Page 57 of Her Unsuitable Match

“Dear me. Why would anyone put a clock on the barn?” Pippa laughed. “Do the animals keep to a strict schedule?”

“The first owner of the house—when it was a gatehouse to Highdale House many years ago—thought it important that anyone coming or going knew the time. The main bedroom at Clock House looks directly at the clock, too. Some say the old gatekeeper put the clock in for himself, so he might never be tardy to work.”

Lady Greenwood drove the carriage up to the door, which opened immediately by a male servant. The man came out to tie up the horses. The doctor himself emerged next, and he helped the ladies step down.

“Lady Philippa, Lady Greenwood, Miss Greenwood, Miss Elenor. How wonderful to have you all here. Do come inside. Mrs. Johnson and I were just speaking of the pleasant time we had at the picnic.”

They past nearly an hour in the company of the Johnsons, and by the time they took their leave, Pippa wished very much to make Mrs. Johnson a particular friend. The woman was kind and gracious, and quite proud of her husband’s work as a physician. Pippa secured a promise from Mrs. Johnson of a visit the following day. Given the sly smile of her mother-in-law, Pippa wondered if that had been the aim all along. Not to make Pippa feel better, but to give her a friend whose values were quite different from the ladies in London’s highest society.

As they stood in the garden, the horses ready, another thought occurred to Pippa. “Do you know your landlord very well?” she asked Mrs. Johnson. “I have only heard of him this afternoon. What is his name?”

“Mr. Young.” The doctor’s wife appeared suddenly quite solemn. “My husband visits him often.” She did not say whether it was as a doctor or tenant but given the line of worry appearing between her eyebrows, Pippa guessed the former was the case. “Would you like to meet him? He is a talkative gentleman, to be sure, and has the most diverting stories of local history.”

“I would like that very much.” Thus they planned yet another time to see one another and call upon Mr. Young.

On the ride back to Ambleside, Lady Greenwood gave Pippa a knowing glance. Her dark eyebrows raised as she said, seemingly to all three younger women, “Mrs. Johnson is one of the most compassionate women of my acquaintance. I do hope we all might learn from her, for as long as she and her husband may be persuaded to live in our neighborhood.” While Margaret and Elenor murmured their agreement, Pippa leaned back and lifted her face to the sun.

With the warmth of the late-spring sun upon her face, Pippa’s thoughts shifted. She planted new ideas in the garden of her mind as one would seedlings—delicately, and with great hope for the future.

Twenty

It took more time than Myles liked to reach Pippa’s childhood home. The groom who rode with him never once complained, and indeed the lad seemed to think the whole thing an adventure. When they rode up the long white lane to the Earl of Montecliff’s house, the young man let out a low whistle. When Myles turned to look at the boy, eyebrow raised, the groom hastily apologized.

“Sorry, sir. It’s just—cor—I didn’t know they built houses so large.” The lad bowed his head, but weather it was in respect for Myles or the house, Myles didn’t know.

“It is only a house, Garrett. Made of brick and mortar.” Myles looked up at the large house, noting the number of windows and the way the sun reflected off several glazed surfaces. The landscaping of the home was immaculate, in the old style, with hedges trimmed into cubes and spheres with mathematical precision.

This was the Earl of Montecliff’s home. Where Pippa had been born and grew up. The building was palatial, and Myles wondered anew how he would ever be enough for a woman of Lady Philippa’s standing.

When they rode up to the door, a servant already waited for Myles to approach. The livery the man wore was tailored to fit him as perfectly as any lord’s coat.

“I am Mr. Myles Cobbett,” Myles said, holding out one of his new cards. Pippa had ordered them for him in London, but he had not seen them until the day they departed Town. The cards were on thick, expensive paper, his name rendered with exquisite calligraphy. It was a small thing, yet Myles was grateful for the quality when the butler took the card.

From the doorway, another servant appeared, this one older and dressed in finer clothing. “John, allow me. Lady Philippa’s husband must be treated with all curtesy.”

A story Pippa had told him came back, one in which she admitted she thought the family butler often looked the other way when she sneaked away from her lessons or disappeared to visit her great-uncle. The man’s name came to Myles, and he blurted it without thought. “Rigby?”

The servant, posture already perfect, somehow appeared more alert than before. “The same, sir.” He waved away the footman, then led Myles into the house. “While it is not my place, Mr. Cobbett, I feel Lady Philippa would wish me to warn you—his lordship is at home and not in good humor.”

Myles stopped walking, and the butler did, too. Myles tried to get the man’s measure, staring the servant in the eye in a way no nobleman would ever permit himself. “Pippa speaks highly of you, Rigby.”

Rigby’s eyes brightened somewhat, and he bowed his head. “I am honored to learn it, Mr. Cobbett.”

Sensing a possible ally in the servant, Myles lowered his voice as though speaking to a coconspirator. “I am going to confide in you, Rigby. I am here to liberate Lady Philippa’s mare. Bunny.” How any grown man could call a horse by that name without smiling, Myles couldn’t say. “I trust, given that a bill of sale on the horse bears her name as the purchaser, I will not have any difficulty leaving with my wife’s property.”

The butler stared at him before giving one long, slow blink. “That sounds sensible, sir. Allow me to show you to his lordship at once. He is in the library. As you are family, it will not be necessary to announce you.”

When Myles had ridden into battle during the war, he’d always been afraid. But he took courage in the fact that the men around him experienced the same fear, the same determination to look after one another. The fellowship between him and his regiment had gotten them through everything from near-starvation to long marches into enemy territory.

Though he had just met Rigby, Myles’s instincts gave him that same feeling of assurance when it came to the butler.

The massive scale of the house, though it may have cowed men of humbler origins, did nothing to intimidate Myles, though he admired Pippa all the more for giving up a connection, a marriage, that would’ve kept her amid such splendor. When they went up the stairs and down two different corridors, the butler paused before a pair of large, oak doors. Two footmen stood on either side of them, looking ahead, like soldiers at attention.

“Good luck, Mr. Cobbett,” the butler said, and with a slight gesture of his hand, signaled the footmen to open the library doors. True to his word, the butler did not follow. The doors closed behind Myles.

The library, paneled in dark wood, impressed the wealth of its owner on Myles. The dark green, velvet curtains along the many windows hung on gold rods. The bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling, most with glass doors protecting the volumes inside. A globe the size of a man stood at the center of the room, flanked on either side by maps stretched atop tables and protected by yet more glass.

Myles approached one of the maps, curious despite himself, and saw it was a Dutch masterpiece from the seventeenth century. Fireplaces were on either wall, tall enough that Myles could have stepped inside of them if he wished. Chairs and tables were scattered throughout the room. And in one of those chairs sat the earl, staring at Myles the way a kitchen maid might stare at a rat in the pantry.