Page 50 of Her Unsuitable Match

Pippa looked over her shoulder one last time, seeing the couple vanish beneath the trees. “They seemed a fine couple.”

“Indeed.” Myles sounded in good humor. “I hope they found us the same.” Then he took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. Pippa met his gaze, finding a warmth there that made her heart jump. She looked away. Then saw the perfect place for a picnic.

“There.” Pippa nodded, unable to point with one hand secured by her husband and the other holding a bouquet of flowers. “Those trees, and the little pond. We should have our picnic there.”

Myles grinned and gave a short nod of agreement. “As you wish, my lady.”

His smile, the beauty of the afternoon, and the heady scent of the meadow and wildflowers, all made her head spin. Something between them had altered, and it had happened as slowly as spring turning to summer. She felt it. Though she could not name it.

On their return walk to Ambleside, Pippa purposefully kept the conversation focused on the weather, the picnic, and what she had heard—in passing—about Lord and Lady Inglewood. Myles let her ramble. In fact, he even seemed to enjoy her sudden enthusiasm.

It wasn’t until much later that evening, when Pippa feigned sleep as Myles slipped into his side of their shared bed, that she wished she had been braver. Brave enough to ask if he had sensed the change between them. And if he knew what it might mean.

Seventeen

The day of the picnic started with overcast skies and a drizzle of rain, and Myles found himself in the unenviable position of reassuring all the ladies of the house. Including his wife. He had just left his mother in the sitting room, where she vented her worries upon the pianoforte in the next room, and entered the study where his wife attempted to wear a track into the carpet.

“It must stop soon,” Pippa said, marching away from the window to where Myles sat in a chair. “Your poor mother. She worked so hard to invite everyone. I hate to think of her being disappointed.”

Myles gave his wife a measured look, narrowing his eye at her. “She is only worried of displeasing you, Pippa.”

“I told her she needn’t worry.” Pippa chewed on her bottom lip, looking through the doorway Myles had come through. “Should I tell her again?”

The music in the other room had grown into a crescendo as his mother tried to drown out the sound of the rain.

“It won’t do any good.” Myles rubbed at his temple. “The rain will clear. You can tell by how bright it remains outside.”

“Will people still come?” She wrung her hands and went back to the window, staring up at the sky. “Or will they worry over the damp grass?”

“Country folk are made of a sturdier metal than that, Pippa.” Myles came out of his chair to stand beside her, close enough that the sweet scent of her honeysuckle perfume teased him.

Sleeping next to her the last three nights, pretending he didn’t lay awake wishing he knew how to tell her what he felt, had left him tired and mellow. He wanted very much to take her into his arms to soothe away her worries. But they had barely touched more than hands since their arrival at Ambleside. Unless Myles counted the way his wife tucked her feet up against him every night.

He smiled to himself at that thought, and Pippa turned in time to catch the expression upon his face. “Why are you smiling?” she asked, aghast. “Your mother is playing out her frustration in the next room, and you are smiling? Horrid man.”

That only made his smile wider. “Pippa, my darling, the rain will stop. I have no doubt of it.”

She continued glaring at him, the expression more endearing than threatening. It took a great deal of self-control to keep from leaning forward to press a kiss to her forehead. Instead, he contented himself with tucking a loose curl behind her ear.

Pippa’s eyes widened, and she tipped her chin up the better to search his gaze. “You seem…pensive.”

Myles shrugged. “I am at ease, that is all.” All he would permit himself to say.

“More at ease than I’ve ever seen you.” She raised her hand, hesitated, then brushed lightly at his shoulder with her fingertips.

That certainly isn’t what she meant to do. Had she been about to touch his cheek?

She sighed and lowered her gaze to his cravat, which made her frown. “You need a valet, Myles.” Now both her hands came toward him, and suddenly his wife was smoothing and tucking at his neckcloth. Her fingertips brushing the skin beneath his chin, the weight of one palm pressing against his chest.

Myles gulped and took hold of both her wrists, stilling her hands. “You needn’t trouble yourself,” he rasped, then cleared his throat. He released her gently. She didn’t lower her hands back to her sides, though. Instead, she rested both of them on the lapels of his coat. She frowned up at him.

“Are you catching a cold?” Then she did touch him, purposefully, placing her bare palm against his forehead. Then one of his cheeks. The one with the scarring. She didn’t even seem to notice the oddity of that touch. Instead, she scrutinized him as carefully as any doctor would a prospective patient.

He leaned toward her. “I’ve caught something,” he murmured. Her eyebrows raised in alarm, and her hand still rested on his cheek. Her lips parted, and Myles’s gaze dropped there. She swayed toward him as her eyes drifted closed. As though she knew—and welcomed the fact—that he wanted to kiss her.

An alarming trumpeting sound made them both leap away from each other. Winston came clattering into the room, a child upon his back and another hanging on to his arm. “And so the mighty elephant parades through the jungles of India,” he said in a booming voice.

Myles wasn’t sure if he wanted to thank or strangle his brother. He’d been close to kissing his wife—to making a fool of himself and laying his feelings before her while he was half-asleep. The results of such a thing would be disastrous this early in their relationship. Even if they had spent the last several days in one another’s company.