Almost a Gentleman (9 page)

"I've heard," Lord Linseley was saying, "that there are new printings of
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
to be had. Did you get a look at those, Mr. Marston?"

Oh dear
. She felt her stomach clench. Her eager smile faded immediately.

David watched in amazement as a wave of icy cynicism swept over Marston's features like a cold gale from the north. It froze his face into a haughty mask and almost hid the sudden pain darkening his eyes.

But what did I say
? The young man had seemed so pleasant and forthcoming. But here was his sensuous mouth, twisting into a nasty sneer before David's astonished eyes.

"
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
, Lord Linseley? You mean those inferior ditties about
children
?"

"Well, they're about childhood, in any case. And I don't find them inferior at all. I find them haunting."

Marston shrugged. "Each to his own. I try not to look at the nasty little beasts myself. Can't stand children, either in the flesh or on the page. Good day, my lord. I wish you a fine winter in the country."

He performed his graceful little bow and turned sharply away, leaving a confused and vaguely troubled Lord Linseley staring after him.

Phoebe turned the corner onto the Strand, hailed a cab and climbed hurriedly into it, and scolded herself for her rudeness all the way home.

But I couldn't help it, she thought. Truly I couldn't.

For she
wasn't
able to look at children. She couldn't even think of them without trembling. Not since Bryan and her failure to protect him.

This fear was part of the reason she'd chosen to become Marston and to lead his sort of life. No one would expect a dandy to have anything to do with children. And since Marston never woke until afternoon and rarely went out during the day, she was able to minimize her contact with children in the streets. One did see tiny beggars curled up asleep in doorways, or little street sweepers working late to earn a few extra pennies. But Marston and his cronies would simply walk a bit faster, shuddering genteelly and looking the other way.

Of course, once in a while her gaze would stray to a little procession of shabby charity children being herded to a late church service. There seemed to be more and more of them these days, probably because their parents had been forced out of the countryside. But these humble little wards of the parish were trained to keep their eyes lowered in the streets, as though they didn't deserve a child's natural curiosity about the world around them.

I can bear it so long as I don't have to see their eyes
, she thought. But even so, last week a filthy chimney sweep had stared innocently at her as she and FitzWallace had shared a joke in the street. The little boy had large eyes in a pinched, sooty face—Bryan's innocent hazel eyes, or so it had seemed to her at the moment. She'd needed half a bottle of champagne to settle herself and for several nights she'd woken, sweaty and shaken, from a hideous dream of Bryan trapped in a sooty, suffocating chimney, screaming helplessly for her to rescue him.

Still, she chided herself, none of that excused her behavior to the earl of Linseley. Her terror of children was her own problem, and one she'd be ashamed to inflect upon such a good man. Lord Linseley had a grown son, she'd heard, and a wife who'd died, though she couldn't remember the circumstances. In any case, he'd doubtless been a fine father and a worthy protector of his own children. And since he'd appeared at Almack's to survey the marriageable goods, he probably wanted a new wife who'd give him a few more.

She sighed.
Well, good luck to him. Even if it's too late forme
.

David held his new purchase snugly beneath his arm as he strode away from the Blakes' doorstep. What a wonderful possession, he thought, the
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
, newly printed and marvelously colored. Mr. Blake had raised the price from five shillings to three guineas. Absurd. David would have happily paid three hundred. It was priceless, even if Marston has sneered at it.

And what had all that been about, anyway?

Mr. Blake had been enigmatic when David had questioned him about his earlier guest.

"He lives in Hell," was the artist's most coherent reply. "He suffers its torments and writhes within the coils of his secrets in Brunswick Square." The rest had been some claptrap about human sublimity and androgynous beauty.

Still, David thought, it was good to know where the young man made his physical—if not his metaphysical—residence. In case he ever needed some sort of assistance. Because of all the impressions the odd meeting in the street had left him with, the most intense was the flash of pain in Marston's eyes.

Children? I hate the little beasts.

Blake is right, David thought. Marston lives in Hell. The young man's in some sort of trouble.

He paused in front of the tavern, as though he could still feel Marston's presence at the spot where they'd conversed. A wave of protectiveness swept over him. It was almost as strong as the lust he'd almost begun to accept as the price of thinking of the young gentleman.

He hugged the book to himself, as though to protect the children whose pictures adorned its pages. Perhaps another ale at this fine establishment, he thought, while I feast my eyes once more upon the marvel I've purchased.

She'd relaxed a bit by the time the cab had reached Brunswick Square. After all, she thought with a grimace, her sufferings were hardly those of Job.

And anyway, in a few days she'd be off for a little vacation.

Giving her package to a footman, she bade him unwrap the book and display it among the cherished items in the drawing room.

She fiddled with the pile of letters—invitations, by the look of them—ranged next to the pale porcelain vase on a table in the foyer. She'd attend to them later: most of them would need apologies, since she'd be out of Town—
grouse hunting season, don't you know
, she'd write in her excuses—for a few weeks beginning this Thursday.

First, though, she needed a scalding, steaming bath and perhaps a nap, before dressing for the evening and setting out on Marston's round of engagements.

The staircase curved invitingly before her. But instead of running lightly up the softly-carpeted stairs to her fragrant, rose-colored bathroom, she paced agitatedly, prowling through her downstairs rooms, distractedly picking up this or that pretty bibelot and putting it down again.

Its all right
, she told herself, pinching a less than perfect bloom from a tall floral arrangement,
you won't see him again
. He'll be back in Lincolnshire before you know it.

What had the newspaper said of him?

"… more truly at home in his own bounteous fields and among the yeomen whose rights he seeks to protect."

Fortunate yeomen
, she thought.

Anyway, he'd made it abundantly clear that he didn't approve of city life.
And he certainly couldn't approve of me
. Or of Phizz Marston anyway.

There
is
no
me
, she reminded herself. There was only Phizz Marston. For with Kate's clever assistance, Lady Phoebe Claringworth had been buried next to her son and husband, ten days after Henry and Bryan's joint funeral. It had been Kate who, under cover of nursing Phoebe all by herself, had dismissed the disrespectful, inquisitive servants, spirited Phoebe home to the country, found a suitable female corpse to take her place, and bribed the doctor to register Phoebe's death in the parish records.

Only Kate and Phoebe's brother Jonathan knew the truth; everybody else had willingly accepted Kate's story and had deferred to her insistence upon a simple burial service with a closed casket. The official word was that Henry's mother, the older Lady Fanny Claringworth, having suffered a fit of apoplexy upon learning the news of her beloved son's death, was too incapacitated to visit her injured daughter-in-law. But the more knowledgeable among the
ton
whispered that the old lady had always loathed Phoebe anyway—for coming from such an obscure corner of the realm, for maintaining her own opinions, and for being
much
too tall in the bargain. The inner circle smugly agreed that the older Lady Claringworth had been quite satisfied see the younger Lady Claringworth dead and buried.

Not that any of it matters now, Phoebe thought. The only thing that matters three years later is that Phizz Marston is the only thing left of me.
Cold, frivolous, Phizz Marston, who prowls London by night and hates children
.

And takes lovely young men to bed.

Or
had
done so, anyway—at least one of them. For Phoebe knew that episode of her life had come to an end. She'd continue having Billy visit her, but it was clear to her that these would be chaste, fa-milial sorts of evenings, times for him to rub her feet and her to inquire after his welfare. Perhaps she'd even help him work on his reading. He'd be disappointed, of course, but he'd accept it. Their intimacy had been profound enough to lay the basis for friendship. These meetings were going to cost her a small fortune (she'd have to dip into the fund she saved for emergencies). It would have been a lot of money to pay for sex; no one would believe her, she thought, if she told them she was paying it to keep Billy out of someone else's sexual clutches. Still, Billy deserved to have someone to fuss over how he got on. And anyway, it was pleasant to have someone to fuss over.

Of course, appearances would continue to suggest something a great deal more lascivious. If he hadn't already done so, Lord Linseley would be bound to hear the rumors about Marston's taste for the male sex.

As if he'd need to hear rumors.
For
—she blushed a bit here—
he'd be a fool if he hasn't already noticed how much I admire his looks
.

She shook her head. The earl of Linseley was clearly no fool.
He's simply too secure in his manliness, to be disturbed by another man's desire
.

She might have asked him a bit more about his plans, she thought now, rather than nattering on so incoherently about Mr. Blake and his work. For if she'd asked him exactly when he planned to leave London, she'd know whether she needed to worry about meeting him again before her departure next Thursday morning.