Reluctant Bride (21 page)

 “I shall give you the same answer,” Edmund replied. “As soon as Lizzie will countenance.”

Their questioning gaze turned to me, awaiting my decision. “We have not discussed the date yet,” I said.

“Don’t wait too long,” Weston urged. “You’re getting on, my girl.” He seemed to have forgotten he had not married himself till he was an old man. “Sir Edmund is no longer a stripling either, if you won’t take my saying so amiss.

“Better late than never,” Edmund smiled lazily.

The company did not remain long after dinner. I felt happy to see them leave together, laughing and talking in perfect harmony, with the future shining brightly before them.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” Maisie grumped. “You’ve done Jeremy out of his inheritance, and lost out on the sale of that dashed old necklace into the bargain. I for one am coming to hate the sight of it.”

“I feel just the opposite. I am more fond of it,” I answered.

“Let’s have a look at the alleged necklace,” Edmund said, holding out his hand.

I took it from my pocket and gave it to him. He observed it silently. “Put it on,” he ordered.

In the excitement of our afternoon and evening, we had not dressed for dinner. The jewel did not show to good advantage on a muslin gown, cut too high at the neck to do it justice. I went to the mirror, folded back my collar, and modeled the piece for them. The flickering lamplight made my image dark. The queen was back, her red crown sitting proudly. It quite took me back to that evening at Westgate, when I had seen her in the dining room mirror. It had been a strangely upsetting evening. It was Maisie’s telling me about her crush on Beattie that had lent it an emotional tinge. That, and her wondering if I ever planned to wed. As I stood, looking and remembering, Edmund’s head loomed up behind me in the mirror.

“Aren’t you going to let us have a look?” he asked. We stood, looking at each other in the mirror.

“I’ve seen it a million times. I’m for bed,” Maisie said, still in her disgruntled mood. “Goodnight to both of you. Don’t be late, Lizzie. We’ll be leaving tomorrow, I suppose?” she asked Blount.

He did not answer immediately. “We’ll see. Goodnight, Maisie.”

She limped from the room, grumbling to herself. “What’s got into her?” he asked.

“The new closeness between Cummings and Weston. Not a hope for Jeremy now.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“I came to terms with it long ago.”

He nodded, hardly paying attention to my answer, to judge by the faraway look in his eyes. “Are you in a hurry to get home?” he asked.

“I should be getting back. You have mentioned more than once you must too.”

I was not actually in so great a hurry I would not have objected to a few days gallivanting in the city. “I have an excellent steward,” he said. “You, I know, are not so fortunate in that respect.”

“No, I certainly am not.”

“I was thinking—tell me if you dislike it. I could stop off a day or two at Westgate and look the place over for you. Perhaps recommend some improvements to your operation. I don’t mean to boast, but my farm is considered one of the more outstanding in the neighborhood. I told your uncle I would see to hiring a new steward for you. I would be perfectly willing to do it.”

“That is an untoward imposition on your time and goodwill,” I replied, disappointed at his reason for visiting us.

“Yes but imposing on my time and humor have not prevented you from taking advantage of me in the past,” he pointed out.

“Kind of you to offer, but it is not necessary. We’ll manage.”

“As you like,” he said at once, his face assuming a stiff-as-starch look. “There is nothing more to be said then, is there?” was his next indifferent statement, with a quick look towards the head-and-shoulders clock. “Eleven o’clock already. I expect you are eager to get to bed.”

“I was about to suggest it,” I was obliged to reply.

“I shall say good evening to you now. As we are leaving tomorrow, I plan to have a night on the town. I hope you will sleep well.”

He walked swiftly from the room, mounted the stairs two or three at a time in his haste to get into proper clothing for seducing members of the muslin company. That was his reason for going out. I knew it, and believe he told me his plans on purpose to upset me.

I waited till I heard his bedroom door slam before leaving the saloon and going to my own room.

It was no queen who glared back at me from my mirror, but a thoroughly annoyed spinster. I wrenched so hard at my necklace I bruised my neck.

Chapter 17

It was difficult to judge by Blount’s glowering face across from us at the breakfast table whether his outing had been successful or not. It could have been simple fatigue that lent that sullen line to his mouth and kindling spark to his eyes, or it could have been frustration.

“I hope you ladies enjoyed a good night’s rest,” he said, making an effort at civility for my aunt’s sake. Had we been alone, I don’t believe he would have bothered to even nod.

“I slept like a top,” I assured him.

“I didn’t. It’s hard to sleep in a strange bed,” Maisie said. “I’ll be happy to get home. Have you decided when we are to leave, Edmund?”

“As soon as we have returned from Bow Street.”

“Good. God only knows what Berrigan has destroyed in our absence. At least there’s nothing left for him to cut down. You must replace him as soon as we are home, Lizzie.”

This speech set Edmund to scowling harder than ever. I interpreted his accusing stare as disapproval of my not accepting his offer to perform this chore for us. “Try if you can find someone who realizes infected cattle are not to be sold,” was his cheerful comment.

“For God’s sake eat your raw meat, before you bite our heads off,” I snipped back.

“I do not feel like eating today. I shall have a cup of coffee.”

While we, Maisie and I, picked at our breakfast and Edmund took an occasional sip of his drink, there was a knock at the door. I expected it would be Weston and Glandower. I could not imagine what was afoot when Jeremy was shown in.

“What on earth brings
you
here?” I demanded.

“I learned from Aunt Maisie where you were staying,” he answered, with a challenging look towards Edmund.

“This is my brother,” I told our host. He nodded, with very little interest.

“I wrote him of our adventure,” Maisie explained. “Gracious, I didn’t expect you to come all the way to London, Jeremy. That was not necessary.”

“I am surprised you did bother to come,” I added, as I was cross with Edmund, and felt like taking it out on someone.

“When my sister is run off the road and injured by a ‘gentleman,’ when her diamond necklace mysteriously disappears while in his company, and most particularly when I hear she is
masquerading
as his fiancée, though he has no notion of marrying her, I feel it is time I come,” was his haughty reply, accompanied by a hard stare at Edmund, who looked back with his jaw dropped open.

“Well, if this doesn’t beat all the rest!” Blount exclaimed, his voice high with incredulity.

“I would like to have a word with you in private, sir,” Jeremy continued, acting the noble protector. I wanted to throw my plate of bacon in his face.

“Don’t be such a peagoose,” Maisie told him. “Sir Edmund has been very helpful to us.”

“Why are you staying at this house, a bachelor’s establishment?” Jeremy demanded, fixing me with a suspicious eye.

“Because thanks to your incompetent management of Westgate, we cannot afford an hotel!”

While we shouted at each other, Edmund slammed down his cup and rose slowly up from the table, leveling a baleful look at my brother. I envisaged a duel. Something in the way they glared at each other put the image in my head.

“Come into my study,” Edmund said in a cold voice. It was not an invitation, but a command.

Fearful of what might pass, I hopped up and followed them, despite Maisie’s hands grabbing at my skirt to hold me back. “Jeremy, don’t be a fool!” I said as we went. “Edmund has been extremely kind, very helpful to us. It is his doing that we got my necklace back.”

“It was
his
doing that you lost it,” my foolish brother countered.

“If you’re looking for a fight, boy, you’ve got it,” Edmund told him, closing the door rather hard behind him. “This is the second intimation I have had from the Braden family that I am a thief. One cannot call out a
lady;
a gentleman is not so protected.”

“Apologize
at once,
Jeremy!” I ordered.

“What about the necklace?” he asked, looking with uncertainty from me to Edmund, but mostly at the murderous expression in Blount’s eyes.

“I have got it back. Sir Edmund had nothing to do with its disappearance.”

“What of the phony engagement?” he persisted mulishly, but in a less arrogant manner.

“That is irrelevant—a ruse we dreamed up between us to take Edmund to Rusholme. No one will hear of it.”

“You shouldn’t have been selling the necklace in any case, Lizzie,” he said, deciding I was a more vulnerable opponent.

Edmund was already simmering; this question took him beyond the point of restraining his tongue. “As questions are the order of the day, Mr. Braden, let me pose you a few. How does it come you place the burden of running a derelict old heap of a farm on two ladies? Your mismanagement has done the dairy business more harm than the plague. I personally suffered the loss of two dozen prime milchers, and know folks who were damned near wiped out. Your sister was kind enough to undertake selling her inheritance to pull
you
out of the suds, and
you
have the insufferable gall to upbraid her for it. My great crime in the affair was to be sideswiped by your sister’s carriage. As a consequence, I have been accused of common thievery, involved in brawls, arrested for assault, bitten by a dog, missed my brother’s wedding, spent several days and a considerable amount of money trying to find the damned necklace. I have been reduced to gambling with criminals, having my own property stolen and must now go to Bow Street to try if I can to clear the matter up. If you have something to say of your sister’s spending a few nights under my roof, with her aunt as chaperone, pray say it now, and have done. You may be sure you will be called to good account for it. If
you
have no more sense than to accuse your own sister of improper conduct, you are not worth killing, but by God it will give me satisfaction to knock your teeth down your throat.”

He looked ready to do it. His fingers were already curled into fists. Jeremy swallowed a couple of times and began backtracking. “What was I to think when Maisie told me about the accident and Lizzie having her diamonds stolen?”

“If you had any common decency, you would think how you might help her!” Edmund answered swiftly, angrily.

“That is exactly what I
am
thinking!”

“It is of no help coming here and creating a scene!” I told him.

“I don’t mean that! I am going to sell Westgate, Lizzie. My mind is made up.
I
don’t want it. I will be taking a post at Oxford when I graduate, and mean to remain there permanently. The farm is nothing but a nuisance to me. I’ll sell it. With the mortgage paid off, there will still be enough to buy a small cottage near the university, or I can live there.”

“What about Maisie and me?” I asked, nonplussed at this turn, though selfishness from my younger brother was no new thing.

“You two women can’t run the farm,” he pointed out. “You already proved that.”

“Let him sell it,” Edmund advised. “The best news I have heard all year. Let someone who knows what he is about take it over. A mismanaged estate is the worst nuisance imaginable.”

“But where will Maisie and I go?”

“Accept Beattie’s offer,” Jeremy suggested. “Or if you don’t like him, marry someone else.”

I was not about to reveal the lack of suitors to my host. “We’ll discuss this later,” I said quickly. “You might have told us your plans, Jeremy. It is of some interest to us, you know, to learn we are about to lose our home.”

“Uncle Weston would be happy to have you at Rusholme,” was his next suggestion. He had not yet heard of Glandower’s plan to deliver a new mistress to that establishment, nor would he have seen any difficulty in three mistresses, if it came to that.

I accepted this home, in theory, to terminate the highly unpleasant conversation. “Uncle Weston is in town,” I mentioned. “He will be here shortly, to go with us to Bow Street. We can talk later.”

“I still have a great deal to say to you,” Edmund warned him. “You also have something to say to me. I have not heard any apology.”

My brother looked more confused than apologetic when Blount stalked from the room, leaving us alone.

I had not the least desire to come to cuffs with Jeremy at this time. I wanted more than five minutes to ring a peal over him, and Weston would be here within that space of time. “I hope you’re satisfied!” was all I said, before bolting out the door after Edmund. He did not bother to follow. Already his eyes had strayed to some bookshelves along the wall.

When I reached the dining room, Edmund was laughing with Maisie, restored to good humor by some magical means. Maisie inquired after my brother. “He's in the study, and I hope he stays there. He is selling the house on us, Auntie.”

“I know. Edmund just told me.”

“I am surprised it has put you in such good humor.”

“It is the best thing could happen to us,” she replied. “Edmund suggested old Beattie might be glad to get it back. It used to be part of his estate, you know, and he could well afford to buy it if he wanted.”

“He never mentioned wanting it,” I reminded her.

“Not in words, but you must remember we have more than once wondered if his offering for you was not because he thought the house was in your name. You said so yourself.”

“I don’t remember anything of the sort! Of course he knows it is in Jeremy’s name.”

“Edmund thinks the best thing is to go home and not let Beattie know we are eager to sell,” she outlined. “He has an excellent plan, as he always has,” she added, with an approving smile at her new protégé. “He says . . .”