“Why?” Calum swung in the saddle to stare down on the girl. “What’s the matter with her?”
“Oh, dear.” Nelly sighed hugely while she kept a firm hold on Max’s hand. “It’s been going on more than two days. She doesn’t sleep at all. And whenever she thinks she’s alone, she cries. Or she just sits and stares. D’you know what I think?”
“What do you think, Nelly?” Calum asked, not daring to look in Struan’s direction.
“Well, I shouldn’t say.”
“Oh, but I think you absolutely should.”
Struan cleared his throat.
“Come along, Nelly,” Calum prompted. “It’s your duty to tell me if something’s wrong with Lady Philipa.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “I think she’s pining, that’s what I think. I think she’s in love and doesn’t know how the other party feels, if you know what I mean.”
Calum swallowed before saying, “I believe I know exactly what you mean.”
“I thought you would. The trouble is, that man she’s supposed to marry has arrived, and he sounds for all the world as if he intends to drag my poor mistress down the aisle the day after tomorrow. He’s rantin’ about how it’s all arranged. And d’you know what I think about that?”
“What do you think about that?” Calum and Struan asked in unison.
“I think she’ll run away…or kill herself first.”
What should she do?
What could she do?
Surely if Papa could hear the duke, hear the way he roared and raved and ordered, he would see that this marriage should never take place.
But Papa was somewhere on the Continent and she was under the protection of the Franchots.
And the duke had sent word—as if he needed to send word when she could hear him plainly from the little minstrel’s gallery above the lofty vestibule—but he’d sent word that she was to present herself before him immediately. Present yourself at once. I wish to inform you of my marriage plans.
His marriage plans. And he would inform her, not consult with her. Really, it was a complete bother. It was not to be borne. She was not a simple-minded widgeon.
She would not stand for it!
Pippa spun away from the open windows in her pretty blue bedchamber and promptly snagged a ruffle in her skirt on a splinter in a little lacquered chest.
“I hate being clumsy,” she wailed.
As if she’d rung a bell, the door opened and Nelly slipped into the room. The girl raised her chin and frowned ferociously. “You’re not to overset yourself, my lady,” she said, advancing with a determination and seriousness quite unlike herself. “There won’t be a wedding nearly as soon as that duke thinks there will be. You mark my words.”
Still attached to the splinter, Pippa struggled to free herself and look at Nelly at the same time. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve had a few words with some people, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“Help me, will you? I am beside myself, and now I’m all tied up in this wretched chest. I am so clumsy.”
“You are not clumsy,” Nelly said, setting her mouth in a grim line. “You are put upon, that’s what you are. And it’s going to stop or my name’s not Nelly Bumstead.”
In a trice Nelly had freed Pippa’s skirt.
“Thank you,” Pippa said, contrite. “I’m sorry to be such a bother.”
“You are not a bother. And if you hadn’t spent so much of your life trying not to be a bother for that thoughtless…Oh, forgive me, my lady. I’ve overstepped myself.”
“Thoughtless who?” Pippa asked.
“I’m sure I don’t know what I was saying, my lady, and that’s a fact. I was babbling because I’m overset myself. I’m worried about you. But I’ve got us some help and you’re not to worry anymore.”
“But—”
“I wish you weren’t wearing that dress. Beige just isn’t my favorite color on you. Not that my favorite color matters. Me not being of any account, that—”
“Nelly! What have you done? Who is to help me?”
“Lady Justine,” Nelly said, raising her chin. “And Mr. Innes.”
Pippa’s legs were instantly watery. “Mr. Innes,” she whispered. “Oh, Nelly, you haven’t gone to him. Not after what happened…”
Nelly waited expectantly, but Pippa wasn’t about to explain that she and Calum seemed unable to spend more than a few moments together without longing to fall upon each other. At least she wanted to fall upon him and had even told him so! She had told him she wanted to feel That. Oh, the shocking embarrassment of it all. And then there had been the dowager’s extraordinary behavior toward Calum.
“What happened, my lady?” Nelly asked quietly.
“It doesn’t matter.” It mattered a very great deal.
“Oh, well, that’s all right, then. You’re to come with me to Lady Justine.”
Pippa began to tremble. “What is to happen?”
“Lady Justine wouldn’t tell me exactly. She said I was to bring you to her.”
“Nelly—”
“She told me to tell you to wait and see what happens.”
Charmed Nineteen
Finding a way to speak privately with Lady Justine was the surest way of arranging to see Pippa. Now that Lady Justine had sent a message for him to await her here, Calum was certain his wish would soon be granted.
He hovered in the corridor that led to Lady Justine’s apartments. He knew he was in the right place because helpful Nelly had given him careful instructions.
He also knew that Pippa’s rooms were in this same wing of the castle, on the same floor, but on the other side of a minstrel’s gallery from where he now stood.
Going to her would be easy enough.
And it could prove disastrous.
At the sound of a door opening, he swung around—in time to see Lady Justine step into the corridor.
He hurried toward her, a forefinger on his lips.
“Mr. Innes—”
“Calum. Call me Calum, please. I know you said you wanted to see me, but I must speak to you quickly. Please, just listen to me before you ask any questions.”
She nervously fingered a locket at her neck, but she nodded briefly and pulled him farther into the shadowy corridor.
“Nelly told me about your brother’s arrival,” he said. “She said…please forgive me for being blunt, but I have no choice and I believe you have a special fondness for Pippa.”
“I love Pippa.”
“I…I am concerned for her health. I understand the duke is demanding an early marriage and I do not believe Pippa is ready to marry him yet.” He did not believe she would ever be ready to marry him.
Lady Justine turned her face from Calum, displaying a neat, heavy chignon from her crown to her nape.
“My lady,” Calum whispered urgently, “help me. Please help me to see Pippa. To talk to her.”
She faced him again, her dark gaze speculative.
Calum smiled at her; even in his anxiety he had to smile at her. So lovely was fair Justine. His sister. Didn’t she see herself in him? Him in herself?
She smiled back. “Our minds work as one. You may be the final ingredient I need,” she said, and when he would have questioned her, she touched his lips and shook her head. “Don’t ask. Just pray that I’m not making a greater muddle than already exists.”
Her future husband behaved as if she were not in the room.
“She is betrothed to me,” he said to his grandmother, pointing a blunt, beringed finger at Pippa. “She was betrothed to me at her birth. And I have decided the time is right to marry her.”
Ensconced on a rose-colored chaise, the dowager wore a black lace cap on her white hair, and her small body seemed not to exist at all inside a voluminous black silk robe. Black silk slippers, placed precisely side by side, showed beneath the robe. She held an ebony-handled lorgnette to her brilliant eyes.
And the ivory-headed cane was firmly grasped in her other hand.
“I agreed to see you,” the dowager said, “because Justine asked me to do so. If she had not insisted that I hear what you propose, I would not have granted this interview.”
And if Justine had not insisted that Pippa present herself, she certainly wouldn’t be here. What Justine had in mind, Pippa could not begin to guess.
The duchess studied her grandson intently and said, “Continue.”
“I have brought a minister with me from London,” the duke said. “He assures me there is no impediment to performing the ceremony the day after tomorrow.”
“And how does he intend to discharge the necessary formalities?” The dowager’s voice cracked. “The license? The banns? Small details such as these?”
“Potter says he can arrange three services for the purpose of calling the banns. We’ve already got the license.”
“What is the purpose of this haste?”
The duke, resplendent in a kerseymere coat of a deep plum shade, spread wide a hand, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Yes?” the dowager prompted.
“The purpose is the accomplishment of what pleases me,” he blustered, his handsome but too-florid face growing even redder. “I’m a busy man. A man of weighty affairs, Grandmama. I cannot spend more time on the matter of this marriage. I want it discharged promptly.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” He nodded fiercely. “And so it shall be.”
“And what of you, gel?” Pippa became the subject of close inspection. “Is this hasty wedding your wish also?”
“Well—”
“I say,” the duke interrupted. “I hardly think it appropriate to ask her opinion.”
“Perhaps not, but I’m asking it anyway. What have you to say for yourself, Lady Philipa?”
“I had hoped my father would be at my wedding,” Pippa replied, her throat aching.
“I’m not marryin’ her father,” the duke retorted.
No, he wasn’t marrying her father, he was marrying her father’s land.
“Grandmama, I truly think this is the best course.” The duke’s smile transformed him into a boyishly charming creature. “Come along, dear thing. You’ve long complained that I am wild. Have been wild. It’s my wish to change my ways. I want to be married. I want to have children.”
The old lady pursed her lips and shifted her frail shoulders beneath their burden of rich silk. “Hmm. It’s time for heirs. I won’t argue that.”
Pippa felt light-headed. Why had Justine insisted she come here? Had she thought Pippa might somehow be able to plead with the dowager and the duke to await her pleasure in this marriage?
“You see,” Franchot said, dipping a knee engagingly to his grandmother, “I am not the scapegrace you once knew. I am changed, I assure you. I shall do nothing but bring our fortunes into even more favorable condition.”
“The autumn was to have been the date. Everyone expects this wedding to be the affair of the year—very possibly of the decade.”
“But why wait?” Franchot asked. Flipping out his coat tails, he sat beside his grandmother on her chaise. “The sooner there are little Franchots in our nurseries, the better.”
“Hmm.” The dowager resettled her bones once more. “There may be some truth to what you say. But I would like to hear more from Lady Philipa.”
“I—”
A rap at the door brought Pippa a blessed reprieve in which to consider how to answer.
The dowager motioned to the maid, who stood silently by. The woman went to open the door.
With the entrance of Calum Innes, Pippa’s concentration shattered. She felt her mouth open but was helpless to close it again.
“Good afternoon, Duchess,” he said, walking confidently toward the woman. “We meet again, Franchot. I didn’t want to waste any time in coming to thank you for inviting us to join you in Cornwall.”
“Innes,” Franchot said, making no attempt to rise, “glad you could come. Understand you’ve been here some days.”
“Yes.” Calum told the tale he and Struan had presented about prior business easily concluded.
“Ah,” Franchot said. “My sister and my fiancée been looking after you, have they?”
“Viscount Hunsingore and I are very much enjoying our stay,” Calum said, catching Pippa’s eye.
She noted the hard set of her fiancé’s features and pressed a hand into her middle. He did not wish Calum well, and if there had not been the issue of endangered honor, Calum would not be standing in this room.
A rustle caught Pippa’s attention and that of the men. The dowager duchess got to her feet and stood with both hands atop her cane.
Franchot scrambled up and tried to hold his grandmother’s arm. She promptly batted him away as if he were an annoying insect.
“I find I am tired,” she said. “I shall retire.”
Pippa couldn’t fail to notice how the old lady stared at Calum, to whom she had said not a word.
“Of course,” Franchot said. “We’ll proceed with things as I’ve planned them, then.”
Pippa’s eyelids drooped. She felt faint and sick. They were going to marry her off to Franchot without even hearing what she really wanted.
“I understand Lady Philipa is tutoring Viscount Hunsingore’s children.”
At the dowager’s abrupt statement, Pippa rallied. She crossed her arms tightly and willed herself to be strong.
“Indeed she is,” Calum said. “Most kind of her.” He smiled at her and she smiled back—she couldn’t stop herself from smiling back.
And she couldn’t change the fact that Franchot saw the smile. His fair brows drew down over the bridge of his haughty nose.
“Motherless, I understand,” the dowager continued. “Most unusual for a man to be travelin’ around with his motherless offspring. Better off at home with appropriate staff, I say.”
“Daresay you’re right, Your Grace,” Calum said.
What, Pippa wondered, would the dowager say if she actually saw Ella and Max? What if she heard them? Despite herself, she shuddered at the thought. Her pupils were intelligent and quick to learn. She was trying her best to teach them some of the things in which they were sadly lacking polish. Ella possessed great natural grace and a clear and pretty voice that already showed signs of improvement, but much more time would be needed to complete the task.
Pippa very much wanted to complete the task.
“Grandmama,” Franchot said. Veins stood out at his temples. “I’ll take my leave of you and start the necessary preparations.”
“Preparations for what?” Calum asked, his voice so innocent that Pippa turned her full, startled attention upon him.
“My weddin’,” Franchot said, his nostrils flared and white. “I’ve decided to move the event forward.”
“But I thought the happy festivities were set for autumn,” Calum said, frowning as if perplexed. “Surely that’s when Lord Chauncey expects to return for the affair?”
Franchot’s chin jutted. “And what business is that of yours?”
Calum fell back a step. “Absolutely none, Duke. I hold you in high regard, you know that. Only your best interests at heart, I assure you.”
The dowager’s lorgnette was firmly anchored against her nose. She appeared to study first Franchot, then Calum, then Franchot again.
“I’ve stated my best interests,” Franchot said, glaring now.
“No doubt,” Calum said, his eyes wide and worried. “Don’t suppose the ton will, er…Well, you know how that can go.”
“I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself, Innes.”
“Oh, sorry. Of course. Presumptuous of me. Consider it unsaid. I was hoping you’d show me some of your favorite haunts around the estate—if you’ve any time, that is.”
“Mr. Innes,” the dowager duchess said, “what exactly do you think the ton’s reaction would be to an early marriage between my grandson and Lady Philipa?”
Calum blew up his cheeks and
stuffed his hands behind him. “Shouldn’t have spoken out of turn,” he said, rolling onto the soles of his feet. “Man like the duke doesn’t have to give a pig’s— He doesn’t have to give a fig for what people think or say. Go to it, man. And I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thank you,” Franchot said grudgingly. “Good of you.”
“Mr. Innes is from Scotland,” the dowager said, and Pippa began to wonder if the old lady’s faculties were slipping. Her train of thought certainly was.
“I know where he’s from,” Franchot said.
“I think we should ensure that he has a very satisfying visit with us before he returns to Scotland.”
Franchot’s frown deepened even further. “I’m sure he’ll be well enough treated.”
“I know he will,” the dowager said, and repeated her scrutiny of first one and then the other man—and repeated it again. “And you can send your minister back to wherever he came from, Etienne. We’ve a perfectly good minister of our own here at Franchot.”
“But—”
“Our arrangements are already in progress. I see no point in risking any wagging tongues, hmm?”
“But—”
“Do you, Etienne?”
“Of course not, but—”
“Good. I knew we should agree. Entertain yourselves and stay out of my way. Remember that my signature is also required on the marriage documents, won’t you? September it shall be.”
The Dowager Duchess of Franchot, her cane borne before her like a baton, signaled for the door to the rest of her apartments to be opened, and swept out.
Franchot rushed in her wake and closed the door behind him.
Calum cast a glance at the maid, who had remained, and said only, “Lady Justine has extraordinarily good judgment.”
Etienne longed to hurl something through every window in the summerhouse. “If that oaf hadn’t arrived, the old bat would have agreed, I tell you. I had her in the palm of my hand, and he had to remind her of the threat to her precious family reputation.”
“The threat to our precious family reputation,” Anabel said sweetly. “If only you would listen to me, my darling. Thank goodness you didn’t manage to get your grandmother to agree. What could you have been thinking of?”
Really, this woman was becoming a strain from which he longed to be freed. “Shut up, you stupid bitch. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Fascination -and- Charmed Page 62