SWNOVELS A Bluestocking for the Duke: Chapter 14
Emma jumped as the carriage bumped across the uneven road, jolting her from a nap. The ride had been so silent and tense. Colin was sitting quietly beside her, eyes glued on a book. The curtains were drawn to keep the rainy day out. Emma shifted in her seat, yawning.
She swallowed hard. ‘How is your book?’ she asked.
Colin looked up at her. The sudden jostle of the carriage hadn’t startled him, but it seemed he hadn’t expected to hear from her. ‘Um.’ He shrugged. ‘Not the best book I have ever read, nor is it the worst.’ He closed it, flipping over the cover. It was called Water Under the Bridge.
Emma’s mouth felt dry. Their conversation was stilted and awkward, but still, the most natural they’d had in about a week. ‘What is it about?’ she asked. ‘I do not think I have…well, admittedly, I am not much of a reader. Lucy is the um, the bluestocking of our family.’
Colin laughed lightly, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. ‘I’m not sure I agree. Even though Lucy clearly thinks too much for her own good.’ He ran his hand over the worn cover. Some of the leather wore off, covering his hands in residue. ‘I can relate to that…to her cynical nature. Things never quite materialize the way you plan.’
Emma’s mouth fell open. He was talking about their marriage, obviously. His words were a knife across her palm, sliding across her hand and drawing more blood. She winced at a familiar flicker of sadness.
Colin pursed his lips. ‘This was my father’s favorite book,’ he said. ‘The title always felt like a call from the grave. As if, even when alive, he knew that one day, he’d be asking for my forgiveness instead of approval. Do you believe everyone deserves forgiveness?’ he asked.
Emma might have interpreted that as a pointed comment, but he suggested it as softly and gently as if he truly wanted to know. A deep breath rattled loosely in Emma’s chest. She reached out tentatively to the book on Colin’s lap and traced the embossed title with her finger until she’d rewritten every word. ‘The Godly answer is yes,’ she said. ‘But the human answer, the very raw, the very animal answer, is no. Not everyone.’ She exhaled a breathy laugh that was more pained than it was amused. ‘There is only one person in this world who I may never manage to forgive. Can you guess whom that would be?’
She turned to look at him, and he opened his mouth, but the words never came up. He just sat beside her, chest bubbling, the very picture of man all but crumbled before her. She had more power over him than she had ever given herself credit for. More power than she thought she deserved.
“I do.” He closed his eyes. ‘It is I.’
‘No,’ Emma corrected him, her hand sliding across the book until her fingers grazed the side of his hands. ‘It is I, Your Grace. How could I forgive myself for all that I have done and lied about and all of the things I never said when I should have had the courage?’
As the tears began to pool in her eyes, he dropped the book, allowing it to fall off his lap and onto the floor. He reached for her, but she held her palm up to him. He froze.
So funny. She had spoken so much about the heat, about light. That was how he had made her feel, but these hot tears, scorching at her waterline and rolling down her blotchy cheeks, reminded her that she was just as capable of burning herself. Maybe fire wasn’t love, but the passion and the intensity of emotion. The fire was the feeling of everything, all at once, killing you slowly. Even if you were happy, each glorious, dizzy, inebriated lovestruck moment was just another reminder of what you could stand to lose. Each tear that dripped off her chin was symbolic of everything she could have had with him if she hadn’t ruined it by saying all the wrong things.
He reached out, taking her outstretched palm in his. He pressed his fingers between the spaces in hers and slowly brought her defenses down. ‘Then, very clearly, you are blaming the wrong person,’ he said. Emma shook her head. He reached out, taking her cheek with his hand, and wiped away a tear. ‘No one is ever at fault for not loving someone. Such feelings can never be forced. Such things cannot be taken for granted.’
Emma nodded, closing her eyes, feeling the softness of his palm against her cheek. ‘I thought that we might be lucky,’ she said. ‘That maybe we could have achieved something.’
His jaw tightened. He pulled his hand away and looked down. ‘This is not your fault,’ he said. ‘I should have known that basing a relationship entirely on lies and theatrics would end as terribly as it had begun.’
‘That was my idea,’ she said. ‘I designed our fate. You merely watched it crumble with me.’
Colin leaned back, his head resting on the back of his seat. Emma’s head lowered. He had simply grown tired of it. There was only so long that you could pretend to adore someone before your body, your soul, and every shred of you rebelled in disdain. The tears poured out of Emma’s eyes quicker until it was impossible to hold them back. She had tamped them down for an entire week. She had laid in her bed each night, staring at the ceiling, too surprised and upset to feel anything more than apathy. And now, after all that time, every last bitter drop of sadness had just come, pouring out of her until she felt that familiar self-soothing lightness in her chest–the small consolation prize your body always rewarded you after everything else in your life had been dashed.
‘I forced you to love me,’ she cried. ‘No one deserves that. Not you. Especially not you.’
Colin sat up at once. ‘You asked me to pretend I loved you; you did not force me,’ he said. ‘I pretended for a time, but I am not that good of an actor. If you thought that ever my feelings were genuine, then believe it, Emma.’
She looked up at him, her mouth folding in and out of a response. She shook her head. ‘What?’
‘Will you make me admit it again? Does my pride mean nothing to you?’
‘I thought–you told me that you were tired of pretending, but now you tell me otherwise.’
Colin sighed, rubbing his face with his open hand. ‘No, I…’ his throat bobbed. ‘I overheard you talking to your sister.’
‘Which…Margaret?’
He nodded. ‘Somewhere along the way for me, the lying ended, and all that was left was just…genuine happiness.’ He pressed his fingertips into his forehead and shut his eyes. ‘Oh Lord, I feel pathetic saying this. I just, love you, even if you never reciprocate.’
Emma’s eyes darted over his face. She closed them, hoping for an answer on the back of her eyelids, then looked down, but her hands weren’t of any help either. ‘I do not understand.’
‘You–I’m sure you recall your conversation with your sister in the parlor after breakfast? The…I believe it was the twenty-third?’
Emma tucked her head into a nod. ‘And I told her that I loved you.’
His jaw fell slack. “No,’ he said. ‘No, no, you must be thinking of something else.’
‘The twenty-third?’ she asked. ‘The day Margaret arrived?’
He nodded.
‘Yes, I recall that perfectly,” she said.
‘Obviously not, Emma.’ He crossed his arms.
‘Obviously not?‘ she whispered sharply. ‘Do not tell me what I did not say when I so clearly was there.”
‘You told her that you were disgusted by all the lying, all of our pretenses.’
Emma’s face blanched. “Oh my God,” she said. He had misheard her. Could it truly be that ridiculous? That he had heard something and misinterpreted it?
She reached out, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him into a kiss. He responded with a soft moan, kissing her back as if he’d been starved of the same feeling. “No, Emma,” he muttered between kisses. “Wait, wait.”
She pulled back slightly.
“I don’t understand,” he said softly, his breath melting against her lips, sending pinpricks of pleasure rushing across her skin.
“Of course, I felt bad about all the lying. I did not want you to pretend anymore when I was doing no such thing. It was tearing me apart,” she said. “You’d misunderstood. I wanted to tell you that I love you.”
His eyes sparkled as if he’d heard something he’d never expected but had yearned for. “I am not sure when I stopped pretending.” He exhaled. “But it was long before that.” He took Emma’s lips back in his, pulling her close to him in the privacy of the carriage. She ran her hands up his chest, wishing there wasn’t that much fabric separating them. The last time she had held him this close was the night of their wedding.
The sudden realization made her tap her palm against him. “Wait.”
He pulled back, his hands still pressed against her waist.
“I upset you on our wedding night.”
His brows turned upwards. He rubbed the corner of her jaw with his thumb. “You said it was your duty,” he whispered. “If it is a chore, then I would rather wait until it no longer feels that way.”
“I—”
“Shh,” he whispered, pressing his thumb over her bottom lip. “It was late. We were both tired.”
Emma nodded, tugging him back towards her to continue their kiss. He was gentler than ever, cradling her face and pressing soft, warm kisses against her lips, the corner of her mouth, and her jaw.
Just then, they jolted, hitting the seat back as the carriage came to a halt. They pulled apart, and Colin lifted the curtain in front of the window just enough to see out. He sighed, letting Emma go and deflating slightly. “We have arrived,” he said.
“Already?” she asked. She opened her window and looked out at the handsome men and all the women in beautiful dresses hurrying through the rain towards the front steps of Emma’s childhood home.
She wished she could sink into Colin’s arms and enjoy the feeling of him so close to her, but they would have to wait until after the ball. Maybe this time would be different. No more lies, no more exaggeration. Emma could finally feel free to love Colin the way she wanted to.