Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Georg was in a foul mood.
The next time he put his eyes on Lady Evangeline Stafford-Hill, he would surely throttle her. He had never met a woman who was as infuriatingly obstinate, charmingly duplicitous, courageously enterprising and strategically scheming as Lady Evie.
It had been clear to him that she had not wanted him to accompany them to Vienna. In all likelihood that was because arriving together would unmask her immediately, and she would be unable to maintain her false identity.
Fair enough.
He’d expected her to argue, but she had not.
Instead, she’d quietly packed her belongings and left while he was at the other end of his estate, meeting a rider who came with the bad news that his agent had been killed. He hadn’t returned until late that night, when he’d learned that Lady Evie and Miss Honeywell had long since departed.
He had then made a crucial strategic error, which was unforgivable in a field marshal. He had assumed she would stop at the first inn for the night, and that he would be able to catch up with her there without difficulty.
She had not.
She had passed that inn entirely and stopped at another, farther along the road, in a piece of tactical foresight that he ought to have anticipated and had not. It simply had not occurred to him to check a second inn. He had assumed they had pushed on through to Vienna.
Realising he had missed her, he rode hard and arrived in Vienna ahead of her.
The footman who received him at the townhouse informed him that the duke and his family had left for a ball that evening.
Here he made his second mistake.
He assumed the family in question meant Lady Evie. It did not, of course. It meant the duchess.
And so, like the perfect fool he was, he went to the ball.
Where Lady Evie was most definitively not.
Lady Evie, entirely at her leisure, had arrived in Vienna while he was busy searching ballroom after ballroom for a woman who was at that precise moment climbing the stairs of her brother’s townhouse in a rumpled travelling dress.
It was, Georg reflected, enough to make a grown man weep.
He’d returned to his own mansion, not far from the ball, and downed more than one brandy in frustration.
The next morning, Aldingbourne summoned him.
He had a distinct feeling that the situation was about to deteriorate further.
Julius’s smile, indeed, was several degrees frostier than it had been the evening before, when they’d met at the ball, and he had been truly happy to see his old friend. But that was before he’d learned that Evie had run away—from him.
He made a formal gesture towards the leather sofa. “Do have a seat.”
That alone was ominous, for Julius himself remained standing, which gave him a distinct strategic advantage in looking down at Georg. Julius never invited him to sit unless he wanted to give him a piece of his mind.
“So, it appears you and Evie have finally met.” Julius got straight to the point.
Georg sighed. “Indeed.” He wondered how much she’d told her brother, and whether she’d kept her charade as Miss Honeywell a secret too. He’d have to test the waters carefully.
Julius’s stare of steel-grey eyes was rather unnerving. “I am afraid I have bad news, my friend.”
Ah. Why was he not surprised?
“I have talked to Evie and she insists she wants to call off the engagement. She has never been so forceful about anything before. I did not even know she’d set off to meet you. What the devil happened between you two?”
Where to begin? Georg shrugged. “I do not appear to be her type.”
“Nonsense.” Julius finally sat. “Of course you are her type. There isn’t a man better suited to her than you. She merely needs more time to get to know you better.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “I am gratified by your faith in me, my friend, but your sister appears to see things differently. As I am sure she must have told you, we met rather by coincidence at an inn. Her companion fell ill with the measles, so I had your sister’s party removed to Wolfsthal to give Miss Honeywell time to recover.
We had some, how shall I put it, differences of opinion.
” That was rather understating the matter.
“After Miss Honeywell’s recovery, your sister decided to set off on her own.
I had every intention of accompanying her back to Vienna.
” Georg shrugged. “I have not seen her since but am glad to hear she arrived safely.”
Julius frowned. “This doesn’t sound like Evie, to take advantage of a person’s hospitality and then abscond like that. She was raised with better manners than that. Nor is it like her to break things off so suddenly after having waited so faithfully all these years. There must be more to it.”
Georg shrugged. “If Lady Evie did not tell you herself, there is not much I can add to the story, I’m afraid.”
Julius looked at him sharply. “Never tell me you tried to order her about as though she were one of your soldiers?”
A flush of warmth crept up his neck. “Grant me enough sense to tell the difference between my men and the woman I am to marry. If I was, perhaps, more assertive with her than I usually am with the fair sex, it was solely out of concern for her safety.”
“In short: you did precisely that.” Julius rubbed his left eyebrow, a sure sign that he was exasperated.
Georg opened his mouth to protest, but Julius cut him off.
“You can’t handle Evie like that. She won’t have it. She is not like other women. Which is precisely why I believed you two would suit each other. Don’t tell me you have bungled it.”
He had bungled it, hadn’t he?
Seeing him hesitate, Julius sighed. “If Evie insists she won’t go through with it, I won’t force her. It is a promise I made to her. Sorry, old chap. I’ll have to call it off. I value you and Evie too much to force you into a union you both seem to resent.”
That declaration should have filled him with relief. He found it rather odd that it did not.
“I don’t resent it. Really.”
Julius gave him a long look. “But neither were you as excited about it as you ought to have been.”
That statement was nearer the truth. “And what about Lady Evie’s reputation? Calling off the engagement will not reflect well on her.”
“The betrothal was never formally announced, never appeared in the papers, and we can simply allow it to quietly dissolve without any public declaration. Since this was more of a personal agreement between us, there were not many people who knew about it. I daresay no one at court has been informed, either.”
It was true. He’d never mentioned the agreement to anyone.
The official announcement in a fortnight would have obliged him to do so beforehand, to formalise it, and introduce Evie officially at court.
He had been putting it off rather conveniently, telling himself he’d forgotten about it. Which, truth be told, he had.
Given his atrocious treatment of Lady Evie, and the clear undertone of reproach in Julius’s voice, he supposed it would be the gracious move to accept that it was over.
He scratched his neck.
Then why did he not want to do precisely that?