“Not a one, my lord.”
He didn’t bother to correct her address this time as he was too confused by her response. By the lass’s own admission, she’d called at the Grange today. As housekeeper, Mrs. Davies would surely be privy to the arrival and departure of any guests to the manor, whether that guest was there to visit her or the boot black. Connor would bet his last pence nothing got past this woman’s scrutiny. Which could only mean that, like the stablemen, the housekeeper was abetting Mrs. Milbourne and concealing her presence.
The question was: Why?
Holding her gaze a moment longer, he searched for any hint of dissemblance without success. Mrs. Davies had missed her calling. She’d make a fortune at the card tables.
Chapter 3
A bit of a hiccup has developed in my otherwise placid life.
His name is Connor MacKintosh.
~ from the diary of Piper Brudenall, June 1895
Late August 1895
Almost two months later
“‘We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, Oh, nothing!”’ Piper’s voice hitched at that last bit of dialogue before she cleared her throat and continued. “‘Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts—not to hurt others.’”
Closing her eyes, she paused in her reading to absorb the profundity of the words. It was as if she were reading about herself. All through her self-imposed exile, she’d put concentrated effort into presenting a sunny disposition to her friends at the Grange, and even to Jane when she was about. Hiding tears and fears, swallowing the loneliness that burgeoned within her during the long hours after her maid, Edith, retired to the manor each night.
Hiding from the world.
An abundance of caution had kept her safe and secure all this time. Moments when that good sense lapsed and she grew either too comfortable—as she’d been when Harry had spotted her in town—or too lonesome, were the only times when her secret had been put at risk. She’d maintained that wisdom all through the festivitiessurrounding her brother’s nuptials. But for that rash impulse that sent her to the church, she’d confined herself to her cottage lest one of the houseguests recognize her or ask about her.By the time the last guest had departed—or so she’d thought—the desperation for conversation and activity led to an injudicious haste in resuming her usual pursuits.
The news that they weren’t as guest-free as she’d assumed had sent Piper racing from the house and straight into said guest. Though she’d dithered upon seeing him, there’d been no choice other than to face him or rouse his curiosity to the point of discovery. If this Connor MacKintosh were to deduce who she was… If he guessed!
But he hadn’t.
It took most of her short, harried ride home that day for that truth to sink in. While he’d obviously recognized her from their initial meeting outside the church before Harry’s wedding—as she had him after that initial flash of trepidation—the Scotsman had accepted the false name she’d taken for herself without pause.
Having never met her as Phillipa Brudenall, he couldn’t identify her. If her brother were to mention her true name, no connection could be made to the alias she’d given.
“Piper?”
Unaware of the internal struggle Piper fought—she was rather proficient at hiding her true emotions—Jane fanned herself vigorously to counter the heat of the sultry late-August day. As far as she could see, not a single bead of sweat marred Jane’s pale skin. Sitting erect in her pink muslin day dress with her legs tucked tidily to the side, she angled her beribboned, broad-brimmed hat and festooned parasol to protect her from the sun, as if the shade of the tree they sat beneath were inadequate.
By contrast, Piper had tossed her plain straw hat aside and unfastened several buttons of her blouse. Knowing she wouldn’t venture beyond the Grange’s parkland today, she’d eschewed the black in deference to the weather, donning an ivory linen blouse and dark green skirt with a single petticoat. Despite those concessions, she was also compelled to fold back her skirts to let the breeze cool her ankles as she lay on her stomach reading aloud from George Eliot’s work. Despite her concessions, moisture clung to her lip and brow like a hot compress. Unfortunately, conditions at her cottage or at the Grange were no better, driving them out of doors.
“My apologies.” She cleared her throat and turned the page of the novel. “Let’s see. Chapter seven. ‘Mr. Casaubon, as might be expected, spent a great deal of his time at the Grange in these weeks, and the hindrance which courtship occasioned to the progress of his great work—’”
“How coincidental. Papa says the reason Mr. MacKintosh has not pursued a more vigorous courtship is because of his occupation here,” Jane confided quietly, still wafting her fan assiduously. “His ‘great work,’ as it were.”
Piper reread the short paragraph and lowered the book to gape up at her friend as the meaning of her words sank in. Along with it, a pang of envy rang with the force of an axe swung into a tree trunk.
When she’d fled Mr. MacKintosh at the stables—once her panic subsided and the mental alarms ceased ringing in her ears, that is—her wariness of the man had given way to remembrance. Since the moment they’d met at the church doors in June, he’d whispered relentlessly through her thoughts.
No, perhaps not precisely that exact moment. At the time, she’d been too nervous for the full impact of his magnificence to sink all the way in. Later that evening, when her nerves had calmed and the cheerful music of the wedding ball carried all the way from the manor to her cottage to set her thoughts in more pleasant directions, she’d wondered about him.
Connor MacKintosh. He’d introduced himself that day just as he had at the stables. His sister, the bride of the marquis. Naturally, he’d been at the reception, possibly danced with Jane—she hadn’t asked, though perhaps she should have—and had won the hearts of all the young ladies there with his charming, lopsided smile and mesmerizing green eyes. He’d sent her pulse dancing when he’d stared down at her at the stables, as if she’d been whirled through a spirited polka.
Piper had reached her twentieth year without a beau of her own. A proper beau, that is. Without being courted and called upon. Without a single dance or turn around Hyde Park on a gentleman’s arm. There’d been nothing for her beyond a vicarious appreciation of Jane’s two Seasons.
True, she’d made her choices and wouldn’t take them back for all the gold in the Bank of London, however that didn’t mean that the longing for romance and tenderness didn’t beat in her heart. And along had come a man who didn’t know her, who she was…or who she was related to. His masculine beauty and silky brogue had prompted many an adventure into the play land ofIf Onlyin the days between the wedding and their second encounter at the stables.
Far more in the months since then.
