A Companion for the Count: A Regency Romance by Britton, Sally (open ebook TXT) 📕

Everything Josephine said was true. Yet Emma shook her head. “He doesn’t want me, no matter what I am.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if he did,” Emma shouted, “he would not ask me to help him find a wife!” Then she tugged out of Josephine’s grasp. “I am sorry, Josie. I cannot speak of this now. Please, you must excuse me,” she begged. “Tell everyone I am ill. I must think.”

Josephine’s eyes were wide as the moon and nearly as blank, and Emma recognized her friend’s confusion. She felt much the same herself. All ability to discuss the situation rationally had fled with the touch of Luca’s lips to her cheek—a touch that still burned upon her skin.

Emma needed to leave before she made a greater fool of herself.

She left her friend in the garden and entered the house by a servants’ door, then climbed the hidden steps to the second floor and her bedchamber. She secured the door with a twist of the key, grateful for the expensive locks the duke had installed in all the family’s personal rooms. He took their privacy and security seriously, as he did every responsibility of his position as the head of the family.

Emma fell into the chair beside her hearth and covered her face with both hands. Her cheeks burned beneath her touch, the humiliation of the day staining her. In the space of half an hour, she had insulted the duke’s guest and his eldest daughter. Both people she counted as her friends. All because she could not bridle her heart and keep hold of her affections.

What a mess she had made of everything.

Chapter Nineteen

In the guest wing the next morning, Luca sat at the writing desk in his retiring room, adjacent to his bedchamber. He stared at the writing implements, the penknife, the blotter, though he didn’t actually see them.

All he could see, in fact, was the empty place at the table the night before. Only after Lady Josephine had explained to the family that Emma felt unwell was the place cleared away. A footman had swept toward the table and packed everything from cup to plate away onto a tray, while another removed her chair.

As it had not been a formal dinner with others present, no one had lamented an unbalanced table. But Luca had looked at the empty place more than once. Sir Andrew had seemed concerned at his cousin’s absence and shared a significant look first with Lady Josephine, then with Luca.

In the drawing room after the meal, Luca had tried to speak to Lady Josephine—to ask her about Emma—but the woman had deftly brushed aside his inquiries, then joined one of her younger sisters at the pianoforte to avoid him the rest of the evening.

Luca took out the little notebook he’d kept with him since his arrival in England. He turned the pages, not even smiling when he reached all the strange phrases the English used. He found the page he had started when he had determined to take Lady Josephine as his bride.

How ridiculous he had been to think gaining a wife would be as simple as making a list. The concept of courtship and attraction had infinitely more complexities than the trade negotiations he had studied for hours on end that week.

Part of his difficulty was that he had gone about looking for a wife the wrong way. What he had thought of as important had nothing to do with what would be of lasting happiness. Well-connected or noble, he had written. Preferably both. Pretty. Young. An excellent hostess. All such qualities would be important in a wife, but he knew now that he needed more than a woman to look lovely upon his arm and preside over social functions.

He turned to a blank page and wrote at the top: An ambassador’s wife needs several qualities. She should be capable of setting others at ease, understanding politics, respecting other cultures, and possess a natural curiosity that makes her want to learn more. She must have a sense of adventure and be kind-hearted. She ought to enjoy speaking of books and art, past and present, and converse well on challenging topics. She must be more than a political partner, but a friend to her husband.

Luca needed a wife that fit this new list. In truth, he needed Emma.

He dropped the pencil and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing at them but unable to dismiss his concern.

She had misunderstood him in the garden, but he couldn’t be certain how to repair the damage. Not until he spoke to her. And she had successfully avoided speaking to him alone for nearly a week.

A knock on the door leading to Torlonia’s room made Luca mutter a less than appropriate word. The monks would’ve been horrified he even knew such language. He winced and sent a silent prayer to heaven for forgiveness. Then he called, “Enter.”

Torlonia came into the room between both of theirs, dressed for the day as impeccably as ever. Frowning as darkly as ever.

“Mio Signore,” he said, speaking rapidly in their native tongue. “The ambassador from Austria is in London, and we have received word of his attempts to paint our kingdom as unstable and unworthy of English trade.” He shook a piece of paper in the air as he spoke, his eyes wide and wild. “There are all the usual claims made, that Austria must have sovereignty over the whole peninsula, and Metternich is pressing for a meeting of nations.”

Metternich, an Austrian diplomat with more to do with Napoleon’s rule than anyone liked, had shown far too much interest in Italy of late. The man had helped engineer Napoleon’s second marriage, tried to control the outcome of the Congress of Vienna in 1814, and made his first visit to Italy the following year. He had been part of every important committee in Europe for a decade,