Amanda McCabe - A Regency Duchess's Awakening

Since that house party and Rob’s marriage that autumn, her parents’ matchmaking efforts had taken on a desperate edge, even as paintings and ornaments began disappearing from their house.

“She is so very beautiful!” Emily overheard her mother wail one day. “Quite ten times prettier than any other young lady this Season. Why can she not bring us a single suitable offer?”

“There was Mr Browning,” her father tentatively suggested.

“A merchant.” Her mother sniffed. “With seven children.”

“He is a wealthy man,” her father said.

“Surely we are not in such straitened circumstances that we must bestow our daughter on a tradesman.”

“Not yet,” her father muttered, as Emily fled in order to not hear any more. The fact that Mr Browning was in trade did not bother her, but the seven children rather did. Plus he was twenty years older than her, and had such sweaty, grasping hands.

Unlike Nicholas, whose long, elegant fingers had clasped hers once to help her into a carriage. Yet they were both such unsuitable men for her, in their own ways. And surely her parents would not force her to marry someone she didn’t care for, if they knew what had happened with Mr Lofton that time….

“I don’t mean to be a disappointment,” she whispered. If not for her wretched shyness, the way her mind went all blank and her throat closed up whenever she met a stranger.

“I say, the quality of the gatherings this Season have been very poor indeed,” a man said, close enough to her hiding place that she could hear the actual words and not just an indistinct hum.

“I agree,” his companion said in a bored drawl. “Lady Orman could once be relied upon to host only the cream of the ton. Now she seems to let in anyone at all.”

Emily peered past the green fronds again to see Lord Barrington and Mr Fraser, two thoroughly useless dandies. She had once endured a dance with Lord Barrington, as he prattled on to her about a new way to tie a cravat or some such thing. She had no desire to listen to his gossip now, but she could see no way to slip past them. She was trapped.

“If this continues, I shall have to go see if there are more quality amusements to be had in Brighton,” said Mr Fraser. “Or even abroad. Even the wine tonight is most insipid.”

“I stood over there and watched the ladies pass by for an hour,” Lord Barrington said, gesturing toward one of the walls with his quizzing glass. “I counted only ten that were tolerable, and only two who were truly pretty.”

“Oh? Who were they, then?”

“Mrs Featherstone and Viscountess Granton,” said Lord Barrington, mentioning Amy.

“True, none can match Lady Granton for beauty. She is quite the Toast. But what of her sister-in-law, Lady Emily Carroll? She is reckoned to be mightily pretty at my club.”

Lord Barrington gave a contemptuous snort. “She is undoubtedly pretty, with that pale hair and white skin. But a veritable icicle. She can’t seem to bring herself to say three words to anyone, just stares at you with those cold, dismissive green eyes. At my club, she is called the Ice Princess, and we wager on which poor, desperate fool will marry her by the end of the Season. The winner thus far is Mr Rayburn. Undoubtedly, the marriage bed will mean the freezing off of his …”

Whatever crude word he was going to say dissolved into their snickers. Emily pressed her hands to her face, wishing more than ever that the floor would swallow her and she could vanish! She didn’t feel like an “ice princess” in the least. Indeed, she felt as if her whole body was on fire with shame.

She longed to cry, to curl up and disappear, never to come to a hateful ball again.

But she was not a Carroll for nothing. Her family might not be wealthy any longer, but they certainly had a long, proud history. They had faced the Tower under Henry VIII, poverty during the Civil War, riotous parties with Charles II, and her own grandfather, a terrible gambler who had to flee to France twice to avoid creditors and angry husbands. Two giggling fops could not best her, even as she ached with embarrassment.

Emily smoothed her skirts, tucked her silvery hair back into its beaded bandeau, and stiffened her shoulders. There was nothing she could do about the hot colour in her cheeks, but she held her head high as she swept out from her hiding place and past the two men.

She might have laughed about the astonished looks on their faces, if she hadn’t been so determined to get away.

Through that sheer determination, she made her way through the press of the crowd, avoiding her mother as she hurried out the double doors into the anteroom. There were still people there, drinking the “insipid” wine, but they paid her no attention as she hurried into the corridor.

Emily drew in a shaky breath, rubbing hard at her hot cheeks. Now that it was a bit quieter, her nerves not so jangled, she knew she had to get away, even if only for a moment. She needed to be alone, to breathe some fresh air.

Not sure where exactly she was going, she dashed down the curving staircase. When they arrived at the ball, that sweep of marble and gilt was packed tightly with revellers, waiting their turn to enter the ballroom, calling out greetings to each other and loudly admiring one another’s attire. Now, it was blessedly deserted; the candles sputtered low to cast dim, shifting shadows on the walls.

Gradually, the cacophony of the party faded, and Emily could hear only the whisper of her slippers on marble as she ran down the stairs. The swish of her skirt. The pounding of her heart.

So intent was she on escape that she didn’t see the man at the foot of the stairs until his silhouette suddenly shifted on the white wall. Startled by the movement, Emily lost her footing on the bottom step. Her stomach lurched as her feet slid out from under her, ripping her hem and pitching her towards the cold stone floor.

She cried out, flinging her hands in front of her to catch herself. But she didn’t collide with painful, unyielding stone.

She fell against a warm, well-muscled chest, arms wrapping around her to lift her up safely into the air. Shocked, Emily clung to her rescuer’s shoulders, her heart racing.

“Lady Emily!” he said, his voice deep, roughly out of breath. “Are you hurt?”

She stared down at him in the fading light, the redorange glow playing over his golden hair, the lean, elegant angles of his sharp cheekbones and knife-blade nose. His blue eyes, those eyes she remembered so well from last summer, were narrowed with concern.

Nicholas, the Duke of Manning. Of course. He did always seem to see her at her worst.

And being pressed so very close to him, alone in that half-light, had her far more flustered and frightened than any mean-spirited gossip. He smelled so delightful, of lemony cologne and clean starch, a faint tang of sweet smoke, as if he had sneaked away for a cigar. And how strong he was, she thought irrationally. He held her up as if she weighed no more than a snowflake—or an icicle.

Did he think her an icicle, too? A cold, unfeeling princess? That seemed to be the general consensus, and surely in his voluble family she would seem so even more.

That shouldn’t make her feel sad, yet it did.

“I am quite unhurt,” she managed to murmur. “Thanks to you, your Grace.”

He smiled up at her, a bright, merry grin that reminded her of that house party. Of his laughing, teasing, romping family, and how she so wanted to be a part of all that fun. She just didn’t know how, and she probably never would.

“Well, that’s my duty at these routs, you know,” he said. “To stand about waiting to rescue fair damsels in distress.”

“You’re very good at it, I’m sure,” Emily said. What damsel wouldn’t dream of being rescued by him? If she was a different sort of female, she surely would. He was handsome and charming and Very Ducal. And such a man would never be interested in an awkward lady like herself.