“Yes.”
“With Lady Eliza?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Old schoolmates always have much to talk about.”
“And weddings only add to the conversation,” she said, the merest flash of discomfiture crossing her face.
Or was it heartbreak? Gregory somehow doubted it. The groom was a bland, boring aristocrat, not Pippa’s type at all, he should think.
And then he realized. Perhaps she wanted rid of him, too. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately, feeling foolish. “I’m preventing you from leaving. Perhaps you plan to stop by the new exhibit at the British Museum?”
She wasn’t a ribbons or baubles sort of girl, he knew. But surely the exotic animal exhibit would tempt her.
“I’ve already been,” she said, “and it was fascinating. No, my lord, I’m in no rush to leave Eliza’s. I’m enjoying my chat with you.” Although when she smiled this time, it seemed to take her some effort. “I was just going to retrieve my reticule in the drawing room. I brought a bit of charcoal and a small pad of paper—I wanted to sketch the back of the house.”
“That’s interesting.” He fought to suppress any impatience in his tone.
“I’m exploring a new hobby.” She looked to the right and left—as if they had company—and leaned toward him. “Making sugar sculptures.”
“Oh?”
Dimples peeked out, and she nodded vigorously. “I’m mad for them. Garden scenes with tiny temples and shepherdesses, gilded horses, fanciful flowers, woven baskets. So when I visit a place I like”—she lifted a hand to encompass the garden and the house—“I sketch it. In case someday I’ll want to reproduce it as part of a pastoral scene for a dessert table.”
He looked all around him. Eliza’s house was the most boring edifice he’d ever seen. An imposing structure with stark and unimaginative lines, it sat like a fat salt box on the kitchen counter. The gardens weren’t much more interesting, either, with nary a fanciful thought put into their design.
“It is lovely back here,” he lied. “Shall I fetch your reticule for you?”
She stole another glance around the garden and blushed. “Oh, no, thank you, although—” She hesitated, and that awkwardness came between them once more. “Would you like to accompany me? I could catch you up on all Uncle Bertie’s theaters. The newest one recently opened in Bristol.”
“Of course.” He opened the door to the billiards room again. And as he listened to her, something began to niggle at him. It wasn’t anything particularly important. But it was a matter of slight curiosity: What was Dougal doing here? He’d had the occasional dance with Eliza at various balls, spoken with her at soirees, and said hello to her if they met up in the park when she was in Gregory’s curricle. But other than that, they were mere acquaintances.
In the drawing room, Gregory was distracted when Pippa removed her gloves, placed them by a modest straw bonnet lying carelessly on top of the pianoforte, and retrieved the charcoal and pad of paper from her reticule. Her movements were sure and capable.
Eliza had delicate, tapered fingers. Last night, they’d felt like butterflies on his back.
Pippa’s hands were entirely different, and seeing how ordinary they looked gave him a slight sympathy toward her. She might know her way around a moor, but in more polished company, she didn’t have the élan of his future bride.
Then again, who did? Eliza, demure as she was, ruled the ranks of young ladies out in society. But she did it with an understated elegance that charmed all those who came in contact with her.
“So are you staying with Lady Eliza?” he asked.
They began to make their way through the house back to the gardens.
“No.” Pippa paused by the billiard table. “Mother, Mr. Trickle, and I are at the Grillon Hotel. I escaped to see Eliza this morning. She told me it was her only opportunity. She’s very popular. I don’t know how she manages her schedule.”
Gregory could swear he saw her fingers clutch the charcoal stick and pad tighter.
Something wasn’t right. She swallowed oddly.
“All you all right?” Gregory leaned toward her, and smelled lavender in her hair. “Shall I get you some water?”
“Oh, no, indeed, but thank you,” she said in a tone that was overly polite, and somewhat distant at that. She sounded as though he were a stranger.
He knew they only saw each other once a year, but he was certainly no stranger. And it was he who usually acted cool—not her. It was a peculiar feeling.
Pippa didn’t dislike any person.
He suddenly didn’t want to be the first.
He threw open the billiards room door again, and they walked back outside. “Forgive me for prying, but I wonder what brought Dougal here today?”
She glided smoothly ahead of him on the narrow path. “I’ve no idea,” she said over her shoulder. “He and Eliza must know each other.”
“They must,” he agreed.
Where were they?
Pippa paused to take in the view of a lush hydrangea. “Those colors are so beautiful, aren’t they?”
“They are.” Although to Gregory the hydrangea was no more worthy of a compliment than any other hydrangea he’d ever seen.
Impatience to see Eliza gripped him, and he had to strive to remember to loosen his fingers, let them hang at his sides, and relax his jaw.
Pippa looked up at him with bright eyes, hazel turned green against the backdrop of garden shrubbery. “It’s odd seeing you away from Uncle Bertie’s.”
She was nothing if not frank.
“It is,” he said, and it was. It felt wrong somehow. Perhaps that was what accounted for his unease. Seeing Pippa in the wrong place. And sensing her nervousness.
That was it.
She seemed hesitant to move.
He’d be glad to take the lead. With one deft move, he sidestepped her on the path. “If you’d like to sketch, there’s a bench right there you might have missed, three hydrangeas over.” He pointed to the east. “I’ll find Dougal and Lady Eliza.”
“Very well.” Her voice was a little thin.
He sensed that she didn’t dislike him, after all, which brought a feeling of relief followed swiftly by guilt: He was too hard on her. Much too hard. It wasn’t her fault that she was free, more free than anyone he’d ever known, even as society—and Uncle Bertie, in particular—shackled her to the usual expectations.
How had she done that, anyway? Learned to live within her bonds so well?
“I’ll see you in a moment, my lady.”
She looked up, a flash of trepidation in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.
Good God, she wasn’t even trying anymore to hide it—she was worried about something, something that must be going on in amid the flora and fauna.
But what?
He took long strides over the grass, abandoning the pebble path, and headed to the back of the garden, where a line of rosebushes stood like sweet sentinels surrounding a statue of Mars.
Where the deuce were Dougal and Eliza, anyhow? They didn’t really know each other well. They couldn’t—
And there they were.
Past Mars, on the right, behind a tree. Dougal had her up against the trunk, and he was kissing her deeply, his hand roving her waist and caressing her breast.
Eliza was like a different woman. Her hands clung to Dougal’s shoulders in a fierce grip. Her back was arched into him, as if she couldn’t get enough of his mouth.
She hadn’t been nearly as fervent in her response to Gregory. She hadn’t been passionate with him at all, truth be told.
For the second time in his life, he felt as though he’d been shot three times through the heart in rapid succession: The woman he’d come to claim as his bride had betrayed him. His best friend had, too. And so had Lady Pippa Harrington, who despite their differences shared a rare bond with him: They were both mutual survivors of Uncle Bertie’s annual birthday dinner.
He left the entangled lovers
to their own devices and strode to the bench where Pippa was making lame sketch marks and snatched the pad from her hands. All that was there was a doodle of a heart with an arrow through it, and then of a face, a man with curly hair and distinctive brows—
Him.
Gregory tossed it on the bench beside her. “So much for you and your sugar sculptures.”
She stood, her face white, stricken. “I’m so sorry. But don’t despair. You can do anything you want. Go anywhere you want. Whereas I—”
He pulled her close. Her face was an inch from his, her breasts pressed against his jacket.
“Stop talking,” he told her in a low, dark voice.
She gulped and refused to take her eyes off his. He could feel her heart beating hard in her chest. Her eyes were so very green, and her lashes—those thick lashes …
And then he kissed her as if she’d had practice, but he knew she hadn’t. Not Pippa. She was as fresh as that morning air on the moor, as untried as a closed rosebud.
He was unrelenting, demanding more of her with every passing second.
More.
And when he found her responding, moaning low in her throat when he pinned her in his embrace between his muscular thighs, he didn’t care that the hardness of his arousal butted into her belly, that after this kiss was over, he was done with her.
He took what he wanted, caressing her derriere and her waist with a possessive hand, plundering her mouth with the desperation of a man who was angry and alone.
A host of images paraded through his head: the ruby ring in his pocket; his dying mother’s whisper that his natural father, whom she wouldn’t name, had died long ago; the smiling faces of his family on Christmas morning, a holiday which had felt vaguely sad to him ever since he’d learned the truth; his friends at Oxford, laughing and drinking without a care in the world—
Eliza.
“No,” Pippa managed to gasp against his mouth, and slid out from under his arm. She stood there trembling. “You won’t use me like this. I’m sorry what’s happened, but it’s not my fault.”
The careless sound of a jaunty bird whistling on a branch nearby sounded oddly chilling. But fitting. There was no sunshine. Nor songs. Not really. They were a cover—like Pippa—for deceit. For wrong.
Gregory turned on his heels and strode toward the house.
“Gregory!” she called after him.
But he ignored her.
“Gregory!” she called again, this time from right behind him on the pebble path.
He shut the door to the billiards room in her face.
Then he strode through the house and took his cane and hat from the hall tree before the astonished butler could hand them over himself. He walked directly home, seeing nothing along the way.
Peter came in as he was packing a bag in the quiet of their bedchamber. “Where are you going?”
“The United States,” Gregory said, then reached into his pocket, removed the silk box containing their mother’s ring, and tossed it to him. “Keep it. I don’t want to see it again.”
Peter said nothing, just held the box in his hand.
Gregory went back to tossing cravats and shirts into his bag. “You knew, didn’t you?”
Peter still said nothing.
“You knew.” Gregory stood tall and stared down his brother. He was the fourth person to dupe him today.
“I suspected she was in love with Dougal. But I had no proof. I tried to warn you—”
“Out of my way.” Gregory grabbed his suitcase and stormed out of the room.
He didn’t belong here.
He didn’t belong anywhere.
Pippa was right. He could do anything he wanted, be anyplace he wanted. He was a novice architect, and while Father and Bertie had been the ones to turn him in that direction, it was up to him how far he wanted to go with it.
His first stop in America would be Federalist New England. He’d go next to the District of Columbia, followed by Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia, and then perhaps farther south to Charleston and Savannah and St. Augustine. After that, nothing was stopping him from going out West to see how Americans housed themselves and built their institutions—churches, schools, banks, mercantile shops—on the frontier.
Other than Peter, the only family member home at the moment was Mama. He’d already sent word to her that he was leaving imminently. At the front door with the carriage waiting, the marchioness embraced him as hard as she could. “I wish you could wait for your father—”
His father. Gregory never got used to the pain of hearing those words. It pressed on him now. He had to fight—fight—to hold it back.
“I can’t.” His voice was hoarse. It was so unlike him to reveal his true self to Mama or anyone in the family. He had to leave. For their sakes, too.
“Something terrible has happened.” Mother held tight to his arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He ignored the hurt and confusion he saw in her eyes and put on his hat.
“Oh, Gregory. Don’t leave like this. Please. We love you, dearest.”
However high the wall of hurt between him and the world, the tenderness he saw on Mama’s face reminded him of his duty. He paused long enough to kiss her cheek. “I’ll write when I get there.” He schooled his tone to sound reassuring. “Don’t worry about me.”
Then, without waiting for a reply, he jogged down the front steps of the house, onto the pavement, and into the carriage—without a backward glance at the House of Brady.
Chapter One
One Year Later
For Lady Pippa Harrington, it wasn’t going to be the usual Sunday family dinner at Uncle Bertie’s. Those were full of ridiculous speeches by her stepfather, Mr. Wilfred Trickle, followed by taut silences and the occasional grrr from one of Uncle Bertie’s eight corgis under the table. No, tonight, Pippa’s great-uncle was celebrating his birthday, and as a guest he’d have his godson Gregory Sherwood, Lord Westdale, son of the Marquess and Marchioness of Brady—one of the most eligible bachelors in London and an up-and-coming architect.
And the last man on earth I want to see, thought Pippa.
But he was back in England—back from an extended stay in America.
“Pippa?” Mother stood at the door to the small, private studio near the kitchen, her soft brown hair in a tidy chignon held back with painted Spanish combs, her delicate shoulders draped in a spectacular spangled gold shawl.
Her exotic accessories had come from Uncle Bertie’s trunks. He owned five modest theaters in southwest England, including his pride and joy, the Roger, in the big city of Bristol. Every once in a while, costume inventory in transit from one theater to another between shows made its way to his country house, where Mother, Pippa, and two maids repaired or retired them, depending on their general state.
“Oh, Mother!” Pippa looked up from attaching the final miniature crown to a tiny window on a pale silver sugar sculpture she’d made for Uncle Bertie’s birthday celebration. “The red gown is beautiful on you. Are you Desdemona?”
“I’m not sure,” Mother said shyly, but she had the proud look of a young girl at her debut. “I think the entire ensemble might be a combination of Lady Macbeth and Kate, from The Taming of the Shrew.”
Pippa laughed. “You’re not the least bit like either of those ladies. But you look lovely, and you should dress like that always. Not only on Uncle Bertie’s birthday.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” said Mother. “This is for Bertie. You know how he is.”
“Yes, I do, and you need to be like that, too.” Pippa was kitted out in a severe ivory satin frock with seed pearls sewn in a square pattern across the bodice—an altered Ophelia from Hamlet, actually—protected, for the most part, by a sunny blue floral apron. “You were well on your way to becoming the toast of the London stage at one time, and no matter what your situation in life, you should never forget it.”
Mother ignored her, but she knew very well Pippa was implying that Mr. Trickle, whom P
ippa had secretly nicknamed the Toad—with his protruding eyes, ample jowls, and bald head covered in a perpetual sheen of perspiration—had stolen nearly all the light from his wife’s eyes. Some of the blame also had to go to Pippa’s own late father, Uncle Bertie’s nephew, who’d fallen in love with Mother when he saw her on the stage, married her, and cast her off when he’d tired of her.
Now Mother’s limpid blue gaze took in the pretty disarray of molds, marzipan, and cutting tools surrounding Pippa’s sparkling creation on the table.
“What do you think?” Pippa spread her arms wide so her mother could experience the full effect of viewing the miniature castle unimpeded.
“Very nice, as always, darling.” Mother pulled distractedly at her shawl. “But shouldn’t you be preparing yourself for this evening?” With a harried eye, she scanned her daughter for imperfections. “Now that Gregory is back, you must at least try to entice him to marry you. Your gown is perfection, but your hair needs taming.”
“After you leave, I’ll braid it.” Pippa strode across the room to a drawer and pulled out a comb.
“Here?” Mother sounded aghast.
“Why not? I even have a spare tiara in this drawer.” She pulled one out and blew on it. “See? It’s only missing one false emerald. I’ll fix it with some green marzipan. Gregory will never notice.” She set it back down and returned to the table.
Mother sighed. “It’s all that walking across the moors that makes you so uncivilized. It’s unseemly.”
“But the fells are far too pretty at every turn of the season to stop my daily hikes.” Deftly forming a marzipan turret for the castle, Pippa looked up with an arched brow. “I wish you’d join me. It would do you good to get away from—” She nearly said the Toad, but caught herself just in time. “Nothing’s ever the same on the moor.”
The way it is here, she wanted to add. Day after day of tension between the Toad and Mother, Uncle Bertie steadily ignoring them, lost in his own theater dreams. And Pippa wishing for …
Wishing for something else.
“Pish,” her parent replied. “Every day, the moor’s the same. Sky, meadow, tor. Over and over again.”
The Earl Is Mine Page 2
