Page 2 of The Best Marquess

“Very well. Seven. And your tone is unbecoming,” said Grandmother frigidly. She loathed being corrected.

“Not as unbecoming as leg-shackling Pip to a man over twice our age. All those princes are, and Norfolk and Dorset to boot.”

Pippa beamed at her twin. Indeed, occasionally tolerable. “Quite right.”

Grandmother’s smile turned distinctly sharklike. “Which is why, at age twenty-five, Devonshire is perfect. The dear duke confided to me that he has no desire to be stalked like a stag at a hunt for years on end, but instead wishes to wed a sensible young lady who won’t disgrace him or herself with missish vapors, public scenes, or sinful indiscretions. He believes that woman to be you, Pippa, and his sisters agree. To celebrate, I’ll host a soiree next week, where you and Devonshire shall officially begin courting. What a triumph it will be!”

“No,” said Pippa. “Not unless the Romans retake England, swine sail over St. Paul’s, and Xavier becomes a monk. That is when I’ll wed a man I barely know and do not love.”

Lord Kingsford mopped his brow. “Perhaps, Mother, we don’t have to announce anything just yet?”

The dowager turned her chilly displeasure upon him. “How did I birth such an ungrateful son? I moved in and corrected your wife’s peasant mothering skills after she died. Last year I arranged a splendid match for Lilian. And now you throw such sacrifices back in my face? For shame, Kingsford. For shame.”

“I’ll consent,” he mumbled, crumbling as he always did. “Unless a better offer comes in, of course.”

“Then it’s settled!” said Georgiana as she clapped her hands, her perfect golden curls bouncing around her shoulders. “When His Grace proposes, no need for a long betrothal either, Pippa. You could be a spring bride. Go on a honeymoon trip to Paris now that hell-spawned Napoleon—”

“Language,” snapped Lady Kingsford.

“Now that moldering French turd—”

“Please, Gigi sweetheart,” said Lord Kingsford.

Georgiana rolled her eyes. “Now the disgraced emperor is safely locked away on Saint Helena. It would be lovely.”

Pippa scowled at her family, while silently plotting vengeance. Under no circumstances would she be marrying Devonshire, no matter what schemes they hatched or honeymoons they planned. The duke was happiest outdoors. And good friends with Prinny, which quite prevented his ascendance to romantic hero. She wanted no part of the false, spiteful world at the top of the tree; bad enough she must attend balls, let alone endure the horror of hosting them.

This madness had to be halted, and as always, the first step was discussing the matter with Finn. Somewhere between his spontaneous creativity and her stoic practicality lay the perfect plan. Even better, she didn’t have to dash across the square to the townhouse he unwillingly shared with his parents the Marquess and Marchioness of Pinehurst, for they would be seeing each other later at a musicale.

Together they could resolve this.

Surely.

A thousand times, he’d ordered himself to fall out of love with Lady Pippa Nash.

A thousand times, he’d failed.

Defeated for the thousand-and-first time, Lord Finlay Knighton shoved aside the piles of invitations stacked on his mahogany bedchamber desk and instead opened his design sketchbook. But even this taunted him. Every page, he started drawing possibilities for Bliss, his secret pleasure toy business run from an unassuming townhouse a mile away in Golden Square. And every page included a tiny portrait of Pippa reading or laughing or poking her tongue out as she peered at him over the rims of her spectacles.

Christ, he adored those spectacles. She wore them with pride; fiercely rejecting anyone who lamented how they looked or pitied her poor eyesight. Her damned grandmother hated the spectacles, deeming them evidence of Nash imperfection. That Pippa ignored such horseshit was testament to her strength of character, for the dowager Lady Kingsford would make a dragon whimper. Indeed, Pippa was a goddess, and anyone who thought otherwise was a complete fool.

Well, a goddess apart from one tiny yet soul-destroying detail: she saw him only as her best friend. The man she would share her thoughts and dreams and last caramel with, but not her love. Not her future. Not her bed.

He tapped his quill on the desk and glanced over at the ornate clock resting above the fireplace. Still far too much time to mope before the musicale. Pippa didn’t know of his business; not because of what he sold—as an avid reader of explicit romance novels she was extraordinarily broad-minded—but because he wanted it to be profitable before revealing all. Facts and figures impressed Pippa, not hopes and dreams.

A sharp knock sounded, and he barely shoved his sketchbook into the desk drawer before his mother, Evangeline Knighton, Marchioness of Pinehurst burst into the room in a whirl of hunter-green skirts. An annoyingly constant occurrence when you were an only child living with your parents, even at age twenty-four.

“Darling!” she said breathlessly, tucking a stray lock of silver-touched brown hair behind her ear. “There you are. Your father wishes to see you before the musicale.”

“He’s not going?” Finn replied, surprised.

Her lips pursed. “Pinehurst is feeling poorly after getting caught in that rainstorm last week. I had a mustard chest poultice delivered from the apothecary, but he said true Englishmen required no such witchcraft, and to remove myself from his presence. So, I’m going to the theater with a friend.”

Finn merely nodded. It was a daily event; his father being a cold and pompous arse, and his mother lying about her whereabouts so she could meet her lover. Theirs was a typical ton marriage; apparently to keep England strong, just one society love match was legally permitted each year. The rest swayed between cool civility and outright loathing.

He and Pippa had discussed the matter at length and fervently agreed they would wed only for love. She didn’t know his ideal match was her.

“Finlay! Yoo-hoo!”