Chapter Twenty-Nine
Oliver squared his shoulders before entering Henry’s study. Any solution they came to about Isabella would have to be done with Emily present, but he needed to face his brother alone first.
They had some matters to lay to rest.
Jarringly, considering how different he felt from the man who had left this space not quite a month ago, the room looked identical to the way it had when he had last entered.
Henry sat behind the desk, a pair of wire-framed spectacles on his nose, and open books before him.
The bookcases were just as meticulously sorted as always, and although the room could not be strictly called tidy, there was order amongst the chaos.
How fitting.
At Oliver’s arrival, Henry removed his glasses and leant back in his chair, the expression in his stern blue eyes speculative.
“Oliver,” he said.
“Henry.” Oliver took the seat before the desk. “Thank you for receiving me.”
“You know I will never turn you away.” Henry’s gaze fell to the loose arm of his coat, and the bulge under his clothes where his sling lay. “Are you badly hurt?”
“A broken arm. Not too bad, so long as I keep it still.”
“It’s been seen to, I presume?”
“Had a physician take a look. He says there’s nothing to do now but wait for it to heal.”
Henry nodded, laying down his pen and steepling his fingers. “The carriage? I presume it did not survive as well as you appear to have done.”
Oliver did not have to wonder how his brother knew about the carriage; if it had still been functional, he would have driven up to the door in it. “It did not.”
“What happened?”
“The weather was poor, and I crashed.”
“Why were you driving in those conditions?”
“For once,” Oliver said, with self-deprecating wryness, “I was trying to save a woman’s reputation, not ruin it.”
“This being the lady you arrived with?”
“The very same.”
“Did you bring her here so I might bless the union?”
Oliver almost smiled. “Why, would you have agreed to the match?”
“That depends entirely on who she is and your intentions in marrying her.”
All amusement fled from Oliver. The last time he had left this room, he might have done so determined to access his inheritance at all costs, but that could not be further from the truth with Emily.
“Let me be clear,” he said. “If I marry Miss Brunton—and that is an if entirely at her discretion—then it will have nothing to do with you or your approval. I will have chosen her as the partner of my life, and her circumstances do not make her any less appropriate a wife.”
“I see.”
“If we had intended marriage, I would not have dragged her all the way down here in this fashion. The reason we came has nothing to do with us or our relationship. Well,” he amended, seeing the injustice there, “nothing to do with her. The fault for her situation lies with me, and I hope you can help me put it right.”
“Is that so?”
“But before I tell you, I must make one thing plain.” The steel ring in his voice surprised even him. “What I tell you now does not leave this room. And when you see her next, you will not disrespect her in any way.”
After a long moment, Henry tipped back his head and gave a low bark of laughter. “By God,” he said. “You love her.”
Oliver scowled. “What of it?”
“I take it she knows of your feelings?”
“Some,” Oliver said cautiously. “I offered her my hand in marriage. Perhaps my timing could have been better”—he knew damn well his timing could have been better—“but I don’t think she wishes to marry me at present, and I will not force her to out of gratitude.
And I will also not bring her into my family’s home only to have her be disrespected by my own family members. ”
Henry held up a placating hand. “I have no intention of treating her with anything but respect, Oliver.”
“Good.” Oliver drew in a breath, then he explained everything that had occurred to get them to this point, including his cursory courting of Isabella and his mistake in taking Emily instead.
The whole sorry tale, culminating in their trek across the country.
“I could think of nothing else to do,” he finished.
“I am to blame for the whole sorry affair, and this was the only way I could think of to put it right.”
At a sound outside the closed door, Oliver glanced up, and Louisa barged in, Emily following on her heels. Clean, wearing a green morning dress that made her hair gleam as though caught in a sunset, she briefly took his breath away.
“I see Oliver has already told you the pertinent points,” she said as she approached the desk.
Emily came to stand beside him, instinctively moving to the side with his unimpeded arm; he used it to draw her protectively into his side.
He hadn’t lied when he’d said he thought Henry and Emily would come to like each other in time, but he also knew that they could both be prickly when they were first meeting a stranger, or when they felt as though they were being judged.
“Are you all right?” he murmured to her. “Louisa can have a heavy hand when it comes to managing.”
“I heard that,” Louisa said, raising a brow at him. “Don’t mock your elders.”
“She agreed to help us,” Emily whispered, her hand sliding into his. He swiped his thumb across her knuckles.
Henry looked at his wife with mingled exasperation and affection. “You already pledged my help?”
“No.” She touched his shoulder lightly. “I pledged my help. You may do as you please.”
He reached up to take her hand, holding it in his. Then he looked straight at Oliver. “You believe he’s gone to London?”
“He’s escaping Lord Rotherham, who recently went north,” Oliver said, and Henry nodded in understanding. “My guess is he went to his lodgings on St James Street.”
Louisa sighed, shaking her head. “Young men are so very predictable, and so very stupid.”
“Easy enough to find him,” Oliver said. “The problem will be what to do with Isabella once we do.”
“Bring her back to Bolton House,” Louisa said at once. “We have been meaning to go to London in the next few weeks; we can bring our plans forward easily enough.”
“The problem arises with after,” Oliver said. “He may try to besmirch Isabella’s name, and it’s likely Dalston knows at least a little of what she’s been up to. Going home would be . . . difficult.”
“You mean,” Louisa said with a smile, “she needs family members she can retire with until any possible scandal has died down a little?”
“Ideally, there would be no scandal,” Oliver said. “But yes.”
Henry tapped his fingers against the edge of the desk. “I know Rotherham. Not well, but a little. I could speak with him. He is not the sort of man who would let a situation like this go unpunished.”
“My family name holds no weight except in the small part of the country I come from,” Emily said, looking directly at Henry. She didn’t flinch away from his returning look. “There is no one to stand in our defence.”
“Wrong,” Oliver said. “There is us.”
“He’s correct,” Henry said, and something in Oliver’s gut eased at the confirmation of his theory.
Henry would help. They would have the full force of the Eynsham name and wealth behind their cause.
“It would not matter if you were a princess or a pauper; the case remains the same. Lord Marlbury took advantage of a vulnerable girl and ruined her, with full knowledge of his actions and no interest in repentance. Thus, action must be taken. As we are in possession of the details, we should be the ones to do so, and if we can do so with the least injury to the girl’s reputation, so much the better. ”
“We can find someone to take her in,” Louisa said. “For a year or two, at least.”
Emily pressed a hand against her chest. “I know this is a lot to ask, and I understand if it’s not possible.”
“Nonsense,” Lousia said. “Do you think your sister is the first girl to be foolish? No, and she will not be the last. Once she grows out of it, as I’m sure she will, she will be of a mind to find a husband in a more . . . typical manner.”
“Will she?” Emily asked, and Oliver could hear the slight tremor in her voice. “I mean, will she find a husband if she is not—if she is not virtuous?”
Oliver resisted the urge to say Emily had found someone—him—who would take her no matter what her past might be.
“Of course she will,” Louisa assured her. “One way or the other.”
Oliver squeezed Emily’s hand, and she glanced at him, a slight smile springing to her lips.
“It’s settled, then,” Louisa said. “Tomorrow, we will set out for London, and once you’ve retrieved this sister, you can bring her back to us.
Henry will meet with Lord Rotherham, and we will smooth everything over.
There will be no scandal—or at least, none containing a name.
” She rang the bell. “Time for dinner, I think. And a good night’s sleep.
Things will seem better in the morning.” For the first time, she glanced at Oliver’s arm.
“You seem to be bearing the wounds of battle, Oliver.”
“My own foolishness, I assure you.”
Louisa smiled, a little sadly. “Alas, the worst wounds always are.”