Page 24 of Sacrificing the Untamed Lady Henrietta

“Yes—your father has already sent my belongings ahead.”

“I…I imagine there is enough staff at the manor without you,” Henrietta protested, tact forsaken. Molly seemed hurt, but she did not falter.

“I am certain there is, Miss Oliver, but it is the General’s orders. I am to be at your side, as I was here. Presumably so you are not wrought up with homesickness.”

Yet Henrietta knew better, and her jaw firmed with anger. It had little to do with her father’s concern for her emotional state.

Father simply wishes to have a spy of his own inside Nightingale.

Chapter 9

The hour was not yet seven, yet the manor was rife with activity. Ewan watched the servants bustling through the kitchen blankly like he was not part of the room. He had not slept for even an hour and a glance in the glass in his quarters showed him a haggard image. He knew he must collect himself before the ceremony commenced at ten o’clock, but he could not bring himself to return to his apartment to bathe although one had been cooling for over an hour.

“Lord Peterborough, is something amiss?” Gerome asked when he caught sight of Ewan standing. “May I help you?”

“I may be beyond help,” Ewan heard himself mutter.

“I am sorry, My Lord?”

“Nothing,” he sighed quickly. “I will require more hot water for my bath.”

“At once, My Lord.”

Gerome turned away, but Ewan called out to him.

“Gerome.”

“Yes, My Lord?”

“You must not allow what the General said to you last evening trouble you.”

Ewan thought he caught a glimpse of anger in the servant’s eye, but it was instantly replaced with a stoicism.

“I haven’t a clue to what you are referring, Lord Peterborough.”

Ewan smiled.

“As you were then.”

Gerome nodded, but again, Ewan noted a glimmer in the butler’s eye, this time of appreciation.

In a few hours’ time, the manor will be free of this business and all will return as it was.

Yet, if Ewan was being honest with himself, he knew it was not the bustle which troubled him—it was clearly the wedding itself.

There is no sense prolonging the inevitable.He forced his body out of the shadows and through the kitchen. As he rounded the servant’s corridor toward the front of the house, he paused, gazing about at the décor. His mother and Tabitha Oliver had done a stunning job preparing for the guests who were due to arrive at nine o’clock. Ewan admitted that the foyer was as lovely as he had ever seen it, and he must thank both his mother and his bride’s mother for their tenacious work. If nothing else, it was promising to be a beautiful reception.

Up the stairs he climbed and made his way back into his chambers, suddenly very tired.

I must not fall asleep. That will not bode well with the Olivers.

Privately, he grinned, thinking of the fuss it would cause if he were to be found asleep in the bath on his wedding day.

I highly doubt the General will be amused.

The night past, Aaron Oliver’s demeanor seemed to sour more with each drink. It was not that the man was drunk but that the alcohol only seemed to bring forth a darkness he kept well hidden in sobriety. If Ewan had to think of specifics that Aaron had done or said, it was elusive enough that the Marquess could not but under the surface, there was something brewing inside the General, something Ewan did not understand.

“I have more water coming, My Lord,” Gerome told him as he entered his chambers. “Forgive me for not having it ready.”