Always a Maiden (The Belles of Beak Street #5)(49)
He should have told her that he would one day. But he shook his head at his folly. She wouldn’t care about a mere barony—no matter how old it was. Besides, he would only receive it if he outlived his uncle, cousin, and his mother.
He woke his manservant. “We’re leaving,” he told the man. “For good this time.”
“Very good, sir,” the man answered. “I’ll have the last of your things packed straight away.”
Because he didn’t want to wait, Evan carried his trunks and boxes down to load in the phaeton. It wasn’t a carriage meant for transporting a lot of baggage. He shoved things around until a few inches could be had for his and his man’s feet in front of the driver’s bench, but the back seat was packed to the seat rails. Any higher and they would risk toppling over while going around a corner.
A thousand things he should have said to convince Susanah to marry him rattled around his brain. She wouldn’t be happy married to Lord Farringate. Of that much he was certain. Although why he worried about her happiness when she wasn’t the least bit concerned about his baffled him. During the uncomfortable drive, he fretted and he fumed. Twice he turned the phaeton around. His long-suffering man endured most of it in silence until mid afternoon when he suggested the horses might be hungry and in need of a nap. Probably if grown horses were capable of nursing, he would have suggested they needed a teat. An equal would have been more direct in saying he was acting like a fussy brat.
Evan took the hint and found an inn where his man could get a meal, the carriage and horses could be stabled overnight, and he could drown in a tankard in the public room. He hadn’t wanted to marry her in the beginning, he consoled himself. But neither seven pints of ale, nor the fitful sleep reconciled him to the idea that he’d lost her. He was of half a mind to return to London, drive to her house, and demand to see her. But his bleary head and that he was now closer to his uncle’s house made him decide on the more prudent course and continue on to his uncle’s.
Gilbert plowed into him in the entry hall.
“I didn’t know you were coming today,” Gilbert said enthusiastically. Then he looked past Evan. “Did you get a wife?”
His throat suddenly too thick to allow words through it, Evan shook his head.
Gilbert goggled at him. “Why not?”
His cousin saw things simply, but the world was more complicated than that. Evan swallowed and tried to paste on a good face. He could have taken lessons from Lady Susanah in that. “The lady I asked to marry me said no.”
Gilbert appeared crestfallen. “Is it because of me?”
“It can’t be because of you,” Evan told him. “She doesn’t know you. She just didn’t want to marry me.” Or she wouldn’t marry a steward, under any circumstances.
“Why wouldn’t she want to marry you if you want to marry her?” Gilbert puzzled at that. “She must be a slowtop.”
“Quite possibly,” agreed Evan. She was a scheming, title-chasing, fool. Clearly, she was willing to sacrifice everything on the altar of ambition.
Gilbert grinned. “We’ll find you a better woman to be your wife.”
Except Evan didn’t want another woman—a strange thought for him. He had a deeper understanding of why his uncle married a woman he’d wanted to marry in his youth instead of marrying a woman more likely to give him a dozen children. Evan wrapped an arm around Gilbert’s shoulder. “Let’s go have a game of cards. Tomorrow when the horses are fresh, we’ll have a drive in the phaeton.”
“Can I drive?”
Evan shoved down any misgivings about allowing Gilbert to handle the reins. “You may if you keep the horses to a trot.”
“I can handle them,” Gilbert said mulishly. “Papa lets me drive the gig.”
“Yes, well a phaeton is easier to upset than a gig. I had to practice driving it so I didn’t tip it over. You can’t show me up your first time driving it.”
His sunny disposition restored, Gilbert’s smile returned. “I know how to play vingt-et-un now.”
The next few days passed at the much slower pace of country life. Except Evan kept watching for the post. He’d left his direction in the note he’d left for Susanah. Somehow he kept hoping for a letter in her overly precise handwriting. But word from her didn’t come in the way, he expected.
No, he received a letter from Hull asking what the devil was he about. Hull was about to lose a monkey on various bets against Lord Farringate taking a wife before the season was out. The banns had been read for Farringate and Lady Susanah.
It was a punch to the gut.
So much for Susanah not encouraging the Farringate. In order for the banns to be read on Sunday, she must have accepted Farringate’s offer on the day he left.
There was no hope that she would come to her senses and realize he would make her a much better husband. In less than a fortnight, she would be married to Farringate and he wanted to strangle Susanah for being so stupid.
*
Susanah’s father hadn’t wasted any time in summoning Lord Farringate to propose to her. She’d accepted as she was told. Only it was like she was shoved into some ancient torture press. Not that Lord Farringate had been unpleasant in any way. He was diligent of his courting in the way a fiancé should be, calling on her regularly, escorting her to events, and taking her on drives in the park. If he was somewhat less attentive to her and more likely to converse with her father, that was all to the good. Only her father wasn’t present on this drive in the park. Only his sister and daughter.