27Never wager more than you can afford to lose.
Letty!” Lady Widcoate’s shriek broke through the haze. Turner knew where he was. He knew the hand that held his—and had been doing so for hours. He looked for her face whenever his eyes opened. Her dark, secretive eyes for once gave away everything.
He was not feeling all that well. His shoulder burned like fire, and the rest of him wanted to be absorbed into the sofa. When he came to, all he could see were colors swirling and Leticia’s face.
Then he saw Lady Widcoate’s bustling form come into the room, on the heels of someone tall. Someone with a calm, soothing voice which was gratefully familiar.
“Rhys . . .” Turner managed.
“Excuse me, please,” Rhys said, kneeling down next to Leticia by the sofa.
“Are you the doctor?” Leticia said, the relief evident in her voice.
“Yes. Who has been taking care of him?”
“I have.”
“You have done admirably. I’ll take it from here. John . . . John, can you hear me?”
“Letty, come away from him!” Lady Widcoate called out.
“Wait, why is he calling him John? Fanny?” Leticia’s voice got quieter as she rose, stepping away.
“Rhys,” Turner tried again. Rhys was prodding at Turner’s chest, putting his horn-shaped listening device to his heart. (He forgot what it was called. He never paid as much attention to Rhys’s work as Ned did.) “I . . . wasn’t shot . . . there.”
“I can see that,” Rhys said sarcastically. Then his tone changed to that no-nonsense yet kind tone he used when he wanted his patients to know they would be fine. “This is nothing. I’ve seen you looking worse. Getting shot should be old hat by now.”
Turner chuckled, then winced in pain. Rhys called out behind him, “His heartbeat is quite fast. Have you given him anything?”
“Ah, just water, when he asked for it. And brandy,” Leticia answered. “But I still don’t understand—”
“I will explain,” Lady Widcoate said harshly. “Just come away with me now.”
Turner wanted to call out, wanted to tell her to come back. But before he could find the words, he could no longer find the color of her dress in the room. She was gone.
“I’m going to take the bullet out of your shoulder,” Rhys said, opening up his bag of horrors. “And it’s really going to hurt. You’ll be happy to know, though, that Ned discovered who shot you.”
Turner only gave a slow nod. His eyes remained on the door, through which Leticia had vanished.
“I believe this is when I say I told you so. Pursuing your damned wager led you to this point.”
Turner didn’t move, just kept his eyes on the door.
“From what I saw outside, however, I think perhaps you won.”
But the door remained open, and empty. So terribly empty.
“No.” He shook his head. “No one wins.”
“PHOEBE!” MR. TURNER—no, no, he was the earl now—called out, as he took the steps to the third floor two at a time. Quickly she grabbed her bag, already packed on the bed. She had no choice but to go past him, but she could do it quickly. She could rush past, not look him in the eye, and be gone.
She just had to do it without her heart breaking in half.
She put her hand on the knob and did exactly as she said. She kept her head high but her eyes low. She pulled the door open and stepped out.
And he was right there.
“Where are you going?” he asked, his eyes falling to her satchel.
“America,” she replied calmly.
“Now?”
“I told you, I have the funds to make the crossing. It’s not much but I will manage once I am there and find my cousins.”
“Phoebe, please, we need to talk. I can explain everything,” he said, trying to take her arm.
She maneuvered out of his way. If he touched her, she might come apart.
“There is no need, my lord,” she said instead, holding her ground. He winced at her formality.
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Then how shall I address you? ‘Mr. Turner’ will not do. ‘Edward?’”
“Ned. Please, Phoebe, I am Ned. And you know me.”
“Do I?” she asked coolly. “If that is the case, would you mind answering some questions?”
“Fine!” he said, holding out his hands. “Ask me anything. We will have our own Questioning.”
“Did you really grow up in a village in Lincolnshire?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I grew up here, in Hollyhock.”
“Do you have a family mill?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Did you really have a wager to see if you could kiss someone while you were here?”
He hesitated. “Not exactly.”
She paused, realization dawning. “But there was a wager. And I was part of it. Of course, no wonder the earl—I mean, Mr. Turner—wanted me to leave so badly.” She cocked her head to one side. “What was the wager?”
“Phoebe . . .”
“What was the wager?”
He could not meet her eyes. “Turner bet me that I could not get a lady to fall in love with me without benefit of my title.”
She could feel the blood drain from her face. She thought she might be sick. “I see.”
“No, you don’t—”
“You were tired of ladies throwing themselves at your feet, so you decided a poor, plain governess might be a game challenge.”
“Phoebe, that’s not it at all!” Ned cried, and moved away from the door, toward her. “In fact, I never would have picked you in a hundred years!”
She blinked. “Thank you very much.”
“But you were the only person to talk to me. Everyone else was chasing after Turner, mooning over him. And then you became . . . more.” His eyes moved to the picture on the wall, her little painting of the night sky peering through a circle of trees. He took it down, let his gaze become lost in the picture.
“Last night . . . suffice to say, last night, I could have won the wager. But I didn’t, because I knew that I loved you and you deserved more. From everyone, but especially from me.”
She turned her head away, clutching the bag in her hands tightly. It kept them from shaking. Last night had been a dream, a hazy memory of stars so far away that it almost didn’t exist anymore.
“And this morning?” she asked, swallowing hard. “You gave up your newfound conscience?”
“No.” His eyes came up, sparking like fire. “This morning I simply couldn’t fight against what we both wanted anymore.”
He took another step toward her, his body moving like a cat, his eyes mesmerizing on hers.
“You wanted me then,” he purred. “You want me now.”
“No.”
“You’re in love with me.”
She let her eyes flash with anger, with pain. “No.”
“Phoebe, you told me you loved me here, in this room, not an hour ago.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice cracking. “But I know you so much better now.”
He leaned into her then, growling. She refused to bend her spine. “You also said it did not matter to you what my past was. You said you didn’t care if I was the child of chimney sweeps. Why is this any different?”
“It is different, and you know it,” she spat back. “Or else you would have told me the truth much sooner. Certainly, before we . . .” Her eyes drifted to the wall, where they had been wrapped around each other. He caught the line of her gaze and his eyes went black with remembered passion. She snapped her mouth shut, and her eyes away.
“If you had been any other lord, perhaps it would not have made any difference. But you’re the Earl of Ashby. The person whose carelessness altered my future.”
“I’m also the man who loves you. Who would alter your future again. Phoebe, don’t you see?” He clasped her hand. “All this little wager has done is allow that to happen.”
“No!” She wrenched free of him and finally set him back on his heels enough that she managed to throw open the door and march down the hall. “All this little wager has done is convince me that you are still that careless person—one who does not give a damn about what damage is done or who he hurts as long as things are going his way. That is who you are, Lucky Ned.”
She spat the last words like bile. His face fell; he looked so hurt that it nearly broke her heart. But she had to be strong. She had to walk away.
Her pride was all she had left.
So she hurried down the hall to the rickety stairs. By the time she reached the landing, he was dogging her steps, nearly on her heels. But she kept moving forward.
“Phoebe, please don’t do this. Please, let me explain. I will tell you everything.”
They reached the main staircase.
“You want to know about me? Fine. I lived in that little cottage until I was twelve, when my great-uncle named me his heir and sent me to school. I never saw my mother alive again, and it haunts me to this day.”
The foyer. The front door.
“I never thought I’d come back to this town. I convinced myself I’d hated it here. That it was boring. That men of my standing live in town.”
The front walk. Rounding the house toward the stables.
“I went to war because I was a selfish boy, and when I came back I had friends for the first time ever—friends like Turner and Rhys. But I was still selfish then because I stopped treating my friends as friends. And I still am selfish now, because I want you.”
“Kevin!” she called out as she reached the stables. The groom popped his head out from the stall where he was brushing down a very tired Abandon. “I need you to drive me into town. Now.”
“The cart’s rigged up,” Kevin said, his gaze swinging from Phoebe to Ned and back again. “We can go right now if you like.”
She swallowed and nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She didn’t trust herself to not cry.
Especially when Ned reached out and gently slid his hand up to her elbow, his touch an aching torture. “Phoebe,” her name a prayer. “Please. I’ll fix it. You’ll see.”
“Are you ready, Miss Baker?” Kevin called out.
“Yes,” she rasped. “Yes, let’s go.”
NED TRUDGED BACK up the drive, lost in thought. He had stood at the stable door until Phoebe and Kevin disappeared around the bend in the lane. It took everything in his power not to force a saddle on poor exhausted Abandon and follow them, but he knew it would be futile. She would not look at him. She would not let him in. Not the Earl of Ashby. Not this version, at least.
“Ned!” The voice came from the front steps of Puffington Arms. Ned looked up to find Rhys walking out into the midday sun. So much had happened since dawn broke, it was hard to believe that it was barely afternoon.
“The bullet is out of Turner’s shoulder. With any luck it will heal cleanly,” Rhys said, wiping red from his hands on a clean rag. Ned nodded with difficulty. His entire body felt like it had lost its bones. Or something else just as vital.
“Now, would you kindly tell me what the hell has been going on here?” Rhys asked.
He looked down. He was still holding Phoebe’s picture in his hand, the night sky edged by trees. She had left it—and him—behind. That’s how little both meant to her.
Or it meant too much, a little voice told him, one that dared to hope. And she could not bear it.
“I ruined everything,” Ned said resolutely. “And I have to repair it.”