Chapter 29

The Weatherby sisters gathered in Eleanor’s rooms. At first, hope hung in the air that the misunderstanding between Pippa and Felix could be quickly resolved.

After an hour passed, however, it seemed that something was wrong. Eleanor penned a quick note to Lady Milthorpe asking if there were any updates, then rang for a maid to deliver it.

Lady Milthorpe herself appeared at the door some ten minutes later. Eleanor marked their hostess’s drawn expression, and the way she was wringing her hands.

“Has Lord Felix been located?” Eleanor asked.

“The household has been all abustle trying to do just that,” the countess explained. “We were eventually able to track him to the stables. Apparently, Lord Felix requested that his horse be saddled, then departed with some haste.”

“Do you know where he went?” Clarissa asked.

“We do not,” Lady Milthorpe replied. “He is likely just working off his frustration in the saddle. He left all his belongings in his room, so we fully expect him to return before supper. Still, his brother, my husband, and a half a dozen grooms have set forth in all directions in an attempt to track him down, so that he can be reassured of the truth of Miss Philippa’s affections with all possible haste.”

Eleanor smiled tightly. “I suppose there’s nothing for it, then, but to wait.”

Lady Milthorpe’s eyes were sympathetic as they fell on Pippa “I’m afraid so. I will bring you word the moment there is any news.”

Eleanor pressed her hand. “Thank you, my lady.”

All they could do after that was wait. After another hour, Kate attempted to distract Pippa by fetching Sheba and Wellington from Jasper’s rooms. It was a mark of their youngest sister’s despondency that even the kittens could not cheer her. Indeed, Pippa scarce seemed to notice them at all.

After the passage of two more hours, servants appeared with a tray for luncheon. Eleanor, Clarissa, and Kate picked at the food. Pippa didn’t eat a bite and had to be encouraged to drink the cup of tea Clarissa pressed into her hands.

They didn’t receive any news until the shadows outside were starting to grow long, and Jasper’s valet, Stephens, knocked upon the door.

He gestured to Benedick and Beatrice, who were wearing their leashes. “I was just taking the mastiffs out for their evening constitutional. I wondered if a little fresh air might do Miss Philippa some good?”

“Thank you,” Eleanor replied in hushed tones, “but she hasn’t even noticed the kittens. I doubt she can summon the will to move from the bed.”

“Ah. Of course.”

Stephens was about to take the mastiffs off when Lady Milthorpe appeared.

“What news?” Clarissa asked, hurrying to the door.

The countess looked weary. “Lord Felix was spotted.”

“Then he hasn’t returned?” Pippa called from her seat on the bed.

“But that’s good news, that he’s been spotted,” Kate said, squeezing Pippa’s hand. She paused, taking in the countess’s expression. “Isn’t it?”

The countess shook her head. “He was spotted leaving Northampton, on the road toward Birmingham.”

“Birmingham!” Eleanor exclaimed. “Surely he won’t go as far as Birmingham!”

Lady Milthorpe nodded grimly “That seems to be his intention. And if he makes it to Birmingham, he could head absolutely anywhere from there.”

Pippa rose from the bed. She was quaking like a leaf in a high wind, and Kate’s hand wrapped around her arm seemed to be the only thing holding her upright. “Then… he’s not just working out his temper in the saddle.”

“It would seem not,” Lady Milthorpe confirmed.

“He’s leaving,” Pippa clarified.

Lady Milthorpe twisted her handkerchief in her hands. “I’m afraid so.”

“But his brother will be able to track him,” Clarissa said. “Surely, he’s had to change horses several times by now. The duke will ask at every inn. They would not loan out a saddle horse without agreeing upon a destination. Otherwise, they couldn’t retrieve it. There will be a trail to follow.”

Stephens made a bleak sound.

“What is it, Stephens?” Eleanor asked.

The valet spoke reluctantly. “His Grace paid a small fortune for Lord Felix’s mount when he came across the block at Tattersall’s. His stallion is of Arabian stock, imported from the Middle East.”

Eleanor’s heart filled with dread. “What are you saying?”

“Such horses are bred to cross deserts. The ones that were not strong enough to do so did not survive to become part of the bloodstock.” Stephens’ eyes were sorrowful. “Not one horse out of a hundred could carry his rider all the way to Birmingham. But Sharif could probably carry on for a hundred miles at a steady canter without being overly bothered about it.”

Pippa’s knees gave out, and she sat heavily upon Eleanor’s bed.

Stephens bowed his head. “I must see to the dogs. I am so sorry, Miss Philippa.”

Lady Milthorpe retreated as well, with the promise that she would send up a supper tray.

Across the room, Clarissa caught Eleanor’s eye. Understanding passed between the two sisters.

For the past few days, the Weatherby sisters had been working under the assumption that a proposal from Felix to Pippa would be the event that would pull them back from the brink of destitution.

It now appeared increasingly likely that such a proposal would not be forthcoming, at least, not by the end of the house party. To make matters worse, there had been a dozen captivated witnesses in the breakfast room who had heard what they believed was Pippa mocking her would-be suitor in her journal. It fit very neatly into the narrative of the grasping Weatherby Wallflowers and was bound to cause a fresh fit of gossip in the scandal sheets.

They needed a solution to their predicament, and they needed it now, before the newspapers made mincemeat of what was left of their reputation.

“So,” Clarissa began, “if Felix is not going to marry Pippa—”

“Felix will be brought around,” Eleanor said, giving Clarissa a speaking look. “It just might take slightly longer than we would like.”

“Time we do not have,” Clarissa said. “Once the scandal sheets get wind of this—”

“I know.” Eleanor rubbed her temple. “Believe me, I know.”

From her perch next to Pippa on the bed, Kate said softly, “Did I mishear, or did Lord Oglesby say that he had made Pippa an offer of marriage?”

Clarissa snorted. “An offer she declined. Who knows if he would be willing to renew it after that scene in the breakfast room today?”

Pippa had gone as white as the counterpane. “Besides,” Eleanor said, “Pippa is going to resolve things with Felix. She is,” she said firmly, glaring at Clarissa when she started to speak. “It makes no sense to dangle her before Lord Oglesby when she is on the cusp of a match that will actually make her happy.”

The sisters fell silent. Eleanor was trying to muster the courage to tell her sisters that Jasper had proposed last night, if that was the proper term for it. She was still more than halfway convinced that he was going to take the proposal back, especially after the events that transpired that morning.

There was also the distinct possibility that when she saw him, she was going to strangle the great lummox. Of all the idiocy, to believe those horrible Robertson siblings over Pippa, who didn’t have a deceptive bone in her body.

She was fully aware that the bridegroom being rendered a corpse would put a distinct damper on the wedding ceremony.

Still, in her current frame of pique, Eleanor could make no guarantees.

Kate squeezed her eyes shut. “Perhaps Lord Oglesby would be willing to consider me instead.”

“Or me,” Clarissa offered swiftly.

“Really, Claire,” Eleanor said, “do you seriously expect him to consider you after the way you lunged at Anna-Maria Robertson’s throat?”

Clarissa waved this off. “He’s what, seventy-two years old? How good could his eyesight possibly be?”

“To say nothing of the fact that you called her a bitch,” Kate muttered.

“Oh, pish posh,” Clarissa said. “I’m sure his hearing is starting to go, too.”

“He couldn’t possibly be that deaf,” Eleanor noted dryly. “You shouted it so loudly they probably heard it all the way back in Boroughbridge.”

At this remark, Pippa smiled.

It was a tiny smile, and it didn’t reach her eyes.

But it was better than the expression she’d been making all day.

“I appreciated the way you sallied forth to my defense, Claire,” Pippa said. “It felt good to have someone stand up for me.”

Clarissa shot Eleanor a triumphant look. Eleanor rolled her eyes in response.

“Still,” Kate said, “Clarissa isn’t wrong. We need to find something to tide us over until Felix can be tracked down. And if that means I have to marry Lord Oglesby—”

“I believe we might have another option,” Eleanor said stiffly.

All three of her sisters fell silent, staring at her. Eleanor’s cheeks heated, and her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

“And that is?” Kate finally asked.

Eleanor fixed her eyes upon the crown molding behind her sisters’ heads. “Yesterday, the Duke of Norwood asked me to marry him—”

“I knew it!” Clarissa shouted in the same instant Kate gasped, “Did he truly?” and Pippa burst into tears.

“Pippa!” Eleanor cried, hurrying over to the bed. She sat on Pippa’s other side and wrapped her arm around her sobbing sister. How could she have made the announcement so callously, without considering how the news of a possible engagement would feel to Pippa, whose own matrimonial hopes had just been dashed?

But, as always, Pippa’s heart was better than Eleanor had any right to expect. “I’m sorry, I’m just so happy for you,” Pippa clarified, fanning her face. “For my entire life, you have put yourself last in order to look out for us.” She beamed through her tears. “If there is anyone on the face of this earth who deserves to be a duchess, it’s you.”

“Hear, hear!” Clarissa cried.

Kate’s gaze was fixed upon Eleanor’s face. “And yet, unless I am very much mistaken, you are not unreservedly happy about the duke’s proposal.”

Eleanor chose her words carefully. “There is the fact that I’m furious with him. None of this mess with Felix would have happened if he hadn’t immediately assumed the worst about Pippa.”

“And?” Clarissa asked.

Eleanor bristled. “What makes you assume there is an and?”

Clarissa smirked at her. “Because I know you.”

Eleanor blew a strand of hair out of her face. “And a part of me cannot help but assume that he will withdraw his proposal when he considers the matter in the harsh light of day.”

Pippa frowned. “The harsh light of day? Is that to say that he proposed to you at—”

Eleanor felt her cheeks burning. “It’s a metaphor! A metaphor!”

Pippa nodded acceptingly. Behind her back, Eleanor caught Clarissa and Kate exchanging a knowing look.

She cleared her throat. “Returning to the matter at hand—I am skeptical that His Grace truly wishes to marry me. But, our circumstances being what they are, I thought I should mention his proposal, such as it was, as we need to consider every possible avenue of rescue from our financial troubles.”

Clarissa waved this off. “Oh, he wants to marry you, all right.”

Eleanor started to protest, but she was cut off by Kate, the little traitor. “He looks at you like he wants to devour you.”

Eleanor frowned. “Two days ago, I was convinced that he hated me.”

Clarissa shrugged. “Love, hate—two of the strongest emotions known to man. And apparently, two sides of the same coin.”

Kate nodded. “You inspired a strong reaction in him from the very first.”

Eleanor, who never felt flustered, was starting to feel flustered. “Yes, well, assuming his proposal has not been withdrawn—”

“Which it hasn’t,” Clarissa said firmly.

Eleanor narrowed her eyes at her sister—“imagine how Pippa would feel, to find herself trapped in the same household with the man who played an instrumental role in the unfortunate scene that played out this morning.”

Pippa looked up from her lap. “Would you like to know what I think?”

“Of course, dear,” Eleanor said.

Pippa’s voice shook. “I have spent the last four weeks hearing about how I would have to lure a man old enough to be my grandfather to the altar, because that was our only hope. After I met Felix, the focus shifted to him, which was a welcome change. But it still put me under a great deal of pressure to bring him up to scratch.”

Eleanor squeezed Pippa’s hand. “I’m so sorry, dear.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Pippa said. “The blame lies solely with Father. But our choice seems to lie between one of us marrying Lord Oglesby, and you marrying a man who, in spite of the mistake he made this morning, clearly adores you, and is perfect for you in every particular. Is there truly a need to debate such a question?”

Eleanor nodded grimly. “You have cut straight to the heart of the matter, Pip. I will attempt to make things right with the duke. Whenever he returns.”

She glanced at the darkening window, wondering when that might be.