The Earl is Mine (3 page)

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 Pippa 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.”

“But it’s
never
the same.” Pippa was hurt on behalf of every living creature she’d encountered on the moor, and on behalf of the dramatic landscape itself, a giant, breathing presence—with moods from light to dark—cradling them all.

Ah, but what did she expect? The Toad was a nasty influence on Mother. A dozen years ago, she’d often gladly traipsed hand in hand with Pippa over rough pastures filled with gorse and heather or stood on a rocky outcrop and shouted into the wind.

But those days were no more. Pippa vowed she would never let a man steal her happiness. She would marry for love only, and that didn’t seem a bit likely, not when she lived outside the tiny village of Plumtree, which was well off the beaten path.

“Mother, please,” she said now. “You know from Uncle Bertie’s past birthday dinners that I’m not interested in marrying Gregory, and he doesn’t want to marry me, either. We’re going to have a perfectly ordinary meal this time, and life will go on as usual—at least until Madame DuPont calls me to Paris.”

Madame DuPont was Uncle Bertie’s old amour. Her spinster daughter would soon be traveling to Italy for six months, and while she was gone, Madame required a companion, preferably an excellent reader. She’d written Bertie to ask for a recommendation.

“I don’t approve of your going to France.” Mother’s tone was agitated. “You’re much better off staying in Devon and finding a husband. Gregory is the perfect one.”

An image of him kissing her hard beneath the trees in Eliza’s garden—punishing her, taunting her—flooded Pippa’s mind, and she felt a moment’s shame and anger.

Why had she responded? A year later, and she still regretted it!

She tried for patience. “But this is such a golden opportunity. I’ll have a place to live—a safe place with a respectable widow. And on my days off, I’ll improve my sugar-sculpting skills under the great Monsieur Perot’s tutelage.”

“He won’t have you in his kitchen,” Mother insisted. “You’re a woman, and a lady, at that. Only men make fine pastry chefs. You’ll find yourself pining away for England, and when you return, you’ll be even more firmly on the shelf.”

Pippa sighed. “It’s a chance I’ll have to take. And I have Uncle Bertie’s blessing.”

“But how can he support your going to Paris when he wants you to marry Gregory?”

“He won’t go back on his promise to me just because Gregory chose to come back to England unannounced.” Pippa gave a short laugh. “I suspect tonight, because Uncle Bertie loves us both and adores drama, he’ll be tempted to interfere, but whatever he says or does won’t make any difference to me. As for Gregory, he’ll have his pick of dozens of debutantes in London to marry. Bertie’s machinations will no doubt fall flat with him, too.” She threw her mother a tender look. “Don’t forget that I’m like you.”
The former you,
she wanted to add. “I have dreams I want to pursue. And it’s not as if six months is a very long time.”

Mother let out a sharp sigh. “Well, make haste here. Gregory awaits.” She sent Pippa one last warning look then departed.

Slowly, Pippa circled the table and looked at her little castle. Everything felt different now that Gregory was here. The studio seemed bigger and brighter, but she felt smaller, her little castle a feeble testament to the fact that she’d done nothing grand with
her
life.

At least not yet.

But if she could embrace the unpredictable, brooding nature of Dartmoor—which she did, with every ounce of her being—and if she could endure the despicable Toad and his cruel, conniving ways for ten years, she could certainly withstand Mother’s disapproval over her spending half a year in Paris.

She swallowed hard. She could even face seeing Gregory again.

With one brisk movement, she swept up some crumbs of sugary dough into her hand and flung them into the fire. “There,” she said to the tiny room which had housed her dreams for the past year, a room Uncle Bertie had used to sketch designs long ago. “I’ve spoken my wildest aspirations to the world.”

Well, almost all of them.

One dream she’d never said aloud, even though Gregory alone already knew what it was. He’d seen it on that sketch pad, but he’d also tasted it on her lips, read it in the way she’d hungrily kissed him back in Eliza’s garden.

Quietly, she hung the apron on its hook and began to braid her hair. She wasn’t daunted by mere mortal men. A year may have passed since she’d seen Lord Westdale, but she’d known him forever.

Despite the awkwardness between them, he was nothing to fear.

The small mirror next to the door assured her that her braided hair was neat and proper. She placed the tiara on her head, put her chin up, and took a deep breath as she left the studio.

*   *   *

Several nervous moments later, Pippa rounded a shadowy corner and peeked into the drawing room to spy on Uncle Bertie’s birthday dinner guest, and her whole body reacted with a suffusion of heat.

She was sure—positively sure—that the effect no longer came from girlish fantasies of love. She’d told herself she was well over that. The heat in her palms and on her face now came instead from a combination of embarrassment, chagrin, and humiliation. He’d given her no chance to explain the part she’d played in that horribly awkward situation with Eliza.

She was tempted to be angry, but it always dissolved when she thought about the heartbreak that afternoon, hard and harsh as his expression had been when he’d slammed the billiard room door in her face.