How the Marquess Was Won (3 page)

And his voice, a baritone edged with smoke, was exactly how she’d imagined it.

“Dryden,” he said.

As if it was the answer to all of life’s most important questions.

Chapter 3

H
is name echoed all by itself in the shop long enough for everyone to begin wondering whether they’d imagined he’d spoken.

Up went one of his black eyebrows. Like an arrow.

Phoebe saw this in the mirror over the counter. Her view was now of the man’s back, which rivaled the Alps for majesty. His shoulders narrowed to a waist in a line so fundamentally masculine she’d never been more unnervingly aware she was a woman. When he shifted his feet, she could almost sense the lovely slide of muscles beneath the black coat he wore with the same casual grace a panther wears its pelt.

Phoebe’s students stood frozen in the corner like statues of girls for sale. Their eyes were so round they were more whites than pupil.

Postlethwaite darted a glance at Phoebe from over the top of his spectacles. She gave the slightest of nods in confirmation.
You’re not hallucinating.

“Mr. Postlethwaite at your service, my lord.” His bow was deep and really very elegant, she thought, even despite the tiny cracking sound his spine made on its way up again. “You honor my humble establishment, indeed! What can I do for you today, my lord?”

She attempted to steal a glance at Dryden’s gloves, the ones that had allegedly cost one hundred pounds. But he’d pulled them from his fingers and bunched them in his fist. He lifted off his hat and held it, pushed his dark hair back from a high pale forehead. The candle flames of the chandelier swinging overhead danced, reflected in the polished toes of his boots—made by Hoby, she knew, because the broadsheets said so.

His bearing was almost aggressively erect.

He either didn’t notice or didn’t care that she was staring at him. Perhaps it would have been more notable if she
hadn’t
been staring. She wondered if charisma—and his poured from him in veritable rays—was simply a patina formed from the accumulated stares of countless people over years.

“I should like to see your selection of silk fans, if you would, Mr. Postlethwaite.”

His tone was brisk, impersonal, and surprisingly kind. But she heard restraint thrumming through it. He was clearly aware of his impact and was making a concerted effort not to frighten the rabble and freeze them like rabbits before wolves. After all, frozen people could not do his bidding.

Herself and Postlethwaite being the rabble, of course.

She half resented the loss of the game she played with Postlethwaite. Because it was clear that this was the sort of man who could never be a figure of fun.

But just in case she
was
dreaming, she succumbed to an impulse to reach across her body and pinch her own arm.

Too late she realized the marquess had a perfect view of her in the mirror over the counter.

He swiveled his body a quarter turn.

She felt his attention like an explosion of light smack in her solar plexus.

His cheekbones were high and stark, and somehow this made his gaze seem particularly potent, as though he were calmly viewing a siege from the crenellations of a castle. His eyes were clear, just a shade darker than whiskey.

Not a gentle face. Nor a safe face.

And not a face one could get accustomed to in a glance.

Three or four or fifteen more glances of the lingering sort, perhaps.

She touched a hand to her wind-ruddied face, as if it was a wand that could change her into a princess before his eyes.

He turned away without a change of expression.

Which was when she began breathing again.

“Of course, of course, my lord.” A whiff of glee had entered Postlethwaite’s voice. “I’ve a lovely selection of silk fans, from plain to ornate.” He gestured to a case in a shadowy corner of the shop near the girls, far away from sunlight that could yellow or fade painted silk. “I hope you find something that pleases you.”

Fat chance,
Phoebe thought.

Postlethwaite bustled out from behind the counter and strutted across the floor. “May I ask what brings you to our town, Lord Dryden?”

“I’ve been invited to a party.” She’d never heard the word
party
sound so ironic. “I am also here to visit Miss Endicott’s storied academy on behalf of my niece.”

Storied? Was it
really
? Was the niece the recalcitrant girl? And would he be attending the Redmonds’ party? But where else would he be going?

“Miss Vale is a teacher at the academy.” Postlethwaite made a vague gesture in her direction. The marquess dutifully turned.

She took advantage of the moment to show off her curtsy, while he devoted another tick of the clock to her. “An honor to meet you, Lord Dryden.” Her tones were low, and, she liked to think, dulcet.

His long firm mouth turned up only faintly. Perhaps he calibrated smiles according to rank. This time she saw surprising faint shadows of fatigue beneath his eyes.

“Miss Vale.” He gave her a bit of a bow. “I’m to meet with Miss Endicott at the academy.”

The faintest conclusive emphasis landed on the words
Miss Endicott
. Likely he was accustomed to females of all sorts flinging themselves at him and hoped to discourage her from doing the same.

“Of course.” Too late Phoebe heard the hint of irony in her voice: of course
you’ll
be meeting with the
most important person
at the academy.

She could have sworn his eyes glinted swiftly. A flash, there and gone. Then again, it could just as easily have been the reflection from the gold leaf on his carriage’s coat of arms.

When he turned away from her again to follow Postlethwaite toward the corner where the fans were kept, she made an emphatic nudging motion with her chin and raised her eyebrows at the frozen girls.

They stirred to life and curtsied as prettily as two little flowers drifting to the ground. The marquess gifted them with a brief and utterly charming smile and a little semi-bow which they would remember forever while he, Phoebe was sure, promptly forgot them.

When he’d passed Miss Runyon gripped Miss Carew by the elbow and silently slapped the back of her hand to her forehead, and began to buckle her knees in a faux swoon.

In order not to laugh, Phoebe fixed her with a quelling frown and motioned with her chin to the counter. The girls hastened to obey, each of them biting down on their lips to prevent giggling.

“Please do take your time with your selection, my lord,” Postlethwaite told the marquess.

Phoebe doubted the marquess was tempted to do anything other than precisely what he wanted to do.

The bells on the door jingled yet again.

In walked an enormous blond man. Big and pale as a Viking, rectangular where the marquess was rather more . . . tapered. He whipped off his hat and swept back fair hair, and planted himself in the center of the room.

“Saw your carriage, Dryden.” Almost a monotone, the voice, so low was it, as if nothing, nothing could divert him from his ennui. But so aristocratic it could have been carved from diamonds.

A flick of the eyes over his shoulder from the marquess. “Waterburn.”

Phoebe had the distinct impression the marquess was stifling a resigned sigh.
Intriguing.

Waterburn was the viscount known for whimsical wagers of staggering amounts. He’d once wagered five hundred pounds on a race between crickets, or so she’d read in the broadsheets.

Waterburn strolled deeper into the shop, pale eyes lighting upon ribbons, hats, and light fixtures like a Bow Street runner searching for evidence of a crime. “I think we may have been invited to the same party.”

“I am stunned.” The marquess’s tone was ironic.

Waterburn smiled.

The marquess was now inspecting two fans he’d chosen from Postlethwaite’s collection the way Leonora Heron, one of the Gypsies who camped on the outskirts of Pennyroyal Green, pored over the tarot cards when she
dukkered
for paying visitors.

Envy washed over her, spiky and hot and surprising. Who?
Who
was special enough to warrant that sort of care in selection?

“Lord Waterburn.” Postlethwaite was compelled to bow again. “Mr. Postlethwaite at your service. May I bring tea for Your Lordships?”

“None for me, but thank you for offering, Mr. Postlethwaite.” This came from the marquess.

Waterburn’s idle gaze lit upon Phoebe. She tried a smile and a nod. He dipped his great head unsmilingly, and turned away again.

For heaven’s sake. She was growing a little tired of feeling like part of the decor.

Her students were rustling with the packages and preparing to leave. “Good day, Miss Vale. I hope you have a lovely holiday.”

“Thank you, ladies. I hope yours is lovely as well. But please don’t forget to read your Marcus Aurelius, or you will find yourselves behind in your lessons upon your return.”

“Of course not, Miss Vale! I am looking forward to it
greatly
!” Miss Runyon lied passionately.

And off they went with a jangle of bells, letting in a rush of wind that fluttered the ribbons on the bonnets and lifted up the horseshoe of hair remaining on Postlethwaite’s head, and then the door was shut once more.

Phoebe took one last hungry look at the bonnet that would never be hers and folded her message from Lisbeth so she could tuck it in her reticule along with her other letter.

Which was when the large blond lordship drifted, much like a galleon, over to the marquess. “Ten pounds says even
you
cannot get a kiss from the . . .
la
insegnante
, Dryden.”

Insegnante
? But . . .
insegnante
was Italian for
teacher
.

Waterburn jerked his chin in her direction.

She went numb with shock.
He means for the marquess to kiss me!

She whirled immediately around again and began fondling the lavender ribbon on the bonnet, and listened.

“For God’s sake, Waterburn. What need have I of a kiss from her
or
ten pounds?” the marquess murmured, sounding bored.

“But that’s just it. She hardly looks
kissable
, wouldn’t you agree?” Waterburn insisted. “
Un
kissable, in fact. And yet it’s said, Dryden, that you can get one anytime you please from anyone you please. I say . . . well, from the looks of things, you
cannot
.”

From the looks of things?
What
things? The tips of her fingers turned white and bloodless from gripping the ribbon.

The marquess’s voice had an edge now. “Don’t be ridiculous. It would be child’s play.”

Oh.

Mortification scorched the entire surface of her skin. She couldn’t breathe for it. The bonnet blurred in front of her eyes.

As Postlethwaite’s hearing wasn’t what it once was, he seemed entirely unaffected. He was now happily counting money, which jingled in his palms, and whistling through his teeth, which likely drowned out scandalous murmurs.

“Then it’s a wager, Dryden. And we
know
you never lose wagers.”

Phoebe held herself still, as though she’d just taken a great fall. Trying not to breathe or feel, the satiny ribbon in her fingers an alien contrast to her abraded pride. She stared at the bonnet she coveted and would never have, while a man she’d once coveted and would never have dismissed the notion that she might be
kissable
and painstakingly selected a gift for another woman. Whereupon he would climb once again into that behemoth of a carriage and be driven to the academy whilst she ran up the hill again, doing battle with a wind determined to tear off her old bonnet.

Bloody
aristocrats
.

How very disappointing to discover they were mortal and childish.

The marquess straightened abruptly. Reminding Phoebe once more of just how unfairly tall he was.

“This one, Mr. Postlethwaite.” He’d chosen the painted fan. It was ivory silk, scattered with a few pale pink blooms twined with very fine, pale green thornless stems. Exquisite.

Naturally.

“Very good, sir!” Postlethwaite all but vaulted the counter in his eagerness to assist.

Not one of the men had looked at her again.