“Your father, for one, and Lord Harold, for another.”
“Harold? What does my brother have to do with this?”
“He is waiting in the carriage as we speak. He will travel with us to ensure there is no fun until we are respectably married, so if your objective is to put off the wedding, then you had best say so now, and we will part with no hard feelings.”
She pulled a face. “Harold is almost as stuffy as Embleton. How long will it take us to reach Carlisle?”
“Three or four hours, if we are lucky. We might make it before dark.”
“I can last half a day without fun,” she said. “Very well. It shall be as you wish.”
She scampered away to organise her packing.
Lord Embleton shrugged and offered Lord Grayling his hand. “Good l-luck, Gray… ling. You… will… need… it.”
“Thank you, my lord. I shall try my utmost to keep her out of mischief, or if that proves impossible, at least out of your way.”
They shook hands with smiles all round and within the hour Effie was gone to be married to Lord Grayling, leaving Olivia a little breathless and bemused, but quietly pleased.
***
The very next day, the arrivals bell clanged again, even though the rain had now turned to light snow, and again a crowd flocked to the entrance hall to greet the newcomers. Three figures arrived in a veritable cloud of snow, their breath steaming in the cold air despite the massive logs burning in two great hearths. Three figures shrouded in thick winter garments and swathed in blankets, but Olivia knew them at once, although they were the last people she had expected to see at Lochmaben.
Beside her, Papa said dubiously, “Surely that cannot be—?”
“I think it is,” Olivia said. “Look, the tall man has removed his hat, and no one else has such distinctive red hair.”
“Farramont? Then the ladies must be…”
“Izzy, yes.” And in a whisper she added, “And Mama.”
Her father made a strange noise in his throat, like a growl. “Caroline… Caroline!” And then he was off across the entrance hall, cutting unseeingly through little knots of people, practically knocking over one hapless footman.“Caroline! Caroline!”
Mama turned, saw him, her face melting into a smile. “Charles.”
He came straight up to her, wrapped his arms around her, heedless of the snow clinging to her cloak, and burst into tears.
“Oh,Charles!My dear!” Her arms were around him, and she was crying too, oblivious of the crowd gathering excitedly around them.
Eventually he surfaced, his face still streaked with tears. “Dearest Caro, I have missed you abominably. I have not been right since the day you left. Everything has gone wrong. I cannot manage without you, my love. Will you not come back to me?”
“Charles, are you proposing to me?”
“Yes!”he yelled, then laughed suddenly. “Marry me, Caro. No, no, I have to do this properly.” Dropping to his knees, he took her gloved hands in his. “Caroline Horncastle, will you make me the happiest of men once more and do me the very great honour of becoming my wife again? Because my life is insupportable without you.”
“And mine without you, I have discovered,” she said. “Oh Charles, but you will have no legitimate heirs. I am far too old for that.”
“I have no legitimatesons,” he said, rising gracefully to his feet, her hands still firmly in his, “but I have a brother and several nephews who will take very good care of the earldom after I am gone. How soon can we be married, dear heart? You will not make me wait, I hope?”
“But how can it be done?” she said, frowning. “A special licence can only be had from London, and even a bishop’s licence will take several days to obtain with this weather.”
The Duke of Lochmaben chuckled. “We can do rather better than that. You are in Scotland now, so you need only say you are married in front of witnesses, and it is so.”
“Truly?” Papa said. “So I need only say…we are married?”
“Congratulations,” the duke said smoothly. “I now declare you man and wife. Rennington, you will want to show your wife where she will be sleeping.”
There was a burst of cheering from the assembled crowd, but Olivia’s throat was too tight from weeping to cheer. At last, Papa would be happy again and Mama would come home to Corland, where she belonged, and at least there would be some semblance of normality after the last terrible six months.
