The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (8 page)

“Oh, I mean no disrespect, my lord! I am certain it will be as charming as the other rooms when you have refinished,” the woman said brightly. “But the color is atrocious. And the drapes!” She shook her head.

The drapes were indeed awful, Phoebe had to agree.

“Rather reminds one of what might be worn to a funeral dirge,” the third one said, and the women laughed.

Standing behind them, Phoebe put her hand over her mouth in shock. They didn’t realize the room had already been redone—but all they had to do was take one look at Summerfield’s face to know it. He looked quite disconcerted as he stared at the drapes.

“Summerfield, really! It will all be put to rights once you’ve put your magic touch to it!” Mrs. Remington avowed when at last she noticed his pained expression.

“I beg your pardon, madam, but I have put my ‘magic touch’ to it. I oversaw the decoration of this room myself.”

That remark sucked the air right out of the room. The three women gaped at him. The room was suddenly so quiet, Phoebe could hear one woman’s rapid breathing.

“It’s…it’s beautiful,” Mrs. Remington said, trying desperately to recover. “Quite extraordinary, really. Is it perhaps the style in Egypt?” she asked, her facial expression full of hope.

“No,” Summerfield said, and calmly clasped his hands behind his back, forcing a smile. “It’s rather warm here, wouldn’t you agree? I suggest we repair to the terrace. Farley? The lemonade, if you please. And if you would be so good as to show the ladies to the terrace, I shall be along momentarily.”

“Yes, my lord. Ladies?” Farley said, gesturing toward the door.

The three of them floated out, each of them gamely trying to compliment something on their way.

When they had left, Summerfield looked at Phoebe.

She drew a deep breath. “I…I was just going,” she said, and turned toward the door.

“One moment, if you please.”

She winced, then turned around. “My lord?”

“What color?” he asked, gesturing to the walls.

She looked around the room. “A buttery yellow.”

“Thank you,” he said, and turned to study the walls as Phoebe quietly fled.

P hoebe had a rather stern talk with herself that afternoon. She was to put the terribly alluring Lord Summerfield from her mind before she made a complete cake of herself.

And she tried to do just that for several days.

Unfortunately, Frieda made it impossible. The girl was constantly at the window reporting on the steady stream of callers. It seemed the household rumors were true—there was no shortage of anxious mothers and weary fathers vying for Summerfield’s attentions. When Frieda wasn’t reporting on who was calling, or that Summerfield and his brothers had ridden off, dressed properly, “to have a look at the ladies,” her brown eyes glittered and her slender hands flew across the fabrics she sewed as she talked incessantly about Charles, who had taken certain liberties with her recently that an ebullient Frieda was not the least bit shy to share.

Such visual images of intimacy between a man and woman only made Phoebe think of Summerfield more.

Unfortunately for Frieda, however, once she had given Charles such liberties, he wasn’t quite as keen to court her.

“Why is it,” she asked as she squinted at a seam she was stitching, “that a man will behave in such a bloody ill way? I gave him a poke as he wanted! Oh, I know better, I swear I do, but you know how it is, eh?” she asked Phoebe in all seriousness. “Sometimes a lass is made helpless when a lad touches her in the right way, ain’t she?”

Phoebe did not answer and, in fact, hid behind the wire dress form where she was pinning a dress for Alice. What she knew about such touching was woefully little.

If Frieda wasn’t nattering on, Alice and Jane were in the room arguing. Not a day passed that they didn’t come to the workroom to engage in some ridiculous debate about fabrics and styles. Phoebe was eager to be done with the two young women—she’d never met more unruly and wildly inappropriate young women in her life. They were beasts! There was not a kinder thing that could be said of them.

Yet in spite of her inappropriate thoughts of Summerfield, and Frieda’s distracting chatter, and the constant need to mediate between the two sisters, who seemed to have nothing better to do than interfere with her work, Phoebe made some significant progress in the first week.

But on the seventh day, all her hard work began to unravel.

It began when Mrs. Turner apologetically informed Phoebe that Frieda was needed elsewhere that afternoon. She also informed Phoebe that Summerfield had just that morning decreed a supper party would be held at Wentworth Hall in a week or so to honor the Remingtons, a landed family with two bachelor sons. “He is very hopeful for the girls’ prospects,” Mrs. Turner said with a wince that suggested she was not quite as hopeful.

Neither was Phoebe.

An hour later, both Alice and Jane burst into Phoebe’s workroom.

“Madame Dupree!” Jane cried. “I must have the green gown completed before week’s end!”

“For God’s sake, Jane!” Alice snapped, shoving her sister out of her way like a common ruffian. “I am the oldest!” She jerked her gaze to Phoebe. “You shall finish my gown, the lavender one, and the shawl you said you would make to go with it.”

“I was here first, Alice!” Jane shouted, shoving her sister back.

“Stop that, both of you!” Phoebe insisted. “I haven’t even begun the evening gowns! I cannot possibly finish them in time, so might I suggest that you—”

“But you can finish one, and it shall be mine!” Alice snapped.

With a shriek, Jane hit her sister. Phoebe was instantly between them, holding her arms out to keep them from one another’s throats. “I will not finish a single gown until you behave like ladies!”

“What gall you have to tell us how to behave!” Alice said angrily.

“Mark me, ladies, it will hardly matter what you are wearing if you behave like street ruffians! No man shall want you, no man shall offer, nor will either of you deserve an offer!”

Jane cried out, Alice looked absolutely shocked, and poor Frieda—Phoebe thought she might faint dead away.

But Alice quickly regained her composure. “I beg your pardon?” she seethed, turning on Phoebe. “Oh, I shall delight in having your position, you stupid chit! You will not work again in this county, I assure you!”

“You may trust that I will not,” Phoebe shot back. “Lady Alice, forgive me for saying so, but you have a tendency to behave in a manner that makes you quite unattractive—”

“Dear God, you have lost your mind!” Alice shrieked. Behind her, a wide-eyed Frieda furiously nodded her agreement that Phoebe had lost her mind.

“I am only attempting to be honest in order to help you—”

“I think you had best pack your trunk, Madame Dupree,” Alice said in a ragged voice, and flounced from the room.

Phoebe sighed and looked at Jane. Jane was rooted to the floor, her bottom lip trembling, her eyes filled with tears. “Lady Jane—”

“No!” Jane said with a quick and violent shake of her head. “You are very foolish! You act above yourself and you are but a servant in this house! I hope Will tosses you out as you deserve!” she cried, and whirled about, running after her sister.

Phoebe threw down the fabric she was still holding, exasperated.

“Oh, Phoebe!” Frieda said fearfully. “He’ll turn you out, he will!”

“I hardly care if he does, Frieda! Those two young women have crawled out from beneath a rock, and I shouldn’t care if they are properly clothed or not! Never in my life have I met more ill-mannered people!”

Her breath was coming in angry spurts. How could she possibly have convinced herself this ruse would work? Honestly, at the moment, she hardly cared. She would rather be exposed to the entire ton than endure another moment of Alice or Jane Darby.

“His lordship sent Charlie’s brother off for much less,” Frieda said tearfully. “Oh Lord, where will you go?”

“I hardly know or care,” Phoebe said imperiously. “Wherever I go shall be more peaceful than this house can ever hope to be!” And with that, she marched into the adjoining room to pack her things.

When a grim-faced Farley came for her later, Phoebe was dressed in her best traveling gown and her trunk was packed.

Farley paused at her door, glanced quickly over his shoulder, and then whispered, “What happened?”

“What happened, Mr. Farley, is that those two young ladies are the most ill-mannered, boorish, despicable—”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. Farley said hurriedly, stealing another glimpse over his shoulder as if he expected them to pounce on him at any moment—not an entirely unfounded fear—“but did you do something to one of them? Strike one’s face, perhaps? Kick a shin?”

Phoebe blinked. “Of course not! Did they claim that I did? No, Mr. Farley! I merely tried to stop them from hitting one another like the little barbarians they clearly are!”

“Yes, I am well aware, Madame Dupree…yet all that sobbing and you didn’t even strike them?” he asked again, clearly perplexed. But he quickly shook his head. “Never mind that now. His lordship would see you at once.”

“Excellent, for I should like a word with him before I leave,” Phoebe said sternly, and swept up her bonnet as she sailed through the door.

She marched down the hallway, practically running down the stairs ahead of Farley. He caught her at the second-floor landing with a hand to her arm. “At least allow me to tell you where you might find his lordship,” he suggested.

Right. Phoebe gestured impatiently for Mr. Farley to lead the way. He led her to the ground floor of the east wing. At a pair of smooth mahogany doors, he paused and glanced at Phoebe. “A word of advice, madam. Let him do the talking. He seems to chat himself around to a fair disposition.”

“Thank you,” she said, but she had no intention of putting herself at Summerfield’s mercy.

Farley rapped lightly, opened one of the doors, stepped inside, and announced, “Madame Dupree, my lord.”

Phoebe did not wait for his summons. Her head high, she swept past Farley and stepped onto a thick wool rug in a richly—yet oddly—appointed study. Summerfield was seated behind his desk and hastily rose when he saw her.

“Please do not bother yourself, my lord,” Phoebe said proudly. “I will not give you any trouble, but I cannot, in good conscience, leave here without telling you that even if your sisters are dressed in the finest clothing your money can possibly purchase, they will not receive offers, for they have the manners of a pair of apes.”

Summerfield’s eyes widened with surprise. He put a hand on his waist. “Apes?” he repeated incredulously.

“I do beg your pardon, but I cannot possibly put it more kindly than that,” Phoebe said. “They argue constantly, they push and shove like street ruffians, and they are churlish.”

“Aha,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Please do not look at me like that,” she said, unable to read his expression. Where she expected anger, indignation, he almost looked…amused. “I only tell you this to save you quite a lot of pain, my lord. If you put those two young women into society without some lessons in propriety and etiquette, you and they will become the laughingstocks of this county,” she said, sweeping her arm wide.

“As bad as that?” he asked with a bit of a wince.

“I fear even worse,” Phoebe exclaimed dramatically, and carelessly dropped her bonnet onto a chair. “I pray you never take them to London, for they’d be devoured by the ton,” she said fearlessly as Summerfield moved around his desk and perched his hip on the corner of it, his arms folded across his chest. “You cannot possibly know the things that are said about untoward ladies there, sir—”

“Madame Dupree—” he started, but Phoebe was too agitated to stop now.

“Oh, you may save your breath, my lord,” she said, waving a hand at him as she began to pace. “I am well aware that my actions have been just as reprehensible, and I realize the irony of speaking to you of your sisters’ behavior when, in fact, I have behaved just as abominably. I should be quite disappointed if you do not dismiss me at once. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of packing my things.” She paused and unthinkingly picked up a wooden carving of a squat and naked man, and quickly set it down. Behind the oil lamp.

“Madam—”

“Really, I am still shaking at my loss of composure,” she said, thrusting her hand out for him to observe the shaking before clasping her hands together, horrified that they were, indeed, still shaking. “I am quite prepared to suffer the consequences. I have said enough. The fabric, of course, belongs to you, and I have left it in the workroom you were so kind to make available to me. I am certain Mrs. Ramsey can arrange for another modiste as soon as is humanly possible. There you are. I am ready to depart.”

She stood with her hands clasped at her waist, her chin high. She was, at least, dignified at her lowest moment. She rather imagined she seemed like Joan of Arc just now, facing her unavoidable and tragic fate. So why didn’t he dismiss her?

Summerfield stood up and walked toward her.

Phoebe, not understanding his intent—and thinking it potentially sinister, given her assessment of his sisters—stepped back. “I am dreadfully sorry for saying what I did to your sisters, but I have never been so willfully pushed, and I have indeed been pushed, for I have a sister who can be very imperious and a cousin who can be rather demanding, and I assure you, I am not so easily offended.”

“I rather suspect you are not,” he said, and put his hand on hers, which she held tightly clasped before her.

The touch of his hand sent an unexpected shiver through her. “Oh, I am not,” she said loudly. “It takes quite a lot to unhinge me, my lord—”

“Madame Dupree,” he said calmly, “might I please have your leave to speak?”

Phoebe blinked. She looked at his hand, large and brown, on her two smaller ones, and felt a strange pressure in her chest. It was astounding, really, that a man could seem so gracious and gentle, but at the same time exude the energy and strength of a beast. His energy dwarfed her.

She didn’t want to hear what he would say, didn’t want to hear his deep voice dismiss her, didn’t want to hear a man as exotic and intriguing as he remind her what a complete cake she had managed to become in his presence. Yet with his hand on hers, she could scarcely think, and nodded mutely.