Chapter Thirty-Two
“Now there goes a good fellow.” Ophelia’s father nodded toward the door after Trentham had gone.
He stepped away from the mantelpiece and tucked his thumbs into his vest. “Of course, I don’t know the story, but it doesn’t sound as if he is under any obligation to help the young fools.
And maybe he should count himself well out of it. ”
“That’s about the right of it.” Lynch’s broad shoulders drooped. He sounded frustrated. “He’s so dead set on making amends…”
Ophelia’s heart ached. She had doubted him. And he’d seen her doubt.
Never mind that. This needed fixing first. And he couldn’t do it alone.
“Trentham is the wrong one to chase after them. He’s betrothed to Lady Elizabeth. When she and Lord Hayworth see him barreling toward them, they’ll expect the worst. He needs an intermediary.” Her eyes snapped to Dessie, who knew at once her part to play.
“And Lady Elizabeth needs a chaperone. It’s not going to help her reputation if anyone learns she spent the night running around with two men who are fighting over her.”
“Hold on there, girls,” Daddy said. “I see where this is going.”
Lynch started. “No. No, Dess.” His voice was firm and panicked at the same time.
Mr. Cameron let out a low whistle. “The devil of it is, they’re right. If Hayworth takes a swing at Robin”—he paused and gave Lynch a meaningful look—“it could get messy. Messier.”
Dessie said, “Ophelia and I are taking the landau. Lynch, you can come with us, but you can’t stop us. Lady Elizabeth doesn’t deserve this.”
He regarded his wife for a moment with a helpless expression. Ophelia could see him weighing his arguments in his head. Then he made up his mind. “Eli, send that wire to March. I’ll tell Peters to have John ready the carriage.”
Dessie beamed at him before turning to their father. “Sorry, Daddy. We’ll be back by morning. Just make yourselves at home.”
He laughed, a boisterous all-is-right-with-the-world sound that Ophelia had been missing since leaving New York. “Already feels like it.”
*
Lynch’s landau was not as plush as what Ophelia was used to back in New York, but she’d found it comfortable enough when roaming about London.
However, this was not that. The cushioning on the benches was thin.
She felt every bump. And Dessie—seated facing her, next to Lynch—shouldn’t be jostled about so in her condition.
But Dessie was too excited to complain, and Ophelia, too worried.
She could guess what Eli meant by “messier”.
They zipped out of London by way of backstreets and alleyways, then hit a long stretch of road that was open, if poorly maintained.
The air whistling through the gap at the window began to smell of grass instead of coal smoke.
Ophelia no longer questioned whether John dreaded taking her and her sister out for carriage rides.
Clearly, when tasked with speed and purpose, he was in his element.
She’d never been in a carriage moving so fast. She made the mistake of telling Lynch they would surely overtake Trentham, but he laughed. “Don’t lay any wagers on it.”
The first coaching inn was at Weybridge, where they had to exchange their tired team for fresh horses. Ophelia and Dessie visited the necessary, and when they emerged, they saw Lynch talking with the proprietor. He rejoined them at once.
“We missed him by no more than half an hour. I doubt we can catch him, but at least we’re not too far behind.”
“What is the plan if we do catch him?” Ophelia asked.
“The devil if I know.”
Two hours later at Aldershot, the second coaching inn, they’d closed the gap to a quarter hour, according to the grooms in the stable.
“Next is Greatham, and then another hour or so to Southampton,” Lynch said as they set off once more. He spoke quietly, as if to himself. “I hope we can find Robin before he finds them.”
“Do you think Mr. Cameron was right?” Dessie asked. “That Lord Hayworth might resort to fisticuffs?”
“He might.” He grimaced. “The fellow must imagine he’s Lady Elizabeth’s knight in shining armor.”
Ophelia found his expression concerning. Apparently, Dessie did too, from the way she was studying her husband’s face. “Are you worried for Robin or Lord Hayworth?”
“Both.” Lynch groaned. “Robin won’t start anything, but if Hayworth does…” He looked down at the ground. “He’ll regret it. I suppose you know that Robin doesn’t believe in pulling his punches.”
The groom came around the corner of the inn, leading their carriage.
The thread of the conversation was lost, or purposely dropped, as they piled back in.
As they set off, Lynch fussed over Dessie’s comfort, a concern she pooh-poohed.
Then they fell into a conversation about Lord Selbourne.
He was opposed to the new bill, but Lynch believed that a concerted effort by the Married Women’s Property Committee might sway him.
Ophelia cared about the bill passing, but not the details.
She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, but couldn’t sleep.
She was agitated by impatience and boredom, two emotions that should not coexist.
At last, with the sun down and a night-time chill settling in, they stopped at the Greatham coaching inn.
Lynch asked if they needed tea, but they both declined.
They didn’t have time to waste. After they exited the carriage, Lynch called up to John, to be sure he was still up to the task.
Another hour to go. Half-hearing John’s emphatic affirmative, Ophelia went around the landau, taking high-kneed marching steps to awaken her pins-and-needles legs.
Before stepping into the drive, she looked carefully both ways.
She’d almost been run down once, though it wasn’t her fault.
The carriage had come out of nowhere. Now again, a vehicle was rumbling toward her, but this one she saw in time.
She began moving back, until she recognized it as Trentham’s.
She raced toward him, waving her arms in the air. “Wait! Stop!”
Her words were drowned out by the noise of the wheels on the road, the “tiger” Will’s yelp, and the protesting horses as Trentham reined in sharply. She could see the strain in his arms and on his face. “Damn it! Don’t ever run at a moving carriage!”
“I knew you would stop.” She felt breathless even though she hadn’t run fast or far.
“What the devil are you doing here?” He wiped his forearm across his brow. His cravat was loose, wilted, and speckled with dirt. The carriage lamps lent a ghostly hue to his tired face. “You’re following me?”
“Yes. With Lynch and Dessie.”
“Good God,” he muttered. “Must everything be a circus?”
“Lady Elizabeth needs a chaperone.”
“A little late for that.”
The horses whinnied and pawed the ground.
Although they had the somewhat shabby appearance of horses-for-rent, they did not look old or worn-out.
Trentham would no doubt have hired the best available, leaving no better than second best for Lynch.
After finally catching up with him, it would be a shame to fall back behind.
She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see Lynch and Dessie approaching, but they were still hidden by the landau.
“Let me ride with you.”
His mouth twisted into a grimace. “I’m in a hurry. Just tell Lynch that March says they’ve bought passage to France on the Enchanted Girl. They’re sailing at daybreak.”
“I’ll tell him, but wait for me. I’ll come with you. We should talk.”
She shrank under the fierceness of his scowl. “I don’t see the point. If you believe me to be a man capable of abducting an innocent—”
“I know you’re not.”
“Only because the proof was placed before your eyes.”
“You have every right to be angry with me—”
“I’ll be angrier if you don’t move aside.”
How infuriating! He was at fault too! “Trentham, see this from my viewpoint. You kissed me without invitation.” Her throat felt raw. Maybe it was because she was swallowing tears. “Then I heard nothing from you until you insulted me, intentionally, at the Barringtons’ ball.”
“You needn’t rehash my faults. I’ve already apologized for that.”
“I’m not finished. I knew you were courting Lady Elizabeth; everyone knew, yet you continued to flirt with me, culminating in more kisses, after which you walked away again.”
“You walked away.”
“You told me to go. And when you did return, you told me you loved me and would break off with Lady Elizabeth—”
“And you heard what happened!” Trentham’s hands clenched and the skin about his mouth tightened. “Barrington threatened Felicity. Are you so selfish you would rather I let my sister be destroyed?”
“Will you listen! I’m not trying to blame you, I’m trying to make you see what I felt. I waited days for you to come back. I’m always waiting for you to come back! Yes, you had good reason to propose to Lady Elizabeth. I admire the way you support your sister.”
“I don’t support her to win your admiration—”
“But I waited days, with no word from you, doubting you, doubting myself, telling myself not to doubt you, only to hear from Lynch that you were marrying Lady Elizabeth after telling me you wouldn’t!” She relived the pain in the retelling, and now she was mad at him.
“Yes, yes,” he seethed, “we’ve established that I’m a terrible person.”
“It hurt. Dessie and I had to go to her for explanation. And you know what we heard there. In retrospect, we were wrong. But as it unfolded, you certainly looked guilty.”
He flinched. “You shouldn’t have believed it. Lynch didn’t. Eli didn’t.”
“They’ve known you for years. I hardly know you. And you weren’t stealing kisses from—”
“I thought you cared for me.”
She heard pain in his voice, and it surprised her. “I do.”
He shook his head violently. “You can’t. Not if you have no faith in my—my basic goodness. Not if you could believe, for one second—”
“I didn’t believe it! My heart didn’t. But my head couldn’t ignore… Trentham, Lynch and Eli know the truth and they still love you. Why couldn’t you trust me with the truth? Instead, you keep breaking my heart. My head wants to know how many times I’m supposed to let you do it.”
He was looking past her now, over her shoulder. “I don’t have time for this. Move aside! Lynch sees us, and I’m not going to sit here arguing with him. Stand back!”
His anger rocked her back on her heels. She stepped away, and he called to the horses and set his curricle in motion. By the time Lynch reached her side, Trentham was out of yelling distance and about to be swallowed up in darkness.
“That was unnecessarily hurried,” Lynch said, staring after him with a frown. “We might have coordinated our approach. Did he say anything?”
Anything? Only that her heart meant nothing to him. “He said they’ve bought passage to France on the Enchanted Girl. They sail in the morning.”
Lynch grumbled, “So I suppose we will meet him at the wharf.”