Page 81 of The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke

“She won’t keep us together by accompanying us on our honeymoon,” he said bluntly.

Emma shook her head. “She isn’t coming with us?”

“I’m afraid so,” Julia replied. “At least she’ll have Odham to keep her company.”

“Odham?” Adrian said, almost dropping his black silk hat. “Anyone else?”

Julia shook her head in sympathy. “Hamm offered to go, but it was decided he wouldn’t fit in the carriage.”

“But we’re married,” Adrian said with a forced smile. “We don’t need a chaperone.” He looked at Emma. “Do we?”

“We do owe her an enormous debt,” she whispered in resignation.

“I realize that,” he said, “but couldn’t our repayment have waited until a later time?”

Julia lowered her gaze. “It seems she is doing this as a favor to you, Adrian. She believes she can act as a peacemaker between you and your father. They were friends once.”

“What a kindly thought,” Emma murmured as Adrian took her arm and guided her to the door. “How generous of her.”

A crowd of spectators had collected on the pavement to witness the duke’s heir bear his Boscastle bride off to the countryside. One herring-vendor remarked that their leave-taking reminded her of the legend of Pluto bearing Proserpina to his internal realm. A young male sprat-seller retorted that she was old enough to remember Roman times.

Harriet ran out of the house and tossed a beribboned laurel wreath at the carriage. Hamm the footman shouted a warning to the coachman to beware of highwaymen on country roads. The coachman tipped his low-crowned hat to the crowd and cracked his whip at the six muscular horses straining in their polished harnesses.

The horses charged forward with Hermia waving from her window to the throng in the street. Emma’s gaze was drawn to a cloaked woman who stood alone on the corner.

Lady Clipstone. She sniffed, pretending not to notice. It would be spiteful and quite beneath her station to acknowledge her rival’s interest. But then Hermia poked her head out the window and chortled:

“Do move out of the way, Alice, dear. The duchess is coming through!”

Emma pulled down the curtains with a gasp of embarrassment. “That’s entirely vulgar of you.” She settled back in her seat. Soon the peeling of church bells and the rumble of city traffic fell away. “Even if she did deserve it.”

On the second day of their journey, they took the Windsor Road for another five miles past Camberly, then veered toward a windswept downs. Soon afterward a subtle fog enveloped them. By late afternoon, the coachman had slowed their progress to a crawl, and he could be heard muttering dire warnings through his heavy wool muffler about the dangers of traveling in the mist.

Adrian had felt his mood darken with every mile they ventured closer to Scarfield. He thought he had forgotten all the old insults. He’d tried to forget.

But the familiar landmarks stood in the fog like old ghosts waiting to greet him.

They had mocked him when he had left. They would probably still be standing when he died and turned to dust.

An abandoned abbey.

The ancient beechwoods where he used to hide for days at a time until his father’s estate manager would find him.

The mysterious burial mounds of his prehistoric ancestors.

He sat forward without warning and thumped his fist on the roof. “Make a detour at the next bridge,” he instructed the coachman. “Go left around the oak grove, or we shall be wandering in the mist forever.”

Emma slept through his decision as did Odham. Only Hermia roused to question his judgment, drawing her cloak around her sturdy shoulders. “A detour, Adrian?” she asked with a frown. “In this fog? I hope you don’t lead us into a lake.”

He sank back against the seat, thinking of Scarfield and all it represented. His fond gaze slid to his sleeping wife. “I hope I don’t lead us into something worse.”

Adrian’s voice awakened Emma from an enjoyable dream. “We’ve a choice of continuing and arriving before nightfall, or going back to Ye Olde Bed of Fleas until your English weather improves.”

She glanced up, lost in the wicked warmth of his eyes. “You’re as born to the clime as I am. Why does it have to be my weather?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because you’re a woman and subject to the same unpredictable moods as the weather.”

She gathered her blanket around her shoulders. “Perhaps you might have predicted a more direct route. Perhaps you might even have consulted a map.”