The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (17 page)

Oh yes, she was the Queen of Seams.

W ill did not call on Phoebe to convince her to make Miss Fitzherbert a riding habit as he’d threatened—he scarcely had time to breathe in the course of the next two days as they finished preparations for the supper party he’d intended to host for the Remingtons. Henry suggested that it was a perfect opportunity to test society’s waters. “Might as well give it a go,” he’d said one afternoon. “There isn’t much else to occupy the denizens of Bedfordshire.”

So Will’s idea of a small, intimate supper party with the Remingtons had grown into a full soiree. Now, in addition to the Remingtons, the Fitzherberts and the Fortenberrys—including Mr. Fortenberry’s elderly parents—Vicar MacDonald and his young family would be in attendance. All told, including the Summerfield brood, there were twenty-six souls.

One would think the Darbys had never entertained in their collective lives—they were all of them on tenterhooks and cross with one another. But then again, society in Bedfordshire was bucolic. Most gatherings were around afternoon tea, and the highlight of the social season was a harvest dance in the autumn. There was really very little high society, and to pretend there was seemed to bring out the worst in the Darby family.

Will scarcely saw Phoebe, but he certainly wondered about her. He had the impression from their last meeting that Phoebe wanted to be left alone. That was just as well—he did not allow himself to dwell on how much he wanted to see her. He convinced himself that he merely missed a woman’s touch—nothing more. He lectured himself on his duty to his family and his title. Taking up with a servant was hardly respectable.

So he kept his distance and didn’t see her at all, really, except early in the morning, when he might spy her through the window of his study as she walked in the gardens, her sketchbook under her arm. Once, he’d seen her standing a little to one side at the window of her workroom on the top floor, watching as he accepted his mount to ride into Greenhill. He had touched his hand to his hat in greeting, and she had responded by ducking into the shadows.

Will had ridden hard that day, feeling absurdly unsettled by the sight of the seamstress. But he quickly pushed her out of his mind, as he had gone to pay a call on Caroline Fitzherbert.

Miss Fitzherbert was the only unmarried woman—among what seemed like a bumper crop of them in Bedfordshire—that he’d met since his return who had sparked his interest. He wasn’t precisely sure what made her stand out. She was pretty, had a pleasant mien, as all of them seemed to possess. Her family was gentry, and her bearing and rearing seemed suitable for the wife of an earl. He enjoyed her conversation, he supposed, even as politely stupefying and superficial as it tended to be in the company of her ever-present parents. Yet he detected a certain intelligence behind her lovely brown eyes that intrigued him.

Moreover, when he’d told his father about her, the earl had raised a finger, leading Will to believe that he approved of the match. His father had not reacted when Will had mentioned one or two other debutantes.

He supposed Caroline Fitzherbert was perfectly suited to be his wife, but he was also keenly aware that she did not stoke any fires of passion in him. He was disappointed by that, but he believed—or rather, he hoped, and rather desperately so—that passion would come with time. He could not imagine being married to a woman he did not desire completely.

Frankly, he feared it.

But Will had not felt intense passion for a woman since leaving Rania, the dark-eyed beauty, in Egypt. Then again, Rania had been trained from an early age to entice a man and call forth his most passionate response. He doubted, however, that she would be much use as a wife in any other sense of the word.

Miss Fitzherbert, on the other hand, might not feed his physical desire in the marriage bed, but she would be a good wife in other ways. She would be a great help with Alice and Jane—she could teach them the proper behaviors that he could not seem to inculcate in them. Perhaps she would even be helpful in nudging Joshua and Roger into suitable occupations. Joshua, in particular, seemed calmer in her presence. Surely all that counted for something—or did it?

He’d not mentioned his thoughts about Miss Fitzherbert to anyone but his father; it was too soon. He was hardly certain she was the one to be mistress of Wentworth Hall. Nevertheless, the pressure to marry weighed on him, accompanying his every waking moment. It seemed hypocritical to lecture his brothers and sisters about their responsibilities if he didn’t assume his own.

The pressure was exacerbated by his doubts about how much longer his father had on this earth. His father’s desire to see Will married was one of the last things he’d been able to communicate to him. It is time to come home, he’d written Will. It is time to marry. Nothing would give me greater peace. He could not fail to give his ailing father peace.

So he made his call on Miss Fitzherbert. He asked after the painting she’d done, which seemed rudimentary at best, and listened attentively as Mrs. Fitzherbert praised her daughter’s charitable work for the parish. He walked with her in the garden of her family’s home, Floddington, and even picked a rose for her. She promised to press it between the pages of the family Bible. She spoke of the picnic the parish church was planning and said that she hoped he would be there. Will had smiled and thereby managed to suppress the yawn of tedium that was building in him, while privately wondering if there was anything more insipid than sitting around on a hot afternoon listening to Vicar MacDonald’s thoughts on various scripture.

Even Henry dreaded such events. “They are so awfully dull,” he’d said. “I much prefer London. Come to London with me, Summerfield—we’ll make a jolly time of it.”

“You know I cannot,” Will said. “I have responsibilities here.”

“Your dedication is either inspiring or madness—I’ve yet to determine which,” Henry said petulantly.

Neither had Will. He felt nothing inside, really. Just the wasteland into which he’d been shipwrecked, the desolation of it spreading a little farther each day.

When he took his leave of Miss Fitzherbert, he rode the long way home—through the forests and into the valley at the far end of the family estate—where he was certain the wild horses would be.

The big red one, which Will had named Apollo, had grown accustomed to Will’s frequent visits, and slowly, steadily, Will was cultivating the horse’s trust. On days when his family posed no end of problems, and Will felt completely at sea, visiting the herd of wild horses was the bright spot of his day, the time he felt most like himself, and not the useless, gentrified country lord he was becoming.

Apollo had come to accept Will’s hands on his body, allowed him to stroke his coat from shoulder to hind-quarters. Will had even placed a saddle blanket on Apollo so that he would begin to feel weight on his back and withers, preparing him for a saddle. Today, Will had brought a training bit they used at the hall to train colts. He had no idea how he would get Apollo to take the bit, but he had a sack of apples and he was determined.

The herd was precisely where Will thought they would be, in a small clearing where they had taken to grazing. They were down another horse, he noticed. One mare and her foal had disappeared last week; a colt was missing today. Fergus snorted and whinnied, heralding their arrival. The other horses started; some of them shied away into the woods, but Apollo slowly lifted his head and looked at Will. His nostrils flared as he took in the scent of Will and Fergus.

“Steady, old boy,” Will said, patting Fergus’s neck. He dismounted, tethered Fergus to a tree, and reached for the saddlebag that held the apples and the bit. He slung it over his shoulder and began to walk across the meadow to him.

Apollo tossed his head back and pawed the ground, earning a high-pitched cry from Fergus in response. As Will neared him, Apollo neighed loudly and pawed the ground again before making a sudden move toward Will, as if to startle him.

“There now, Apollo,” he said quietly, his voice flattening the horse’s ears. “There now.” Apollo lowered his head and made a threatening move. For a moment, Will expected to be butted across the clearing and he braced himself, expecting it. But Apollo did not hit him. Apollo lifted his head and touched Will’s hand to see what he’d brought him.

An hour later, Will rode out of the clearing with a broad smile. Apollo had not liked the bit, as Will expected, but in the end he had taken it. Will believed he would be riding the spirited stallion in a fortnight.

He led Fergus onto an old, rarely used wooded path, a shortcut to the hall he’d often used as a boy. As he neared the edge of the woods and a path that cut across the hills, he was surprised to see a rider approaching him, coming from the direction of the hall. He recognized the rider as a slow-witted lad from Greenhill who often worked in the smithy. When the lad saw him, his eyes widened with surprise, and he pulled the cap down low over his eyes.

It was too late, of course. No one outside the estate ever used this path, and Will had already seen him. “Good day, sir,” Will said, reining up.

“G’day, milord,” the young man said, looking rather uncomfortable.

“Frederick, isn’t it?” Will asked, looking at him curiously.

“Aye. Frederick Mayhew, milord.”

Will glanced at the path the lad had just come up and then at Frederick again. “What brings you to Wentworth?”

Frederick shifted in his saddle and scratched his nose.

“Did you come to see me?” Will asked, knowing full well the lad had not.

“No, milord,” the young man admitted with a wince.

“Then on whom have you called at the hall?”

Frederick frowned in thought a moment, and then suddenly smiled, his eyes bright with an idea. “ ’Twas a message, milord. I was paid to bring a message. Not a call, no.”

“A message for whom?” Will pressed.

The lad was stumped by the question. He lifted a meaty hand and scratched the back of his neck for a moment. “The thing is, milord, I’m not to say.”

Something clicked in Will’s mind. He suddenly sat forward, pinning the young man with a hard look that caused him to rear back as if Will had physically struck him. “Did you deliver the message to Lady Alice Darby, perchance?”

Frederick did not need to respond—his look of panic was Will’s answer. Fury raced through him as he fished in the pocket of his waistcoat. “How much did the man pay you?”

“A tuppence, milord.”

Will withdrew several coins and selected one, which he held up between two fingers. “I will pay you this shilling to tell me how often you have delivered letters to Lady Alice.”

Now the color seeped from the young man’s ruddy face. He swallowed hard as he stared at the shilling Will held up.

“How often?”

“Hardly ever, milord, I swear it! A dozen times, no more, and sometimes only to fetch a letter from Lady Alice!”

Good God, it was just as he feared. He tossed the coin to Frederick, who caught it deftly in his paw and squinted down at it. “I’ve a message for the smithy’s apprentice,” Will said evenly. “Tell him if I should discover he has sent another letter to Wentworth Hall, I will personally see to it that the smithy’s business is ended in Greenhill. Can you remember that, Frederick?”

“Aye, milord,” Frederick said, and pocketed the coin.

“Go on, then. Tell him straightaway,” Will said.

Frederick did not hesitate. He spurred his old horse forward, cantering past Will and Fergus.

Will did not move immediately. He stared down the path, to the point where it widened and a corner of Wentworth Hall could be seen. His pulse was pounding in his ears, his jaw was clenched tightly shut. He abruptly put his spurs in Fergus’s flanks and sent the horse flying toward the house.

T he shrieking Phoebe heard below brought her head up so quickly that she stabbed her finger with the needle. “Ouch,” she muttered, and put the injured finger in her mouth.

The shrieking was followed by a clattering of feet on the stairs. “Good heavens, not again,” she muttered. Frieda was absent today; Phoebe had worked all morning on a seam only to find a mistake that forced her to take it out and start again. Her vision was blurry, her fingers ached from holding the brocade fabric of the ball gown, and she was in no mood to mediate another quarrel between Alice and Jane. The two young women were absolutely panicked by the evening’s supper party.

With a sigh, Phoebe stood up, stretched her fingers long and wide to help the ache, and realized that she was hearing the sound of heavy boots as well as a lighter footfall racing up the stairs. The shrieking—which, Phoebe determined, was actually cries of “I hate you!”—was coming from Alice. She guessed the girl was yelling at Roger, as Roger seemed to delight in torturing his sisters.

Phoebe marched to the door of the workroom, prepared to greet the two hellions and send them right back down, but before she could reach the door, it banged open and she was nearly shoved against the wall as a sobbing Alice ran inside. She rushed to the corner of the room to hide behind the dress form on which Jane’s ball gown hung.

Summerfield exploded into the room behind Alice, stopping just across the threshold, his expression dark, his eyes burning with anger, and his broad chest rising with the exertion of the chase.

“Give it over, Alice,” he said sharply, holding out his hand. “I will not abide your disobedience a moment longer!”

“I won’t!” Alice shouted as she clutched something to her chest. “If you want it, you must kill me and pry it from my hand!”

“Oh, for the love of Christ!” Summerfield strode forward. But Alice used the dress form like a shield, keeping it between her and Summerfield.

“No!” Phoebe cried out, and lunged to grab the dress form around the waist.

Summerfield tried to move around Phoebe, but Alice was too quick on her feet, her every move matching his. In a fit of frustration, Summerfield suddenly grabbed Phoebe and the dress form in one arm and moved them to the side while he thrust his hand out toward Alice, palm up. “Give it to me!”