To Dance until Dawn - Emma V. Leech Page 0,49

how she dared.

“So I see,” Kline said, looking between them with amusement.

Phoebe ignored his knowing look and carried on. “We were on our way to Abbeville ourselves, as it happens, but our carriage met with an accident and so we’re stuck here.”

“Well, that’s bad luck,” Kline said, and she decided she liked the big, bluff fellow. He was ruddy and blond, in his mid to late forties, and looked to be a man who preferred to smile than frown. “But there’s plenty of room in my carriage and, as it seems I must away to Abbeville in pursuit of a wife I didn’t know I had, you are most welcome to accompany me.”

“Oh,” Phoebe said, rather delighted by this offer. “Oh, how splendid, thank you. Isn’t that splendid, Max?”

She turned to discover that Max looked a little less than enthusiastic about the idea, but he smiled politely.

“Splendid,” he agreed, meeting Kline’s eyes.

A rueful look passed between the two men, leaving Phoebe a little uncertain, but they seemed amicable at least, and it meant that Alvanly could not get too far ahead of them. Not to mention they had a mystery to solve now.

All in all, Phoebe thought the journey was going marvellously well and was just the adventure that Max had wished for.

Chapter 12

Dear Matilda,

I was so sorry not to see you before you left town. We will be home ourselves next week. I hope you will come and visit. It’s an age since we saw you all at the Priory.

And ought I offer felicitations? I hear Phoebe and Lord Ellisborough have married. It was all rather sudden, so I am praying it was a love match and that Phoebe is happy. I believe Ellisborough to be a thoroughly decent and kind-hearted man—so handsome too! He was dreadfully unwise in choosing his first wife, who was a dour and serious creature, but then he was so incredibly young too. I hope they have made a splendid match. Much love to you all.

―Excerpt of a letter to The Most Honourable Matilda Barrington, Marchioness of Montagu, from The Right Hon’ble Lady Jemima Rothborn.

9th April 1827. Montreuil sur Mer, Pas-de-Calais, France.

It was almost dark by the time they reached Montreuil-sur-Mer—some thirty miles from Abbeville—and the charming Hôtel du France, where they would spend the night. Max knew Phoebe was dismayed not to have journeyed to Abbeville itself, but the fictitious Lady Kline had the advantage of an entire morning’s travel and they would not catch her so easily.

Max was not in the best of tempers himself, which he fully acknowledged was his own fault. It had been a long and rather tedious journey from his point of view, watching Phoebe and Viscount Kline—or Charlie, as he insisted they address him—getting along like a house on fire.

Which was fine, obviously.

Kline was a likeable fellow and very amusing. Despite his rather dreadful reputation, he was in fact not the libertine he was purported to be. Max knew, and well understood, that an unhappy marriage had driven his behaviour. In the two years since his wife had died, Kline had sobered up, sorted himself out, and was doing his best to be respectable. Max admired him for it. He just wished he’d go off and do it elsewhere. He wanted to be alone with Phoebe so badly that his nerves were jangling and, despite his best efforts, his temper was fraying. The faintly amused, pitying looks Kline sent Max at intervals did not make him feel any better.

Arriving at the hotel, however, did not give Max the respite he’d longed for, and instead produced another frustrating situation, albeit of a different nature. The Hotel du France was ancient and higgledy-piggledy, and surprisingly busy. Which meant, although a lovely room was made available at once for the Earl of Ellisborough, there was only a bedroom, no suite of rooms, and nowhere for Max to escape to. Not that he wanted to escape… which was the reason for his growing frustration.

“Oh, how charming it is.”

Phoebe sounded delighted by the pretty room, with its huge bed and thick rugs. The floor pitched violently at one side, and the ceiling was low and thick, with hefty beams under which Max was forced to duck in order not to knock his brains out. In fact, he could not stand up straight in any part of the room. Phoebe turned and looked at Max as he tipped the servants who’d brought their baggage up, and closed the door behind them. She watched