Persistent Earl : Signet Regency Romance (9781101578841) (7 page)

“I am sorry, Richard. This is so sudden! I hardly know what to say. Give me time to think on it, and allow me to meet with your father's solicitors.”

A quick movement brought Richard to stand right in front of Phoebe. “You don't need to think, woman, and I can take care of my father's solicitors. I've made you a fair offer.” He reached down suddenly and grasped her wrist, pulling her to her feet. He loomed over her, standing just inches away. “If you don't like that offer, consider this. I occupy Beau Chatain lock, stock, and barrel. Every horse in the stable and every servant on the premises at this moment is mine. You'd have a devil of a time getting me out of there.”

He paused thoughtfully. Phoebe used the moment to try to release her wrist from his grip.

“On the other hand, perhaps there is another alternative,” Richard said, ignoring her struggle. “While I was never my brother's keeper, I think I could enjoy keeping his lovely wife. Perhaps we could share.” He raised Phoebe's hand to his lips and kissed it.

Phoebe jerked away with a savage motion that caught him by surprise. “How
dare
you,” she hissed, rubbing the back of her hand against her skirt. “Is that your idea of a jest? I think your battles overseas must have addled your wits. Leave this house at once. If I need to communicate with you, I will do so by letter.”

“I will leave you now, madam,” he said, stalking toward the door, “but you would do well to consider my offer.” He gave her a sweeping bow that made a mockery of the act. “Either of them.”

***

Phoebe was so angry that she could not sit down for several minutes. She paced the carpet furiously, waiting for the rage that surged through her to cool.

“He is insidious! Hateful! Odious! Repulsive!” Not one of the adjectives seemed adequate to express her feelings. She could not remember when she had felt so insulted. Gradually, the urge to throw something waned and her pacing slowed. She sank onto the sofa, only to discover that she was shaking.

Had she forgotten how nasty Richard could be? She had known it well enough when she had lived under the same roof. She had learned to avoid encountering him in hallways or being alone in any room with him. . . . His vile joke went far beyond vulgarity; it was far worse than any of the provocative remarks Lord Devenham was wont to make.

Black as his reputation might paint him, the earl was nothing like the scoundrel Richard was. She knew instinctively that there was really no comparison. Lord Devenham's remarks might be just as deliberate, but she knew they were meant to tease, not insult. She might feel wary and on her guard in the earl's presence, but the feeling came not from a sense of alarm, a sense of danger, as she felt with Richard, but more likely from an awareness of her own attraction to him.

Richard's visit and his unexpected news had pushed the earl momentarily from her mind. He had slipped back in quickly enough, but even thoughts of him could not overcome her reaction to Richard. It was not until she heard the yipping of the new puppy from the sitting room down the hall that she recalled that she still had a bone to pick with Lord Devenham.

His purchase of the puppy went beyond mere remarks. His high-handed behavior had gone too far this time, and the remnants of her anger regrouped around that thought. She jumped to her feet again, her hands balled into fists. She stalked to the drawing room door, pulling it open with more force than was required. It very nearly crashed into Edward's prized Chinese porcelain umbrella stand before she pulled it shut again behind her.

***

Devenham was sitting in the wing chair engrossed in a book when Phoebe's knock came on the door. He recognized it as hers at once, although it sounded a bit more forceful than usual.

He snatched off his spectacles and tucked them out of sight between the books on the table beside him before he bid her enter. He was surprised to note how his spirits lifted at the prospect of her company.

Phoebe came in looking more like a storm cloud than a ray of sunshine, however.

“Should we think that we have made you so comfortable here that you feel quite at home, Lord Devenham? Or do you always do exactly as you please, no matter where you are?”

She spoke in a cutting tone he had never heard her use before. Something had upset her deeply, but what? He masked his concern with a display of arrogance. “Dear me, what can I have done this time? Did I refuse to take my medicine again? I can't seem to remember. It must be something more than that to have put you so out of countenance.”

Phoebe positively bristled. Her anger brought color to her cheeks and a notable brightness to her eyes, confirming his suspicion that there was passion hidden behind her usual gentle manner. He found it quite becoming, although he would have preferred to see it sparked by an altogether different cause.

“You have more than overstepped your authority this time, my lord, interfering in matters that are not your concern,” she accused him. “You have upset the order of things in this household, and undermined Edward and Judith's authority in their own home.”

“How exceedingly thoughtless of me. Exactly how have I managed to accomplish all that?”

“You purchased a puppy for children who had already been told they were not to have one. It is at this moment cavorting in Judith's sitting room.”

“Oh, it's the puppy, is it? Who told you I bought it for them?” She looked so angry that he could see where the expression “looking daggers” came from. He wondered if he should duck.

“It was not difficult to deduce. There is no one else who could have done it. Do you deny it?”

“Not precisely. I
did
buy the puppy.” He saw no need to mention that he had in fact bought all four of the remaining pups in the litter at the haberdasher's shop. If his instructions were being followed, the other three were en route to his estates in Rutland and Derbyshire even as he and Phoebe spoke. “But given that I am such a dastardly fellow, why would you think that I bought the dog for anyone but myself?”

“Well, I—” She stopped.

Aha. I have you there.
He could not help smiling as she looked at him.

“Perhaps you thought you could bribe your way into the children's affections.”

“As I have not been able to do with you? I see.” He never could seem to stop himself from goading her. “Is it not possible that I thought the pup would amuse me and help to pass the time? Provide me with some companionship?” he challenged her.

She turned away and paced a few steps. He noticed she was rubbing her wrist. “If that is so,” she said slowly, “then you have compounded your error. The dog has already secured its place in the children's hearts, and Judith's as well.” She turned to him, her expression pleading. “They will be devastated if you tell them now that the pup is not theirs.”

“Ah, Lady Brodfield. Your compassion is always for others,” he responded. His voice had become rather husky. “I suppose you yourself are quite immune to the charms of a small puppy.”

“No, I am not,” she admitted in a very small voice. He saw the tears spring into her eyes before she spun away from him again.

Damn!
He had never meant to make her cry. “I am a bloody thoughtless beast,” he muttered.

He watched her raise a hand to her averted face, presumably to dash away the moisture from her cheeks. As she did, he noticed the red marks on the pale skin of her wrist, which until that moment had been concealed by the edge of her sleeve. Rather shakily he got to his feet and took a step toward her with his weight on his good leg. “What have you done to your wrist?” he demanded sharply.

Both his movement and his question clearly caught her by surprise. For a stunned moment she stood looking at her wrist, then she quickly came to his side.

“What are you doing?” she cried with a little gasp. “You could fall!”

He allowed her to assist him back into his chair, savoring the small pleasure her touch gave him. She did not know he had been working with Mullins to improve his mobility. As she started to withdraw, he caught her hand by the fingertips and drew it toward him.

How easily he could have put it to his lips just then! But he knew instinctively that the time was not right. He did not want to do anything to jeopardize what little trust he might have managed to achieve with her. Gently he pushed back the edge of her sleeve and turned her wrist to reveal the marks he had seen there. “What is this?” he asked again.

“It is nothing. It is none of your concern.” She pulled her hand away and smoothed down her sleeve.

“I am making it my concern,” he said with a note of insistence he hoped was unmistakable. “Apparently I am not the only thoughtless beast you have had to deal with today.”

He locked his eyes on hers. All the anger seemed to have gone out of those gray pools, and now he thought he saw pain, wariness, and uncertainty there instead. “Who did that to you?”

Her gaze slid to the window. She was obviously uncomfortable, but he would not let go of the question until he had an answer. “I will only keep asking,” he said softly.

Her ever-erect posture seemed to give way a little, as if some tight knot inside her had suddenly loosened. “I had an interview with my brother-in-law just before I came in here,” she finally admitted.

“Edward?” Devertham could not believe it.

“Not Edward. Richard Brodfield. He is my late husband's half brother.”

“I gather the interview did not go altogether smoothly.”
Would she tell him anything more?

“There is a business arrangement at stake. He became a little emotional, but there is nothing to be concerned over. He did not hurt me, despite how it may look. That is all.” She gave him a level stare that told him more clearly than words that the subject was now closed.

Chapter Seven

The doctor had come to check on the earl's progress and had pronounced him improved enough to come downstairs each day for dinner. Devenham was delighted. His release allowed him a much closer glimpse of the family activities, which he found entertaining, and ensured at least one occasion each day when Phoebe could not avoid his company. It also afforded him exactly the opportunity he wanted to learn more about Phoebe's connections when he and Edward were left alone to indulge in the ritual of after-dinner port.

Devenham was aware that not all of the Brodfields were held in as high esteem as Lord Tyneley had been. The earl vaguely recollected some sort of unsavory rumors, but he couldn't remember what they were or even specifically who they were about. Had Phoebe been married to a bounder? Was the half brother one also? Or something worse? A painful marriage of that sort might have been enough to make a young, attractive widow retreat from the world. Especially if she had loved the fellow. He did not know any of the Brodfields personally, nor did he know what opinion Edward held of them, so he proceeded with tactful caution.

“I imagine you are chafing at the bit to get outside of these walls, Devenham,” Edward said cordially on the second night. The two men had adjourned to the room that served as study and library combined. Edward occupied a carved mahogany and velvet armchair in a comfortably sprawled position, alternately swirling the port in his glass as he spoke and drawing puffs from an old-fashioned clay pipe. “It must be a great relief to at least have the run of the house now after your confinement, although I'm certain you find our style here very tame compared to your usual. I'm afraid we live rather quietly.”

“Allington, my friend, the quiet here has been exactly what I needed. I have felt quite reluctant to advertise my whereabouts or stir up any activity among my friends, and while I am certainly glad to be up and about a bit now, I have no complaints of being bored. Your sister-in-law, Lady Brodfield, has been quite diverting company for me.” The earl sat adjacent to his host in a rather more upright position. He held his glass before him with both hands and peered down into it curiously as if the drink, rather than his recent behavior, merited intense study.

“Enjoyed Phoebe's company, did you? Well, I'm glad of it,” came Edward's hearty response. “I have no doubt you did her some good as well—reminded her what it's like to be around a sociable single man. She is too young to lock herself away in this house forever.

“I doubt the peace and quiet you have found here will last much longer, unfortunately,” he added. “Town gets emptier every day, and as it does, we who remain here move closer and closer to the center of that powerful microscope, the public eye. I was approached by someone at my club who wanted to know if you were staying with us—it seems your disappearance from the Clarendon has put you in the betting books. I said I knew where you were but was not at liberty to say. I don't expect that answer will serve very long. I also heard that the Duke of York wants to see you at the Horse Guards once his arm mends and he returns from Oatlands. Something about confirming a field promotion?”

Devenham sighed. Steering his host's conversation was proving more difficult than he expected. His first opportunity to talk about Phoebe had come and gone again in the space of a single breath. He supposed he owed Edward the courtesy of discussing his promotion from major to brevet lieutenant colonel at Waterloo, but it was the last thing he wanted to talk about.

“I would like one person in London to know the real truth about that business, Allington, and I am choosing you,” he said wearily. “I am no hero. I did nothing more at Waterloo than any other man would have done in my place or than many other men did do. I would refuse the promotion if I could do so without mortally offending those who mean well toward me by offering it. I swear, military politics are as complicated as pleasing a woman.”

“Ho, you are right on that score,” Edward agreed, laughing. “Military politics, or any other kind, and the rewards are often not nearly so satisfactory.”

Devenham drained the last drop of port from his glass and held up the empty vessel with a questioning look at the baronet.

Edward answered with a nod toward the glass decanter on the corner of his desk, and the earl got up and proceeded to pour himself another drink. “You certainly seem satisfied with your married life,” he commented guardedly.

Edward straightened in his chair, almost visibly puffing up with pride. “There's nothing can touch it, if you ask my opinion. You ought to consider settling down, Devenham.”

The earl was dubious. “Have you never felt shackled by the responsibility? Has your wife never been jealous when you strayed from her bed to another's?”

Devenham's host fixed a very serious eye on his guest. “I have never strayed from Judith's bed since we've been married,” he answered distinctly. “That's over twelve years.”

“Your wife is charming, but can you really tell me one woman is sufficient to meet all your needs, Allington? Have you never tired of her?” Devenham was amazed.

“I know it sounds incredible, but it's true.”

“You think I should give up chasing lightskirts and offer myself up for matrimony? Have pity! Once I do, I shall be nothing more than another piece of meat for the marriage mart.” The earl resumed his seat. “The prospect of all those society matrons flinging their daughters at me horrifies me more than a charge by a battalion of French lancers.”

“If you have survived one, you can survive the other,” Edward replied, chuckling. “I assure you, there is much to be said in favor of the married state.”

“How long was Lady Brodfield married, if I may ask?” Devenham posed the question casually. He hoped Edward would not find it odd.

“Two years—almost two years exactly. Her husband died a year ago last February.”

“Then she's stayed in seclusion a year and a half?”

“Yes.” Edward sighed. “God knows we tried to get her out into company again. It was a devil of a thing, very hard on her.”

Devenham held his glass very still. “She doesn't talk about it.”

Edward exhaled a little cloud of smoke from his pipe. “I know. I suppose a thing like that is hard to get over, but sometimes I think it would help if she would let her feelings out. She isn't at all like my wife, Judith, in that respect. My wife may go a trifle too far the other way, I sometimes think, but don't get me wrong. My Judith is the light of my life. I have never been happier than I am now as a married man and a father.”

Devenham accepted the turn in the conversation. He did not want to make his questions about Phoebe too obvious. “I suspect some of us are better suited to those roles than others, Allington. You must admit you enjoy the significant advantage of having achieved a love match. I wouldn't expect to be so fortunate.”

“And why not?”

“I was taught from an early age that love is for fools and weaker men than the Earls of Devenham. Please don't think I am putting you in that class, Allington—I have never truly believed that. But at the same time, I find I know very little about it. Sexual liaisons, yes—I could be classed,
am
classed, an expert. But not love. When I see you with your wife, I feel as if you share some foreign language of which I know nothing.”

Edward held up his glass in a salute to his friend. “It is a language that can only be taught by the heart, I'm afraid. If you ever fall in love, you will start to hear and understand it.”

Devenham laughed a short, bitter laugh. “I doubt one woman will ever hold me long enough for that.” He paused then, considering the subject. Phoebe seemed to speak that language fluently, even though her partner was gone. Her loving warmth seemed to touch everyone in the house—even, if only occasionally, himself.

“Your sister-in-law must have loved her husband deeply,” he speculated.

“Phoebe? Indeed she must have, to grieve so much after all she went through. Certainly we all thought she and Stephen were the perfect match.”

The earl thought he heard a note of regret in Edward's voice. “Another love match?”

“Positively. I swear Lord Brodfield was smitten the first time he saw her, and so was she. She had eyes for no one else. It was only her first Season, you know. She had been declared a diamond and had flocks of admirers—we were so proud of her! Judith and I sponsored her come-out.”

Edward's pipe wanted refilling, and he looked at it thoughtfully, as if trying to decide if the conversation would continue long enough to warrant the effort. He set the pipe aside, apparently concluding that it would not. “She was a great success,” he continued, his voice soft with memories. “And she would be as welcome now at Almack's as she was before. But she will have none of it.” He shrugged. “Soon we will be dragging you out instead, Devenham, if you continue to improve so rapidly. The theaters and the Opera House will stay open till the end of the month. By then you should be well enough to travel home. And, please God, we will head for the country, too. The harvest waits for no one, not to mention the start of shooting season.”

Judith and Phoebe were waiting for the men to join them, however, and it would not do to keep them at it too long. Devenham realized that he had learned as much as he could for one evening, and let his inquiries go. He was tired, but he managed to play a hand of whist with the others before retiring. Phoebe was his partner, and he played badly, distracted by his own thoughts and his fascination with her deep gray eyes.

Something unusual had occurred in Phoebe's marriage—of that he felt certain. What had Edward said? That she must have loved Brodfield to grieve so “after all she went through,” and that she would be as welcome now at Almack's as she had been before. Before what? Her marriage? Or had there been some kind of scandal? That did seem to fit, although he could not picture the gentle creature he had come to know at the center of some major brew. He wanted to know now more than ever. He would enlist Mullins to help him find out.

***

Devenham's increased mobility allowed him greater participation in the daily routines of the household, and he began to learn its rhythms and the patterns of each of its members. He discovered that Phoebe was an early riser who would usually go into the garden first thing each day to inspect her beloved plants and feed the stray cats she had tamed.

One morning he awakened early enough to be groomed and dressed, and still catch her there. He made his way slowly down to the dining room, whose glass-paned French doors opened onto steps down to the garden. He hesitated on the threshold, taking in the sun-washed image of Phoebe with her cats.

She was crouched upon the gravel walkway, her skirts gathered about her in a way that emphasized the roundness of her form quite nicely. She was not attired in mourning clothes as was her usual habit—instead, she wore a simple morning dress of thin white muslin, figured with some kind of tiny pattern. Her head was uncovered, allowing the sun to bounce joyfully off her glossy dark curls. Her broad-brimmed straw hat lay discarded on a bench nearby. Three cats sallied around her like officers on parade, and she reached out to pet each one in turn. The sight of her hand stroking their soft fur warmed his blood.

He was quite content to stay where he was, admiring the picture. He must have made some unconscious movement or slight sound, however, for the cats noticed him suddenly and scattered in an instant. He saw annoyance cloud Phoebe's face before her polite mask slipped into place. Sighing, he came down the steps, leaning heavily on the ebony cane Mullins had purchased for him in Bond Street.

“I apologize for scaring them away,” he began sincerely. “I did not mean to.” He gave her a stiff but dignified bow. “You have every right to be annoyed with me.”

“I am not annoyed with you, Lord Devenham,” she said, straightening up and brushing off her skirt. “You need not concern yourself. They run away from everyone.”

As she turned to retrieve her hat, he risked another step closer. “Why do you not allow yourself to be annoyed with me? It is a perfectly natural reaction, and I am certain I deserve it. And it is not true that they run from everyone—they clearly have great affection for
you.
”
As does everyone who meets you
, he wanted to add.

She moved away from him and scooped up the basket she had left on the path. “It is only because I feed them,” she answered. She seemed poised for flight but hesitated as if she could not decide how best to escape him.

“Why do
you
always run away?” he asked gently.

He had clearly caught her off-balance with that. She looked at him for a moment, her eyes wide with surprise, and then she stared down into her basket as betraying color flushed her cheeks. She managed an almost convincing laugh.

“I do not always run away, my lord! Do you think I am frightened like the cats? I think you are imagining it.”

“Indeed? I hope so. You can prove it by walking with me and allowing me to carry your basket. We can engage in polite conversation.”

She raised her head and looked up at him with a challenge in her eyes. “I recall very few exchanges where we have managed to engage in polite conversation, Lord Devenham. It will be interesting to see if we are able to do so.”

Smiling, he reached for her basket. “I promise I will be a veritable pattern card of courtesy.” He offered his left arm, and she had no proper choice but to take it.

“I think perhaps it is you who is more like the cats,” she said, glancing sideways at him as they began to walk slowly down the nearest path, away from the house. “They watch and lie in wait for unwitting birds, deceiving them by their quiet study.”

“Ah, but the birds can escape quite easily by simply taking flight. It is only the unwary who get caught. You cannot blame the cats for something that is only their given nature.”