Page 6

“Mother…”

“I am not a fool, Phillipa. I want that understood. Whatever anyone in that room believes, I know that is not your child.”

Relief went through her so hard it hurt.

“I know it because I have known you every day of your life, and you could not conceal a hairpin from me, let alone an infant. So the question is, whose is it? And what, in heaven’s name, is it doing in your arms?”

“I found him,” said Phillipa. “I was on the veranda, and I heard him crying, and…”

“Never mind.” Lady Creighton waved a gloved hand, and Phillipa’s explanation fell to the floor between them. “Never mind, never mind, it hardly matters now. What matters is that the Duke of Brawnhite has announced an engagement in front of half of London, and I will tell you frankly, Phillipa, that an engagement to a Duke is no bad thing, however it came about. Scandal fades but a dukedom does not.” She pushed away from the door and began, as she always did when agitated, to pace. “I do wish I had been warned. I should have liked a week. A day! Your father will be quite blindsided, and your brother, good Lord, your brother. I shall have to break it to them both, and your father’s nerves, and then there is the story to think of. We must decide what is to be said and I shall have to call on Lady Ashworth first thing in the morning, before anyone else can get to her, so that it is our version that goes about. Phillipa, you do see that this could solve everything. The whole wretched business of last year, put right in a single night, if only we are careful.”

Phillipa listened, and felt something cold and familiar creep up the back of her neck.

She knew this tone. It was the same one that her mother took when she was deciding to e the only authority in Phillipa’s life, making all of her decisions for her .

Not again, she thought. And then, a little wildly, But what else is there?

“And if we can only get the notice into the Morning Post by Thursday..”

The library door opened again, not interrupting her mothers monologue.

The Duke of Brawnhite slipped inside and closed it behind him without a sound.

Phillipa’s eyes flew to his. Lady Creighton, with her back to him, noticed nothing. She was still talking, still pacing, still explaining in ringing tones exactly how the Duke’s title might be made to answer for every disappointment of the past two years, and Phillipa stood there and burned.

She wanted the floor to open, wanted to say something, anything, to stop the words, but the Duke was looking at her and she could not seem to look anywhere else.

He simply stood there and listened, with an odd stillness, and let her see that he was listening, and did not look away. The strange thing was that it made it worse and better at once.

“Phillipa? Are you attending to me?”

“I fear she is not, Lady Creighton,” said the Duke pleasantly. “Though I have been, rather closely.”

Her mother spun with a small shriek. “Your Grace! We were only, that is, I was merely…”

“I wonder if you would be so kind as to leave us alone for a moment.”

“Alone?” She drew herself up. “Your Grace, that is hardly proper.”

“No,” the Duke agreed, “it isn’t. I fear propriety has been left by the wayside for tonight, and I have need of a word with my betrothed.”

My betrothed. The words did to Lady Creighton what nothing else could have done. All the starch went out of her. Her face smoothed, and softened, and lit, and she said, “Yes. Yes, of course. Naturally,” and crossed the room, not to the door by which she had entered, where a dozen people might see her, but to the French windows on the veranda side, so that as few of the ton as possible should be seen going in and out of the Duke’s library. On the threshold she paused. Over her shoulder, at Phillipa, she gave a look of such fierce, hungry, hopeful command that Phillipa felt it between her shoulder blades. She jerked her chin once toward the Duke.

Go on.

Then she was gone, and the night swallowed the sound of her heels.

And they were alone.

The Duke came forward a few steps. Phillipa, without any instruction from her mind, took one back, and felt the arm of the sofa against her knee. The baby stirred, sighed, and subsided.

They looked at one another. In the firelight he looked less like the flawless host and more like a man who had been chasing something through a garden. His cravat was still crooked. There was a small green leaf caught in his hair, and she discovered that she could not stop looking at it.

“Might I have my nephew back?” he asked.

Her eyes narrowed. “Your nephew.”

Oh.