Page 11 of Her Unsuitable Match

“Lest you think you’re permitted to throw one of your own,” Philippa added with a grin. “Thank you, Nancy.”

The governess led Nancy and the baby through a door to another room, and the moment that door shut behind them the door to the corridor opened. In came the dowager, as puffed up as an angry hen, and squawking almost as horribly.

“Philippa, I warned you to cease behaving in a scandalous manner. Now we must all pay the consequences for your rebellious ways.”

Adam’s deep voice echoed down the hall. “Mother? What in blazes are you shouting about?”

The dowager came into the room, holding a folded-up newssheet. “Right there, in the gossip columns, a report on the nature of your tête-à-tête with that horrid Lord Walter. If you’d just said yes to his suit, we wouldn’t be in this terrible mess.”

“What terrible fix?” Adam demanded as he entered the room. “Mother, you cannot gallop through the house declaring Philippa’s ruin. At least not until we have met to discuss it in private.” He shared a sardonic glance with Philippa. “Unless you don’t object to such proclamations.”

“I object most strenuously.” Philippa kept her expression calm. “Especially when Mother thinks saying yes to a man she admits is horrid would have prevented whatever dire circumstance we now find ourselves in.”

Lady Fredericka drew herself up to her impressive height, then growled like a bear. “You may have come of age, Philippa, but you will not speak to me that way so long as I am your mother and responsible for your well-being. If this disrespect is what comes of spending time in your brother’s company—”

“My lady,” Elaine said, rising to her feet and floating closer to her irate mother-in-law. “I think we are merely all confused. Let me order tea for you—or would you prefer something stronger? You are most distressed.”

Trust Elaine to treat the dowager countess with kindness, despite the fact the matron hadn’t ever wanted the seamstress as part of the family.

“Tea. Of course.” Lady Fredericka collapsed into a chair at the center of the arranged furnishings. Then she put a hand over her eyes and groaned. “What is to become of our family’s reputation?”

Elaine rang for tea, then sat on a couch and gave it a pat so her husband would come sit next to her. Philippa watched them with unconcealed fondness. She’d seen Adam grow into a more patient man since his marriage. The security he found in his wife’s affection had given him permission to be true to his heart, at last, and gave him the ability to slip loose of their conniving family’s reins.

If only Philippa could be so lucky. First, she had to get Richard to release her funds to her.

She really ought to speak to a solicitor or lawyer of some sort about that.

“What is all this about Lord Walter?” Elaine asked in a careful way, her expression serious and her tone quite gentle.

Lady Fredericka groaned again but lifted her folded paper and waved it above her head like a baton. “It is all in the papers. How any of you missed it this morning, I shall never guess.”

Adam and Elaine only read the papers when they had some investment in play, Philippa knew, or when they were paying particular attention to what went on in Parliament. Adam claimed papers did nothing but sensationalize nonsense. Elaine had too many other things keeping her busy.

Philippa read the gossiping bits and pieces, as well as socially important announcements, only after her mother finished with her copy of the Times. “None of us have had a chance to read the newssheets today, Mother.”

Thrusting the paper out toward Philippa, her mother raised an imperious eyebrow. Her wide-eyed-distress markedly changed to a superior lift of her chin. “I have already marked it.” Then she dropped the paper on a table, and the dowager countess swept out of the room without another word.

Dramatic exits were a specialty for her ladyship.

After glancing at Adam, whose furrowed brow and confused expression likely matched her own, Philippa rose and took the paper from the table. She unfolded it and swept the black ink until she found where her mother had meticulously drawn a box of blue ink around an article. The corners of that box were so sharp, Philippa briefly wondered how her mother achieved such exactness.

It seemed she had taken plenty of time to mark the words that had supposedly sent her careening through the house in a panic.

Which made everything about the circumstances most suspect.

“What does it say, Pippa?” Adam asked.

Though tempted to clear her throat in exaggerated theatrics, Philippa opted instead to read as though she found the entire thing one long joke. Horrid as it was.

Interested parties must want to know: according to a most reliable source, Lady P., sister to a well-known member of the House of Lords, was found in a most compromising position at that same brothers so-called ‘Event of the Season.’

We must confess to not being surprised, seeing as how Lady P.’s other brother made a similarly disappointing marriage last year. But how will her dear mother, a peeress so long at the forefront of fashion, ever hold her head up in Society again?

The young Lord W., a bachelor, is expected to defend the honor of said Lady P. by offering to marry her. Rumor is that her lordly brother is already in negotiations for this very outcome.

We do not think it will be long before Lady P. regrets her actions and flees London in hopes Society will forget all about her brazen behavior. Only an honorable marriage will see this tale to a happy conclusion.

By the time Philippa finished reading, she was grinding her teeth together over the last words.