Page 7 of Her Unsuitable Match

When the first of the set ended, a few of the couples left the floor to make room for others to join in the entertainment. On Myles’s right, Mr. Gillensford appeared with a woman Myles hadn’t met. On his left came another gentleman. Lady Philippa Gillensford partnered the stranger for the dance.

Mrs. Gillensford’s eyes sparkled at Myles. “Perhaps we’ll have time for that introduction after all.”

He winced, and then he hoped the lady hadn’t noticed. Though he had met over a dozen new acquaintances that evening, he sensed a proper introduction to Lady Philippa would be different. Young, beautiful, and noble. She could want nothing to do with him. He’d already subjected himself to the curious and disgusted stares of too many people that night, and every day since his return from battle.

Young women stared at him from behind their fans, taking in the half of his face covered in scars with mingled disgust and pity. They whispered about him. About what was behind the eyepatch, or beneath the crisp folds of his cravat. He hated it.

He’d stopped moving about in Society ages ago for precisely that reason.

The steps of the dance required him to come face to face with Lady Philippa before Mrs. Gillensford could introduce them. The young woman’s dark blue eyes met his, and Myles nearly stumbled at the collision. Her gaze, bright and cold, was as the sun reflected upon ice. What had Myles done to merit such a sharp glare?

She cut her glance away from him and to her partner, and only then did Myles realize her frosty anger was directed at another.

The gentleman wasn’t anyone Myles knew, which was unsurprising, but he immediately took the fellow under dislike. The man couldn’t be older than five and twenty, but he wore an absurd smirk filled with all the arrogance of an emperor. His clothing marked him as a man of fortune and living at the height of fashion. The size of the emerald stickpin in the man’s cravat was obscene—something more suitable to the former French court than an English charity ball. Then the man’s hair—bright as burnished gold and likely curled with hot-tongs—fell about his ears and eyes like a sheepdog’s.

Good manners meant Myles could not address Lady Philippa or her partner, having not been formally introduced, but nothing kept him from overhearing their conversation.

“You needn’t rage at me, my lady.” The golden-haired man spoke with the purr of a large cat. “Everyone knows your eldest brother wants you to marry, and he will not release your purse strings until you do. He’s made no secret of your dowry’s size, either. I merely suggest that if you would like your freedom—”

“That is quite enough,” the lady protested, her voice almost too soft for Myles to hear. “This is not the time nor the place to discuss such things. Truly, I’d rather not speak to you on the topic ever again.”

“Temper, temper.” The man chuckled as he brushed by Myles to take a turn bowing and stepping about with Mrs. Gillensford, leaving Myles to take the lead with Lady Philippa, whose cheeks burned a bright shade of pink.

Myles fixed his expression to give away nothing of his thoughts. The conversation he’d overheard had nothing to do with him. Yet, seeing a woman distressed—angry, of course, but certainly also distressed—pulled at a latent piece of his character. The desire to set her at ease, if not set things to right, prompted his words.

“If you need to escape that popinjay after this dance, you might use me as excuse, my lady.”

She blinked at him, confusion replacing displeasure. “Mr. Cobbett.” That she remembered his name didn’t surprise him. He didn’t have a face one was likely to forget.

“Your servant, my lady.” He bowed his head, the most courteous signal he could give in the midst of a dance.

The steps took them apart again, restoring him to Mrs. Gillensford, who didn’t appear as upset by her time in the arrogant man’s company as her sister-in-law had. It seemed the fellow didn’t make everyone immediately dislike him. Though Myles kept his attention on his partner well enough to exchange the occasional pleasant comment, he made certain to look Lady Philippa’s way from time to time, too.

No woman deserved to have her evening spoiled by a pretentious lout.

* * *

Slipping away from the ballroom and attempting to avoid Lord Walter Ruthersby at the same time proved difficult. Philippa kept glancing over her shoulder as she made her way behind columns and potted ferns, then out the large doors to the hotel’s expansive gardens. The steps leading from the veranda to the ground were well lit, as were the pathways through elaborately shaped hedges.

There were others walking along the gravel footpaths, mostly in twos and threes, enjoying the night air. Ballrooms, even in the spring, were stifling places. Elaine had partly chosen the hotel for her ball due to its promise of gardens filled with fountains and night breezes. “Guests shouldn’t be expected to brave the heat and still be generous,” she had said during one of their many planning sessions for the evening.

Philippa nodded greetings to the people she passed, ignoring the few who raised eyebrows at her unchaperoned state. Doubtless, someone would tell her mother they had spied her walking through the gardens alone. Mother would lecture Philippa on decorum later.

Philippa passed two women near her mothers’ age, noting the way they bent their heads together and whispered the moment her back was to them. She glowered upward at the night sky, too filled with clouds and light from London for the stars to appear, and muttered to herself.

“Oh, Pippa, how dare you take five minutes for yourself? How could you go walking through public gardens all alone? Especially when those gardens are full of people who will notice just how alone you are.” She snorted, then grinned. Her mother couldn’t abide Philippa’s unladylike noises. Everything from a burst of laughter to a sneeze was deemed “most unladylike.”

The path turned as it neared an outer wall, and Philippa turned with it.

“Drat Lord Walter,” she said, kicking a pebble somewhat viciously with her slippered foot. “And all second sons who think I owe them my hand.” A common enough practice among noble sons not poised to inherit titles and estates was to find a woman such as herself, of similar lineage, with money of her own so her husband could keep the lifestyle to which he’d grown accustomed.

Just see if she didn’t convince Richard to give over her inheritance the next time she saw him. Then she’d hire a companion and declare her intention to remain a spinster. Then she’d finally have freedom to do as she pleased, when she pleased. No more asking Mother to see the newest play or attend art exhibitions—she would never ask anyone permission for anything again.

Drat Society, too. She wouldn’t care a penny’s worth for what anyone said about her. She’d gallop through Hyde Park if she wished and visit Adam and Elaine as often as they would have her.

Philippa didn’t realize she’d started to cry until the shadows she walked through blurred. At the edges of the garden, trees hung overhead, and most of the light filtered through hedges. She stopped walking and looked about her, through her irritating tears.

Somehow, she’d left the main paths meant for the guests. This little track, hardly wide enough for a wheelbarrow, had to be one used by the gardeners to come and go with their tools, or a way for servants to cut through from one side of the property to another without being seen.