Page 26 of Her Unsuitable Match

She knew that. But she hadn’t spoken it once, that much was true. She tried at that moment. “Myles. You stipulated that we live under the same roof for a year and come to know one another better. I am not trying to discount the importance of meeting with your friends. I truly want to get to know them.”

“Thank you.” He reached for his hat, momentarily giving her the full view of his face again. “We are arrived.”

And that was the end of the conversation. As soon as they entered the house, a footman led away Myles to show him to his room. They had forgone the tradition of a wedding breakfast, given the nature of their match, and no one else had returned home from church yet. Philippa trailed a step behind Myles, going to her own room to lay aside her flowers, veil, gloves, and prepare for the absolutely ordinary meal the family would have upon Adam and Elaine’s return.

When they arrived in the short corridor with the family’s bedchambers, Philippa hesitated at her door and watched as the footman opened her new husband’s door to show him inside. Myles stopped on the threshold and glanced her way, the scarred side of his face dominant. He gave her a curt nod and the barest of smiles.

“Until we meet again, my lady.” Then he stepped inside the room and was gone from her view.

Only then did Philippa realize she hadn’t returned the courtesy of asking him to call her by her Christian name, without her title. She chewed her bottom lip and wondered how many missteps the two of them might take as they found their way toward friendship.

Ten

Two days after Myles became a husband, he sat in the same room he had entered to proclaim himself an advocate for the Gillensfords’ hospital. He wore his second-best clothes, a tea service waited at his elbow should he need it, and he held the newspaper open before him. For the first time in the house, he wasn’t wearing gloves, either. Leaving his left hand, and its missing fingers, bare to the world.

Thus far, he’d tried to avoid entering rooms already occupied by members of the family. Mr. Gillensford still regarded him with a cautionary cordiality that led Myles to believe that his wife’s elder brother still questioned the wisdom of their arrangement. Mrs. Gillensford, on the other hand, treated him with such exceeding kindness that he grew uncomfortable by her desire to see to his every need.

Then there was his wife. Lady Philippa. She had spent a day closeted with Mr. Tuttle-Kirk, drafting newspaper announcements and letters of both personal and legal importance, and had retired to bed early with a headache, leaving Myles to make his own way in the house.

As a fully grown gentleman, it ought to have been easy. Instead, Myles found himself avoiding situations in which he might be alone with another member of the family. And he had very nearly left the house that morning to walk all the way to the little cafe where he used to take his breakfast every day.

Except he recognized the absurdity of eating in that dingy little place when he had access to a fine cook and comfortable house for his morning meal. Only—the interruption in what he was used to had given him a strange feeling. It was as though a bur had entered his mind, prickling him and distracting him. He would grow used to his new circumstances in time, of course. Yet he couldn’t get comfortable on the couch, or either of the chairs he had tried sitting in. He’d had the same issue with his bed, soft and fine as it was, and hadn’t slept well.

The door to the sitting room opened just as he stood in preparation of moving across the room to another chair, and he froze.

Nancy, the adopted daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gillensford, poked her head around the edge of the door. Her eyebrows raised when she saw him there. He waited for her reaction to finding him alone, as they hadn’t seen each other except at tea with the family.

“Good morning,” he greeted her in as gentle a voice as possible, bowing as he would to a lady. Though she hadn’t shied away from him yet, Myles could only imagine that his visage—unpleasant to adults—would outright frighten a little girl.

She smiled and slipped inside the room, then curtsied prettily to him. “Good morning, Uncle Cobbett.”

His eyebrows raised in surprise. Yes, he supposed he was an uncle to her now. “How do you do today, Miss Nancy?”

She came further into the room, her eyes on the pastries stacked atop one another near his teapot. “I am quite well. I’ve been searching for Mother. Have you seen her?”

Myles picked up a plate of pastries and held it toward her, a silent invitation for her to partake. “I cannot say that I have.”

With the nimbleness of youth, she came forward to snatch a large strawberry pastry from the plate before skipping over to the window to look out over the garden. “Hm. I did not think she meant to leave the house today.” She turned around and met Myles’s gaze again, fixing him with a curious stare. “Do you know where Aunt Pippa is?” She punctuated the question with a large bite of her tart.

Myles slowly lowered himself into the seat he had meant to vacate before. “I am afraid I have not seen her this morning, either.”

“Oh.” The little girl came closer to sit in a chair near his own. “Do you like being married, so far?” She pushed herself backward on the chair until her feet hung freely in the air, then she swung them while she chewed her food.

Though his experience with young children was markedly limited, Myles couldn’t help being amused by the openness of the little girl’s questions. “I suppose so. With two days of experience, I am not certain I am ready to judge such a thing.”

“I suppose that is true.” She finished the tart in another bite and looked at the plate again. Myles dutifully held it out to her. “Thank you.” She took a biscuit this time. “Why did you get married to Aunt Pippa anyway? My mother and father married because they fell in love, but Mama says that isn’t true for everyone.”

Myles shifted with discomfort again. What was the correct response to give? He wasn’t in a position to tell her the question was inappropriate, surely. And he had detested having questions adults wouldn’t answer when he was young. He considered her a moment, watching her nibble at her biscuit.

“It isn’t true for everyone. I married your Aunt Pippa because—well—we can help one another best by being married.”

“Yes, I heard Papa say you’d keep her out of trouble with Grandmama. But then he said you might cause more trouble, too.” She brushed crumbs from her skirt, thankfully missing his likely stunned expression. “Did you know that I’m adopted?”

The sudden change in topic took a moment for him to think of what to say to that. “I think I heard something about that, yes. You have an older brother, adopted, too?”

She nodded, a serious little frown upon her lips. “I thought you should know. In case you aren’t feeling like part of the family yet. My mama—Elaine—raised me as long as I can remember, and I always thought of her as my mama. But I didn’t even know I could call her that until she married Papa. Anyway. You should know that just because you haven’t always been part of the family doesn’t mean anything. If you married Aunt Pippa, we’ll all love you now. Even if she doesn’t yet.” The child delivered each word with a solemnity more appropriate to a vicar, staring at him all the while, giving them even more weight.

Myles’s heart stirred. Nancy rose before he said anything and made her way to the door. “I’m going to keep looking for my mother. If I see Aunt Pippa, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”