Page 23 of Peril in Piccadilly
I had to admit that there wasn’t. “I would eviscerate him. After I finished laughing myself sick.”
Christopher nodded. “And I’m sure he knows that. Besides, he isn’t that sort of a person.”
I opened my mouth, and he waved me to silence. “Don’t, Pippa. You know he wouldn’t marry Laetitia and then carry on with you behind her back.”
“Tell that to all the girls he’s bedded in the past couple of years,” I said.
“But he wasn’t married to any of them. Nor in love with any of them, either.”
“But according to you he was in love with me. And it certainly didn’t stop him from spreading his favors to all and sundry.”
“Because he couldn’t have you,” Christopher said, heading out of the kitchenette with both the cups of tea and a toss of his head indicating that I should follow. “You’d never agree, and Uncle Harold would never allow it, anyway.”
I trailed after him, out of the kitchen and into the sitting room. “I don’t know if I can trust this, Christopher. Are you certain you haven’t lost your mind and he’s simply pulling your leg?”
Christopher snorted as he placed the cups and saucers on the table and dropped down on one end of the Chesterfield. “Mine and everyone else’s, I suppose?”
I opened my mouth to say that I wouldn’t put it past him—Crispin, that was—and Christopher shook his head. “Don’t bother, Pippa. I’m not the one who has lost my mind. You’re the one denying what everyone else can plainly see. Bloody hell, it’s not as if he’s been exactly discreet, is it? He’s called you darling for half a decade. I can’t believe you haven’t caught on.”
“Yes,” I said, “but…”
“But nothing. Everyone else can see it. Why can’t you?”
I thought about it—not that I was convinced, mind you, but if Christopher was right and Crispin did nurture fond feelings for me… why hadn’t I noticed?
“I suppose because he behaves as if he despises me,” I said, honestly. “He always has done.”
“He doesn’t,” Christopher said. He had picked up his Orange Pekoe and was sipping with every appearance of enjoyment, while I still sat with my hands in my lap while my tea turned cold on the table. “Although the fact that you so obviously despise him doesn’t make him any more likely to be vulnerable with you, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
Yes, of course. And the idea of Crispin being vulnerable made my face pucker.
After a moment’s silence, Christopher added, thoughtfully, “Although at this point I’m not certain what difference it makes, anyway. He’s marrying Laetitia, isn’t he, however he might feel about you.”
Yes, he was. “Serves him right,” I said, “if he couldn’t even be bothered to tell me.”
Christopher smirked. “I don’t imagine he had much hope that you felt the same way. Might as well save himself the embarrassment, if you were just going to laugh in his face.”
“Perhaps I wouldn’t have done,” I said, and picked up my own cup of tea at long last. “Perhaps I would have been sympathetic and understanding.”
I tried to keep a straight face, the way someone who was sympathetic and understanding would do, but I couldn’t maintain it, and Christopher grinned. “You wouldn’t have done, Pippa. You would have seen an opportunity to gloat, and you would have taken it. We both know it, and so does he.”
We did both know it, although having it pointed out didn’t make me feel very good about myself. “Are you absolutely certain about this, Christopher? You wouldn’t joke about it, would you?”
“I wouldn’t,” Christopher confirmed. “And yes, I’m absolutely certain. We talk about it occasionally. Obliquely, of course. He isn’t the type to cry over a girl…”
No, of course not.
“—but I keep him up to date on what’s going on with you. I rang up Sutherland Hall the same day we met Wolfgang, if you’ll recall.”
Yes, of course I recalled. “He showed up at the Savoy the next night to take me home,” I said. All the way from Wiltshire. Although he had intimated, on that occasion, that he was really in London to see someone else and I was just an afterthought.
But when I mentioned that, Christopher set me straight. “The only reason he motored up was because I phoned him and told him about Wolfgang. Laetitia Marsden wasn’t even in London that weekend.”
“There are other women,” I said.
He shook his head. “Not lately. After Francis’s and Constance’s engagement party, Uncle Harold made it quite clear that he expected Crispin to fall in line and propose to Laetitia.”
Of course he had done. The Earl and Countess of Marsden were Constance’s aunt and uncle, so the occasion had created a perfect meeting of the minds for the Duke of Sutherland and the Countess of Marsden to put their heads together and matchmake their children.
