Chapter Three
London, 1869—Courting
Winston was taking the object of his affection for a stroll in Hyde Park. Having never courted a woman, Winston did not know much about the business, but he knew that there ought to be a chaperone involved. However, Poppy Ellis had been the one to greet him in the parlor after he’d given his card to the footman. Indeed, she appeared to be the one responsible for her two younger sisters—a little one, no older than ten with golden-red hair and a curious stare, and a young lady nearing her fifteenth year with curling blond hair and an altogether too-knowing smile. That one had given him a saucy look beneath the fan of her golden lashes, as if she knew exactly what he was about and was glad of it. They’d been introduced as Miranda and Daisy before Poppy shooed them off with orders for Daisy to watch after “Panda.”
The girls complied but not before he heard Miranda whisper, quite loudly, “What does the man want with Poppy?”
Daisy answered sotto voce, “I suspect he wants to play with her.”
“Like capture the pirate and such?”
Daisy had given him one last sidelong glance as he felt his face heat. “Something like that, dearest.”
He needn’t have looked at Poppy to know she was just as red-faced as he, and Winston ushered her out of the town home with haste.
Walking alongside her now, Winston did not feel discomfort so much as a stirring anticipation to know her better. He glanced at her strong, clean profile, and his heart beat faster. As if feeling his gaze, a small smile curved her soft lips, but she kept her eyes on the path before them.
“Daisy takes any chance she can to needle me.”
“That is the way of siblings, I fear,” he said.
“When my mother died a few years ago,” she said, “the role of mothering went to me. Daisy had a hard time adjusting.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
She inclined her head. “It is hard. My father isn’t the most attentive parent. But life goes on.”
“I lost my mother five years ago. Influenza. I suspect it is not the same, as she treated me more as a…” He trailed off, his insides twisting.
“As?” Poppy prompted.
“As her pet, truth be told.” He grimaced. What man wanted to admit being treated as a precious thing by his mother? “She doted on me, but whenever I opened my mouth to express an opinion, she closed her ears. The idea of me was far preferable to her than the actual man.”
He’d never told a soul about his mother, but it hadn’t occurred to him to keep it from Poppy. He knew her on some fundamental level that put him at ease and yet filled him with a gripping sense of anticipation.
They were silent for a few steps, and then she did something that had him nearly faltering. She laid her hand upon his arm. The gesture was what any young lady might do when being escorted, but he felt it as though she’d stroked her fingers along the whole of him. Pleasure rippled through him like a shockwave.
Aside from the brusque care of his nanny and occasional pats on the back from his brother, he’d never been touched. Not deliberately, not from someone seeking any meaningful connection. His mother might have bussed his cheek now and then, but she’d never laid a finger on him. As for his father? The very idea of a tender touch from him was laughable. Oddly, he hadn’t realized this lack of touch until he’d received Poppy’s. Now he wanted to purr, demand she touch his chest, anywhere and everywhere.
Poppy appeared oblivious to his struggle. “From the moment I was born, my mother had expectations of who I should be and how I should act.”
Winston cleared his throat and focused on their conversation. “Did you object to those expectations?”
Her thin shoulders lifted. “How should I know? I’ve only now begun to live my own life. Nor were they necessarily bad expectations. They were simply…” She shrugged again. “Hers.”
He needed to tell her everything. Damn. Damn. Damn.
Winston took a breath and pressed his arm closer to his side, trapping her hand there. Not very gentlemanly, but he didn’t release her. “The other night, when we met, I did not give you my full name. I don’t know why…” Her eyes were on him now, boring into him in that direct way of hers, and he forged on. “That isn’t correct. I do know.” Damn. “My father is the Duke of Marchland.”
She walked on for a beat before speaking. “As in Marchland, cousin to the queen and one of the oldest titles in England?”
“Yes.” His collar felt too tight. “I am his second son. Winston Hamon Belenus Lane, to be exact.”
The hand at his arm gripped harder for one moment before slipping away. He felt the loss acutely.
“Mmm.” She kept walking, not altering her pace, but not looking at him either. She glanced at the distant waters of the Serpentine where small canoes were out in droves as people took in the pleasant spring weather. Light danced off the water, and she squinted. “My father was born in the East End. Bethnal Green, to be exact.” He winced at the way she mimicked his speech and the meaning behind it. “My mother was the seventh daughter of the Earl of Lister. But he disowned her when she chose to marry my father.”
“Did she regret the decision?” A sinking feeling labored his steps.
“Yes.” Again her eyes scanned the park, looking everywhere but at him. “Eventually, she realized that their worlds were too far apart.”
“Perhaps it was not their worlds but their temperaments that were at odds.” He was grasping at straws but he did not like the expression on her face nor the hard set of her shoulders.
Finally, she turned to him. “My lord—”
“Winston.”
“Lord Winston. What is it you hope to accomplish by walking with me?”
Unable to take the cold way in which she spoke, he caught hold of her hand and tugged her beneath the canopy of a willow tree. Quiet surrounded them, and her bright hair turned bronze in the shadows. She glanced pointedly at his hand clutching hers, but he did not let go. “I want to get to know you.”
Beneath her straight red brows, her brown eyes studied his face. “What is the point of getting to know someone whom you could never…” She sucked in a sharp breath, and her jaw went tight. “With whom you could never have a relationship?”
“Says who?”
Her brows snapped together. “Do not be obtuse. A duke’s son and a merchant’s daughter live in separate spheres. They do not commingle.”
“To my knowledge, there is no law against it.”
Her gaze was direct and snapped with impatience and intelligence. It made him hot and breathless. She glared. “There is a social law, and you well know it.”
A gust of wind rushed over the grass and whipped about them, and a long strand of her vibrant hair broke free from her practical bun to tickle his nose. Gently, he tucked it back behind her ear, not quite touching her, but wanting to. “Social laws are broken all the time.”
“To ill effect.”
He smiled then. “It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it?”
She scowled. “What is?”
“You picking away at my logic, and me finding new ways to prove you wrong.” And he could not wait.
She blushed beautifully. “You talk as if we’re to have a future.”
“Because we will.”
She frowned. “It won’t… I’m…”
“You’re what?”
She huffed out a breath. Most unladylike. Most refreshing. “My life is complicated. I have responsibilities.”
He moved just a bit closer. “I would not ask you to forgo them. I simply want…” So many things. He touched her cheek, a fleeting caress. “When I’m with you, I have no name,” he whispered. “No title. It’s just me. Just you. I want to keep that feeling, to keep you with me.”
There. He’d said it. And her nose wrinkled. “I don’t…” She paused, appearing utterly confounded by him. Confusion, he gathered, was a new thing for Poppy Ellis. And though the flush in her cheeks grew redder still, she spoke plainly. “Men don’t usually fancy me.”
He knew what it cost her to say it, and instinctively, he knew she was trying to scare him away by her admission. London society maintained a pack mentality; the undesirables were culled. What she did not know was that her brutal honesty made him admire her all the more.
He held her gaze with his. “This man does.”