When he’d met her outside the church doors at his sister’s wedding, she’d asked if Harry loved his bride. Did Fiona love him, as well? Tears had welled in her eyes when he assured her that their love was true. Tears he’d assumed to be sadness. For a lost lover? Something more?
“Och,” the word burst from him. “Is it Aylesbury?”
Her eyes widened, that hint of panic returned, and Connor knew he’d hit the nail on the head. The notion gave him no more joy now than it had that day.
“Is it Aylesbury ye run from, lass? Were ye his lover?”
The alarm faded, though the flash of amusement on her face couldn’t win the battle with the resolute line of her lips. Pressed tightly, they remained pinched as she shook her head.
Not a discarded mistress then. Relief swept through him. Not only for his own sake, but for his sister’s. He’d never mentioned his brief conversation with Mrs. Milbourne to Fiona because he hadn’t wanted to disillusion his sister regarding her new husband’s proclivities. Especially on their wedding day.
If not Aylesbury’s mistress, though, what connection did Mrs. Milbourne have with the marquis? For by her expression, there most assuredly was one.
His questions—for now he had them aplenty—would have to wait as the lass was running for the woods as if the hounds of hell were on her trail.
Chapter 6
Dear brother, answer me, I beg of you! With each day that passes without a letter from you, I begin to fear Mother was right. Can it be you support this madness? Do you realize what fate you condemn me to?
~from the correspondence of Piper Brudenall, Dec 1892
Two days later
Mrs. Davies, how could you keep this from me?” With her implacable lack of remorse, the housekeeper had informed Piper that she did indeed know of and had concealed Connor’s shocking news. Harry was coming home. For good. “How long do I have?”
“His lordship wrote that they were to spend another week in Paris before traveling on to Billère for a brief stay.”
“Billère? Where is that?”
“It’s in southern France near the foothills of the Pyrenees. His lordship writes that her ladyship”—Davies straightened her spectacles and picked up the letter in question—“‘fancies playing a round at the Pau Golf Club’ before they return. Evidently, it is the oldest golf course on the Continent.” The housekeeper slid the letter into a thicker stack of correspondence and set it aside before removing her spectacles and tossing them on top of the pile. “Why his lordship would assume I require such detail, I cannot imagine.”
Drumming her fingers on the desktop, Piper stared blankly at the neat stack as if she might somehow see through them all to read her brother’s letter for herself. See for herself that he was, in truth, coming home. She hadn’t wanted to believe Connor and had used the heavy rains the previous day as an excuse to nurse her denial a bit longer. What she’d managed to do instead was don a cloak of dread so heavy it nearly suffocated her. Hearing the truth relieved her one weight merely to supplant it with another.
And she’d thought Connor to be the only hitch in her perfect plan!
“I have a month, then?”
“At most.” Mrs. Davies leaned forward and set her hand firmly on top of Piper’s, effectively stopping the agitated tapping. A moment later, she curled her cool fingers around Piper’s and allowed herself a comforting squeeze. “It’s for the best, my lady.”
A plethora of words leapt to Piper’s lips, rash accusations of betrayal that couldn’t be recanted, hence she swallowed them back. Lifting her chin, she caught the fleeting sympathy in the housekeeper’s eyes. “For the best? I hardly think being caught unawares is in my best interest.”
Mrs. Davies flipped Piper’s hand in hers, stroking her fingers over the callouses on Piper’s fingers. “No lady should have hands like these. No lady should be compelled to work so hard to evade their demons. You should be dancing in ballrooms, not in kitchens. Riding in Hyde Park, not across fields. I want you to resume the life that you were meant to live.”
“And you believe being reunited with my brother will accomplish all of that?” Piper retorted incredulously. “In all the time I’ve been here, he has never come searching for me. He hasn’t come to Dinton Grange at all until the wedding.”
To rejoice in his future while Piper dwelled in the past. She withdrew her hand, curling her fingers around those patches of hardened skin. “Has the marquis ever questioned you about me? No, not in all that time.”
“He did, in fact, while he was here,” the housekeeper admitted to Piper’s surprise. “He mentioned seeing you in the village and demanded to know if I was aware you were in the area.”
“And you told him…?”
“I denied your presence, of course.” Mrs. Davies’s finger did its own tapping on the desktop. “I’ve come to regret doing so.”
Tamping down a foolhardy spurt of optimism, she clenched her teeth. “A curiosity question cannot undo years of neglect, Mrs. Davies. How can you think I would be able to trust him to protect me? I’ll answer that. I don’t need him to.”
“You must give him a chance to prove himself.”
“He’s had his chance,” Piper contended. “In the end,Idid what I must to free myself from an unacceptable life.Ifaced an impossible situation and took it upon myself to be my own hero. If that means I will never be Lady Phillipa Brudenall again, I am fine with that consequence. Callouses and all.”
