Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon Read Online Free

Emma’s heart aflutter with tales of books lining
every wall of the room from floor to ceiling, of bookcases
scattered amongst cozy chairs, and even of a rotating, circular
bookcase near the entry filled with her very favorite stories. It
was all she could do not to salivate at the thought.
    David held out one arm for each of
them to hold and guided their way out of the drawing room toward
the front entry hall. “Speaking of which, it’s finished. Perhaps I
can give you a tour after supper?”
    “ I’d like that very much,”
Emma replied. She’d like it more to have her tour now but doubted
David would share that opinion. He could be a bit of a stickler
about things like greeting one’s guests promptly upon their
arrival. Spoilsport.
    They moved past the marbled spiral
staircase with iron balusters shaped like lyres and into the main
foyer. Baxter signaled for the footmen to swing the doors
wide.
    “ I thought your guests
weren’t due to arrive until tomorrow afternoon,” Emma said. Her
brow furrowed in thought. Vanessa wrote that Emma was to arrive on
Sunday and the others would arrive on Monday. There had been church
bells ringing this morning.
    David winked. “Most of them aren’t.”
He led the ladies through the doors and down the stairs to the
flagstone entryway lined by a pea-gravel drive. Turning in from the
main road, two carriages rolled carefully along, gradually coming
into view. Emma immediately recognized the crests they proudly bore
as well as the spotless scarlet and silver livery worn by the
coachmen.
    A faint sense of panic
clutched at Emma’s chest. “The Earl of Trenowyth?” She looked past
David to glare at her sister, who was studiously avoiding her gaze
on his other side. Vanessa ought to have warned her. She knew—she
absolutely, unequivocally knew —that Emma would not have come if
there were any inkling of a chance that the Cardiff family would be
in attendance.
    Vanessa appeared disinclined to answer
the unasked question hanging in the air between them.
    Emma caught David’s eye. “Has anyone
accompanied Lord Trenowyth? I do not believe I have seen anyone
from the family out in society since…since…”
    “ Since three years ago? No,
I’m sure you haven’t.”
    The carriages pulled to a stop before
them, and one of the outriders leapt down from the lead conveyance
to set out the steps.
    David pulled Vanessa and
Emma forward— pulled being a disconcertingly literal description of the
proceedings, at least on Emma’s part, as her feet had suddenly
turned to tree roots and her legs to trunks.
    “ None of the family has
been away from Tavistock Manor since then,” David continued rather
stoically, “other than brief trips into town for provisions and the
like. Even then, they’ve usually sent servants out instead. But
they’ve all decided to begin their reintroduction to social life
here.”
    “ All?” Emma squeaked. The
panic clutching her chest was no longer merely a faint hint; she
felt like she was being crushed between two massive boulders and
couldn’t sink her nails into anything in order to claw her way
out.
    “ Well, not quite all, I
should say,” David amended. He lifted a hand in greeting as Lord
Trenowyth, the first passenger, descended from the
carriage.
    In that scant moment, Emma regained
her breath. Not quite all of the family had come. Perhaps the
odious Mr. Cardiff had better ways to spend his summer than glaring
at her from across rooms and making her feel as infinitesimal and
welcome as a splinter in the ball of his foot.
    David winked at her as Lord Trenowyth
waved a hand in their direction in greeting. If he had any sense of
her discomfiture, David would have refrained from winking in such a
circumstance—it simply caused her to wish to rip his arms from
their sockets before running to hide in her chamber, never to
return.
    “ The dowager chose to pay a
visit to her cousin in Shropshire instead of attending our little
gathering,” David said,