Michael stood as if he were nailed to the floor. Shocked and bewildered, he struggled to form a single word. By God, the girl had kissed him as if she were his betrothed and not her sister. Why would she have done that?
Not a girl, a woman.
He took a slow gander at the feminine creature before him. Emma had grown from the gangly girl he’d met while courting Charlotte, into a beautiful woman. She had the same color hair and eyes as his fiancée, but she wasn’t quite as tall and lithe. When he had held her in his arms and kissed her, everything about her felt right. Yet, her curves should have clued him in to the possibility that he was kissing the wrong woman.
He’d instantly become drunk on her kisses when she’d melted into the hard lines of his own body—a body that had felt cold and unfeeling except when reading this woman’s letters.
“Yes.” Even with her cheeks reddened, Emma’s gaze never wavered. “I never intended… I tried telling you in the last letter…” She shook her head. “But I don’t suppose that matters.” And then she winced. “My family doesn’t know I wrote the letters. Are you going to tell them?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” He had made a gentleman’s agreement with Charlotte’s father. And he’d believed himself to be corresponding with his fiancée.
Dear God. He’d kissed her like a man starved. And she’d kissed him back.
So why did he feel culpable?
“You are angry,” she said.
“Of course, I’m angry.” Michael said, looking away from her. He’d shared his heart in those letters. He’d bared his soul. He wasn’t only angry, by God…
He was heartbroken.
“It wasn’t meant to go as far as it did. I never…” Again, she was shaking her head, squeezing her eyes together.
“Why then? Why in the blazes would you do something like that?” He hardened his voice despite the regret in her whisky-colored eyes as she stared up at him.
Both his heart and his mind were in turmoil. Who the hell had he fallen in love with?
And yet he’d felt as though he’d come home when he’d drawn this woman into his arms.
Had she meant the words she’d written?
Emma was about to answer when her sister walked into the room. Michael choked down a groan as the obvious differences made him realize all the more how foolish his mistake had been. Dressed in an exquisite gown and pelisse with a jaunty hat setting at an angle on her head, Charlotte’s smooth, chestnut curls framed her face perfectly; Charlotte was still as exquisitely lovely as he remembered. Unfortunately, the jubilation he’d felt the instant he’d seen Emma was absent when his gaze landed on Charlotte—on the woman he’d betrothed himself to. And Charlotte herself, stared back at him with none of the warmth he’d hoped for—none of the warmth he’d received from her sister.
When Michael stole a glance at Emma, she caught his gaze and bit her lip. The obvious request for him not to reveal what she’d done dulled her honeyed eyes. When had she taken over the correspondence from her sister? He’d barely framed the question in his mind before he realized the answer. The first few letters had been short, stilted, and cool. He’d experienced his greatest doubts after receiving the second one.
But then he’d received the third letter. He’d felt a shifting but had not stopped to ask himself why. Aside from his initial surprise, he’d never looked back.
They’d contained the words he longed to read.
How many times had he stared up at the sky, drawing strength from the sentiments she’d expressed in her letters, vowing he’d die before allowing anything to hurt her? Her letters had provided him with not only strength, but joy.
Courage. She’d provided him a glimmer of hope on those nights that felt the darkest, when buckets of freezing rain poured down from the sky, soaking his tent. She’d been his reason to summon the much-needed strength to march onward—to keep fighting when all odds were against them.
He should have known these were not his fiancée’s words. It was Emma who had poured her heart out in those letters. That was something her older sister would never have done.
Charlotte stared at him with a cool smile. “Lieutenant Harrington, how…wonderful to see you again.” Charlotte’s voice sounded tight though, as she pulled on her gloves, her eyes darting between him and her sister. “I should say Captain Harrington. Mother told me of your promotion. My, how things have changed in three years. If I’d known you were coming today, I wouldn’t have accepted an invitation to go out.”
What was happening?
“Indeed,” he said respectfully. This woman was his fiancée after all. “I’m so happy to see you again.” He stepped forward to take her hand even as Pratt’s housekeeper knocked on the door.
Charlotte’s fingertips felt stiff in his—much as any stranger’s might. There was no warm squeeze of recognition, no lingering sigh as their fingertips parted.
The housekeeper was not alone. Behind her, a dashing fellow dressed in an expensive black broadcloth morning coat and buckskin breeches entered the room. The newcomer’s boots were immaculate, with a shine that could only be achieved with a champagne polish.
Michael glanced at his own clothing. Still wearing his military uniform and his everyday boots, he looked like something the cat would drag in after midnight.
“Mr. Briggs, to escort you, Miss Pratt,” the housekeeper addressed Charlotte.
“Charlotte, my dear, are you ready?” The man paused, however, upon catching sight of Michael. Ignoring Emma, the fellow’s gaze then landed on Charlotte with more than a hint of ownership.
“Jack...” Charlotte mumbled, and Emma winced.
“This is Charlotte’s fiancé,” Emma said. “He has just returned from the continent.”
Charlotte held her sister’s gaze in what seemed to be a meaningful exchange, before turning to the other guest. “Mr. Briggs, this is Lieutenant Michael Harrington. He’s the man I told you about.” Charlotte waved an elegant hand in Michael’s direction. “Lieutenant, this is our new neighbor, Mr. Briggs.”
Mr. Briggs’ mouth tightened and Michael didn’t bother correcting Charlotte. How quickly she’d forgotten he’d made captain.
The puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place. Mr. Briggs was obviously very well acquainted with his fiancée. No wonder Charlotte acted as if they were mere acquaintances.
“Welcome home, Lieutenant,” Briggs said with a droll smile.
“He is Captain Harrington now.” It was Emma who pointed it out with obvious annoyance.
“My apologies, Captain,” the dandy murmured.
Michael merely dipped his chin. He ought to feel some sort of jealousy, shouldn’t he? And yet all he felt was annoyance. Returning to England, he’d believed he’d left the battlefield behind. Instead, he’d returned to a battle of a different sort.
He’d returned to deceit.
And to betrayal.
Mrs. Pratt swept into the drawing room then froze, her eyes widening at the tableau before her. Quickly, she appeared to gather herself and turned to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Miller, would you have the guest chamber prepared for Captain Harrington?” She turned her gaze to Charlotte and Mr. Briggs, and her eyes narrowed. “Charlotte’s betrothed has returned and a celebration is in order. Don’t you agree, Charlotte, darling?”
Mr. Briggs did not look at all happy with this turn of events, and Charlotte’s cheeks had flushed a deep red.
“Jack has promised to take me driving, Mother,” Charlotte insisted. “It would be rude to disappoint him.”
“Right. Mustn’t keep the horses waiting.” Briggs nodded as if coming out of a trance. “Captain Harrington, I’m glad we finally met.”
Michael could barely bring himself to speak the proper niceties as the couple took their leave. Was he numb? He ought to be more disappointed than he was. He’d proposed to Charlotte on a whim, his future as ethereal as the stars in the sky.
But… he touched his fist to the pocket where he’d tucked Emma’s last letter safely away—the letter he’d read again and again.
Emma’s letters had not been ethereal. They had been real. Hadn’t they?
Had she meant the words she’d written?
That kiss. That had certainly felt real. And yet, what could be done now?
Emma. Her name danced through his thoughts. Of course. It had been Emma all along.
He’d experienced the taste and feel of her sweet lips against his. That kiss had been as addictive as her letters.
The idea that he’d lose all of that left a hole in his chest.
But like a snake, reality curled down his spine.
He was promised to her sister.
He was angry as hell because he’d been lied to. But also because he’d lost something.
His gaze locked with Emma’s—she was no longer a young girl. She was a woman now.
He pinched his mouth together and waited.
With the other couple departed, an awkward silence enveloped the room. Emma’s gaze shifted from his to her mother’s, and finally to the housekeeper’s. She nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Miller.”
“Yes, Miss Emma, ma’am.” The woman, who seemed more than a little confused, dipped a curtsey and left.
“I must inform my husband of all that has occurred,” Mrs. Pratt announced. “What a wonderful turn of events! Positively magnificent! Why, I do believe we’d almost given up on you, Captain.” She made a half-hearted attempt at a laugh, turned on the ball of her foot, and marched out the room as if she couldn’t escape fast enough. Any good soldier understood the importance of timing when it came to retreat.
Michael should know. He’d experienced both victory and defeat more times than he could count over the last three years.
The door closed behind Mrs. Pratt, and Michael returned his gaze to Emma.
He ought to reprimand this young woman for playing such a cruel joke on him. His throat tightened at such a possibility. But rather than demand answers, he clasped his hands behind his back and awaited her explanation.
“It’s just us now.” With a sad smile on her pretty mouth, Emma fidgeted with the bow on the front of her gown.
“I wouldn’t have come if I’d known...” Michael allowed his shoulders to slump and ran a hand through his hair. Seeing her so meek and downtrodden, he felt the conflicting urges to both hold her and turn away. His heart ached.
Had she meant any of the sentiments in her letters? Or had she merely been playing him for a fool?
“Why did you do it?” he asked. “Were your letters some sort of joke?”
She was across the room, shaking her head vehemently almost before he finished the question. “No! Not at all! I did it for Charlotte. She wanted to cease corresponding with you—she realized she’d made a mistake. But my father wouldn’t allow it. So she asked me to write in her place, in such a manner that you would call the betrothal off.”
“That’s not what you did.” Michael pointed out.
“I was going to wait a while, allow time to pass so that perhaps your feelings for Charlotte would cool first…”
“The letters resulted in the opposite.” Had she written him purely out of pity then? Or perhaps… Dare he imagine those sentiments had been genuine?
No. He couldn’t. No good could possibly come of such a notion.
But then she continued. “By the time I realized my feelings had become engaged, I couldn’t bring myself to stop writing you. I kept telling myself I would only send one more. You mustn’t have received my last letter, because I knew you would be home soon and I—I confessed everything in it.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “But you must not have received that one.”
The folded letter burned in his pocket. Nearly a third of it had been ruined by the god-awful rains that plagued France. The bottom third.
By God, he wanted to believe what he was hearing. But how could he when she’d lied to him for three years?
Three years!
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” she held his gaze. “But I meant everything I wrote.”
“Except the name you signed at the end.”
At his accusation, Emma merely nodded. “It was a horrible thing to do. I knew I needed to tell you the truth, but I—I wasn’t ready to lose you.”
Was he hers to lose?
Michael absorbed her words. She was the same woman he’d written to, and yet she was not.
Could he ever forgive her?
Rather than comment on her confession, he dropped onto the sofa and glanced out the window. “I’m in a devil of a predicament,” he said. “Your sister made it quite obvious that she wants me about as much as I want her. I need to speak to her, alone—and then meet with your father. I don’t imagine your parents are aware of any of this?” He cocked one brow almost hopefully, though he felt that he already knew the answer. He needed to officially break the betrothal off with Emma’s older sister. “Your father won’t be happy about any of this.”
“He’ll be livid. But you mustn’t worry. None of this is your fault, and it wouldn’t be fair to leave the explaining to you. Charlotte and I will tell him everything—I’ll speak with her after she returns.”
“Does she know?”
“Only that I care for you deeply—as a friend. I wrote the last letter for her as much as for you—” She winced. “She’ll forgive me, but I don’t expect you to.”
Her cheeks had darkened with that same pink blush as before. She was even more stunning than when she’d opened the door and allowed him to sweep her into his arms.
“I’m terribly sorry, Michael.”
“Captain Harrington,” he corrected her.
She looked stricken by his insistence. “Of course. Captain.” And yet she leaned forward, clasping his wrist. “Please accept my apology, even if you cannot forgive me. I never meant the deception to go so far, and every time you wrote back, I had to answer. One more, I promised myself. But then I rationalized another, and another… Our correspondence had its own momentum.”
She was not wrong.
Their correspondence had been a lifeline to home—one he’d grasped at almost desperately. And then they’d become something else. He’d believed her letters had woven their souls together.
He searched for the rage he’d felt earlier—the betrayal—but God as his witness, he couldn’t summon any of it. Not with her apology ringing in the room.
This woman, the one seated before him now, had carried him through those turbulent, difficult years. To walk away from her would be…
Devastating.
What a muddle all this had become. Mr. Pratt had had his solicitors draft an airtight marital settlement agreement that would be the devil to break.
But staring down at her hand on his arm, his pride warred with the desire to sweep her into his embrace for another kiss.
Unable to resist, Michael clasped her hand in his and squeezed gently. The warmth of her skin was a balm. But it was more than that. It was the connection he’d longed for while he’d been away from home.
But he just as quickly pulled away from her. He could not, in good conscience, pursue whatever was happening between them. For God’s sake, she’d lied to him for three years.
“I’m not sure that it signifies to you, but our letters meant everything to me.” Her admission drew his gaze. Although she smiled, her eyes glistened with tears. “I couldn’t not write to you. You became such a big part of my life over the last three years—the biggest part.” The last three words were little more than a whisper.
“I need to leave,” he said, but he found he couldn’t move. Blast and damn, he thought with a heavy sigh.
How could he walk away when doing so would mean leaving his heart behind?
“I couldn’t not write to you either,” he confessed as he rose.
Just then, there was a knock on the door and the housekeeper reappeared. “A chamber has been readied for you, Captain,” the older woman informed them.
Emma nodded. “You must be tired from your journey.”
He bowed. “I’ll speak with you later.”
“Thank you.” Her voice tore at him as he left the room.