“What alterations?”
“I think it would be prudent, even fortuitous if you dispense with the idea of a marriage of convenience. It is slowly becoming clear to me, Cousin that your feeling for Miss Fitzgerald would lend itself to anything but such a convenient marriage.”
“Then you have perceived my regard for her?”
“Oh yes, I have indeed perceived it. I perceived it many weeks ago and have been waiting for you to catch up with me.” Algernon laughed, and Hunter was grateful for it. It seemed to break the tension of the moment between them. “I really do think you must forget any ideas of Felicity. That young woman’s vanity rides as high as ever it did, and it galls me to think that even now, even at this moment, she is somewhere quite content in the knowledge that she has you on a piece of string, Hunter.”
“She does not have me on a piece of string, not for a moment. I realize that my regard for her was nothing as it once was. In truth, I realize how little that lady and I have in common.”
“And why do you suppose that is?”
“As you very well know, Algernon, it is because I have realized how much I do have in common with Emmeline Fitzgerald.”
“Then why do you look so very forlorn? Why do you look as if you are being led to the gallows, my dear fellow if you already know the direction in which your heart would wish to take you?”
“Because I am afraid that Emmeline Fitzgerald does not hold me in the same regard. And not only that, but she has already received an offer of marriage from somebody else. She has not mentioned it, not to me at any rate. And she has yet to give the man her answer. So, you see, I cannot necessarily dismiss the idea of Felicity altogether, can I?”
Chapter 20
Emmeline had heard nothing from Hunter since the day of the funeral. When he had returned to the carriage, his face somber, and his eyebrows dipped low in thought, Emmeline had known better than to attempt any sort of conversation. Even if she had tried it, she would not have known what to say.
When his carriage had drawn up outside Tarlton Manor, he politely declined her mother’s offer of tea. Without even making any excuse of any kind, he disappeared off into the gloom of an early autumn day.
“I know I have said it already, but you must not worry. All will be well, Emmeline, I know it will.” Her mother had taken her hand and led her back into the house that was, for the time being at least, still their home.
It was a mercy to her that Kent Fitzgerald had been absent for some days, and it seemed likely that he would be for several more to come. The idea of suffering his dreadful company, not to mention his advances, when she felt so very low about Hunter, was appalling to her.
Of course, she knew she ought really to explain things to her mother, to tell her of his strange suggestion and the actions which always made her feel so uncomfortable. If she did, her mother would no doubt lend her support in demanding that, whilst they were still in their period of grace, her cousin should stay at the inn when he was in the county.
However, everything seemed to be so uncertain of late that she did not wish to add to it by upsetting her mother. She also did not want to present her mother with another saviour, should Hunter Bentley abandon her altogether. Faced with a plan which might see Emmeline, Rose, and their mother remain at Tarlton Manor, she knew it would feel dreadful to tell them that she could not do it. She could not marry Kent Fitzgerald even to save them, any of them. In the end, she decided it best not to mention it at all. She would suffer Kent Fitzgerald for as long as she had to and then suffer him no more when they were, finally, in whatever poor lodgings they eventually found.
Of course, it was not utterly decided that she and her family would end in such a way. After all, Hunter had not told her that he had changed his plans in any way. But Hunter had not told her anything at all, had not made any contact in the four days since the funeral of the Duke of Galcross.
As much as it hurt, she almost craved the details of that dreadful meeting between Hunter and Felicity. If he had made her some promise, she wanted to know now. She did not want to dwell in hope, and she did not want to hide from her feelings of unrest as she had done towards the end of her time with Christopher Lennox.
Instead, Emmeline wanted to face it, to deal with whatever was coming. Time was short for her and her family, and she had to be practical; she had to squash down her feelings of fear. She knew it was going to hurt; it could do no other given the state of her heart and the depth of her feeling for Hunter Bentley. But, at the same time, she could not float this way and that, perhaps a victim, perhaps not. She needed to know.
And so it was that Emmeline, claiming to be simply going out for a ride, made her way alone across this short stretch of countryside between Tarlton Manor and Addison Hall. She had decided to do the very thing that both she and Hunter had done all along. She would speak her mind openly and ask that he do the same. There would be no lies between them, no hiding. Whatever was to come was to come, and she would ask him to be forthright and give her his intentions on the spot.
However, whatever confidence and determination had driven her to ride out that far, it seemed to desert her entirely when she drew her horse up outside Addison Hall. She sat unmoving for some minutes staring up at so many windows, at so vast a building. In the end, it had been the approach of one of the stable hands which had forced her to make her move.
He helped her down from her horse and led the placid creature away to the stables. She began to approach the front entrance of the hall with the greatest of trepidation and would have turned back had the Butler, his customary smile in place, not appeared suddenly to greet her.
“Miss Fitzgerald, do come in,” he said with a smile and ushered her into the entrance hall. “If you would wait for a moment, I shall seek out His Lordship and let him know that you are here.”
“Thank you kindly,” Emmeline said with a smile, all the while her heart racing.
The butler returned in no time at all and led her through the great corridor, across the glorious, gleaming chequerboard marble floor, to the drawing room.
“Emmeline, how nice to see you,” Hunter said.
He was already on his feet when she arrived in the drawing room, clearly waiting for her. She studied him for some moments, trying to gauge if he really was as pleased to see her as his words might suggest.
“Your mother is not here with you? Your sister?” He went on when she did not speak.