Page 30 of The Duke’s Hidden Runaway Bride

The answer came more easily than she expected.

“I will.”

Once Ophelia had decided, the household turned towards departure with astonishing speed.

Lady Elise went white at the news and then became grimly resolute.

“If you imagine you are travelling to London without a chaperone, you have taken leave of your senses. I am coming, and my respectability is coming with me, because I am still the daughter of a duke. We shall see who dares cut a woman I choose to stand beside.”

Miss Pettibone wept with excitement and began packing summer muslins, quite undeterred by the season.

Bronwen, asked whether she would go to London as Ophelia’s maid, said, “Try and stop me, miss,” and looked both terrified and thrilled.

Adrian sent the letter to Mr. Soane, instructing him to make discreet inquiries into Markham’s debts but to purchase nothing without further authority.

Ophelia stood on the steps of Plas Eira before they left. The valley ran with meltwater, and the snow sagged beneath a colourless sky.

She looked back at the long, low house that had taken her in without question. Through the open door she could see the great hall and the kissing bough Miss Pettibone had successfully defended from removal. Beyond them, the window seat where Ophelia had first told Adrian a truth about herself.

She would keep Christmas there again if she could.

Yet she was not running away this time.

The carriage carried Ophelia James towards London under her own name.

They travelled south through hard days of half-frozen mud and flooded fords, stopping at coaching inns that seemed to consist chiefly of smoke and draughts. On the second evening, as the light failed and the horses began to labour, Adrian proposed that they break their journey at Wexham Court.

“Sir Hugh Fenwick is an old friend,” he explained. “Wexham is not far off our road, and he may know something useful about Markham’s affairs.”

He looked directly at Ophelia.

“I trust him. That does not give me the right to tell him your history. What may I say?”

She considered.

“You may tell him who I am and that Markham is threatening Papa through the marriage articles. Nothing of what I overheard.”

“Nothing you have not given me leave to tell.”

Wexham Court received them with lighted windows and an open door.

Sir Hugh Fenwick came out coatless into the cold, carrying a lantern and calling a welcome to Adrian. He was broad and weathered, moving with a slight stiffness in one leg. His widowed sister, Mrs. Horrocks, followed with shawls, servants, and every propriety required to take charge of the ladies.

Wexham had the quiet solidity of a place well tended. Sir Hugh knew his servants by name, and Mrs. Horrocks kept a warm, sensible table. No one asked Ophelia to be anything but tired from the road.

At supper, Mrs. Horrocks pressed the warmest seat upon her and gave her the best of the pears in wine. She spoke of hot bricks and flooded roads, and of Miss Pettibone’s conviction that extra petticoats were essential to winter travel.

After supper, Miss Pettibone retired with Bronwen to attend to her, and the rest of the party sat down in the parlour by the fire. Mrs. Horrocks was clearly prepared to carry the conversation on light topics, but Adrian said seriously that he had some important business he wished to speak of with Sir Hugh, and he thought Mrs. Horrocks might have some sensible observations to make as well.

“Are you sure about this, Ophelia?” Lady Elise asked quietly.

“I am.” She smiled at her godmother. “We have discussed this, Lady Elise. I trust Calder, and he trusts Sir Hugh.”

“Very well.” Elise looked as though she wanted to say something else, but sat back in her chair.

Adrian spoke first. “You realised, I am sure when we gave her name, that Miss James is the ‘runaway bride’ that has been in all the newspapers.”

Both Sir Hugh and Mrs. Horrocks nodded. They were far too well-bred to have said anything, but now that Adrian had addressed the matter directly, curiosity filled both their expressions.