“I have only spared you as you spared me, Sir.” She was still smiling warmly, and he thought that, in the end, the two of them would be great friends.
As they made their way back to their seats, he could not help casting a final look back at Felicity. And when he did so, he could see a look of pain on her face. She had watched him and Emmeline talk closely, and it had affected her and affected her badly. She was struggling to hide her feelings, and something about her look of sadness almost made him crumble on the spot.
Hunter wanted to race across the room to her, to cover the distance between them and take her in his arms. He wanted to tell her that he would forgive her and that everything would be alright in the end. He still loved her, and he wondered if he always would.
“You both danced that one very well indeed,” Constance Fitzgerald said, smiling brightly and distracting him once more.
“Thank you kindly, Mrs Fitzgerald,” Hunter said and forced himself to smile and bow amiably.
Chapter 11
“You do remember that Kent Fitzgerald is coming this afternoon, do you not?” Her mother found her in the morning room some days later, absentmindedly trying to arrange some flowers. “Goodness me, what are you trying to do with those?” Constance laughed.
“I daresay I am a little distracted, Mama.” She looked at the vase and the blooms of disastrously varying lengths and laughed also. “Oh dear, I do not know whether to begin again or abandon the entire endeavour. Although I dare not ask the gardener for more flowers; really, I had enough trouble getting these.”
“I am not surprised, my dear. I can hardly imagine you had the courage to ask him for roses.”
“I know; I asked him quite absently. Ordinarily, I would not have dared, I can assure you.” She laughed again.
“Tell me, what is it that bothers you?”
“Nothing, nothing at all, Mama.” She smiled brightly although she knew she was not being entirely honest.
But, in truth, she could hardly get to the bottom of why she felt a little unsettled. It was as if she were making her way through her day adequately, but just a little out of step with her own body. It was almost as if she was behind in some way, just by a fraction of a second, but behind nonetheless.
“Emmeline, you cannot hide it from me, my dear. I am your mother, and if I say there is something wrong, there is something wrong. Now, what is it?” Constance came into the room fully and settled down on the pale blue velvet couch.
“If I am honest, Mama, I have been trying to get to the bottom of it myself and isolate the thing which troubles me.”
“But might I venture that it has much to do with Hunter Bentley, Emmeline?”
“Oh yes, I think it probably does.”
“If you have any second thoughts on the matter, you must not go through with it. If he has displeased you in some way, then you must say so. What I said to you at the beginning of all this still stands, Emmeline. I would not see you sacrificed to save Rose and me, and whatever agreement you might have made with the Earl of Addison, I would have you break it this minute if you had a grave concern.”
“In truth, he has done nothing which displeases me, Mama.” Emmeline shrugged extensively. “In fact, he has fine manners and a pleasing nature. And he is so keen to help us and ensure that we are still kept close as a family even after I am married. How could I ask for anything more than that, really?”
“Perhaps, given the opportunity, you would ask for love?” Constance spoke cautiously and even winced a little at her own question.
“No, I do not think that at all. When I think of love, I think of Christopher, and when I think of Christopher, I think of how he hurt me. I cannot think of love without thinking also of betrayal, and I would never, ever wish to do that to myself again.”
“So, you do not think you could ever love the Earl?”
“I do not think I ought to try, Mama. After all, that is the point of it all, is it not? The Earl and I have an understanding between us that those are the very feelings that we would each seek to avoid in our own futures. I have not even considered whether there would ever be that sort of love between us. And yet we have become very friendly, and I think that as the years go by, I shall be grateful for that friendship. But I do not think we would have that friendship if we did not have the honesty which exists between us. It has made our relationship quite unique, and I am coming to see that it has made it something that most people do not have the luxury of experiencing.”
“But just imagine that level of honesty if it were coupled with love.” Constance was clearly not keen to give up on the idea.
“Mama, you are an incurable romantic, and that is all.” Emmeline laughed and lifted the ill-matched assortment of blooms out of the vase and dumped them onto the small table at which she sat, splashing water everywhere. “Right, I must at least try to get them to a similar length,” she said and began to line the blooms up before setting about them with the scissors once more.
“I am a little bit of a romantic, it is true. But really, deep down, I should not like you to come to regret this decision in years to come. I should not like you to wake up one day and realize that you had missed out. I know that love is a painful thing at times, especially when it ends the way that your love for Christopher did. But it is also a wonderful thing, indescribably wonderful, and just because it did not work once, does not mean that it might not work again in the future.”
“I must assure you, Mama, that not only am I quite determined to see this through, but I am very content to. But I do understand what you are saying, and I am very grateful for your care of me. It really does mean a great deal, so much, in fact, that I could not begin to tell you about it.” She smiled and was warmed and amused to see her mother’s eyes shining with emotion. “Oh, Mama!” she said, and they both laughed.
Constance crossed the room to join her daughter and, between them, they began to work at the vase of flowers to see if they could be saved.
Emmeline was sure that it was not the idea that she would live without love that was upsetting her. She had not changed her opinion in any way and had no concerns about a future marriage to the Earl of Addison. She liked him well enough and thought that the two of them would make a very good pair.
If she thought about it, it was his reaction to the Duchess of Galcross which had very likely upset her equilibrium just a little. He had been very honest with her throughout and told her that the Duke and Duchess would be at the summer ball. She had been very grateful for that honesty and thought she would not have liked to have come face-to-face with the woman without prior warning.