The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (5 page)

A fter introducing Phoebe to the kitchen and a hot meal, Mr. Addison informed her that Ladies Alice and Jane were presently visiting their elderly cousin in Leicestershire and would not return until two days hence, so Phoebe should feel free to use the opportunity to clean and organize her workroom.

“Isn’t there anyone to help me?” she’d asked bleakly.

Addison had seemed taken aback by her question. “To scrub the floor?” he asked, as if he couldn’t conceive of her needing help for such a dreadful task.

“Oh, very well,” Phoebe had said, a little petulantly. “I suppose there is a first time for everything.”

She scrubbed the floors, swept the cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling, and washed the windows. She found a footman, Billy, who was more than happy to move the broken furniture from the room. And from Farley, the butler, Phoebe managed to extract a long worktable and three chairs.

The work was physically taxing—she’d no idea how hard servants worked until now. She was so exhausted that she rarely left the pair of rooms she had been given except to dine and to walk in the early morning. And each morning, she saw the wild horses, but try as she might to get close to them, they always shied away from her.

She thought of Summerfield often. She couldn’t seem to get him out of her mind. The delicious feel of him pressed against her and his lack of concern for propriety were incredibly intriguing. She thought of his handsome face, his arresting eyes, his broad hands, and that curious black line at his wrist. She’d never been so captivated by a man—and Lord knew she had been captivated by more than one at various points in her life: a footman when she was twelve; Mr. Frank Byers, the vicar’s son, who’d bought a commission in the army; and Lord Lithgow, whom she had admired from afar, as he was, unfortunately, happily married.

But Summerfield had seized her imagination like no one ever had, which led her to think of him in more intimate terms.

At work in her rooms at the top of the house, Phoebe could see the comings and goings at Wentworth Hall, and there was quite a lot of coming and going. In addition to Summerfield—who would ride out, hatless, bent over the neck of his mount as if he were in a race—Phoebe saw two more men. Because both of them were similar in build and had the same golden hair as Summerfield, she assumed they were related. On one occasion, she heard arguing and walked to the window to see Summerfield calmly standing in the drive with hands on his hips as one of the other men railed about something that had him greatly agitated.

There was quite a lot of arguing in this house, she’d noticed. She could hardly keep away from it—she heard it through the flue and from the servants she had begun to befriend.

Mrs. Turner, Wentworth’s housekeeper, was a jolly woman. She arrived at Phoebe’s room on the afternoon of her first day at the hall with Frieda, a chambermaid, in tow. Frieda, Mrs. Turner explained, was to help Phoebe with the sewing and whatnot. Frieda smiled meekly and curtsied awkwardly. She looked to be about the same age as Phoebe. Her hair, a grayish brown, peeked out from beneath her worn cap, and she wore a black gown, as did all the chambermaids. Her eyes, however, were large and almond shaped, richly brown, and very expressive.

When Mrs. Turner left, Frieda instantly relaxed. “God blind me!” she swore, taking one of the chairs without being asked. “I thought she meant to punish me with all this talk of needles. I don’t care for needlework in the least, I’ll have ye know.”

“Oh?” Phoebe said, uncertain what to say to that.

“Oooh, quite lovely,” Frieda said, eyeing the bolts of fabric Phoebe had stacked neatly on a small console table. “All for the brats, are they? Ye might nick a little for us, eh?”

Phoebe gasped.

Surprised, Frieda laughed and clucked her tongue. “You’ve never kept a bit back for yourself? They must pay a decent wage to you in London, then, by the look of your fancy clothing.”

Phoebe looked down at the gown she’d made herself. It was the color of the golden wheat that grew at Broderick Abbey, the Marquis of Middleton’s county seat. “I’ve certainly not kept anything for myself! And there will be no nicking of anything,” she said sternly, forgetting, for a moment, that she was not a lady in this house.

“All right, all right,” Frieda said congenially. “You hail from London, then?” she continued as she stretched her legs in front of her, propping them on another chair. “I’ve been to London, I have,” she said, and began to recite everything she’d ever heard of London, most of it confirmed in the one visit she had made with her father. When Phoebe did finally induce Frieda to pick up a broom—by slapping the girl’s feet from the chair—Frieda swept efficiently as she rattled on about a footman named Charles with whom she was apparently smitten—and intimately familiar.

Phoebe was shocked and riveted by Frieda’s chatter. She’d never heard a woman speak so freely of her personal and physical relations with a man. Even Ava, who had never been shy about her body, blushed and stammered when she hinted about her physical relationship with her husband.

Not Frieda—the girl talked as if she had known a variety of men in the biblical way.

Fortunately, Mrs. Turner returned the second day to lend a hand with the cleaning—which prompted Frieda to be a bit more helpful and less talkative. Mrs. Turner, however, chatted freely about the happenings at the hall. Phoebe liked the rotund Mrs. Turner very much. She had a cheerful spirit and kind manner about her, and from her Phoebe learned that Summerfield had been gone from home for more than six years in pursuit of a variety of daring activities.

“What sort?” Phoebe asked.

“Oh, to hear Mr. Addison tell it, all that a body might do,” Mrs. Turner said. “Climbing the Himlains, for one.”

“The Himlains…do you mean the Himalayan mountains?”

“Aye, that’s it. And he sailed around the Mediterranean on a merchant ship, just like my grandfather done. The ship wrecked, too, you know. He almost drowned. But his lordship saved a dozen sailors if he saved one. Addison told me all about it.”

Phoebe gaped at Mrs. Turner.

“Oh! And the dromedaries!” Mrs. Turner continued. “They rode dromedaries through the Egyptian desert with all the heathens there, all just to see some ancient ruins or some such.” She snorted. “As if we’ve not enough ruins here to gaze at. But it was in India that he received the mark of the beast.”

“The what?” Phoebe asked, spellbound.

Mrs. Turner glanced at her. “Haven’t seen it, eh?” She pointed to her wrist. “It’s just here. Addison says it is a marking from India. It was an awful thing to have done, if you ask me. Seems almost sacrilegious.”

“Goodness and mercy,” Frieda exclaimed.

It didn’t seem sacrilegious to Phoebe. It seemed beautiful. She stared at Mrs. Turner as her mind’s eye filled with images of Summerfield hanging from a mountaintop, or at the helm of a ship, sailing through dangerous seas while monstrous waves and howling winds tossed and turned the ship about and then pulling sailors from the water.

“His lordship has a devilish curiosity,” Mrs. Turner said. “He would have gone to China next had the old earl not taken a bad turn when he did.”

“You’ve been at Wentworth for a time, eh?” Frieda asked.

“More years than I’d like to admit,” Mrs. Turner said jovially. “Save the year there were no servants. I came back just as soon as his lordship asked, though, for I was brought on as a chambermaid, just like you, Frieda.” She paused in the scrubbing of the window sash. “That was such a lovely time, when his lordship was a boy and his mother was alive. But when he grew older, he became quite restless, as young men are wont to do. The old earl sent him on his way, told him to have done with it, and come home when he had.” She stared wistfully out the window. “He came home, all right—a changed man, to my way of thinking. He’s not like us now.”

“How do you mean?” Phoebe asked. “Like who?”

“Like country people,” Mrs. Turner said. “But I mean nothing by it. Just that he has different sensibilities, that’s all. He holes up in his room with his things from his travels, and he wears that awful necklace beneath his neckcloth.”

“Perhaps he still has a bit of wanderlust in him,” Frieda said. “But what a handsome man Lord Summerfield grew to be, eh? Handsome as the devil.”

“Handsome and possessing a fortune that makes him the most desired bachelor this county has seen in a century,” Mrs. Turner said, to which she and Frieda laughed. “On my honor, I’ve not seen so many callers in all my years at Wentworth Hall as I’ve seen since Summerfield’s return. I cannot imagine there are so many unmarried young ladies in all of England as there are in Bedfordshire at present. And they seem not to care a lick that he’s a heathen.”

“Why should they?” Frieda said with a snort. “The man’s fortune is grand enough that they might forgive a mark or two.”

The two women burst into laughter again.

“How will that poor man ever choose a wife among them?” Mrs. Turner asked as she returned to the window sash. “And he will choose, do not doubt me. It is the old earl’s dying wish to see him married.”

“Farley said he won’t marry until the renovations are done and Lady Alice and Lady Jane are married off, for he fears they would frighten a new wife unto death,” Frieda offered.

“Ach, those two!” Mrs. Turner said with a cluck of her tongue. “And the boys! What trouble they bring to this family! Mr. Joshua Darby is too old to be cavorting about as he does, if you ask me.”

“That one is a bad seed. Did you hear that he refused to pay his debt after a game of cards?” Frieda whispered.

“They argue terribly,” Mrs. Turner said with a sigh. “Lord Summerfield is trying to make Joshua into a gentleman, but…” She glanced at Phoebe and suddenly straightened. “Frieda,” Mrs. Turner said sternly. “Madame Dupree has not had the pleasure of meeting any of them yet, and it won’t do to speak ill of them.”

“Very well,” Frieda said cheerfully. “We’ll content ourselves by merely thinking it,” she said, and laughed when Mrs. Turner frowned at her.

It was too late—Phoebe’s mind was already reeling.

H er workroom cleaned and organized, Phoebe was putting together the wire forms she would use to model the sisters’ figures one morning, when Addison informed her that Lady Alice and Lady Jane would be presented to her at three o’clock.

In preparation, Phoebe laid out samples of all the fabrics that had been sent up from London when she heard an awful commotion in the hall—a sudden outburst of shrieking and pounding that made Phoebe believe someone was actually being harmed. She rushed out into the hall, and there, in the narrow hallway, the young woman she’d seen her first day here was hitting—hitting!—a young man who was wailing like a child.

Phoebe rushed forward and grabbed the young woman’s arm before she could slap him again. “Stop it!” she cried. “What in heaven’s name are you doing? Stop that before you hurt him!”

“She cannot hurt me!” the young man huffed angrily as he darted out of the young woman’s reach. “Papa shall hear of this, Jane! Mark me!” he bellowed as he ran down the corridor and disappeared down the stairs.

“Oh yes, run to Papa! What shall he do strapped in his chair, then?” she shouted after him as he raced away. She looked at Phoebe with eyes filled with tears and jerked her arm from Phoebe’s grasp. “I hate wretched Roger, I swear I do,” she whimpered.

“Lady Jane or Lady Alice?”

“Jane.”

“And wretched Roger?”

“My brother! He has no right to go into my things!”

“Of course not. But neither have you any right to hit him.”

“And what business is it of yours if she did?” a third voice asked.

Phoebe turned toward the sound of the woman’s voice. She could be none other than Alice—she looked so much like Jane, only taller and more slender than her younger sister. Her gown was too short for her lanky frame, and, like Jane’s gown, its style was dated.

With her arms folded defensively, Alice walked toward Phoebe. “You’re merely the seamstress, are you not?” she asked coolly as she halted before Phoebe. “You have no right to speak to my sister in such a manner. I could have you dismissed for it.”

Thankfully, Addison appeared at the top of the stairs before Alice could say more.

“Aha, Lady Alice, you have come after all!” he said cheerfully. “And here is Lady Jane, too.” He smiled, but Phoebe noticed that his smile did not quite reach his eyes. “I beg your pardon, Madame Dupree. His lordship desired to make the formal introductions, but he is receiving callers.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Frederick,” Alice said with a roll of her eyes. “If they think their Elizabeth has the slightest chance of marrying my brother, they are sadly mistaken.”

“That will be for his lordship to decide,” Addison said briskly, and gestured to the workroom. “Shall we?”

Alice sighed as if she were being asked to mount the gallows, and walked with great deliberation into the room. Jane straightened her gown and followed her sister.

Addison’s smile faded a little as he noticed Jane’s torn sleeve and mussed hair. “Oh dear, Lady Jane! What has happened?”

“Nothing!” she exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Why should you think anything has happened?” she asked as she swept past him and into the room.

Addison looked at Phoebe; Phoebe shook her head. He clamped his mouth shut and marched into the room, the tips of his ears blazing red.

Once inside, however, he did try to put a bright face on it. He introduced them all, and before she fell grace-lessly onto a chair, Lady Alice Summerfield inquired of Phoebe, “Aren’t you to curtsy?”

She was not going to care for Alice, that much was plain, but Phoebe forced herself to curtsy.

“Lady Alice and Lady Jane are preparing for their coming-out,” Addison said with false cheer. “Lady Alice is eighteen years old, and Lady Jane will be seventeen in two months’ time.”

“Both excellent ages for a debut,” Phoebe remarked.

“How would you possibly know?” Alice asked coldly. “Did you come out?”

“Lady Dupree makes gowns for debutantes, Alice,” Jane said pertly. With dark gold hair and green eyes, Jane was smaller and prettier than her sister. Or perhaps she only seemed prettier because she smiled.