Page 54 of Lady Emily’s Matchmaking Mishap (Merry Spinsters, Charming Rogues #5)
It was summer at Ashbourne House, and the Duke and his family were having tea on the veranda. Baby Edmund, named after Emily’s father, was cranky and weepy and would not go to sleep.
“What’s the matter, little prince?” Emily took him from the nurse’s arms and rocked him gently, but not even her singing of his favourite lullaby would do the trick.
“Maybe he’s teething,” Aunt Mabel suggested.
“Maybe we need to change his napkins,” Araminta diagnosed.
“I just changed him,” Jane protested. “It’s not that. Maybe he has gas. Maybe he needs to be burped more.”
“He just burped,” Emily said. “Didn’t you hear? It was louder than an old drunkard’s.” Emily shook her head over the noises her little son was capable of producing. “Here, Mabel, you take him. You usually have a calming effect on him.” She placed him in Mabel’s arms.
And, lo-and-behold, the baby calmed down immediately and smiled into his great-aunt’s face. She rocked him gently in her arms. “Leave him with me, Emily, and you enjoy your tea.”
As soon as Emily raised her cup, the butler appeared, holding a silver salver. “The mail, Your Grace.”
Emily picked up a letter. “It’s from Cissy.” She turned it over in her hands, frowning. “Why isn’t she here yet? Why is she sending letters instead?”
She opened it and read it, inhaling sharply.
“What is it, Emily?” Araminta inquired.
Emily started to laugh. She laughed so hard that tears streamed down her face. She wiped them away with a handkerchief.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, but it would be nice to share the joke,” Araminta said.
“It’s just that Cissy wrote—she’s in Scotland.” Emily laughed again.
“I don’t understand. Scotland? What is she doing there? Shouldn’t she be here now for tea?” Araminta inquired.
“It appears she has eloped.”
There was a puzzled silence. Then, “She has eloped?” the three aunts said in unison.
“But, my dear. With whom?” exclaimed Aunt Jane.
“That is the point. After all my efforts to set her up with Chippendale—what better, more eligible man could there be for Cissy? She decided to elope with Mr Matthews.”
“Matthews. Matthews.” Araminta tasted the name on her lips. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Oh. I know who he is,” Mabel interjected. “Is he the sad-looking man who waited for hours on end at the door of our London townhouse last season?”
“No. Was he?” Emily’s eyes widened. “I did not know! I thought he called once, but that was it.”
“No, no. I saw him waiting several times. The butler kept insisting that Lady Lydia—that’s what she called herself then, if you remember—so he kept saying that Lady Lydia wasn’t available. And this man, this Matthews, kept insisting that he be allowed to see her. But she turned him away every time. I felt quite sorry for the man.”
“How intriguing! And now they have eloped? But how?” Jane asked. “I thought she didn’t like the man.”
“It’s true,” Emily said. “Matthews had courted her in Bath and she’d been very much in love with him. Then he left suddenly. The excuse he gave, Cissy told me later, was that he’d had a family emergency and had to leave abruptly, though why he couldn’t have told her that or written to her, neither she nor I understood. It broke her heart. So when he turned up unexpectedly last winter, she was quite angry with him and found it hard to forgive him. I thought that was the end of it and kept pushing Chippendale towards her. But she must have forgiven Matthews in the end. She wrote in her letter that they began to correspond in secret—how shockingly improper!—and one thing led to another and… ” Emily waved her hand.
“But why did they have to elope? It wasn’t as if anyone would have objected to the union,” Mabel said.
“Wolferton might have. I remember he wasn’t too fond of the man when they met at the Royal Menagerie,” Emily guessed. “Where is he, anyway? The tea is getting cold.”
“I haven’t seen him this entire afternoon. I think he’s locked himself in with his secretary again. The man works far too much.” Araminta sniffed.
Baby Edmund had fallen asleep on his aunt’s arm. “Leave him with me,” Mabel told Emily as she went to relieve her of him. “He’ll wake up when we move him. Why don’t you rest, Emily? You look pale and tired, and I’ll watch him until he wakes up.”
Emily decided to take a short walk through the park instead. She wandered through the trees, enjoying the autumn foliage and marvelling at how beautiful the forest was.
She walked to a clearing where her oak tree stood, and, after a moment’s hesitation, she reached inside and pulled out a letter.
My dearest Wren,
Do you know that you are and always will be, the love of my life? You and little Edmund have filled my world with a joy so profound, it scarcely seems real. When you smile that sweet smile of yours, like you did this morning, in that moment, my world becomes brighter, fuller, and wholly yours.
I spent far too long over these lines, grinning to myself like a fool, so that my secretary, quite perplexed, inquired what on earth I found so amusing about the irrigation problem we’re so desperately trying to solve. Little does he know that every thought, every breath I breathe, belongs to you.
I love you deeply and unreservedly. That is all I wished to tell you today.
Yours eternally,
Your devoted servant,
Your ever loving,
Fenn
P.S. My apologies—I shall be late for tea.
When prim and proper spinster Lady Isla asks Lucien Night, the Lord of the London Underworld, to help her find her lost childhood friend, she enters a scandalous pact that plunges Isla into a world of secrets and intrigue…and unexpected romance.