He held out his hand and Alex shook it without hesitation. “I will see you in the morning, my lord,” Lucien said. He hesitated, and smiled. “I shall not bring my ring to a gaming establishment again,” he said. “There are not many who would show your kindness.” He bowed deeply. “I am truly thankful.”
Alex had forgotten all about the ring incident in the pleasure of talking to a well-read man. Poor old Braddon certainly had grown boring over the past few years. He thought so again when he rooted Braddon out of one of the gaming rooms. Braddon was up fifteen pounds, and had been down as much as two hundred; he was also drunk and shaky on his feet.
“Steady,” Alex said impatiently, as Braddon tottered toward the door. Lord! The man must be at least thirty, since Alex was thirty-one; why couldn’t he hold his liquor yet?
Alex slept soundlessly, linen sheets pushed down to his waist, exposing a deeply tanned, muscular chest. He lay perfectly still, on his back with his arms folded behind his head. It was one of the few ways he and his twin brother, Patrick, could be told apart. Patrick slept in a tangle of arms and sheets, tossing and kicking all night long. When Patrick was small his restless sleep often landed him on the floor, where he would simply continue sleeping. But when Alex was a baby he slept so soundly that his mother used to tiptoe in and touch him, just to make sure he was still breathing.
It was almost eight o’clock when Alex awoke. The sun was casting bright, slanting lines below the curtains. He lay back, eyes closed, thinking about the previous night.
But Alex’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of bare feet trotting unsteadily into his bedroom. “Papa!” shouted a little voice happily. He opened his eyes. Pippa was clutching the heavy gold brocade of his bed curtains, smiling widely.
He reached down and swept his little daughter up next to him. She giggled and clutched the black hair on his chest. Oh, Lord. He’d been trying to remember to wear a nightshirt, given her propensity for joining him in his bedchamber in the morning. She looked small but she had a powerful grip and loved to pull hair.
“Hey!” he said with mock severity. Pippa nestled down in the crook of his arm and looked at him expectantly.
“Cocca,” she said impatiently. “Me, me!”
Alex leaned over and rang the tasseled bell cord next to his bed. He hated the habit of drinking hot chocolate in bed. But then, he never thought to have a one-year-old child in his bed either.
Keating appeared at the door, silver tray in hand. Neatly arranged on the tray were two sturdy mugs, filled precisely to the midpoint with hot chocolate. When Pippa and Alex first returned from Italy and Alex deciphered what “cocca” was, the tray had held delicate Wedgwood teacups, brimming with truly hot chocolate. Now, after a series of mishaps, Alex philosophically drank lukewarm chocolate from a servant’s mug.
Pippa sipped chocolate while she sang her morning song, something Maria must have taught her. Alex thought it was—or had been—an Italian children’s song, but Lord knows what any of the sounds were meant to represent. Pippa’s language skills were none too good, although she said “Papa” very clearly.
Suddenly she clutched his arm, spilling some chocolate on the sheets. “No! No, Papa, no!” she said. She was escalating into panic, her small body starting to shake. Alex grabbed her chocolate, put it on the table next to the bed, and pulled her against his chest, whispering into her ear.
“Pippa, it’s all right, remember? It’s all right.” He rubbed her back rhythmically. “Calm down, Pippa, you know Papa won’t leave you. I promised, remember?”
Finally he looked up. There in the doorway, a look of horror in her eyes, was Pippa’s new nanny, hired a day earlier.
“My lord,” said Miss Virginia Lyons, and stopped.
“Yes?”
“My lord, what is Lady Philippa doing here?”
Alex looked at her in some surprise. “Why shouldn’t she be here?” he said. “I don’t mind. And it keeps her from screaming.”
Miss Virginia opened her mouth and stopped again. She didn’t even know how to formulate an answer to such a basic question.
“Children,” she finally said, “are to be seen and not heard, at the proper times, in proper places. The rest of the time they stay in the nursery.”
“She screams in the nursery,” Alex said. “I explained that to you yesterday. She screams so loudly that she can be heard in the basement—and the nursery is on the third floor. And she drums her feet against the floor. I can’t have that,” he said reasonably.
Alex frowned a bit at Miss Virginia. She was red in the face. He adjusted the sheets, pulling them a little higher. Then he waved his hand dismissively.
“Miss Virginia, we are not yet receiving company.”
The nanny was not ready to give up. “Lady Philippa must come with me now. She does not belong in a man’s bedchamber—”
Alex cut her off. “Miss Virginia, while I accept with some reservations the presence of my child in this bedchamber, I am not ready to extend the privilege to all the staff. Please. We will join you, in the nursery, after breakfast.” He smiled amiably at Miss Virginia, whose face was fiery red now, and she backed out of the doorway.
“That was not kind of us,” he murmured into Pippa’s hair. Now that the menace (as Pippa saw all nannies) had disappeared, Pippa was humming happily and trying to grab her chocolate again. Alex settled her firmly against his side and handed her the scant third of a cup left in her mug. His own chocolate was stone cold. He finished it in one gulp, shuddering slightly.
“Come on, Pippa,” he said, taking away her empty cup and ignoring her indignant wail. She liked to trail the last drops over his bedsheets. Like magic, Keating appeared with a large tub of steaming water. During the last month he and Keating had worked out a routine.
With a practiced hand Alex stripped off Pippa’s nightgown and plopped her in the water. Ignoring the little waves splashing over the side of the tub, he scrubbed her clean. Then he smoothly pulled her squirming plump self out of the bath, handing her to Keating, who waited with a large towel. Pippa was fairly silent, meaning that she only yelled three or four times. And they weren’t the terrified wails that disturbed the whole household, only loud yelps. Keating bore her off into the next room to get dressed, while Alex took a quick bath and dressed himself.
Too bad Keating couldn’t simply be her nanny, Alex thought, remembering the embarrassed Miss Virginia waiting on the floor above. Pippa was gurgling away in the next room, while Keating sang a little ditty to her. Alex cocked his ear. It was clearly a seafaring song, and probably not fit for young—or any—female ears.
He sighed. Time to rejoin Miss Virginia. The last nanny had lasted only two days, worn out, she said, by screaming hysteria. She suggested that Alex send Pippa to an asylum for treatment; Alex only barely stopped himself from tossing her into the street without any baggage.
Pippa toddled into the room smiling widely. “Papa!” she said. “Papa!”
Alex looked at his small daughter. She was perhaps a year old. Maria had died so quickly that he never found out exactly when Philippa was born. And the only way he could find out was to contact the priest, or ex-priest, whom Maria married after annulling their marriage, and that he refused to do. Besides, once he got the measure of the screaming child Pippa seemed to be, his only thought was to get her back to doctors in England.
But on their fourth day together, Pippa had stopped struggling against his arms and simply looked up at him. “Papa,” she said softly. And with growing confidence, “Papa, Papa, Papa.” Since then she screamed only when he wasn’t either with her or in the next room. The minute he tried to leave, she split the air with riveting screams, or worse, lay down on the floor and had hysterics. It was, he guessed, the fruit of her mother’s illness and death. Doctors varied from suggesting institutionalization to saying she’d grow out of it.
Alex’s jaw tightened. He needed a wife. Men weren’t supposed to be bathing infants or choosing nannies. Obviously he didn??
?t pick nannies very well. Miss Virginia was the fifth in two weeks. He scooped up Pippa and headed to the nursery.
At two o’clock that afternoon, Campion was reigning over a quiet Calverstill House. The duke and duchess were visiting the new exhibition of Italian marbles. Charlotte had painted all morning and was just taking a bath and dressing. Lord Holland was due in a half hour, to accompany her to a picnic al fresco. The household had noted with discreet interest the frequency with which Lord Holland accompanied Charlotte. Not that they were in agreement about him.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Simpkin, was a strong supporter of Lord Holland.
“He’s … he’s so romantic,” she said, patting her ample bosom. “He’s a real gentleman, Mr. Campion, always so finely dressed.”
“That’s not the point, Mrs. Simpkin,” said Campion severely. “The question is, is he a gentleman underneath? Why doesn’t he have any money, think you? Because he gambles, most likely. And would he stop gambling once he had Lady Charlotte’s money? I ask you!”
“We don’t know that he gambles,” protested Mrs. Simpkin. “Perhaps he lost his inheritance in a fire.”
“Unlikely,” said Campion. “Most unlikely, Mrs. Simpkin. Because, had there been such a fire, we would have read about it, wouldn’t we? And we didn’t. Therefore he gambles.”
“He loves her,” Mrs. Simpkin replied illogically. “He loves her; I can see it in his eyes.”
“His eyes!” Campion said with disgust. “There’s another problem. They are too blue. No man has eyes that blue.”
When someone thumped the heavy brass knocker that afternoon, Campion opened the door majestically, prepared to intimidate Lord Holland’s manservant, who had to act as footman as well.
But at the door was a proper footman, a regular long-jawed type dressed in fancy livery from head to toe. Campion recognized quality when he saw it, and this was a quality servant.
“May I help you?” said Campion in his deepest voice (for Campion too was a quality servant).
“The Earl of Sheffield and Downes requests the presence of Lady Charlotte Daicheston at a picnic al fresco,” said the long-jawed one.
By this point Campion had taken in the elegantly hung, gold-embossed carriage that waited before the house. Of course, he ought to point out that Lady Charlotte was previously engaged, and send this footman on his way. But perhaps he should send a message upstairs first? An earl, after all.
Campion finished his calculations without moving one facial muscle. “I will ascertain whether Lady Charlotte is available,” he said, closing the huge doors of Calverstill House.
The quality footman retreated back to his position, standing behind Alex’s carriage. Quiet descended on Albemarle Square for five minutes. Suddenly the door of the carriage flew open and Alex, with Pippa rather precariously situated on his shoulder, descended and climbed the steps. He briskly banged the door knocker.
Campion was not at his post, so the second housemaid, a rather timid girl who had only recently been promoted to an upper housemaid, opened the door instead. She was no match for a real earl demanding to see Lady Charlotte. She curtsied so deeply that her knees knocked together, and fled upstairs.
“Lady Charlotte,” she stammered. “He’s here, now, here, downstairs, here, in the Green Room, here.”
Charlotte looked up, startled. She was sitting in front of her dressing table while Marie put a few deft finishing touches to her hair. She was wearing a walking dress of rosy silk. It left her slender arms bare; Marie was threading a ribbon of the same color through her curls.
Charlotte had a good sense of who the Earl of Sheffield and Downes must be. Her heart was beating fast. Part of her yearned to race out to his carriage. But she had an engagement with Lord Holland, and ladies do not break appointments on a whim. Marie’s hands were trembling with excitement. The gossip columns were full of information about the handsome earl and his recent return from Italy.
Meanwhile Campion took the flummoxed housemaid’s arm in a strong grip that promised retribution for her garbled message. Servants were never to be disturbed by anything that might happen in the household, as he himself had lectured the downstairs staff just a week or so ago.
Of course, in Calverstill House nothing really happened to disturb a servant, but Campion rigorously lectured those under his command anyway. You never knew about underservants. They might quit at any moment and join a household full of unsteady characters or drunkards. His training was intended to prepare them to behave impeccably no matter where they found themselves.
With the steadying influence of Campion’s hand on her arm, the second housemaid (whose name was Lily), pulled herself together and curtsied to Lady Charlotte. “The earl is downstairs and I put him in the Green Room,” she said, fairly clearly. “And he’s not alone. He has a small child with him.”
Charlotte rose. Her heart was beating like a triphammer. “Thank you, Lily,” she said. “I shall see him myself.” She descended the stairs, her mind whirling. He couldn’t be married, could he? Her heart felt painfully large in her chest.
Charlotte paused in the door of the Green Room. It was he. He had his back turned to her, but she would recognize his broad shoulders anywhere. Her eyes swept down his back. He was wearing an elegant gray jacket, molded to his large body, and skintight pantaloons in dove gray, with high boots. Her eyes stopped at his feet.
Sitting between his feet was one of the plumpest, most enchanting children she had ever seen. The little face peering between the earl’s boots had round cheeks and three or four dimples, and unmistakably, her father’s flyaway eyebrows.
Charlotte smiled. The little girl’s face darkened and she let out an earsplitting yell. Charlotte instinctively took a step backward, just as Alex swung about. He easily pulled the baby up onto his shoulder, patting her. “Shhhhhh,” he said softly. “This is not a nanny; this is Lady Charlotte. Shhhhhh.”
Charlotte cleared her throat. She was uncertain about what to say. She had never been introduced to the man; in fact, she only just learned his name from her butler. Nothing taught to her in Lady Chatterton’s School for Young Gentlewomen had prepared her for this situation.
Then Alex looked up from soothing his daughter and smiled. His dark eyes crinkled at the corners. Charlotte felt a warm glow that began in her belly and spread through her body.
He stepped forward and, holding his daughter firmly against his shoulder, ceremoniously thrust out his right leg and made a deep bow. Pippa gurgled with delight at suddenly being brought forward and back upright.
“May I present Lady Pippa McDonough Foakes, daughter of Alexander McDonough Foakes, the Earl of Sheffield and Downes?” he said solemnly.
A bubble of laughter moved up Charlotte’s chest. “Lady Pippa,” she said obediently, and curtsied.
Pippa giggled.
“Pippa,” said her father, “pay attention. I would like to introduce you to Lady Charlotte Daicheston, the daughter of the Duke of Calverstill.”
Pippa giggled again. She had an infectious giggle; Charlotte laughed back.
“I shall put you down now, Pippa. You can see that Lady Charlotte is not a possible nanny, so I don’t want to hear any more yelps.” Pippa seemed to understand. When Alex put her on the floor she simply crawled over to the sofa and began tangling the striped tassels that adorned its seat cushions.
Alex stepped forward again and stood just in front of Charlotte. She turned faintly pink. Her heart was beating so fast she was afraid that it was visible through her thin dress.
“Do you know,” he said conversationally, “you are the first female I have ever met whom I always want to kiss?”
Charlotte’s eyes flew up to meet his. She was not going to be the silent peahen that she was the last time they met!
She smiled wryly. “Dare I say that the feeling is not mutual?”
“No?” Alex said. Suddenly he bent his head and brushed his lips, feather-soft, across hers. Unthinkingly she parted her lips under that gentle
persuasion. She felt his warm breath on her mouth, and for an instant the kiss deepened, and his mouth turned from pleading to commanding, from persuasion to demand. Charlotte’s entire body relaxed; had he not instantly steadied her with large hands on her bare arms, she might even have toppled.
And that was enough to return her to sanity. Furious at herself, she drew back.
Alex looked at the woman in front of him with wonder. He was only barely in control. This woman with her tossed black curls and rosy mouth moved him like no woman he had ever met. The only thought in his mind was to sweep her into his arms and carry her over to the sofa.
He noted with satisfaction that a pulse was beating wildly in her neck. Charlotte was not impervious to him either. “Shall I summon your butler to introduce us,” he said calmly, “or is a mutual tumble on the staircase enough?”
Charlotte bit her lip, trying not to laugh aloud. “My lord,” she said, but at that moment the doors to the Green Room swung open.
Campion’s ample form appeared in the doorway. “Lord Holland,” he announced sententiously.
Oh bother, Charlotte thought.
But Alex’s head had jerked up at Campion’s voice. “Will!” he positively shouted, and strode forward.
Charlotte swung around to find the two men beating each other on the back. Charlotte glanced back and met Pippa’s eyes, curious to see whether she screamed at every person who entered the room. But Pippa had simply returned to tangling sofa tassels, without a second look at Lord Holland.
Alex caught Charlotte’s glance. “No, she distinguishes between the sexes. It’s women she can’t stand,” he added hastily, “at the moment, of course.”
Will Holland was trying to figure out what was happening. His carriage was outside, loaded with delicacies for a picnic al fresco with Charlotte. Moreover, in his pocket was nestled a small but exquisite circle of diamonds, once his mother’s, which he hoped to bestow upon Charlotte. But here was Charlotte, unchaperoned except for a small child, with an old friend whom he thought was still in Italy. And she looked—well, she looked kissed. Her mouth was rosy and her cheeks flushed; Will’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. The last thing he wanted was to be in competition with an earl, for God’s sake.