The Bride Price

Chapter Three

"Simply abominable behavior!"

After several minutes of companionable silence, Josephine's outburst succeeded in dragging Emily's gaze up from her embroidery.

"He should have made an offer," her friend continued to fume, each word punctuated by a fierce tug on a knot in her thread. "Any decent fellow would have made a public declaration of his love for you, which he then would have followed up with a very heartfelt and succinct proposal."

"Any decent fellow," Emily echoed under her breath, and allowed her eyes to return to the small square of needlework in her lap.

"And now it's been five days... five whole days!" Josephine tossed her work into the basket and crossed her arms over her chest. "And then I had to sit through another tea with that abhorrent Miss Fauntley and her equally miserable mother, the both of them nearly tumbling out of their seats with their eagerness to go over every horrid detail for the hundredth time. As if Miss Fauntley's retelling of the encounter didn't consist of enough fallacies and exaggerations to make a politician blush."

Emily sat with the needle pinched between her fingers, her hands hovering over her work. For nearly an hour she'd sat there, the beams of the morning sun moving across the rug, Josephine's conversation weaving in and out of her thoughts as she lost track of her pattern and once again had to pull out several stitches and start over.

"It's not fair that you're the one bearing all the censure," Josephine went on, undeterred by Emily's silence. "And then there's Marbley," she said, pronouncing his name with a liberal coating of disgust. "Still able to attend all of the parties and balls, behaving for all the world as if nothing untoward had occurred. And still the women fawn all over him, smiling and flirting and batting their silly eyelashes at him, and I could just... I could..."

She grumbled into a restless silence. A few more minutes passed, the only sounds that reached their ears the muffled rumble of traffic from the street beyond their windows.

"I want some cake." Josephine launched herself out of her seat and yanked on the bellpull once, and then twice more before she seemed to have vented enough of her frustration on the slim scrap of tasseled fabric.

When the tray of cakes and pastries arrived, along with a fresh pot of tea, Emily finally set aside her embroidery and took the cup and dish of confections Josephine selected for her.

She ate quickly, pausing neither to taste the sweetness of the cakes nor to savor their delicacy. She ate because she knew she should, that her body required sustenance, and it wouldn't do anyone a whit of good if she allowed herself to waste away.

"If Mamma would allow it, I'd suggest a stroll or some other sort of outing." Josephine sighed and popped the last crumb of cake into her mouth. "But she's of the opinion that the entire firmament will tear asunder and a rain of fire and brimstone will fall down upon your head if you dare to show your face out of doors."

Emily glanced at the windows. For the last five days, the weather had been brilliant. And she had experienced none of it beyond the light breeze that occasionally stirred the sheer lace curtains in front of the glass. "I've no desire to go anywhere," she said, and hid the catch in her voice with a quick sip of tea.

Five days ago, the Lord Edmund Winthrop, Viscount Marbley had turned his back and walked away from her, and along with him, he'd taken her innocence, her respectability, and her every hope of achieving a better future for herself and her sisters.

Miss Fauntley must have worked with some haste, because even as Emily pushed through the crowd at the rear of the ballroom, she heard the whispers. They spread among the assembled guests like flame through dry kindling, only this particular fire was fueled by gossip and the promise of a fresh scandal.