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

so she might dry her eyes. “Your father was as dear to me as a brother. Everything I have done for you has been out of love for him, and then love for you. Dear little Emma. Take up your courage and follow your heart.”

Emma sniffled and smiled through her tears, then dabbed at them. “Thank you, Your Grace.” As another obstacle formed in her thoughts, she twisted the handkerchief in her hands. “But there is one thing I do not understand. Lord Atella—I care deeply for him, though I never meant to. But I know he must wed a woman of high standing. He thinks I am only a paid companion.”

“Ah.” The duke winced and shifted from the floor to the seat beside her. “I am afraid that isn’t true.”

“It isn’t?” Emma studied the duke, trying to make sense of his words. “I never told him otherwise.”

His Grace appeared sheepish for a moment. “Simon thought—after seeing you and the ambassador together—that he might form an attachment to you. But from what I had seen of Lord Atella, I knew him to be a man of honor. He would never make overtures toward a young woman he didn’t think he could marry. As his position demands he marry a woman of some standing, I thought discreetly revealing your status as my ward would remove the only barrier to his affection.” The duke sighed. “Perhaps I ought to have been more direct.”

Emma opened her mouth, emitting a pitiful sound of distress before hastily closing it again. Then she stood and paced away to the window, turned and rushed back. “Your Grace, when did you tell him?”

“The day we came back from the hunting lodge,” the duke said, staring at Emma with raised eyebrows. “Did you notice anything different about him afterward?”

“Yes.” Thinking through their week of friendly exchanges and conversations, of Luca’s more relaxed manner and easy smiles, her heart thudded with excitement. “But not a very great difference. He seemed only more at ease. As though he did not guard himself as carefully as before.”

The duke’s knowing smile returned. “Then it is as I hoped. His knowledge gave him permission to care for you freely.”

As Josephine had said before, she and Emma might read stories of romance and enjoy tales of princes and paupers, but they lived in a world where the highborn gentleman could never wed the dairy maid. An ambassador on a royally appointed mission could never wed a paid companion and keep his place, and his wife would not be accepted into higher society functions.

An Italian count and a duke’s beloved ward could marry without negative consequences or shame attached to the union.

She sat down next to the duke abruptly. Then stood again, worrying the cloth in her hands. Then sat. “Then he might care for me.”

The duke laughed, though not unkindly. “Emma, write to him. I’ll even frank the letter.”

Her mouth popped open. “But you never frank our personal letters—”

“This one is a matter of state, I think, since it’s regarding the future happiness of His Excellency, the ambassador from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead, then stood and walked to the door leading to the corridor. “I hope this means you will find reason to be your usual cheerful self at dinner tonight.”

Emma nodded, though she still harbored some fear. If Luca knew everything, if he did care, why had he not written her again? She needed to write to him. At once.

That decided, she left the library in a rush, practically running through the corridors to get to her own room where she took up pen and paper. She opened her drawer and removed the letter from him, propping it up against her desk so she might read it again before writing her response.

To the Ambassador

Dear Lord Atella…

Chapter Twenty-Two

The echo of Luca’s footsteps across the newly polished floors was the only sound in the ballroom. Finally, the embassy was complete enough for Luca to move into the grand house. But apart from the furnishings that came with the lease, the building remained empty.

There was no use in putting a personal touch in any of the rooms. No reason to hire servants and staff. Not until he knew what the King would decide about his appointment as ambassador. Another man might well be master of the house. Another couple, husband and wife, might enter the master suite of rooms to retire from a long day of political conversations and social engagements.

The letter in his coat pocket, sweet as its presence was, also reminded him of all the reasons he must wait to move forward with his plans. Emma had written him. He had received the letter only three days previous. She had spent half her words in apology—for waiting too long to write, for misunderstanding his intentions, and for her confessed role in aiding Josephine to avoid Luca from the beginning of their acquaintance.

He had to laugh at himself, and at the two of them, while he read. Had there ever been two such inept lovers?

As he walked the length of the ballroom, studying the way the light picked up the silver threads in the wallpaper, he wondered.

Luca hadn’t written a reply yet. He’d tried. Numerous times. Either he stared at a blank sheet of paper, or he started to explain all that had gone wrong. Even though a few of his fellow countrymen had come forward to add testimony to his of Torlonia’s duplicity, he waited upon the pleasure of the king.

Luca went to one of the windows overlooking the back garden. The plants were starting their winter sleep, leaving the grounds to look dull and gray. The garden, large by London standards, stretched back farther than he could see to a stable block shared by the other grand houses on the street. The whole of it would be beautiful in the spring. Yet all he could think of when he