To Distraction

  He hissed and went still, a tremor of unruly passion barely leashed rippling, a threat and a promise, over and through him.

  She arched again, blatantly inviting; she was scorched and open and so empty—she ached to feel him inside her, filling her, thrusting deep.

  “Tell me what you want.” The order rasped across her senses.

  Trapped in mindless need, she sobbed and squirmed, but he held her down.

  “Tell me. Say the words. Do you want to be ravished? Do you want me to ravish you?”

  “Yes!” The plea escaped her on a gasping sob as she fought to free her hands.

  But he held them down, held her trapped beneath him in the dark as he covered her lips with his and ravished her mouth, covered her, and thrust deep into her body.

  She cried out—in pleasure, not pain—tried to arch and meet his next thrust but with his body hard and hot, unyielding and powerful, he allowed her not even that much sway.

  In the dark, freed by her plea, her wanton invitation, he rode her hard and deep, filling her body, overwhelming her senses.

  Ravishing her in truth.

  And all she could do—all he let her do—was rejoice in the primitive taking, in the powerful, unfettered act. And glory in the raw passion that drove him, the greedy, needful hunger, the stark, undeniable evidence of his desire for her.

  As her senses tightened, coalesced and started the now familiar climb, she shuddered, gasped, and embraced all he gave her. She might be the one ravished, but he was giving more than taking…or perhaps his taking was a form of giving.

  That was the last semicoherent thought she had as with one shatteringly deep thrust he brought glory crashing down on her. Sent her spinning into the golden void, then with a guttural shout, he joined her.

  They clung, lips touching, brushing, fingers tangling and clutching as they struggled to gasp, to breathe as the storm winds of passion buffeted them, wracked them, as desire raked one last time, then receded.

  And left them exhausted, wrung out, flung like flotsam and jetsam on some distant shore, together, still whole, yet irrefutably changed.

  Phoebe still felt faintly skittish, uncertain of just what had changed and how, when she arrived at the agency that afternoon to discuss placements with Emmeline.

  Deverell was there, long legs stretched out under the table, the agency’s account books scattered before him; he looked up as she walked in, met her eyes—rapidly read them, then smiled. At her, for her. A private, knowing, yet reassuring smile.

  Without conscious thought, her lips curved in response. Inclining her head, she swung off her cloak and dropped it on a chair. “Well, then.” She slipped into the chair beside Emmeline, next to Deverell. “Let’s get started. Has Loftus found anything that might be suitable for Miss Spry?”

  Deverell returned to his books, and she gave her attention to Emmeline.

  Ten minutes later, Loftus arrived and joined them. With a nod to Deverell, he took the chair on Emmeline’s other side and tossed a note on the table.

  Phoebe pounced on it, eagerly opening it and scanning the information inscribed within.

  “I think those people might do for Miss Spry.” Loftus had returned yesterday and demanded a full accounting of Miss Spry’s background and credentials. Clasping his hands on the table, he nodded at the note in Phoebe’s hands. “They’re gentry, wealthy enough, well-connected enough, a trifle scatterbrained, the pair of them, but as kindhearted as any you’ll find. They’ve found themselves with a rapidly increasing family, and when I visited them a few hours ago, it was abundantly clear they’re in desperate need of help.”

  She and Emmeline peppered him with questions about the Follingworth household, located in Bloomsbury.

  “Three under five years old, and another on the way?” Emmeline nodded direfully. “She’ll certainly need more help than just a nurse, or even two.”

  “The position certainly sounds perfect for Miss Spry.” Phoebe glanced at Loftus. “Are they actively searching for a governess?”

  Loftus smiled, a trifle smug. “They hadn’t thought of it, but they’re thinking of it now. I mentioned the Athena Agency—I fancy you’ll hear from Mrs. Follingworth within the week.”

  Phoebe tilted her head, fingertips tapping, eyes bright. “Bloomsbury, and a family with no connections to the Chifleys, indeed moving in quite different circles. That should be safe enough, provided we hide any mention of Constance’s recent employment.”

  Emmeline rifled through a stack of papers, consulted one, then shook her head. “We’ll have to get her a reference to cover it. The date’s on her one before that, wishing her well for her new position, what’s more, so we can’t hide the gap.”

  “So we need a forged reference.” Phoebe grimaced. “You can’t—you’ve done too many recently.”

  “And you can’t,” Emmeline returned, “for the same reason.” She looked at Phoebe. “So now what? We can’t get Constance to write one herself.”

  A silence fell. Loftus broke it, clearing his throat. “I daresay I could write one—pretend it was from a Mrs. Loftus.”

  Phoebe and Emmeline just looked at him.

  “No—you can’t.” Deverell met Loftus’s eyes. “Nor can I.” He smiled. “Wrong sort of hand.”

  Phoebe nodded. “Thank you, Loftus, but Deverell’s right—it has to be a lady’s hand.” She frowned. “I can’t ask Edith—”

  The bell over the front door tinkled. They heard Birtles, minding the counter, say, “Good afternoon, ladies. Can I assist you?”

  A soft shushing of skirts brushing the floor was followed by the sound of the door closing. Emmeline pushed back her chair and rose.

  “Actually, I was wondering if my niece was here—Miss Malleson?”

  Widening, Phoebe’s eyes flew to Deverell’s.

  “And I believe my nephew might be here, too—Deverell. You might know him as Paignton.”

  There was no doubting Audrey’s extremely well bred accents any more than Edith’s softer tones.

  “Sounds like an invasion.” Deverell pushed back his chair and rose.

  Phoebe muttered something unintelligible and followed him as he headed down the corridor to the front room.

  “Ah—there you are!” Audrey saw them first. She was wielding an ornate lorgnette, an appropriate final touch to her costume. Draped in silks of various gold and green hues, a brassy satin turban fixed with an oval of pearls swathing her head, she was currently affecting the Egyptian style.

  Deverell nodded. “Aunt.” He bowed to Edith, expression mild. “To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?”

  Phoebe jabbed him in the back—as much, he suspected, for his languid drawl as his words—as she pushed past him. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, no, dear.” Edith was looking about her curiously, taking in the desk and chairs, the boxes on the shelf, the counter. “We just, well, we wanted to see…”

  Audrey snorted. “We decided if Deverell could visit you here, then we could, too. We’ve been assisting you much longer than he has.”

  Deverell managed to swallow his laugh, but knew it showed in his eyes as he met Phoebe’s, still mystified.

  Edith patted her hand. “I decided it really was time I knew, dear—especially after whoever it was knocked poor Fergus on the head. I was really quite bothered, and it never does for a lady not to know what’s going on in her own household. Or even pretend not to know.”

  Emmeline had hung back at the mouth of the corridor. Seeing her, Edith smiled. “And who’s this?”

  A trifle stunned, Emmeline hurriedly bobbed a curtsy. “Mrs. Emmeline Birtles, ma’am.”

  “Hmm—you’re familiar.” Wielding her lorgnette, Audrey studied Emmeline. “Now where…” Suddenly Audrey’s magnified eyes widened; she let the lorgnette fall. “Great heavens! You’re that missing companion—what was the name?—Miss Ponsonby, that’s it. You went missing from Lady McAllister’s summer house party….” Audrey frowned. “But that was years and y
ears ago.”

  “Five years,” Phoebe supplied. She cast a pleading glance at Deverell.

  “Perhaps”—moving around them, spreading his arms he herded Audrey and Edith toward the corridor—“we should retreat to the kitchen and you can meet all those here out of sight of any passersby. To begin with”—with his head he indicated Birtles as they passed—“this is Birtles, Emmeline’s husband. He and Emmeline manage the agency.”

  Both Edith and Audrey smiled at Birtles, who blushed and bobbed bows.

  Audrey looked ahead. “So how, exactly, does the agency work?”

  “Come and sit down,” Deverell coaxed, “and Phoebe will explain.”

  Phoebe cast him a speaking glance but followed Audrey down the corridor. Edith followed, with Emmeline behind her; Deverell brought up the rear. He stepped into the kitchen to find that Loftus hadn’t seized his chance and escaped via the rear door and the laneway but, despite what Deverell had realized was extreme shyness, had stayed to help them face this latest development.

  Of course, he hadn’t known what he would be facing, but at least Audrey hadn’t raised her lorgnette in her usual, highbred, intimidating way. Instead, she stood at one end of the table, looking rather blankly at Loftus, standing, holding his hat before him, blinking rather dazedly at the other end.

  Phoebe helped Edith to a chair. “This is Mr. Loftus Coates. He’s been a benefactor of the agency for some years.” She glanced at Loftus and smiled encouragingly. “This is my aunt, Mrs. Edith Balmain, whom you’ve heard me mention so often.”

  Clearly uncomfortable, Loftus bowed stiffly. “Ma’am. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  Deverell moved around Audrey to set a chair for her; one of her hands snaked out, caught his arm, pinched through his sleeve. “Introduce me,” she hissed under cover of Edith’s delighted returning of Loftus’s greeting.

  She hadn’t taken her eye from Loftus. Detaching her hand from his sleeve, Deverell drew out a chair. “It seems to be our afternoon for aunts—allow me to present mine, Miss Audrey Deverell. She’s also Phoebe’s godmother.”

  Loftus gathered his courage, faced Audrey, and bowed. “Miss Deverell.”

  He didn’t meet Audrey’s eyes, for which Deverell didn’t blame him; Audrey always had a rather daunting effect on men of her generation. Holding the chair, he glanced at her.

  To his surprise, her gaze fixed on Loftus, she moved past the chair, extending her hand. “Mr. Coates.”

  Loftus eyed the slender fingers presented to him, swallowed, then reached for them and shook them.

  Audrey beamed at him. “It’s intriguing, and rather reassuring, too, to learn that these children have had wiser counsel to call on in their endeavors.”

  Retrieving her hand from Loftus’s slack grasp, smiling, she turned and took her seat.

  As he moved to take the chair beside her, Deverell shot a glance at Phoebe; she arched a quick brow in return, and moved to the chair beside Edith, motioning Loftus to resume his.

  Instead he cleared his throat and remained standing. “I really should be getting along.” He turned his hat between his hands. “I just called by—”

  “Nonsense!” Audrey turned the full glamor of her smile on him. “Both Edith and I would be devastated to think that our advent had disrupted your meeting. Indeed, I would be grateful if you would stay—your perspective on the agency’s work would greatly assist us.” Audrey looked around, her intrigued glance including Emmeline. “I find myself quite fascinated by the agency’s enterprise.”

  Turning back to Loftus, Audrey waved him to sit. “Please, do stay, Mr. Coates.”

  Refusing such an entreaty was patently beyond Loftus; he hesitated, then drew out his chair and sat. Audrey turned her bright gaze on Phoebe. “Now then, dear—do tell us how things work.”

  Phoebe glanced at Deverell, drew in a deep breath, and proceeded to outline the various activities of the agency. Both Edith and Audrey put questions, insightful and at times rather startling in their candor; Audrey turned a query Loftus’s way and drew him into the discussion.

  Seated beside Edith, opposite Deverell and Audrey, Phoebe couldn’t help but remark how very much at ease with those of lower station Audrey was. For all her wisdom, Edith was more reserved in engaging with Loftus, and even more so with Emmeline, but Audrey was transparently specifically interested in the roles both played, and equally patently recognized no social boundaries, encouraging both to freely engage with her, and succeeding.

  Edith was also interested and intrigued, but raised as a Malleson within the haut ton, hemmed in by numerous dreadfully stuffy relatives, she found it more difficult to relax among ordinary people. Although Audrey had an equally august background, and arguably an even more stuffy and high-in-the-instep family, she’d made a career of being unconventional.

  And Deverell was the same. Seeing the understanding glance he exchanged with Loftus, remembering the ease with which he’d won over Fergus and Birtles, and even Emmeline, his easy way with Grainger—from whom Phoebe had now learned enough to appreciate Deverell’s appointing the boy as his groom as a “rescue” of sorts—she realized that Deverell’s interest in and facility in engaging so easily with people of lesser degree weren’t, as she’d supposed, an outcome of his military service but the result of something deeper, more like an inherited ability.

  It was one she valued. She’d lost her own “distance” from others long ago, courtesy of recognizing, first with Emmeline and then all the others, that women of any station were subject to the same threats, the same fears. The same emotions as they progressed through life. That regardless of the quality of their gowns, their cultured speech or their knowledge of ladylike accomplishments, they were the same and equally worthy of help.

  Of respect.

  That wasn’t something Deverell had had to learn; it was a tenet he’d absorbed long ago. So long ago it was a part of his character; he was as open-minded and unconventional as Audrey, and equally likely to protect a maid as he was a lady.

  And that, Phoebe realized, as she watched him lean forward and deflect Audrey’s attention from Loftus—so that Loftus could catch his breath—was quite an amazing find in a gentleman like Deverell, in a man of his class.

  Five nights later, Phoebe lay warm and sated in the billows of her bed, sleepy but not yet ready for sleep; eyes closed, she drifted in the dark and marveled at the turn her life had taken.

  Turns. It wasn’t simply the presence of the heavy male body sprawled beside her, one muscled arm slung over her waist, holding her protectively even in sleep, that was different. He’d made a place for himself there, in her private world, but he’d been equally assiduous in carving out a place in the agency and claiming it.

  What she found so amazing was that, even there, be it in Kensington Church Street or in the lanes and alleys where they waited to whisk away the frightened women they rescued, that place he’d claimed was by her side—not in front of her, not instead of her, but with her. Alongside her.

  He’d cast himself as her partner.

  Through the darkness she glanced at him, at the slice of his face she could see—he was sleeping slumped on his side, his face burrowed into the pillow—and she was still astonished, irredeemably fascinated that a man such as he, a man such as she knew him to be, could be so…amenable. So willing to adjust, to mute what none knew better than she was his natural inclination to command, to instead defer to a woman—worse, a lady!

  The only times he’d shown any tendency to take the reins had been during their rescues; he hovered, not liking the locations, the surroundings—the danger to her. She knew without words that he didn’t like her being part of the group who went out at night to rescue the women, but he’d accepted, reluctantly, that no woman hoping for rescue was likely to willingly go with him or Birtles—or indeed any man. It had to be Phoebe; she could reassure the girls as no one else could. So he chafed, but when all went according to plan, he drew back and let matters proceed as she
directed.

  He’d managed to not just allay her fears on that score but open her eyes to a raft of possibilities that, prior to his advent into her life, she would have sworn were impossibilities.

  Indeed, that day had brought a fresh round of observations and revelations. For some time she’d wanted to visit two of their resettled “special clients” to see how both girls were faring. Hearing of her wish, he’d offered to drive her into Surrey, to the two villages serving the country estates at which the girls now worked. Emmeline had written and made arrangements for the girls to meet Phoebe at the local inns.

  That morning Deverell had driven her into the country, to the meetings. He’d sat a little apart, keeping watch over her and the girls while she and they had chatted, but when it had come time to leave, in both cases he’d risen and approached, and with his easy smile and a few charming words had eased each girl’s instinctive fear. He’d spoken with her in the girls’ presence, openly acknowledging his commitment to the agency, and more subtly to Phoebe herself. Each girl had blinked, startled that he—a gentleman of the very sort they had such bad memories of—would think and behave as he did.

  Each had readily accepted his offer of a lift back to the gates of their place of employment; both had departed reassured and, Phoebe had no doubt, a trifle less inclined to paint all powerful gentlemen as blackguards.

  The journey back had been another revelation; he’d questioned her as to the girls’ attitudes after rescue, their needs—emotional as well as physical—to best enable them to recover from their ordeal. To best eradicate the resultant fears.

  Remembering, she let her lids fall; he’d been totally focused, completely absorbed, not just interested but…again, the word that fell into her mind was committed. He had some plan evolving in his head, on that she would wager, but he hadn’t yet mentioned it, hadn’t yet proposed it.

  She’d intended to interrogate him that evening at Lady Hubert’s rout; instead, she’d spent much of the evening acting as his protector. Most of the balls and parties they’d previously attended—that she and Edith habitually graced—hadn’t been those at which the matchmaking mamas predominated, but her ladyship’s rout was one of the premier events of the Season, which was now in full swing. Despite Deverell’s clear preference for her company, they’d been approached by a steady stream of ladies keen to try their hands, as well as those of their charges at detaching him from her skirts.