Free The Garden Intrigue by Lauren Willig

would have called Paul handsome. His charm had resided in his lively manner and the quick intelligence in his fine, dark eyes. He had been a dreamer, a talker, a charmer. He had certainly charmed her, straight out of Mme. Campan’s school for young ladies.
    Even now, the memory tore at her, not with the horrible rending force it once had, but with a dull ache, like a scratch half healed.
    Marston would never believe her if she told him that his attraction had been less on his own merits and more because he was Not-Paul. She had been so angry at Paul, so angry at him for dying just when it seemed they finally a chance.
    Marston leaned closer, mistaking her absorption for interest. “It’s been a long time, Emma.”
    So it had. “Two years,” she said, suddenly feeling very old and very tired. Ten years since she had left New York, eight years since she had eloped with Paul. None of her happily-ever-afters had turned out the way she had intended them. “What do you want, Georges?”
    She shouldn’t have called him by his first name. Marston’s eyes brightened with triumph.
    “The pleasure of your company, of course,” he said, reaching for her hand.
    Emma drew her hand sharply away.
    Marston’s eyes narrowed. “You found pleasure in my company once. Or do I need to remind you?”
    “I also wore puce,” said Emma flippantly. “Tastes change.”
    She had never been particularly to his taste; even at the time, she had been aware of that. He had made no secret of all the ways in which he found her wanting: too small, too thin, too flat, too plain-spoken. The affair, such as it was, had been an aberration on both their parts. On her side, purely physical. On his—well, Emma had a good guess as to what his motives had been, and they had had little to do with her personal charms.
    Marston crowded forward. Emma found herself regarding the buttons on his jacket. Brass, polished to the sheen of gold. He had been hard on his valets, demanding a level of sartorial perfection that would have daunted the staff of a duke. Darns and patches were anathema to him; it was new or it wasn’t used at all. He had been appalled by the state of her dressing gowns, old and worn and comfortable.
    Apparently, he was prepared to put that aside.
    “We had some good times. Didn’t we?” His voice dropped to a husky murmur. Emma gathered she was meant to find it seductive.
    Once, she even had.
    “They’re paste,” she said.
    Georges blinked. “What?”
    “The diamonds,” Emma said patiently. “They’re paste. If you want to be kept, find someone else to keep you.”
    Marston mustered a halfhearted guffaw. “You will have your little joke.”
    Who was joking?
    He followed along after her as she began to make her way through the crowded room, train looped over one wrist, nodding to acquaintances as she went.
    He dodged around a dowager who had planted herself firmly in the middle of the room. “May I call on you?”
    “I’d rather you didn’t,” Emma said honestly.
    Marston’s hands descended on her shoulders, holding her still. His fingers slid beneath the silver trim of her dress, seeking out the vulnerable hollows between muscle and bone. “You’re still angry about Mimi, aren’t you?”
    “Was that her name?” She had never bothered to find out.
    She had been more grateful than angry. Finding her lover actively engaged beneath the skirts of a maid had jarred her awake, out of the strange, waking nightmare in which she had been trapped since Paul’s death. It had been the jolt she needed to get away from Marston and out of Paris. She had gone back, as she always did, to Malmaison, taking long walks through the sprawling parklands, as she tried to make sense of what her life had become and what she wanted to be. She had been fifteen when she eloped with Paul, too young to understand that marriage was not, in itself, a guarantee of future happiness. Just when they had finally come to terms, just when they had begun to