When she reached the front doors, she looked up to the office window. With his father out of town, he had often been occupying the front office. The desk was partially visible through the open drapes, as well as part of his chair. She squinted, catching sight of his shoulder and hair as he sat forward, leaning his head on one hand. Was he upset? Had she done that to him? Her heart stung at the thought. She moved closer, debating over whether or not she should make a loud noise to call his attention.
“Selina! Where on earth are you going?”
Mama.
Selina turned away from the window, searching for an explanation for why she had stopped in front of the solicitor’s office. Mama held each side of her bonnet to block out the snow, peering out from under it with a frown. Standing just a few paces behind her was Edmund.
He must have seen her leave and known exactly where she would be going.
Selina’s jaw tightened as she met his gaze and the false innocence on his face. Hadn’t he just told her he was through with his meddling? Despite the cold, her skin grew hot.
“Isn’t this the way to the bakery?” Selina asked in an innocent voice.
“No.” Mama appeared affronted that Selina could have forgotten a detail like that. “Are you feeling unwell?” Her expression shifted to concern as she approached, wrapping her arm around Selina’s shoulders.
“A little,” Selina said. Feeling unwell could easily excuse her strange behavior. They had been out in the cold all afternoon, so it wasn’t implausible to claim faintness.
As they passed Edmund, Selina shot him a glare. He looked down at his boots, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Oh, there you are!” Mrs. Perry walked up the street behind Edmund, her daughter in tow. “We have purchased the ribbon. With the snow, I daresay we are better off returning home promptly.”
“Oh, yes, to be sure,” Mama said, leading Selina down the street toward the coaches. “And not to worry about missing the bakery. My plum pudding is aging beautifully at the moment, so you will have a delicious treat in a few days at our Christmas feast.”
“Our stir-up Sunday too was a success,” Mrs. Perry said. “I shall bring my pudding as well if you’ll allow it.”
“That will not be necessary.” Mama shook her head fast. “My cook has prepared a very large one this year that will feed us all plenty.”
Mrs. Perry pursed her lips. Before she could say another word, Mama turned to Edmund. “Forgive me, but I think I must ride home with Mrs. Perry and Miss Perry. We have many details to discuss about our Christmas feast.”
Selina’s gaze snapped up to Edmund as he nodded his agreement, looking just as uncomfortable as Selina felt. How could Mama leave her to ride home alone with Edmund? Did she realize how improper that would appear? Yes, he was a close family friend, but Mama hoped for much more than that. Son-in-law to be exact. The disgruntled look on Mrs. Perry’s face was all the reward Mama needed as she climbed into the coach with the Perrys.
Before Edmund could comment, Selina walked ahead to their coach, taking his hand as quickly as possible as she mounted the step and sat down on the velvet cushion. She pressed herself as far as possible into the corner, and Edmund settled into the opposite corner, closing the door behind him. As the coach rolled forward, the air inside seemed to grow colder. Silence reigned for a long moment, the crunching of snow and ice under the wheels the only sound. Selina balled her hands inside her gloves, daring a glance at Edmund’s face.
She half-expected to find him remorseful, avoiding her eyes as he had been outside. But instead, he gazed out the window with a twist on his lips . . . one that looked suspiciously like a smirk.
When he noticed that she was watching him, he corrected the expression, his eyes rounding slightly in alarm. Perhaps her glare was as intimidating as she hoped.
“Was it you or my mother who first noticed that I left the shop?” She kept her voice even.
“That is difficult to say.” Edmund took off his hat, running his gloved fingers through his curls. He glanced up from under his lashes. “Did you think your exit would go unnoticed? Exactly how long did you think you would be able to spend at Skinner’s office before your absence at the shop was noted?” The light tone of his voice sent a surge of irritation through her skin. He seemed . . . amused by the entire thing, the glint in his eyes making a mockery of her behavior. Her blood boiled.
“I thought I could see him long enough to tell him why I did not come earlier today. We had agreed to meet at one o’clock and because of your interference, I was unable to go. You claimed to be sorry for your actions earlier, but I cannot believe your apology if you would not let me see him for one moment. One moment without alerting my mother.”
Edmund shook his head. “I am sorry for how my interference makes you feel, but I am not sorry for interfering.”
Selina gritted her teeth. “You promised me your silence.”
“My silence, I did promise.” He glanced out the window before meeting her gaze again. “But I never promised I wouldn’t do all I could to protect you and your reputation. Skinner is not an honorable man.”
“What evidence do you have of that? He has shown me far greater respect and goodness than you ever have,” Selina snapped.
Edmund gave a hard laugh before shaking his head. “I cannot tell you how I know, but you must listen, just the same. Skinner is not to be trusted.”
“I think it is you who I should never have trusted. I would never have invited you to stay at our home if I had known you were plotting a secret way of destroying my engagement.”
“Shall I tell your mother today? Would that please you? Whether you like it or not, you have no way of escaping me for the next three weeks unless you want your secret revealed. My honor demands that I continue my efforts to distance you from Noah. His lies will become evident to you eventually, and you will be grateful for my interference.”
Selina huffed out a breath. In a moving carriage, alone with Edmund, she couldn’t commit his murder without being a suspect, though she dearly wished she could. How dare he treat her like a child? He was not in any position to protect her from who he thought Noah to be. He couldn’t claim to know Noah better than she did. Edmund was a hypocrite of the worst sort to act as Noah’s superior.
“You cannot prevent me from seeing my betrothed.” Selina inched forward on her seat, leaning closer to Edmund so not a single one of her words could be misunderstood. “Our love is strong enough to persist through any of your efforts to destroy it.”
He glanced upward with a sigh. “You do not love him.”
“Yes, I do.”
Edmund leaned forward in his seat, his eyes sharp and unyielding. “No, you do not.”
Selina scoffed, anger rising in her chest. “You do not know my heart, Edmund! No one knows it but me.” Selina blinked hard, leaning back in her seat. Her breath quickened and she looked out the window. It had taken a great deal of effort to ensure no one knew her heart. She had hidden it away from her family for years. From Mama and from Rose. Being loved second did such things to a heart. It made a heart careful about what it was allowed to feel and who it was allowed to love. Noah was far from what her mother would have chosen for her, just as she was far from what Mama would have chosen for a child. She was not the talented, beautiful Rose, and she was not the heir years of heartache and effort had tried to produce.
She shushed her emotions, turning them back to the anger she had felt just moments before. Edmund leaned his elbows on his knees, looking up at her. “I am sorry, Selina. I am only trying to help you—”
The moment the coach stopped in front of the house, she held up a hand to stop him. “An apology here is worth even less than the false one you gave at the Frost Fair.” She met his eyes as he closed them, shaking his head.
Lifting her chin, she exited the coach without assistance, marching toward the front door of the house.
If he had found a way around their bargain, then so would she. All he had a
sked for was an invitation to stay at the house. As long as he was welcome there, he would stay.
Which meant she only needed to find a way to make him unwelcome.
Her mind raced as an idea formed, growing clearer as she entered the house and smelled dinner cooking in the kitchen. There was something else in the kitchen, aging to perfection, that Mama valued above almost all else . . . even above Sir Edmund himself.
Her precious Christmas plum pudding.
Chapter 7
Rolling to his left side for what felt like the hundredth time didn’t serve to help Edmund sleep. His mind had been racing all day, and he had been looking forward to when he could go to bed to clear his thoughts and make a plan that would satisfy his worry.
If he didn’t stop Selina, she would be deceived and trapped with Skinner for the rest of her life.
If he stopped her, Edmund would be without an inheritance.
He rolled to his right side, pressing his face into the pillow. He had considered every possibility, from sneaking into Skinner’s office and stealing back the will, to putting Selina on a leash to keep her from sneaking out to see Skinner. As long as he kept his presence in the Ellis home a secret, then how could Skinner really know that Edmund was behind Selina’s apparent disinterest?
But she wasn’t disinterested at all. She still seemed determined to marry that despicable man, and even more so now that she knew Edmund was wholeheartedly working against it.
He let out a long sigh, staring up at the dark ceiling. He hadn’t meant to be so forthright about his intentions to thwart her, but she had been so accusatory in the coach, he hadn’t been able to help himself. Now he could think of no possible way the situation would end positively. Selina was doomed. Edmund was doomed. Skinner, it seemed, would be the only winner.
There had to be another way. A new idea had been hovering just out of reach all day, and Edmund hadn’t yet grasped it. His frustration rose by the second.
As he struggled to quiet his mind, a rustle sounded outside his door.
The faint shuffle of feet and another rustle. A soft glow of candlelight flickered in the space under Edmund’s door, barely noticeable in the darkness.
He sat up, swinging his legs over one side of his bed. The glow wasn’t leaving his door, but the rustling had stopped. His time as a soldier may have made him quicker to assume a threat, but so had his conversation with Selina today. She had looked at him as if she had wanted to wring his neck, and it was quite possible that she had come to do it in his sleep. He shook the idea from his mind, nearly laughing at the ridiculousness of it.
Of course not. She would send a servant to do the deed.
Only partially believing his theory, Edmund walked to the door in four long strides. He at least had to confirm whether his suspicions were correct or not. Before the person on the other side of the door could have a chance to move, Edmund pulled it open in one quick sweep.
A sharp gasp came from the woman directly in front of him; only when the heavy cloth sack she was holding fell to the ground did Edmund notice her face.
Selina.
Her eyes rounded as she covered her mouth, staring down at the floor just outside Edmund’s door. The cloth bag, it seemed, had been filled with some sort of dark brown concoction that was now crumbled on the floor. He breathed deeply through his nose, the scent of brandy and fruit wafting up from the mush on the ground.
His gaze jerked up to Selina, who had yet to even venture to explain her presence at his door in the middle of the night. Her hair was tied back loosely, curls spilling out around her shocked expression. She was still dressed as she had been at dinner; she clearly hadn’t even tried to go to sleep.
“What have you done?” she blurted in a whisper.
Edmund raised his eyebrows, his confusion doubling. “What have I done?”
Selina rubbed one hand over her forehead, stepping back a pace. Her rounded eyes took in his appearance in one quick sweep before she averted her gaze. Edmund had forgotten that he was still dressed for sleep, not at all presentable for a lady. He raked a hand over his hair, moving partially behind the door. “What the devil are you doing outside my room at this hour? I thought you were—” He stopped himself, shaking his head at the mess on the ground. “And what the devil is that?” Under any ordinary circumstances Edmund would not have used such words in the presence of a lady, but this was the opposite of ordinary.
“The plum pudding,” Selina breathed, setting down her candle and bending down to scoop the mush back into the cloth sack. The moist crumbs and pieces of dried fruit appeared somewhat familiar now, or rather, the remnants of it, the strong scent bringing back memories of Edmund’s Christmases with his grandmother.
Selina gave up her effort to retrieve it after just a few seconds, absently wiping her hands on her skirts. She bit her lip, shaking her head in obvious distress. “Mama will have my head,” she whispered to herself.
Edmund narrowed his eyes as he recalled the quiet movements he had heard outside his door, the way the flickering candlelight had stopped in front of his room. Considering that she was startled enough to drop the pudding when Edmund opened the door told him that she was not taking a leisurely nighttime turn about the house. She did not want to be caught—and especially not by Edmund.
He crossed his arms, casting her a pointed look. “And I suspect you hoped your mother would have my head instead?”
Selina’s gaze snapped up to his, unapologetically guilty.
Edmund gasped in disbelief. “You came here intending to destroy the pudding and leave the remnants outside my door. Did you not?”
She didn’t deny it, glancing down at the abandoned pudding. One of her shoulders gave a slight shrug, her lips pursing into a small heart before the words burst out. “I would have succeeded if you hadn’t given me such a fright.”
“I gave you a fright? You were the one lurking outside my room in the dark.” He leaned against the door which he still held halfway open to conceal his improper attire. “Did you think your mother would send me packing if she thought I destroyed her pudding?” A sudden urge to laugh took over his body, and he rubbed one side of his face as a chuckle escaped him. “How did you plan to explain it? That I became ravenously hungry in the night and stole away to the kitchen for something to eat? That the meticulously wrapped, treasured plum pudding was the best thing I could find?” His laughter intensified. “You planned to frame me as a madman if that is the case.”
Selina glared at him, the candlelight intensifying her expression. Her voice was a rasped, fierce whisper, one that surely would have been a shout if not for the late hour. “What other choice did I have? You have no plans to stop meddling in my courtship, so I had to at least try to dispose of you before you destroy everything.”
His eyes shot open, his thoughts traveling back to his first suspicions of her presence outside his room. “Dispose of me?”
Selina put one hand against her head, pacing back another step. “I mean . . . have you cast out of the house by my disgruntled mother.”
Edmund gave a hard laugh. “And you thought the plum pudding would accomplish that?”
“It would have been the perfect way to start.”
“So you had other plans for disposing of me? What are they? You may as well tell me now.” He leaned his head farther through the space between the door and the frame. By the way his dark curls itched on his forehead, he could tell his hair was very disheveled. Perhaps it would intimidate Selina the way she attempted to intimidate him with her glaring.
Selina scoffed, planting her plum-pudding-covered hands on her hips. “Until you tell me your plans of disposing of my hopes of happiness with Mr. Skinner, then I will do nothing of the sort.”
Edmund sighed. “Well, if you are going to continue trying to have me cast out of this house, then our bargain may be in violation.”
“How?” Selina snapped, taking a step closer. The fire from her candle lit up the flash of anger in her eyes, and Edm
und almost shrunk back. He would have never told her so, but she was surprisingly beautiful when she was angry, even when her rage was directed at him. “You found a way around the agreement we made. Am I not allowed the same? All that was required of me was to secure you an invitation to stay, but I never promised how long it would last. All that was required of you was to keep silent about my courtship, and so you have found other methods of preventing it. All I have done is attempt to match you in your subterfuge, Edmund. Every effort I make to have you sent away will be fair.”
Edmund studied her for a long moment. She was quite serious. He took a deep breath. “Your mother would never send me away.”
Selina’s nostrils flared. “Perhaps she would if you appeared to be forming an attachment to Miss Perry. That would vex her to no end. She would likely be unable to bear even looking at you, especially if you were also responsible for her plum pudding being unpresentable. My mother has been known to feign illness to drive unwanted guests away before, and no guest would be more unwanted than you if you were bound in honor to marry the daughter of her longest rival.” Selina raised her chin as she caught her breath; she obviously hadn’t planned on making that confession, but it was clear her pride had demanded it. “I will continue with my plan, you know. Just as you told me you will still continue with yours. I will not have you fight against me without fighting back.”
Edmund closed his eyes, exhaling long and slow. It was worse than he had thought. He wouldn’t believe Selina incapable of any level of sabotage, especially not when he appeared to be sabotaging her for no reason. But framing his attachment to Miss Perry was much more serious than a mishap involving plum pudding. His anxiety rose along with his frustration.
They stared at each other for a long moment, neither willing to speak or surrender. Their eyes were locked in a stalemate. In the candlelight, Selina’s eyes appeared grey like the bars of a cage. Edmund was trapped.
Her Silent Knight: A Christmas Regency Romance (Belles of Christmas: Frost Fair Book 1) Page 5
