CHAPTER 3
You are my beloved match, and I cannot wait to take you into my arms.
A most titillating line, indeed, and one that might have coaxed a chuckle or two from Philip, if the damned letter had not been signed so provocatively with his name at the bottom.
Ever your Philip?
His eyebrow practically rose to his hairline. He would have to have been foxed beyond reckoning to have inscribed such laughable drivel. Or intoxicated out of his mind.
But even when he had been injured on the battlefield and the surgeon had plied him with copious amounts of cheap, sour wine to deaden the pain, he had never once lost so much of his faculties as to compose such a thing.
It had to be some sort of jape. Some mischief afoot.
He looked up from the much-abused missive and at the Barlow girl. She was understandably distraught—fetchingly so, with her dark hair and vivid green eyes bright with unshed tears. He noted a slight tremble in her lush lips and barely restrained himself from soothing it.
With his fingers? No. His own lips would prove to be much more suitable for that task.
However, it was not just her face that captivated him, unfortunately. The woman was also possessed of a figure that would drive monks to madness, for all that the top of her head barely reached his chest.
Which is all well and good, for it puts me at an advantage to press a kiss to that riot of luscious waves.
He frowned. These were not thoughts one should be entertaining about the daughter of his father’s greatest enemy.
He stiffened, and his gaze was wrenched—against his will—from the charming young lady with the shapely curves and full lips to her livid father, whose thin lips were trembling with a rage that Philip had no impulse to soothe.
The Duke of Barlow was the greatest foe of Philip’s thankfully deceased sire, for reasons that had never been made known to Philip. Not that he cared at any point, for his father had made a good many enemies throughout the course of his unfortunate existence.
But the enmity between his dead father and this rude old man was of a different intensity altogether, for both men quite honestly could not stand each other, to the point where his father had once told him during a short leave, “You may fool with any coquette in the ton, but keep your hands well off of Barlow’s daughter!”
He had then followed it up with threats of disowning Philip, of casting him out with merely the shirt on his back to his name. As if he had not already done that.
Well, Barlow and his daughter were standing before him right now, demanding things that would have had his sire turning over in his grave like a pheasant on a spit.
Philip stared intently at the young lady, who hastily averted her gaze, a delicate blush tingeing her fair cheeks.
How utterly delectable, he thought with a smirk.And most certainly guilty.
He would know that evasive glance anywhere. He had caught his sister doing it in the presence of gentlemen more times than he could count during the tedious balls and gatherings that he had recently been forced to attend as her escort.
And like Lizzy, he was willing to wager that the young lady before him did not think he had caught her in the act.
“Father, please… just let the Duke explain.” The desperation was clear in the young lady’s voice this time. “This is the first time we have ever met?—”
On that, we can both agree, Philip thought to himself.
But, of course, Barlow—bless his cantankerous, old soul—would never consider her pleas. Philip could see the unyielding fire in the older man’s eyes and knew that there were only two ways to settle this.
“I do not need to hear another word from you! I shall not be insulted by an Ashbrook again, nor shall I listen to any paltry excuses for this vile behavior!” her father roared, pulling out his pistol and aiming it at Philip. “Either you marry her or you die! The choice is yours, Ashbrook!”
Both the Barlow girl and Lizzy let out horrified gasps.
“What?!” they shrieked in unison.
“Dear God!” the Dowager Duchess exclaimed, a hand over her heart.
An excited buzz rose from the small crowd of servants who had gathered in the entrance hall to watch the spectacle before them. Philip could pay them a handsome sum to ensure their discretion on the matter, but Barlow’s threats would undoubtedly find a way to leach into society’s awareness regardless.
He sighed. There was only one way to settle this now.
