Page 20 of Her Unsuitable Match

“You are wanted in the upstairs morning room, my lady.” He appeared more stern-faced than usual. A sign she took as an immediate warning.

“How bad is it, Hopkins?” she dared to ask as she handed hat and gloves to her maid.

The butler glanced up the staircase. “The earl has come to pay a call.”

Her heart fell clear to her toes, and she nearly turned and walked out the door again. What new mischief would Richard have in store for her? “My eldest brother?”

She doubted he had received any correspondence from Mr. Tuttle-Kirk yet. He could have no idea of the legal issues about to befall him. She hoped.

“Yes, my lady.” Hopkins’s dark eyebrows drew sharply together. “They know you went out, my lady, but not when.” Hopkins had proven to be a most sympathetic person when it came to her situation. She had caught his eye one afternoon after her mother had railed at the butler for some small slight, and Philippa had said a kind word to him immediately after. Since then, he’d been exceedingly attentive to her.

“Are Adam and Elaine in the morning room?” she asked, shifting a step back in her nervousness. If only she could take flight through the front door and back into the street, she might spend all day away from the house in hopes that Richard would eventually give up. But all the Gillensfords were rather stubborn. Richard would out wait her. Even if it meant spending the night under the roof of his younger brother.

“Yes, my lady.”

Releasing an agitated sigh, Philippa went to the mirror to straighten the neckline of her gown. She fussed with her fichu. Then she lifted her chin and affected her most regal expression. Her brother would see any display of emotion as weakness. It was best to pretend indifference to whatever he wished to speak to her about.

She ascended the staircase, aware that Hopkins watched her go with the same expression one might watch a martyr trudge to her execution.

Philippa pulled in a deep, fortifying breath outside the doors to the room wherein her eldest brother laid in wait for her. Then she squared her shoulders and went inside, chin tipped upward and eyebrows raised superciliously.

Elaine’s eyes fell upon her first, as she sat with her chair facing the door. “Ah, Pippa.” She rose and widened her eyes enough to signal caution. “Here you are. You see, Montecliff, she is safe and sound.” Adam rose from the chair next to his wife, his expression as closed as Philippa meant hers to be.

Her eldest brother stood at the hearth, his back to the room, and he didn’t immediately turn upon Philippa’s entry. “Safe and sound, after galivanting about alone and unchaperoned in London.”

Lady Fredericka sat in the most comfortable chair, as usual, and she took that opportunity to sniffle so loudly that the pug in her lap looked upward with confusion. Then sneezed. “Philippa, we were so worried about you.”

“Worried, Mama?” Philippa came into the room and bent first to kiss her mother on the cheek, then gave the little pug dog a pat on the head. “Whyever were any of you worried? I took my maid, and the carriage with Adam’s driver, and I am of an age when I might wander about without becoming lost.” She turned on her heel to face her eldest brother. “Richard, how good it is of you to come visit.”

“Visit?” he repeated with a snort. “I am here to bring you back to my home on Grosvenor Square.”

A tremor of fear shook her heart, but she affected a confused expression. “Whatever for? I am quite comfortable here with Adam and Elaine. We have had the loveliest time, and I am quite content to remain here the rest of the Season.”

Elaine spoke softly, meeting her husband’s gaze. “She is quite welcome—”

“We do not wish to intrude a moment longer,” Lady Fredericka interrupted somewhat shrilly. “Especially with all the horrid gossip.”

“It is precisely because of the gossip that Philippa must come home with me, immediately.” Richard held himself up to his full height, his nose in the air as he looked down upon Adam. “Given that what began as a rumor is now regarded as fact and bandied about in my very own gentleman’s club, you are obviously not a good influence upon our sister.”

Adam glowered and came to his feet. “You know as well as I do that the papers are circulating false rumors. Our sister has done nothing wrong. That disgusting acquaintance of yours—Lord Walter, the little rat—is to blame for all of this. How could you encourage the attentions of such a dishonorable man toward our sister?”

Philippa, sensing she would not be needed while the brothers sized each other up, sat down upon the footstool in front of Elaine’s chair and prepared to watch. Her three brothers, all older than her by several years, had never been fond of one another. Richard had always been arrogant, vain, and domineering. Henry, her brother serving as a lieutenant in the army, saw the world as his playground. Then Adam, favored of their kindly great uncle, had set about doing all he could to annoy them both. Until recently.

“Lord Walter Ruthersby is perfectly respectable,” Richard insisted. “His father is the Marquess of Bute.”

“Having a marquess for a father doesn’t make him an honorable or suitable match for our sister.” Adam started pacing the room. “The man tried to corner her during our ball last week. He is bullying her.”

The dowager countess tightened her grip on the arm of her chair. “And succeeded in compromising her, if the papers are to be believed.”

“We already agreed we do not believe the papers,” Adam said in clipped tones. “And if he had accosted her, would you really want to reward him by giving our sister into his care?”

“That is how things are done. He is offering to do the right thing by taking her as his bride.” Richard drew back when Adam exploded in an angry snarl at that idea.

Philippa ignored their bickering for a moment and looked up at her sister-in-law. Elaine had gone dreadfully pale, so much so that her freckles stood out, like flecks of paint on a clean canvas. Given how kind Elaine had been toward Philippa, seeing her in distress made the younger woman’s stomach knot in concern.

“Are you all right?” Philippa asked quietly, laying a hand on Elaine’s arm.

Elaine’s gaze flickered from her husband, where he had crossed the room to stand toe-to-toe with Richard as they argued, to Philippa, and back again. “I am worried for you, Pippa.”