Chapter Eight
Oliver knew the moment he’d asked the question that he had misstepped.
The whisky was to blame, or perhaps the aching in his arm; either way, he had erred.
Emily’s face flushed, and she glowered at him, her jaw locking.
Her grey eyes flashed. If she could have eviscerated him where he lay, no doubt she would have done.
“What is there to say that my resolution is due to a man?”
He held up his good hand in a placating gesture. “Forgive me.”
She rose, her back stiff as she strode to the window and stayed there, staring at the snowy, grey world that lay outside.
Dusk would fall soon—perhaps it had already fallen—and already the light was indifferent.
Still, it was sufficient to show the way her shoulders hunched and her hands clenched; he doubted it was because of the cold.
The last vestiges of daylight illuminated the gleam of pale skin at her neck, but cast her hair into the deep red of autumn leaves, near blending with the gloom.
She didn’t look away from the frigid glass, but he saw her shiver.
Regret, a sensation he was rather unused to, made its presence known.
But what the devil was he supposed to do?
He hadn’t known when he teased her that she was going to react in such a way.
But his better judgement notwithstanding—he did on occasion have a better judgement—he wanted to know her story.
There were so many scattered pieces of her life she had already shown him; he wished to put them together so he might understand the whole.
But he had gone about finding out the wrong way.
He pinched his nose. “Miss Brunton,” he said.
Silence.
Ignoring the dizzying pain in his arm, he pushed himself up, swinging his feet out of the bed. His stomach revolted, but with some force of will, he was able to stand. The whisky, he imagined, was helping more than he wanted to admit.
“Emily,” he said again.
“Leave me be. I don’t want to speak with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
She remained silent, hugging herself now, those thin shoulders tight.
He waited, rolling to his toes and back again, but she made no move to say anything further, or to so much as glance at him.
So he retrieved the blanket from the bed and slung it over her shoulders, made clumsy by the use of only one hand.
Her small hands came to grip the edges, pulling it tightly over herself.
“I’m going to find Mr Chambers and investigate the possibility of more whisky,” he said, retreating. “And a truckle bed. For me. Don’t argue the point. You’ll find I’m remarkably stubborn when I have cause to be.”
Her sigh sounded as though it came from deep within her. “You ought to take the bed.”
“I told you not to argue.” He made for the door. “Come down when you’re ready,” was all he said as he slipped through.
Emily stared at the frozen glass. Soon, the candle would go out and she would be plunged in darkness, but she didn’t think she’d mind. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. Maybe if her world were black, it would ease the aching emptiness in her chest.
She didn’t think she loved Lord Marlbury any longer, but thinking about marriage—her marriage—made her think of all the hopes she’d once had.
Her innocence, her optimism. Marlbury had exposed her to the world’s cruelty, and soon after he abandoned her, her mother had died, and her father had wasted away.
Love, it seemed, was not the pure, sweet thing she had dreamed of in youth.
No, it came with barbs; either it cut you, or it lingered long enough for the wound to turn rancid. Her parents had loved one another, and that love had ruined her father.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, absorbing the cold until it sank into her bones, but eventually darkness fell, and when the door opened again, her entire body felt stiff. Her head pounded, and nausea swirled in her stomach.
Oliver carried a candle with him, and when she turned, she could see its light flickering across his face. She half expected him to say something, but instead he directed Mr Chambers to place the truckle bed on the floor, as far from the bed as was possible in this small room.
As Emily watched, feeling numb, Mr Chambers built the fire, setting it going merrily, and a maid arrived with her arms full of blankets.
“Thank you,” Oliver said as he gestured for the blankets to be placed on the bed.
No wink this time, she noted. Perhaps even he accepted that inside another man’s household was a very different place than the tavern.
The girls there accepted and wanted his winks, perhaps even supplementing their income by selling their bodies to the highest bidder.
And the maid here merely worked as a maid.
Or perhaps he was as tired and done in as she felt.
Finally, Mr Chambers and the maid left, and Oliver turned back to face her.
“I told them you were feeling unwell,” he said. “Mrs Chambers has a tray of food waiting for you.”
She shook her head, the room spinning a little. She was so tired. All her life, it seemed, she had been tired. “I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten for hours.”
“I have eaten more today than I ever have before in a single day.” That might not be true, but it was close enough. “I just want to rest.”
“Then rest, but come closer to the fire.” Without reaching for her, he beckoned her closer, until her fingers burned from the heat. “You must be frozen.”
She didn’t have the energy to explain that she rarely built up the fire to this extent at home, or that they rarely lit a fire in the bedroom. Instead, she allowed him to guide her down to the truckle bed. Her fingers curled in on themselves. She didn’t even have her anger at him any longer.
“I spoke to Mr Chambers,” he said. “The nearest posting house is ten miles away. I must have taken a wrong turn in the blizzard. Fortunately, the snow appears to have stopped. Tomorrow, I’ll ride out with Mr Chambers and assess the damage done to my coach.
” He winced. “My brother’s coach. He won’t forgive me easily. ”
“Your brother’s? I assumed it was your own.”
“No, I took it when I left him last. He has others, though, don’t worry.” He slanted her a long look, as though waiting for her to pass judgement. But she simply didn’t have the emotion in her anymore. “We had an argument, and I left angry.”
“What did you argue about?”
“His expectations for me. Among other things.”
“Other things such as your inheritance?”
“His wife has an independent fortune—it belonged to her late husband—and she is the one bestowing the inheritance on me. I only receive it once I marry, and while my brother wished me to wait, for various reasons I had rather the happy event occur sooner than later.”
Of course he would; what man did not want a fortune?
“And so you stole your brother’s carriage and seduced my sister.”
“I stole my brother’s carriage and crashed it,” he said. “Not my finest moment, I’ll agree—you have not seen me at my best, Miss Brunton. But I did not seduce your sister.”
Small mercies, she supposed. If she could trust his word—and she found she did, oddly enough.
“And as proof of my honour, what little of it remains, I will do my best to return you home as soon as the snow stops. Hopefully that will absolve me in your eyes, if not my brother’s.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “If you are successful in your attempt. How are the horses?”
“One has lost a shoe and another has a sprained hock, but they seem to have escaped remarkably unscathed, according to Mr Chambers. I’ll take a look at them in the morning.
” He gave her a sharp-eyed glance, as though seeing through her lacklustre conversation to the exhaustion that lay underneath.
“Oh, and Mrs Chambers provided some bedclothes for you.”
Emily touched her head and winced. How could they ever repay this family? “How generous of her. If you could—please tell Mrs Chambers I have no need for dinner. I would rather just sleep.”
“Of course.” He rose, the colour somewhat restored to her cheeks. “I’ll knock before coming back in, I assure you.”
To her surprise, she believed him, and although they were set to share a room, she had no fear that he would take advantage of her in the night.
In part because doing so would be harder with a broken arm, and in part because he had shown her surprising consideration over the past few hours. “Thank you.”
After he left the room, she undressed quickly and clambered into the nightclothes, freshly laundered and rough to the touch. With Oliver having placed all his nightclothes and other things on the truckle bed—no doubt by design—she gave in and took the other. The pillow was cool against her cheek.
As she closed her eyes, she wondered what things would look like when she finally did return home. Whether Isabella would ever forgive her, or if their lives would be irrevocably changed.