His Mistletoe Bride (15 page)

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Authors: Vanessa Kelly

BOOK: His Mistletoe Bride
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Phoebe threw Lucas a startled glance. Suddenly feeling old beyond his years, he repressed a curse. Would he never be free of the legacy of bitterness Esme had left in her wake?
“Lucas, we must go,” Phoebe whispered. “Aunt Georgie is waiting.”
He heard the worry in her voice, and her need for him to step away from the looming confrontation. But he couldn't. Not from Castle. He owed the man nothing but his contempt, and he had no bonds of family to hold him back.
“In a minute,” he replied in a soft voice.
Nigel rolled his eyes and sighed, then moved to take Phoebe from him. But when Nigel tried to draw her away, she resisted.
Ignoring her flustered protest, Lucas stepped forward, mere inches away from Castle. The other man had breadth across the chest and shoulders, but Lucas still topped him by a good three inches. He had no problem using his height and size to make his point.
“You'll apologize to the lady, Castle,” he said quietly.
The viscount let out an ugly laugh. “Or, what? You'll challenge me to a duel?”
Lucas stared at him, not bothering to voice the obvious.
Castle snorted. “Really, Merritt. I fear all those years in combat have addled your brain. If I wouldn't fight you over Esme, I'm certainly not going to fight you over this chit.” His lips curled into a sneer. “Why would I bother?”
Lucas gave him a lethal smile. “Because no one insults my fiancée without paying the price.”
Chapter 13
Phoebe stared at Lucas as the floor seemed to tilt under her feet. The heat of the room stifled her, but the dazed wooliness in her head resulted from the stunning announcement Lucas had just calmly delivered.
Lord Castle gaped at Lucas. “Miss Linville is your fiancée?”
His disbelief certainly echoed hers. She wondered if Lucas was drunk. There seemed no other explanation for his astonishing behavior, especially after the scene in the library. Flushed, she raised a hand to her perspiring forehead, feeling dizzy.
Her movement brought Lucas's head around and their eyes met. He frowned, his worried gaze sweeping over her, searching for the cause of her distress. His eyes were clear, and he appeared as somber and sober as a magistrate. With another stab of shock, she realized he
was
serious. About everything.
He gave her a fleeting smile of reassurance, then directed another challenging stare at the viscount. That stare was so cold and so eerily calm that a whisper of premonition shivered down her spine. Phoebe had never witnessed a man in a killing mood, but she imagined he would look much as Lucas did right now.
Lord Castle broke the suffocating tension by jerking his attention to Phoebe and letting out a sardonic laugh. “Well, this is wonderful, to be sure.” He bowed to her, clearly intending mockery rather than respect. “My dear Miss Linville, allow me to offer you my congratulations. Your engagement will surely be the talk of the town, and I mean that in the best possible way.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes to frozen gray slits, while Phoebe almost groaned. Shaking off her paralysis, she grabbed his sleeve. “We must go. We are attracting attention.”
A quick glance around her confirmed it. Several men and women had paused to watch, evidently anticipating an amusing scene, or even a brawl.
Lucas gently removed her hand. “I'm still waiting for Lord Castle to apologize to you.”
Phoebe wanted to shake him. “I do not need an apology. The wrong Lord Castle has committed is against himself.”
Lucas glanced down at her. As he studied her face, his eyes flared with an admiring heat that made her heart thump and the blood rush to her cheeks. His mouth kicked up in a different sort of smile, one that seemed to curl around her with a lick of fire.
Lord, her wits had gone begging if he could affect her so greatly in such embarrassing circumstances.
“You may not need an apology, love,” he said, “but I do on your behalf. And we're not leaving until I get it.”
Perhaps she was losing not just her mind, but also her hearing. Lucas could
not
be making a declaration in the middle of a ballroom filled with strangers. It was simply too outrageous a notion to contemplate.
Lord Castle barked out an ugly laugh. “Really, Merritt, you and your
fiancée
are more amusing than the acrobats at Astley 's. Perhaps you should consider joining the circus.”
Something snapped in Phoebe's head. She stepped in front of Lucas and glared up at the viscount. “You, sir, are a poltroon, a braggart, and a . . . a loose fish,” she stormed.
Lucas, Lord Castle, and Mr. Dash froze in unison. Uncle Arthur often used those same words to great effect, and Phoebe had every intention of adding them to her vocabulary from now on. “You have bothered us long enough, Lord Castle. I insist you take yourself off before I really have something to say about it.”
She seized Lucas again, trying to drag him away, but he refused to budge.
“Phoebe,” he said, the warning clear.
Her frustration spiraled, exploding through her body. Some great force outside her control took hold, and she jabbed Lucas in the arm as hard as she could.
“No! There will be no apologies, no arguments, and certainly no talk of duels, which we all know is where this conversation is headed. I insist thee takes me to Aunt Georgie, Lucas. Or help me find Lord Trask, whose poor wife is waiting for him.”
“Best do what she says, old man,” Mr. Dash cut in, casting a quick glance over his shoulder. “We're starting to attract quite an audience.”
Phoebe glanced around, and some of her anger dissipated. She had been so caught up she had failed to notice how large the group of spectators had grown. It included a few haughty matrons she recognized as Aunt Georgie's oldest friends. They looked on with horror, while the rest of the fashionable guests openly snickered.
Phoebe closed her eyes briefly as a humiliating flush crawled up her face.
“Yes, old man,” mocked Lord Castle. “Best do what she says. After all, you do have a habit of allowing the ladies to lead you around by the nose, don't you?”
Lucas growled and took a step forward. Fury, so palpable it seemed a living thing, swirled between the two men.
“Viscount Castle,” he said, “you will oblige me by naming—”
“No,” Phoebe yelled, pushing Lucas hard in the chest. Tears of anger and panic blinded her. “If thee says one more word, I will not marry thee and I will never speak to thee again. I will not tolerate violence, especially in my name, no matter what thy stupid masculine honor might dictate.” She stabbed her finger through the folds of his cravat. “Is that perfectly clear?”
Lucas opened his eyes wide with surprise, and something else. Was it . . . laughter?
Her temper surged on a scarlet wave. She spun on her heel, gave Lord Castle a furious shove, and stomped off. The other guests scattered before her, their laughter rippling in her wake.
 
 
Phoebe rushed out, humiliation closing her throat and tears obscuring her vision. Almost tripping over her feet, she hurried down a hallway that led away from the ballroom, avoiding the stream of guests snaking down the large staircase to the supper room. The idea of facing her relatives right now—facing anyone—was unbearable.
Her heart raced, and she had to stop to catch her breath. Sucking in air, she leaned one hand against the wall of the corridor. As she struggled to calm herself, an unwelcome fact seeped into her brain—her behavior had been almost as wretched as the men's. She had lost her temper, raised her voice, and stormed across the ballroom.
And she had actually shoved both Lucas and Lord Castle. Phoebe always knew she had a volatile temper, but with her father's guidance and support she had learned to hold it under tight rein. Tonight, however, when she most needed control, it had come roaring forth.
She was surely the worst Quaker one could imagine.
Sighing, she rested her forehead against the smooth papered wall, pondering her next move. She could not skulk in the corridor forever, nor could she go back into the ballroom. Besides, who knew what Lucas and Lord Castle were doing at this very moment? They might be brawling, or flinging challenges at each other. What if they had already left the ball, each one determined to go off and kill the other?
She jerked her head up, stricken by the image of Lucas prostrate on the ground, a bloody hole in his chest. She had to stop them.
Stop him
. Find Meredith and Silverton right now and—
A hand touched her shoulder and she spun with a strangled shriek. Lucas stood before her, looking worried and irate. With her, if his countenance was any indication.
She pressed a hand to where her heart pounded against her breastbone. “Thee startled me.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.” He did not sound sorry at all.
His tone, along with her slip into
plain speech
, nudged her anger back to the surface. “Well,
you
did,” she snapped, forcing her way past her unwelcome habit. “But at least you had the good sense to leave the room before you and Lord Castle got into a brawl.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You did manage to avoid that, I hope.”
He scowled. “Do you take me for a complete idiot?”
She fisted her hands on her hips and stared. He settled his arms across his brawny chest but then his lips twitched, as if he held back a smile.
“Apparently, you do,” he said. “Phoebe, I'm—”
“Did you challenge him to a duel?”
His jaw flexed and he cast a quick glance around. “This is no place to discuss the matter. Let me take you down to supper.”
She gave her head an angry shake. “I will not go anywhere with you until you answer my question.”
He rubbed an impatient hand over his face. “Very well. But I'm not going to stand out here in the corridor arguing with you.”
He grasped her arm and pulled her down the length of the hall. She was about to object to being hauled about like a sack of grain when he stopped, opened a door, and gently shoved her into a room.
She shook him off. He gave a short laugh and closed the door. Leaning against it, he gave her a hot, heavy-lidded look that sent an inconvenient prickle of excitement racing across her skin.
Really, the man was insufferably arrogant, considering what had just happened. And she had every intention of giving him a proper set down once she figured out where to start.
She moved to the center of a very pretty sitting room that looked to be in regular use. Comfortable chairs and a sofa were casually arranged before a cozy fire in an iron grate, and a crystal lamp on a side table shed a soft glow over the room. Quiet settled over them, as they were far enough from the public rooms for the chatter of voices to fade. The steady ticking of a clock somewhere in a dim corner and the crackling fire provided a soothing counterpoint to her rattled nerves.
After a few moments she felt steady enough to turn around and face him. When she did, her precarious sense of control slipped again.
He studied her with a silent, predatory watchfulness that penetrated her to the bone. And even though his body remained as still as a marble statue, his eyes burned like flame, with a scorching sensuality that leapt across the space between them.
She drew in a tattered breath. She might be innocent in the ways of men—especially men like Lucas Stanton—but she thought she knew what that particular look meant. It frightened and excited her all at once. For an instant, she could think of nothing else, see nothing else but the hot gleam in his eye and the seductive curve of his hard, sensual mouth.
Then reality came flooding back and she remembered his declaration of marital intent, and what had prompted it. It was surely the result of anger and wounded pride, rather than real desire or true affection.
She crossed her arms at her waist, trying to close herself off from the alluring energy that shimmered around him.
“Please answer my question,” she said in a quiet voice. “Did you, in fact, challenge Lord Castle to a duel?”
He pushed away from the door and strolled over. She had to resist the urge to retreat, to pull back from the visceral reaction that curled through her body as he neared. She would
not
let him see the depth of his affect on her.
With a hint of a smile, he brushed a careful hand across her cheek. She had to clench her teeth against the urge to nestle into it like a sleepy puppy.
“You don't have to be upset, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
Even though her knees quaked at the husky note in his voice, she schooled her face to blandness. “I am not upset. I am simply concerned.”
“
Thee
is upset,” he said, playing with a lock of hair that drifted down from her temple. Her eyelids fluttered and closed as his fingers brushed down her cheek and over her jawbone. “They always give you away, your
thees.
”
Her eyes snapped open at the hint of laughter in his voice. Deliberately, she pushed his hand away. “
You
will please answer my question. Did you or did you not challenge Lord Castle to a duel?”
When he did not reply, her dignity deserted her. She grabbed the lapels of his coat and yanked them. Hard. She heard a little ripping noise, but ignored it. “I swear, Lucas, if you did, I will . . . I will be very, very angry with you.”
His large hands engulfed her fists. The tender expression in his sea smoke eyes made her legs go knock-kneed.
“You're quite fierce for a Quaker, Phoebe. It's been a revelation. But I assure you Castle won't be a problem,” he said, releasing her hands.
She stared up at him, too suspicious to let it go. “What exactly does that mean?”
His lips quirked up in a roguish smile and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her in. He did it slowly, as if he expected her to bolt from his embrace. “It means exactly what I said. Don't worry. I promise everything will be fine.”
Suddenly, the strain of the evening overwhelmed her, and her limbs began to tremble. She allowed him to pull her close, leaning into him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I cannot believe I lost my temper,” she whispered, muffling her voice against the slippery satin of his waistcoat. Her shame came flooding back. “I have not acted like that since I was a child.”

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