She rose from her seat, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I do not believe George would do something like this. I would have known if he were capable of something so dastardly.”
She paced to the opposite end of the drawing room, needing space. Needing air to breathe. A moment away from everyone. Time to think, to comprehend what she had just read.
“Sunshine.” The velvet baritone at her back was familiar. So, too, the long-ago sobriquet he had invented for her.
How dare he, the wretch?
Pippa spun about to face him, recoiling. “Do not call me that.”
Northwich took a step in retreat, his expression unreadable. “Forgive me. I merely meant to offer comfort. I am sure it is a shock to you, discovering the truth about your husband.”
“The truth according to you?” she snapped. “I beg your pardon, Northwich, but I will not believe anything you say of George.”
She stormed back across the drawing room, depositing the letter upon the stack of others. She had to escape. To leave. This could not be true.
Not her George.
Tilly had risen from her seat and approached her once more. “I am so very sorry, Pippa. I know you do not want to believe this, but I have read all the letters. Northwich is not exaggerating. He has reason to believe Mr. Shaw was engaged in far more than what happened to Adrian.”
She dashed at her tears, her humiliation complete. “How could you involvehimin this? I shall never forgive you for it.”
“Pippa.” Tilly reached for her, presumably to offer comfort.
But Pippa did not want comfort. She did not want anything but to be left alone. This was a betrayal of the worst order by two of the people she loved most, George and Tilly.
She shrugged away from Tilly’s touch, pressing a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. “I must go.”
She turned away, fleeing to the door, escape her only objective.
Chapter 1
One quarter hour later
The Duke of Northwich had forced his way into her carriage.
Pippa could scarcely credit it. The vehicle had beenmovingwhen he wrenched the door open and climbed inside with an agile grace that belied the conveyance’s steady pace down the street. Had he fallen, he could have been crushed beneath the wheels.
Not that she would have mourned him.
But he had stolen into her carriage uninjured, and now he was seated on the Morocco leather squabs opposite her. Taking up the entirety of the space with the too-large body of an athlete. Once, she had admired his height and his strength. His long legs, broad shoulders, lean hips. She had admired more than that, in fact.
No longer.
“Get out of my carriage,” she snapped.
He eyed her calmly. “I will not.”
In his haste to pursue her during her flight from his townhome, he had not bothered to don coat, hat, or gloves. The gray clouds which had been threatening the portent of rain had finally surrendered, sending a murky drizzle below. The duke’s raven-black hair was wet, and droplets of rain glistened on the prominent ridges of his cheekbones. She wished it made him look ridiculous.
Unfortunately, a sodden Duke of Northwich was every bit as dangerously handsome as a dry one.
“This is my carriage, and you are trespassing within it,” she seethed. “I will call for the police.”
“And tell them what, Lady Philippa? That a peer of the realm has tasked himself with seeing to the safe passage of a distressed widow?” His long fingers, resting on his thighs, drummed lightly, as if in irritation. “Being a gentleman is hardly a crime. But go ahead, do. I invite you to drive to Scotland Yard and have them haul me away in irons.”
He had the audacity to mock her?
“It is Mrs. Shaw to you,” she reminded him, clutching her reticule in a tight grip and wishing it contained a weapon. Not that she would shoot him. But perhaps threaten him. Force him from the vehicle with the aid of a pistol… “And you, sir, are no gentleman.”
