The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (36 page)

“And what folly is that, Mrs. Ramsey? That I made a few gowns for you to sell?”

Her flippancy surprised and angered Mrs. Ramsey. She suddenly turned around, pinning Phoebe with a glare. “Do you think I could not ruin you yet, Lady Phoebe?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You seem to forget that you have undertaken a deceit that could tarnish your reputation and that of your family. Do you think even a country lord such as Summerfield would have you if he knew you had lowered yourself to engage in a common trade and in such a deceitful manner?”

Phoebe flinched. “You make it sound as if I am a thief.”

Mrs. Ramsey gave her a bitter smile. “Your crime is far worse,” she said harshly. “You will wish you’d merely stolen a bauble or a crown. But you stole the trust and good opinion of those around you, and that, madam, is not so easily replaced.”

The words felt like a kick square in the belly; Phoebe abruptly turned away. With her hand on her abdomen, she walked down to the water’s edge and stared at the ducks so she wouldn’t have to see Mrs. Ramsey’s face.

The supper hour stretched interminably for Will. The gentlemen were quite excited about the prospect of more hunting on the morrow, and several of the ladies had determined they would go to Greenhill in search of masks for Thursday night’s fortnight-ending ball.

It was a fortunate thing, given Phoebe’s hasty decision to turn the ball into a masquerade, that Will’s parents had kept various costumes and masks for guests in a room belowstairs for occasions such as this. After a reckoning of what they had and what the houseguests were seeking in the village—some of them had their own ideas for masks—it seemed everyone would be suitably attired, except the family and Henry, and Phoebe was to make those masks. In addition, messengers had been sent to two hundred fifty invited guests to inform them of the masquerade.

Will’s guests were in high spirits tonight, as were his siblings.

Jane had flowered into a lively young woman and Will expected, given the looks of the young men gathered around her, that he would receive an offer for her hand—perhaps not as soon as he’d hoped, given Alice’s scandal—but eventually, in spite of Alice.

Roger likewise seemed to have made new friends. Just before supper, Lord Montgomery had remarked that he would like to have Roger up to Scotland to shoot, that he was an excellent marksman and a congenial fellow at the card table.

Will was pleased that his two younger siblings seemed to be adapting to society. But Alice and Joshua were quite another story. Alice remained in her room, her defiance growing. She was not missed at the supper table.

Joshua rarely engaged anyone other than Caroline. He lurked on the fringes of the activity, watching everyone behind a glass of whiskey or port. Will sensed that something was eating at Joshua, and whatever it was had him firmly in its grip. Will had tried to speak to Joshua about it, but Joshua had brushed him off, insisting it was nothing, that he did not care for society. There was nothing Will could do—and he had his hands full with his own dilemma.

But at the very least, as Will told Henry that night, his reason for hosting such a prolonged event had been to introduce his siblings into society, and on that front, he had been successful. It had not gone as well as he might have hoped, but if two of them found their way to proper living, he supposed it was well worth the effort and expense.

“Of course,” Henry agreed. “Jane shall eventually receive an offer,” he said, agreeing with Will’s thinking. “But what everyone wants to know is…what about Summerfield?” He winked at Will.

Will gave him an enigmatic smile. “I think the answer to that is obvious, is it not?”

Just as he guessed, Henry misunderstood him. He grinned, touched his glass to Will’s. “The Fitzherberts will be apoplectic with joy.”

But with his father, Will was honest. When he’d reported the day’s events, the earl lifted a finger, then bent his head at an odd angle and looked up at Will.

“You wonder if I shall make an offer,” Will said, and glanced at his hands. He imagined them on Phoebe’s body. “Truthfully, my lord, I want to make an offer to Miss Fitzherbert to please you,” Will admitted. “But it is just as true that I do not believe I can, for that place in my heart where feelings for one’s wife ought to reside are filled with constant thoughts of another.”

He looked at his father and was not surprised to see him looking somewhat confused. “Madame Dupree,” he said, “has bewitched me completely.” He stood up, walked to the window, and propped his arm against the wall as he stared out in the dark. “You might well imagine how it happened,” he said, aware that after his mother’s death, his father had carried on a rather torrid affair with a young chambermaid. “And I never intended it to become more. God help me, Papa, it has. I can think of no one but her, I can see no one but her, and when I imagine myself married and raising a family, I imagine it with Phoebe Dupree.”

He could only imagine how his father must be receiving this news—unable to speak or cry out, unable to voice the frustration that filled him. He restlessly pushed a hand through his hair and squatted next to his father. “I beg your forgiveness, my lord,” he quietly beseeched him. “I should rather die than disappoint or dishonor you. But I fear that I would be cheating Miss Fitzherbert of her true happiness were I to offer for her.”

Will bowed his head, trying to think of the right words. “Perhaps, in time, I shall rid myself of this desire,” he said. “Madame Dupree will be gone from Wentworth Hall in a matter of days as it is. I pray you will forgive me. I pray you will understand, Papa.” He looked up and tried to read something in his father’s wet eyes.

But if the earl understood him, if he agreed, if he was horrified, Will could not tell. The earl lifted a finger once—maybe twice. Will wished for all the world that his father could speak. If he ever needed his counsel, it was now.

But the old man couldn’t speak, and Will smiled sadly, put his hand on his father’s bony knee. “You must be fatigued after such a long day. I shall leave you to Jacobs.” He rose, leaned over and kissed the crown of his father’s head, and quit the room to tell Jacobs his father needed him.

Phoebe thought Mrs. Ramsey would never leave. She fussed about the room, insisting she’d left a glove. Phoebe quickly found the glove—in the woman’s port-manteau—and sent her on her way before she was in danger of missing the public coach.

She had just seen her off when Addison found Phoebe and informed her she was to accompany several ladies into Greenhill who wanted to purchase masks. “Your services are required.”

“My services?”

“They would have you assist them,” he said.

“How exciting,” Phoebe muttered irritably.

“There is one more thing,” Addison said. “His lordship requests that you keep Lady Alice company today, as she has requested to go into the village.”

“Addison, please, no!” Phoebe cried. “I cannot stop her if she is determined to see Mr. Hughes!”

“And you mustn’t trouble yourself to do so,” Addison said quickly. “His lordship is sending two footmen to ensure that she does not.”

She could only imagine the spectacle that would make. “Oh Lord,” she sighed.

“His lordship also advises that you should avail yourself of one of the masks available at Wentworth Hall, or purchase one,” he said, his ears going red. “He will purchase what you need to dress appropriately for the ball.”

Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. “Please tell his lordship that I cannot possibly attend.”

“I rather think you must,” Addison said politely. “Lady Duckworth has threatened to make quite a scene if you are not…‘let out of your prison,’ ” he said, repeating words he obviously found distasteful, “to keep Miss Dumbarton company.”

“Shall the entire house determine what I am to do from one hour to the next?”

“It would seem so,” Addison said, his thin face as red as his ears now.

The ladies arrived in Greenhill in a train of carriages at two o’clock. The minute the carriages rumbled onto High Street, the doors of the best establishments were flung open.

The women—twelve in all—as well as two unruly children, marched along in search of masks. There were so many questions put to Phoebe that she could scarcely see Alice most of the time, much less watch her like a child. But the two footmen kept her in their sights, and she moped about each shop, scarcely speaking.

Fortunately for Phoebe, one shop had several lovely masks, just arrived from London. The proprietor, seeing so many rich women gathered in one place, was bargaining enthusiastically.

Jane eagerly led the ladies; each one stepped to the counter to choose her perfect mask for the ball. Susan took that opportunity to pull Phoebe aside.

“I’ve missed you terribly!” she exclaimed. “Mrs. Ramsey was quite miserly in sharing your company.” She twirled Phoebe around and away from the others as she deftly pulled Master David’s hand from a pair of ladies’ slippers. “It is all but assured Summerfield will offer for Miss Fitzherbert—everyone expects it to happen at the masquerade ball.”

“Indeed? Miss Fitzherbert must be very happy.”

“Really, who would know if she is or is not?” Susan said with a flick of her wrist, and leaned to her right, to glance around Phoebe. “Master David, do not touch the linens, if you please.” She looked at Phoebe again. “She’s rather phlegmatic, isn’t she?”

Phoebe glanced at Miss Fitzherbert, who, with her mother, was examining a feathered mask.

“One would think Summerfield would want someone with a little more élan, wouldn’t one?”

One would think, Phoebe thought morosely.

“And Lady Jane!” Susan whispered excitedly. “It is likewise assumed that Lord Tankersly will make an offer for her hand, and in spite of her sister’s terrible lack of judgment, and Lady Jane only seventeen! She has quite a lot of Summerfield’s joie de vivre in her. Quite unlike her sister, mmm?”

“Mmm,” Phoebe agreed wearily.

“Would that you had been nearby when Lady Alice was discovered in the gazebo with the awful smithy!” Susan whispered, her voice even softer as she took up the tiny hand of her charge, Lady Elizabeth. “If the party had not happened upon them at the precise moment that it did, they might have found the pair in far worse circumstances.”

Phoebe knew the circumstances and how easily one could get swept up in her feelings, how quickly the strictures a woman had been taught to uphold melted away with a man’s touch, a kiss. She glanced at Alice across the shop, quietly examining a pair of gloves. Phoebe’s heart went out to her.

When the ladies had finally settled on their masks, they proceeded out of the shop, flowing like a river to the next shop. Alice was the last to leave; Phoebe followed her, and almost collided with Alice’s back when she stepped outside. Alice had come to a dead halt. The footmen, Phoebe noticed, were watching the ladies. Phoebe glanced at Alice again and noticed she was staring at something across the street.

Phoebe stepped up beside her and followed her gaze. She saw Mr. Hughes then, on the village green. He was leaning over a woman whose back was against a tree. She was smiling up at him, and he at her. There was no mistaking the look between them—to an innocent bystander, they looked like a young couple in love.

Phoebe didn’t speak. She didn’t even look at Alice. But she slipped her hand into Alice’s.

Alice never spoke, never so much as looked at Phoebe. But she closed her fingers tightly around Phoebe’s and clung to her.

W ith only a few days of the fortnight remaining, Will was caught up in the hunting, the lawn games, and because of the unusual heat, blanket parties at night, as they were being called.

He saw Phoebe only twice during that time. Once, when Miss Dumbarton brought her down from her workroom and out onto the lawn. He was alarmed at how fatigued Phoebe looked.

While most of the group chased a ball across the lawn during a disorderly game of lawn bowling, Will found a moment to speak to her. His eyes searched her face. “Are you all right?” he asked as she wiped her forehead. “You seem fatigued.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I am presented with difficulties when it comes to making a few masks,” she said, and gave him a weary smile before watching the game again. “I’ve never made them—but I am learning.”

“I have regretted our last conversation,” he said quietly.

Her sigh lifted her shoulders. She glanced at him sidelong and smiled a little lopsidedly. “We’ve made quite a mess of things, haven’t we?” she said sadly. “If I had it to do all over again, I would—”

“Please,” he said quickly, fearing she would say she would never have come to him in the gazebo that night, and realizing that hearing it would wound him deeply. “Do not say it.”

Her lips parted; her brow furrowed with confusion. Will felt his heart twist in his chest. He’d never meant this, he’d never meant to harm her—he would sooner die than know he’d harmed her. “Phoebe,” he said, a bit desperately, “there is something I feel I must say—”

“Summerfield!”

The voice of Fremont startled them both; they turned toward him as he hurried to Will’s side. “Come down, then, you must see what Mr. Ellison found at the edge of the gardens!” he called eagerly.

“I beg your pardon?” Will asked, trying to get his bearings.

“A snake, Summerfield! Ellison found a remarkable specimen!” Fremont exclaimed happily. “He saved Miss Waters from certain harm!”

“I am certain he did,” Will drawled, and glanced at Phoebe, but she’d already moved away.

He did not see her again until Wednesday afternoon, and even then, in the company of Miss Dumbarton and the two Duckworth children. Miss Dumbarton chatted so much that Will thought he would go mad. He wanted only to speak to Phoebe, not listen to some tale of two ill-behaved children.

“They have permission to attend the ball for one hour,” Miss Dumbarton informed Will as the children kicked a ball along the edge of the terrace. “It seems as if everyone shall be there but Madame Dupree. Can you imagine it, my lord? That after all her effort to make the family masks, adjust the masks, adorn the masks—she will not attend?”