Chapter 28

CHAPTER28

Aglorious morning, brimming with excitement and anticipation, was quickly turning into something of a nightmare. Emma kept pulling her father’s pocket-watch out of his pocket to check the time, every passing minute leaving her in a greater state of dread. She was late. Very late.

“How can this be so?” she muttered for the fiftieth time. “We left not ten minutes after everyone else! Is everyone else late too? Did Augusta give us the wrong time? Goodness, there must be no one at the church other than gentlemen.”

Emma’s father, James, looked as perplexed as she felt. “It is peculiar. I kept telling your mother that I wished to ride the journey myself a few days ago, just to learn the route, but she said I was being foolish. Well, who is foolish now?”

“You should not have insisted on us departing at different times,” Emma lamented.

James shot her a stern look. “You are blaming me? We might have left but two minutes after everyone else if you had not insisted on taking that furry nuisance back to the manor first. He would have been perfectly safe at the dowager house.”

“He would not,” Emma argued. “He would have been alone. All of the servants had already returned to the manor proper, and someone has to take care of him. I would do it myself, but you insisted that I could not bring him to my wedding, even though I fashioned that lovely little cravat and tailcoat for him.”

Her father rolled his eyes. “You cannot dress a dog in human clothing, Emma. Mercy, it is at moments like this that I wonder why the duke is so eager to marry you.”

“He liked the cravat and tailcoat,” Emma muttered, checking her father’s pocket-watch again. It was edging closer to midday. She was an hour-and-a-half late. “He is going to think I am not coming, Father.”

James glanced at her haughtily. “And whose fault is that?”

“Father, not now. I mean it. I desperately wish to marry this man, and… he is going to think I have jilted him,” she urged, her voice cracking. “Oh, this is terrible. This is terrible, Father! What can I do?”

Her father’s expression softened. “I shall tend to it. Indeed, I cannot profess to know this part of the world well, but I am certain we have taken a wrong turn somewhere. That is the trouble with using other men’s carriages—my driver would not have made such a mistake.”

True to his word, he thumped hard on the side of the carriage to let the driver know he wished to halt.

A few seconds passed, but the carriage did not slow. Wearing a puzzled expression, Emma’s father thudded harder on the side of the carriage, and when it was ignored again, he pounded his fists against the interior like a man possessed.

“About time,” James muttered, as the carriage finally slowed, pulling to a standstill at the side of a winding country road.

The door opened, revealing the driver, half-swamped by a coachman’s coat that looked to be two sizes too big. He was younger than Emma had expected. Younger than she remembered, in truth, though she had not paid much attention to who sat upon the box when she had entered the carriage, outside the dowager house.

“What is going on here?” her father asked curtly. “Evidently, we have taken a wrong turn, and you have done nothing to remedy it. You appear to be taking us further and further away from the church.”

“We are almost there,” the driver replied, refusing to raise his eyes to James’ irate glare.

Just then, the carriage rocked… as if there was someone else seated on the driver’s box, clambering down. Emma sat up straighter, a chill prickling down her spine. There should not have been another person.

“That is simply not good enough,” her father shot back. “We cannot almost be there for we have not turned around once, nor have we changed direction. I have been traveling in carriages for five decades; I know when I am not being taken where I wish to go. Turn this carriage around immediately, or I shall get up on the box myself and take the reins myself!”

The driver glanced sheepishly to the left, as footfalls edged closer to the open carriage door.

“Father,” Emma whispered. “Close the door. Bolt it.”

He looked at her as if she was quite mad. “I will do no such thing until I⁠—”

A second figure darted forward, bringing down what appeared to be a wooden cane on James’ head. Emma’s father slumped forward, and as he tipped toward the open door, she tried to grab him and pull him farther in. At the same moment, the one who had struck him seized her father by the scruff of his tailcoat and hauled him bodily out of the carriage.

Emma stood no chance, flinching as she heard her father’s unconscious body thud onto the sunbaked ground.

“He was getting on my nerves,” the second figure sneered, by way of explanation.

Emma’s eyes widened as she took in the man’s face for the first time. She knew him. Had seen him around Hudson Manor every day for the past few weeks, feeling his disapproving glare every time she dared to ask for something, as if her very presence was a great burden to him.

“Mr. Goldsmith?” she hissed at the butler. “What, pray tell, do you think you are doing?”

Mr. Goldsmith smiled. “Taking you to your wedding, of course.”

Emma lunged for the open doorway. She spied a narrow gap in the hedgerow just ahead of where the carriage had halted. It would ruin her gown to squeeze through it, but that was the least of her concerns. She needed to reach Silas, she needed to summon help, and if she was to have any hope of making this right, she had to get as far from these two men as possible. Questions could wait.

“Now, now, there is no need for that.” Mr. Goldsmith grabbed her and threw her back into the carriage.

Bracing her hands against the squabs, she lurched forward again, undeterred. As she did, she wrenched at her necklace, ripping it away from her neck. It was a thin, dainty necklace, and she prayed that when it fell, neither of the two men would notice it on the ground beside her father. Although, being so far from where she was meant to be, she did not have much hope that it would be found.

“If you do not behave, I will have to give you the same treatment I gave your father,” Mr. Goldsmith snarled, catching her and throwing her back into the carriage for a second time.

Panting hard, her heart in her throat, Emma glowered at the wretched butler. “Why are you doing this? Silas is your master. It is your duty to take me to him.”

“Silas is not my master,” Mr. Goldsmith replied drily. “And you shall never be my mistress.”

He slammed the carriage door and as she scrambled for the handle, she saw his cold smirk as he wedged the cane down the opposite side, locking her in.

Fruitlessly, she yanked and tugged and wrenched at the handle, willing it to budge, as the two men made their way back to the driver’s box. The carriage tipped as they clambered up and, a moment later, the carriage pulled away, heading on down the unfamiliar, winding road. Leaving her father in the dirt, knocked out.

But she was not sure whose fate was worse—his or hers.

He will not look for me. Silas—he will not look for me. Her heart broke at the realization. He will think I have jilted him, and I have only myself to blame.

* * *

No matter how many glasses of brandy he imbibed, Silas could not get close to the blurry oblivion he longed for. He barely felt inebriated, making him wonder if his store of brandy had been replaced with brown water.

Outside his study window, darkness had fallen hours ago. A sea of twinkling starlight blanketed the night, and he wished he could put out every one. The moon, too—what right did it have to glow so brightly, when he wanted nothing but shadow to accompany his misery?

Foolishly, he had allowed a sliver of hope to blaze in his heart as he had ridden the roads back from the church, searching every ditch and lesser-traveled trail for her. He had even gone to the river, scouring the banks for any sign of a carriage overturning. He had gone in circles, back and forth to the manor, taking every possible route from there to the church… and his efforts had not been rewarded.

After making his final return to the manor, his suspicions were well and truly confirmed. Since then, he had holed himself away in his study with his trusty decanter of brandy and did not intend to emerge for a very long time.

A knock came at the door.

“I am not here!” Silas shouted.

The door opened anyway, and Duncan entered. “What are ye doin’, Silas?” He eyed the brandy glass in Silas’s hand. “Everyone is still out searchin’ for her. Ye should be with them.”

“Why?” Silas asked simply.

Duncan sighed. “Because she might be in trouble. She and her father both. Ye willnae forgive yerself if ye sit here stewin’ while everyone else continues the search, nae if she’s found and there’s an explanation for her absence.” He approached cautiously. “Which, for what it’s worth, I still believe there is.”

“As do I.” Silas sniffed. “The explanation is that she has absconded and her father, trying to save his family’s reputation, has gone after her. You might not believe me, but I wanted to think otherwise. I did search, and do you know what I found? Nothing! So, do not speak to me of what I must do and how I may feel.”

Duncan flinched. “It doesnae make sense, Silas. I understand how it looks, but it doesnae make sense. I watched the two of ye these past weeks. She cared for ye; I’d have sworn it on me life.”

“Everyone seems to be doing that—swearing on their life that it is not exactly what it is,” Silas replied, feeling the brandy a little more. “I know better. I suspect I have always known that she would never marry me.”

“Why would she do this, though?” Duncan pressed, discreetly removing the decanter of brandy from the table beside Silas.

Silas shrugged. “To ruin her reputation entirely, so she might be free. To ruin mine, so I could not return to my old ways. You would have to ask her but, of course, she is not here.”

“Ye daenae believe that,” Duncan remarked. “If ye tell me that ye actually think she would’ve used ye so maliciously, I’ll call ye a damned liar. There isnae a bad bone in that lass’s body.”

Silas peered down into the amber liquid, frowning. He could not tell his friend, with absolute certainty, that he believed she had used him. He urged himself to, but the words would not come. Still, he did not know what else to think. It was the only answer he had that was even remotely satisfactory.

“Let us not forget, it is not the first time she has done this,” he murmured, hearing how feeble it sounded even as he said it.

Duncan sniffed. “And ye’re nothin’ like the other two. I’ve heard it from her sister and that friend of hers—she wanted to marry ye. That’s why they are nae givin’ up, unlike ye. Do ye nae think it’s wisest to trust those who ken her best, eh, even if yer feelings are hurt?”

Silas braced to unleash a tirade upon his friend, irritated by the accusation that he was behaving childishly, when a sharp sound drew his hazy attention toward the half-open study door. A flurry of furious barks, echoing down the hallway.

Silas straightened sharply, his heart soaring in his chest. Is it her? Has she come back, after all?