Fascination -and- Charmed (78 page)

“What if I find it necessary to leave at short notice? I never—” Calum stopped when he found himself looking down into a freckled face. “Hello, Max. What are you doing so far from whoever’s looking after you?”

Max shrugged thin shoulders inside a loose brown wool coat. “Waitin’ for you, sir. And, um, Papa, o’course.”

“How nice.”

“It’s a long way back up that ’ill to the castle,” Max said, frowning toward the massive building. “What a very big place it is.”

“A very big place,” Calum echoed, raising a brow at Struan, who appeared not to notice. “Well, I suppose we’d all better make our way there. We’ll need to…we’ll all need to do whatever it is that’s needed next, shan’t we?”

“Right,” Max said. “Long walk for a little lad. I’d best get started, I s’pose.”

Calum pursed his lips for a moment before saying, “Should you like to ride with me? Probably easier on your feet.”

Instantly a grin split Max’s face, and little effort was needed to haul him in front of Calum on the horse. Calum sent Struan a “why must I take charge?” look and set off again.

“Lady Justine tells me you and Ella are doing some lessons,” Struan said. “I don’t suppose you particularly like that.”

“I likes it well enough,” Max said. He held the horse’s mane with both fists. “So does Ella. ’Course, we don’t like everythin’ about it. I’d as soon not do so many sums.”

“Sums are very important to a lad,” Calum informed him.

“Well, it probably wouldn’t be so ’ard if the dog didn’t keep bumpin’ me and makin’ me lose my place.”

Struan looked at Calum. “What dog would that be?”

“Ooh”—Max waved an arm airily—“the big black dog what Lady Philipa brings in.”

“Lady Philipa comes in during your lessons? With a big black dog?”

“Well…I talks to everyone ’ere, y’know.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Everyone thinks Lady Justine’s a real gent.”

“A real
what?
” Struan and Calum laughed together.

“Well.” Max hunched his shoulders. “With the lord that’s the duke—not being around much and the old—that’s the older lady, the duchess—being old, they all looks to Lady Justine, and she does for them real nice.”

Calum winced at the boy’s massacre of the language. “I take it you speak of the servants?” he asked.

“And them what lives around the castle. I’ve met all sorts, I can tell you.”

“Do they say the duke is a careless landlord to his estates?” he asked, feeling Struan’s hard stare upon him.

“They say ’e’s pleasant enough as long as you don’t cross ’im. Funny, you askin’ about ’im. Lady Philipa wonders what ’e’s like, too.”

“Does she?”

“Yeah. Funny, ain’t it? She’s marryin’ the cove and askin’ me what people ’ere say ’e’s like. Funny.”

“I suppose she asks you when she brings the big black dog to make you lose your place in your sums,” Struan said, grinning at Calum. “No doubt the tutor Lady Justine secured becomes quite irate about all this.”

“Lady Philipa’s our tutor,” Max said, as if nothing could possibly be unusual about such a situation. “She’s taught lots of children. She said so. In that Dowanhill in Yorkshire where she come from. And that’s no lie. She even showed us where it was on a map. She’s ever so interestin’. Reads stories to us. Comes every mornin’. You can ask ’er about it.”

Calum thought about what the boy had said and didn’t find the notion at all surprising. After all, Pippa had made it plain that she enjoyed the company of children.

“Shall we ask her about the big black dog, too?” Struan inquired.

Max’s shoulders came up another notch. “I wouldn’t bother if I was you. She’s always so busy thinkin’, I shouldn’t wonder she ain’t even noticed no dog. It probably just lays in wait, like, till she opens the schoolroom door. Then ’e slips in and gets up to all sorts of mischief. Oh, lor, look what’s comin’.”

From around a bend in the drive, a rushing figure approached. “Lady Philipa’s maid,” Struan commented. “One Nelly Bumstead, I believe.”

She bore down on them until they all converged, and she glared up at Max. “You’re a naughty boy, young Max.

You’ve had us all searchin’ for you. You were told t’go direct from the schoolroom to the nurseries and stay there.”

“He’s all right, Nelly,” Struan said kindly. “We’ll deliver him.”

“Y’don’t understand, your lordship. Lady Justine gave strict orders that Ella and Max weren’t t’be runnin around until the duke’s settled in.”

Calum stiffened.

“Come on down here, you ungrateful boy,” Nelly said. Her pretty face was flushed and she seemed even more disheveled than usual—not an easy feat.

“Just a minute, Nelly,” Calum said. “Are you telling us the duke has arrived?”

“Arrived?”
The girl all but pulled Max from the horse. “I should say he’s arrived. Shoutin’ at everyone. And with that fancy woman of his flouncin’ all over the place. And that nasty Mr. St. Luc demandin’ this and that. And then there’s poor, dear Lady Justine, tryin’ to keep everybody ’appy.”

“When did the duke arrive?”

Nelly tried to straighten her soot-smudged apron. “An hour or more ago.”

“No doubt the dowager duchess has greeted him?” Calum suggested.

Nelly tutted. “And that’s the worst of it. So far she’s refused to see ’im at all. She’s thumping about in her rooms with that nasty stick she uses when she’s angry. And he’s thumping about in the library, shouting for my mistress. And she won’t see him.”

Calum gripped his reins tightly and faced straight ahead. “Oh, sirs, I know it’s not my place, but I wish someone could do something for my mistress.”

“Why?” Calum swung in the saddle to stare down on the girl. “What’s the matter with her?”

“Oh, dear.” Nelly sighed hugely while she kept a firm hold on Max’s hand. “It’s been going on more than two days. She doesn’t sleep at all. And whenever she thinks she’s alone, she cries. Or she just sits and stares. D’you know what I think?”

“What do you think, Nelly?” Calum asked, not daring to look in Struan’s direction.

“Well, I shouldn’t say.”

“Oh, but I think you absolutely should.”

Struan cleared his throat.

“Come along, Nelly,” Calum prompted. “It’s your duty to tell me if something’s wrong with Lady Philipa.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “I think she’s pining, that’s what I think. I think she’s in love and doesn’t know how the other party feels, if you know what I mean.”

Calum swallowed before saying, “I believe I know exactly what you mean.”

“I thought you would. The trouble is, that man she’s supposed to marry has arrived, and he sounds for all the world as if he intends to drag my poor mistress down the aisle the day after tomorrow. He’s rantin’ about how it’s all arranged. And d’you know what I think about that?”

“What do you think about that?” Calum and Struan asked in unison.

“I think she’ll run away…or
kill
herself first.”

What should she do?

What
could
she do?

Surely if Papa could hear the duke, hear the way he roared and raved and ordered, he would see that this marriage should never take place.

But Papa was somewhere on the Continent and she was under the protection of the Franchots.

And the duke had sent word—as if he needed to send word when she could hear him plainly from the little minstrel’s gallery above the lofty vestibule—but he’d sent word that she was to present herself before him immediately.
Present yourself at once.
I
wish to inform you of my marriage plans.

His
marriage plans. And he would inform her, not consult with her. Really, it was a complete bother. It was not to be borne. She was not a simple-minded widgeon.

She would not stand for it!

Pippa spun away from the open windows in her pretty blue bedchamber and promptly snagged a ruffle in her skirt on a splinter in a little lacquered chest.

“I
hate
being clumsy,” she wailed.

As if she’d rung a bell, the door opened and Nelly slipped into the room. The girl raised her chin and frowned ferociously. “You’re not to overset yourself, my lady,” she said, advancing with a determination and seriousness quite unlike herself. “There won’t be a wedding nearly as soon as that duke thinks there will be. You mark my words.”

Still attached to the splinter, Pippa struggled to free herself and look at Nelly at the same time. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve had a few words with some people, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“
Help
me, will you? I am beside myself, and now I’m all tied up in this wretched chest. I am
so
clumsy.”

“You are not clumsy,” Nelly said, setting her mouth in a grim line. “You are put upon, that’s what you are. And it’s going to stop or my name’s not Nelly Bumstead.”

In a trice Nelly had freed Pippa’s skirt.

“Thank you,” Pippa said, contrite. “I’m sorry to be such a bother.”

“You are not a bother. And if you hadn’t spent so much of your life trying not to be a bother for that thoughtless…Oh, forgive me, my lady. I’ve overstepped myself.”

“Thoughtless who?” Pippa asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know what I was saying, my lady, and that’s a fact. I was babbling because I’m overset myself. I’m worried about you. But I’ve got us some help and you’re not to worry anymore.”

“But—”

“I wish you weren’t wearing that dress. Beige just isn’t my favorite color on you. Not that my favorite color matters. Me not being of any account, that—”

“Nelly!
What have you done? Who is to help me?”

“Lady Justine,” Nelly said, raising her chin. “And Mr. Innes.”

Pippa’s legs were instantly watery. “Mr. Innes,” she whispered. “Oh, Nelly, you haven’t gone to him. Not after what happened…”

Nelly waited expectantly, but Pippa wasn’t about to explain that she and Calum seemed unable to spend more than a few moments together without longing to fall upon each other. At least she wanted to fall upon him and had even
told
him so! She had told him she wanted to feel That. Oh, the shocking embarrassment of it all. And then there had been the dowager’s extraordinary behavior toward Calum.

“What happened, my lady?” Nelly asked quietly.

“It doesn’t matter.” It mattered a very great deal.

“Oh, well, that’s all right, then. You’re to come with me to Lady Justine.”

Pippa began to tremble. “What is to happen?”

“Lady Justine wouldn’t tell me exactly. She said I was to bring you to her.”

“Nelly—”

“She told me to tell you to wait and see what happens.”

Finding a way to speak privately with Lady Justine was the surest way of arranging to see Pippa. Now that Lady Justine had sent a message for him to await her here, Calum was certain his wish would soon be granted.

He hovered in the corridor that led to Lady Justine’s apartments. He knew he was in the right place because helpful Nelly had given him careful instructions.

He also knew that Pippa’s rooms were in this same wing of the castle, on the same floor, but on the other side of a minstrel’s gallery from where he now stood.

Going to her would be easy enough.

And it could prove disastrous.

At the sound of a door opening, he swung around—in time to see Lady Justine step into the corridor.

He hurried toward her, a forefinger on his lips.

“Mr. Innes—”

“Calum. Call me Calum, please. I know you said you wanted to see me, but I must speak to you quickly. Please, just listen to me before you ask any questions.”

She nervously fingered a locket at her neck, but she nodded briefly and pulled him farther into the shadowy corridor.

“Nelly told me about your brother’s arrival,” he said. “She said…please forgive me for being blunt, but I have no choice and I believe you have a special fondness for Pippa.”

“I love Pippa.”

“I…I am concerned for her health. I understand the duke is demanding an early marriage and I do not believe Pippa is ready to marry him yet.” He did not believe she would ever be ready to marry him.

Lady Justine turned her face from Calum, displaying a neat, heavy chignon from her crown to her nape.

“My lady,” Calum whispered urgently, “help me. Please help me to see Pippa. To talk to her.”

She faced him again, her dark gaze speculative.

Calum smiled at her; even in his anxiety he had to smile at her. So lovely was fair Justine. His sister. Didn’t she see herself in him? Him in herself?

She smiled back. “Our minds work as one. You may be the final ingredient I need,” she said, and when he would have questioned her, she touched his lips and shook her head. “Don’t ask. Just pray that I’m not making a greater muddle than already exists.”

Her future husband behaved as if she were not in the room.

“She is betrothed to me,” he said to his grandmother, pointing a blunt, beringed finger at Pippa. “She was betrothed to me at her birth. And I have decided the time is right to marry her.”

Ensconced on a rose-colored chaise, the dowager wore a black lace cap on her white hair, and her small body seemed not to exist at all inside a voluminous black silk robe. Black silk slippers, placed precisely side by side, showed beneath the robe. She held an ebony-handled lorgnette to her brilliant eyes.

And the ivory-headed cane was firmly grasped in her other hand.

“I agreed to see you,” the dowager said, “because Justine asked me to do so. If she had not insisted that I hear what you propose, I would not have granted this interview.”

And if Justine had not insisted that Pippa present herself, she certainly wouldn’t be here. What Justine had in mind, Pippa could not begin to guess.

The duchess studied her grandson intently and said, “Continue.”

“I have brought a minister with me from London,” the duke said. “He assures me there is no impediment to performing the ceremony the day after tomorrow.”

“And how does he intend to discharge the necessary formalities?” The dowager’s voice cracked. “The license? The banns? Small details such as these?”