Chapter Sixteen #2
Adrian pulled the cloaked hood from his head, his expression morose. “I don’t wish to appear rude. Obviously I am indebted to you for life. However, I must ask—have we ever met before?”
The earl’s dark brown eyes lit up. “Speaking as one scoundrel to another—does it really matter?”
Adrian grunted and glanced out the carriage window. Jane stood on the sidewalk, a satisfied smile on her face. A tall man emerged from the house. He could not tell which of the Boscastle brothers it was. But one thing was certain, the devious Jane would undoubtedly keep him at bay.
And tomorrow there would be the devil to pay.
Heath stood behind his sister-in-law Jane, both of them watching the carriage bowl away into the night.
A horrible suspicion entered his mind. What had he just witnessed?
An escape? It wasn’t possible. At length, Jane turned to him, sighing deeply.
“It’s late, isn’t it? I should be putting my son to bed. Is Grayson with Drake?”
Heath stared at the receding carriage. A reluctant smile flitted across his face. “As far as I know he is still upstairs.”
Jane glanced up at him, a remarkably convincing actress. “Upstairs? Doing what? I thought you held your male cabals in your study.”
An amused female voice called out behind them. “What have I missed that you two are whispering together?”
Heath pivoted. His heart never failed to lift at his wife’s presence. Even if, as he was beginning to suspect, Julia and the other ladies of the family had outfoxed him.
He shook his head. No. It couldn’t be, but—“Where is Aunt Hermia?”
Julia came down the steps and laid her head on his shoulder. “She’s still upstairs with Emma, I think.”
“But Devon said—who just left in Odham’s coach?”
Jane sailed past him back to the house. “Odham, of course. I shouldn’t think you would need to ask.”
Heath’s mouth tightened. “But I thought that Hermia—”
Julia drew away from him with a frown. “Hermia is with Emma, Heath. If you are worried about her, I’m sure she would not mind reassuring you that she is in good health, although I understand that her throat hurt earlier in the evening.”
“I see,” Heath murmured.
He walked slowly back into his house, then up the stairs to the hall to come to stand at the closed door of Emma’s suite. It was there, a minute or so later, that his brother Grayson found him.
“I say we storm her room,” Grayson said, his fist raised to the door. “This has gone on long enough. Wolverton cannot hide in there forever.”
Heath shook his head. A wise man knew when to lay down his hand. “Be my guest, Grayson. I would prefer, however, that you not break the door.”
Grayson pounded on the door.
It was Emma who answered, her brow furrowed in agitation. “Grayson,” she said in annoyance, “whatever is the matter that you are making such an ungodly noise? Is someone ill?”
He pushed around her into the room. “Why doesn’t Adrian come out of hiding and answer that question himself? Is he in your closet?”
She looked affronted. “Grayson Boscastle. I absolutely forbid you to take another step.”
He froze, such was the power of her command. “I do not blame you, Emma,” he said after a moment. “Wolverton is an alluring man. Duke’s heir or not, however, he will be made to—”
He paused, took a breath, and opened the closet door only to rear back in alarm at the indignant shriek that met his assault.
“Oh, my heavens. Oh, God almighty, Hermia—I had no idea. I had no—”
Lady Dalrymple stood before him, unwigged, her hands on her hips, her ample bosom quivering in its multitude of wrinkles. “I do hope you have an explanation for this violation, Sedgecroft.”
Grayson stood in stone-faced shock, unable to utter a word in his own defense, until Heath, laughing, pulled him aside. “It’s over.”
“What the devil do you mean?” Grayson demanded, stumbling back out into the hall.
“We have been trounced,” Heath said with a rueful grin. “It is time to beat a retreat.”
“Did you find him?” Devon called up from the entrance hall below.
Hamm’s gravelly voice resounded behind him. “Lord Wolverton has not passed through the front doors, my lords. I have stayed at my post as you requested. There is no possible way that he has escaped our guard.”
Grayson turned to Heath with an irate expression. “Are you absolutely certain that Wolf was here in the first place?”
Heath shook his head. “I should have known,” he muttered in admiration. “I did know.”
Grayson looked at him in disgust. “Then why didn’t you take appropriate action?”
Heath smiled.
Emma had stayed awake all night, or what remained of it, whispering about her secret engagement to Adrian with her conspirators Chloe, Julia, Charlotte, and Aunt Hermia.
Now that she had accepted Adrian’s proposal, and had admitted to herself what was in her heart, she saw no reason not to share her delight.
In a decorous manner befitting a future duchess, it was to be hoped, and if her dignity had slipped—then so be it. She and Adrian had a life ahead of them during which to make amends.
“The girls will have to learn to address you as ‘your grace,’” Charlotte said, stretched across Emma’s bed with a dreamy expression and a glass of champagne in her hand.
Jane’s footman, Weed, had delivered four bottles of Grayson’s prized Dom Pérignon less than an hour after the marchioness returned home from her successful escapade in the name of amour.
Chloe had expertly unpopped the cork barks to toast her older sister with the sparkling wine made famous by a humble Benedictine monk, whose profits he donated to the poor.
“It gives being in one’s cups a charitable aspect,” Chloe announced with glee.
Emma’s eyes brightened. “Then drink up, all!”
“To the Boscastles and their friends!” Hermia said stoutly.
“How do we tell the girls about your engagement, Emma?” Charlotte asked softly.
Emma stared down into her glass. “I’m not quite sure. I do know that I cannot simply abandon the academy without a backward glance.”
“Why the devil not?” Hermia wondered aloud, her voice faintly slurred. “I never knew as much contentment in my life as when I gave in to impulse. There. I have said it. My secret is revealed. The world beware. I am a dangerous woman.”
“Only to handsome young men who resemble Greek gods,” Charlotte said unthinkingly.
Her niece Julia burst into laughter, and it was not long before the other ladies followed suit. Emma slid off the chaise in alarm. “Ladies, please. We must—we must—”
“—drink more champagne,” said Chloe, lifting the bulbous-necked bottle into the air.
“Oh, Emma, Emma, who would have guessed you were capable of honoring our ancestry? I swear I shall go to my grave with a smile on my face. Adrian is the most adorable rogue, and now he shall be my brother-inlaw. Our family infamy lives on, and I am not at all ashamed.”
Soon they subsided into weary silence. Charlotte picked up her shoes, kissed Emma, and left to check on the other girls and seek her bed.
Hermia fell asleep on the chaise. Julia covered her with a warm counterpane and tiptoed through the house to join her husband for what remained of the night.
Emma and her little sister Chloe snuggled in bed together as they had often done in childhood.
In joyful times, and in sad, Emma had gladly mothered her wild siblings.
And now they would have to manage without her. But could she let go of them?
Chloe rested her head on Emma’s shoulder. “If I gave in to my wicked impulses, I would cast up all those occasions during which you lectured us on—”
“Do not turn wicked,” Emma said sternly, then softened the effect of this admonishment with a sigh. “Not when I am so thoroughly chastising myself and—bubbling over with happiness.”
“Then nothing shall spoil it,” Chloe whispered. “Live, Emma, enjoy life.”
Emma sighed again, smiling at the memory of Adrian escaping her room in Hermia’s wig and cloak.
What if her brothers had caught him? What if one of her students had awakened in the midst of his gamble?
It was sobering enough to consider what would become of the academy once her betrothal was announced.
But if Emma understood the hypocrisy of the Polite World, the scandal of her secret affair would fade away in forgotten notoriety once it was realized that she would one day become a duchess. And be with the man she loved into the bargain.