'That woman is behind this,' she said. 'She needs to be taught a lesson she will never forget. We will leave today. An hour should be long enough in which to get ready. Wulf, have a carriage ready and waiting for us in an hour's time, if you please.'
'We?' Joshua said. 'Us?'
'You do not think I am going to let you go and face this alone, do you?' she asked haughtily. 'I am your betrothed. I am going too.'
'Oh, yes, Freyja,' Eve said. 'I really believe you ought.'
'There is, of course,' Bewcastle said, 'the small matter of propriety. You are not yet married to Hallmere, Freyja.'
She clucked her tongue impatiently, but Alleyne spoke up.
'I'll be your chaperone, Free,' he said. 'I'll come with the two of you. Actually I would not miss this for worlds.'
'And I too,' Morgan said firmly. 'No, there is no point in grasping your quizzing glass, Wulf. It will not deter me. I am eighteen years old, and it is perfectly proper for me to go visiting my future brother-in-law with my sister and brother. Indeed, it is only right that Freyja have female companionship. I do not like the sound of the Marchioness of Hallmere. I want to see her for myself. And I believe she should be given the opportunity to discover that the family into which Joshua is about to marry can be a powerful enemy.'
'Oh, bravo, Morgan,' Eve said. 'Though we do not know yet if the marchioness has had anything to do with producing this sudden witness. However, I do like the notion of her finding herself confronted by all the considerable power of the Bedwyns. Of course, Aidan is the most ferocious-looking one of you all. Aidan?' She looked inquiringly at him.
He returned her look with a blank stare for a few moments before raising his eyebrows and shaking his head slightly.
'We have been planning a sort of belated wedding trip after leaving here,' he said, 'with the children, of course. Their governess has recently married and we have not yet replaced her. We did think of the Lake District as a possible destination, but I daresay Cornwall would serve just as well-if we are invited, that is. Hallmere?'
A house party of Bedwyns determined to be formidable, even ferocious. An iron-willed aunt bent upon a revenge so ruthless that his very life would be snuffed out if she had her way. Accusations of murder rattling around the neighborhood and a mysterious witness and some sort of official investigation pending. Cousin Calvin Moore, the pious heir, riding with furious haste to claim his inheritance from the man who had got it by committing murder most foul. And a fake betrothal that was to be given yet another extension.
What red-blooded, sporting gentleman could possibly resist?
'Certainly you are all invited,' Joshua said, 'if you care for a little wild excitement rather than more conventional entertainment, that is.'
'We are Bedwyns,' Alleyne said with a grin.
Bewcastle merely raised his eyebrows and resumed his breakfast.
'But we are wasting time while we sit here talking,' Freyja said impatiently. 'We can be many miles on our way by nightfall if we leave this morning.'
The prospect of a long, unexpected journey to Cornwall, beginning on a gloomy day complete with drizzle and a light fog and ending with a potentially nasty murder investigation starring their future brother-in-law as chief and sole suspect appeared to have cheered up the Bedwyns no end. They were all talking at once and pushing away their breakfast dishes as Joshua left the room with Freyja.
'Sweetheart,' he said as soon as they were out of earshot, 'I presented you with the perfect chance to be rid of me today and the perfect excuse for ridding yourself of me permanently as soon as you are sure circumstances will allow it. Yet you insist upon coming with me?'
'That woman has gone too far this time,' she said, her chin and her nose in the air, a martial gleam in her eyes. 'It will give me the greatest pleasure to demonstrate that fact to her.'
He chuckled softly. 'You may never be rid of me,' he said.
'Nonsense,' she said briskly. 'It will be for just a short while longer. What man in his normal mind would sit alone out on the ocean in his boat during a stormy night just on the chance that someone might row by, not notice him, and then tip his cousin overboard and leave him to drown? And what normal man would not make a great deal of noise and fuss if it did happen and at least attempt to rescue the drowning man? What man would keep his mouth shut about the whole thing for five years and then open it at just the moment when the victim's mother happened to be in a royal rage because her hopes of wedding the murderer to her daughter had been foiled? I would like to have a word or two with such a man.'
'Lord help him,' Joshua said. 'You and Alleyne both. And Aidan and Morgan too, I daresay. Not to mention Eve. Do you not realize, my charmer, that we are getting into a deeper and deeper scrape with every passing day?'
'Nonsense,' she said again. 'And you need not fear that there is going to have to be anything permanent about our connection, Josh. I discovered last night that we have both been spared that fate. That was a relief at least.'
He stared at her. She was not with child? And yet she had just quite deliberately missed her chance to be rid of him permanently within the next few hours? And then he chuckled.
'It is your move next, sweetheart,' he said. 'You are going to have to find a way out of this betrothal. I am quite resigned to being an engaged man until my ninetieth year.'
'One hour,' she said firmly as they arrived outside the door of her room. 'I expect everyone to be ready and downstairs in the hall not one minute later than that.'
'Yes, ma'am,' Joshua said, grinning at her as she whisked herself inside the room and shut the door firmly in his face.
But his grin faded and his stomach performed an uncomfortable flip-flop as soon as he was alone. He was going to have to go back to Penhallow after all, then, was he?
