Her Unsuitable Match by Sally Britton
Twenty
It took more time than Myles liked to reach Pippa’s childhood home. The groom who rode with him never once complained, and indeed the lad seemed to think the whole thing an adventure. When they rode up the long white lane to the Earl of Montecliff’s house, the young man let out a low whistle. When Myles turned to look at the boy, eyebrow raised, the groom hastily apologized.
“Sorry, sir. It’s just—cor—I didn’t know they built houses so large.” The lad bowed his head, but weather it was in respect for Myles or the house, Myles didn’t know.
“It is only a house, Garrett. Made of brick and mortar.” Myles looked up at the large house, noting the number of windows and the way the sun reflected off several glazed surfaces. The landscaping of the home was immaculate, in the old style, with hedges trimmed into cubes and spheres with mathematical precision.
This was the Earl of Montecliff’s home. Where Pippa had been born and grew up. The building was palatial, and Myles wondered anew how he would ever be enough for a woman of Lady Philippa’s standing.
When they rode up to the door, a servant already waited for Myles to approach. The livery the man wore was tailored to fit him as perfectly as any lord’s coat.
“I am Mr. Myles Cobbett,” Myles said, holding out one of his new cards. Pippa had ordered them for him in London, but he had not seen them until the day they departed Town. The cards were on thick, expensive paper, his name rendered with exquisite calligraphy. It was a small thing, yet Myles was grateful for the quality when the butler took the card.
From the doorway, another servant appeared, this one older and dressed in finer clothing. “John, allow me. Lady Philippa’s husband must be treated with all curtesy.”
A story Pippa had told him came back, one in which she admitted she thought the family butler often looked the other way when she sneaked away from her lessons or disappeared to visit her great-uncle. The man’s name came to Myles, and he blurted it without thought. “Rigby?”
The servant, posture already perfect, somehow appeared more alert than before. “The same, sir.” He waved away the footman, then led Myles into the house. “While it is not my place, Mr. Cobbett, I feel Lady Philippa would wish me to warn you—his lordship is at home and not in good humor.”
Myles stopped walking, and the butler did, too. Myles tried to get the man’s measure, staring the servant in the eye in a way no nobleman would ever permit himself. “Pippa speaks highly of you, Rigby.”
Rigby’s eyes brightened somewhat, and he bowed his head. “I am honored to learn it, Mr. Cobbett.”
Sensing a possible ally in the servant, Myles lowered his voice as though speaking to a coconspirator. “I am going to confide in you, Rigby. I am here to liberate Lady Philippa’s mare. Bunny.” How any grown man could call a horse by that name without smiling, Myles couldn’t say. “I trust, given that a bill of sale on the horse bears her name as the purchaser, I will not have any difficulty leaving with my wife’s property.”
The butler stared at him before giving one long, slow blink. “That sounds sensible, sir. Allow me to show you to his lordship at once. He is in the library. As you are family, it will not be necessary to announce you.”
When Myles had ridden into battle during the war, he’d always been afraid. But he took courage in the fact that the men around him experienced the same fear, the same determination to look after one another. The fellowship between him and his regiment had gotten them through everything from near-starvation to long marches into enemy territory.
Though he had just met Rigby, Myles’s instincts gave him that same feeling of assurance when it came to the butler.
The massive scale of the house, though it may have cowed men of humbler origins, did nothing to intimidate Myles, though he admired Pippa all the more for giving up a connection, a marriage, that would’ve kept her amid such splendor. When they went up the stairs and down two different corridors, the butler paused before a pair of large, oak doors. Two footmen stood on either side of them, looking ahead, like soldiers at attention.
“Good luck, Mr. Cobbett,” the butler said, and with a slight gesture of his hand, signaled the footmen to open the library doors. True to his word, the butler did not follow. The doors closed behind Myles.
The library, paneled in dark wood, impressed the wealth of its owner on Myles. The dark green, velvet curtains along the many windows hung on gold rods. The bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling, most with glass doors protecting the volumes inside. A globe the size of a man stood at the center of the room, flanked on either side by maps stretched atop tables and protected by yet more glass.
Myles approached one of the maps, curious despite himself, and saw it was a Dutch masterpiece from the seventeenth century. Fireplaces were on either wall, tall enough that Myles could have stepped inside of them if he wished. Chairs and tables were scattered throughout the room. And in one of those chairs sat the earl, staring at Myles the way a kitchen maid might stare at a rat in the pantry.
“You.” The earl did not even bother closing the book in his lap. “What are you doing here? Had enough of my sister? Come to see if I will buy her back from you?”
That crass idea made Myles recoil a step from the earl, disgusted. “You have peculiar ideas, your lordship, of how to speak of a lady.”
“Is that a no?” Lord Montecliff smirked. “Perhaps you are here to ask for funds. Have you already tired of living beneath her thumb? I will save you the trouble, now and in the future. Neither of you will ever get a penny from me.”
Myles walked toward the earl, slowly, pretending to study the map as he went. “I would never dream of asking you for anything, except that which already belongs to my wife. I am here for her property.” And he had the feeling it would not be easy to get that horse off the earl’s land.
Finally, the earl closed his book with a deliberate snap. “I cannot think what you imagine belongs to her in my house. She practically moved in at that cursed Tertium Park before going to London, where her belongings from my townhouse were delivered to my younger brother.” He spoke with one lip curled in a sneer. “My sister cannot demand anything else of me.”
“She demands nothing,” Myles said, tucking his hands behind his back. He moved without hurry to the hearth, his eyes on a painting that depicted a horse and gentleman, the likenesses as large as the actual creature and man had been. “I am here for her mare.”
The earl stood abruptly, tossing down his book. “Here for a horse? You traveled all this way—you are a fool, Cobbett.”
Myles turned to fully face the earl. “I am here to collect my wife’s property,” he repeated, voice low and calm. “Then I will be on my way.”
With a baleful glare, Lord Montecliff folded his arms across his chest, which had puffed out like an overstuffed pheasant. “I have a better idea. You leave, empty-handed. Then you apply for an annulment with my sister. Once it is granted, I will compensate you handsomely and see to it you live in comfort the rest of your days. Without my sister as your keeper.”
“That is the second time you have implied the relationship between Lady Philippa and myself is unequal.” Myles considered that information, his eyebrows raising. “You have obtained a copy of our marital agreement.”
The lord’s eyes glittered, his smirk grew. “It explicitly states that my sister has full financial control, other than a small allowance granted to you.” He rocked back on his heels. “Surely, a man of action like yourself must feel stifled at such a thing.”
Myles wondered how England would ever progress with men like Montecliff in control of laws and politics. “I fail to understand how an annulment would give you any satisfaction. The scandal of a broken marriage would hardly add to your sister’s reputation or your own.”
“Scandal.” The earl scoffed. “I control what is and isn’t a scandal. And Lord Walter does not care if he must hide the chit away in some far-flung house. He wants the connection and the money.” A twitch to Montecliff’s eye gave Myles pause.
“And what do you want?” Myles asked, studying the other man’s slightest change in expression. A crease appeared on the earl’s forehead but smoothed again. His nostrils flared. Then he tipped his chin up.
“That is none of your affair.”
“And yet,” Myles said, narrowing his eye, “I am the only man who can give you what you want. So perhaps you ought to confide in me, brother-in-law.”
The disgusted sneer appeared on the earl’s face again, this time not directed at Myles. “I owe funds to Lord Walter’s father. He will forgive the debt if his idiot son marries Philippa. There. Does that satisfy you?”
The debt had to be large if a man living in such opulence was willing to give his sister away to pay off his creditor. Myles couldn’t countenance the idea. “There must be another way for you to settle the matter with the man. A way that doesn’t require sacrificing Philippa.”
“Selling my property and land is out of the question,” the earl snapped. “I have a reputation to maintain. A duty to my heirs.”
Thinking of his own sisters, Myles’s estimation of the earl dropped even further. The items in the library alone were worth several fortunes. But rather than give up anything that might make him appear less, the earl had decided on sacrificing Philippa’s future and her happiness.
Myles met the other man’s gaze squarely. “You, sir, are a disgrace to your title. That a nobleman of our country would so willingly sacrifice an innocent to pay your own debts is a shame. I stood shoulder to shoulder with men of lower birth who stood ready to give their lives up for another. To provide peace and safety to strangers. To people like you, sitting comfortably in your opulence. You are a dragon with its hoard, taking pleasure in nothing but your own self-importance. Greedily guarding what ought to be used to help others.”
The earl went purple as Myles spoke, then spluttered, “How dare you give such insult. Get out of my house. Now.”
“With pleasure. I will collect my wife’s mare.” Myles strode directly past the irate earl, seething inside.
“You will not step one foot in my stables,” the earl shouted at Myles’s back. “You will remove yourself from my property at once, or I will have you shot!”
The earl could likely get away with it, too. But Myles wouldn’t leave without that horse. Bunny—the silly thing—meant too much to Pippa. The mare was part of her long-desired freedom from her family’s expectations and machinations. He would walk out the front door, mount his own horse, and ride directly to the stables. Avoiding gunfire, if necessary.
The earl came out the library doors behind Myles and started barking orders to his footmen. “See him off the property. Loose the dogs and bring me my rifle.”
Myles didn’t run. He had too much dignity for that. But he did cast a dangerous look at the footmen—both of whom wisely refrained from laying hands on him as they walked at his side until he made it to the door.
If the earl hoped to humiliate him, he had chosen the wrong method.
Rigby, the butler, stood at the front door. Which he opened himself, expression staid and posture correct. Myles gave the butler a curious glance as he stepped outside—and found his groom waiting with three horses. The two they had traveled with, and a white mare wearing a lady’s side-saddle.
Myles spun on his heel to look at the butler, whose proper mask broke just long enough for him to smile. Then he said, “Give Lady Philippa my best, if you would, Mr. Cobbett.” Then the butler closed the door.
Myles grinned at the closed door, then jumped down the steps several at a time before mounting. “Come, Garrett. We are leaving under fire.”
The lad’s eyes widened comically, but he wasted no time in following Myles, leading Bunny behind him.
No shots chased them out of the earl’s lands, but that did nothing to diminish the victorious hope in Myles’s heart. He had done something for his wife. Something she hadn’t done for herself, and that others might not think important to do for her at all. This would be the first step in showing Pippa his true feelings for her.
Proving that he loved her.