"Quiet, if you please," Eli said, his back to the front of the stable and their voices. "Miss Montgomery's horse has just given birth and should not be disturbed."
"Oooh. I want to see."
Eli cringed, cursing silently. He ought to have realized his warning would have the opposite effect on the curious Lady Grayson.
"It's not safe yet," he called, his voice rising oddly as the straw at his feet shifted. "It was a difficult birth, and Fortune is not yet herself."
"Just a small peek." Lady Grayson's voice grew closer.
"Need to clean up the afterbirth. No place for a lady," Eli said as Emily's hand emerged from the straw.
"You heard the man," Sherborne said, his voice deeper as if he was attempting to disguise it. "Let's be off now."
Yes. Be off. The straw shifted once more, this time accompanied by a low moan.
"Is everything all right?" Lady Grayson called.
"It is now," Eli replied. "Colt had a bit of a hard time. One of its legs was trapped. Fortune will take care of him, though. You can see them tomorrow."
The stable door hinges squeaked a third time, followed by a loud gasp and the door slamming shut. Had Sherborne left? If Lady Grayson alone discovered Emily, her presence might be explained away. Lady Grayson, of all people, should know better than to cast judgment.
Eli's hope was short-lived as both Lady Grayson's and Sherborne's heads appeared outside the stall.
"Oh, look at-" Lady Grayson stopped midsentence, her mouth open, even as Sherborne's pressed into a serious line.
Eli glanced behind him as Emily sat up, straw falling away, one hand held to her head. She glanced at her legs, still buried in straw, then up at him, her brow wrinkled with confusion.
"What on earth-Eli?"
"Emily? Eli?" Sophia's voice and the earl's echoed over one another in the cavernous stable.
Still feeling dazed, Emily looked to Mr. Linfield for some sort of explanation. Eli, he had asked her to call him, and she had been happy to do so, having tried out his name in her mind dozens of times before.
"Let me help you," he said, reaching a hand down, pulling her from the straw. His other hand went to her arm, steadying her until she caught her balance. "You fainted," he explained. "And then-"
"What is the meaning of this, Eli? What are you doing here with my fiancée?" Mottled with anger, Lord Rowley's face appeared outside the stall gate.
"Seeing to her horse's well-being, as I've already explained," Mr. Linfield responded with a calm that belied the situation. He released Emily and stepped away. "What are you doing here, with Miss Montgomery's sister?"
"Don't take that tone with me." The earl opened the gate and stepped into the stall. "Not when-"
"Sherborne, please." Sophia put a hand on the earl's arm. "We mustn't disturb-oh-ooh." Her hand flew to her mouth, and she backed up, away from Fortune and the palpable effects of birth.
Emily glanced down at her mare, careful to keep her own eyes averted from anything other than her horse's face. The birth had all been so perfect, so completely amazing, until the last. She remembered feeling ill, and then the next thing she knew she'd awoken covered in straw. Perhaps Eli had covered her because he believed she was cold?
"I must admit to severe disappointment, Miss Montgomery." Lord Rowley frowned at her, causing a stir of unease in her middle, not dissimilar to that she'd felt moments ago.
"I believed we had an agreement, and as such, you would not dare to even consider compromising your reputation like this."
Emily opened her mouth to refute his horrible insinuations, but before she could speak, Eli stepped in front of her and hit the earl square in the mouth.
Sophia screamed and jumped back as the earl staggered, then fell at her feet.
Fortune whinnied and nipped at Eli's leg.
"I warned you to never again speak ill of Miss Montgomery." Eli shook out his hand as if it hurt.
The earl has spoken ill of me before? They have spoken of me?
"Look at what you've done! Oh, my poor Sherborne." Sophia dropped to his side.
"Your poor Sherborne?" Emily's voice shook. Gingerly she made her way around the edge of the stall to stand beside Eli. "What do you mean by this, sister?"
Instead of answering, Sophia reached for the earl, her fingers just brushing his arm as he struggled to his feet. Head forward, as a bull ready to charge, he came at Eli, who swung the gate the opposite direction, directly into the earl's lowered head.
It struck with a clang. The earl cursed savagely. Emily gasped at such language from him, while Sophia rushed to his side, seemingly only more encouraged to tend him.
Let her have him. Tears smarted in Emily's eyes, and she wasn't certain why. She hadn't loved the earl and had only agreed to his offer to please her father, so why should she care if Sophia had stolen him? Why should I care that he played me false scarcely a day into our betrothal? No doubt he would do the same once they were married and living in London and he discovered that she did not care for the parties and goings on he had described.
"I will not marry you," Emily said, finding her voice. She stepped past Eli, out of the stall to face Sherborne. "Whatever it is you think I've been doing is nothing compared to what you and Sophia were doing." Emily cast a pained glance at Sophia before returning her attention to the earl. "At the least, it is obvious that you and I do not suit, so I believe it best that the arrangement we came to earlier this evening is now broken."
"You've the gall to accuse me?" Sherborne grabbed her arm when she made to leave. "I suppose you'll marry him, then." Sherborne glared past her at Eli.
"I shall not marry anyone," Emily said. Had their situations been different she felt she might have enjoyed being courted by the kind and gentle Eli, but of course that was not possible. "If you would please remove your hand from my arm, I would like to return to bed."
"You shall not return anywhere until we-"
"Why have I been summoned from my bed at this hour?" The barn door crashed open, and her father's girth filled the empty space. He paused, taking in all of them. "What is the meaning of all this?" His deep voice boomed through the stable, eliciting a rather menacing sound from Fortune.
Emily glanced at her horse and saw Eli exiting the stall, carefully closing the gate behind him.
She faced forward again. Sherborne's hand dropped from her arm as her father strode toward them. He seemed to have eyes only for her, and they narrowed as he approached, his gaze traveling from the top of her tousled head down the length of her dressing gown to her feet peeking out below.
Accusation in his eyes, his head swung sharply toward Sherborne, standing sandwiched between Emily and Sophia.
Emily wasted no time in launching into her explanation. "I couldn't sleep for worrying about Fortune and her baby, so I came to the stable to check on her. I arrived just in time to watch the birth."
"Which explains the straw in your hair and your mussed clothes," Sherborne muttered.
"And how do you explain your presence here-with my sister?" Emily's voice rose shrilly.
"Is this true?" Father's gaze, growing more severe by the minute, settled on Sophia.
"We were going to go for a ride, is all," she said.
"And a moonlit swim," Eli added.
Sherborne swung toward him, fist raised. "How dare-"
Eli caught his arm, as if he'd been expecting the move. Looking beyond Sherborne, he said, "I am only repeating what I heard said by you and Lady Grayson."
"Go to the house, Sophia. We will discuss this later. And don't you dare wake your mother. This would gravely upset her." Father raised his face to the ceiling as if in supplication for guidance, or perhaps patience. "Just when we'd believed we finally had your sister's future settled."
"It is still settled." Sherborne, having jerked his arm from Eli's grasp, turned and straightened himself before her father, smoothing the front of his coat, as if that somehow corrected all that had gone wrong here. "In spite of the implications against her, I will still marry your daughter-the younger one, that is." His words, while not as slurred as before, were not crisp, and he moved as if half-sprung.
Sophia turned down her lips, and her eyes filled with tears. "You played me false, Sherborne."
"To the house," Father roared, then took Sophia by the arm, pulling her forward and propelling her toward the stable doors.
"You might want to reconsider my sister," Emily said. "Because I will not marry you." It was a rare occasion that she stood up to anyone, but the misgivings she'd felt about the earl before had multiplied exponentially in the last quarter of an hour. To her father, she spoke again. "The earl does not care for me, as evidenced by his dalliance with Sophia the very night of our betrothal."