Revealed (43 page)

As he was pitching the balls of paper into the grate, watching them curl, burn, disappear into the air, the door creaked on its hinges, admitting Byrne.

“Don’t worry,” Marcus said, his eyes never leaving the fire, “she’s gone.”

Byrne’s gaze flicked to the door, which bore fractures from Marcus’s burst of anger. “Are you all right?” he asked, gingerly taking a step into the room.

Marcus flexed his hand. “It’s fine, see?”

Byrne took another step into the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. “Marcus, are you all right?”

Marcus threw the last of his unworthy letters into the fire, watched it as the edges caught flame. “I’m fine,” he repeated. With a rueful, cynical smile, he looked up from the fire. “It worked. She’s gone.”

When Phillippa arrived home, she was in no mood to hear the cries of distress from her housekeeper that someone had broken a window. She also didn’t give a damn that she woke up half the household to accommodate her need for a bath immediately. She was uncaring about how her appearance—hair disheveled, missing stocking, missing gloves—set her lady’s maid into a tizzy of deep concern coupled with salacious conjecture. What she did know, once she was comfortably ensconced in her large, copper tub, steaming-hot water helping to clear her mind, was that she had been made a fool of.

And Phillippa Benning despised being played for a fool.

The only other time she had been taken in was when Alistair successfully hid his financial straits from her, before their marriage. That he had also fooled her father, who had made inquires into his situation, had done nothing to balm her wound. The rude shock of discovering his house empty of any furnishings, the creditors knocking ceaselessly on her door, the dawning understanding that her husband had not married her for love or even affection—that was nothing compared to this.

Maybe because, even though he had been discovered as poor and a liar, Alistair had still been Haute Ton. His breeding had been impeccable, his family name ancient and illustrious. Even the lack of a title hadn’t tarnished his eligibility. No one would ever scoff at her aligning herself with Alistair. She was able to maintain her pride.

But Marcus Worth? Every day of their acquaintance, she had believed him to be something he wasn’t. And he let her. He let her think him more than a third son, more than a clerk in the War Department. More than a nobody.

She had skipped happily astray from her position in the world, entertaining his sister-in-law’s earnestness, losing her lead with Broughton, hell, even being kind to Lady Jane!—all because of him.

She dunked her head under the water, letting it fill her ears, muffling any noise, separating herself from the world as entirely as she could.

When she surfaced, she took a deep breath and pushed the water out of her eyes that might have been mistaken for tears.

Phillippa Benning didn’t feel sorry for herself. Phillippa Benning didn’t agonize over past mistakes.

No, instead, Phillippa Benning decided to return with a vengeance.

It started with a new wardrobe. Well, one couldn’t reclaim her throne in society without the proper clothing, now could one? The next morning, Phillippa, Bitsy in her arms, called Totty down for breakfast and insisted that they visit Madame Le Trois immediately. If Totty wondered about Phillippa’s authoritative demeanor, especially given that she had last seen the girl headed out to visit Mr. Worth, it was not vocalized. She simply called for her morning concoction from Leighton and mentally arranged her day according to Phillippa’s demands.

Madame Le Trois was set to work at once on gowns, day dresses, pelisses, underthings, and stockings that did not have one iota of practicality about them. No more cambric, no more wide, fluid skirts, and absolutely no more pockets. Instead, Phillippa insisted on the lightest chiffon and silks, cut against her frame to leave very little ease of movement and just enough to the imagination. The necklines and back lines were scandalously low, the colors provoctive, and the entire thing outrageously expensive. But it made Phillippa feel good, rediscovering a little bit of her power.

Once her wardrobe (and a few spontaneous pieces for Bitsy) was redone, Phillippa embarked on a mission to regain any footing she might have lost. And her first stop was with Broughton.

She found him in the park, taking his brilliant pure white mare, Rebecca, through her paces. Rebecca matched Broughton in terms of breeding and haughtiness, so understandably, Phillippa’s carriage, pulled by beautiful matched bays, received a decided snub from man and horse alike.

“Oh, Phillip, how can you be so cruel?” Phillippa laughed.

“How can I be so cruel?” Broughton replied, an eyebrow going up.

“Yes, after I waited for you.” Phillippa reached into her pocket, and pulled out a cube of sugar and enticed Rebecca to come closer. Proud as she was, Rebecca did eye the sugar cube once or twice before turning away. “I waited for you to call on me for a week. At the Hampshires, I was going to come to your room,” she lied, but fortunately, she lied very well. “I truly was, but with the fire and the panic, I . . . I became so scared. All I wanted to do was apologize, but I couldn’t very well call on you, could I?” She lowered her lashes here, bit her lip, the picture of disappointed love. “So I waited for you to call on me. And we both know how peevish waiting makes me.”

By now Broughton had loosened the lead on Rebecca, allowing that regal creature to take the steps forward to meet Phillippa’s hand. She let out a lovely peal of laughter as Rebecca’s wet, rough tongue licked her hand, and then the mare nickered for more.

“Careful,” Broughton said. “You’re going to spoil her.”

She let her eyes, shining pure innocence, meet his. “So you’ll forgive me?”

Broughton shrugged. “To be fair, it was a confusing night. I ended up in the bloody hedge maze, got separated from my, er, friends, and went in circles for hours.”

“I think we should start over.” She extended her hand. “Mrs. Benning. How do you do?”

He looked at her outreached hand. Then gingerly took it.

“Broughton,” he offered.

“Very pleased to meet you. Would you care to come call, Lord Broughton?” she maneuvered. “Tomorrow?”

“For tea?” Broughton scoffed.

She didn’t make any promises to him. She didn’t offer to let him call much later or to stay long past tea or to meet him in any dark, secluded place. She didn’t have it in her to make a promise she knew she wasn’t ready to keep. Her need for revenge did not go that far. Instead, she smiled at him, looked him up and down. Then she called out, “Driver!” and the whip sent the matched bays to a trot, and she pulled away, leaving Broughton bewildered and smiling. And leaving Phillippa back in control of the game.

If, when leaving the park, after nodding hello to all and sundry, she saw the Worth carriage, which contained Marcus and a wide-bonneted woman, she did not comment on it. Nor did she stop. She simply moved along, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

From this point on, Phillippa threw herself back into being the Infamous Phillippa Benning with relish, attending round after round of parties and routs that rivaled even the gayest of the Prince Regent’s celebrated court. She went to the opera and there sent up such gales of laughter at the act breaks, speaking with the fawning Lord Draye, that she inevitably attracted more people to her box. She danced for hours on end at any number of parties, and when that gathering came to an end, she sought another. She became the lifeblood of every Ton event, going to musicales, card parties, and literary salons at an alarming rate. She made her opinion known, saying that Mrs. Archibald’s latest gothic wasn’t up to snuff, while Miss Austen’s work struck her as provincial. She was kind enough to not cut Mrs. Hurston for wearing a turban again, but she felt it necessary to comment on the woman’s penchant for awful feathers in her coiffure. And everyone was once again in Phillippa Benning’s thrall.

Broughton did call on her for tea, and every tea for days. As did Nora, Lady Jersey, Princess Esterhazy, and every eligible young buck in London. When Penny Sterling called with Louisa Dunningham, Phillippa was polite but remote. She let it be known that she was merely tolerating their presence, not encouraging it, a feat achieved by the barest of conversation and on more worldy subjects than Penny and Louisa could hope to keep up with. When they left, after a spare half hour in Phillippa’s pink drawing room, Nora and Broughton were reduced to fits of giggles.

“Oh, Phillippa!” Nora cried once she caught her breath. “How wicked you are! I thought Penny Sterling was going to cry when you called her embroidered reticule déclassé!”

“As if that missish little thing even knows what déclassé means,” Broughton agreed. “I must say, Phillippa, I do enjoy your teas; you have a way of making them remarkably entertaining.”

Phillippa smiled at this, let her finger graze Broughton’s as she handed him a refreshed cup of tea, a new blend from India, which she despised but knew Broughton was quite taken with.

“But I don’t understand why you’d claim them as acquaintances in the first place,” Broughton inquired, after a long sip.

Phillippa gave an elegant little shrug. “I thought perhaps Miss Sterling and Miss Dunningham could be cultivated into interesting young women. Apparently I was wrong.”

This sent Broughton and Nora into another series of snickers. If Phillippa felt the smallest twinge of regret at her cruelty, if she thought that maybe Totty, who sat across the room silently sipping her spiked tea, might have sent her a disapproving look, she did not let it bother her for long. For Broughton drew her attention, proposing a picnic lunch tomorrow if the weather allowed, and forcing her out of her head and back into the life she knew.

Penny Sterling and Louisa Dunningham were not the only ones to feel the sting of Phillippa’s tongue. Indeed, she knew that the simplest way to devastate someone was to not say anything at all.

She used this principle to great effect twice: once in a rather expected way, and the second time, devastatingly.

Phillippa’s recent uptick in social activity meant that she could not avoid the people she planned to entirely, for sooner or later, they would be run into. Such was the case when she bumped directly into Lady Jane Cummings in the overcrowded hallway of Lady Charlbury’s decided crush.

Phillippa was flanked by Nora, Lady Jane by one of her little entourage. The circumstances of the party were such that Phillippa and Lady Jane blocked traffic as they stared each other up and down.

Then Lady Jane did the most surprising thing. Disobeying all rules of their pact of mutual loathing, she lowered herself into as decent a curtsy as she could manage in the tight space, and murmured, “Good evening, Phillippa.”

However, if Lady Jane Cummings thought that she was going to get a civil response from Phillippa Benning, she was proven wrong. For with the simplest flick of an eyebrow, Phillippa put up her chin and slid past Lady Jane in the thick crowd.