and it chilled her from the inside out.
Have a care with that one, Emma-love . . . You’re going to break his heart . . . That gent is eyeing you with romantic eyes . . .
Oh, God. Dread swirled in her belly.
And this time, she did grab for the curtain, and peered out at the passing scenery. “Where are we going?” she demanded; fury lent a tremble to her voice.
“He is not right for you, Emma. He never was. A man who would create a rival league to challenge yours, and who would”—color flooded his cheeks—“defile you in public as he did at Lady Rutland’s.”
Lady Rutland’s? Then the memory of what she and Charles had done and shared returned.
She blanched and dropped the curtain as if burnt.
“Yes, I heard the both of you,” he said matter-of-factly, drawing off his gloves. “And you should be fortunate I did. I sent our sisters on their way and stood guard to ensure no one discovered you so.”
Mortification brought her toes curling. That he’d listened in on something so intimate, something so special, left her physically ill. “Oh, my God.” Horror pulled that whisper from deep within her chest.
“You needn’t worry,” he said with a casual matter-of-factness. “I do not blame you. I know he seduced you.”
Emma considered her reply, and the man across from her. He believed he was right in this. He believed he acted out of friendship. He thought she was a woman incapable of knowing her own mind. Unlike Charles, who challenged her and embraced the fact that she made her own decisions. “I wanted to be with Charles,” she said. “I want to be with him still. And I intend to, Owen.” Emma rapped on the roof, urging the driver to bring the conveyance to a stop.
The hack, however, continued rolling along at a brisk clip.
“He is not going to do that,” Owen explained.
Her heart kicked up a beat as for the first time—in this moment and in all the years knowing Owen—she became genuinely afraid of him.
Emma made another attempt. “I command you, stop this carriage and get out this instant.”
“You don’t want me to do that. I know you are just proud, and like to be in control of your own decisions, but—”
God save her from interfering people. Only Charles had applauded the self-control she’d allowed herself these past months. “You presume to tell me what I want?” she demanded.
He chuckled. “Yes. It is funny, that. He said the same thing to me.” At the questioning look she gave him, Owen clarified. “Lord Scarsdale. After I confronted him, warning him away from you.”
“You confronted him,” she whispered.
Owen’s spine grew several inches, as if she were praising him for that interference.
“I did.”
And all the while, Charles had said nothing. He’d let her to her friendship with Owen, not interfering or seeking to influence her relationship with him.
How she wished he had.
But would she have listened? Could she have believed Owen would prove to be this man before her?
And here all these years she’d passed judgment upon Charles, and held Owen in the highest esteem. Pride—yet again it proved her pride which had been so blinding.
“Where are we going, Owen?”
“Scotland.”
“Scot . . .” A chill scraped along her spine as she frantically looked out the window at the passing landscape of the London scene. Familiar streets had since given way to fewer familiar ones on the fringe of London.
“What are we doing there?” she asked, even as she already knew.
“Why, I’m saving you.”
“Saving me?” she echoed.
“We are going to Gretna Green. I am marrying you.”
Bloody hell.
Chapter 25
THE LONDONER
DEVASTATED!
The Earl of Scarsdale was purported to have been inconsolable over the attack upon his former betrothed. Perhaps soon the courting couple shall find themselves . . . as something more?
M. FAIRPOINT
If Charles hadn’t left a hole on the path he’d paced over his Aubusson carpet, there’d be one there by the end of the night.
This was hell . . .
He’d been barred from seeing her. Oh, the rejection had been polite enough. They’d insisted Emma required rest, and that they would send word for him when she awakened. But there could be no doubting . . . they were keeping him from her. He gnashed his teeth. And along with that, they believed Charles had harmed her. As if he were capable. As if he wouldn’t gnaw off his own arm with his teeth if it meant to spare her any suffering.
“I’m sure they weren’t really sending you away,” Landon