Page 38 of War of the Wedding Wagers
We don’t have much time. If you wish to be with me forever then we must act. You say your chaperone has not left your side? That the best time to get away is when you dress before the dinner hour? Then meet me near the park gates when you can get away. There is a woodsman’s hut that will be deserted. I shall be there with a chaise and four.”
Amelia gasped. Miss Caroline was eloping? Tonight? She stared at the letter in shock. Sir Frederick must be told.
But where was he? He’d gone riding this morning, so he must now be somewhere about the grounds.
Picking up her skirts, she hurried towards a group of ladies in company with Lord Thornton. Ladies Townsend and Pendleton were too ladylike to raise their eyebrows when she quizzed them over Sir Frederick’s whereabouts, but time was of the essence. She could not let good manners get in the way of preventing Caro from making the biggest mistake of her life.
Sir Frederick had to be alerted at the very earliest so he could waylay his wayward sister.
“Sir Frederick is out riding,” said Lady Pendleton.
“But he went riding this morning. Surely you are mistaken,” Amelia said before she could stop herself. She knew her urgency did not reflect well on her.
“He had planned to go riding this morning but decided to rest an old injury a little longer,” said Lord Thornton. He lookedat her curiously. “Is there something you wish to tell him? I can send a message with my groom.”
Amelia swallowed down her embarrassment and her panic. “That is quite all right, thank you,” she said, managing a self-contained nod. “It’s nothing that can’t wait.”
The moment she was out of sight of the group, she picked up her skirts once again and tore down the hill towards the stables.
“I need a mount,” she told the lad working there. “I’m not particular.”
The stable boy looked at her dubiously. “We have Missy. She’s a spirited roan. I wouldn’t recommend her unless you’re an excellent rider.”
Amelia considered herself a competent rider, but now was not the time for semantics. “Yes, Missy will do fine.”
“And who will be accompanying you, miss?”
Amelia bit her lip. “Do you know which direction Sir Frederick and his group went? I am to join them.”
“Sir Frederick went riding on his own, miss.”
“He is alone? Oh, well, he was meeting his sister and me. Which way did he go?” There was no time to be more artful than that. All Amelia could hope for was that she’d spy his figure on the horizon from the gentle hill towards which the stable boy had pointed after he’d given her a leg up.
Soon she was galloping over the fields, hoping that she wasn’t on a misguided goose chase and wondering, as she gasped for air and battled to control the badly named Missy, if she’d been a little too peremptory.
She should simply have waited until Sir Frederick had returned. There would have been time for him to have intercepted his wayward sister before she’d even made her way to the entrance gates. Of course, that would have been best.
It was a full fifteen minutes later—by which time Amelia was considering turning her mount for home—when she saw a single white horse cropping the grass by a copse of trees near the river.
Could it be Sir Frederick’s?
Urging Missy forward, she arrived just as Sir Frederick emerged from the undergrowth.
“Miss Fairchild!” he exclaimed, “You look as if you’ve led the charge, yet you’re alone? Let me help you down so you can catch your breath.”
The nature of her mission should have had her rejecting his offer, but the sight of his hands, outstretched to help her to the ground, were suddenly too much to resist.
And even as she slid to the grass, and felt the warm pressure of his large, capable hands upon her sides as he gently steadied her, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake.
For she had allowed her heart to rule her head.
Surely that was why she didn’t immediately tell him that time was of the essence and he must return to the castle to find his sister.
When Amelia’s breath had steadied a little, it was with surprise that she realized his hand was still on her shoulder.
As if he, too, had only just realized it, he withdrew it then, frowning, said, “Something has happened. It’s not like you to dash hell for leather, alone, on horseback, all this distance.”
“Oh, it’s exactly like me,” she said, ruefully, only realizing how freely she’d spoken when he raised his eyebrows.
