Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride (Scandalous Seasons #1)(9)

“Avondale,” Sophie muttered. “He was one of the gentlemen Mother hoped I’d make a match with in my first Season.”

“Consider yourself spared.” Emmaline scanned the front of the London Times before flipping to the next story. Her eyes snagged on a name at the center of the page and she bolted upright.

It appeared a certain Marquess of D had secured the affections of the recent Opera sensation from Italy, Signora Nicolleli. The papers reported her to be talented, vivacious, and stunningly elegant. etcetera, etcetera…

Emmaline tossed the paper aside, her eyes boring into the offensive sheets.

Thinking on it, she picked up the paper and crushed it into a sloppy ball and threw it to the floor. Since it did not make her feel better, she reached for it again.

Sophie snatched the copy, intercepting Emmaline’s efforts. “I’ll take that.” She unwrinkled the ball and ran a smoothing hand over the surface several times and read for herself. She muttered something a lady of good Quality should never think, let alone breathe aloud. “I’ve seen her. She really isn’t that beautiful.” She smiled unconvincingly at Emmaline.

Emmaline’s eyes narrowed. “Liar.” There was something disheartening in going through life being considered tolerably pleasing, as the papers had labeled Emmaline in her first Season. She waved a hand over herself. “It is no wonder he has no interest in marrying me.” That, and as he’d pointed out, the fact he’d had to rescue her on two separate occasions. She snorted. As though she needed rescuing. Why, with his scandalous pursuits and history, he probably needed rescuing a good deal more than Emmaline ever had or would.

Emmaline sighed. “Thank you for your support, Sophie but it isn’t necessary. I know what I look like.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Em. You are utterly lovely.” Sophie spoke with such stringent confidence, had Emmaline been anyone else, she might have believed her.

Emmaline pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “Come, Sophie. I’ve already come to terms with the fact I will never be considered a great beauty.”

“Why, you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Leave it to Sophie to remind her of the one attribute she could not find much fault with. For all her plainness, Emmaline’s eyes were pleasing. Her father used to say they were the color of warmed chocolate, and through them, her every emotion could be revealed. As a girl, it had sounded so poetic. Now, grown up, she’d come to find such transparency was anything but positive amidst the gossiping ton.

At thoughts of her father, she sighed. He’d been gone now three years and the pain of that loss still hurt.

As she and Sophie nibbled at their pastries, Emmaline contemplated her circumstances.

Her frustration stemmed from so much more than Lord Drake’s avoidance of her. Somewhere along the way, she had begun to question her late Father’s manipulation of her future. At some moment, a time she couldn’t pinpoint, she’d grown resentful that the decision to marry had been wrested from her hands when she’d been a mere child. And yet, whether Lord Drake had been short with a baldpate or whether he was a specimen of male perfection, Emmaline felt obligated to make a go out of her circumstances. For Father.

“It’s hardly fair he should be so blasted perfect,” Emmaline muttered. “Can’t he have a flaw? A high-forehead, jiggling jowls? A paunch? Something.”

Sophie laughed. “You are the only person to complain that her betrothed is too handsome.”

“You are not helping.”

“He does seem very severe whenever I see him,” Sophie offered obligingly.

Emmaline thought to their recent exchange in Kensington Gardens and sighed. Yes, that was Lord Drake’s flaw. Except it seemed to only garner further notice from the ladies.

“And he’s a war hero to boot, Sophie. What is my great accomplishment?”

“You are a wonder in the gardens.”

Emmaline snorted. Considering Drake’s regard for flowers, that great talent would hardly bring him up to scratch. “You and I both know it’s a skill no one but my family can appreciate.” The only efforts at gardening acceptable for a young lady were the flowers she stitched on the fabric in her embroidery frame.

To the ton, Emmaline remained largely—unremarkable. Which most likely explained the efforts Lord Drake went through to avoid her.

Her betrothed may have had a grand time since he’d returned from the Peninsula three years ago, but he’d consigned her to an odd position in Society. She’d become a bit of a conundrum. Emmaline was attached but unattached, forever betrothed but never married. For these reasons, honor dictated no other gentleman could pay her court.

“Do you know, Sophie, there are times I think I might prefer being wanted by a young lord for the size of my dowry. Then at least I would be wanted for something, which is vastly better, than not being wanted at all.”

Sophie looked up from the wrinkled paper she’d resumed reading. “You’re mad! Your betrothal is the only reason you have not been pursued. Any gentleman would be honored to wed you.”

Emmaline ignored Sophie’s defense. With a sigh, she opened her clenched fist and studied the bisecting lines traversing her palm. She ran a distracted little path over the surface of her skin. She may be betrothed, but she was not unlike Sophie, who also remained unmarried. Emmaline’s betrothal to the Marquess of Drake had always been common knowledge to the ton. Nothing more than a piece of gossip dragged out by old dowagers whenever there was a dearth of more current on dits. Neither Emmaline nor Sophie were truly sought after or cared about by any gentleman. The one difference between them being Emmaline had a scrap of paper saying someone had claims to her.