Persistent Earl : Signet Regency Romance (9781101578841) (6 page)

With such encouragement, the children quickly settled onto the thick Turkish carpet and began to ply him with endless questions. He was happy to respond, relating various stories about his experiences with great relish despite the need for frequent editing. They heard about life in his regiment and a little about the war; they even heard a few stories about his childhood in Derbyshire.

In return, he soon learned a good deal about the children. Dorrie's unappreciated desire to be a stage actress was revealed, as was Thomas's fascination with all things military. William's incredible imaginings were described in some detail, along with David's interest in studying the various habits of natural creatures.

Diplomatically, Devenham tried to make certain each child had equal time and equal shares of his attention. He learned about the puppies on Oxford Street, the stray cats that Phoebe had tamed in the garden, and the menagerie whose home was the schoolroom. He was vastly entertained, and quite pleased to discover that, as the children's lives intertwined so thoroughly with their aunt's, he was learning something about her as well.

He even expressed polite enthusiasm when William offered to bring Fremont Frog down to visit the sickroom. “I should like to meet him,” said the earl. “In fact, I have a special reason to want to make his acquaintance. Shall I tell you? I heard an interesting story while I was in Vienna for a short time last winter.”

He delivered this introduction just as Mullins returned to the room with a new tea tray laden with treats for the children. He waited while they helped themselves and then began his narration.

“The story is about a frog, but not just your ordinary sort of everyday frog, no indeed. This frog was in actuality a prince who had been put under a spell by a wicked fairy.”

The earl could see that he had the children's full attention. He had surprised himself by remembering the story, and he was not at all sure of how well he would retell it, but he was pleased to try, for he was enjoying the children's visit.

“Now, this frog lived in a well, and I am certain he lived in despair of ever being rescued from his terrible fate. But one day a beautiful young princess came by, playing with her ball. What do you suppose should happen but quite unexpectedly the ball fell into the well.”

Devenham's enthusiasm for his task carried into his tale, and he kept his small audience enthralled as he related the frog's persistence in getting the princess to keep her promise. “After all,” he said, “she did give her word to allow him to eat at her table and sleep upon her bed, did she not? And he knew that somehow he must be able to do that for three nights in a row, or the spell would never be broken.”

As if he and his listeners, including Mullins, were themselves under a spell, not one of them noticed Phoebe's arrival until the earl reached the end of the story. “So the frog prince kept his promise and loved his bride as she loved him forevermore.”

Phoebe was not quite certain what to make of the scene before her. “My lord, I do apologize,” she said as soon as Devenham had pronounced the eternal happiness of the frog prince and his lady. “I had specifically instructed the children not to disturb you in any way while you are here. I never dreamed they would disobey.”

Turning to the four downcast culprits in front of her she scolded, “And how long have you been in here, pestering Lord Devenham? I am very surprised. Had you quite forgotten what I told you?”

Devenham interrupted her. “Please, Lady Brodfield, I invited them. You may lay the responsibility on me.” Suddenly he looked as sheepish as the children. “In truth, I have no idea how long we have been at this. They have been very entertaining company.”

“I would have said you were entertaining them, not the other way 'round,” Phoebe commented dryly, but her expression softened a little. He had, after all, been doing a very creditable job of it. “I am sure you are well and truly tired now. Of course, you deserve no less.”

The children had scrambled up and gathered around Phoebe, undaunted by her reprimands. She touched their cheeks affectionately. “Come, children, off you go.” She clapped her hands and shooed them out the door like a flock of reluctant pigeons.

Mullins began gathering up the tea things.

“I hope you will not be upset with them,” Devenham said. “I truly enjoyed their visit and encouraged them to stay. Why had you instructed them not to come in here? Am I such an ogre?”

Phoebe busied herself with straightening his bed, for she was certain he had been up far too long.
No, not an ogre
, she thought.
I do not know what you are.

She had experienced such a confusion of feelings when she and Lucy had begun to talk about him, she had surprised herself. She had felt a strong desire to protect his privacy when Lucy had first asked her to tell “all about the earl.” When Lucy had pressed her, she had found herself defending his character, describing virtues she had only reluctantly admitted to herself that he possessed. When Lucy in turn had related with relish a number of scandalous stories about him, Phoebe had wanted to cover her ears and run away. She had been astonished to hear the names of some of the women Lucy said were rumored to have had affairs with him.

It is all nothing but rumor and innuendo
, Phoebe reminded herself now, as she had at Lucy's. She had gone so far as to make that point to Lucy, for what little that was worth. But the conversation had resurrected her doubts and made her realize that in the past few days she had relaxed her defenses. She must not allow herself to fall under Devenham's spell.

“I thought you might not care to be bothered by a parcel of inquisitive children,” she answered carefully. “I knew you would not be used to them, and I also know very well how quickly they can tire someone who is quite healthy, let alone someone who has been very ill.”

“I want them free to come in whenever they wish, especially if you are not available. They can save me from dying of boredom, a far worse death than any of the ones I have already escaped.”

His commanding tone nettled Phoebe, as did his words. She had not seen herself as entertainment, saving him from boredom. “I do not believe anyone ever actually died from boredom, my lord,” she said primly. “Moreover, I do not think it a good idea to allow the children to visit whenever they wish. I will allow them to come occasionally, however, at arranged times.”

“Thank you. I am not used to children, but I found it very easy to talk with them.”

I wonder what they talked about
, Phoebe thought. A sudden pang of jealousy mixed with apprehension. She had only witnessed him telling them the story; she had not considered what might have transpired before that. “I had no idea you were such a raconteur,” she said, pausing to look at him. “That was quite a charming story you told them.”

She was surprised to see the look of apparently genuine pleasure that crossed his face. “Did you hear it, then? I did not know at what point you arrived.”

She nodded. Goodness, his eyes were so incredibly blue, even at this distance. “I believe I came in just after the ball fell into the well.”

“I spent a few weeks on furlough in Vienna last winter, and that is where I chanced to hear the story. In fact, if I can remember them, I heard several others I could tell the children besides that one. There was a scholarly fellow there for the Congress, part of the Hessian delegation, who collects these kinds of stories, and he had formed a little group in Vienna who delighted in exchanging them to pass the time.”

Phoebe saw the wicked light that she had learned to recognize so well come into his eyes, and she quickly turned away to fluff his pillows. What could possibly be wicked about fairy tales? And where was Mullins? She realized suddenly that both he and the tea tray had disappeared.

“I must add that many of these stories had more than one version,” Devenham continued. “I saw ladies far less reputable than you put to the blush. Some of the French and Italian stories I heard were enough to curl even my hair. Of course, I would never repeat those versions to children.”

He chuckled, but to Phoebe it had a sinister sound. She could picture the devilish grin that was probably on his face, but she refused to look at him.

“Why, in The Frog Prince, the older versions call for the frog to sleep
in
the princess's bed,” he continued. “In other words, to lay with her. No wonder the poor princess was so dismayed.”

Phoebe's cheeks were positively burning. She opened her mouth, then closed it firmly. She smoothed a last wrinkle from the earl's bedcovers, then walked straight out the door without a word.

Chapter Six

The puppy arrived at noon on the following day. Mullins had gone out briefly in the morning and then returned, but Phoebe had given the incident no thought at all. She had refused to dance attendance on the earl, sending a message that she was indisposed.

She was in Judith's sitting room trying to explain why she was no longer willing to attend the earl when the new arrival was announced. It was a novelty to see Maddocks looking flustered.

“Your ladyship,” said the red-faced butler with a formal bow to Judith, “we have a rather unprecedented situation downstairs. It concerns a delivery that, uh, no one seems to have been expecting.”

“What is it, Maddocks?” asked Judith, obviously intrigued. She exchanged a wary glance with Phoebe.

“A puppy, madam.”

“A puppy? Oh, no.” Both sisters rose to their feet in dismay, the same thought running through their minds. Who could have . . . ?

“Surely not Edward,” Judith said aloud, the question never needing to be voiced. “He was very clear at dinner the other evening that he agreed it was impractical. And I don't see any way the children could have . . .”

Phoebe had a sinking feeling. “I think I may know who,” she said ominously. “Lord Devenham.”

“But how? And why?” asked the astonished Judith.

“The children spent some time with him yesterday—perhaps as much as the entire time I was gone to Lucy's. He was quite taken with them. They might have mentioned it. And now that I stop to consider, Mullins did go out this morning.”

“I do not think my children would ask a guest of ours to buy them a puppy, or anything else for that matter,” Judith said slowly, “especially when Edward and I had already refused our permission.” She sat down again. Her small frown of puzzlement did not quite mask her obvious pleasure in the idea that her children might have charmed someone like the high-living earl.

“Oh, I quite agree,” Phoebe hastened to reassure her sister. “I rather expect it is something Lord Devenham thought up all on his own after talking with them.” She could not prevent the stormy state of her emotions from showing on her face. This time the earl had definitely gone too far, and this time his bad behavior had extended to other people besides her—very special people at that. It was too much to overlook.

“How extremely awkward,” Judith lamented. “How can we refuse the puppy without seeming extremely ungracious? If only he had checked with us first!”

Phoebe did not sit down again, but rather began to pace in a circle around her chair.

“As his hostess,
you
may be in an extremely awkward position,” she declared, “but
I
am not. In truth, I am in a perfect position to intervene on your behalf, Judith. Someone needs to set Lord Devenham in his place.”

“Oh, now, Phoebe, please don't say anything rash,” Judith began, but at just that moment the three boys came tumbling into the sitting room in a dither of excitement, followed by Dorrie at a slightly more decorous pace. In their haste they nearly bowled over poor Maddocks, still waiting patiently for his instructions. David held clutched in his arms a small, wriggling mass of brown and white fur.

“Mamma, oh
look,
Mamma!” they all cried in a chorus. “Isn't he wonderful? Did you ever see anything so adorable?”

The puppy was promptly deposited in Judith's lap. Watching her sister's hand stroke its soft fur a moment later, Phoebe knew all was lost. The puppy would stay. But that did not mean Lord Devenham should escape her indignation.

“Well, Maddocks, I believe we have a new member of the household,” Judith told the butler with a resigned sigh.

As the older man started out the door, he nearly bumped into Goldie, who had been just about to knock. “Visitor for Lady Brodfield,” the young footman whispered. Maddocks did an abrupt about-face and re-entered the room he had just left.

“I am informed you have a visitor, Lady Brodfield,” he announced in his usual grand manner. Apparently realizing that he had left out an important piece of information, he wheeled around again to consult Goldie.

The effect was quite comical, really, but Phoebe was too surprised to be amused by it. Who could be calling on her? Perhaps Lucy, although it was quite early in the day for a purely social call, and it was not usually the thing to repay a visit so soon as the day after it was made. Yet as far as she knew, Lucy and her mother were the only people outside of this house who knew she was here, not counting Dr. Fortens. Surely word could not have spread this fast!

Maddocks faced the room again, his official blank expression fixed firmly in place. “It is Lord Brodfield's brother, my lady, Mr. Richard Brodfield.”

Phoebe felt as if she had been turned to stone; she sincerely doubted whether her feet would be capable of moving in any direction at all. Amazingly, her mouth opened, and the words “I'll see in him the drawing room” came out quite calmly.

How had Richard known she was here? When had Richard arrived in London? Would she never be free of her ties to Stephen's family? Stephen was gone, and Lord Tyneley was gone, and she desired nothing so much as to make a clean break with Lady Tyneley and Richard.

She dreaded the prospect of facing him alone. She looked at Judith, still surrounded by her delighted children and anchored firmly by the puppy in her lap. There was no help there; she could not ask her sister to leave them. Edward was no doubt buried in papers in his study. She had no choice. Squaring her shoulders, she followed Maddocks out of the room.

In the drawing room, Phoebe surveyed Judith's fashionable scroll-backed sofa, the Sheraton chairs arranged neatly near the octagonal center table, and the reasonably comfortable armchairs flanking the marble fireplace. She decided to receive her visitor standing. Her palms were damp; caught so unexpectedly at home, she wore no gloves. She was not even wearing black, as she certainly would have been in public—she was dressed in a gown of brown pique trimmed with bands of black grosgrain. She decided to stand in front of the hearth, and wet her lips nervously, watching the door.

Even braced as she was, Phoebe was still shocked by the sight of Richard when Maddocks showed him in. For that brief moment as he came toward her, he looked for all the world like Stephen. Then he smiled, shattering the illusion.

Phoebe had never found the resemblance between the two as strong as other people were wont to claim, but she had to admit that she was probably more sensitive to their marked difference in expression than to their actual features. Both men had favored their father, Lord Tyneley, who had been a handsome, distinguished man. Stephen's face had always been kind and open, a quality that had attracted her to him from the very first. Richard's face, however, usually wore an expression of disdain and aloofness that was so like his mother's Phoebe had often wondered how anyone could ever have confused the two half brothers. Yet seeing Richard now stabbed her with pain as unbearable as if Stephen himself were standing before her.

She wondered if she could manage to unclasp her hands long enough to offer one to Richard. That fraction of a moment's hesitation cost her, for Richard moved quickly to envelop her in an embrace instead. It was so typical of Richard, she thought afterward, that his hands lingered just a little too long, and what should have been a chaste, brotherly kiss on her cheek somehow ended up on her jawbone, in the sensitive spot close to her ear. A little tremor of distaste ran through her when he released her, and she wondered if he noticed.

“Ah, Phoebe,” he said with what she had always thought of as his sly look, “ever the prim and proper, eh? Poor sister Phoebe, how are you bearing up?” With a finger, he tilted her chin up, but she refused to meet his eyes. She twisted her head to the side and then slipped away from him, sinking gratefully into the nearest straight chair.

“Won't you have a seat, Richard?” she asked pointedly. She felt relieved when he did so.

“It has been a difficult time, hasn't it, my dear,” he began, “although I see you have lost no time in putting off full mourning. My father has been in his grave, what, two weeks at best? Of course, you were in blacks a full year for my brother, were you not, dear Phoebe?”

He had chosen the straight chair opposite her and sat sprawled in it with a practiced nonchalance, one leg crossed over the other. His gaze swept her from head to toe and back up again, resting on her face. Phoebe tried to will away the flush she felt creep across her cheeks.

“I was not expecting company,” she responded faintly.

“I suppose I am hardly in a position to criticize, having missed both the funeral itself and even the memorial service. It is infamous, is it not? Such an amazing thing, the military.”

“I thought you were still in France.”

Richard laughed. “Surprised to see me? Yes, I'd wager Prinny's royal throne on that.”

“How did you know where to find me?” Phoebe was quickly tiring of trying to maintain a polite front for him.

He paused to look at her, a malicious amusement dancing in his eyes. “It was kind of you to attend my father's commemorative. I understand the place was packed to the roof beams. It was also extremely helpful. I thought if you were in London you would not stay away. The rest was easy. The Allingtons are your only relatives in Town.”

Phoebe stared at him, thinking now of the man in the park, and the suspicions she'd had that someone had followed her to Lucy's. “You have been spying on me!”

“I have found it useful to have eyes and ears in Town when I am not able to be here myself. My friends thought you a pleasant subject for surveillance, although they were devastatingly disappointed and quite bored when they discovered how little you go out. You live like a cloistered nun, my dear!”

“Why are you here, Richard?” Phoebe's voice was tight with her growing impatience.

“Why else but to see to your welfare, sweet Phoebe? I feel a certain responsibility for my poor dead brother's widow. Did you think I would just let you disappear from my life? Are you going to live here with your sister forever?”

“Yes. No. I don't see that it is any of your business.” She struggled to keep her composure. Richard was the kind of person who made ferreting out other people's weaknesses a well-refined art, and she was still working to overcome so many! Her uncertainty about her future and her need to establish some sort of independence were only two.

He smiled his sly smile again, the one she hated. “It has become my business more than either of us would have imagined,” he said smoothly. “I sought your whereabouts purely out of my own concern, I assure you, but I was quite glad that I had when I met with my family's solicitors. It seems they had no idea where to find you. My dear departed father made you a bequest in his will.”

With this astonishing pronouncement, he reached into his coat and produced a letter, which he handed across to Phoebe. She read it in silence, aware that he was watching her intently.

The letter's contents filled her with hope.
Bless Lord Tyneley!
He had left her an annuity of two thousand pounds a year and a modest property outside of London, which he had occasionally used as a hunting box. She was to contact his solicitors regarding the details. Mindful of Richard's interest, she schooled her features to remain calm, despite her wildly beating pulse.

She had never expected any remembrance from her father-in-law, much less a gift of such magnitude. Figuring quickly in her head, she estimated that the annuity he had left her together with the income she already had would be enough to maintain her in comfort on the estate. Here was the key to independence, dropped generously into her lap! Tears of gratitude welled in her eyes, despite her resolve to show nothing. She was even ready to bless Richard for bringing her this news.

“I can scarcely believe it,” she said, lifting her eyes from the paper at last. “Beau Chatain, to be mine!”

Richard laughed, but there was no amusement in his eyes now. He got up and paced away from his chair. “I could scarcely believe it myself,” he agreed. “I have been using Beau Chatain in season for several years now, and I am certain my father was aware of it. Do you want to know what he left me?” The bitterness in his voice warned Phoebe that perhaps she did not, but the question was rhetorical.

“He left me everything in the farthest corners of the country that was not entailed. Of course the title, and everything attached to it, go now to a cousin in Hampshire I've never even met! I have a tin mine in Cornwall, a country seat in Northumberland, for God's sake, a tract of fenland in Norfolk and a farm in the Lake District. If I were to spend any time at any of them, I would never get to be in London at all!”

Phoebe was not quite certain how to respond. Secretly, she suspected that keeping Richard out of London might have been his father's goal. Richard ran with a notorious group and lost great sums of money gaming. When he drank with his friends, he was prone to very foul tempers. She was just enough afraid of him not to dare say so to his face.

“They should provide you with a reasonable income, should they not, Richard?” she ventured cautiously.

“Oh, aye. The income's there, but I want Beau Chatain. I'm prepared to offer you twenty thousand pounds for it.”

Was her bright future so quickly gained and lost again? Oh,
why
did Richard have to want Beau Chatain? How would she know if what he offered was a fair price for the property? What if it was worth fifty or a hundred thousand pounds? Yet, perhaps she would be better off to sell to him and buy another property of her own elsewhere.

It was easy enough for him to offer, but did Richard have the ready available? Could she buy another property if he paid her in portions? As a woman, she might not even be considered a viable buyer without actual cash to wave in someone's face. Richard was frequently under the hatches, and she doubted his inheritance would change that. The tin mine in Cornwall or the estate in Northumberland could vanish on the turn of a card. She would have to ask Edward to act as her agent. She needed time to think and to consult with advisors.