My Last Duchess (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #0.5) - Eloisa James Page 0,97

I didn’t know where you were. Please.”

Silent tears seeped into his coat.

“And you’re a lady,” her father said, pressing forward where he obviously saw an advantage. “You must marry Rodney.” Then he played his strongest card.

“It’s what your mother wanted.”

She knew it was the truth.

“Margaret’s heart would break to think of you, her only child, as a servant, or withering into an old maid,” he said. “I promise you, child, I promise that you will learn to love Rodney. He’s a fool, but he’s not vicious or unkind. He genuinely loves you, in a way that I’ve rarely seen among gentlemen, to tell the truth. He will always care for you, and for the children you will have.”

The weight of his words felt like heavy brambles, rooting her in Little Ha’penny, in Rodney’s arms, in Durfey Manor.

“I—” She swallowed, made herself say it. “I will marry Rodney, but only if you give me a week. If you force me to marry him tomorrow, Papa, I will run away tonight. I will crawl out my window if I have to.”

Her father sighed. “Waiting for the butler?”

“He’s a gentleman,” she said stoutly. “You acknowledged it yourself. He loves me. He told me so. He’ll find a way, some way, to come to me.”

Her father turned away, but not before she saw raw sympathy in his eyes. “As you wish,” he said. “I owe you that at least.”

Chapter Twelve

Hour by agonizing hour, day by day, the week of Philippa’s temporary reprieve crept past. She tried not to look out the window in the direction of the castle. Wick had promised her a week. He would try. He would . . . try. She kept repeating that to herself though she went to sleep sobbing at the possibility that he wouldn’t come.

Or at the possibility he would come to ask for her hand, but a day too late, a week too late, a year too late.

On the fifth day in the early afternoon, her father found her, sitting in a back room without a view of the dusty road leading in the direction of the castle. She was tired of leaping to her feet every time she heard the slightest sound that might be a carriage.

“My dear,” he said, “would you do me a great kindness and take this book to the vicar? I borrowed it sometime ago, and I expect he’d like it back.”

She took the book from his hand. “The Hellenica, by Xenophon,” she read. “What on earth is it?”

“A most interesting account of military prowess,” her father said. “Xenophon was an ancient Greek warrior.”

“Of course, Papa,” she said. “I’m trying to finish hemming before suppertime, but I’ll take it to the vicarage first thing in the morning.”

“No, the vicar is waiting for the book,” her father stated. “Please do so at once.”

Philippa saw that her father’s jaw was set. He seemed to be vibrating with a kind of wordless excitement, one that she instantly interpreted.

“You’re having another argument with the vicar, aren’t you?” she asked, with a sigh. “And I suppose The Hellenica proves your point.”

“Exactly,” her father said with satisfaction. “Riggs will be quite surprised.”

“Must I go this very moment?”

“You could . . . do your hair,” her father said, waving vaguely at her. “After all, no one has seen you since your return.”

Philippa made her way upstairs, thinking about that. No doubt the villagers were agog with excitement. Certainly by now they knew all about her stint as a nursemaid in the castle. The realization made her put on her second-best gown, a fetching pale blue one caught up under her breast with navy ribbons. She had a bonnet to match, a silly little thing that emphasized the color of her hair.

Once in Little Ha’penny the first person she saw was the baker’s wife, delivering hot rolls to the Biscuit and Plow. “Aye, so you’ll be a baroness as of Saturday,” Mrs. Deasly said comfortably. “When I think of you as just a little scrap, coming in here with your nursemaid, I can hardly believe you’re all grown-up. Your hair was like sunshine, even then, and you were the prettiest little thing I’d ever seen. It’s a lucky girl you are, Miss Philippa!”

“Yes,” she said, smiling at Mrs. Deasly. Even if she had to marry Rodney, she had loved and been loved, and that was more than many a woman could say.

As she approached the village square, she saw the vicar in front of his church, chatting with the