Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (33 page)

How very naïve she’d been,
to think that what she really wanted was to marry a man she didn’t
love. She
wanted
to love her husband…but she also wanted
his
love in return. She still didn’t
know if she’d ever have it.

Unlike Serena, Emma had reached her
majority. She didn’t have to marry a man simply because her father
told her she must. Yet it still felt like she was being forced to
marry against her will.

The next day, Aidan slipped
off to his hermitage to work on the angel for a few hours,
but
only
for a few
hours. He had to force himself to ignore the fact that at this
point in time, when he was so close to finishing the piece
entirely, the artistic side of him desired to do nothing but work
on it.

Yet he was more than simply an artist.
He had other needs, which couldn’t possibly be served at the moment
by losing himself entirely in his work.

Even he didn’t understand
why he was so determined that he and Emma should have a true
marriage and not the farce of a union that David and Niall seemed
to think best. But the thought of spending his days in the dower
house while his brother and sister
protected
his wife from him did not
sit well. In fact, it left him seething.

He had no doubt David would come to
her rescue if needed, that he would do everything he could to
defend her honor. And so that meant only one thing—if Aidan was
going to have a normal marriage, he would have to convince Emma to
love him.

That had seemed like an easy enough
proposition at first, except yesterday on the lawn, she had been so
adamantly against the idea that Aidan was now experiencing doubt
about his capability to succeed at the task.

If he were to have any chance of
making theirs into a true marriage, he would have to put in a
valiant and sincere effort toward that end.

And so he had decided to give up time
working with his chisel in order to convince her how very much in
love with him she would be. He could only hope she would, at least
someday, recognize the degree of effort he put in to make this
work.

When he returned to the main house,
once again, Emma and Morgan were out on the lawn with Kingley, but
at least this time they were working without Sir Henry’s
interference. Or aid. Whichever. Convincing Emma she loved him
would be a decisively easier task if he didn’t have competition for
her affections at every turn. The baronet was around altogether too
often for Aidan’s comfort. Mr. Deering seemed to be around rather a
lot, as well, but at least he seemed more interested in spending
time with Kingley than he did with Emma. The affable barrister was
not someone Aidan felt was a threat…not like Sir Henry could
potentially be. Alas, there didn’t seem to be any real way to keep
the baronet away from Emma until such time as the house party came
to an end and the man returned to whatever part of the country he
called home.

After the house party, Aidan could
deal with meeting Emma’s father and the details of the contract,
and calling the banns, and all that other nonsense.

In the meanwhile, he must convince her
she loved him.

When he came over the hill and Emma
saw him, she reacted visibly. She stopped in mid-stride and nearly
fell over, which led to Morgan laughing freely.

“
And who has startled you
so?” his sister asked. “Kingley? Who is it?”

She asked it as though the dog could
actually give her an answer. That would be as likely to happen as
fish growing legs and walking upon the land.

Since Kingley couldn’t answer her,
Aidan called out, “It’s me.”

Morgan’s face lit with a smile. “Oh!
But it’s still so early today. Shouldn’t you still be hard at
work?”

Emma said something beneath her
breath, which, sadly, the wind neglected to carry to him. Whatever
she said, it elicited a wry grin from his sister and a scowl from
his betrothed. That left Aidan with no doubt that it was directed
at him.

“
I thought I’d spend some
time with Emma this afternoon,” he said, never slowing his gait.
After a few more steps he stood directly beside the lady in
question, where he could admire her scowl from a better
angle.

Indeed, with her lips which had always
been rather too wide for the rest of her face, the scowl made quite
the impression.

Aidan bit back a grin. “Does this
displease you?”

“
I’m sure you can see I’m
busy with Morgan and Kingley.”

“
Actually,” Morgan cut in,
“I believe Kingley and I are ready to attempt some lessons on our
own. If you’ll excuse us.” She dipped into a brief curtsey and
tugged on Kingley’s lead. They headed back toward the main
house—leaving Aidan and Emma alone on the lawn.

Emma had her hand up in the air and
her mouth open, as though she were trying to call the two of them
back to her rescue. Then her hand dropped to her side, her
shoulders slumped, and she turned her scowl back on Aidan. “Did you
and Morgan plan that, sir? Her excuse came far too
readily.”

“
Aidan,” he corrected her
again. “Since we are to marry, I would prefer for us to be less
formal.”

She ground her teeth together and her
brown eyes flared in pique, but perhaps the most delightful thing
he’d ever seen was the manner in which the end of her nose tugged
slightly to the right. It only made him want to spark her temper
far more often, which was probably the wrong reaction to have. He
sincerely doubted she would be amused by such a thing, no matter
how amused he might be.

Still, he couldn’t help but think all
of this would be so much simpler if she would just tell him what
was on her mind. “What have I done now?”

“
It’s what you haven’t
done. What
none
of
you have done.” With that, Emma spun on her heel and stalked away
from him toward the orangery.

Aidan had no intention of allowing her
to just walk away from him. He started after her, his long legs
easily matching her stride. “And what, pray tell, might that be? I
can’t very well make something right if I don’t know what I’ve made
wrong.”

She turned unexpectedly, leading them
off the main trail toward the orangery down a path he hadn’t
noticed before, though it did seem well worn. He had little choice
but to go with her.

“
What you haven’t done—”
her sarcasm, in this instance, knew no bounds— “is ask what I might
prefer.
You
, along
with Lord Trenowyth and Lord Burington, decided there was nothing
to be done for it but for us to marry.
They
decided we should marry but have
it be for propriety’s sake.
You
then informed me that our marriage would not be
merely in name, but in earnest.” Emma touched the gnarled wood
railing of a bridge that led over a creek, spinning around to lean
her back against it. “No one asked me what I want. You haven’t
even
asked
me to
marry you—and yet it has already been announced to everyone in
attendance.”

“
If you think I’m going to
drop to my knee, take your hand in mine, and profess my undying
love and devotion—”

She tossed her hands into the air.
“That’s precisely the problem! You don’t love me, and I am quite
certain I don’t love you.” She blanched when the words left her
lips, but she didn’t retract them.

Aidan crossed his arms over his chest.
This wasn’t quite what he’d expected, and he didn’t know how to
proceed. “Do you love Irvine? Is that what this is all about? You
love another man and feel like I’ve trapped you into something you
don’t want.”

“
What?” Emma’s jaw dropped
and her mouth formed a ring. “No. No, I don’t love Sir
Henry.”

A great whoosh of air left Aidan’s
lungs at her denial. That, at least, was one less obstacle. It
didn’t ease the ache that was building in his temple. It would be
just his luck that it would only continue to grow. “Then what is
the problem?”

She nibbled on her lower lip, which
was a definite distraction from the conversation at hand. Aidan had
to force his thoughts to remain on her words and not on the
decisive bulge forming within his trousers from imagining other
things she might nibble.

After a long moment, she hefted a
sigh. “We don’t love one another, Mr. Cardiff—”

“
Aidan.”

Emma shot him a glare.
“
Aidan
. We don’t
love one another, and I thought that was what I wanted. For these
last several years, I thought I wanted a gentleman to offer for me
with whom I had at least a passing friendship—and only after we
married did I want to love him. That way, if something should
happen before we were to marry…”

Several
years
. Aidan would stake his life on the
fact that the several years she mentioned would mean the three
years since Morgan attempted to drown in the river. “You don’t want
to end up as heartsick as my sister was, if the gentleman in
question should not follow through with his promise to
you.”

For the first time in his memory, Emma
looked into his eyes whilst something of a mutual understanding
passed between them—not lust, not anger or hatred.

“
You’ve sparked something
within me,” she said, “and now I’m not so certain of my plan
anymore.”

“
Why not?” It all appeared
simple enough to him.

“
When Sir Henry kissed
me—”

Something snapped within Aidan, and he
grasped her upper arms. “He kissed you?” Then he remembered himself
and gentled his touch.

“
He did. Once, a few days
ago.” Emma tugged, and he reluctantly released her. “When he did, I
knew he was precisely what I’d convinced myself I was looking for:
a man whom I could respect. A gentleman I held in great esteem. But
his kisses didn’t elicit within me any of the passions that yours
do. And I think…”

She turned away from him and crossed
the bridge, the heels of her half boots clicking along the wood.
When she reached a honeysuckle trellis, she stopped and plucked a
fragrant bud, holding it near her nose and mouth for a long
moment.

Aidan followed her, not rushing her
along or drawing so close as to worry her, even though he felt an
almost desperate need to touch her.

Finally, she turned to him
again. “I think I was wrong. I want more than that. I
need
more than that. I
need to know the man I’m going to marry loves me, and not just hope
that someday he will. I need to love him, too, and not just hold
him in great esteem.”

How on earth was he supposed to be
able to give her such a thing? He’d moved on from loathing her very
existence, and he was no longer attempting to devise the means of
her death in his artwork. But with this revelation, she might be
asking too much of him. “You might as well ask me to fetch the moon
and the stars from the sky, put them in a little box, and then tie
a ribbon around it for you.”

“
I can assure you, I
recognize the impossibility of what I’m asking. Nevertheless, it is
what I need.”

“
Is it not enough to know
there is something more—something exciting and fiery and perhaps a
bit dangerous—between the two of us?” he asked. “I can only imagine
there was none of that when Sir Henry kissed you, or else why would
we be having this conversation?”

This time, Emma frowned and
very nearly rolled her eyes. “If it was enough, we
wouldn’t be
having this
conversation, would we?”

“
Touché.” Aidan paced,
grinding the slightly damp grass into the earth with the soles of
his Hessians. How in the blazes was he supposed to concentrate on
making her fall in love with him when all he wanted to do was
convince her to let him take up where they’d left off when Niall
interrupted them? “So what do you suggest is our next step? What am
I to do to convince you that you’re head over ears in love with me,
Emma? Do you require poetry? Serenades in the moonlight? Grand,
public displays of my eternal devotion?” None of which sounded even
remotely appealing to Aidan, but he’d do them all if it would help
him find a way to get her into his bed.