Chapter Three
Phoebe had run away from England, her parents, and everything that should have been safe, familiar, and comforting as if the devil had chased her with a pitchfork. Worse, she had rushed headlong into a situation hoping to marry a man with whom she’d only exchanged a few letters and who had lingered in the shadows as her deepest secret.
The gravel below her boots crunched, the sound alarming in the stillness of the forecourt. The man she’d initially assumed to be the butler or a footman did not speak or appear as if he would invite her inside the manor. The overly bold and piercing way in which he assessed her shouted that this man was not a servant of the mansion. Phoebe’s stomach knotted in horrid anxiety.
A shadow of a beard accentuated the harsh sensuality of his cheekbones and the hard lines of his jaw. The gentleman was clad in black trousers and a jacket that fitted to his frame so perfectly, it left no doubt about his masculinity. His hair was a bit messy and in need of taming. He was unquestionably handsome, a man of wealth and elegance, yet it was his eyes that commanded her complete attention.
Phoebe had never seen eyes so blue yet so dark. The pit of her stomach felt strange, fluttery, and her heart raced as if she had encountered a dreaded spider. His innate arrogance proclaimed him the lord of the manor. His mien became even more remote, his eyes pinning her in place that of a hawk. It was decidedly uncomfortable.
His regard held her in place with unblinking intensity. Sleek, elegant, beautiful, intelligent, and cunning. All of that was gleaned from his eyes. She had never encountered a face so devoid of expression, yet his eyes communicated curiosity and something so remote and unfathomable, an unexpected dart of fear went through her.
She hoped…prayed this was not the man she had fled England with reckless impetuosity toward. Her brother had always told her to believe in the first impression she got of a gentleman; it would serve her well in maneuvering through life. Being here, in this country, on the stranger’s doorstep, running from a mother who had been determined to lock her away in the country and then take her child from her by force and give it away, felt terrifying.
She stopped a few feet from him. “Are you…are you the gentleman of distinction and wealth?”
The breath seemed to shudder from his body, then whatever he felt seemed to be quickly mastered.
He made no reply but dipped into a short bow. She waited for him to say something, and when he remained silent, the tension in her grew heavier. There was a decided glint in his eyes, as if he were not sure what to make of her. “You must be wondering who I am.” His silence was very nerve-wracking, and it pushed her into speaking a bit faster than she intended. “I…I am A Curious Lady.”
Another nod, but the intensity of his stare had increased a hundred-fold. His eyes…they skipped over her face as if he imprinted every curve and slant of it onto his memory. It was astoundingly rude…and how it made her heart pound.
She felt an uncomfortable and unfamiliar rush of physical awareness and tried her very best to appear indifferent and self-assured, as any young lady of rank and decorum should.
She clasped the fingers of her glove together tightly. I showed up at his home uninvited. He will never believe I am a lady of good sense!
She glanced at the massive door behind him. It was not the mark of a gentleman that he would have her stand here without bidding her welcome inside, even if she had shown up unannounced. She pushed back the desire to clasp her rounded stomach, a protective gesture that seemed to come upon her whenever she thought about the life within her, a precious life that depended on everything that she would do or say—a life her mother had plotted to give away to suffer cruel indignities.
It had been fear, anger, and a raw determination to protect her baby that had pushed her with such impetuosity from her home. But staring at the silent man before her, unable to read his expression, all the fears she had suppressed during the journey surged to life.
This man will never agree to marry me…not while I carry a child. What reason would he have?
The door swung open, an aging man came out, and from his mode of dress she presumed him to be the butler.
“My lord,” he said after a careful shuffling of his feet.
“My lord?” Phoebe murmured, her heart a beating mess. “You are titled?”
The butler drew himself up stiffly as if she had affronted his master.
“May I present Viscount Huxley, the future Earl of Albury.”
Shock blossomed through her in a chilly wave. Along with sorrow and fear.
An Earl.
Albury was a title spoken in hushed whispers in her father’s study whenever he met with his political cronies and fellow business investors. It was a title long held by the Winthrops. She had never met the family out in society nor heard their names mentioned anywhere else. Supposedly, they found the frivolity of the seasons beneath their notice.
A gentleman with such a bright future ahead would have his duty to the title and the realm. Such a man, of course, would never marry a lady who was so irrevocably ruined…even if she was the daughter of a duke with an inheritance of fifty thousand pounds. The urge to cry shuddered painfully inside her chest. Phoebe was out of her element—out of her mind more like it—to have arrived on a stranger’s doorstep without an invitation. And why? Because of precisely ten letters. Never more had she felt the weight of her age and inexperience.
“I sent you a letter, one of utmost importance; however, I was unable to wait for your reply to my query. I needed to depart England immediately.” On the week’s journey, she had lived with the possibility his answer might have been no. Based on their exchanges, she knew she was not at all the kind of lady he wanted to marry, even though she had never understood the reasoning behind his requirements. She had been so desperate, afraid, and fiercely protective of the life growing inside her that every prudent consideration had been tossed to the winds, and she had acted, hoping that she was doing so with courage and not with stupidity.
The reality of her situation and just how naive she was in the ways of the world rested on her shoulders at that moment—heavy and uncompromising. Nothing felt familiar, and nothing felt safe. And Phoebe felt more alone than she’d ever been in her nineteen years.
Her throat aching, she stopped only a few feet from him. She dipped into a curtsy. “I believe we should dispense with our…sobriquets. I’m Lady Phoebe Maitland, daughter of the Duke of Salop.”
His gaze sharpened. That should be enough to ensure she was offered shelter and be treated with all courtesy until she came up with another plan.
“Welcome, Lady Phoebe,” the butler intoned.
After an almost imperceptible nod of the butler’s head, three footmen appeared and made their way to the coach behind her.
At the lack of welcome, her heart grew heavier. “Please forgive me, my lord.”
A rough bark from the carriage halted her speech. Thank heavens, she wasn’t all certain what she had been about to say. The stranger before her stiffened, his eyes growing wide.
“Oh! I do hope you like dogs. He was sleeping inside the carriage, and he is a huge beast I did not wish to wake without first securing permission.”
The viscount touched her shoulder, a quick brush, but the shock of it had Phoebe peering up at him. But he wasn’t looking at her. His palm was pressed flat against his chest, and his breath clearly held. Phoebe swore he still did not breathe when he stepped around her as the massive dog leaped from the carriage in one graceful bound. But he did not run to her. No, Wolf darted forward with the power of his legs taking him over to the man who had sunk on his knees and held out his arms in a few leaps.
Phoebe stared in astonishment as the dog crashed into the viscount, who held on to him as if his life depended on it. Wolf was so excited, his barking had devolved into soft and slightly high whines, his tail wagging in a manner she had never seen.
It was a reunion.
A powerful one, too, for the man held the dog’s face, peered into his eyes, and rested his forehead against the beast. They stayed like that—the viscount uncaring the graveled driveway would ruin his pants and Wolf silent as they stared at each other. Another jolt went through her when the dog placed his massive paw over each of the viscount’s shoulders then rested his large head onto said shoulder.
They were hugging. The beauty of it stole her breath.
Sarah hurried to stand beside her. “I cannot believe what I see, milady! They seem to know each other.”
“He…he is the master who wrote the letter to care for Wolf.”
The viscount stood, the dog pressed against his side as if he would never leave him and faced her.
“Wolf…he is your dog?”
He nodded then pressed two fingers over his heart, tapped once, then dipped into a brief but elegant bow.
“But I thought you were on your death bed?” she said, dazed.
Then the truth of his situation struck her. The viscount could not speak.
The silence felt awfully awkward, then the butler cleared his throat, dragging her eyes to him.
“It had been a very trying time, milady, and the doctor’s report was dire. However, after several days abed, milord rallied, to everyone’s surprise but exceeding gladness, and is now quite well.”
She shifted her regard to the viscount…and he was just staring at her. Her mind groped for something, anything else. “Do you believe in the whimsy of fate or destiny?”
That she hadn’t meant to say; it sounded so very silly to her ears.
Humor lit in his eyes, and unexpectedly he smiled. The incredible sensual beauty of it struck Phoebe. Her cheeks went hot, her throat and belly, too. Her heart tripped, and butterflies wreaked havoc with her stomach. What is this feeling?
“I…” Phoebe shifted her gaze from the viscount, furious at her unguarded reaction.
“If you will follow me, my Lady,” the butler said. “Welcome to Glencairn Castle.”
She glanced behind her and was surprised to see that the viscount was still standing there, his hand on Wolf’s head, man and beast staring as she entered the majestic manor set in perfectly landscaped grounds. Expansive parklands and impeccably designed gardens surrounded the building. It had the most magnificent sweeping arched entrance and boasted many decorative crenellations and several decorative towers. Beyond the countryside was more untamed areas with heather dotted grassy moors and forests nestling beneath majestic hills. In each direction, vista of great beauty awed her. The few patches of brighter green tended land surrounding small humble cottages the Scots named crofts. A small village was set some few miles’ distant.
Within her, an awful emptiness took root. A marriage between them was not possible.
It had been easy to deceive herself that the author of the letter was perhaps a wealthy merchant who would have been awfully glad to marry the daughter of a duke with a dowry of fifty thousand pounds.
The large door swung open, and she stepped over the threshold into a long hallway, the scent of lemon and beeswax redolent on the air. She touched her stomach fleetingly. At least you are safe…
The inside of the large home was tastefully furnished and decorated, warmly paneled with the trappings of a more warlike past displayed symmetrically upon the upper walls. Pikes, swords, shields, and more ancient weapons that Phoebe could not name hung polished and glowing in the well-lit halls. The wall weaponry was interspersed with stag antlers and other trophies of some former scion’s hunting prowess. Above the symbols of a martial past hung a series of portraits of who she assumed were former family members. They were the works mostly of some local masters, but some of the more recent had clearly been executed by the most prestigious artists of London and further afield.
She stepped around a number of suits of armor from different periods of the castle’s history. The butler led her up the winding staircase to a chamber on the second floor. He had tried to direct Sarah to the servant quarters, but she had sternly refused, insisting she needed to serve her lady first.
The room was fit for a princess, quite palatial, even more so than her rooms at her parents’ house. The canopied bed in the center of the room had a profusion of pillows, and the sheer lime green curtains on the post complimented the darker green and gold drapes by the windows. The family coat of arms was embroidered large upon the frontispiece of the tester in padded golden glory. Phoebe quietly admired the quality and intricacy of the workmanship of the exquisite furnishings. The soft plush carpet in swirling patterns of emerald perfectly matched the damask sofa by the fire. She strolled over to the sofa closest to the heat. Sarah helped her to remove the coat, and with a small groan, Phoebe lowered herself onto the plush cushions.
Sarah knelt and gently eased her shoes from her swollen feet and placed a cushion under them.
“Sarah?”
She glanced up with a ready smile.
Phoebe swallowed. “Thank you for coming with me,” she whispered.
“I’ll always be by your side, milady.”
“I fear I will falter.”
“Then we’ll falter together, milady.”
Sarah and Phoebe shared the same age, and they had been together for a very long time, considering their housekeeper in Derbyshire was Sarah’s mother. Many days Phoebe would dream of her maid being her sister, and many days they would sit and talk for long hours into the evening, but something would always remind her of the difference in their station.
“I used to sneak from my chamber and use the servant’s stairs to join you for supper,” Phoebe whispered.
How she used to ache when she spied the servants laughing and eating together in their dining areas. Longing to eat in such relaxed fashion with such joyful company. It was so very different from dining with her parents, where the length and breadth of their dining table made any sort of laughing and chatting, if it was permitted, impossible. But when she had spotted Sarah with her mother and the rest of the staff laughing and eating, Phoebe had thought that was how a family should be.
The ache in her chest became a physical thing, and there was no ease in its tightening grip. “In my letter to Richard…I assured him I would wed an earl. I did not dream the man I was coming to was truly titled and a future earl, too!” Her laugh came out as a choked cry. “I simply wanted my brother to believe I made an appropriate choice and perhaps not try to find me, because once he does, what choice would he have but to return me home? I am frightened, Sarah.”
“Oh milady, don’t be! I am here with you, and if you speak to the Viscount, surely he…he will agree to your bargain.”
Her words were meant to soothe, but Sarah’s gaze slid away guiltily. She did not believe it, either. What lord, a future earl, would wish to marry Phoebe once he discovered her secret?
She had learned from her brother that it was an exercise in futility to linger within the past when one did not have the power to change it. When the water had already flowed east, there was no path to getting it back west. The only choice she had was to look to the future and make smart decisions that would protect the life and the future of the child she carried.
Another solution needed to be found right away.