The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (25 page)

“Lady Jane!” Phoebe cried. “Do please have a care!”

The two young women ran from the ballroom, Phoebe following them quickly. She could hear the young woman at the pianoforte exclaim as she did so, but Phoebe had worked too hard to let Jane destroy the gown in a petulant snit.

However, years of proper breeding would not allow her to run like a hoyden, so she walked briskly after them, watching the two of them disappear into a room at the end of the corridor, their voices raised.

When Phoebe reached the door, she was surprised to find the entire family within and quickly drew up. “Oh my,” she said hastily. “I beg your pardon,” she said, her eyes on Will. The heat she felt in her neck was not due to the exertion of chasing Jane, she knew.

“Madame Dupree?” he asked coolly, as if they were mere acquaintances, as if they had never shared an extraordinarily intimate evening on a magical island.

“I…” She looked at Jane, who glared at her with disdain. Roger, sitting indolently in a chair, was smirking. Alice was standing near the door, her lips pressed in a thin line, and Joshua—Joshua was looking at Will, his gaze blistering. “I beg your pardon. Please forgive my intrusion,” she said, looking around at the lot of them. “I meant only to speak to Jane before she began her dance instruction.”

Jane snorted at that and picked absently at her sleeve. “I do not require dance instruction. I was merely dancing. Alice is the clumsy one.”

“Will!” Alice cried.

“Jane, please,” Will said, sounding weary.

“It is her gown,” Phoebe explained quickly, suddenly conscious that she was wearing an apron with pins stuck in it. “It is not yet finished—indeed, it is merely basted in some places. She took the dress from the form and I really must have her remove it at once.”

“Dear God, please don’t suggest such a thing,” Roger drawled.

“Hush, Roger!” Jane cried.

“Or what? You will dance me unto death?”

“That is enough!” Will said sternly, and turned a dark frown on his youngest sister. “Is this true? You have taken the dress before it is finished?”

“It is my dress.”

“Go upstairs and remove it,” he snapped.

“I told you so,” Alice quipped snidely.

“Alice, I do not need your assistance.”

No, Phoebe thought, he needed the assistance of a warden and a sheriff.

“And there he is, the mighty viscount, seeing to the important estate matter of who shall wear the gown,” Joshua said with a sneer.

Their lack of manners and regard for one another was stunning. Phoebe could not help but gape at the insolent bunch.

“Jane,” Will said, a bit more forcefully. “Go at once and change out of the gown. And do not take anything from the sewing room unless Madame Dupree has given her explicit permission.”

“I am to take my orders from a servant?” Jane groused, but with a sniff, she shrugged and quit the room, brushing carelessly past Phoebe on her way out.

Across the room, Joshua chuckled. “There you have it, Madame Dupree. My brother has just done what Parliament cannot do and granted you, a tradeswoman, certain rights. You must be overcome with elation.”

She was overcome, all right; she glanced at Will. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” he said shortly. “If there is nothing else, you have my leave.”

The perfunctory dismissal stunned her. She curtsied awkwardly and went out, taking care to shut the door behind her. But in the privacy of the corridor, she paused, braced one hand against the wall, and pressed the other tightly to her abdomen.

Whatever had flowed between them last night, whatever the emotions she had been feeling, the real situation was quite plain—she was nothing more to him than an illicit affair, someone with whom to pass the time until he was married. It was an arrangement she had, in essence, invited.

It did not feel liberating.

She thought she understood the weight of her actions—the words she used in her note, a look, a seduction. But she had not realized how heavy were the consequences of them.

Her heart felt like it was twisting in her chest.

After taking a moment or two to compose herself, she followed Jane to the workroom and retrieve the ball gown. Jane dressed quickly, refusing to speak to Phoebe, and flounced out when she had finished dressing.

Phoebe had redressed the dress form by the time Frieda reappeared. But when Frieda opened the door, a draft from the open window sent scraps of fabric on the table scudding across the surface. Phoebe and Frieda both lunged at the same time, trying to catch as many of them as they could before they hit the floor.

“Oh, it’s so bloody hot!” Frieda complained as she set the fabrics on the table again. “What I’d not give for a spot of rain—that would bring a bit of cool air to us, eh?”

Another strong gust tipped one of the dress forms, which Frieda caught, while Phoebe hurried to shut the window. As she pushed the two halves of the window together, she glanced down at the drive and recalled seeing Will down there this very morning, vowing that he would not tolerate dishonesty or deception of any kind.

That, coupled with the cool reception in his study, made her feel extraordinarily weak. She was too naïve for this sort of game, too unschooled in the art of deception or seduction.

Yet she could not stop thinking of last night. She couldn’t keep from thinking of the candles, the wine, or his book, the precious journal of his life abroad that he’d shared with her. She could not stop thinking about the way his hands and mouth felt on her body.

She wanted more of that. However ill-advised or truly mad it was, she could not help but want more.

“You are flushed!” Frieda declared with a frown. “The heat is too great for you, I think.”

“No, it’s not the heat,” Phoebe said with a wan smile. “I’m feeling a bit under the weather, I suppose.”

“You’re not carrying a child, are you?”

Phoebe gasped at the question and stared in alarm at Frieda, who laughed with delight. “It’s naught but a jest! Why, it’s hardly possible, is it, without having had a poke or two while you’ve been at Wentworth Hall? Aye,” she said with a cheerful shake of her head, “you’ve worked harder and longer than even his lordship, that much I know. I suppose I am the one who must worry over it now.”

“W-what?” Phoebe exclaimed. “Frieda, are you—”

“No, no,” Frieda said with an airy wave or her hand, and she laughed. “Of course not. I’m not a doxy,” she said with a playful frown. But her smile faded, and she glanced up at Phoebe. “I’m naught but two days late.”

Phoebe saw the worry in Frieda’s brown eyes, and instantly put down the scraps she held and went to her, putting her arm around her, hugging her close.

“There now, you mustn’t be concerned,” Frieda said, patting Phoebe’s hand. “It will be a lot of fretting for naught, I am certain of it. I was right careful, I was. I kept a sponge and vinegar inside me like I ought to have done.”

It was a common way to prevent pregnancy that many women used. But Frieda didn’t sound certain—she sounded completely uncertain. She patted Phoebe’s hand again, then shifted forward, forcing Phoebe’s arm from her thin shoulders, and bent over the piece of beading on which she’d been working. “I’m quite all right, truly I am.”

“Frieda—”

“We need more thread, do we not?” Frieda said, and suddenly stood up, walking into the bedroom to rummage through the boxes there.

Phoebe slowly resumed her seat and her work, her mind whirling. How close she had come to giving herself to Will last night. How easily, thoughtlessly, she would have done it.

Long after Frieda had gone, Phoebe continued to work, sewing precise little stitches to keep the train firmly attached to the back of Jane’s gown, her mind roaring with so many emotions. When the light began to fade, she stopped long enough to light a pair of candles. The tinderbox was in the bedchamber, however, and when she went to retrieve it, she heard the muffled sounds of raised voices coming up through the flue.

She sewed well into the night, her mind working against her, her thoughts on Will. She was so preoccupied that she did not hear anyone at the door until he had come almost to the table.

“Farley!” she gasped when she saw him standing there.

“We missed you at supper tonight, Madame Dupree.”

“Thank you for sending a tray up again, Farley. But with the house party only days away, I really must work.”

He nodded, and glanced around uncomfortably. “Unfortunately, there has been a bit of a quarrel between Lord Summerfield and his brother Joshua. His lordship asks that you come straightaway to his father’s sitting room.”

Her heart surged. “His father’s sitting room?” she asked, taking care to show no emotion.

“On the first floor, madam, in the master suite of rooms.”

“Now? It must be nearly eight o’clock!” she said as she absently put a hand to her hair.

“I beg your pardon again, but his lordship’s precise words were, ‘as soon as she is able.’ ”

Phoebe blinked.

Farley winced a little and took a step closer to the table. He leaned over it and whispered, “There is trouble with Joshua.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “I shall be along directly,” she said, and stood up, removing her apron.

When Farley had gone, Phoebe whirled around to the mirror. She looked fatigued and unkempt. Wisps of her hair were uncurling from the prim bun she wore at her nape, and her plain day gown was wrinkled from sitting all day.

She tried to soothe the loose ends of her hair, but to no avail. She pinched her cheeks to bring a little color to them, smoothed her skirt as best she could, took the charm stone and slipped it into her pocket, then picked up the candelabra to make her way to the master suite.

W ill ignored the leap his heart took when he heard the knock on the door. He quickly took the candelabra from her, put it aside, and ushered Phoebe into the sitting room. “I’ve no one to turn to, Phoebe,” he said, keenly aware that in this house the walls heard all. He could not risk treating her as anything but a servant. “My brother is in need of assistance,” he said quietly, omitting the part that Henry had sent his gardener to tell Will that Joshua had fallen so far in his cups at a pub in Greenhill that he feared he might drown—or be shot. Apparently, Joshua was saying things he ought not to say.

“Oh,” she said, looking confused as Will hurried her into the interior rooms.

“Jacobs, the man who usually tends my father, was called away to see his ailing mother. Jane and Alice have gone to dine at the vicar’s, and Roger…” He paused. Shook his head. “I have no idea where Roger is off to, in truth. I should not like to impose, but I really must have you tend my father,” he said.

“I—I beg your pardon?”

“Come,” he said, and gestured to the bedchamber where his father was seated before the fire.

Her eyes fixed on his father, widening as she understood what he wanted her to do. “Oh no,” she whispered. “I can’t possibly be trusted—”

“Of course you can. You need only sit with him and read aloud, if you’d please.”

“Surely Mrs. Turner—”

“Mrs. Turner has her family,” he said as he picked up a cloak and tossed it around his shoulders. “And truthfully, Phoebe, if I bring anyone else here, I cannot trust that the news of Joshua’s behavior will not be known to all.” He strode to where his father sat and leaned down. “Father, you remember Madame Dupree, do you not?”

Phoebe eyed the old man as if she expected him to answer, which of course he would not. But the earl lifted his index finger. Will looked again at Phoebe. “You know that he cannot speak,” he said. “But he is aware of us and his surroundings.”

She hesitated a moment before moving forward and placing her small hand on his father’s arm. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance again, my lord,” she said, and curtsied as gracefully and surely as any lady-in-waiting, and Will’s heart stopped. The world had cast his father aside, yet this seamstress treated his father as the earl.

Her gracious greeting stood in stark contrast to the ugly row he’d had with Joshua in this very room about the horses, only an hour or so ago.

“Why shouldn’t I sell them?” Joshua had asked. “Those horses belong to me every bit as much as they belong to you. They are the property of the estate, and I have every bit as much of a right to them as do you.”

Will had been astounded by his reasoning. “They don’t belong to either of us, Joshua. They are Father’s property. He would never consent to you selling them to feed your gambling habits.”

“Indeed?” Joshua had asked coldly, then looked at his father and drawled, “Have you asked him?”

Truly, he could not fathom what demon possessed his brother—but he had realized that the man standing before him this afternoon was not the same boy who had once followed Will about the house, pestering him to distraction with such questions as how the moon stayed in the sky when the sun was shining or where the rabbits went when they ran away.

“How dare you dishonor our father in such a manner?” Will had demanded with soaring anger.

Joshua had snorted disdainfully. “Our father knows neither honor nor dishonor! He is merely a shell of the man that once lived. Do you really think there is any intelligence within? Do you think that this…this being knows who any of us are?”

“Yes,” Will had said sharply, horrified by his brother’s words. “And he knows precisely what you are saying now, Joshua. He can hear you and he can understand you very plainly!”

For a moment, a single sliver of a moment, Will saw pain glance Joshua’s features. But his brother quickly pressed his lips tightly together and looked at his father. “No,” he said low, with a firm shake of his head. “He is nothing but the living corpse of the man that he was.”

Will had felt the insult reverberate through his father’s body. He had not prolonged the interview but had, in no uncertain terms, warned Joshua that if he could not be depended upon to be a gentleman and a loyal son, he would have the family solicitors to answer to, for Will would take all necessary measures to protect the earl’s estate.

Joshua had responded with his own threat to Will’s person as he’d quit the room.