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She went at once to beg her father’s forgiveness for the worry she knew she had caused him.
It was only when she stood before him, as he sat staring unseeing at his newspaper in the morning room, his food untouched, that she realized the awkwardness of her position. There would be no explaining that she had been part of a vital mission to recover missing letters from the ruler of Persia to his son. In Russian hands, those letters, which detailed the military arrangements on which Persia depended as Russia threatened, could involve England in a war to defend Persia.
“Papa,” she said. “I’m home.”
He started and looked up at her, his expression rapidly shifting from glad relief to stern disapproval.
“Do you know how worried, how distraught, how wretched we’ve been, not knowing where you were?”
“I do, and I am sorry to have caused such distress.”
“But wherever have you been?”
Emily took a deep breath. As long as she and Lynley had been together, she had not felt any fatigue, but now a great weariness washed over her, threatening to buckle her knees. “I went to find Lynley.”
“Am I to understand, Emily, that in defiance of all sense and propriety, you pursued this man and his...lover across the English countryside for two days?”
“Papa, Lynley did not run away with Lady Ravenhurst.”
“He never came to your engagement party. He left you to be embarrassed by the most scandalous rumor circulating around London.”
Emily nodded. She wished she could say that he was on government business, saving the nation from war. “It will turn out that everyone was misled by rumor. No doubt Lady Ravenhurst was called away to her family just as Mama went to Grandmama. And no one will wonder at my absence. Everyone knows I was there for the birth of Roz’s baby.”
“And what of Lynley? What excuses him for leaving you?”
“He has apologized to me.”
“Apologized to you! I should horsewhip him for the insult to my daughter.”
Emily smiled at her father’s desire to protect her. “I think I should marry him at once, Papa.”
“We’ll see what your mother has to say to that when she returns.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
In the public mind, such is our world, a wedding’s brilliance may always be measured in the quantity of lace and white satin, the number of attendants accompanying the bride, and the number of fashionable people crowding the church. However, in the minds of those most nearly concerned, who find themselves transformed by the love they’ve found, and who embark on a journey together in the course of which each hopes to grow more worthy of the other’s love, the true measure of the ceremony’s worth lies in the perfect felicity of the union.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Emily slept through the day. Light was fading from the sky when Alice, her maid, roused her. A number of notes had arrived for her as she slept. She had a bath and a bite to eat, and feeling moderately refreshed, sat at her desk to answer the most pressing of her correspondence.
She wrote first to Roz to assure her sister that she and Lynley were safe and sound, and to beg to come round to see and hold her sweet nephew.
She wrote to Lady Silsden to encourage her to disregard any rumor that connected Lynley to either of the Ravenhursts and to inform her that Lynley was safe and that she could expect to attend their wedding soon.
And with perfect satisfaction she wadded into tight balls those notes filled with rumors of Lynley’s duel and his liaison with Lady Ravenhurst.
It took longer to write to her mother. First she went in search of the little blue and gold book that had started her on the path to adventure. She read its closing pages again and took up her pen.
Dear Mama,
I hope this letter finds Grandmama much recovered, and you relieved to see her so. You must be gladdened to hear such a happy report from Roz and Phil about the birth of their son.
I haven’t thanked you properly for giving me The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London. Though I have always had you and Papa as models of what a husband and wife may be to one another, your little blue book opened my eyes about husbands and changed my thinking about what to look for in a partner for my life.
You will, perhaps, have heard some wild, and really quite baseless, rumors about Lynley and me. I am sorry for any distress such talk may have caused you; however, considering the source of such reports, you will understand that none possesses a grain of truth. Lynley and I get on much as we have from our first meeting.
I do have a favor to ask of you as Lynley and I anticipate setting up a household together. Do you think we could have that green damask sofa you gave to Roz? It would perfectly fit our plan of decoration.
