The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1)(60)

“Isn’t it lovely, Your Grace? I’ve never seen finer.” Emma turned to see Mary, her lady’s maid, standing in the doorway holding a tray. “His Grace says you’re to be ready by eight o’clock. I took the liberty of bringing up your dinner. I thought we might need the extra time to do something special with your hair before you leave for the theater.”

Emma couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He was taking her to the theater?

“The duke is taking dinner in his chambers, too. Mr. Khan is helping ready him for the evening.”

Having set down the tray, Mary bounced with excitement, rocking up to her toes and then down again. “It’s so wonderful, Your Grace. He hasn’t made such an outing since—”

“Since returning from the war. I know. And that’s been—”

“Nigh on two years,” Mary said. “It’s all your doing, Your Grace. He’s so taken with you. Just as we all hoped.”

Emma didn’t know about that. “He’s only taking me because I deviled him into it.”

“Nevertheless.” Her maid lifted the shimmering gown from the bed and, pinching it by the sleeves, held it up to Emma’s body. She swiveled Emma toward the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. “If the duke isn’t in love with you already, he surely will be by the end of the night.”

“Will you leave me for a moment?”

Mary looked confused, but she did as she was asked. “Certainly, Your Grace.”

Once she was alone, Emma stood staring into the looking glass.

She hadn’t worn an evening gown in six years. Not since that devastating night when she’d reached out for love and been dealt cruel disappointment in return. Her own father had called her a jezebel, a strumpet, and worse. Any temptress in a harlot-red dress, he’d said, was asking to be ill-used.

Emma hadn’t asked for anything of the sort. She’d sewn that gown herself, and she’d poured all her hopes into it. Not to sing a siren song or to invite lust. She wasn’t asking, Grope me behind the hedges.

See me, she’d been pleading. Admire me.

Love me.

A mistake, and she’d paid dearly for it. Again, and again, and again.

But now here she was. Against her better judgment and every resolution, she’d found herself craving all those same things from her husband. Understanding. Admiration. Affection.

Perhaps even love.

She regarded herself in the mirror and drew a deep, unsteady breath. If she put on this gown and went down to him, she would descend the stairs wearing her heart on the outside of her body. Nothing to guard it from being pierced, wounded, broken.

Torn apart.

She would be a fool to take that risk.

He had vowed to protect her, hadn’t he? However, she wasn’t certain any promise extended that far.

Tonight, Emma supposed she would find out.





Chapter Twenty-Three




Ash paced the entrance hall, tapping his walking stick against the marble floor. Every few passes, he glanced at the clock. Thanks to Emma’s peculiar friend, he trusted the timepiece to be accurate to the second.

Ten past eight.

He stopped his pacing. He was behaving like some kind of courting swain, not a duke awaiting his tardy duchess—and he was most definitely not a lovesick pup. He simply despised waiting, that was all.

Craving motion, he lifted his walking stick perpendicular to the floor and placed his hat atop it. He thrust the stick upward, sending the hat a few feet into the air, then maneuvered to catch it. The next time, he sent the hat higher. After a dozen or so repetitions, he was lofting the hat to the heights of the vaulted ceiling, then tracking its fall to snag it before it hit the marble floor.

He’d just sent the hat soaring when he caught a shimmer of red at the top of the staircase.

Emma.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said.

Ash startled, flung the walking stick aside in a stupid attempt to dispose of the evidence, and then stood motionless as his beaver hat plummeted toward the earth out of nowhere, glancing off his shoulder before crashing to the floor. It must have looked as though he’d been the target of some sort of lightning bolt from Olympus, only a more fashionable one.

She stared at him from the top of the staircase.

He decided there was only one way to deal with the situation.

Denial.

He cast an accusatory glance at the ceiling, then bent to retrieve his hat, dusting it off with an air of irritation. “I’ll get Khan on that straightaway.”

He could sense her stifling a laugh.

“The performance begins in twenty minutes,” he said.

She remained at the top of the staircase, hesitant. Well, and why wouldn’t she be? She was about to go out in public accompanied by a man who flung hats and walking sticks about at random intervals.

“If you’d rather not,” he said, “it’s all the same to me. I’ve a report from the Yorkshire estate to look over.”

“Would you prefer to stay home?”

“Only if you prefer it.”

“I want to go. I should say, I’d hate to waste Mary’s efforts.” She touched a gloved hand to her hair.

What a horse’s ass he was. She wasn’t hesitating because she was concerned about his appearance. She was waiting for him to compliment hers.