Her Wicked Proposal novel Chapter 19

"Charles! I want a private word with you immediately." The Duchess of Essex tapped her foot and pointed to the door. Charles rose from his chair, and the others at the table looked away in various directions. No one would save him from Emily's wrath, it seemed. Cowards.

He shouldn't have challenged Anne. He realized his mistake now. But if Emily was going to lecture him, he'd not make it easy for her.

"Today, if you please," Emily commanded.

With an exaggerated sigh, Charles followed her into the hallway, where she turned and punched him in the chest with a little balled fist. She moved to strike him again, but Charles blocked the blow with his forearm, acting so instinctively that he didn't even realize he'd moved. The pugilist in him always managed to rise to the surface, it seemed. He grabbed her delicate wrist before she could assault him a third time. He was so annoyed that she'd resorted to striking him that he kept her wrist locked in his grasp.

"What is it that has upset you, m'dear?" He tried to sound patient, but his voice was low in warning.

"You! Your behavior! How dare you say such things to Anne? She is my friend, and you are a guest in this household. I will not tolerate you threatening her, or holding my arm against my will like this!"

Charles uncurled his fingers and Emily snatched her wrist back, rubbing the reddened marks on her fair skin with a scowl.

"Apologies," he muttered. "But I did not threaten her."

"It certainly sounded as though you did. You challenged her about her choice to marry Cedric. To a woman in love, that is a threat."

"And how do you know she is in fact in love with him? I've seen no proof."

"Why do you care if she loves him or not?" Emily asked. Charles turned his face away, studying the blue and white patterned wallpaper as though the answer to her question lay there.

"Why do you care?" Emily repeated.

"Why? Damn it all, Emily, it's because of you." He regretted the words the moment he said them. Now he'd never hear the end of it.

Emily's eyes went wide. "What do you mean?"

"You changed everything, don't you see? Ever since we abducted, you nothing has been the same. We've lost what made us strong. You've singlehandedly crippled the League of Rogues. Godric is a fool for love, Lucien and Cedric fought a duel over a woman, Cedric is blind, Ashton is more melancholy than I've ever seen him, bloody Hugo Waverly seems to lurk behind every dark shadow trying to ruin us, and I...I can't seem to wake from this living nightmare of perpetual fear. We've been ruined...ruined by you!" He punctuated these sharp words by driving his fist against the wall.

Emily stepped back in alarm. Charles stopped and bent his forehead to the wall as he drew in a deep, steadying breath. He'd never hit a woman, would never a hit a woman, but sometimes punching a wall eased the tension in him.

"I've ruined you?" Emily's voice trembled, but Charles would not look her way, not for all the tea in China. He could not bear to see her cry, which was exactly the point he'd tried to make. The League of Rogues shouldn't be capable of being felled by a young woman's tears. They couldn't afford to have that weakness, not if they were to survive. The events that led to Cedric's blindness had been but a warning of what was yet to come. If only she knew Hugo the way he did...

"Everything is different. I expect things now, things I'd never dared to dream about before. What if my dreams fail? What if I do not deserve what I hunger for? Yes, I blame you for that." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Emily's hands move about her face, as though to dispel any evidence of her tears. Damnation. He didn't want to be talking to her about this-he didn't even want to be thinking about this.

Emily put her hand on his shoulder. "What do you dream about? What do you fear you'll never have?"

Charles shut his eyes. For a long moment, he considered not answering her and keeping his thoughts private, but Emily had this awful way of getting inside his head and making him want to bare his soul to her. "I want an end to my nightmares, and a woman who loves me so deeply that my heart will be fit to burst. Godric and Lucien have that...but what if I cannot? What if I don't deserve such a thing?" There it was. He wanted love. He was a fool and the angels would mock him for it.

"How could you ever think you don't deserve to be loved, Charles?"

"There are things about us even you don't know, Emily."

She waved the notion away. "Nonsense. Your heart is loyal and true, as are those of your friends. And if I have to take Ashton's fleet of ships and sail them to the ends of the earth to find someone who loves you, I will. You will have such joy that your heart won't be able to contain it, so it will overflow into everything and everyone around you. I know that this dream can become a reality, but it requires patience. Can you be patient for me?" Emily asked.

Charles's answer was to turn and pull her into him, hugging her tight. It never ceased to amaze him how she could turn him into a child. She made him feel safe, cared for, and yet she was a full decade younger than he was. Godric was a lucky man.

Though he claimed he was twenty, Charles suspected he was much younger. Linley had been decently educated because his mother had been a lady's maid to the mother of an earl, and he raised his baby sister all on his own since his mother's death. With half the League either married or engaged, Linley had become indispensable to him, a companion so crucial to his daily life that he felt like a part of Charles's family, as much as any servant could.

"I'm fine, lad, truly. It has been a long day, that is all." Charles raked a hand through his hair and let out a shaky breath.

"It is true, my lord," Linley said after a quiet moment.

"What is?" he asked, perplexed.

"That you have a heart worthy of love. Her Grace is right. Someday a woman will love you, and you will be happy. It's the way of things."

"Don't tell me you are the romantic sort?" Charles teased and shoved the boy's shoulder. The boy flashed a rare grin, and Charles marveled at the change such a smile had on the boy's face. The worry and fear that often lurked there simply vanished.

"You ought to smile more, Linley. The ladies will be beating down your door," Charles advised. Linley blushed.

"No time for that, my lord. I already get far too much exercise chasing after you, if you take my meaning. That is a most grueling and consuming task in itself."

"Why, you cheeky little..." Charles reached over, feigning to strangle the lad, but they both burst into laughter. "I suppose it is. I can't seem to sit still for more than an hour's time. There's too much to do-women to bed, horses to race, men to box. Sleeping is for the dead."

Linley smiled again and a pleasant silence settled between them.

"I suppose I ought to return to dinner, otherwise Emily will send a search party for me, and I'll have to bear her scorn a second time." Charles got to his feet. "I shall send a footman to collect you when I wish to have the carriage pulled around."

As Charles walked back toward the dining hall, Tom Linley remained seated on the stairs. A smile, unguarded, curved his lips, then slowly dropped into a frown.