Claimed by the Rogue (18 page)

“You’re quite certain?”

She wasn’t the only one who could keep a secret in the service of love. Lying to her face was damnably difficult but given the circumstances it was also the right thing to do. “I am. Be that as it may, I’m stiff as a board and gamey as a geezer. Might I borrow your carriage for the day rather than ride?”

Her expression eased. “Of course, it’s yours for as long as you like. Given my girth, I shan’t be making any social calls.”

“And your pantry—might I purloin it in the service of a good cause?”

“Have Cook pack up whatever you like.”

Grateful that she didn’t grill him, he nodded his thanks and turned to go.

“Robert?”

One foot in the hallway, he turned back. “Yes?”

She cast him a careworn look. “Promise me you’ll take care?”

“I shall,” he said, the sentiment sincere. He had Bouchart’s measure now. For Phoebe’s sake as well as his own, he’d not drop his guard again. “If the past has taught me any lesson, it’s to keep a weather eye open no matter how mild the sea on its surface may seem.”

Chapter Seven

Standing on the Hospital’s columned portico with Mary, a leashed Pippin at their feet, Phoebe fought to put her finger on the source of the girl’s obvious distress. Before the week was out, Mary would be en route to a promising post with a respectable family in Cornwall. Likely her pallor and tear-tracked cheeks were nothing more than a bout of cold feet. Still, when she’d begged for a word in private, Phoebe hadn’t hesitated to grant it. She’d gathered her bonnet and gloves and bid them step outside.
 

Expression anguished, Mary shook her head. “I shouldn’t have brought you into it. Please, milady, forget I ever mentioned it.” Shoulders bowed, she turned to go back inside, but Phoebe laid a staying hand upon her shoulder.

“Brought me into what, my dear? You’re speaking in riddles.” Turning her gently back around, she searched the misery-laden face for clues. “I wish you would tell me plainly what’s troubling you. Whatever it is, you have my word it shall remain between us.”

Mary kept mum.

Very well, a fishing expedition it was to be. “Does it have to do with your leaving?”
 

Eyes welling, Mary nodded. “In a way…”

“If you don’t feel ready, if you’d rather wait and seek a position closer to London, you’ve only to say so. I’ll gladly speak to the directors on your behalf.”
 

Mary dismissed the offer with a vehement shake of her head. “Oh no, it isn’t that. I shall miss my friends and you especially, milady, but I’ve a mind to see something of the world beyond these gates.”

The journey from London to Cornwall could be accomplished in two days by post chaise, closer to one were the traveler able to procure a seat on a Royal Mail Coach—hardly a grand tour, but given how small her world had been kept, so it must seem so to Mary. Then again, Phoebe had scarcely traveled herself. Bonaparte’s bullying had precluded excursions abroad. She’d always assumed that once the war was over, she and Robert would go off on the grand honeymoon voyage they’d talked about, but he had forged forward and had his adventures without her. Despite their near kiss the previous day, despite that more than once since stepping outside she’d caught herself casting her gaze out over the lawn to look for his approach, the old bitterness bubbled to the surface.

Baffled, Phoebe asked, “Then what is amiss?”

The child cast a cautious look over her shoulder. Turning back, she dropped her voice to a whisper and admitted, “It’s my mother, milady.”

“You’ve kept in contact?” Phoebe asked quietly.

Shamefaced, the girl nodded. “Oh, I know ’tis against the rules, but we meet sometimes, always on a Saturday in Russell Square. Only the last few weeks she didn’t come and now I’m to leave in a few days with no means of letting her know where I’ll be or how to reach me.”
 

“Can you not write her?” Phoebe asked gently. Her prize pupil, Mary possessed very pretty penmanship. Her spelling left something to be desired; still, she read and wrote far better than most domestic servants.

Mary darted another look about before admitting, “I have, only I’m loath to mail it. Mum likely won’t have the coin to pay the postage to receive it, and even if she does, I’d be as good as taking the bread from her mouth.” She slipped a folded letter from her pocket and passed it to Phoebe.
 

Chastened, Phoebe took it. Despite her years of working at the hospital, she still sometimes lost sight of how privileged she was. Of course Mary’s mother would be among the many for whom receiving correspondence was accounted a luxury.
 

Turning her back upon the building façade with its many windows, she tucked the letter into her skirt pocket but not before giving a cursory glance to the recipient’s direction:
Mistress Sally Fry, No. Six Church Lane, St. Giles Parish, London.

Phoebe felt her courage curdle. The quarter was notorious as a haunt for criminals of every order, from petty pickpockets to commissioned cutthroats. Even among East Enders, the collation of crumbling tenements known as The Rookery had a deserved reputation as the very worst of the city’s stews. Still, she’d made her promise to her pupil, and she meant to keep it.
 

“Do not to fret yourself, my dear. I promise to do all I can to ensure that this—” she patted her pocket “—is laid in your mother’s hands before you leave and her reply returned to you. I shall send one of my family’s most trusted footmen to undertake the task this very evening.” Whoever went she would make sure he carried a loaded carriage pistol.
 

She’d hoped her promise would set Mary’s mind at rest but, if possible, she only looked more forlorn. “That is too good of you, milady, but Mother can’t read or write beyond making her mark.”

Comprehending the predicament, Phoebe suppressed a sigh. Mary’s sad situation was not as uncommon as she might wish. Illiteracy ran as rampant in the British Empire’s capital city as it did elsewhere, a close companion to poverty and despair. “In that case, you will require someone to read the letter aloud to her and then wait and transcribe her reply. Is that correct?”

Mary nodded. “Mother keeps an oyster stall in Billingsgate Market. You might tell your man to seek her there first.”

The Market might be a vast improvement over St. Giles’s, but still Phoebe dare not venture there without an escort, someone whom she could trust to keep their secret. Aristide would never consent to such a scheme. He might well try to prevent her from undertaking it. Other than Reggie, notoriously unreliable and not always the most discrete, who might she ask? More to the point, who might she
trust
?

The clatter of carriage wheels had her looking once more out to the crushed oyster shell drive. A bright green carriage trundled toward them, the sun striking off a copious amount of gilded trim. Plumes danced atop the headgear of the team of matched blacks. A turbaned Arab, seemingly torn from the pages of the
Arabian Nights
, sat on the driver’s box.
What a perfectly vulgar vehicle
, Phoebe thought, curious to see who would alight. The conveyance halted, the door opened, and Robert climbed down.

The sling was gone. Scouring him with her gaze, Phoebe marked that the swelling had gone down in his face. His right eye was black-and-blue but thankfully fully open.
 

Tipping his hat, he greeted them with a jaunty smile. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said, stopping on the step below.
 

Mary dropped into a low curtsy. “My lord,” she said so solemnly Phoebe had to smother a smile.

Robert grinned, his split lip stretching to its limit. “I’m not a lord, Miss Mary. I’m as much a commoner as you. I just happen to be a rich one,” he added with a wink. Holding out his hand, he helped her to rise.

“Whatever you are, you are late,” Phoebe put in, painfully aware of how peevish she must sound. That she’d fallen into the habit of waiting for him irked her to no end.

He swung his gaze back to her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you must have missed me.”

“You would be mistaken,” she snapped, feeling her pulse quicken.

With Aristide she was ever on tenterhooks, weighing her words before she spoke them, but with Robert she was free to speak her mind. Even her deliberate rudeness didn’t seem to put him off. If anything, he seemed rather to like it.
 

The corners of his cut mouth cocked upward. “If I’m late, and admittedly I am, ’tis in the service of procuring Lulu’s picnic luncheon.”

So he hadn’t forgotten. “It’s the middle of the day—the
school
day.”

Her weak protest didn’t begin to put him off. “Unless English custom has altered drastically in my absence, midday is the time when picnics take place. Morning classes have concluded, have they not?”

“We don’t resume until three,” Mary volunteered, face brightening.

Phoebe shot her a look.
 

The rogue had managed to win over even her loyal Mary! But then that was the magic of Robert Bellamy, a testimony to the easy charm he exuded. She almost fancied an invisible cloud of fairy dust swirled about him, enveloping everyone within his sphere. Fairy dust or not, the simple truth was that he drew people. Despite their history, he drew
her
.

Behind them, the main door opened. Children spilled out onto the porch. The scamps must have availed themselves of her absence to take to the windows. Shouts of “A picnic, a picnic!” chorused through the group.

Breaking away from the others, Lulu ran toward Robert with open arms. “Mister Papa, you didn’t forget!”
 

“Forget my promise to a lady? Perish the thought.” He swooped down and picked her up, easily settling her atop his broad shoulders though doing so must hurt him mightily.
 

Seeing him thus, it was impossible not to think what a wonderful father he’d make. Aristide, Phoebe felt certain, would wish to keep their future children tucked out of sight in the nursery.

Robert turned back to Phoebe. “I’ve brought food enough to feed an army.”

Clearly she was outnumbered. Aware of the children watching her, she gave way with a shrug. “I haven’t an army, but growing children certainly eat like one.”

Divested of both hat and coat, Robert rested his back against the tree trunk. Shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows and legs stretched out in front of him on the blanket, he lounged as best his injuries would allow. Phoebe, however, had remained primly upright and fully buttoned throughout their luncheon, her skirts secured about her ankles, the ubiquitous lace fichu folded into her gown’s neckline.

Pleasantly replete, he swallowed a yawn. “Admit it, this was a good idea.”

“You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble,” she conceded, looking over at him. “And brought joy to not one child but twenty odd. Thank you.”

Her unexpected praise had him feeling uncharacteristically at a loss. “Anthony and Chelsea keep a well-stocked larder and pantry. I did nothing more than bespeak the items I desired from their cook.”

Growing children could indeed consume prodigious quantities. Little was left of the cold roast chicken, bread, fancy olives and cheeses, gooseberry tarts and fresh fruit. Even the bananas he’d brought were duly devoured once he’d demonstrated how to pull back the thick yellow peel to the soft, succulent flesh.
 

Once they’d chosen their spot, Caleb had taken charge of laying out their picnic beneath the bower of a large chestnut tree. At first the children other than Lulu kept their distance, but curiosity and hunger had overcome any trepidation and they crept closer. The tall, turbaned Arab far outstripped Newton’s science experiment in capturing their collective imagination. Likewise Pippin was so fascinated with his new friend’s headgear that at least once so far he’d leapt up, caught one end of the fabric in his mouth, and nearly torn the turban off. Looking from Caleb at play with his new admirers to Phoebe sitting beside him on the blanket, Robert felt a rare peace roll over him. For an afternoon at least it felt good to pretend that peace might indeed prove possible.

He shifted his gaze to Phoebe. Not for the first time he caught her gaze going to the building. They picnicked in plain view of any number of windows. “Are we violating some draconian dictate by being here?”

She hesitated. “There are a few stuffed shirts among the staff who’ve made it known they don’t approve of my so-called ‘modern methods.’”
 

He shrugged, biting back a wince as pain pulsed through his sore shoulder. “I would think they would allow you all the leeway you could wish for given how good you are with the children and not only Lulu.” Her special fondness for the little girl was impossible to miss. Far from the first time, he considered what a splendid mother she would make.
 

Her raised eyebrows suggested his compliment had caught her off guard. “I wasn’t always. First I had to win their trust.”

There is nothing you can say, nothing you can do, that could possibly lure me to ever trust you again.

Summoning what he hoped would pass for a casual tone, he asked, “And how did you do it…win their trust, I mean?”