, husky sound was hardly the simpering, stifled laugh required of a lady. Instead it conjured thoughts of naked bodies entwined in silken sheets, sated with pleasure.

“Th-they are s-staring again.”

Drake arched a brow. “Should I attempt one of your brother’s famous ducal scowls?”

Emmaline laughed even harder.

Drake stared down at her.
How did I let you go?
Sheer madness and rash idiocy were the only answers that made any sense. If he’d searched the world two times over, he’d never find a woman like her. And yet, she’d been his since they were mere children.

“I read your notes.” He caught her as she lost her footing.

***

Emmaline
had given Drake her notes with the expectation he would read them. That had been at a time when she’d thought she would never speak to him again. But knowing he’d read all her private thoughts, left her feeling exposed.

Now that h
e was here, she could finally have the answer to the question that had haunted her since he’d walked out of her brother’s townhouse and out of her life. “I don’t understand. Why did you push me away?”
Why did you give me up?

His hands tightened on her waist, the heat of his skin warming her even through the soft silk fabric. “If I were a better man I would leave you alone.” He nodded towards the eager gentlemen watching from the side of the dance floor. “I would be content to allow you to make a match with one of those more deserving gentlemen. I
’m flawed.”

She flinched
as she remembered her brother had leveled the same charge against Drake. “Don’t say that.”

He shook his head
. A gold strand tumbled across his brow. “No. Listen to me. I need you to understand. The reason—”

“
I’d like to dance the remainder of the set with my sister, Drake.” A voice snapped.

Emmaline
jerked at the sudden appearance of Sophie and Sebastian. Somehow her brother had managed to steer Sophie across the floor and secured a spot right alongside them.

Sophie’s eyes
fairly glimmered with an apology, as if to say she were sorry she’d been unable to keep Sebastian at bay.

Drat it.

With little ceremony, Sebastian handed Sophie over to Drake so that Emmaline was forced to accept her brother’s hand.

Sebastian’s eyes had gone glacial. 
“Stay away.”

***

Drake tore his gaze away from the sight of Mallen waltzing Emmaline away.

“You love her
,” Miss Winters said, her tone very matter-of-fact.

He
blinked. It was one thing for Emmaline to be so brutally direct, it was quite another when it was her dearest friend. “I beg your pardon, Miss Winters?”

Sophie gave a jaunty shake of her curls. “No apologies for loving her. I also love her.”

Drake felt as though he’d been spun in one too many dizzying circles. “Uh, n-no…for…” He let the matter rest.

Miss Winters studied him with wide, blinking cornflower blue eyes. She
put him in mind of a night owl.