The Betting Season (A Regency Season Book) (12 page)

“
I thought I made it clear you weren’t to call on my sister,” the marquess growled, stalking down the hallway towards Jason.

Well, there was that. Still, if Jason was going to confess all to Pippa, beg her to forgive and then marry him, Berkswell would find out eventually, wouldn’t he? Jason stood his tallest, hoping he looked more confident than he felt and said, “But I’m fairly certain she has feelings for me, and I do want to marry her.”

He didn’t even see Berkswell’s fist; but when it crashed into Jason’s left eye, he stumbled backwards and then fell to the floor.

Miss Mills gasped. “Everett Casemore!” the old woman chastised the marquess. “Have you gone mad?”

Jason squinted, only able to see out of his good eye. Berkswell loomed over him like a murderous fiend, his hand still balled into a fist.

“
And they say Lord Harrison has a better arm.” Jason pushed up to his knees.

“
Get out!” Berkswell demanded, a vein pulsing beside his so far unassailed right eye.

But Jason found his feet once more and held his ground. “Not until I see Pippa. If she sends me away, I’ll go.”

The Casemores’ maiden aunt hobbled towards him, concern etched across her ancient brow as she placed herself in front of her beyond furious nephew as a shield of sorts. “She’s not here.”

“
Where is she?”

The old woman shook her head. “Do you love her?”

Berkswell growled, low in his throat, but his aunt lifted a hand to quiet him.

Jason paid the marquess only a little attention, as Miss Mill’s question fluttered around his heart. He wasn’t sure what his answer was. He’d had Heath’s words echo in his ears all night. He didn’t want to lose Pippa. He didn’t want to see her marry some other fellow. He didn’t want her to bear some other man’s heir. “I-I think I do,” he finally muttered.

“
Well, you should be sure,” the woman advised.

How did one know if one was sure? Jason blinked at her with his good eye, unspoken words caught in his throat.

She seemed to take pity on him as she sighed. Perhaps she saw something in his countenance he wasn’t aware of. “She’s gone to Hyde Park with Lady Heathfield.”

Lady Heathfield?
Damn it to hell. What if Emma Heathfield told Pippa everything before Jason had a chance to? What if she poisoned Pippa’s mind against him? What if she ruined the only chance at happiness Jason had ever really had? “Thank you,” he mumbled as he turned on his heel, tossed open Berkswell’s door, and ran down Upper Brook Street as fast as his Hessian-clad feet would carry him, until he tripped and stumbled forward.

The worst damned luck ever.

Jason scrambled back to his feet and brushed the street dust from his trousers, discovering he’d ripped a hole over his right knee in the fall.

But none of that mattered. He had to get to Pippa before she learned his secret, decided to never speak to him again, and started planning her future with some other fellow.

Lady Heathfield opened her fan, holding it in front of her mouth as though to keep others along Rotten Row from reading her lips. “That fellow there?” She cocked her head towards a lanky gentleman astride a horse. “Heath says creditors are hounding him left and right. He’s on the hunt for a wealthy bride this Season.”

He didn’t even seem familiar. “Who is he?” If the fellow was Scottish, she’d sent Moira his direction.

“
Lord Cleasby.”

“
Lord Cleasby?” Pippa echoed. The gentleman who’d put her name in that awful book? On second thought, he could have a hundred Scottish estates and she wouldn’t point Moira towards him. What a terrible man he must be.

“
The very one,” the viscountess muttered, casting Pippa a sidelong glance.

“
He thought to line his pockets by blackening my name.” Pippa frowned at the man whose horse brought him nearer with each step of his bay.

“
Desperate men do desperate things.” Lady Heathfield nodded towards a couple passing them in a phaeton. “And Heath says no one with any sense would ever bet against St. Austell.”

But Albie had. Sweet Albie, who’d believed in her virtue. Dear Albie, who’d offered her his future to keep her safe. Reckless Albie, who’d landed her in this mess in the first place with that blasted flask of his. Still, his faith in her did warm her heart. If he only made her heart flutter at all, the way Jason had done, she’d take him up on his standing offer of marriage. Alas, he didn’t. And she doubted he ever would.

“
Heavens!” Lady Heathfield sucked in a breath of air. She gestured with her fan towards the south end of the park just as the landau rolled to a stop.

Pippa turned her gaze in the same direction and her mouth fell open. In a large basket beneath a red and yellow striped gas balloon, a girl with wavy blonde hair gazed out at the land below. A girl Pippa knew rather well. “Georgie?” she whispered under her breath.

Beside her, Lady Heathfield shook her head. “You and your friends have certainly made names for yourselves this Season. I think I see why Grandpapa never let Izzy or me hie off to girl’s school.”

Despite the viscountess’s censure, Pippa couldn’t help but smile as she lifted her head higher to watch her friend. An adventure. Georgie had wanted an adventure. She so hoped her friend was enjoying the one she was on. She resisted the urge to wave at the balloon and cause more of a scene on the ground.

“
Is that Haworth with her?” Lady Heathfield whispered, and the way she said the man’s name made it clear the viscountess did not think well of the gentleman.

Pippa shrugged. “I don’t know him.”

“
You should keep it that way.”

“
Pippa!” came a familiar voice not far behind them on the path.

Pippa turned to find Patience riding alongside her cousin, Mr. Rowan Findley. She smiled at the pair and gestured towards the balloon, still high in the air. “Did you see Georgie?”

“
Hard to miss her,” Mr. Findley said, a note of awe in his voice. Then he turned his attention to Pippa and Lady Heathfield and touched his hat in greeting. “My ladies, you are both looking lovely today.”

What a practiced liar he was. Pippa had seen herself in the mirror. The dark circles under her eyes made her look like a raccoon. Had Mr. Findley lied to her each and every time he’d complimented her in the past? “Mr. Findley,” Pippa replied. “So nice to see you today.”

A hush went across the crowd at the park. More people must have spotted Georgie. Pippa glanced across Rotten Row, only to see that the others weren’t looking up at the sky, but back towards the Park Lane entrance.

“
Dear God,” Mr. Findley muttered. “Is that
St. Austell
?”

St. Austell? Pippa’s heart seized. She hadn’t thought she’d have to see him so soon. And certainly not with half the
ton
in attendance. Still, she couldn’t help but turn her gaze towards in the direction everyone else was already staring.

Good heavens! Jason looked as though a carriage had run him over and dragged him down a lane. His hair was mussed. One eye looked blackened. He walked with a limp and his clothes were in an awful state, smudges all across his shirt and jacket and a gaping hole in his trousers where a bit of blood had stained his right leg.

For a half-second her heart ached at the pitiful sight of him. But then the memory of his perfidious actions swept into her mind. Deceitful blackguard. Pippa turned on coach bench, and focused on the path before them. She would not give him the satisfaction of her attention, no matter what sort of disheveled state he found himself.

Jason didn’t notice the pain in his leg or the soreness of his eye. He barely noted that the throng along Rotten Row all seemed to be gaping at him as he limped across the park. But he didn’t care. Not one bit. Only Pippa, high in a landau bearing the ducal crest of Danby, held his attention. That and the fact that the roguish Rowan Findley, atop an impressive hunter, was leering at Pippa just a few feet away.

Jason increased his pace, his glare fixed on Findley with a murderous rage that would have done Berkswell proud. Potsdon or some other oaf Jason could have dealt with, but Findley… Well, Findley was cut from the same cloth Jason was. And he’d be damned if the scoundrel had set his sights on Pippa. He’d kill the smooth-talking lothario first. Right there in the middle of Hyde Park with his bare hands in front of all the world.

Findley, that damned rake, turned his stare to Jason. “You all right?” He smirked, his voice carrying across Rotten Row.

Jason was far from all right, and the look he shot the man warned him from asking anything else. Then he shifted his attention to Pippa and the Danby landau. Her back was to him as though she was the only person in all of Hyde Park who had yet to notice him.

“
Lady Philippa!” he called.

Finally she turned in her seat and met his gaze. She was so pretty sitting in the open air coach, the breeze catching some of the light brown tendrils that framed her face, her innocent green eyes that… Jason stopped where he stood. Pippa’s eyes most definitely had a haunted look about them this afternoon, a look he’d never seen her wear before.

His heart sank.

She knew
. She knew everything. He could tell by her wounded expression and the way she reached for Emma Heathfield’s hand. Damn it all to hell, he’d never wanted to hurt her, and knowing he’d done so was like someone had plunged a dagger into his chest.

Jason limped towards the landau, ignoring all the censorious whispers and glares he left in his wake. If he could just get her alone, if he could just explain… Of course, he didn’t know what he’d say to explain his behavior, but something would come to him, wouldn’t it?

“
Lord St. Austell,” she clipped out, “what a surprise.”

Any last hope that she didn’t know the entire truth evaporated the instant she said his name. She would never forgive him.

Jason turned his glare on Emma Heathfield, who most certainly had filled Pippa’s ears with all the sordid details. Damn her eyes. “I didn’t realize you were so close with Lady Philippa.”

A sad smile settled on the viscountess’s lips as she sent him a piteous glance. “We met at my ball earlier this week. She’s a delightful girl. I’m quite happy to know Lady Philippa,” she said loud enough for all of the bystanders and gawkers to hear clearly.

And that’s when Jason realized Emma Heathfield was doing her best to preserve whatever was left of Pippa’s good name, standing beside Pippa, supporting her in front of all the
ton
, protecting her as best as she could, which was what Jason should have done from the beginning. So Pippa would never forgive him, he’d deal with that later, in the privacy of his own home; but he could protect her and do a better job than Lady Heathfield was capable of doing.