And more than a bit incomprehensible.
Yet it must all look very promising indeed to Mama, whose spirits must be soaring. She might already be imagining a grand wedding at St. George’s on Hanover Square, half thetonin attendance. Mama had brought her here, after all, to enjoy a Season with people of her own class and to find a husband.
Just the thought of how her mother must be viewing all this made Philippa’s anger boil hotter. Could anything boilhotter? Orhottest? And why did the mind grapple with such questions at the most inappropriate moments?
This was all happening as a consequence of keeping silent!Philippa had gone home after that maypole dancing practice, assured Papa when he had asked that yes, indeed, she had enjoyed herself, and found herself quite unable to tell him or Mama what had happened to take the fun right out of her evening. She had carefully hidden the agonies of pain and humiliation she was suffering. She had not fully realized at the time, of course, thatfunhad disappeared from her life for years to come.
The road between Grosvenor Square and Hyde Park was crowded, and the marquess needed to give his full attention to maneuvering his curricle past other conveyances, including a few slow-moving carts and one ridiculously flimsy high-perch phaeton driven at unrealistic speed by an impatient dandy, who was coming the other way and expected all and sundry to scatter before him. His efforts—and his appearance—were being met with caustic wit and considerable verbal abuse, much of itverycolorful, and a flat refusal to scatter. It wasnotthe time to begin any sort of serious conversation. Philippa held her peace and tried without any real success to stop her arm from brushing against his. It was suffocating. It was intolerable.
Once they turned toward the park and passed through the gates, however, everything changed. The park seemed vast and rural and almost quiet in contrast to the noisy bustle of the streets outside.
“Lord Roath,” she said, aware even as she spoke that he was turning his head, about to say something toher.“This is insufferable.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “On a certain occasion four years ago, I spoke impulsively and ill-advisedly to a friend of mine in the hearing of a group of other men who were strangers to me. What I said was quite unpardonable, and it weighed upon my conscience for some time afterward. My only consolation was that neither you nor any of the other ladies present had heard what I said and that outof respect for you neither James nor his neighbors whodidhear me were likely to repeat my words. However, yesterday I made the discovery that in fact youdidoverhear and that the effect upon you was such that the whole course of your life from that moment to this was changed. Quite blighted, in fact. I cannot express quite how appalled I have been since learning the power those careless, cruel words had upon you.”
“So let me understand you,” she said. “What appalled you was not that you considered me soiled goods but that you said so loudly enough that I overheard you from some distance away and am holding you to account now?”
He glanced at her briefly before turning the curricle rather abruptly onto a path that was narrower than the broad avenue they had been on.
“It seems that I am not clever with words at all, Lady Philippa,” he said. “I do not know where that phrase—soiled goods—came from. It was never justified. I would be tempted to believe you must have misheard except that I remember James Rutledge’s fury after we had left that barn.”
“Why did you come to Stratton House this afternoon?” she asked him. “Why did you invite me here? Did you—doyou—intend to make me an apology? I will save you the trouble. It is rejected. I believe you should take me home now. There is nothing more you can say that will interest me, and there is nothing more I choose to say.”
“Take you home and leave you to explain to your mother and sister why you are back so soon?” he asked her. “You did not tell your mother that evening what had happened, did you? She still does not know. She would hardly have received me as she did this afternoon if she was aware of how I once insulted her daughter and hurt her beyond measure.”
He turned his head to look fully at her when she did not answer immediately, and oh goodness, he was close. She could see the green in his predominantly brown eyes. She could see the firmness of his lips and jaw. Villains really ought not to be good-looking. Or smell so good from some shaving cream or cologne. It was not fair.
“A person does not go home and tell her father and mother that she has just been horribly insulted by the man they know to be a guest in the home of their friends and neighbors—and all because he had just heard that the Earl of Stratton lived close by,” she said. “My father would not have taken kindly to his daughter’s being called soiled goods. There would have been fuss and mayhem and an eruption of renewed scandal just when memories of the old scandal were fading. Besides, we were never a family for open, frank discussion of any uncomfortable topic that touched us. It would not have soothed me to go home and tell, Lord Roath. Quite the opposite, in fact. I said nothing.”
They did not speak while he slowed for a sharp bend in the path and turned cautiously lest something be coming the other way. Nothing was, however. Philippa glanced at his profile. And she was aware that if that incident had not occurred four years ago, she would very possibly be looking upon him quite differently now and enjoying herself enormously. But if it had not occurred, he would not have called upon her this afternoon, would he? Or invited her to come driving. If it had not occurred, this would not even be her first Season. The point was that if one were to change one small detail of history, one must also change a whole host of other details that had happened—ornothappened—afterward.
She wished it were Sir Gerald Emmett who was seated beside her, or one of the other young men who had seemed pleased to meet her yesterday. Someone with whom she had no history at all.
He sighed audibly as he drove them between trees on both sides, and it was easy to forget that they were in the middle of one of the busiest and most densely populated places in the world. “This is the situation as I see it, Lady Philippa,” he said. “We are both here for the Season. In all probability we will encounter each other with some frequency at the myriad social functions that will occupy thetonduring the coming months. It would be remarked upon if we were to cut each other’s acquaintance after we were seen together yesterday and again today by a few people. One never wants to provide thetonor the society columns of the morning papers with food for gossip, and it does not take much. My aunt and your mother have been close friends for years. My younger sister means to pursue a friendship with you. She spoke of you last evening and again at breakfast this morning. She plans to invite you and your sister to take tea with her. We cannot ignore each other, then, without arousing comment. May we agree at least to behave civilly toward each other when we do find ourselves in company together?”
“I believe I know what good manners are, Lord Roath,” she said stiffly. “I have always done my best to practice them in my dealings with other people. I am not the one who uttered an unfounded insult in the hearing of other people, mostly strangers. And in the hearing of the person who was being insulted.”
“No,” he agreed. “Neither of us will ever forget that I am the villain of this piece.”
He turned the curricle again, onto a wider path this time, one with trees on one side and a wide stretch of rolling grassland on the other. Philippa could see the Serpentine some distance ahead of them.
He seemed genuinely distressed by what had happened, she thought. Yet somehow that realization only annoyed her the more.A villain ought to be villainous through to his black heart. She wasnotgoing to forgive him, but she wished he would say something to make that an easier decision.
“Lord Roath,” she said after neither of them had spoken for a minute or two. “Why did hearing my father’s name shock you so much that night?”
His head turned sharply her way. “I... suppose I had heard something about him of which I disapproved,” he said. “I beg your pardon. I—”
“You had heard of his philandering ways when he came to town each spring for the parliamentary session, leaving my mother and us behind in the country?” she asked.
“Y-yes,” he said.
“And you had heard that he brought scandal home with him to Ravenswood one year and caused considerable embarrassment to his family and the whole neighborhood?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said again.
Very unconvincingly.
“Then you lied yesterday?” she asked him.
