“Checking on my investment,” the duke drawled. “It’s raining, MacLeish. Let me in and put a civil tongue in your head while you’re at it.”
Both men disappeared inside.
“Are you coming?” Lady Phoebe called from inside the carriage. “You’re letting the rain in.”
“I apologize, my lady,” he murmured as he settled himself then knocked his cane against the carriage roof.
The conveyance rocked forward.
“You’re the most exasperating man, you know,” Lady Phoebe said conversationally.
“Hmm,” Trevillion replied distractedly.
He rubbed the calf of his lame leg. The damp, cold weather was making it ache. He could think of several reasons Valentine Napier, the Duke of Montgomery, might be visiting Miss Dinwoody.
Sadly, not one of them was good.
“I think you’re doing it apurpose,” Lady Phoebe muttered darkly.
Trevillion pulled himself from his musings to attend to matters closer at hand. “I beg your pardon, my lady. I couldn’t help but notice that you had made plans with Mr. MacLeish. Might I hear what they are?”
She wrinkled her nose so adorably that he found himself catching his breath. “I’m meeting him at Harte’s Folly tomorrow afternoon.”
He straightened at the information. “I don’t think—”
“If you remember, that’s where I met Mr. MacLeish in the first place—when you brought me to Harte’s Folly several months ago.”
“I was there about business,” he said stiffly. “And if you recall, it wasn’t entirely my idea that you accompany me. My lady.”
She waved an airy hand. “Pishposh. Mr. MacLeish said he’d show me the new plantings and where he plans to build his theater. I’m going and that’s final.”
“Not,” he growled, “if I make your brother aware of your intentions.”
“Sometimes I simply loathe you, you know,” she breathed, her color high.
His heart stumbled. “Yes, I am aware, my lady.”
“I don’t…” She shook her head. “I don’t mean it like that. You know that, James.”
Why was she calling him by his Christian name? The last time, in the carriage earlier, had been to goad him, he knew. This time… he had no idea what she could mean by it. Perhaps nothing at all. Perhaps it was just another of her many whims, something he should just ignore. If it weren’t for the fact that every time she used his Christian name he felt a jolt somewhere in his chest. No one had called him by his first name in years.
Which was probably why his next words came out sounding especially cold. “It hardly matters what you think of me, my lady—”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. Because however you feel about me, I shall continue to protect you. No matter what, my lady.”
“Well,” she said, and oddly enough his nearly cruel words had made her perk up. “We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?”
THAT EVENING PHOEBE descended the stairs to dinner accompanied by two dogs. One of Maximus’s greyhounds pressed against her left side and Bon Bon, Artemis’s fluffy little lapdog, pranced about her feet.
“Careful, my lady,” came the voice of her guardian from behind her on the stairs.
Phoebe felt her heart leap a little, as if she’d missed a step, though she most definitely hadn’t.
She clutched the marble railing. “I’m always careful.”
“Not always, I’m afraid, my lady.” His voice was closer and she heard the thump of his cane on the marble of the steps.
“Perhaps you ought to be careful yourself, Captain,” she said as she continued her descent. “These stairs can’t be good for your leg.”
In a rare instance of thinking before she spoke, she didn’t tell him she could hear that his limp was heavier after he’d been on the stairs.
Naturally he didn’t reply to that. Instead he said, “Shoo.”
She stopped. “I beg your pardon?”
“Shoo,” he repeated, even more sternly.
She heard the scamper of dog claws on marble as both animals went on ahead of her. “Why did you do that? I like Bon Bon and Belle.”
“Actually, I think that was Starling, my lady,” Trevillion replied. “And though they like you as well, it wouldn’t stop them from accidentally tripping you.”
She sighed heavily in lieu of an answer and stepped down onto the ground floor. “Will you be dining with us tonight, Captain?” She held out her hand and his left arm immediately slipped beneath her fingers, solid and warm. “I believe that Maximus has deigned to drag himself away from whatever business he’s preoccupied with at the moment and will be with us tonight. He’ll need your masculine support.”
“Very well, then, my lady,” Trevillion replied. “I shall attend dinner.”
“Lovely.” She grinned, feeling giddy for no reason at all, really. Trevillion might not dine with them all that often, but she did spend time with him every day.
And since when had dining with her guard made her lighthearted?
He ushered her into the dining room and Phoebe immediately heard Artemis’s and Cousin Bathilda’s voices. “Is Maximus here yet?”
“Yes, Phoebe, I am,” her brother’s deep voice came from the head of the table.
“And a good thing, too,” Artemis said serenely. “I was contemplating setting fire to your study.”
“You’d have help from me if you did,” Cousin Bathilda announced.
“Pax, ladies,” Maximus said. He sounded in good cheer this evening, Phoebe thought as Trevillion helped her to sit to the left of her brother. Trevillion himself was on her own left. “We have both pheasant and salmon to feast on tonight. Let us enjoy.”
Phoebe felt for the table’s edge and then her plate. There was a shallow bowl on the plate and she realized she’d already been served the soup.
“And what did you do today, my wife?” Maximus began in what Phoebe privately thought of as his Member of Parliament Voice.
“I did some shopping and then visited Lily in the afternoon.” Lily was Artemis’s new sister-in-law, recently married to her twin brother, Apollo.
“And how is she?”
“She’s started writing a new play.”
“Oh, has she?” Phoebe cut in. “How marvelous! What’s it about?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.” Artemis sounded a bit peeved. Few people turned down a duchess. “But she’s been writing furiously. There was a smudge of ink on her forehead when I went to see her, and their dog—you remember Daffodil?”
“I do indeed.” Daffodil had attacked her knees when she’d gone to Harte’s Folly last. Phoebe took a sip of the soup and found it to be a lovely oxtail.
“Daffodil had ink all down her tail for some reason.”
Phoebe smiled at the thought. “I shall have to tell Miss Dinwoody that Lily is writing again. We were just discussing her today. Mr. MacLeish was quite disappointed that Lily had decided to retire from the stage in favor of her writing.”
She took another sip of soup and was savoring it so much that it was a moment before she realized the table had gone silent.
“Who,” her brother said, sounding as if he were at least five and eighty and near apoplexy to boot, “are Mr. MacLeish and Miss Dinwoody?”
She put down her soup spoon carefully. “He’s the architect designing the new buildings for Harte’s Folly. He was at Miss Dinwoody’s tea. Or rather salon, I think. It was such an interesting discussion! All about the latest plays and the actors and who was arguing with whom and the soprano who is under the protection of a royal duke but might be in love with her theater manager.”
She stopped suddenly to take a deep breath.
“Phoebe,” Maximus said slowly, and her heart absolutely sank. “You haven’t told me who Miss Dinwoody is.”
“We met her at the Ladies’ Syndicate,” Artemis hastily cut in. “You remember I told you about the new prospect Lady Caire brought to the meeting?”
“I remem
ber you told me she had no background, no people,” Maximus said.
Phoebe could feel the pressure, just under her breastbone, bubbling up. “What does that matter? Why do you have to know the background of everyone I meet?”
“It matters,” he snapped back, “because you are my sister and for all we know she’s a kept woman herself.”
“Oh, now Maximus,” Cousin Bathilda objected. “Surely not if she’s a protégée of Lady Caire’s.”
“I blame you, Trevillion—”
“Oh no you don’t!” Phoebe was shaking now. “I’ll not have you shoving my actions onto him as if I’m an idiot.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t act like an idiot—”
“By going to tea with a friend?”
“A friend we don’t know—”
“You mean you don’t know,” Phoebe said, her heart beating faster and faster.
“What difference—”
“Because I don’t care, Maximus. I don’t bloody care where Miss Dinwoody came from!” She heard a sharp inhalation from someone, but she couldn’t stop. She loved her brother—he was years older than she and had always cared for and protected her, but she simply couldn’t stand this anymore. The frustration, the fear, and the anger were all frothing up, steaming over, burning everything in their path. She stood, knocking something off the table. China smashed on the floor. “She’s my friend, not yours, Maximus, and I deserve friends. I deserve to run and trip and fall without having my every move plotted and planned and… and tied down so that I never, ever risk living. I’ve never—”
“Phoebe, you know that—”
“Don’t interrupt me!” Her screamed words were loud and terrible and hurt her throat. “I never even had a damned season. No new gowns, no new friends, no new beaux. You wouldn’t let me. You keep me hidden and swathed like an elderly aunt with dementia. It’s a wonder I haven’t gone insane in the last several years.” She laughed, wild and unseemly, bile pouring from her mouth. “I can’t breathe, do you understand me? You can’t do this to me anymore, Maximus, you simply can’t! I loathe what you’ve made me into and, Maximus, soon—very soon—I’ll loathe you, too.”
Her chest was heaving, her face hot and wet with tears, her breath rasping in her throat. She stood for a moment, no doubt looking like a deranged woman, but it didn’t matter, did it? She couldn’t see what she looked like.
She sobbed a laugh at the thought, the sound loud in the sudden silence.
“Phoebe,” Artemis whispered.
She thought she felt masculine fingers on her wrist—from her left, not her right. Trevillion.
But it was too late now. Much too late.
She turned and ran from the room.
Chapter Five
Near the shore were sharp rocks and the ship broke upon them, casting the enthralled men into the merciless sea. Each one of the dozen brave men was caught and dragged deep, deep below by the sea maidens. But as the emerald-eyed maiden reached for Corineus, pity flickered across her pale face. As Corineus watched, she turned into a great white horse with cloven hooves, sharp fangs, and eyes of deepest green.…
—From The Kelpie
Trevillion watched Lady Phoebe rush from the room and tamped down an urge to punch her brother.
“I’ll go after her,” the duchess said, rising.
“No.” Everyone in the room looked at him. Trevillion inclined his head. “Please, Your Grace. I’ll go.”
She stared at him a moment, her gray eyes unnervingly perceptive, before she reseated herself. “Very well, Captain.”
The duke’s fists were clenched on top of the table, his knuckles white. “Trevillion—”
His wife placed her hand on one of his fists and simply looked at him. Apparently they shared some sort of marital communication that was purely mental, for after a moment the duke grunted, his grip relaxing, and nodded.
Trevillion rose at once, his stick thumping against the floor as he tracked his charge.
There was no sign of her in the hallway. She might’ve fled upstairs to her rooms, but he rather thought not.
He turned to the back of the house, toward the garden.
Outside, the sun had long set. Trevillion made his way down the wide granite steps, still damp from this afternoon’s shower, and into the grass before her flower garden. He could see, just dimly, a pale shape standing very still in front of the garden.
Lady Phoebe had worn a white dress to dinner.
“My lady,” he called low, careful not to startle her.
The shape turned.
“Have they sent you after me, Captain?” Her voice was thick from weeping.
The thought made his chest tighten. She saw him as the enemy, he knew—her brother’s creature, her keeper—but he couldn’t help but want—need—to try to make it better.
She shouldn’t feel like a caged bird, not his Phoebe.
“I came of my own volition.” He had caught up to her now and could see the pale moon of her face, upturned toward his.
“Truly?” She wiped at her cheek like a little girl.
The problem was, she wasn’t a little girl anymore. And no matter how he’d tried, he’d never thought of her as one. “Truly.”
She sighed forlornly. “Will you walk with me?”
“Yes, my lady.”
She laid her hand on his arm. “I suppose I ought to go in and apologize to Maximus.”
He didn’t reply, but privately he thought that there was no pressing need for her to do so.
The gravel grated under his boots.
“Careful,” she warned. “There’s a turn just here.”
And he realized with a sense of amusement that in this place at this time she was the one who led, not he. “Thank you, my lady.”
“Not at all, Captain.”
The scent of roses, heady and nearly overwhelming, washed over his senses, and he knew at once where they were. At the back of the garden was a bower overgrown with white roses, the blooms full and heavy, hanging luxuriously. It was a sweet place in the day.
At night it was a wonderland.
“Let’s sit.” Lady Phoebe’s voice was still hoarse from shouting.
He lowered himself to the stone bench that sat beneath the bower, stretching out his lame leg to give it ease. Lady Phoebe settled next to him, a discreet couple of inches between them.
He saw the movement in the dark as she tipped back her head, her face raised to the roses. “Do you ever feel constrained?”
“Of course, my lady.”
“Really?” She turned to him. “How strange. I’ve always thought a man like you—capable, intelligent, and with a strong will—would simply do as he liked.”
“Everyone has times or situations when they are not allowed to do something, my lady,” he said gently. “Those who are not born into ducal families most especially, perhaps.”
She snorted. “You must think me naïve.”
“No, my lady. Merely young.”
“And you are an ancient Methuselah, so wise and worn from all your labors.”
“I fear you mock my gray hairs, my lady,” he said.
“You don’t have gray hairs!” She sounded quite indignant.
“I vow I do, my lady.”
“I’ll ask Artemis tomorrow, you know, and she’ll tell me if you do or not.”
“And yet I do not fear Her Grace’s information.”
“No, of course you don’t.” She huffed a laugh. “I’m beginning to think you don’t fear anything at all.”
“In that you would be wrong, my lady,” he said, remembering the shame he’d felt when last he’d seen his childhood home.
There was a pause and he wondered where her quicksilver mind had darted.
Her voice whispered in the darkness, “When were you not allowed to do something, James?”
His name on her lips made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He inhaled… and found himself telling her honestly. “Years ago. I wanted to stay in Cornwall
, but… circumstances made that impossible. So I was forced to join the dragoons.”
She shifted closer, her shoulder brushing his. “What circumstances?”
He shook his head. That old tragedy was too personal and brought nothing but painful memories.
She couldn’t see the movement, but she must’ve realized that he wasn’t going to answer that. “But you didn’t want to join the dragoons?”
“No.”
“How strange,” she breathed. “I always had the notion that you loved being a soldier.”
“I did, but not at first.” He remembered that wild despair. His firm resolve to take the only action left to him. “I never wanted to be a soldier. It was a cruel blow, but in the end I did learn to like my service.”
She leaned back against the bench. “There were the horses. I would think that would help.”
He peered at her, but the darkness thwarted his attempt to see her face. How had she known that he loved horses? “They did,” he said slowly. “That and the men. They came from all over England, but we found a common ground in fighting the iniquities of St Giles.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Yes.” He closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of roses and things lost. But that was maudlin. He wasn’t a man to spend his life looking backward. “I can still ride, though. Despite the leg. Despite the pain. For that I am grateful.”
She exhaled. “And I can still garden. Despite the loss of my sight. Should I be grateful for that?”
He knew he should step carefully, but perhaps that was part of the problem: others treated her with kid gloves. Didn’t give her the respect of adulthood. “Yes, I think you should be grateful for whatever you can still do. For whatever new things you might find you can do.”
“I am grateful,” she admitted. “But I want more. So much more.”
“Your sight.”
“No.” Her voice was loud with her vehemence. “I know I will never regain my sight. There’s no use endlessly pining for it—I already spent years doing that. Maximus brought in doctors from all over Europe and beyond. I was dosed with the most hideous potions, had stinging drops placed in my eyes, took baths in freezing water and hot concoctions, and each time I thought: maybe this time. Maybe my sight will return. Maybe just a little—a little, please God, I would be content with a little. Only it never did. Not even a little.”