1
AUTUMN, 1815
Asensible woman would know when to give up. But then, Phillipa Ellen Alexandra Trentham Knight had never been sensible. Even if she had not been told so since birth, she would know it now. After all, wasn't she standing behind the potted ferns in the Duke of Dorchester's crowded ballroom just so she could catch a glimpse of Beau Drummond? Hadn't she spent most of her life doing much the same thing? Hiding behind ferns and curtains, trees and river rocks, chairs and desks, just to be able to watch Beau Drummond as he went about his day?
This time was different, though. This time she was protecting him, even though he didn't know it. She had sensibly laid down her childhood dreams of a life with Beau a while ago. She had only been able to get passing glimpses of him for the last few years. But her favored lurking position came in handy when she needed to keep him safe.
“Pip, when are you going to give up?” she heard behind her.
Pip didn't bother to turn or drop the gold lorgnette from her eyes. She couldn't afford the distraction right now. Not when Beau needed her. But it was her friend Lizzie Ripton standing behind her, and she could never quite be mad at Lizzie. Lizzie Meant Well.
“This is not what you think,” Pip whispered without removing her attention from Beau as he stood across a crowd of swirling dancers conversing with the deadly beautiful Lady Pamela Smythe-Smithe
Pip didn't trust Lady Pamela Smythe-Smithe, and not merely because she had a ridiculous name. Lady Pamela had set her sights on Beau long ago. But worse, tonight she was distracting Beau from what Pip knew was his purpose here. And he didn't even seem to mind. If he did, he would be rubbing at his temple as he did when he was impatient, or tugging at his earlobe, which he still didn't realize was his sign asking somebody to save him from an unpleasant situation. No, Beau wassmiling.
“Then what is it?” Lizzie asked, her elegant voice patient.
But Pip couldn't tell her. Lizzie was one of her very best friends from their days together at the boarding school they had nicknamed Last Chance Academy. But Lizzie didn't know everything about Pip. She certainly didn't know everything there was to know about Beau.
“What do you think of Pamela the Perfect?” Pip asked instead.
Lizzie did something almost unheard of from her. She snorted. “I think her husband needs to take himself out of the card room long enough to control her. And I’m afraid your Beau is as idiotic as all the other men who have thrown themselves at her dainty little feet.”
Maybe her feet were dainty, Lizzie thought sourly. Everything else, though, was built along more voluptuous lines and arranged to highlight them, from the barely contained coils of thick, burnished hair the color of a chestnut horse to the black lace dress that should have made people think of mourning, but somehow didn't, to the perfectly demure diamond and ruby necklace that managed to draw the eye right to her over-sized breasts.
Then there was her face, as sensual and sleek as a cat, with knowing green eyes, porcelain skin, and a mouth that made one think of pillows. Pip was thinking of pillows herself, but more in how she would like to press one over that smirking face.
“You are far prettier than she is,” Lizzie said. “She's predatory. You're--”
Pip swung around and leveled the lorgnette up at her friend like a weapon. “If you dare say the word elfin, I swear I shall skewer you.”
Lizzie grinned down on her. “I would never.”
It was Pip's turn to snort. With yellow hair the shape and texture of a dandelion, oversized blue eyes, and the stature of a tweeny, Pip was well-acquainted with her reputation.Isn't she cute? Don't you expect to find her perched on a lily pad? Isn't she...elfin. It was enough to make a girl mad as snakes. Especially when the man she loved was making cow eyes at a veritable siren.
Pamela was sliding her perfectly manicured fingers down Beau's arm, as if petting him, and it made Pip see red. Not because the hussy was acting like a hussy—how else would hussies act, really? —Because Beau—herBeau—was smiling like an idiot. And it was the first time she had seen him smile in over a year.
“St. Stephen's sidewhiskers,” she blurted out. “Isn't there one man who can think with the correct part of his body?”
She heard Lizzie sputter and couldn't help but grin. One of her greatest pleasures in life was disconcerting Lizzie. Poor Lizzie had been raised the very proper daughter of a duke—the Duke of Dorchester, to be precise. Pip had always considered it one of her own missions in life to loosen Lizzie up a bit.
“Pip, really,” her friend cautioned. “You simply cannot go about saying such things.”
“Am I wrong?” Pip asked, curling her fingers into her palms to keep from scratching the lovely Pamela's eyes out.
“No. But that is not the point.”
“It is precisely the point. Beau is in danger, and yet he continues to dally with that reptile.”
“The way I see it,” Lizzie disagreed wryly, “the only thing he is in danger of is exhaustion.”
Dropping the lorgnette on its ribbon, Pip whipped around to see Lizzie's beautiful blond patrician features go all red.
“Elizabeth Charlotte Warren Dalrymple Ripton,” she gasped. Then, abruptly, she grinned. “I'm proud of you. That must be the first even faintly salacious thing I have ever heard you say.”
Lizzie's answering grin was weak at best. “You are a bad influence.”
Pip giggled. “Finally. Now--” She spun back to consider the couple, “how do we extricate him?”
