Chapter 14

Philippa Weatherby was every bit as awful as Jasper had assumed she would be.

But, unfortunately for him, she was not awful in the way he had anticipated.

She was awful in that he was determined to dislike her, and the annoying chit was nigh impossible to hate.

Their rehearsal got off to an awkward start. Jasper wondered if he had perhaps gone a bit too far in his efforts to prevent Felix from pairing with Miss Philippa. His last remark, in particular, in which he questioned whether Felix had the wherewithal to memorize so many lines, had perhaps been a bit harsh. But what was he supposed to do—just sit back and allow his brother to go hurtling down the path to destruction?

Jasper was looking out for Felix’s best interests. One day, his brother would thank him for saving him from making an imprudent match.

The eldest Miss Weatherby, who had retreated to a chair along the edge of the ballroom, did not seem to share in his opinion, based on the way she was glaring at him with her arms crossed.

Not that he cared a fig for what Eleanor Weatherby thought of him.

Miss Philippa offered him a tiny smile. “Shall we start with your speech, Your Grace?”

“Indeed.” Jasper launched into Petruchio’s soliloquy, in which he revealed his plans for wooing Katharina. Fortunately for him, the scene happened to be one of his favorites, and he already had it memorized, so rehearsing it did not require much concentration.

Although… it might have been nice to have something to focus on, other than Eleanor Weatherby’s judgmental glower.

Resisting the urge to snarl at her, he returned his attention to Miss Philippa. In truth, she did not make a very good Katharina. The role called for not only vim and vigor but also vinegar, and although Miss Philippa was bright and lively, she was about as acidic as a glass of milk. Never had the words, Let him that moved you hither remove you hence been spoken so fondly. Somehow, she even made the line in which she called him an ass sound like a compliment.

She did warm to him a bit as they continued to rehearse, and when the servants brought in tea after about an hour, she cheerfully poured him a cup, then settled into the chair beside him.

“I have been enjoying your dogs, Your Grace,” she began. “Have you always kept mastiffs?”

Jasper couldn’t help but admire the artful way she had steered the conversation toward one of their few safe topics. “Not always. Growing up, my father would not permit Felix and I to have dogs, no matter how much we begged. Acquiring a pair of mastiffs was one of the first things I did upon inheriting the dukedom.”

“Was that Beatrice and Benedick, then?” she asked, taking a sip from her cup.

“It was not. I came into the title some fifteen years ago, so Beatrice and Benedick are my second pair.”

“Oh!” Miss Philippa looked startled. “I did not realize you inherited when you were so young. Why, Lord Felix must have been just a boy!”

“He was.” Jasper found himself leaning forward. The youngest Miss Weatherby was surprisingly easy to talk to. “He was only nine. I was little more than a boy myself, at sixteen.”

“So young,” she said softly. “Your brother told me that his parents had died in a carriage accident years ago and that you were all the family he has. But I hadn’t understood just how young you both were.”

Jasper gave her a curious look. “I’m surprised you didn’t know. Needless to say, it has been the subject of quite a lot of gossip over the years.”

Miss Philippa waved this off. “Oh, I haven’t heard any of the latest gossip. You cannot imagine what a provincial creature I am. Before this house party, I’d scarcely left our little village in Yorkshire.” She gave a self-deprecating smile that made it difficult for Jasper to loathe her as he wished. “I’ve spent my entire life holed up in the countryside with my cats.”

“Ah,” Jasper said, unsure how to respond. He took a sip of his tea.

“So,” she asked brightly, “what made you decide on mastiffs specifically?”

“Honestly, Felix was the one who wanted mastiffs,” Jasper confessed. “He’d always wanted a great big dog. And I was so desperate to find anything that would make him smile again, I would’ve bought him a rhinoceros had he asked for it.”

Jasper cleared his throat. Why had he added that last part? He hadn’t meant to share anything so personal with one of these Weatherby Wallflowers.

Although… as he regarded Miss Philippa cheerfully sipping her tea and conversing with him so politely in spite of his boorish behavior that morning, it seemed particularly unkind to employ such a derisive nickname toward her, even if he didn’t speak it aloud.

Get hold of yourself, Jasper. It’s all an act.

“I’m curious,” she said. “You say that the mastiffs were for Felix. Yet I’ve very much formed the impression that they’re your dogs, not his.”

“Beatrice and Benedick are, yes,” Jasper agreed. “That first pair, Bruno and Maxine, were both of ours, in equal measure. But it happened that Bruno passed while Felix was at Oxford. That was when we brought in the puppies to keep Maxine company. I, of course, was at home by then, so I was able to spend significantly more time with Beatrice and Benedick during their formative years. So perhaps it is unsurprising that I am the one they bonded with.”

Miss Philippa laughed. “That’s like me and my cats. In theory, they belonged to all of us. In practice, however, I spent more time with them than my three sisters combined.”

“Felix has mentioned how fond you are of your cats. I’m sure you’ll be glad to see them upon your return to Yorkshire.”

Her face fell, and Jasper sensed at once that he had said the wrong thing. “Miss Philippa?” he asked cautiously. “What is the matter?”

She attempted a smile, but it was obviously forced. “I’m sorry. It’s just—I had to leave my cats behind.”

Jasper bit back a sharp response. He had suspected all along that Philippa Weatherby was a silly sort of girl. This proved it. She did not even have the mental fortitude to go without seeing her cats for two weeks. “Take heart, Miss Weatherby. You will see them again soon.”

She made a bleak sound. “I won’t. We can’t go back to Boroughbridge, on account of my father selling the house.”

“I see. But surely, once you are established in your new home, you will be able to bring your cats to join you.”

She gave a humorless chuckle. “We haven’t got a new home.”

Jasper frowned. That didn’t make any sense. “Where is your father?” he barked.

“He’ll be on the ship by now.”

“The ship?” Mr. Weatherby might be the one on a ship, but Jasper felt like the one at sea. “What ship? What are you talking about?”

“Oh!” She looked up, surprised. “I thought your brother would have told you. Our father sold our house so he could purchase passage on an around-the-world voyage. He’s a naturalist, you see.”

Jasper did not see, not at all. He shook his head, hoping to clear it. “Your father sold your house in order to go and sail around the world?”

“That’s correct.”

“But where are the four of you to live?” he snapped.

He immediately felt bad about using such a harsh tone. His ire was directed at the absent Mr. Weatherby, who appeared to be suffering from some sort of severe moral deficiency.

Fortunately, Miss Philippa did not appear to take any offense. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out right now.”

Jasper still could not seem to wrap his head around the notion that this man had abandoned his four daughters. “Do you have family, or—”

“Only a great-aunt who is even more impoverished than we are.”

“Perhaps friends who will take you in?”

“None to speak of,” Miss Weatherby replied. Oddly, she sounded far less concerned about this dire turn of events than she did about the prospect of never seeing her cats again.

“But that’s despicable!” Jasper exclaimed.

“Mmm, it is, isn’t it?” Miss Weatherby waved this off. “But we’re quite used to it. Our father has always been terribly selfish.”

For the life of him, Jasper could not understand how she was so nonchalant about it. A man was supposed to look after his family! How could this Weatherby fellow stand to face himself in the mirror each morning?

Jasper would have walked barefoot across a scorching desert rather than let Felix suffer. He would have swum the English Channel, he would have…

He could have gone on for quite a while in this vein, because there was literally nothing Jasper would not do to protect his brother.

What was wrong with this Weatherby fellow? Jasper wished he was here. He had a mind to clout him upside the head.

He sought to make his voice gentle, because none of this was Miss Weatherby’s fault. “But how will you survive?”

She laughed. “You would think I would be a bit more concerned, wouldn’t you? But that’s because you don’t know Eleanor as I do. I have absolute confidence in my sister. She’ll make sure everything turns out right.”

Jasper couldn’t imagine how a widely acknowledged spinster with neither money nor connections could bend the world to her will. “But… how is she going to do that?”

Miss Philippa shrugged. “I have no idea! But mark my words, she always does. She has a great deal of practice, you see. She’s been doing it for twenty years, after all.”

“Twenty years?” Now Jasper was truly confused. He had guessed Eleanor Weatherby was a few years younger than he was.

“Yes, ever since our mother died. Eleanor was just seven—”

“Seven?” Jasper barked. Several heads turned to look at him, including those of Eleanor and Clarissa Weatherby. The subject of their discussion narrowed her eyes at him.

For once, Jasper didn’t have the heart to glare back at her.

He turned back to Miss Philippa. “I apologize for my harsh tone. I was merely shocked. Do you mean to tell me that your sister Eleanor has been looking after the three of you since she was seven years old?”

“It sounds implausible, doesn’t it? And yet, she has, as well as running my father’s household on next to nothing.” Miss Philippa smiled fondly as she shook her head. “But Eleanor always finds a way.”

Jasper grunted. This was even worse than him starting to like Miss Philippa. The thought of Eleanor Weatherby had him feeling a strange warmth in the center of his chest.

If he didn’t know better, he would’ve called it admiration.

No. It was worse than admiration.

She reminded him… of him.

Although… no. That wasn’t quite right. He had started looking after his brother at age sixteen, with almost limitless resources and the power of a dukedom behind him.

Her task had been immeasurably harder.

Something occurred to him. “I hope you will pardon me for asking an intrusive question, but it sounds like your sister was something of a mother figure to you.”

“Yes, I would agree. I still think of her as my sister, but our relationship definitely has a maternal quality.”

Jasper considered how he could phrase his question without giving away too much. “Did you ever find yourself pushing back against her direction, as children are sometimes wont to rebel against their parents?”

She bit her lip as she considered the question. “I’m sure there are times when I have. But less than you would think. You see, even when I don’t much like what Eleanor is telling me, I know she always has my best interests at heart. Take leaving my cats behind in Yorkshire—as you can imagine, there is no suggestion I could have opposed more strongly. But Eleanor sat me down and explained why it had to be that way. We don’t even have the resources to look after ourselves! Did I want Pepper, Ollie, and Crumpet to go hungry? Of course not. Plus, moving to a new home can be terribly disorienting for cats, and Pepper is sixteen—too old to learn his way around a new home. Even Ollie and Crumpet could become confused and wander off.” She sighed. “As much as I hated it, I knew Eleanor was right. And so, I agreed to leave my cats behind.”

Jasper would be the first to admit that he could be mulishly stubborn. But Miss Philippa’s words were penetrating even his thick skull. The approach she had just described, of sitting down and explaining your reasoning… that was not what he had done with Felix. He had done… pretty much the opposite. And achieved the opposite result, notably.

A feeling of unease started to creep in. Jasper was only trying to prevent his brother from making a mistake. He was doing it because he loved his brother and didn’t want him to make an error that could prove to be both painful and permanent. Felix knew that.

Didn’t he?

The more he thought about their earlier confrontation, the more Jasper began to feel ashamed. In truth, he didn’t think there was anything wrong with wanting to see Tom and Jerry. And honestly, Felix had a point about Timon of Athens. Jasper hadn’t much enjoyed the play, either.

Yet he had somehow found himself defending it, simply because he couldn’t bear to admit that Eleanor Weatherby had the right of it. Which he knew was ridiculous! Why could he not simply have said, to be sure, it is one of the Bard’s lesser works.

Probably because she was an expert at getting under his skin.

But the larger point was, he had been so desperate to prevent Felix from falling further under Miss Philippa’s spell that he had been willing to say anything to prevent them from enacting this scene together.

And that was how he had wound up calling his brother an idiot in front of everyone attending the house party.

God, he was the idiot. Anyone with eyes could see how wounded Felix had been by his words. Words he didn’t even mean! When had he become such a blundering fool?

Now, all he wanted to do was go and find his brother. To apologize, for one. But he also wanted to employ the method described by Miss Philippa, the one Eleanor Weatherby had used to convince her to give up her cats. He needed to explain his concerns, which were legitimate, about a hasty match with Philippa Weatherby.

Although… now that he’d had a chance to converse with Miss Philippa, Jasper had to admit that she was not nearly as bad as he had expected.

Be honest, Jasper. If she were the daughter of an earl, instead of a Weatherby Wallflower, he would have been cautiously pleased about the prospect of Felix courting her. She was quite pretty, she seemed exceptionally kind, and she clearly shared a number of interests with his brother.

Hell, had he met her first, he probably would have contrived an opportunity to introduce her to Felix.

But the fact remained that Philippa Weatherby was not the daughter of an earl. She was a girl caught in a desperate situation, and sometimes desperation made people do unsavory things. There was also the fact that it was not a good idea to marry anyone on the strength of a two-week acquaintance.

These were the points he needed to be making to Felix. Not barking and growling and embarrassing his brother in front of three dozen people.

Across the ballroom, Lady Milthorpe clapped her hands. “Shall we resume? Let us rehearse for another hour, and then we shall take a break for luncheon.”

But Jasper couldn’t go and find his brother, because he was stuck playing Petruchio to Miss Philippa’s Katharina.

But he would do it. He would find his brother at first opportunity, and he would apologize.

Feeling slightly better in the wake of this resolution, he offered Miss Philippa his arm.