Blindingly, Emma reached for it and prayed she would survive the last night at the house party. It finally became clear to her. She was in love with a man who would never love her back. A man who truly was using her for his own purpose. Granted she had agreed to his adventurous little jaunt, but never did it cross her mind that she did not affect him the same way he had her.
****
He had to be sure. He needed to be sure she felt the same way about him. Yes, maybe what he had done was cruel, but he needed to know it wasn’t just temporary insanity. He wanted Emma to lust for him, to desire him as a man. The stolen kisses had nearly undone him, but what he needed more than that was possession of the woman behind them. A wild woman who would never be tamed, who held secrets he longed to discover. He wanted her.
Never claiming to be the slyest of foxes, he did the only thing he could come up with on his own, sans Nicholas. He used the necklace to gauge her feelings, to see if she would become jealous or sad.
And it worked. Brilliantly. Granted, her heart was probably clenching, imagine her surprise when later tonight he proposed to her. This time it would be real. He had sent for the ring earlier that the morning. He had also sent notice to Nicholas and Sara as well as his grandmother. All of whom would be in attendance tonight. The night he would claim Emma forever.
Nothing would stop him.
Not even the tiny note in his room explaining Emma’s past. Sara had tried to be delicate, saying as little as possible. From what he could deduce, Emma had suffered some sort of tragedy
Sebastian wanted to be the one to help her heal from it. And he would be. “Love,” he said into her hair. “I invited Nicholas and Sara. Do go say hello while I get refreshments.”
Emma nodded and walked in their direction.
Her face was unreadable. It killed him to know he was the reason for her indifference, but soon she would be just as happy as he.
Chapter Twenty-two
Legs like lead, Emma walked slowly through the brush to where Nicholas and Sara stood. Both of them wearing stupid grins on their faces. Emma felt numb, as if her nerves had finally given up on her and ceased to work.
Sara was all smiles. Nicholas was brooding as usual. Her mood fit more with Nicholas’s than Sara’s at the moment.
“Was the house party to your liking?” Sara pulled her into a tight embrace.
“Of course,” Emma answered politely then looked to Nicholas for help. He seemed to be the type of fellow who could read emotions better than those around him.
His eyes squinted in her direction but he said nothing. Instead a scowl appeared on his face as she felt someone approach.
“Nicholas, how good to see you, and dear Sara, lovelier than ever?”
Rawlings had his hand across Emma’s back. She wanted to squirm away from his touch but felt immobilized. In fact she wasn’t sure she could feel anything but numbness. Her heart was like stone. Just when she was ready to open up to the possibility of Sebastian, thinking he might feel something for her, rejection had reared its ugly head yet again.
Rawlings leaned down to whisper in her ear, “I will always love you, dear Emma. Remember my offer when Tempest lets you down. Remember he hasn’t a care for you, only his own reputation is at stake.”
Nicholas cleared his throat. “I have need for a walk around the rooms. Would you care to join me, Emma?”
God be praised.
Starving for anything solid to lean on, Emma took his arm and bid goodbye to Sara, who was already chatting up Belverd and his wife while promptly ignoring Rawlings.
One by one her feet remembered they were walking. Yet she couldn’t feel them. She felt nothing. Nothing but the stabbing pain in her heart at the look on Sebastian’s face when he’d placed the necklace around her neck.
A choking sensation took over as she grasped desperately for the necklace with one hand while still holding onto Nicholas.
“Emma. What’s wrong?” Nicholas pulled her behind one of the plants decorating the ballroom.
She continued to pull at the necklace desperate for air.
“Stop, Emma! Stop!” Nicholas grabbed her clenched hands. “What has happened to you? Who has bothered you? Is it Rawlings? I’ll kill him.” His eyes darted around, looking for the man in question.
“If only it were him.” Emma’s voice was weak and shaky. “No, Rawlings might be a little forward, but he’s harmless.”
“What has you so upset?”
Dare she tell him? Sebastian and he were best friends. “Maybe I’m just tired.” The lie came easily and swiftly out of her lips.
Nicholas glanced away from her toward the swarms of people dancing. “I understand. Take a few moments and gather yourself then join the others. This is the last ball of the house party and then you are free to return to London.”
To nothing.
Nodding, she watched him walk back into the mass of people. A headache like none she’d ever experienced grew at the side of her temples, threatening to split her head in half. She was only a small distance away from everyone yet it felt like an eternity. Everywhere she looked people smiled and laughed. Wishing someone, anyone could understand, she felt her eyes well up with tears. Hadn’t she brought this on herself? To think that she, Emma Gates, with the soiled reputation she had, could not only seduce a duke, but also get him to fall in love with her?
A hand reached out to touch her. Without thought she grabbed at it and turned. Directly in front of her was Rawlings. His head touched hers. He bent and for a moment she thought he would kiss her. She was slightly hidden but not enough that people wouldn’t see how close he was to meeting her lips for a stolen kiss.
“Emma…” he moaned, then with a primitive growl, he pushed her against the wall opposite the ballroom and took his fill of her lips.
It was wrong, so horribly wrong. She shoved his chest as much as she could, but he was too strong for her.
“What in the—” Sebastian was suddenly upon Rawlings, throwing him off Emma with such force even she felt frightened. “What in the blazes is wrong with you, Rawlings? Taking advantage of my future wife?”
The words stung, even though Sebastian’s jealousy was evident, it wasn’t enough to keep him.
Rawlings smirked and wiped his mouth. “Don’t like me chomping at your leftovers, Sebastian?”
“Phillip, I swear, I’ll tear you from limb to limb if you ever touch her again. She isn’t yours to kiss.”
Rawlings snorted. “And you believe you have that right? You aren’t even betrothed. It’s a fake! You’re using her for your own personal gain, and I will not have it!”
The music stopped. Emma felt her face flush as people began whispering. If she hadn’t been ruined so many years ago, or the minute Sebastian kissed her in front of the ton, then surely she was ruined this instant. She would count herself lucky if one of her older suitors with gout would have her now.
Knowingly used by a duke, kissed by that same duke, all the while blatantly aware they would not be married.
Any hope of redeeming herself was lost.
Panicking and selflessly trying to keep Sebastian’s reputation as spotless as possible, she intervened. “Sebastian, let’s leave. He’s obviously foxed.”
“Foxed?” Rawlings laughed. “No, not foxed. Although I’d rather be foxed than have to fight this piece of scum for you, dear sweet Emma. After all, weren’t you mine first?”
“That’s it!” Sebastian tackled him to the floor.
Shrieking, Emma ran to get Nicholas. Someone had to keep the men from killing one another. As she turned the corner, she ran into a hard body.
“Excuse me, sir.” She pushed past him but was stopped by his grip on her writs.
“Sir?” No response came from the figure as she lifted her eyes to his, and then, everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-three
Sebastian was half-tempted to kill the man. Blood poured from a cut over his eye, but Rawlings continued to fight back. They rolled across the floor until Sebastian was on top of Rawlings throwing punches across his face.
A muscled body wrapped around the back of Sebastian and pulled him off the poor sod. He tried to attack once again, but he was firmly in the grasp of the person behind him.
“Stop at once! Have you no care for your reputation?” Nicholas growled.
For once in his life, Sebastian hadn’t a care for anything but his future wife’s honor. How dare this man touch her!
“It matters not. One way or another, I will kill him,” he swore.
Rawlings was still on the floor, head in his hands. “Are you bloody insane? I merely kissed her. You aren’t even engaged. It’s all a farce! What is wrong with you?” He continued to curse as blood poured from the cut above his eye as well as his nose. “Blast, if you were truly attached to her, I would have kept to myself.”
Sebastian had no words. What Rawlings said was entirely accurate, how was he to explain he’d had a change of heart? That he was, in fact, desperately and irrevocably in love with Emma Gates?
Pushing away from Nicholas, he gathered his footing. “Phillip…” His hand was outstretched to pull his old friend up.
Reluctantly, he grasped at it and stood albeit shakily on two feet. “You idiot, you could have killed me,” Rawlings muttered.
Foolishly Sebastian grasped at the only truth he knew. “I thought you were still interested. You were affianced at one time, and you can’t tell me you weren’t trying to compromise her.”
Rawlings laughed. “At the tender age of five, yes. And then again before her come out. I was a complete dolt and trying to make amends. What I put her through, what I did to Emma was unforgiveable.”
The music continued as the men went to the far end of the ballroom toward Rawlings’ study. “I loved her, or I thought I did, you idiot,” he spat out, directing all his rage at Sebastian. “She’s been used before. Granted, I’m not totally innocent. Her dowry does pose a perfect solution to my problems, but at least I would try to love her, whereas you would destroy her.”
Sebastian winced. His face suddenly flushed as he realized how things must have looked to Rawlings, though he still hated him, he understood.
“Absolute scandal for the righteous Duke of Tempest, don’t you think?” Rawlings muttered.
“Well then,” Nicholas announced. “Shall we find Emma and let her know you both are still breathing?”
Much was still left to be said.
Rawlings made eye contact with Sebastian. “Later,” he said, before leaving the outskirts of the room.
Sebastian waited while Nicholas shook his head and finally in a fit of rage smashed his fist into the nearby table. “Want to tell me just what’s gotten into you, Seb? One minute you’re lying and using my cousin by marriage in the lie, which I will add I had a part in only because I saw the attraction between you two. But now I hear she doesn’t even know you want to marry her? You haven’t made your intentions clear? Is that not what tonight was all about?”
“It seems I’ve made a cake of myself,” Sebastian admitted.
“I’ll say,” Nicholas muttered alongside him.