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Her heart stuttered. She and her grandfather did correspond, but she couldn’t say it was anything she looked forward to. Still, duty was duty. Taking the missive from the tray, she turned it over. The Duke of Welshire’s seal, imprinted in red wax, held the letter closed. It always looked very impressive, even if the contents were more often than not of the “I don’t approve of Lord So-and-So’s politics, pray do not socialize with him more than is strictly necessary” variety.
She broke the wax seal. “Oh, thank goodness,” she murmured, skimming through the first paragraph. “I’d nearly forgotten His Grace’s birthday next month. Luckily, the Duke of Welshire has never been one to pass by the opportunity to be fawned over.”
“It’s his seventieth, is it not?” Hannah asked.
“It is.” As she read on, though, her relief twisted into a deep, hard knot. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
“Mrs. Pershing, are you well?” the maid asked, fanning at Emmie’s face with her hands. “Should I fetch you something? Do you need to sit down?”
Emmie grabbed on to the wall for balance. “I—The—No, thank you, Hannah.” She forced a smile. “Nothing worrisome. Just something I need to see to. I’ll be in the morning room. Please do not disturb me except to notify me the moment Mr. Pershing returns.”
“Of course, ma’am. Are you certain you’re well?”
“Yes, yes. I’m perfectly fine.”
With a swift curtsy, her expression a mix of worry and badly disguised curiosity, the maid retreated, and Emmie walked through the morning room door and shut it behind her.
The moment she found herself alone, Emmeline strode over to the window to read through the letter a second time. The last thing she wanted was to misinterpret an innocent turn of phrase and see ruination where none existed. In her grandfather’s spare handwriting, though, the words remained—the damning, damnable sentence right in the middle of the page, where she couldn’t excise it without its absence being noticed, where she couldn’t pretend that she’d missed seeing it and still respond to the rest of the missive’s contents.
Oh, this was very bad. For eight years she’d made her union with Mr. Pershing a successful one, and indeed they were universally praised and admired. She had her charities and her friends, most of them carefully chosen depending on the political leanings of husbands, fathers, or brothers; he had his clubs and his work with the government; and they both comported themselves like the proper, correct-living people they were.
Now it was gone. Not yet, because at this moment she was the only one who knew of the destruction. This was one thing, however, that she couldn’t see to without informing her marriage partner. And then… Oh, God, it would all be over. She would be ridiculed, ruined, gossiped about, and, finally, ignored and forgotten. Reliable, gentlemanly Mr. Pershing, who hadn’t done anything to deserve such censure, would face the same consequences.
Emmeline stood up, the letter clenched in one hand, and paced until she ended up at the liquor tantalus against one wall. As a rule, she didn’t drink anything stronger than ratafia, but pouring herself a brimming glass of whiskey, she decided that her private comportment didn’t signify. Far more public and less excusable flaws were about to emerge.
That wasn’t even the worst of it, though. This letter meant her—their—days at Winnover Hall had ended. Her house. Her home. The large library with its half dozen windows overlooking the garden and the pond beyond. The scent of orchard apples that came with the autumn’s afternoon breeze. This lovely morning room with its warm yellow wallpaper and cozy green-and-yellow-striped chairs. All gone now to the devil—or to her cousin Penelope, which was nearly the same thing.
She jumped when someone rapped at the morning room door. How long had she been in there? Emmeline finished off her second—or was it the third?—glass of the horrible-tasting liquor before she answered. “Yes?”
Hannah leaned into the room. “Mr. Pershing is at the stable,” she said, her eyes widening at the sight of the half-empty bottle. “Would you like some tea, ma’am? Or Mrs. Brubbins is brewing that coffee you mentioned, if you’d like something stronger.”
Emmeline waved her hand. “No, no. We’re saving the Moroccan coffee for our guests. That’s why I purchased it. Just tell Mr. Pershing that I wish to speak with him. I shall remain here.” She felt steadier now; perhaps the whiskey wasn’t so bad, after all.
Once the door shut again, she walked to the window, leaning against the sill, then repositioned herself by the fireplace with one elbow on the mantel. No, perhaps sitting at the pianoforte would be more strategic. She smoothed out the letter she’d managed to crumple, pressing it against her thigh. There. Now she looked composed.
The door opened. “You wanted to see me?”
William Pershing, she thought unhelpfully, was a fellow whose face would have been supremely handsome if it wasn’t always so serious. His dark hair was windblown, and he still wore his hunting jacket. His very well-fitting hunting jacket. The faint odor of gunpowder mixed with the heavier scent of her autumn roses, the combination a bit unsettling.
“What is it, Mrs. Pershing?” her husband prompted, one hand still on the door, as if to make it clear that he was on his way elsewhere. “I’d like to clean up before dinner with the Hendersens,” he added unnecessarily.
Emmie opened her mouth, then shut it again. How did one go about destroying one’s life, after all? Begin with a success, of course. “Lady Graham is confident stuffy old Lord Graham will support your road.”
He tilted his head, his mouth briefly quirking. “Are you drunk?”
“What? Of course not.” She smoothed the duke’s letter again. “I—we—have a partnership that works well for both of us. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes. You have been an invaluable asset, just as you promised. Why?” Mr. Pershing took a full step into the room and quietly shut the door behind himself.
Yes, he was as mindful of gossip as she was, yet another reason their partnership worked so splendidly. “I keep an impeccable household, don’t you think?”
A frown creased his forehead. “Yes. You manage the household perfectly. The servants, our meals, parties, and our joint social schedule. Why are you asking?”
Emmie cleared her throat. “One of the conditions for the Duke of Welshire giving us this home was that we continue the family bloodline. You know he’s obsessed with that.”
His jaw jumped. “We did make an attempt,” he reminded her. “For seven months after our wedding.”
Oh, she remembered that. She’d promised him a friendship and a partnership, but then three days later they’d been married. And good heavens, partners didn’t… do those things. Not her disheveled, earnest friend who’d stripped off his clothes and had that… thing jutting out at her and then put his mouth all over her. And then it had… erupted before… And his nakedness, the bare all of him… Her cheeks burned at the recollection. They’d later managed to complete the deed on several occasions in the hope of producing offspring, but only with the candles out and her eyes shut. Every time he stepped into the bedchamber, she couldn’t help recalling their wedding night, the way he’d unbalanced their agreement and made their partnership about an intimacy she certainly hadn’t been ready for. “Yes.”