Present Day
Pippa spotted a small hole in the sleeve of her gown, about halfway up the forearm. She bit back a sigh of resignation.
There was a travelling sewing kit in her bag, of course, but the ramshackle old carriage was jolting around too much to allow her to try and fix it as they travelled. She would arrive at their destination, then, with a hole in her gown.
In case they didn’t already believe that we were poor, miserable relations, we will make it clearer still,Pippa thought miserably.
The carriage was a hired one, and Bridget had haggled down the price until it was something they could afford. They had walked a good deal of the way, and taken a stagecoach another part of the way, but Bridget was insistent that they could not turn up at their destination looking like peasants. At least this way they could stretch out, just the two of them in the carriage, instead of jostling elbows against shouting fishwives and stinking butchers.
Frankly, Pippa thought it would be better for their case if they did. They were coming for charity, after all.
“Sit up straight, Pippa,” Bridget snapped. “And don’t look so miserable. You could be a pretty girl, if you only used your advantages better. I won’t have them thinking we’re gawping countryfolk.”
But wearegawping countryfolk.
Pippa kept her mouth closed and straightened up.
“Do you think they’ll be happy to see us?” she said at last, after a few more minutes of uncomfortable silence. Her backside was horribly sore from being jolted about on the hard carriage seat, and she was desperate to have something to take her mind off it. “My cousins, I mean.”
There was a long pause before her mother responded.
“I don’t know,” Bridget answered simply. “William, the oldest, is the Duke of Dunleigh now. He was always such a serious boy and reminded me so much of his father. If he’s a copy of the old duke, my brother, then we’re in a great deal of trouble, my girl.”
Pippa didn’t need to ask what sort of trouble they would be in.
The months after Phillip’s death had passed in a daze of grief and privations. The next Viscount and his wife had come to take their dues and had reluctantly turned Pippa and Bridget out of the house. It was no longer their house, after all. It belonged to the Viscount Randall, whoever he was. Bridget’s widow’s jointure was thin, and the new viscount did not offer to supplement it. A distant cousin, it wasn’t really his responsibility to care for them, even though he did let them stay for a few weeks in the house. He brought a fortune of his own, it turned out, so the new Viscount Randall would not have to scrimp and save. He kept on Joan, the maid-of-all-work, and took on new servants.
Bridget and Pippa had taken a cottage a little way away from the Randall estate, and then a smaller cottage, and then finally a set of rooms above a shop in the town. Their income barely covered the rent and their food.
After six or eight months of this, Bridget had swallowed her pride and written to her brother, the Duke of Dunleigh, explaining the situation and asking for help.
She received a terse, negative letter in response. No help was forthcoming, and their last hope was gone.
And then news trickled to the countryside that the Duke of Dunleigh was dead. Some sort of riding accident, it seemed.
Bridget was exultant, sure that her nephews and niece would do something for them now. They had missed the funeral, which was a shame, but she was so sure that help would come.
Months ticked by. News came that Katherine had married, and then the three boys in quick succession, and the Willenshire family thrived. No help came.
When their credit was finally turned down at the grocer’s, Pippa came home and told her mother thatsomethingneeded to be done. They agonized over sending a letter, which might be ignored, and finally,finally,came to a decision.
There’d be no letter, no warning. They would simply go to London and confront the Willenshires at their home.
The closer they got, however, the more Pippa began to worry. They were poor relations, and there was no real love between them and the family. She remembered spendingsometime with Katherine when they were children, but would Katherine remember? What if they were brushed aside like leaves in the wind?
Lifting her hand to her lips, Pippa began to bite her nails.
“Stop that,” Bridget snapped. She was leaning up against the seat opposite, eyes closed, and Pippa wasn’t entirely sure how her mother knew that she was biting her nails.
She returned her hand to her lap. “Sorry, Mama. I’m just nervous.”
“So am I. But we’ll be there before nightfall, so calm down and try and compose yourself. We don’t want to seem too desperate.” She opened her eyes, sweeping a calculating look over her daughter from head to foot. “Tidy up your hair, can’t you? And when we get closer, pinch your cheeks a little to put some colour into them. You’re white as a sheet, and you don’t want to look like a spinster. You want to lookmarriageable.”
Pippa bit back a sigh, obediently running her hands over her hair.
She was proud of her hair, which was thick and wavy, coming to her waist, and had a rich chestnut shade. However, itwasa lot of hair to manage, especially with no maid or anybody to help her put it up beyond her mother.
At twenty-three years old, Pippa had no more marital prospects than she’d had two years ago, before her father died. The memory of him still made her chest clench. Not a day went by without her thinking of his last words, his last request, and how she’d failed already.
