“I have heard as much,” she said stiffly.
“So, you truly wish to dissolve our betrothal?” he said.
“Even more so now that I hear you wish to marry,” she noted, her voice still chill.
“She is a darling,” he said pensively. “I do wish that the two of you could meet. I feel as if we have known each other for years, you and I, although we have infrequently met.”
She ground her teeth and thought cruel thoughts about her father. “Quite so,” she said.
“Will you be coming to London?”
“Naturally,” she said. “I shall come for the remainder of the season.” If he were a man of any conscience at aonsLondll, he would know that his discarded fiancée would be desperate to find another husband. Except that at four and twenty she was decayed beyond all hope, as Bethany had said.
“I shall introduce you,” he said with perfect sangfroid. “She is French; I’m afraid that I have a weakness for women of the Gallic persuasion.”
“So I have heard,” Emma said, choking back a wish to strangle the man. She rose from the settee, thinking of nothing but escape. He rose as well, naturally.
“I’m afraid that I have a very busy morning ahead of me, Lord Kerr.” She sank into a curtsy. “If you will excuse me…”
“But I want to tell you more about her,” he said, and she accidentally met his eye for the first time since he entered the room.
What she saw there made her stand as if she were rooted to the carpet.
“She’s exquisite, like all Frenchwomen.”
“Of course,” Emma whispered.
He was walking toward her, and she knew that devil, wicked, laughing look on his face. She knew it, oh, how she knew it.
“She wears her hair down on occasion. And she’s as good at playing the queen as the courtesan, if you follow me.”
She nodded.
“But of course I shouldn’t speak so to an innocent English maiden, should I? Should I, Emelie?”
Surely that was joy in her heart. It was a new feeling, and so potent she couldn’t be sure. “Did you—when did you know?” she whispered.
“Did you never think that I heard of your scene painting?”
Her eyes widened. “You knew before—before we went to Hyde Park Theatre?”
“There was something about you that I recognized, that made me uneasy and yet made me want to laugh.” He was standing just before her now, and somehow he’d trapped both her hands and had them at his mouth. “And then you suddenly told me that you painted flats. Darling, you are the only woman in all England who does such a thing. How could you think that I would not know it?”
“It’s not at all well-known,” Emma objected. “Not a single audience member knows that I painted Mr. Tey’s flats.”
“Have you forgotten my godmother, the Countess of Bredelbane?”
“Oh,” Emma said, remembering all the letters exchanged between the countess and herself over the years.
“She has pursued a relentless campaign to put the two of us before an altar.” He was pressing kisses into her palms, and her knees were weak again. “So, darling—” His eyes searched her face. “Am I to gather that you have not succeeded in quite all of my demands?”
Pink crept into her cheeks, and she shook her head. He was sliding something over her finger, a heavy, elaborate ring that once belonged to his forefathers.
“I should like the chance to try again,” he said simply.
The smile was almost painful, she felt it so deeply.
“Again. Again and again, Emma. Somehow I fell in love with you. With everything about you.”
“Not with Emelie?” she asked, letting him pull her close and closer still.
He shook his head. “’Twas Emma who put on the masquerade, and Emma who paints, and Emma who ravished me as Queen Titania, and Emma who ravishes me as herself.”
He gave her a fierce kiss.
“And it was Emma, damn it, who took such an unookia, aaccountably long time to contact me. I thought I’d die during these two weeks, Emma. I was afraid that I’d disappointed you, and you had decided to find a new husband.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tracing that line of his lip with an unsteady finger.
“Don’t ever do that again!”
“Do what?” She’d lost track of the conversation.
“Stay away from me. Ever.”
“You stayed away from me,” she pointed out. “If you knew, why didn’t you come here the next morning? Why did you dance with a Frenchwoman?”
He looked down at her with his small, crooked smile. “I wanted a bit of revenge. For your calling in the favor. I found it hard, you see, to admit that I had lost the challenge. But I was about to come to you when you finally wrote me.”