He couldn’t resist.

“I trust your stay at Westonbirt has been pleasurable thus far, Emma.” He was surely going to spend a year in hell for that comment, but it was worth it.

“Just fine,” she bit out, refusing to look at him.

“Only just fine?” he said, his face a perfect mask of solicitousness. “We have not been doing our jobs properly then. What else can we do to entertain you?”

“I am certain there is nothing you can do,” she said pointedly.

Belle’s mouth was hanging open.

“Now, that cannot be true,” Alex returned. “I shall simply have to try harder. Why don’t we go for another ride tomorrow afternoon? There is much I haven’t shown you.”

He thought Belle was going to fall off the sofa.

“That won’t be necessary, your grace,” Emma said stiffly.

“But—”

“I said it won’t be necessary!” she burst out. Then, realizing that everyone was looking at her most oddly, she added, “I have a bit of a sniffle.” She sniffed a bit to demonstrate but of course sounded perfectly clear. Smiling weakly, she folded her hands in her lap and resolved to say nothing else.

Sophie leapt into the silence. “Er, Belle,” she said awkwardly. “Why don’t you take one of the kittens back with you? I have no idea what we’ll do with the lot of them.”

“I doubt that my mother will agree,” Belle replied. “The last cat was an unmitigated disaster. It had a bit of a flea problem, you see.”

“I don’t think our kittens have been alive long enough to have gotten fleas,” Sophie mused.

“Nonetheless, I imagine my mother will feel quite strongly about it.”

“What will I feel quite strongly about?” Caroline asked loudly from the doorway.

“Sophie is trying to convince us to take home one of Cleopatra’s kittens,” Belle explained.

“Heavens, no!” Caroline replied emphatically. “You may have one out in the country but never again in London.” She entered the room, nodding her hello to Alex and then took a seat near Emma, Belle, and Sophie. Henry, who had followed her downstairs, took one look at the collection of women in the corner and headed straight over to Alex.

“Whiskey?” Alex inquired, holding up his glass.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Henry replied affably, raising a hand to stop Alex from getting up. He quickly crossed the room, poured himself a drink, and returned to Alex’s side. “I have a feeling we’ll need these this evening,” he remarked.

“Strangely enough, that’s exactly what your daughter said not five minutes earlier.”

“How was your ride this afternoon, my dear?” Caroline asked Emma, loudly enough for all to hear.

“It was very nice, thank you.”

Alex thought her reply was very weak, indeed. “I had a brilliant time,” he boomed.

“I am sure you did,” Emma said, mostly to herself, trying to forget it had been she who had cried out in pleasure that afternoon, not Alex.

“Did you say something, my dear?” Caroline asked solicitously.

“No, no I didn’t. I was just—er—clearing my throat.”

“You seem to do that quite often.” Alex couldn’t resist Emma’s obvious distress, so he crossed the room and took the seat next to Caroline. Henry followed in his wake. “Or at least you do while in my presence.”

Emma glared at Alex so ferociously that Sophie could not help murmuring a soft, “Oh my!”

Alex sipped his whiskey serenely, appearing completely unaffected by Emma’s ire.

Which, of course, only served to make her even more irate.

At that point, Alex cracked a smile.

“Well!” Caroline declared, only to break the silence. Much to her dismay, however, everybody immediately stared at her and then she had to say something more. “Do tell us more about your afternoon, Emma dear.” It seemed to be a popular topic.

“Well, actually—” Emma started, her irritation beginning to get the better of her.

Belle’s foot slammed into her shin. Emma gulped with pain, smiled weakly, and replied, “It was lovely, thank you.”

Silence fell again, and this time nobody, not even Caroline, was brave enough to break it.

Emma stared down at her lap, her fingers idly plucking at her skirts. She could feel Alex’s eyes resting on her, and much as she tried, she could not summon the courage to meet his gaze. As she sat in stony silence, she had to admit that it was herself with whom she was angry, not Alex.

She knew that she was intensely attracted to Alex. But to admit that fact to the gentleman in question somehow seemed to go against every tenet of her upbringing, and it was difficult to turn her back on the set of morals that her father and her aunt and uncle had instilled in her. She was in a fine mess now, wanting him so badly and knowing that she shouldn’t allow herself to have him. She could justify her desire by the fact that she loved him, but she somehow had to find the willpower to stop herself from acting on that desire.

It would all be different if he loved her even just a tiny bit as much as she loved him.

Or, Emma thought despondently, if he merely proposed. Marriage to Alex without mutual love was preferable to not having him at all. She looked over at him. He had gone back to examining his fingernails and did not look even remotely like a man who was about to ask a woman to marry him. Emma swallowed and sank back further into the sofa.

“Goodness! It sounds as if we’ve had a funeral in here. Have you all lost your powers of speech?” Eugenia stood in the doorway of the drawing room, clad in an elegant gown of green silk.