Page 40 of Forever Her Bachelor
St. Clara pulled Pippa closer to him, startling her. The heat of his body through the layers of clothing scorched her skin. Blinking, she became aware of the tears in her eyes and the wetness upon her cheek. The bubble of laughter at the injustice of it all threatened to break free. Pippa had barely shed tears since that fateful day nine years ago at Bennett House. Now, she was crying like an overly sensitive debutante.
Without thinking of anything but the sensation of his arms around her, Pippa rested her head on his shoulder, her nose buried in his neck where she was overwhelmed by his scent.
She hadn’t realized how much she had missed her parents until she saw the evidence of her own loss written neatly on a piece of parchment. Her parents had been gone nearly seventeen years, yet not a day went by where Pippa did not long for them.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize my father had your family investigated and bribed Wayford.” St. Clara released her, and she immediately wanted his arms around her again so that she could feel his warmth. “When I had informed him of our attachment, I knew he wasn’t happy, but I hoped?—”
A loud gasp left her, and suddenly she found it difficult to breathe. “You informed him of the engagement?” she asked, trying to piece together a puzzle of the past.
Memories of her visit to Bennett House and the pure venom that had oozed off the former duke as he’d glared down at her catapulted her back in time. She hadn’t realized how much he had known about her friendship with his son.
“Yes, I told him of our engagement, and he gave me stipulations.” St. Clara released a shaky breath, his eyes full of sadness. It was strange to see such a look on his buoyant face.
“What stipulations?” she whispered, desperately wanting to know.
There was so much about that time in her life that she didn’t know. She’d known they were no love match, of course, but Pippa had thought they were more connected than any couple she had ever met of theton.
As he ran his hands through his hair, she watched his shoulders deflate. “I’ve recently realized what he was doing, but back then, I was so blinded by my admiration of him …”
Pippa tried to hide her reaction, but she knew he saw her recoil at his words. It wasn’t difficult to understand how childrenloved their parents, but after dealing with the late duke on multiple occasions, Pippa found it rather baffling that the young St. Clara did not know his father was a monster.
It was the duke who had sent her uncle to bring a sixteen-year-old Pippa to Bennett House where he presented her with a pregnant maid, Maggie.
Who he’d claimed was carrying St. Clara’s child.
It had devastated her to learn of his betrayal. After promises of being together forever, his father had revealed the truth about who he really was.
After that fateful day, she couldn’t face him or tolerate him. Years passed, and her fragile heart had healed, or so she thought.
“My father agreed to the match only if I went on the Grand Tour since the war with Napoleon was ending.” He released a humorless laugh. “I thought it meant he would accept us, but it didn’t matter at all, did it?”
“Don’t.” The word was wrenched out of her, so full of the anger and pain she had felt over the past nine years.
He shook his head, his brown hair that was too long in the front falling into his eyes. Her hands itched to touch the rich locks, despite how she was feeling on the inside. “I need to know what happened. Why with so little civility or thought did you refuse me?”
She turned away from him, a fresh wave of betrayal assaulting her as if she were standing in front of the pregnant maid all over again. It suffocated her, threatened to take her back to that scared little girl who found herself suddenly alone and without the only person she had connected with. One of the few people she had allowed herself to love.
It was a love that she had not understand at sixteen but one she had clung to with every fiber of her being.
“Pippa.” Her name was a plea on his lips as soft, callused fingertips turned her cheek to face him. “Tell me what happened.” Dark brown eyes, so full of life and so captivating, pierced her with their intensity. Pippa wanted to shout and scream at him. She had been prepared to wait the two years for him to return, but six months after he left, her world had shattered.
“He showed me who you really were.” Her voice was crisp, carrying through the small, confined space of the carriage.
It was the truth. Before that day, she had thought him a different person, but seeing Maggie swollen with his child, she discovered the truth about her friend Chauncey. Over the years, he had only proven his father right by his reputation of debauchery and whoring.
She wanted to laugh at the shocked look on his face. He almost looked innocent to her, as if he did not know what she was speaking of.
Pippa had often wondered what had happened to Maggie and the babe. Did he cast them aside? No, he wouldn’t be so cruel. She could admit that she did not know this version of him well, but she knew he was not his father.
“Who I was then and who I am now is someone who will always be completely devoted to you.” His voice shook with confusion, and Pippa struggled with processing his words and the look on his face. “When we said goodbye, that was the last time I saw or had any communication with you. I wrote to you during my journey. Did my letters upset you?”
She had received every letter, but unlike the ones he had written when they children, she had ignored the ones he sent from the Continent.
“It was very long ago.” The sadness that encompassed her was a wave of emotion that she had silenced long ago. “I do notwish to dwell on the past if I am to be your wife for a year.” Pippa folded her arms, the conversation over in her mind.
Speaking of that time in her life made her irrationally angry with him. She had perfected the art of ignoring him at every opportunity. If she had happened to see him at a ball or outside, she had pretended he wasn’t there, but in her heart, he was always present.
“Kitten…” He whispered her nickname like a prayer. His hand slid down her back to wrap around her waist.