“Oh, dear,” Pip murmured. “How unfortunate.”
A footman was running toward Pamela along with half the males in the room. Beau made to turn after them when Pip caught his eye. She didn’t say a word. But there was no question that if he laid a hand on Pamela Smythe-Smithe in order to help her up, there would be bloody retribution when they were alone. He waited just too long to help Pamela up, leaving it to the other men.
The first salvo in their marriage had been fired.
6
They were sent off in splendid style. Of course, they had to wait for Princess Charlotte to make her regal exit in the state coach, followed by her entourage and surrounded by her mounted guards, looking for all the world like the procession to the opening of Parliament. Even before that they had to withstand the self-congratulatory best wishes from the princess, who was not shy about claiming credit for her favorite wedding of the year which she couldn’twaitto trumpet to all and sundry.
But finally, the princess’s train disappeared in a cloud of dust, and it was Beau and Pip’s turn. The duchess lent them the crested ducal coach and added two outriders. A second coach carried luggage and servants. The house staff right up to the butler and housekeeper who had lined up down the stairs for the princess refused to leave, smiling for Pip as if she had been a daughter of the house. Clustered in the drive, the house party guests waved them off as if they were bound for a voyage.
Lizzie serenely smiled, as she would. The duchess had her arm around her two younger daughters as they waved madly at the girl who had occupied the Chinese bedroom off and on all these years even as they argued over who would inherit it.
Inside the coach, the occupants sat as stiffly as if they were on a tumbril on the way to the guillotine. The stately line of ash trees along the drive were turning gold and crimson and yellow, and the sky was an unusually sharp shade of cobalt, but neither paid particular attention.
For Pip’s part, she felt dislocated, as if she had just been dropped into empty air. Her life had changed utterly, and she hadn’t had time to know how. It had been all right when they still had all the other people to buffer them. But now she was irrevocably alone with the man who’d been forced to marry her, and the silence was deafening.
Not that she hadn’t suffered sudden dislocations before. There was nothing like learning the week before your parents would leave for a new diplomatic post that they had arranged for her stay with friends instead. She should be used to it by now.
But this dislocation separated her completely from everything she knew and had assumed. This one put her under the control of someone who really didn’t want to be with her, which had never happened before. Someone she had once desperately wished for. Someone with whom she had long dreamed of sharing a trip just like this one.
She’d always thought she would be overwhelmed with joy.
She was terrified.
And it didn’t help that the man she was closed in with didn’t merely set off that old hum in her, but a new seething restlessness born of a more immediate memory. Blast him.
They were turning onto the Dorchester Road, and suddenly she couldn’t bear the silence another moment. Well, she thought, taking a calming breath that did not calm her at all. Might as well begin as she meant to go on.
“So,” she said in the brightest voice she could muster. “What now?”
Seated across from her, Beau startled as if he’d been half asleep. “What now what?”
She shrugged. “What are our plans? Do wehaveplans? Is there to be a bride trip, or will we settle into our life? If so, will we be going to London next or Delamere? And if we go to Delamere, may I have the pleasure of putting your aunt and uncle on a coach?”
“I haven’t decided, although I would appreciate a bit more patience for my aunt and uncle. They cared for Delamere while I was taken up with government.”
She frowned. “They have been fighting you for control since your fourteenth birthday.”
The day his parents had died and he had become Viscount. The day his aunt and uncle had descended on him and taken over Delamere. The day Pip had found Beau crying in the stables and sat with him. Simply sat with him, knowing there were no words big enough for what he faced.
“They took good care of it, no matter how well you like them,” he said.
Pip’s opinion differed, but she chose discretion over disagreement. At least for now.
“You’ll be taking over once and for all, though, won’t you?” she asked.
She did not want to begin her married life having to wrestle that house from his Aunt Maude.
He sighed. “I can’t even think that far ahead until I finish my work here.”
“Then we aren’t going there now?”
He shook his head.
She nodded back. “Well, at least it should be a comfort to know that I can help you there when we do. I make a brilliant estate agent.”
He looked truly confused. “What do you mean?”
