Page 4 of A Sight to Behold
She was beautiful in an unconventional way, not much like the young women of the Ton who came to the practice. And she struck him as put together, one who knew her path in life, and herself.
Then she blinked and patted the front of her pelisse as if searching for something. Whatever it was, he vowed, he’d find it, even if it meant crawling under a display case on his hands and knees. Fortunately, what she sought was easy to find and didn’t hurt his pride at all. Nick spotted a soft, silk scarf in Chromius’s mouth. It was splattered with whipped cream and custard. It took him a moment to retrieve it from the dog and once he did,he tried to shake off some of the cream off. “I believe this is yours… Pippa?”
“Oh! Yes!” She took it gingerly from his hand and frowned at it. But then she did the most adorable thing. She pulled her glove off, finger by finger, and swiped a generous amount of the custard from the silk with one of her freed digits. Nick watched as she proceeded to lick it slowly from her finger with the tip of her tongue and obvious enjoyment.
He could only gape at the sight.
Pippa noticed him watching; she shrugged and crinkled her nose as she smiled at him. “It would have been such a waste of the wedding cake,” she said.
Nick could only nod.
Chapter Three
Introductions had beenmade, along with profuse apologies, and Nick had decided that the least he could do was accompany her. A split pelisse dunked in cream and custard on such a striking woman could invite all sorts of mischief, even from the driver of a hack. No, it was best to take her himself. At least it would allow him to enjoy her pretty blue eyes a little longer as he ensured her safety. He was a gentleman, above all.
And she was a vision in spite of the torn coat and custard splatters.
“When you offered to walk me home, I’m afraid you failed to ask how far it was,” Pippa said with a crooked smile. She was adorable.
Nick was painfully conscious of the large smear of white whipped cream drying on his coat front, and Chromius’s need to stop at every grassy spot—the results of the whipped cream surprise he’d enjoyed.
“It was my mistake entirely, yes. But I promised to take you back.” He reached to make sure his hat was on properly; at least he’d look neat, if not clean.
They’d walked all along Bayswater Road and were heading toward Sheffield Terrace. Nick’s feet were growing tired. And worse, he realized as he checked his pocket watch, he had to get back to Harley Street soon and would need to hire a hack if he wanted to be on time for the scheduled surgery.
“Where do you live?”
“Cloverdale House, on Abbotsbury Road,” she said with the nonchalance of a true lady.
“You are jesting,” Nick sputtered, unable to fathom how rich this beauty must be if she lived on one of the greatest private estates in London.
“Not at all, Dr. Folsham. Have you heard of it?”
He’d not only heard about its splendor but read about it in the paper. The large gardens surrounding it were even a park open to the public and frequented by none other than the royal family.
“Heard of it?”Where should he start?“It has a rich history, and many people know of it, but nobody knows what exactly the arrangement of the people who live there. It’s part of a large estate.” He was in the presence of a grand lady and wanted to know the extent of his honor. “Tell me more, please!”
She quirked a brow. “Very well. Well, it’s an early Jacobean country house and passed from the Earl of Nunsford, who’d inherited the house and, in 1773, succeeded his first cousin as fifth Duke of Sussex.” Nick’s eyes fixed on her lush lips while she talked, though he supposed he should stop watching them as his body was beginning to show its arousal from the sight. He forced himself to focus on her words, instead of the lovely wet gleam of her lips and the tantalizing tip of her tongue. And the memory of how she’d sucked the cream from her thumb.
She continued, unaware of his struggle to remain polite and gentlemanly. “It was even used as a military hospital under Oliver Cromwell, but to be honest, it’s so damp that nobody wants to live there in the summer.” She shrugged. “The Duke of Sussex is my father; he’s the seventh duke. I’m his only daughter.”
Nick swallowed hard. She was chatty, and oh so beautiful. And so out of his class… He twisted his fists in his pockets to ensure that he didn’t touch her no matter how badly he longedto. He’d known she was a high-born lady the moment he’d seen her in her ermine collar.
And yet, there was something about her that awakened his senses like a walk on dew-covered grass in early spring. He felt more masculine around her, and somehow more himself—if such a thing were possible—than ever before. It was the way she’d looked at him and how she’d tumbled onto his body that had made him realize he’d miss her if he let her go without speaking with her. Yet, despite her friendly and nonchalant conversation, she was so far above him. She was of a class where she should be out of reach, and not so close that he could feel the warm air of her breath when she spoke… His manhood twitched and he reminded himself for what felt like the hundredth time since they’d begun walking:Listen and stop looking!
“Perhaps you know my father by the name Randall Pemberton.” She cringed and then lowered her gaze. Her words hung heavy between them, for there were several ranks of the peerage between them in the abstract sense and yet only a few inches and some air physically. She kicked a pebble with the toe of her dainty shoe, and it was as if telling Nick that her father was a duke—thatduke in particular—sounded as if she’d admitted to a crime.
It was, in a way, because no matter what one’s social class was in London—or all of England for that matter—everyone knew who Randall Pemberton was. Nick tried not to gape. “The one whobeheadedhis wife?”
Her delicate shoulders hunched forward, as if she was trying to shrink in size, while her eyes sparkled with a mix of shyness and dismay. Of all the stupid things he could have said…Why did I quote the gossip columns?
He truly was the pauper and felt like a fool for his inability to carry on a conversation with an aristocratic lady outside his practice. There, it was usually easy to speak with his noblepatients, but here, with her, he wanted to impress and yet he stuttered nonsense like a green boy. Nick pressed his fists deeper into his pockets, straining against the fabric of the lining.
At the end of his leash, Chromius stopped, hunched, and strained over a patch of grass. Honestly, ifthatdidn’t prove to him that he was out of his depth and too far below her to even be casually talking to her, nothing would.
“He didn’t. My mother died of a fever, and the papers wrote that she lost her head. It was construed to harm his reputation, and he didn’t fight it because he’d caught the same fever. My father survived my mother’s death but never overcame the heartbreak. He’s on wife number six now. Her name is Carolyne Pemberton. She calls herself a lady.”
It looked like Pippa shuddered, but he couldn’t quite tell.Shewas a veritable lady, and he would have never thought it possible that she’d smear him with whipped cream, lick it from her fingers, then talk to him leisurely on an extended walk home. He could not peel his eyes off her face. Her features were mesmerizing, and her bright skin looked so touchable. She was taller than most women, the ideal height to look him in the eyes. Ideal, perfect, and beautiful. Nick willed his heart to stop thundering lest she heard the effect she had on him, for how could he hide it? Worse, it wasn’t proper for him to be found with her alone, yet he couldn’t have left her besmeared to fend for herself and hire a hackney. Outside of his practice, he knew he could not speak so informally with any member of the high ranks of the England. He needed an explanation because he was not turning away. Could he feign an excuse that as a doctor that he’d walk her home as a matter of an emergency? What was the emergency? A large vanilla-scented cream stain?
