Page 19 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

I t wasn’t until after lunch that they discovered Annis was missing and her note to the duke was found.

Emrys and Robert were having a postprandial whisky in the library, the weather outside being still wet, when the duchess poked her head in the door.

“There you are!”

“What is it, love?” asked the duke, looking up from his newspaper.

Emrys glanced up from the book he was reading—or attempting to read.

Thoughts of Annis kept intruding. He had been in a worry about her the instant he heard she wasn’t well and was keeping to her room.

Have I made her ill, or is it a female malady that ails her?

The duchess came in and very improperly perched on the arm of her husband’s chair. Emrys hid a smile. The buttoned-up duke would never have tolerated anything so casual prior to marrying Sarah. But the Watsons’ friendly ways had rubbed off on him to good effect.

“I just discovered that Miss Pringle has left for Bath at some ungodly hour this morning—on foot, for goodness’ sake! I cannot understand why she would do this. Surely, she knew we would lend her the carriage?”

Emrys dropped his book, leaning forward in shock. “Bath! Why would she go to Bath?”

“Her aunt who raised her is dying apparently,” said the duchess. “But why she wouldn’t wait and asked for the carriage I cannot fathom. Surely, she wouldn’t think we would refuse to let her go.”

“Of course not!” said Robert. “This is a most distempered freak. Why would she do such a thing?”

“Oh, God!” said Emrys. “I think I may know. You have to let me go after her.”

“Emrys what are you on about? If it’s anyone’s responsibility to go after her it is mine. I’m her employer, after all!” said the duke rising.

Emrys shot to his feet. “No, Robert. I need to go. She—I—” He stopped, flushing crimson.

The duke and duchess goggled at him, and he rubbed his head, tousling his hair. “I asked her to marry me yesterday,” he said somewhat sheepishly. “I fear that may be why she has fled.”

“Good God, man, have you taken leave of your senses? She’s the bloody governess!” said the duke explosively.

The duchess was grinning hugely and said, “What has that to do with anything? She is perfectly delightful, and the children adore her.” She bounced off the chair arm and gave Emrys a hug, with a defiant look over her shoulder at her indignant spouse. “Of course you must go after her, Emrys!”

“You mean this nonsense about an aunt in Bath may be a fudge?” said Robert, very heroically ignoring his wife’s provocation.

“No, wait a minute though, didn’t she come from some seminary in Bath?

” He turned toward his desk and began pulling out drawers.

“I’m sure I’ve got her papers here somewhere. ”

“I believe she does have an aunt in Bath,” said the viscount.

“I’m sure she mentioned her at some point.

Though I got the impression she was already dead.

However, I suppose I must be mistaken if she really has gone to Bath to attend her on her deathbed.

” He frowned. Perhaps I am jumping to conclusions, blaming her exodus on my proposal.

Bit of a coxcomb aren’t I, to think my attentions might have driven her from the house?

“Whether she has gone to attend her aunt or not is irrelevant!” said the duchess impatiently. “The thing is she should not be allowed to continue all the way to Bath on the stage. It will take days and be vastly uncomfortable.”

“Ah! Here it is!” exclaimed the duke, pulling out a sheet of paper.

“Queen Square, Bath, the Pringle Academy for Young Ladies!” he said triumphantly.

He raised his eyes from the paper and smiled at his audience.

“Yes, my love, you are perfectly correct. We cannot allow Miss Pringle to journey all the way to Bath on the humble stagecoach.”

“In that case,” said Emrys, “I had best make haste. If I take a horse I will make much better time, and with this weather, the stage will be moving cursed slowly anyway. With any luck, I’ll catch her before nightfall.”

“Aye, well, don’t catch your death in this wet!” said Robert. Emrys waved in acknowledgment, passing out the door to the sound of the duke saying, “Well, I’d never have thought it of Emrys. What was he thinking? The governess!”

“Don’t be so stuffy, Robert! I think it’s romantic!” said the duchess.

Emrys found the butler and requested him to find his valet and get the man to pack him an overnight bag and to send to the stables and get his horse, Inigo, saddled. He then ran up two flights of stairs to find his children. Mrs. Green had all the small fry on the rug reading them a story.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Green. Might I borrow my three for a moment?”

She nodded, and he beckoned them over. Crouching down, he said, “Miss Pringle has had to leave on an urgent personal matter, but she has gone without an escort, and that is not proper. I am going to fetch her, make sure she is safe, you understand? I may be gone a couple of days. Will you be all right?”

Lizzie stiffened, and he watched her struggle. Ewen, who had recovered now from his dunking in the lake, eyed him somberly. Charlie screwed her face up and said tearfully, “You can’t leave us, Papa!” She wrapped her arms round him.

He hugged her close. “It won’t be for long, poppet. I promise.”

“It’s all right, Papa. I understand,” said Lizzie, manfully trying not to sniffle. “Charlie, he’s going to get Miss Pringle. You want Miss Pringle to come back, don’t you?”

Charlie sniffed and nodded.

“Well then,” said Lizzie.

“Miss Pingle?” said Ewen.

“Yes, Miss Pingle,” said Emrys with a smile, despite the ache in his throat.

Hugs all round, and he left with a brief word to Mrs. Green to take care of them.

“Of course, my lord, they will be fine until you get back. Do not worry.” Emrys nodded and left to collect his bag, check he had sufficient funds for a journey, and make his way to the stables where his superb, dark chocolate-colored gelding, waited for him.

The skies were a leaden gray, and the fine rain that he started out with grew progressively heavier as he rode.

It was just gone three o’clock in the afternoon when he reached Leicester and proved what he had already suspected.

It was impossible to reach Bath from Leicester by any publicly available form of transport.

Reaching Bath required either one’s own horse or carriage, or alternatively to travel to London and thence to Bath from there, a journey that would take well over a week all told.

Finding the stagecoach inn at Leicester, he established the Royal Mail had passed through Leicester at around 10:30 that morning.

As to whether a young woman meeting Miss Pringle’s description had boarded it, the proprietor of the inn couldn’t say.

With the worsening weather, that worthy noted pessimistically that the mail would be running several hours late and likely not to reach its destination of Watford that evening at anything like its scheduled time.

It was just past Swinford, well after five o’clock and almost dark due to the heavy cloud cover and persistent rain, when he ran across the mail coach mired in the mud.

Its passengers sat damply by the side of the road on their luggage, while its officers and such male passengers who deemed themselves capable attempted to unstick the carriage’s wheels from the mud.

Scanning the passengers in the gloom, he found her sitting on her bag under the branch of a tree and huddled in her cloak, with her head down. She didn’t even see him as he approached and dismounted his horse. He squatted in front of her. “Miss Pringle?”

Her head came up abruptly, and she stared at him wide-eyed. Her face was so pale as to be almost white in the gloomy light, and she seemed to sway slightly as she stared at him uncomprehendingly. Fearing she was about to swoon, he put his arms round her and murmured, “It’s all right, I’ve got you.”

“Emrys?” she said faintly. “Is it really you?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling at her use of his name. “Come, I’m taking you home.”

“But—”

“No buts. If you truly wish to go to Bath, you shall go in the duke’s carriage suitably escorted. But for right now I need to get you somewhere warm and dry before you catch your death of cold. Your cloak is soaked through. And you’re shivering!” he scolded.

She seemed to subside at this and nodded dumbly.

He scooped her up, plopped her on his horse, where she sat sideways, clinging to the pommel, while he tied her bags to the saddle and then got up behind her.

Wrapping his arm round her waist he turned Inigo and set off back toward Swinford.

He would find an inn for the night. She was done in, and no wonder—she had walked goodness knows how far, carrying a heavy bag, and then sat in an uncomfortable coach for hours, followed by at least an hour sitting by the side of the road in the cold and wet.

She subsided back against him and mumbled, “How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t difficult. Hush now and rest,” he said, pulling her back against him.

She wrapped her arms round his middle and nuzzled her face into his chest, which made him smile despite the inclement conditions. She is wet through and exhausted, I need to get her warm and dry as soon as possible.

“I think we should stop in Swinford for the night. And given that we are arriving on one horse I think I should say you are my wife, or it is going to look dashed peculiar, and I’d rather not wrangle with the landlord over proprieties,” he said, tightening his arm round her as he urged Inigo into a canter.

She looked up at him dazed.

“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. You’re safe with me, Annis.”

She bit her lip and nodded, subsiding against his chest again, and he said nothing more until he brought Inigo to a halt in the courtyard of the Blue Rose Inn.

He nudged her gently. “We’ve arrived.”

“Hm?” she straightened up. “Where?”