Page 23 of To Marry and to Meddle
“But Julian—” Frances protested, before halting abruptly and returning her attention to the letter before her. Julian blinked; he was nearly certain that his sister had ceased talking because of the quick glance Emily had shot at her, but he couldn’t quite believe it—no one had ever successfully managed to shut up Frances that quickly. Had he married a witch?
“Julian,” Emily said quietly, “my parents do not yet know we are wed, and every day that we are gone increases the likelihood that word will reach them—and Mr. Cartham.” Her voice dropped slightly when sheuttered Cartham’s name, and that small sign of discomfort on her part bothered him, he realized. He didn’t like to think of her spending years in the company of a man whose name she uttered in an unhappy murmur.
“I should very much like to be the person to deliver the news to them myself,” she added, and he noticed, faintly impressed, that she had managed to say something in a fairly pointed fashion withoutsoundingpointed at all.
And then she didn’t say anything else.
Julian looked at her.
She lifted her teacup to her lips.
He sighed.
She glanced at him inquisitively.
“Fine,” he said shortly, not so much of a fool as to not know when he was fighting a losing battle. “We’ll return to London, then.” He raked another agitated hand through his hair. “Probably best to sort out this mess as quickly as possible, anyway.” Seeing her brow wrinkle slightly at his words, he added hastily, “With the theater, I meant. Not our marriage.” He shook his head slightly, ruminating darkly on the fact that he was fairly certain he’d been significantly less likely to put his foot in his own mouth before he’d been wed.
Frances, he realized, was watching them with great interest. “Can I help you?” he asked her, somewhat grumpily.
“You getting married,” his sister said, quite decisively, “is the best thing that has happened inyears.”
Despite the action-packed nature of their first two days of carriage travel, their journey from Dovecote Manor to London was largely uneventful.
Distressinglyuneventful in one respect, Julian thought, as he gazed across the carriage at Emily, whose attention was fixed entirely on Cecil Lucifer Beelzebub, who was curled up in her lap and staring at Julian from his cozy perch with an expression of self-satisfaction. It had transpired that Emily was entirely certain that the small demon could not possibly be expected to sleep anywhere other than tucked in her warm embrace—at least not until they returned to London, where she could see him fitted out with a proper bed to call his own.
“He was probably born in a barn,” Julian had pointed out on their first night at Dovecote Manor, when he’d realized which way the wind was blowing. “Surrounded by rats. I hardly think an armchair before the fireplace will be an overly traumatizing spot for him to spend the night.”
“But don’t you see,” Emily had said, wide-eyed, clutching the wretched creature to her chest, “that’s precisely why I want to keep him close. We can only imagine what sort of horrible circumstances he was born into—I want him to know that he has a real home with us, one filled with love and affection.”
“Icould do with a bit of love and affection,” Julian muttered in an undertone, casting an evil look at the kitten, who had naturally commenced purring, thus sending Emily into a fit of rapturous cooing. He had not pressed the matter, however—he had no desire to lure a reluctant woman to his bed, although given how she had responded to his kisses thus far, he didn’t think she was unwilling.
Merely not willing enough to overcome her deranged fixation on a creature that looked like a fluffy, oversize rat.
But now they were back in London at last, the late-afternoon sun casting long shadows along the streets of Mayfair as they rattled alongin the carriage. They drew to a halt before an imposing town house in Portland Square, and Emily blinked out the window, seeming to register where they were.
“But… but this is my parents’ house,” she said, turning from the window to look at him in confusion. Julian, who had given the direction to Reeve upon their last stop, gazed at her with a bit of trepidation, hoping he’d judged correctly.
“I thought you might wish to tell them immediately,” he explained, reaching forward to lift Cecil Lucifer Beelzebub off her lap and place him in his bed of unmentionables. “I know you were concerned that someone else would break the news, and if we wish to avoid a scandal, we need to give the impression to society that your parents support the match. Surely they’re more likely to do so if they hear of it directly from us.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and he noticed a slight tension in the way she held herself, a certain tautness in the line of her neck. She was nervous, he realized.
“Would you rather wait?” he asked, not wishing to force her into anything she was uncomfortable with.
“No,” she said, straightening in her seat. Whatever traces of nerves he had seen seemed to vanish in an instant, and he was once again faced with the Lady Emily who had walked into his theater in July—golden-haired, impossibly lovely, her spine straight, no sign of discomfort detectable.
“No,” she repeated, “let’s tell them. On one condition,” she added, raising a hand as he reached to open the carriage door. He raised a brow inquisitively. “I wish to be the one to do the talking.”
He sketched his best imitation of a courtly bow, to the extent that it was possible in the close confines of the carriage. “Be myguest,” he said, and had the creeping expectation that he just might enjoy this.
Emily was not certain what reaction she’d expected from her parents upon informing them of her precipitous marriage, but she didn’t think it was silence. Silence, however, was what greeted her after a rather rambling and circuitous explanation of her recent nuptials.
They had been ushered into the morning room in Rowanbridge House with some confusion by Cloves, the butler, who was understandably perplexed to find the daughter of the house who had departed a month earlier returning, more than a week late and unannounced, with a husband in tow. Emily had seated herself in one of the uncomfortable, spindly yellow silk Louis XIV chairs her mother so favored, while Julian stood beside her, his arm resting on the back of her chair, his proximity oddly comforting. When her parents had entered the room, wearing identical frowns, Julian had offered a short bow and a murmur of greeting, but otherwise had deferred entirely to Emily.
She had wondered if she might find some satisfaction in the telling—in the moment she was able to inform her parents that she was no longer a puppet to dance on their strings.
But now, said parents sat before her, gaping in silence, and she was beginning to feel, primarily, a bit concerned.
“Mama?” she ventured. “Papa? Have you nothing to say?”
