Storming the Castle (9 page)

A sob rose in Philippa’s breast.

Her father held her even closer. “I see he did. Well, my dear, the truth of it is that you have met two young men. One of them is a true gentleman, though perhaps his birth is not the best. And the other is no gentleman, though he’s a baronet’s son.”

“P-Please don’t make me marry him,” Philippa managed.

“There’s no choice,” he said, rocking her a little. “You know that, Philippa. There’s no choice. You’ll forget your noble butler in time. Rodney genuinely loves you, for all the boy’s a fool. You could do much worse.”

“I can’t bear it,” Philippa said, sobbing.

“You mustn’t run away,” her father said. “It broke my heart. I aged ten years, sweetpea. I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t know where you were. Please.”

Silent tears seeped into his coat.

“And you’re a lady,” her father said, pressing forward where he obviously saw an advantage. “You must marry Rodney.” Then he played his strongest card.

“It’s what your mother wanted.”

She knew it was the truth.

“Margaret’s heart would break to think of you, her only child, as a servant, or withering into an old maid,” he said. “I promise you, child, I
promise
that you will learn to love Rodney. He’s a fool, but he’s not vicious or unkind. He genuinely loves you, in a way that I’ve rarely seen among gentlemen, to tell the truth. He will always care for you, and for the children you will have.”

The weight of his words felt like heavy brambles, rooting her in Little Ha’penny, in Rodney’s arms, in Durfey Manor.

“I—” She swallowed, made herself say it. “I will marry Rodney, but only if you give me a week. If you force me to marry him tomorrow, Papa, I will run away tonight. I will crawl out my window if I have to.”

Her father sighed. “Waiting for the butler?”

“He’s a gentleman,” she said stoutly. “You acknowledged it yourself. He
loves
me. He told me so. He’ll find a way, some way, to come to me.”

Her father turned away, but not before she saw raw sympathy in his eyes. “As you wish,” he said. “I owe you that at least.”

Chapter Twelve

H
our by agonizing hour, day by day, the week of Philippa’s temporary reprieve crept past. She tried not to look out the window in the direction of the castle. Wick had promised her a week. He would try. He would . . . try. She kept repeating that to herself though she went to sleep sobbing at the possibility that he wouldn’t come.

Or at the possibility he would come to ask for her hand, but a day too late, a week too late, a year too late.

On the fifth day in the early afternoon, her father found her, sitting in a back room without a view of the dusty road leading in the direction of the castle. She was tired of leaping to her feet every time she heard the slightest sound that might be a carriage.

“My dear,” he said, “would you do me a great kindness and take this book to the vicar? I borrowed it sometime ago, and I expect he’d like it back.”

She took the book from his hand. “
The Hellenica,
by Xenophon,” she read. “What on earth is it?”

“A most interesting account of military prowess,” her father said. “Xenophon was an ancient Greek warrior.”

“Of course, Papa,” she said. “I’m trying to finish hemming before suppertime, but I’ll take it to the vicarage first thing in the morning.”

“No, the vicar is waiting for the book,” her father stated. “Please do so at once.”

Philippa saw that her father’s jaw was set. He seemed to be vibrating with a kind of wordless excitement, one that she instantly interpreted.

“You’re having another argument with the vicar, aren’t you?” she asked, with a sigh. “And I suppose
The Hellenica
proves your point.”

“Exactly,” her father said with satisfaction. “Riggs will be quite surprised.”

“Must I go this very moment?”

“You could . . . do your hair,” her father said, waving vaguely at her. “After all, no one has seen you since your return.”

Philippa made her way upstairs, thinking about that. No doubt the villagers were agog with excitement. Certainly by now they knew all about her stint as a nursemaid in the castle. The realization made her put on her second-best gown, a fetching pale blue one caught up under her breast with navy ribbons. She had a bonnet to match, a silly little thing that emphasized the color of her hair.

Once in Little Ha’penny the first person she saw was the baker’s wife, delivering hot rolls to the Biscuit and Plow. “Aye, so you’ll be a baroness as of Saturday,” Mrs. Deasly said comfortably. “When I think of you as just a little scrap, coming in here with your nursemaid, I can hardly believe you’re all grown-up. Your hair was like sunshine, even then, and you were the prettiest little thing I’d ever seen. It’s a lucky girl you are, Miss Philippa!”

“Yes,” she said, smiling at Mrs. Deasly. Even if she had to marry Rodney, she had loved and been loved, and that was more than many a woman could say.

As she approached the village square, she saw the vicar in front of his church, chatting with the blacksmith. Father Riggs was a gentle, stooped man, as dear to her as a grandfather. He was standing under an oak tree. The sun was slanting through the boughs, and his black cassock was dappled, as if it had been spotted with rainwater.

“It is a pleasure to see you again, my dear Miss Philippa. And it will be my honor to perform your wedding ceremony on Satursday,” he said, rocking back on his heels.

Philippa couldn’t quite manage a smile, but she nodded.

The vicar drew a little closer and scrutinized her face. “My dear, are you . . .” He stopped and began again. “Often those of the fair sex feel a trifle reluctant to marry, but I assure you that the rewards of being a dutiful and loving wife are remarkable, and realized not merely in heaven.”

Philippa nodded absently. She was wondering whether a broken heart ever scarred over. She returned her attention to the vicar when she saw that his face had grown soft and regretful, as if he were consigning her to the gallows rather than the altar.

He put a consoling hand on her arm. “I will certainly—” But at that moment she heard the clatter of horses’ hooves on cobblestones and her heart bounded. Surely it was Wick at last! She spun about so quickly that the priest’s hand fell from her arm. It was—

It was Rodney.

As soon as he saw her, he jerked his head to the two young men riding with him. They withdrew to the opposite side of the square, and Rodney swung off his horse. For a moment, he simply stood before her, his face tight, before by an effort of will, it seemed, he regained his habitual sleepy look.

At last, he bent into a bow. “Miss Philippa.” At the bow’s lowest point, she saw that he would be bald quite soon. Bald as an egg, likely.

She curtsied, and held out her hand to be kissed. “Mr. Durfey.”

“Ah, the dear betrothed couple!” Father Riggs chortled beside her.

They ignored him.

Rodney took her hand in his, raised it to his lips, and didn’t release it. “Philippa,” he said, with a windy sigh. “Ah, Philippa.”

Philippa said nothing. Instead, she looked at Rodney as a naturalist might examine a specimen, cataloging the thinning hair, the arrogant yet indolent slope to his chin, the genuine—yes, genuine—affection in his eyes.

“I am sorry,” he said finally, still clinging to her hand.

Philippa forced her mouth to curve upwards, but pulled her fingers away. “It’s quite all right.”

“I—I didn’t understand. I was slightly mad, I think. Your beauty is intoxicating.”

Philippa didn’t think he was mad. She thought that he was simply lustful, and that he would always be lustful. It was part of Rodney, together with his fleshy thighs and his warm eyes. She knew in that second that he would not be faithful to her. Not Rodney, not once he was a baronet. He would rove on, cheerfully deflowering maidens in barns, or perhaps even inns.

But at the moment, he was all hers, for good or ill. He snatched up her hand again, and held it tightly. “I love you,” he said, turning his shoulder on the vicar. “I love you, Philippa. I’ll do whatever you wish.”

She could see that he meant it. Rodney would frolic now and then with a willing woman—in a barn or otherwise—but at night he would return to her, with that love shining in his eyes.

For a second she felt as if she couldn’t breathe, as if she were trapped behind a pane of glass, looking out at a world she couldn’t touch. Panic filled her, the suffocating fear that she would spend the rest of her life without ever being in the arms of the person she loved.

And all the more suffocating for being always in the arms of a person who loved
her.

Dimly, Philippa became aware that she was swaying, her heart clenched at the thought of the life that lay ahead of her. Father Riggs squealed something, began fanning her with his hat.

Rodney pulled her to his chest, smashing her nose into his coat. She smelled starched linen and sweat. She was held there for several moments, lights playing behind her closed eyes, like the dappled sunlight on the vicar’s cassock. Her heart was beating in her ears as loudly as if a hunting party was pounding through the forest.

No . . .

It wasn’t her heart.

She pulled away sharply and turned to see a great party, all on horseback, slow to a walk at the beginning of High Street. They were gaily dressed in the brilliant embroidery and silks of nobility. There were grooms in scarlet livery, and even a coach following, its scarlet trim glittering in the sunlight.

“Lord Almighty,” Rodney muttered beside her.

The horses pranced down the street, their riders smiling and nodding to the villagers trotting from the cobbler and the smithy.

“It’s better than the fair!” she heard someone say shrilly.

But Philippa’s eyes were fixed on the rider in front, a man who was not wearing the exuberant embroidery of his royal brother nor the scarlet livery of the groomsmen. Nor was he wearing shining armor.

He was riding a snowy white horse. His costume was one her own father would have chosen: a dark, dark green coat with a snowy neckcloth. It was not ostentatious, but it proclaimed the wearer a gentleman.

Perhaps, even, a member of the gentry.

Perhaps, even, connected to a royal family, albeit a non-English royal family.

She stepped out from the shadow of the oak, her arm sliding from Rodney’s hand.

As Wick’s horse paced toward her, Philippa didn’t even smile. Her heart was too full for that: full of song and laughter and the love that would sustain her to the end of her life.

And Wick didn’t smile either. He was as grave as a king as he brought his mount to a trot, leaned down at just the right moment, swept out an arm, pulled her onto his saddle—and then galloped straight down the street and out of Little Ha’penny.

When they reached the edge of the town, alone now, since the royal party had stayed in Little Ha’penny, the better to dazzle the villagers, Wick jumped from the horse again and reached up.

She fell into his arms with a sob of pure joy.

Wick dropped to his knees there, in the dust of the road. “Miss Philippa Damson, would you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife?”

“Wick, oh, Wick,” Philippa said, reaching out a shaking hand to bring him back to his feet.

But he waited. Had there been an observer standing in the ditch, that observer might have found his face impassive, unreadable. But to Philippa, his eyes spoke of deep love, a fierce passion, and just the tiniest amount of uncertainty.

She fell to her knees and wound her arms around his neck. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come!”

His arms were warm and strong about her. He kissed her ear and whispered something, but she was sobbing too hard to comprehend. At last he tenderly picked her up and carried her into a field of buttercups, well away from the road. There he sat her down and began kissing every part of her face he could reach until she simply had to stop crying.

When he reached her mouth, he kissed her until her breath was quick, not with sobs but with a quite different emotion.

Finally, he pulled back and said, “May I ask you again?”

“Of course I will marry you,” she said, turning to catch his mouth again. “Yes, yes, yes!”

“My name,” he said, sometime later, “is Jonas. Jonas Berwick.”

“My
husband,
Philippa said with great delight, “is a man named Jonas Berwick.”

He shook his head.

“No?”

“He’s a future doctor named Jonas Berwick. And he owns an estate called Yarrow House, which was the gift of his brother.”

Philippa swallowed. “Oh, Wick.”

“
Jonas,
” he said. “Wick was a majordomo at a castle once upon a time. Jonas is a gentleman of unknown birth but obvious gentility, who lives in England with his entirely English and altogether beautiful wife. He is apparently connected to a royal family, but because they are from a strange and small country, no one pays much attention to that.”

Tears were again sliding down her face, not from fear but from the deepest happiness.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so much, Philippa, my future wife. The imprint of you is on my heart and will be there the day I die.”

“You sound like a doctor, diagramming your body,” she whispered back.

“I think you will not complain when I diagram
your
body,” he said, soft and low. The flame rose between them instantly, and when Jonas rolled his future wife over, sinking into a patch of buttercups so they couldn’t be seen from the road, indeed there were no complaints.