Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(69)
Keeping to the shrubbery, he walked around to the rear where the stables were. More carriages than he would expect Crenshaw to own were lined up along the stones, and the paddock had several horses milling about. He didn’t see an excess of grooms, but if his surmise was correct, the men inside weren’t wealthy nobility but merchants and bankers who drove their own rigs.
To his dismay, but not to his surprise, Ashford’s crested berlin rolled up the drive as Dare considered his next move. He could hope it was Pascoe, but he knew it was not.
So much for any element of surprise. He couldn’t imagine what his wife intended, but he was insanely eager to find out.
With a spring in his step, Dare emerged from the shrubbery just as a footman helped Emilia from the carriage. He admired her attire with pride at her grasp of the situation. Instead of wearing one of her grandiose gowns with the flying sleeves and bouncing petticoats to flaunt her grandeur, she was dressed in a modest calling gown that any merchant’s wife might wear. Dare thought she’d have been better off with a suit of armor if he gauged the meaning of this meeting rightly, but modesty had its own protection.
The rain started just as he reached the drive and the footmen rapped at the door.
“We’ll both be drenched by the time they answer that door,” he complained as he joined her.
“Dare! What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be out in this.” Emilia drew her cloak tighter, but rain watered the roses in her hat.
“Neither should you. Nor should you be here.” He stated the obvious. “Crenshaw has all his cronies inside. This is not the time to confront him.”
He saw the uncertainty, recognized her desire to retreat, then watched as she lifted her jaw and marched up to the entrance without him.
Grimacing, he joined her. “So, it’s to be like this, is it?”
“I did not ask you to come,” she pointed out as the door finally swung open. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of my own problems.”
“Just as I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my own health, right?” He didn’t know where that had come from. He handed his card to the maid waiting in the entrance.
Emilia sent him a sidelong look of puzzlement, but didn’t have time to question. Dare placed his hand on her back as they strolled after the maid back to a room where male voices rose in anger. This would not be a pleasant visit. He wished he could carry the damned woman to the carriage and heave her in, except Emilia would most likely stove in his head if he tried. He had to admire his wife’s courage in coming here.
While the maid attempted to catch the attention of her shouting employer, Dare took the time to study the room’s occupants. He recognized Frederick, the elder Crenshaw, from Emilia’s description of her earlier visit. He knew Weathersby, the banker he’d talked to in Harrogate. He assumed the hulking young bull snarling in the corner nearest to them was Charles Crenshaw, the man who had threatened women and shoved Emilia. Dare set his sights on that one. The others appeared to be physicians and merchants of small interest to him.
Finding a gnarled hiking stick leaning against a table, Dare picked it up and slammed it against the wall, causing paintings to tilt. The noise startled the argument into silence. Everyone in the room turned to glare at them. Dare took off his wet top hat and bowed grandly. “Good day to you, gentlemen. Pardon my intrusion, but I have come to retrieve my wife’s property, if you would be so good as to return it.”
Emilia glared at him as well, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that this group would listen to a woman’s plea. Dare practically bounced on his toes in anticipation of the confrontation to come. He wasn’t completely soft yet.
“Who the devil are you and what are you talking about?” the gouty old man Dare had identified as Frederick Crenshaw demanded from his place by the fire.
Looking properly horrified, Weathersby leaned over to whisper to him.
“Ah, I do apologize, gentlemen. Not all of us have been introduced. I am Lord Dare, and this is my lovely wife. We have lately moved into Sir Harry Malcolm’s home in Alder, the one Mr. Weathersby and Mr. Crenshaw were supposed to be looking after and apparently sought to sell to their investors for a railroad instead. You’ll be seeing the lawsuit papers about that shortly.”
Dare could sense the younger Crenshaw easing in his direction. He placed his bulk more directly between the bully and Emilia before speaking over the astonished murmurs. “Young Crenshaw here apparently took it into his head to stop the lawsuit by beating up on the mother of his child, shoving my wife, and stealing a draft of her pharmacopeia. I will leave it to his respected elders to deal with his behavior, but I want my wife’s book back.” His drew his smile into a threatening frown as he made his point as clearly as possible.
“We have no notion of what you’re talking about,” an older man with mutton chops said querulously. “We are a legitimate group of merchants banded to aid our town in obtaining the transportation it needs to grow. What right do you have to make these accusations?”
“Witnesses and evidence, sir, which will hold up in court. The Duke of Sommersville possesses the final draft of the book in question, so there is absolutely no worth to the one Charles stole except for sentimental reasons to my wife.”
“Well, there is some danger to anyone using it,” Emilia added in her best professorial voice. “The pages on antidotes for the poisons in some of the formulas weren’t quite complete and are not in the stolen copy, which renders the book rather dangerous.”