Her Favorite Duke (The 1797 Club #2)(7)

But Emma looked just as uncertain as Simon felt as she slid a hand into the crook of James’s elbow and awaited what he would say.

“Our family has been blessed with much good news as of late,” James said. “And tonight I’ve a little more that I cannot wait to share. The Duke of Northridge and my sister, Lady Margaret—”

Simon jerked his face toward Meg. She was smiling, but her cheeks were pale, her eyes staring straight ahead.

“—will marry at Christmas!” James finished.

The crowd erupted in applause and talk, but Simon felt separated from all of it. He stood there, staring at Meg. She nodded as friends called out felicitations. She smiled into the crowd and once up at Graham.

But Simon knew her. He knew her and he’d seen her tears outside. This was why she’d been crying. This supposedly happy announcement of her impending wedding. After all this time, Meg didn’t want to marry Graham.

And even though that should not have changed a thing for Simon, even though it should have only made him sorry for them both, instead it put a light of hope in his chest. It made him wonder if the future was cast in stone after all.





Chapter Two





Meg let her fingers move over the keys of her pianoforte, pouring out her emotion into the music in a way she could not pour out her emotions in real life. She put her anger there, her desperation, her heartbreak as she played, losing herself in the keys, forgetting the pounding fact that her wedding date was now set and marrying Graham suddenly felt very real.

She smashed her fingers down all at once and let out a strangled groan.

“Meg?”

She started as she turned to watch Emma slip into the music room, shutting the door behind her. Meg’s cheeks burned as she looked away from her sister-in-law. “I missed a few notes.”

Emma stared at her, silent for what felt like forever, then she moved to sit in one of the chairs beside the fire. She motioned for Meg to join her, and with a sigh Meg did so.

“You always play beautifully,” Emma reassured her. “With more passion than most ladies I’ve watched play.”

Meg held back a bark of frustrated laughter. “When she is sober, my mother calls my playing unseemly. Unladylike.”

Emma’s mouth pinched slightly at the mention of the dowager. She was well aware of the issues the dowager had with drink. Not that very long ago, she had even helped Meg when her mother made a public scene. That had been the beginning of their friendship and eventually her relationship with James. The only thing Meg could thank her mother for.

“I think that having passion and being ladylike are not mutually exclusive,” Emma said. “What is life without a little passion?”

She blushed as she said the words, and Meg smiled. “You would not have said that three months ago.”

Emma laughed. “Perhaps not. Perhaps love gives us a different view on passion. I don’t know.”

Meg felt her smile slip away at the mention of love. She was truly happy Emma and James had found it, for her brother deserved nothing less than the devotion he’d found in the woman across from her. But seeing them so blissful only put her own situation in starker focus.

“What is troubling you?” Emma asked softly, her hand coming out to cover Meg’s.

Meg sucked in her breath as pain mobbed her. Pain she pushed away with greater and greater difficulty. “Troubling me? Nothing, of course.”

“I don’t believe that’s true.” Emma’s voice was very gentle. “You have not seemed happy since two nights ago, when the date for your marriage was announced.”

“Why would I not be happy?” Meg choked out. “I will at last be Duchess of Northridge, just as my brother always desired.”

Emma’s brow wrinkled. “James’s wish, yes. You always put it that way. But what about your wishes, Margaret? What are they?”

Meg pushed to her feet and walked away, for she had a great desire to simply scream out all that was in her heart. Right now the pressure of it was so great that she longed to spill it free where it could no longer torment her.

But when she looked at Emma, she saw more than a confidante and friend. More than a sympathetic ear.

“You are my brother’s wife,” she whispered. “Whatever I tell you will either go back to him or…or you’ll be forced to keep it from him. I don’t want to cause strife between you. I would never hurt my brother.”

Emma’s lips parted and she slowly rose, her hands outstretched. “This is very serious, isn’t it? I can see it in your eyes, feel it in the way you tremble. Meg, your brother adores you. Let us go and talk to him about whatever it is that’s troubling you. I’m certain we can work it out. That it can be fixed.”

Before Meg could answer, the door behind them opened and the dowager entered the room. She jolted at finding the two of them standing so closely together.

“Was I interrupting?” her mother asked, and Meg was pleased that she did not sound drunk this afternoon. That was one less weight on her shoulders.

“No, we were finished,” Meg said. “We were just talking about my playing.”

Her mother glanced at the pianoforte. “Ah yes, I have not heard you play in an age, Meg.”

Meg flinched, for she had played for the group not three nights before. That her mother did not recall that performance put her limitations in stark focus.