Chapter 2 #2
Pip had come out unexpectedly one day when she’d approached him after riding a horse across the fields behind her family’s country house like a hellion, and he’d laughed as he’d swiped a bit of mud off her cheek.
“Stonefield?” she prompted. “You’ve found me. What did you come to say?”
What did he want to talk about? He’d thought about it on the train ride down. Considered what he could say that might convince her to come back to London.
But now, sitting across from her, all he wanted to do was apologize. Because all that had happened was his fault, and he’d been a coward afterwards. Unable to face her. Unwilling to grapple with his own feelings.
He knew anything between them would be difficult. No, more than that, his own feelings terrified him. They were beyond what he’d ever felt for any lady. She invaded his thoughts day and night, and it had only been worse after he’d kissed her, touched her. So he’d simply avoided her.
Had the silence between them hurt her as much as it hurt him?
She arched her pretty brows expectantly, waiting for him to speak.
I’m sorry. I don’t regret it, Pip. I think of you all the time.
“Douglas is very concerned about you,” he said.
She scoffed. “Yes, of course he is.”
“Your sisters will miss you too, once he tells them that you’re gone.”
That affected her. She looked away and clasped her fingers around the napkin on the table.
“I will miss them too, of course. But when I decide where I will end up, I will write to them.” She lifted her vibrant green eyes to him.
“When I know it’s safe to do so.” Her gaze narrowed as she assessed him.
“You forced Lizzie to tell you where I was?”
“I didn’t give her much choice.” That would require another apology when he returned to London.
He’d leveraged a childhood debt between them, a moment when he’d taken the blame for one of her bits of mischief so that she didn’t have to suffer the consequences.
“She would never have betrayed your trust if I hadn’t used a trump card I possessed. ”
“That wasn’t very kind of you,” she said archly.
“You of all people know I’m not very kind, Pip.” He held her gaze for a moment, letting himself get lost in those eyes that haunted his dreams. Hoping she might see the regret he felt.
She dipped her head and took a sip of tea, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him.
“You don’t plan to go back at all then?” His stomach clenched at the thought of not ever seeing her again. That prospect was unfathomable.
“No, I do not. And unless you mean to kidnap me and take me bodily, I will not.”
Atlas swallowed hard. He was a true knave because the prospect of snatching her up and taking her away shot a hot spike of desire down his body. If only he could take her away from the arrangement Douglas had made. If only they could both ignore duty and practicalities and consequences.
“I take it you left because of the…arrangement with Kelmscott.” The man’s very name tasted bitter on his tongue.
She gave him a sharp nod. “I tried reasoning with Douglas, but he wouldn’t listen to me.” She pressed her lips together and looked away for a moment. “When I thought about what that marriage would mean, what it would entail—”
“You don’t have to think about it anymore.”
She looked back at him and blinked, and his gut twisted. A tear clung to the bottom edge of her thick, dark lashes.
“He’s told Kelmscott the arrangement is off?” she asked with a clear note of hopefulness in her tone.
“He will. I’ll ensure it.”
Her shoulders slumped a bit at that, and she shot him a look that reeked of uncertainty.
“You won’t be able to convince him, Atlas.
” Leaning forward, she whispered, “He’s already taken money from him.
” The family’s financial ruin after their father’s death was a matter of shame to all of them, and society hadn’t treated any of them kindly until Douglas began restoring their coffers and reputation.
“That will not be an impediment.” He watched a dozen emotions flit over her face, but doubt remained above all else. “I’ve seen to that,” he assured her.
She didn’t need to know the details. Yet his reassurance still didn’t seem to convince her.
“I won’t marry him,” she said. “I’ll go wherever I need to. To France. To Germany. I’ll cross the ocean to America if I need to. I’m not marrying that—”
“You won’t have to go so far away.” Atlas reached for her, resting his fingers gently on her hand where it lay tensed in a fist on the tabletop. The very thought of her going as far as America sparked a panicked flutter in the center of his chest.
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because I secured a promise from Douglas before I left London.”
Philippa let out a little sigh. The sound pulled him back to that night in the garden. She’d sighed when he’d wrapped her in his arms, as if she’d been waiting for him to. Sighed when their lips met for the first time, as if it was all she’d ever wanted.
“So you do understand what’s at stake?” she asked. “My life. My freedom.”
“I understand, but I’m vowing to you now that I would never allow you to be forced into marriage.” He spoke the words softly, meaning them with his whole heart.
Of course, he understood why she couldn’t give herself to a man like Kelmscott. Good God, Philippa deserved the world. She deserved happiness and love. She deserved to be adored. She deserved her wishes to be respected.
For some reason, his words brought an icy smile to her lips.
“You understand, do you?” she said bitterly. “I don’t think you understand me at all.”
He deserved it. Whatever she might say to him. All the hateful looks. Every icy turn of phrase. He deserved it all.
“What were the terms of you coming after me? What did Douglas ask you to do? Deliver me back to London so that he could have me carted off to Kelmscott?”
“Do you not know me at all? Do you believe I would do that to you?” he asked, his voice rough.
Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and then her lips fell open as she took a deep breath.
Atlas had the nearly irrepressible urge to touch her face. To skim the backs of his fingers across her cheek. He knew it would feel like warm silk against his skin.
“All I know,” she finally said when she opened her eyes again, “is that Douglas will not bend so easily.”
“He’ll bend. I’m make sure of it.” The words rushed out of him before he tamped down his feelings.
“You should never be forced—” The words stopped short on his tongue.
He was going to say that she should not be forced into a loveless marriage, but then the irony hit him that he was pursuing that very thing himself.
Of course, he did not love Jane Caulfield.
He didn’t even particularly like her more than any of the other ladies he’d met during the previous Season.
Only one woman had captured his attention last Season. Only one lady had ever managed to burrow beneath his skin, as deep as his heart. And now she sat across from him, trying to decide whether he was an ally or a traitor.
It seemed distasteful to him suddenly that he’d been negotiating a loveless marriage when Douglas stormed into his study to tell him Philippa was gone.
He’d been planning to join his life, his name, to a young lady he hardly knew and did not truly care for in exchange for lucre.
Just as Douglas was attempting to do with Philippa.
Atlas sat up a bit straighter. “I’ve come with your best interests in mind,” he told her with utter conviction.
Philippa crossed her arms and looked at him, studying him while nibbling at her lower lip.
Atlas shifted in his chair, his whole body heating at her perusal. Not that she intended his reaction. He knew she was weighing whether or not to trust him. Yet having her green gaze roving his features made his pulse speed beneath his skin.
“I’m not going back, Atlas.” She stood abruptly. “If you care for me at all…” Her voice cracked and she swallowed. “If you ever did. Please don’t tell Douglas that you’ve found me.”
Atlas got to his feet too. She was going to leave, and the prospect of it made any plan he’d had when he’d boarded the train at Victoria Station entirely irrelevant.
Suddenly, she frowned at him. “You haven’t sent a telegram to him, have you? Telling him you know where I am?”
“No.”
Her jaw tensed and she tipped her head.
“I swear it, Pip. I’ve told him nothing.”
“Thank you for that,” she said in the softest tone she’d said anything since they’d sat down. “Goodbye, Atlas.”
She lingered, as if she might say more, but then turned and began walking away from him.
Atlas felt like a knife had been wedged between his ribs.