Rosie, who had waited up for her, helped her undress and put on her night rail. Emma climbed beneath the coverlets of her bed, so sleepy that even the excitement of her first ball failed to keep her awake.
***
Myles lounged on a settee placed on the deep piled carpet in front of the fireplace in his library. His back rested comfortably. His legs sprawled out in front of him, and he held a glass of good Scotch whiskey in his long, lean fingers—one of several he’d drunk since returning home from the Caulfields’ ball. He rose several times and went to the sideboard to refill his glass, and then when his legs became wobbly he carried the near-empty bottle back with him.
No sense getting up every time Isabella’s lovely face and her adoring eyes flashed in his mind. How had he been so blind that he had not noticed her affection before? Of course, he had been absent for a year in America. Before that, to be honest, he had looked upon her as one of his sisters.
“Damn you, Almighty God, and your games of the heart.” What little Myles had eaten during dinner churned around and around in his stomach. He prayed to God he could reciprocate Bella’s love, but he knew praying for that would do no good. He did love Bella; just not in the way she wanted him to love her. And though he wished it were otherwise, his heart was absent, drifting aimlessly somewhere over New Orleans, perhaps never to return.
And though he would have to marry some day for affection and companionship, and to produce the all-important heir, he would not do Bella such an injustice as to choose her. She deserved to be loved and loved deeply. In time she would forget him and find another worthy of her heart.
Myles had to believe that. He did not wish to inflict pain on Bella. He cared for her too much to do that.
Emma would make him a perfect wife––or so he had believed on the onset of their return trip from America. By the time the ship docked in London he knew otherwise. Myles could no more marry her than marry Bella. They deserved more than convenience or friendship. They deserved to be cherished and loved.
During the next society function he would have his own sister, Marissa, to think about. Due to a stomach ailment she had missed tonight’s ball. Between retching into a chamber pot and sobbing into her pillow she had been in no condition to attend, which Myles knew had actually not been a bad thing. He had spent some time assessing the eligible gentlemen that attended the ball. From the many in attendance he’d narrowed the list down to a handful of candidates worthy of her hand. After Marissa looked upon these he would be lucky if any of those met her own preposterous qualifications for her potential husband.
Myles raised his glass and drained the fiery liquid. With the help of the settee he was able to stand, although he wobbled and nearly fell. Myles shuffled off to his chambers and dismissed his valet for the night, then collapsed on his bed, fully clothed. The last thing he visualized before sleep overtook him was Sophie LaFleur and the hateful look she had thrown him when he wounded her fiancé in a duel.
***
Thomas spent the hours after returning from the Caulfields’ ball much as his friend Myles had, only his drink of preference was brandy. He needed to numb his brain and his traitorous body.
Emma…with her soft voice, inquisitive blue eyes, delicate hands, and her lovely face, haunted him. Everything about her haunted him. When they danced that evening, she had felt so right in his arms. He could not remember dancing with anyone else that evening except her. His hands still burned from the contact with her delicate gloved hand and tiny waist.
Thomas downed another glass of brandy. Try as he might, he could not get Emma out of his head. And his body burned for her. He was turning into a degenerate of the worst kind.
***
Edward Worthington, Tenth Marquess of Amesbury, leaned against the wall of his dark study in Mayfair. He wiped the sweat off his brow with his handkerchief and swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, threatening to spew out.
“Bugger all,” he moaned. “Where did I put that damn bottle?” He forced his body, which was racked inside and out with violent tremors, to move. With hands he could barely acknowledge as being attached to his body, he rummaged clumsily through his desk drawers.
Panic threatened to engulf him. If Edward did not find what he needed he would risk being found sobbing on the floor of his study, curled up into a ball, shaking from the pain of withdrawal. Not the stellar behavior one expected from a marquess. There’d been an opportunity at the ball, but he’d ignored his instinct to seek help from his two trusted friends. As if they would understand.
“Ahhh,” he breathed as his hands located and curled around the familiar brown glass vial his body and mind craved. His fingers popped the top and he downed the contents. As the drug sped through his body he slid to the floor. The empty bottled rolled silently off the tips of his fingers onto the thick Persian rug.