The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,63
a marriage—ought you not to be spending every waking moment with your doting husband?”
Celeste blushed slightly. “I spend most moments with him, I assure you. Mustn’t one get out for fresh air? Besides, I like that he misses me.”
Her happiness was so plain that Pippa couldn’t help but smile, and it lightened the load she carried a little. She shifted her attention to Abigail. “And you have your own problems to attend to, don’t you?”
Abigail snorted out a laugh before she took a long drink from her glass of wine. “I got hissed out of a shop today, so I suppose I should say yes. But focusing on your problems seems so much less hideous.”
“Hissed out of a shop?” Pippa said, leaning forward.
Abigail shrugged. “We all know the scandal that was created. None of us are fools, are we?”
Celeste sighed. “I am sorry. It is abominably cruel that anyone would blame the victims of a crime rather than the criminal.”
“They would blame him, were he not dead,” Abigail said with a dry laugh. “Unfortunately, all that’s left is us and his poor brother.”
Pippa squeezed her eyes shut as she thought of Rhys and his exhausted expression earlier that day. At the pain in his voice back in Bath, when he told her about the estrangement that had started long before Erasmus’s bad deeds. He had lost so much. It had bonded them for a time.
“Do you want to talk about what happened between you and the earl this afternoon?” Abigail pressed.
“There is nothing to talk about.” That wasn’t true, but Pippa couldn’t say the rest. “As you say, Lord Leighton is being maligned for his brother’s actions even more deeply than we are. I’ve simply realized that the best thing I can do if I…if I care for him is to let him go. He does not need my presence in his life, creating even more trouble.”
“Pippa,” Celeste breathed.
She held up a hand. “Oh, please don’t. If I talk about it, I’ll break down, and I can’t do that right now. Perhaps later, later when things are more settled, then I’ll have myself a good old-fashioned collapse.”
Abigail worried her lip. “Everything in me tells me to push and prod and be the nuisance the Duke of Gilmore always says I am. But I will try to respect your wishes in this, Pippa.”
“Thank you.”
The first course was brought out and they all began to eat. As they talked about everything and nothing all at once, Pippa observed her friends. Both were so clever, and aside from Rhys, they were the only people in the world who could understand what she was experiencing.
And perhaps if she couldn’t talk to them about the complicated situation with Rhys, she could request their assistance on another score.
When the dessert was placed before them, Pippa did not pick up her fork. Instead she said, “You said earlier that you wished to help me.”
Abigail straightened immediately. “Yes! Are you ready to discuss whatever happened earlier today?”
“Gracious, Abigail, you are pushing,” Celeste whispered, as if Pippa couldn’t hear her just as plainly as Abigail did.
She smiled despite the seriousness of the situation. She did adore these two women. “It isn’t about Rhys. No one can do anything about Rhys, not even me.”
Abigail opened her mouth as if to protest, but Pippa held up a hand with a laugh. “Please stop, I can read your thoughts—I don’t need you to say them and start this conversation all over again.”
“What do you need help with?” Celeste asked with another hard look at Abigail.
“Kenley,” Pippa said, and the laughter faded from her voice because none of what she was about to say was amusing in the slightest. “Rhys told me today that Rosie Stanton did not leave the country as we all believed. She is still in London. And there is reason to believe that might be because of her son.”
All the teasing and prodding and playful interaction between the women vanished in an instant. Abigail sat up straighter, Celeste’s cheeks went pale. They had all been there the day Rosie shot Erasmus Montgomery. They had all been threatened by the woman in her desperate hour.
“Tell us everything,” Celeste said, her voice shaking.
“There isn’t much more to say,” Pippa said with a sigh. “There was little more I was told, except that Rhys…Lord Leighton…hired a guard to watch over this house a few days ago.”
Abigail’s brow wrinkled. “There’s some man watching over my house?”