A Valentine Wedding Read Free Page B

arrangement. Is it?”
    “I don’t know why Ned decided on this,” he said dismissively. “All I know is that it’s a fact. So let’s get to points, shall we? Where do you intend living?”
    “In London for the season. Where else?”
    “Where else indeed?” he agreed. “Do you wish me to find you a suitable house for hire?”
    “I would wish to buy,” Emma snapped.
    “I don’t believe that would be sensible,” he said evenly.
    “And why not, pray?” Her chin lifted; her eyes threw their challenge.
    “Because you will get married,” he stated baldly.
    “Not to you!” Emma flashed before she could stop herself.
    “No … as I recall you made that painfully clear once before,” Alasdair replied with a cool nod. “As it happens, I was not renewing my suit.”
    Emma controlled herself with difficulty. It was typical of Alasdair to turn the tables in that way … to put her at a disadvantage. She faced him directly. “I believe that was what Ned intended with this diabolical arrangement.”
    “Yes, so you implied. But Ned did not confide in me.” He reached for the bellpull. “Sherry or madeira?”
    Emma hesitated, then accepted that Alasdair was not going to admit what they both knew to be true. And what difference did it make anyway? The sharp spur of anger was gone now, and wisdom told her that somehow they had to find a way through their antagonism, through their shared past, to manage this situation. Whatever Ned’s motives had been.
    “Sherry,” she replied and bent to warm her handsat the fire while Alasdair gave instruction to the footman who appeared in answer to the bell. The silence in the music room elongated. Emma remained at the fire. Alasdair strolled to the window. The curtains had not yet been drawn and they could hear faintly the sound of the waves crashing on the beach below the cliff on which the house stood.
    The footman returned with a tray. He set it on the marble-topped table and withdrew.
    Alasdair poured wine and brought a glass to Emma. “You’ll have to preserve the proprieties of mourning … or do you intend to flout convention?”
    “Ned had no time for the conventions,” she said.
    “Very true.” He sipped sherry, watching her closely. “You’ll dance?”
    Emma suddenly smiled. “I’ll not waltz,” she said. “Ned detested the waltz.” Tears started in her eyes and she brushed them away. “He also detested weeping.” There was a catch in her voice and she put down her glass. “Damn it, Alasdair.
Why
did he have to die?”
    He moved toward her, his arms sliding around her, his breath rustling through her hair. And for a minute it was as it had been so many times in the long-ago past. He was comforting her … for a scraped knee, a fall from her horse, a schoolroom punishment. But Alasdair was grieving too, and in this moment of accord she comforted him in turn.
    They clung together. And now it was not the long-ago past, but the recent past. A past she had sworn never to revisit. But she could feel the beat of his heart, take the scent of his skin, his hair. The supple length of his body was imprinted on her own. His hands moved down her back, holding her to him.
    The world swung on its axis. Her mind and senses whirled in confusion. She pulled out of his arms, her tears dried. “Take a lease on a house for me, then.” Her voice was harsh and she picked up her glass again and drank. “I would be in town for the new year.”
    “As you command, ma’am.” Alasdair bowed, irony in every line of his slender frame. “We will discuss the details of your financial arrangements when you’re established in town.” A smile flickered over his fine mouth. “I assure you I won’t keep too tight a hold on the purse strings.”
    Emma held herself very still, then she turned and whisked herself from the room. The door closed quietly behind her.
    Alasdair sat down at the piano and played a series of chords, each one more strident and discordant than the