Potent Pleasures (11 page)

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?”