Chapter 5 Emily
Emily
In Semington House, a somewhat less ostentatious residence than Larkford Hall, Rupert’s only remaining unmarried sister, Miss Emily Montague, was taking breakfast. It was her habit to rise early and, as she knew her younger brother’s London habits, she was not expecting to see him before midday.
However, as it was now not long after nine and early for callers, even in the country, she was most surprised to see a rider hurtling up their drive at what looked like a gallop.
He disappeared out of sight as he reached the front doors, but she was sufficiently curious to set her teacup down and look at the breakfast room door in expectation.
She was rewarded by the sound of heavy, hurried footsteps in the corridor outside, and, a moment later, a gentleman she recognized as being the son of her late father’s sworn enemy, burst in.
Larkin, her butler, appeared in his wake, his face suffused in apology. “His Grace the Duke of Capendale, my Lady.”
Emily waved her man away with an understanding smile. As he was small and spare, he would have had no hope of restraining the veritable Titan who had burst in upon her breakfast.
The man who had so recently inherited his late father’s title and estate was indeed a giant of a man whose broad shoulders and slender waist spoke of a strict adherence to some form of vigorous exercise.
She was momentarily impressed, for he must be ten years older than she was, so no longer in the first blush of youthful vigor.
A man, she noted with a small degree of pleasure, who didn’t want to let himself go in middle age and wear a corset to maintain his figure.
As Larkin retreated, a little unwillingly, Emily benefited the duke with a small bow of her head. Bursting in like this, he merited no more. And of course, their two families did not speak to one another. This was about to be a first.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” she said politely, waiting for him to remember his manners.
Luckily, he did. He slammed his boots together and made a short, sharp bow. “Miss Montague. However, I am afraid I don’t know which Miss Montague you might be.”
“I am Miss Emily Montague,” she said, eyeing him up and down with interest. Of course, she’d glimpsed him from afar before, at the few local routs and balls she’d attended, but she’d never had the pleasure of studying him up close.
And he was a pleasure to behold, with his dishevelled dark curls, aquiline nose, and firm chin.
Emily might be considered a confirmed old maid by her married sisters, but that did not stop her admiring masculine beauty.
“Delighted to meet you,” he managed, through what looked like might be clenched teeth. “I am afraid I come on upsetting business.”
Her curiosity was aroused, so she nodded. “Pray go on.”
He fidgeted as though impatient. Very impatient. “Do you know where your brother is?”
What a strange question. “I imagine at this hour he is asleep in his bed still,” she said, puzzled now. “Having spent so much of his time in London, he has the habit of keeping Town hours. We don’t usually see him before midday at the earliest.”
More fidgeting. “Could you please check?”
She sat up straighter. “Check? Whatever for? He won’t like being disturbed.”
And now he did grind his teeth. “Check that he is alone.”
“Alone?” She couldn’t help but parrot his words. “You want me to check he is sleeping alone?” Her voice rose in amazement.
“Damn it, woman, yes, I do. I think…I mean, I fear…damn and blast it, make me say it, won’t you! I think he has my sister in there with him.” This last came out in a tumble of obvious fury.
Emily’s eyes widened. “You think my brother has your sister in his room? In his…in his bed?” She couldn’t help the rise of her voice. Who did this man think he was, barging uninvited into her brother’s house and enquiring about his sleeping habits?
He nodded.
She rose to her feet and fixed him with a cold gaze. “I can assure you he does not. Why would he? He doesn’t know the girl, for obvious reasons. But we will go together and disturb him, just to prove to you this is your fevered imagination.”
Head held high, she led him out of the breakfast room and up the stairs. Rupert occupied the bedroom that had once been their father’s and was the biggest Semington House possessed. She tapped gently on the door and waited.
No answer.
The duke leaned past her and pushed the door open so firmly it banged back on the wall and would have woken the dead.
However, her brother’s room boasted no one, living or dead, to be disturbed by the noise.
His bed was neatly made, which she knew he would never do himself.
No one could have slept here last night.
“Good heavens,” she said, her hand to her mouth. “Where can he be?”
Capendale strode into the room uninvited. “With my sister, that’s where.”
What was he talking about? The man must be addled. Emily turned to him. “But I’ve said he doesn’t know your sister. How could he?” She paused. “Our families don’t exactly get along, now do they?”
Capendale ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand up on end.
“You will be surprised to discover that they do indeed know one another. I myself don’t know how they met, but it was clear to me at the ball we held for my sister’s eighteenth birthday, only last week, that they were old acquaintances. ”
“Your ball? But none of us went.”
He glared at her. “Because none of you were invited. And yet your brother sneaked his way in, no doubt in order to see my sister and persuade her, along with her sizeable dowry, into his bed.”
Emily glared back. “Well, as you can see, no one has been in his bed, still less your sister. There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for this.
” Although even as she said it, she was doubting her own words.
This would be just like Rupert. He’d clearly been adept at keeping an association with the hated de Vere family a closely guarded secret from her and Mama, and it was looking as though he really might have run off with the pestilential daughter.
She’d quite forgotten there was a daughter, in fact, as Papa, when he’d been alive, had done nothing but moan about how many sons the old duke had compared to the six daughters Mama had given him before Rupert had come along.
Moaning that was guaranteed to make a fifth daughter feel unwanted.
She remembered how happy he’d been when Mama had finally produced the longed-for male heir, and how relieved she and her sisters had been.
No wonder they’d all fussed around Rupert all his life, which she acknowledged had only made him more and more rebellious.
Little wonder he’d run off with the girl he thought he loved rather than tell anyone, especially as she was the daughter of Papa’s worst enemy.
“Gretna Green,” Capendale snapped. “That’s where they’ll have gone, the fools. I have to get my sister back before night falls and she’s compromised by your upstart brother. I’m going after them.”
Emily bristled. “My brother is not an upstart and is a perfectly respectable marriage prospect. Your sister should count herself lucky to have caught his attention.” Only that wasn’t quite what she was thinking.
The main thing in her head right now was how angry Papa would have been to find his only son associated in this way with the daughter of the hated old duke.
He was probably spinning in his grave right now.
Capendale turned back to the door, but she caught his arm.
“In that case, you’re not going on your own.
I shall come with you. I won’t let you go off half-cocked after my brother and probably with pistols in your pockets.
If anyone did any seducing here, it was more than likely your sister.
My brother is an innocent in this, led astray by a member of your family. ”
His handsome face contorted in fury, but he regained control after a moment or two. “I shall return home now and order my fastest carriage. I will call to collect you in an hour at most. Be ready, or I leave without you. Speed is of the essence.”
Emily nodded in relief and watched him as he strode down the hall and out of the front door again, the picture of an affronted male.
At least he hadn’t refused her request. Although he might have agreed just to keep her quiet, and would not turn up.
Still, she had to take his word that he would, so she’d best pack a few things.
And tell Mama what had occurred, and perhaps at last insist she should reveal the true reason behind the feud.
With Papa long dead, surely it wouldn’t matter now.
But first she would check to see if any horses or carriages were missing.
Mama was still in bed, for she too liked to rise late in the morning, although not because she needed sleep.
Emily found her wide awake and eating breakfast on a tray that held a pretty posy of primroses.
She made a charming picture, for she hadn’t completely lost the blonde beauty she’d had as a young woman, even though her hair was mainly gray nowadays.
The same beauty Emily and her blue-eyed sisters and brother had inherited.
Emily brought a chair up to the bed and sat down.
Mama fixed her with a perceptive gaze. “Something is wrong. You’d best tell me.”
“Rupert seems to have eloped with Lady Juliet de Vere.”
Her mother frowned. “I thought she was a child in the schoolroom.”
Was that all that mattered? “Her brother tells me she is turned eighteen.”
“Her brother?” Mama’s voice rose. “When did you see him?”
“This morning. He called demanding to see Rupert, whose bed, we discovered, has not been slept in. As his sister is missing, the obvious conclusion is that he has eloped. With her. Added to that is the fact that since the duke departed, I’ve ascertained that two riding horses are missing from our stables.
One of them is mine with my side saddle.
I don’t think Rupert will have been trying that out himself, do you? ”
Lady Stapleton, still managing not to look too worried by this news, shook her head. “It sounds very much as though you and…that man…are correct. But what is there to do?”
Emily set her jaw. “The first thing you can do, Mama, is tell me honestly what the root cause of this feud between our family and the de Veres is. My sisters are all married and flown the nest, Rupert is a man grown, although one would not always guess it, and I am your only daughter left at home. Papa is long dead and incapable of protest, so I think you owe it to me to reveal why he so hated the old Duke of Capendale. Who, incidentally, is also dead now. I feel I especially need this information in the light of what has happened this morning.” She paused.
“You should also know that I am about to go in pursuit of the eloping couple in the company of the new duke, an obnoxious fellow who has the light of revenge in his eyes. I would not go, but I fear for Rupert’s life at the hands of that man.
So I think some foreknowledge would be an excellent idea. ”
Her mother pressed her lips together for a moment, a heavy frown on her face as she studied her folded hands. Then she looked up. “Very well, Emily. I will tell you.”
Emily removed her mother’s abandoned breakfast tray. “You will have to be quick, as he will be back in less than an hour with his carriage.”
Her mother nodded. “As you might imagine, it all happened many years ago.”
“I guessed that,” Emily replied, a tad tartly.
“I was young and just out, called the most beautiful debutante of the Season. Men fell at my feet uttering all sorts of ridiculous praise, but my mother was careful it didn’t go to my head. Two of my young suitors were your own papa, my darling Henry, and the young Duke of Capendale—Thomas.”
Emily began to see light dawning.
“They both fell in love with you?”
“Oh, more gentlemen than those two did, but the two of them were lifelong friends and that was the problem. Both of them proposed marriage individually, and each became bitterly jealous of the other.”
“But you chose Papa.”
Mama nodded. “I did. Because he was the man I myself loved. It wasn’t enough for me that all these young men were declaring undying love. I could only accept the one to whom my own heart had become engaged. So I accepted your papa’s proposal.”
“And the duke?”
Her mother’s still lovely face clouded. “Suffice it to say he was not happy. He couldn’t understand why I had chosen what he called a lowly viscount with a small estate when I could have become a duchess and enjoyed all his wealth.
He was more than angry, and not just with me, but with your papa, whom he accused of going behind his back, of subterfuge, of forcing me into marriage.
None of which was true. I loved your papa dearly, and still do, even now, ten years after his sad departure from this life.
” She sniffed, as though all of this had revived her past grief.
Emily patted her hand. “Don’t fuss yourself, Mama.
None of this was your fault. It sounds to me as though the old duke was a terrible loser.
Probably as spoiled and autocratic and self-centered as his dreadful son, whom I’ve now had the displeasure of encountering.
Have no fear, now I know the story, I shall use it to my advantage if I can. ”
She rose to her feet. “And now I must hurry to check Sally has packed me the small bag I requested.” She kissed her mother on the cheek. “I’m sorry to rush away, but I know you’ll understand that speed is of the essence here, with the probable long head start these two have on us.”
Just what that odious man had said.