Elmwood
Guilt over the way he had dismissed her gnawed at him as he did his best to help Nimsby sort things out, and it was followed by anger over the guilt, since she had, after all, deserved to be reproached for her unfeeling obstinance.
But not, he knew, as nastily as he had managed it.
At least he could always be counted on to do the wrong thing.
He decided that he might as well do his stewing in bed, since his hip was ready to riot and refuse to hold him up altogether.
Merewyth mercifully had only two floors, if you didn’t count the attic or the towers, which meant he had only one set of stairs to manage.
Unmercifully, that meant he’d had to put the ladies in the room neighboring his on one side, and Winthrop on the other, which felt like entirely too many people after having had Merewyth to himself for so long.
He had almost made it to his room when Lady Isobel sprang out from behind a tapestry in the corridor and flung herself into his arms.
Before he had time to even fully comprehend her presence, she hauled him into the doorway of his room, and it was only by bracing himself on the frame that he halted there. She then wrapped herself about him like an engraving he’d once seen of a leviathan squid wrestling a sea serpent.
“Darling Erol,” she whispered, then licked his ear. It did absolutely nothing for him, more’s the pity.
With more agility than he thought he was capable of, he managed to slip sideways and duck out of the embrace. She made to pounce on him again, so he grasped her hands in his, wondering where her chaperone had gotten to, and tried to smile at her kindly but not encouragingly.
“You must be exhausted after your long journey,” he said, giving her hands what he hoped she would understand as a chaste squeeze.
“On the contrary,” she said, “I am quite refreshed and invigorated!” One of her hands escaped his and grabbed at his bottom.
“Ah haha.” He laughed, and it was the most ridiculous, awkward sound he had ever made.
Declining the advances of interested parties was not something he’d accrued much experience in over the years, as he’d generally made a policy of being up for anything that anyone wanted him for.
But, he told himself, if he’d been able to find the wherewithal to say no to Lady Croft earlier that same night when he’d wanted her more than he’d wanted anything else in recallable memory, then rejecting Lady Isobel’s advances surely could hold no challenge, especially when they held absolutely no appeal.
He reclaimed her errant hand and rejoined it with the other.
“Then I must ask you to take pity on a tired old man,” he said.
She pouted, which made her seem very young, and he was disgusted with himself all over again.
How old must she have been when they first met?
Twenty? The thought of it reaffirmed his new resolution to never drink to such excess again, regardless of who had died and how miserable he was.
He made bad enough decisions when sober.
Before she could protest further, he shepherded her down the hall and knocked on the door to the suite she was sharing with Miss Floret.
There was a long pause. He knocked again.
“Auntie Floret has already gone to bed,” said Lady Isobel. “There will be no one to disturb our reunion.”
He banged on the door so loudly that he was certain people in Neck could hear it.
Finally, Miss Floret answered the door. She was still dressed, and she scowled ferociously—not at her charge, he was surprised to see, but at him.
“Lady Isobel lost her way in the corridor, so I am returning her to your safekeeping,” he said.
“How thoughtful,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.
He released Lady Isobel’s hands and stepped back, prepared to flee.
To his surprise, Miss Floret ushered Lady Isobel into the room but then, instead of following her, stepped out into the hallway with him, closing the door behind her, cutting off a little protesting yelp from her niece.
She jerked her chin at him to follow, then proceeded down the hall a few paces. He followed out of bafflement, jerking back when she spun on him and poked him in the chest with one extremely pointy finger.
“See here,” she hissed. “You may be a Charmer and a criminal and a wastrel, but I must inform you that if you think I will allow you to toy with my niece, you are greatly mistaken.”
The list of his offenses stung, even though they were all more than fair.
“I assure you, Madame, I have no intention of toying with her. In fact, I was returning her to your watch in order to prevent her from seeking out trouble. Perhaps you ought to keep her under a more watchful gaze.”
She poked him again, and he winced.
“You are already her trouble, and as much as I would prefer to hand her off to any matrimonial candidate more suitable than yourself, it is my sole duty to ensure that my niece gets what she wants. And what she wants, inexplicably, is you.”
“I think, then, Madame, that you and I are of like mind. I also wish her to have a more suitable husband than myself,” he said, as earnestly as he could.
Winthrop was going to wring his neck for this, but Elmwood knew with sudden and complete certainty that he could not conceive of going through with his plan, regardless of the consequences.
He had not sunk so low that he would use a sweet young woman to save his own feckless skin.
Stars above, even Rollo would be a better match for Lady Isobel than he would!
Surely there was some way to break this off without damaging her reputation.
Miss Floret narrowed her eyes at him, and he knew in his bones that he was in trouble.
“In case your Mr. Winthrop did not make it clear, you will marry my niece,” she said. “If, in the meantime, she seeks to seal your relationship with certain affections, you will welcome them in a manner befitting a man who I am determined shall love my niece with all his heart.”
“I…beg your pardon?”
“You understand me perfectly, Lord Elmwood. Commit to her. Make her yours, learn to love her, and do it promptly.” She leaned forward.
“My niece may be na?ve, but I am not. I am all too aware that your proposal was nothing more than a fleeting fancy for you, but she has staked her entire heart upon it.”
“Surely we can agree that the hearts of young people are fickle things, Miss Floret. I am certain that eventually, your niece’s affections will land upon another, more suitable prospect.”
“It seems to me that you are the one with the fickle heart, Lord Elmwood. I may be well into middle age, but my vision is still perfectly adept. I can see as plain as day that your affections are engaged elsewhere.”
“I assure you, my affections are not…”
“Whatever dalliance you were engaging in with Lady Croft is over. You will turn your amorous attentions to my niece, or I swear I will give you up to the authorities myself.”
His face burned hotter.
“Your niece’s heart will be no less at stake if I’m thrown across the border to die on a Relancian pyre.”
She sniffed. “Isobel would grieve, it’s true, but I think it better for her to grieve a lost love than an unfaithful one who would break her heart for the sake of a fleeting affair with a married woman.”
“I…”
“Furthermore, I’m sure that you will not wish for Lady Croft’s reputation to be sullied by association with you, which could also easily be arranged if you fail to do your duty.
Now, you may have tonight as your reprieve to sort out your priorities, but by tomorrow, I expect you to be a man who cannot hide the intensity of his affection for my niece. ”
With one final poke to his sternum, she marched back down the hall to her room, leaving him standing in the corridor, dumbfounded.
Elmwood lay awake. His hip felt like someone had poured molten glass around the joint, allowed it to cool, then shattered the whole thing with a mallet.
Rollo was snoring loudly, stretched along the length of his other leg, taking up half the bed.
At least the linens were clean—thanks, of course, to Lady Croft’s unparalleled management of his affairs.
Her attempt at blackmail seemed downright friendly now, in comparison to Miss Floret’s.
For he had no doubt that Miss Floret would follow through with her threats.
He had never, in his wildest fancies, imagined that a young woman’s chaperone would blackmail him into seducing her ward—though he supposed he had already seduced the lady in question once before.
Hadn’t he? If only he could remember what exactly had passed between them, he might be able to make some sense of all of this.
He recalled that he’d made it home late for his father’s wake.
Already a bit drunk on a bottle of gin he’d been nursing on the road, he’d stumbled into Elmhouse and found it full of people he didn’t want to see.
The one person he did inexplicably want to see, his father, was already nailed firmly into his coffin.
It was sitting on a table in the drawing room, pine encased in iron and then coated with whale oil to prevent rust. The room reeked, and he couldn’t tell if that was the whale blubber or his father, who had been waiting for a week for Elmwood’s return.
He never would have waited a week for Elmwood when he’d been alive.
The three chairs for the chief mourners were arranged in a semicircle around the coffin, occupied by Lord Forsyth, his father’s oldest friend; Mr. Galbraith, his father’s lawyer; and some unfortunate footman who had been commandeered to fill in until Elmwood’s arrival.
Elmwood ambled over to his chair, trying to resemble a person who was sober.
It must not have worked, because Forsyth and Galbraith exchanged a look.
Well, at least the sense that he was a massive disappointment had not died with his father.