Chapter Fifteen
While Lelander knew he was attempting to do the right thing, to do right by Miss Poppy, it was made clear enough that the house took a very dim view of things.
His first clue had been directly after the dinner in which it had been announced that he and Burkhart were going. He entered the drawing room to note that both Miss Poppy and Miss Pansy had gone above stairs with “headaches.”
It was not believable and to confirm it, the viscountess’s looks were such that could freeze a roaring fire.
The lady was straight-backed and her eyes were just the smallest bit narrowed.
She touched the emeralds round her neck as if they were an ancient relic capable of delivering a hex to her enemies.
She was positively frightening to everybody but for the viscount, who happily settled into his chair and allowed his eyes to close.
Lelander had hoped to spend time with Miss Poppy and drop enough hints that she might believe he wished to come back without him outright promising it. Or at least make it clear that he did not wish to leave, even though he went.
He’d joined Burkhart at the Patinir. As they stared at it as if it were the most interesting landscape in the world, he softly said, “I am not sure this is a very good idea. The viscountess is furious. Should we tell her of our plan?”
“Let the viscount do it. I am certain he will after we’ve gone. She will see the need to keep things quiet.”
Lelander had nodded, though he was not sure he agreed wholeheartedly. However, it did seem as if they were in too deep at this point. There was nothing to do but go forward and then explain themselves when they returned.
The second clue that they were condemned had been their departure from the house.
Nobody was there to see them off, the butler had arranged for a dreadful breakfast meant to communicate his view, and then Teddy and Bertie and set up a trap of marbles on the outside step to ensure they left the house muddied and bruised.
This was, apparently, sanctioned by Smuckers, though he claimed he would have only done it if he’d thought of it.
Then Smuckers had gleefully informed his valet that his employer was splayed on the drive, and then, in a very snide tone, he’d said, “Bon voyage.”
Lelander had tried to warn Meegan about the marbles, but he and Smith, and their trunks, had fallen victim too.
There could not have been a more humiliating departure from a house. Lelander prayed the viscount would inform his viscountess of the real state of things at the earliest moment. He dared not even imagine what the ladies thought.
After they’d set off, both he and Burkhart had made good time. There had been the one night when they’d stayed at the same inn, on account of Burkhart encountering some delays on the road. It was a small inn and they’d been forced to share a table in the cramped dining room.
They’d not had much to say to one another, but they had at least established that they were to trade news of their progress via letter, using disguised names.
Burkhart’s earl would not think anything of noting a letter delivered from Hemmings, and Lelander’s father would not blink over a letter from Smythesdon.
It would really be them communicating where they stood with pressuring their fathers into signing the peace treaty.
If an emergency cropped up, they had arranged a meeting location in the local wood that stood between their two estates.
If it came to it, they would coordinate leaving their houses on the same day to allegedly find employment and live as they might, away from their families.
If it really came to it, Lelander planned to make threats, such as, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll meet an actress in Manchester and marry her. After all, I’ll need to find a lady with an income of some sort. My laborer wages will not be enough to sustain me.”
Dramatic, yes. But he might need to go that far.
He was absolutely willing to go that far, and further if he could think of something even more distressing to his father.
He did not wish to cause the old gentleman distress, he was very fond of him in fact, but he must be pressured to agree to the peace treaty.
He reached the house late last night, urging his coachman to make a final push rather than stop for the night.
It was perhaps ill-advised, as once they’d passed the last inn and were driving through dark roads, they were on the alert for highwaymen at every turn.
Lelander had his pistol loaded, as did his coachman.
He leaned out the window in an attempt to see ahead, and then look behind to see if they were followed.
Meegan would have fanned himself had he a fan in hand.
Instead, he just kept quietly whispering, “I will need a brandy after this.” Fortunately, they did not encounter trouble.
Meegan speculated that they’d not found trouble as no highwayman would imagine anybody would be so daft as to be on these lonely small roads in the dark.
At daybreak, he was awake and dressed early, despite Meegan complaining about it. His valet now knew what he was attempting to accomplish, though he was not fully confident of the plan. Or as Meegan had termed it, “It seems a bit harebrained to me.”
Now, Lelander hurried down to the breakfast room. It was time to introduce the viscount to the peace treaty.
“There you are,” his father said, “I was surprised when Summersby said you came in last night. We had not expected you back so early. Nobody of interest in Oxfordshire, I suppose. Well, we did have hopes in that direction.”
“Actually,” Lelander said, “there is someone of interest there. Her name is Miss Poppy Granger. Viscount Mulholland’s youngest daughter. She is comely, genial, and comes with ten thousand.”
The viscount dropped his newspaper and the corner dipped into his tea. “She sounds smashing!”
“She is positively smashing on every conceivable point.”
“And you have asked the question? Am I to hear from the viscount’s solicitor?”
“Uh, as to that,” Lelander said, “there is a small complication.”
“What is it? Is she lame? Bespectacled? Consumptive? Too big? Too small? Freckled? Strange hair? Bad teeth?”
Before the viscount could name every single quality that might concern him, Lelander said, “She is a twin.”
The viscount shrugged. “Twins are deuced odd, there’s no getting round it.
It’s unsettling to see a person, and then another person who seems to be the original person.
It’s like there is one person being two in places at once.
But who cares for that now? It’s not as if you will marry both of them. ”
“No, I will not wed her sister. Pansy Granger is her name. But Burkhart intends to.”
“Burkhart? How on earth did he even meet this twin? Was the lady in Yorkshire?”
“No,” Lelander said slowly, as this would be the first piece of information that would set his father off. “She was at Chemsworth Hall too. Burkhart was at Chemsworth.”
The viscount fished the corner of his newspaper out of his tea and gulped it. “Are you saying you lived in a house with Burkhart? A Lancashire man was forced to socialize with a Yorkshireman? Whose diabolical plot was that?”
“It was not a plot,” Lelander said. “The gentlemen who invited us did not realize that Barrowford and Barnoldswick are in different counties. They thought Barrowford was in Yorkshire.”
“As if we would ever allow ourselves to be located in such a county,” the viscount said derisively.
“I’d lay down my life to prevent it. Well, I hope you gave Burkhart a proper Lancastrian dressing down.
The fellow is such a clod, he’d hardly be capable of keeping up his end of a game of hurling insults. ”
Lelander winced just a bit. The clod moniker had been one he had himself introduced.
He had, on occasion, related a story that was not entirely built on facts, in an effort a amuse his father.
Perhaps he’d passed Burkhart on the road and they had glared at one another.
And then perhaps afterward, in telling the story, he’d added some clever bon mot that Burkhart had not been able to answer. Because he had never heard it.
Lelander did not attempt to undo what had been said in the past. They were veering away from the subject at hand and needed to get back to it. “As I mentioned, Miss Poppy Granger is a twin. Her sister, Miss Pansy Granger is of great interest to Burkhart.”
“Hrumph. I suppose we do not need to concern ourselves with whatever goes on in Yorkshire, though it be just miles away.”
“Yes, but the thing with twins is—”
“I know! They are unsettling, like seeing a ghost, but what can we do about it?”
“No, the thing about twins is…they will not be separated. At least not separated permanently. They must be able to see one another whenever they wish. Which leads me to the peace treaty.”
The viscount took in his words. Then his cheeks puffed in and out and grew red. Then he shouted, “The peace what?”
Poppy and her sister had woken on that first terrible morning, slumped in their chairs, the empty decanter of sherry staring accusingly at them.
It was the first time in their lives that they had overindulged, and it would be the last. Poppy could not understand why anybody would do such a thing twice.
Their heads pounded, their mouths were dry, their stomachs were sour, their eyes hurt, their necks were sore from sleeping in chairs, and all in all they were wretched.
The misery of too much sherry was compounded by the misery of their hearts. The gentlemen were to leave that morning.
As they had woken just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, they were determined to watch them go.