Page 18 of To Marry and to Meddle
“When he has mauled a significant portion ofyourupper body, then I will be happy to debate the matter with you,” Julian said with exaggerated gallantry.
“In the meantime,” Emily said, casting a pointed look out the window, where the rain was beginning to fall in earnest, “perhaps you would care to debate the wisdom of haring off through the countryside in search of a disreputable viscount and an actress who, whilst not perhaps making the most intelligent of decisions, is certainly old enough to know her own mind?”
Julian’s scowl deepened. The morning had taken a rather dramatic turn after they had witnessed Lord Delacre and Miss Simmons depart—Julian had interrogated the innkeeper for every last scrap of information (Emily strongly suspected money had changed hands at some point), then moved heaven and earth to see their carriage repaired in record time (Emily knew for a fact that money had changed hands that time).
She was a bit befuddled by the speed with which matters had progressed—she had gone from calmly eating her breakfast, expecting to pass her day traveling toward London and her exciting new life as a married woman, to being bundled into Julian’s carriage in hot pursuit of the fleeing couple, for reasons she didn’t entirely understand.
“Perhaps,” Emily continued, “we should not have taken the word of that gentleman in Butcher’s Green who suggested a quicker route west?”
“I can think of any number of words I would like to use to describe that man,” Julian said, running an exasperated hand through his hair, “andgentlemanis not one of them.” He sighed, then leaned forward to get a better look out the window, no doubt taking in the same ominous sight as Emily. The carriage had begun swaying alarmingly in the wind. “It’s my own fault, though—I shouldn’t have listened to him, and should have agreed to the route Reeve suggested instead.”
They were attempting to move in a general northwesterly direction—Julian’s inquiries among the staff at the inn had suggested that the fleeing couple were making for Lord Delacre’s estate in Cheshire. Emily did not particularly relish the thought of traveling all the way to Cheshire on what she privately thought was a bit of a wild-goose chase, so she was not entirely unsympathetic to Julian’s desire for haste—though she would have been evenmoresympathetic to a desire to abandon this half-baked plan and return to London instead.
“I must say, this is not how I thought I would be ending the day when I woke up this morning,” she said brightly. Julian, she could tell, was growing more frustrated by their slow progress and by the weather conditions, which were deteriorating by the moment, and she instinctively adopted her most cheerful tone of voice, as she had done so often in the past, when her parents had quarreled, or something was troubling them.
This, she knew how to do.
“I promise you, I am entirely in agreement with you,” Julian said, still craning his neck to look out the window.
“Would it be so terrible if we were not able to catch them?” Emily asked a bit hesitantly—she had the distinct impression that Julian wouldn’t respond well to having his plans questioned at the moment.
“Yes,” came his curt reply. “Aside from the fact that Miss Simmons is my leading lady—and considerably more suited to the role than her understudy—I can hardly afford any sort of scandal, not when I’ve just gone to the trouble—” He broke off abruptly, seeming to realize what he’d been about to say—and whom he’d been about to say it to. He gave a bit of an awkward cough. “I don’t wish to further damage the theater’s reputation,” he concluded, but Emily heard theunspoken words, too: what would the point have been of marrying her, if the Belfry found itself mired in further scandal? Avoiding disgrace was the entire point of her marriage.
Julian reached his hand up to rap on the roof of the carriage, which promptly came to a halt and, lifting his coat up to shield himself from the elements, he hopped out the door, leaving Emily alone with a purring cat in a basket and the uneasy feeling that she had not managed to ease Julian’s temper one bit.
Within a minute, he was back, his dark hair gleaming with raindrops, his expression grim. His mouth was set in a thin line, his brow low. No sooner had he reentered the carriage than a loud clap of thunder sounded. Emily peered into the basket, concerned.
“Are you frightened, Cecil?”
“I can’t think why he should be,” Julian said. “He probably summoned the lightning himself.”
Emily shot him a severe look as she traced a finger down the small patch of white fur around Cecil’s nose.
“Are we going to stop and take shelter somewhere, then?” she asked her husband. “I can’t think we’ll make much progress if the storm grows any worse.”
“We are,” Julian said, and there was an odd, resigned note to his voice that Emily did not understand.
“I know you must be lamenting lost time,” she said, hoping she sounded soothing, “but surely Lord Delacre and Miss Simmons will have to stop too.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt you’re correct—the storm appears to be moving in from the north, in fact, so they’ve likely already been delayed.” He said all of this extremely gloomily.
“Why are you so bothered, then?” she asked, confused.
“Because,” he said with a heavy sigh, “I’ve realized where we are—and who the most logical person to take shelter with would be.”
“Oh?” Emily asked; by her calculation, they were somewhere in Oxfordshire.
“We’re distressingly close,” Julian pronounced, in the tone of a man announcing his own death sentence, “to the country seat of the Earl of Risedale.”
“Risedale,” Emily repeated, frowning slightly. “But isn’t he married to—”
“Yes,” Julian said darkly. “My sister.”
Six
“I just cannot tell youhow delightful this is,” the Countess of Risedale said for at least the third time. Emily supposed itwasdelightful, in the sense that she was no longer in a carriage that seemed in imminent danger of toppling over—really, the past twenty-four hours had given her grave doubts about the advisability of carriages as a mode of transportation—but it would also undeniably be a good dealmoredelightful if she were wearing dry clothing.
“We greatly appreciate your hospitality, Lady Risedale,” she said, scampering to keep up with her tall husband and his nearly-as-tall sister as they traipsed along one of the corridors in Dovecote Manor, the Earl of Risedale’s country seat. The countess had appeared downright overjoyed when a very soggy brother and sister-in-law had presented themselves at her door, especially considering that she had not, until that moment, been aware that shehada sister-in-law.
