Chapter Five
Oliver tapped the table as he viewed the woman sitting opposite.
What the devil was he supposed to do now?
He had taken the wrong sister. By rights, he should ask her to marry him instead; it was the correct thing to do, unless he could return her home without anyone noticing her absence—an unlikely feat in this snowstorm.
And he did need a wife.
If Henry were here—and Oliver was damn glad he wasn’t—he would have suggested marriage.
Oliver’s gaze flicked down to Miss Brunton’s hands. Poor, cracked things, blistered and almost bloody by the knuckles where the skin had split countless times. He could only imagine how painful they were.
“What is your age?” he asked.
She blinked, brows slashing down in a frown. He noticed she had done that often in the time since they’d met. Did she ever smile—or, heaven forbid, laugh?
“My age?”
“Yes,” he said. “Your age. I’m three-and-twenty. There, now you have mine.”
“Four-and-twenty.”
Not in the first flush of youth, but perfectly acceptable. He disliked the prospect of marrying her, but this was what he got for attempting to behave clandestinely. “You must see what we should do now,” he said.
“After breakfast, you will drive me home.” Her gaze, almost silvery, flicked to him. “And then we will speak with Isabella about what she wishes to do.”
He could imagine nothing more excruciating than that conversation. Miss Brunton had got it into her head that her sister was some sort of golden-haired angel, and nothing he could say could disabuse her of the notion the girl loved him.
Oliver knew better: Isabella loved nothing more than the idea of wealth. He was nothing more to her than a means of escape.
“The snow is coming down quite heavily,” he said. “And the horses require rest before we can make a return journey.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I am not entirely sure when I might be able to deliver you home.” He held her gaze. “In my original imaginings of the event, I had not intended to immediately travel back to Dalston.”
“Then what do you propose we do?”
“If you were to marry me, that would solve our immediate problems.”
“It would?”
“I would rather marry sooner than later, and it would preserve your reputation. I don’t make a habit of ruining young ladies.”
“No?” A flash of—was that disdain in her eyes?
“I’m glad to hear it. But I have no intention of marrying you; I assure you, that would not solve any of my problems. Once the horses are adequately recovered, you will return me home, and I shall think of an excuse for my absence that does not involve feckless young men. ”
“And if we cannot return until tomorrow?”
“Then I pray Isabella will have the sense not to broadcast my disappearance.”
He rested his elbows on the table, intrigued despite himself. “I am the son of an earl, Miss Brunton. Upon my marriage, I will come into a nice little property—”
“And now your reasoning for marrying becomes clear—”
“And I will be perfectly respectable. Yet you object to my suit.”
“It is not the suit so much as the man itself,” she said firmly.
“You object to my character?”
“And your morals.”
“Are they not one and the same?”
“One can be morally upright and still disagreeable,” she returned. “You, however, are neither morally upright nor agreeable.”
Intrigued, he leaned forward still further. “A damning condemnation.”
She scowled. “You don’t seem enormously distressed by it.”
“If you ever meet my brother, you will learn to have thicker skin than that. I have been described as morally corrupt and deficient in intelligence on more than one occasion.” He shrugged.
“There comes a time where no further insults have any sting. But back to the matter at hand. I would be gratified if you would do me the honour of marrying me.”
Those silvery eyes rose to his face, and she looked a little as though she could not decide whether to be irritated or amused. “No you wouldn’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“You would much rather marry my sister if it came down to it.”
“Of course I would,” he said impatiently. “But she’s not here, and you are.”
“How gratifying.” She shook her head. “But the answer is no. Do not ask me again, Mr Beaumont.”
He shrugged; he had done his duty, and now if she returned home and was ruined, that was no longer his problem. “Then let the chips fall as they may. We will leave as soon as the horses are sufficiently rested.”
Outside, the wind howled and snow battered the panes until they rattled.
Emily glared at where Oliver now leaned against the taproom bar, talking and laughing uproariously with the proprietor.
Evidently her company was too dour for him to take—which, although not an unusual conclusion for young men, did nothing to improve her mood.
He had no right to be so merry at such a time.
After potentially ruining two people’s lives, he ought to at least show some remorse, but apparently he had never heard of the word.
The sight of it jarred; all she had known was responsibility since she was seventeen years of age.
Yet here he was, wild, ill-mannered, feckless.
Selfish.
If she could convince Isabella not to be in love with him, and not to marry him, she would.
He took a long swallow of the amber liquid in his hand, his throat bobbing.
If he were to be believed and his father was an earl, he certainly had a knack for adapting to his society—she could not imagine a gentleman this privileged had much to do with men like this.
And yet he laughed among them as though he were one of them, as at home here as he would be in a drawing room.
No one would believe them to be siblings—he wore simple but expensive clothes, and hers was a thrice-darned gown she had extracted from her mother’s trunks two years ago.
He was handsome, broad-shouldered, and had gold stubble across his jaw. She was dowdy and plain.
That oughtn’t matter, yet for some reason it did.
She crossed the room to his side. “Mr Beaumont,” she said, and he stopped laughing to glance at her. A roguish curl fell across his forehead, and it was irritatingly charming.
“Emily,” he said, saluting her with his glass. “Have you come to hurry me along?”
“If such a thing were possible.”
The innkeeper, a sturdy-looking man with sideburns down to his jaw, grunted. “Won’t get far in this weather. I’d recommend you stay and wait for better conditions.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Oliver said cheerfully. “But you aren’t the one going out in it, so it doesn’t matter one way or the other.”
The innkeeper shrugged. “Your funeral.”
“Finish this for me,” Mr Beaumont said, sliding the glass across to her. “It’ll warm you right up.” He winked, sliding off the stool. “I shall go in search of our horses and get things prepared for us.”
Emily stared at the glass of liquid he had offered her. Brandy, perhaps? Wine? She couldn’t be sure; it had been a long time since her house had held any alcohol to speak of.
“It won’t hurt you,” the innkeeper said, before moving on to serve another patron.
She took a tentative sip. Heat flared across her tongue, and a burning sensation erupted in her throat. Unpleasant—and yet oddly warming. The heat sank into her stomach, and she found it remarkably easy to take another sip, then another, finishing what little remained in the glass.
How irritating that Mr Beaumont was right—about this, or anything. She would much rather he were an irredeemable rogue and she could convince poor Isabella to fall in love with someone more worthy. Or, better still, no one at all.
She had just finished the glass when Mr Beaumont summoned her to the frozen courtyard. His enormous carriage stood alone on the cobbles; no other vehicles were, evidently, prepared to brave the storm.
Emily could hardly blame them. If their circumstances had been less pressing, she would have felt the same.
Mr Beaumont came to stand beside her, dressed in a large oilskin coat that was too large on his frame. “In you go,” he said.
“Are you driving?”
“Alas yes. My pockets are not deep enough to convince a man to offer me his life.”
“You exaggerate.”
“Only a little.” He grinned at her, the wind mussing his curls. “Hold on tight, darling. I can’t promise you a comfortable ride.”
“I’m not your darling.”
“No, you’re a thorn in my side,” he retorted. “Come on, get in so I can take you home.”
“Thank you,” she forced herself to say.
He gave a rueful grin. “My damned honour,” was all he said as he closed the door behind her. A minute or two later, the carriage lurched into motion, and they left the inn behind them.
Every part of Oliver was cold. He had paid a coachman a handsome sum for his oiled leather greatcoat, which deflected most of the precipitation—snow, call it snow, you fool—but his hands had clawed into icicles around the reins, and he was confident his nose was half a thought from departing his face entirely.
He ought to have just left her there despite her protests, marriage or no. He’d offered—it was entirely on her that she had refused him. Not exactly how he’d envisaged his first proposal to go, but never mind.
But no. She could not be prevailed upon to marry him, and for reasons beyond his understanding, he had agreed to brave the storm to return her home.
Henry would approve. And the thought made Oliver want to rebel. He was not a man who did the right thing for virtue’s sake alone.
Damn it all.
More to the point, he had lost any desire to marry Isabella. If the girl did love him, that would make the entire thing uncomfortable. He had been certain she didn’t, but Miss Brunton’s insistence she did had shaken him.
Or, perhaps worse still, she might tell Emily she loved him so he would be forced to marry her, all while merely coveting the prospect of his inheritance.
He ought to leave the lot of them behind.
The wind blew drifted snow across the road, and Oliver squinted. Was that a corner coming up ahead?
The curve finally appeared to him, and he swore, hauling on the reins. The horses reared, trying to desperately to correct their course, but the wheels skidded against the slick ground, and momentum shot them forward. Too fast.
His fault, for thinking he might beat the storm.
His fault, for not seeing the approaching corner past the blizzard.
The horses tossed their heads, and the air burned his lungs as he drew in a deep, snow-filled breath. The countryside looked foreign, covered in white as it was. It was impossible to know where the road stopped and the verge began.
He cursed again, hands numb as he gripped the wooden bar before him.
The carriage shuddered. Tipped.
He knew the second it was beyond the point of no return. Time seemed to slow, thick as honey, as the carriage tipped. Past the howling wind, he thought he heard a scream. The horses whinnied, and gravity took hold of him, tossing him from the hard coachman’s bench and headfirst into a snowdrift.