The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (11 page)

As a result, Phoebe avoided flirtations with gentlemen. And when Lord Stanhope or any other gentleman looked at her with hunger in his eyes, it made her feel queasy. But when Summerfield looked at her like that, it was almost as if she could feel the waves of his desire breaking on her, that feeling of sand giving way beneath her feet, as if she were in danger of being swept away by it.

She was extremely titillated by this odd twist of fate that allowed her to be blissfully free and whoever she wanted to be. No one here would try and make a match for her on the strength of a mere laugh. For the few weeks she resided at Wentworth Hall, her entire life was a work of fiction. She was free to enter the fantasy of being the widowed Madame Dupree, to possess that fantasy, body and soul.

And when she finished making the gowns, Madame Dupree and the fantasy would simply cease to exist. The French modiste would either return to France or die. Tragically, of course, in some awful accident—perhaps a carriage sliding off a bridge into the Thames at high tide and then sinking to the bottom, trapping Madame Dupree…

Well.

She could determine the exact circumstances later, and in the meantime, Lady Phoebe Fairchild would return to London in the autumn, to all the strictures of society and rules of decorum that had governed her life for as long as she could remember.

The very idea of becoming Madame Dupree in body and spirit put a smile on her face. And then a frown. That she even contemplated such a thing surprised her on some level. Where was her moral compass? What sort of woman dreamt of an affair with a man who was not her husband? Then again, what sort of woman denied herself the pleasures other women seemed to take for granted? And for heaven’s sake, she wasn’t thinking of bedding him—that had entirely too many consequences, even in her disguise. But a bit of heated flirting? Oh yes, she’d like that very much.

Phoebe wondered what her mother might say if she knew her thoughts. Her mother had always adored parties and flirting and social events where lots of ladies and gentlemen gathered. Even at Bingley Hall, her mother had been very much in love with Phoebe’s father, but she had enjoyed the attention of other men.

Phoebe recalled an afternoon when her mother allowed her, Ava, and Greer to dress in some of her finer things for play. They wore her hats and her shoes and her jewelry over silky gowns that her mother had to belt up so that they could walk. Around and around the grand salon they had gone, following Mamma, pretending to be ladies out in society.

“You must never appear to pursue a gentleman’s interest, darlings,” Mamma had gaily instructed them, leading them about the room. “For gentlemen like to think they are the ones in pursuit. So you must let the poor things believe it, even if it is not the least bit true.”

“But how do we make them believe it?” Ava had asked with a frown of concentration.

“My love, they will believe it if you merely smile at them,” she’d laughed. “Here, watch me.” She took a few steps, then paused to smile saucily over her shoulder before she continued her walk. She stopped a few feet away and whirled around. “There, do you see?” she asked. “If you smile at them as I have just smiled at you, they will follow you like puppies.”

“But are they to follow like puppies all the time?” This from Greer, who had an insatiable need to understand the rules of engagement in all aspects of life.

“If you smile like your mother has just done,” a male voice said low, “they will follow until they catch you, and when they catch you, they will eat you.”

The four of them whirled about. To the girls’ delight, their father had entered the room, was standing just at the threshold, leaning against the door frame, his arms folded as he watched them parade about like geese.

To this day, Phoebe could remember the way her mother’s face lit up when she saw him standing there. “Darling, why ever do you say such things? You will give them nightmares!” she’d said as she glided across the room to plant a kiss on his lips.

“And you will teach them to tease a man mercilessly,” he said with a smile as he touched the tip of her nose with his knuckle.

Mamma had laughed. “They are girls, Robert. I am not teaching them anything they weren’t born already knowing,” she’d said with a wink. When she turned away from him, she was still beaming, and Phoebe would never forget how tenderly her father had looked upon her mother.

She wanted that look of tenderness. She wanted a husband who adored her as her father had adored her mother.

Phoebe awoke early to the sound of birds chirping outside her window, and thoughts of Summerfield still crowding her mind. She began her work early, hoping to push those thoughts away in favor of practical considerations.

When Frieda arrived at the workroom at half past ten, she informed Phoebe that Alice and Jane had not risen from their beds in spite of promising to do so, and therefore the fittings would be after luncheon.

With a groan, Phoebe left Frieda to do the finishing work on Jane’s gown, picked up her sketchbook, and went outside to design more gowns.

The day was warm; Phoebe was glad for the cover of the gazebo. She sketched two gowns for Alice that she hoped would offset her dour expression, and was interrupted by the sound of riders moving fast and hard. When she looked behind her, she saw Summerfield and his brother Roger racing up the wide lawn from the fields.

They were literally racing, their horses neck and neck. Summerfield’s horse was taller and stronger than the one Roger rode, but Roger’s seemed more sure-footed. As they rode down the lawn, the horses kicked up big clumps of grass; Summerfield suddenly veered right. Roger shouted; Summerfield led his horse to leap over a hedgerow, sending up a spray of water on the other side as the horse landed near the lake.

With a gasp, Phoebe jumped to her feet and twisted around, watching in awe as Summerfield and his horse swam diagonally across the corner of the lake while Roger and his horse raced around the hedgerow and a stand of trees.

By the time Summerfield had emerged from the lake, his clothing soaked, the horse dripping, he had two lengths on Roger as he disappeared around the side of the stables.

Phoebe sat down on the bench and stared into space. That was extraordinarily and utterly fearless.

It was an hour or more before Phoebe made her way back to the house, going in through the gates that led through the parterres. Every day she took a different path, for the gardens were large and exquisite. She paused to study a hedge of yew that had been trimmed in the shape of a dragon, a smile of pleasure curving her lips. But as she followed the curve of the dragon’s tail in the path, she stumbled upon a man in a wheelchair.

The earl.

Several feet away stood a rather large footman, who was speaking to someone Phoebe could not see.

The earl sat with his head at an odd angle, but he was looking directly at her. “Good afternoon,” she said, curtsying.

The earl lifted a single finger at the same moment the footman noticed her. The conversation he was engaged in ceased as he turned toward Phoebe.

“I beg your pardon,” she said instantly, and moved, intending to leave.

“Madame Dupree?” Summerfield stepped around the hedge. His hat was under one arm, and he was still carrying his riding crop. His clothing was soaked through, all the way up to his chest.

“My lord, I do beg your pardon. I was not aware.”

“Of course not. Come,” he said jovially. “Please forgive my state of dress—I was engaged in a bit of a race this morning.”

“Yes…I saw.”

“Did you?” he asked, obviously pleased that she had. “Roger is still in the stables. He threatens not to come out until I admit I cheated.”

“Did you cheat?” she asked, drawing a startled look from the footman.

But Summerfield laughed. “Hardly. The bet was only to be the first to reach the stables. There were no rules that determined how. Do you think I should not have swum across the lake, madam?”

“It seemed a bit careless,” she admitted with a smile.

The footman’s eyes widened even more.

“Sometimes one finds immeasurable joy in being careless,” Summerfield said with a wink as he strolled forward. “Please allow me to introduce my father, the Earl of Bedford,” he said, and put a hand on the elderly man’s shoulder.

The earl’s head had not moved, but Phoebe believed he was seeing her very clearly. She curtsied again. “How do you do, my lord?”

“Father, this is Madame Dupree. She has come into our service to fashion proper clothing for Alice and Jane.” He glanced at Phoebe again, his regard warm. “It is good she has come.”

Those words whispered through her, making her smile broadly.

“I have decided to host a house party over a fortnight, culminating in a ball, and I can trust that in Madame Dupree’s capable hands Alice and Jane will be turned out suitably.” He shifted his gaze to Phoebe. “The guests will begin to arrive at the end of next month. Any later than that and we shall lose some of our most eligible young bachelors to London and the Little Season, I fear.”

“But a month is hardly enough time to finish all the gowns you have commissioned.”

“I am certain you will be successful,” he said politely but firmly.

He was being completely unreasonable. Just because he thought she was a servant gave him no right to be so unreasonable. Phoebe forced a serene smile. “I can’t imagine how you might be certain, my lord, given that you’ve never made a gown.”

The footman’s mouth fell open.

Summerfield, however, smiled with surprise. “I am certain, Madame Dupree, because you are an extraordinarily gifted woman.”

Well. There was that. She glanced at the earl, who was still looking at her with bright blue eyes. Phoebe smiled, too flustered to speak.

“On the morrow, Madame Dupree, I should like you to accompany my sisters into Greenhill. They have impressed upon me the need for sundries that only a woman can help them purchase.”

And she certainly had better things to do than lead Alice and Jane about a store stocked with unmentionables if she was to finish all the gowns, but Phoebe could only nod, her mind still racing through all that must be done to have the girls outfitted by the end of next month, and the fact that he’d called her extraordinarily gifted.

“Speak to Addison before you go and he will see to it that you have sufficient—”

“My lord!”

A man Phoebe had never seen before was rushing toward them, his eyes on Summerfield, oblivious to the rest of them.

“Mr. Carsdale?” Summerfield said, clearly surprised. “What the devil is the matter?”

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” he said breathlessly, “but there has been a spot of trouble this morning.”

“What sort of trouble?”

The man glanced warily at Phoebe. “Joshua,” he said quietly.

Summerfield’s fingers, she noted, curled even more tightly around his riding crop. “Join me in my dressing room while I change,” he said, and looked at his father. “You mustn’t worry,” he said with a reassuring squeeze of the old man’s shoulder. He instantly started for the house, the stranger hurrying to keep up with his long stride.

Phoebe glanced at the earl, then at the footman. “May I help you in some way?”

“No, mu’um,” the big man said. “His lordship and I do quite nicely together, eh, milord?” he asked, and deftly tilted the earl’s chair back a little, wheeled the earl about, and began to push him at a leisurely pace through the parterres.

I t was beyond Will’s ability to understand what drove Joshua to seek to destroy his reputation, his family’s reputation, and indeed, his own life.

“I am uncertain how much was at stake,” Mr. Carsdale, his father’s secretary, said, speaking low so that Addison would not overhear—but Addison was hovering nearby, and Will was certain he hadn’t missed a single word. “The injured gentleman and his companions have taken your brother in hand and are riding for Wentworth Hall at this very moment to seek satisfaction from you.”

Bloody hell. Will turned to the mirror to tie his neckcloth and thought of his father, who was unable to speak or to write, but was capable of understanding everything completely—particularly that Joshua had cheated in a high-stakes poker game. Fool. Careless, stupid fool.

When his father heard of this—and he would, for Will could not keep anything so dire from him—he would not be able to bear it. It hurt Will monstrously that he could not seem to set everyone and everything to rights. More than anything, he wanted to assure his father that he’d not come home too late, that the Darbys would persevere as a family, maintaining respectability and social standing. But day after day, something happened to knock him flat, to make him think the family would never recover.

And now Joshua had been caught cheating. Cheating! It was inconceivable, despicable—his brother, raised in privilege and afforded an excellent education, was no better than a common thief.

“What do these gentlemen want, other than Joshua’s neck in a noose?” Will asked, his calm belying his anger.

“Their winnings restored, I’d imagine, my lord.”

At least they had a price. “How much, do you suppose?”

“Fifty pounds should suffice.”

Will resisted the urge to choke on the exorbitant sum and finished tying his neckcloth. Addison appeared behind him, holding up a clean coat. Will slipped into it, adjusted the sleeves of his shirt. These delicate situations made him chafe. In Egypt, in India he would have handled this quite differently—consented to a public lashing or some such thing. It was certainly no less than Joshua deserved. But here he must tread lightly, speak and act with the utmost decorum, or he would only make a bad situation worse. “Well, then, Mr. Carsdale,” he said calmly, “shall we repair to the salon to meet this calamity head-on?”

A half hour later, the men arrived with Joshua in their midst, his brother looking defiant as he strode ahead of them into the earl’s study behind Farley. Will knew only one of the men, Mr. Aimes, a brash young man who was known to have a temper.

Will stood at the hearth, one arm on the mantel. “Gentlemen,” he said casually, and shifted a cold gaze to Joshua.