She nodded. “And quite out of the nursery.”
“If you—”
“Do you know, I’ve never inquired how old you are, Captain.”
“You’re trying to change the subject,” he clipped out, frustrated. “My lady.”
“Why, yes, I am.” She smiled devastatingly and he had to look away. She was always too near, let her feelings show too easily. Did she think he was a damned eunuch? “I’m rather surprised you realized it, Captain.”
There was a short silence.
Then he sighed. “I’m three and thirty.”
She leaned a little forward. “So young!”
He couldn’t stop a wince. How old, exactly, had she thought him?
“I’m a dozen years older than you, my lady,” he said, sounding ponderous even to himself. “The same age as your brother, in fact.”
The thought made him unaccountably grim.
“And yet you seem much older.” She wrinkled her nose. “Maximus is very stern, but at least he laughs. Well, now and again. Once or twice a year, anyway. Now you, Captain, you never laugh and I doubt very much that you smile. I thought you at least fifty—”
He scowled. “My lady—”
“—or even five and fifty—”
“Phoebe.”
He stopped, shocked by his use of her given name.
She’d made him lose control.
She smiled very slowly, a little cat licking the cream from her chin, and he felt himself tighten. “Tell me about your family and background, James.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You never thought me five and fifty.”
She shook her head, the damnable smile still playing around those luscious lips. “No.”
He looked away. For his own sanity. For his own honor. She was twelve years younger than he and a hundred years more innocent, the daughter and sister of a duke, fresh, gay, beautiful.
He had two loaded pistols, a lame leg, and a hard cock to his name. If she knew, she’d run screaming from him.
“I’m from Cornwall, my lady,” he said. Calm. Controlled. Without even a hint of discomfort. “My father breeds horses. I have a sister and a niece. My mother is dead.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her lovely face grave, and he had the feeling she truly meant it.
“Thank you.” He glanced out the window with relief, not caring if it made him a coward. She was the very Devil. “I believe we’ve arrived, my lady.”
She sighed exaggeratedly. “And you’ve been saved once again.”
He gave her a quelling look—not that it was much use on a blind woman—and preceded her out of the carriage. Trevillion glanced to the back and nodded to Reed and Hathaway, standing on the footboard. Then he turned and helped Lady Phoebe from the carriage.
They stood in front of a small town house. It wasn’t in the most fashionable part of London, but the neighborhood was quite respectable. He mounted the steps with Lady Phoebe and knocked, leaning on his cane.
After a moment an enormous blackamoor answered the door, his skin gleaming ebony beneath a white wig.
“Lady Phoebe to see Miss Dinwoody,” Trevillion said to the man.
The butler gave only one long glance to Trevillion’s pistols before standing aside to let them in.
He led them up a polished rosewood staircase and in to the upper floor. Trevillion could hear the sound of voices and laughter as they approached an open door.
“Lady Phoebe,” the butler intoned in a deep, rich voice.
There were three ladies in the room—a beautiful woman in her mid-thirties, an older woman, and a plain woman with blond hair and an overlong nose—but it was the sole gentleman who rose at once. “Miss Dinwoody, what a lovely surprise—I had no idea that Lady Phoebe was attending.”
Trevillion eyed Malcolm MacLeish with dislike. He was young, handsome, and jovial.
In short, everything Trevillion was not.
Chapter Four
The dozen brave men were transfixed by the song. Other voices joined in, raised in sweet, dangerous harmony. Corineus saw that maidens swam the cold sea waves, their bodies pale, their white hair trailing like sea-foam in the dark water. One of the sea maidens had eyes the color of emeralds. She raised slender arms toward him, and the prince was overcome with the desire to touch her.
The ship began drifting toward the cliffs.…
—From The Kelpie
Phoebe turned in the direction of the tenor voice and held out her hand. The gentleman took it, leaning close to brush his lips over her knuckles. She could smell… ink, and was it… yes! Rosewater.
She smiled. “Mr. MacLeish, I vow I never thought I’d see you again after our meeting at Harte’s Folly.”
Bright, deep laughter.
Captain Trevillion’s arm tensed under her fingers.
“My lady,” Mr. MacLeish said, “I vow you are a sorceress to’ve discovered my identity. Did the butler tell you it?”
“No indeed,” she replied.
“Then how—?”
She shook her head gently, enjoying herself. “Oh no, leave me a few meager secrets.”
“Not meager at all,” he said gallantly. “Come, let me take you from your fierce guard and introduce you to the others of Miss Dinwoody’s gathering.”
For a moment Captain Trevillion didn’t move and she wondered if he would refuse to leave. Then he stepped back, slipping his arm out from under her hand.
She felt bereft.
“If you’ll excuse me, my lady,” he said in his deep voice. She couldn’t help but think how grave it sounded next to Mr. MacLeish’s lively words. “I’ll be waiting for you downstairs. Please send a maid when you are ready to depart.”
And with that his footsteps retreated.
Phoebe half turned, almost as if she meant to follow, which was simply ridiculous.
“Come. Come!” Mr. MacLeish said. “I say, do you mind if I lead you?”
“Not at all.” She faced him again.
He caught her hand gently. His hand was big, the fingers long, the only callus on the first knuckle of his ring finger: a scribe’s callus from holding a pen.
“Miss Dinwoody, our hostess, you already know,” he was saying as he led her forward. “She sits here, to your right, facing the seat I will give you.”
“I’m so glad you could attend,” that lady’s cool contralto sounded.
“Here, my lady. Sit here,” Mr. MacLeish continued, guiding her hand to a wooden back. “Veritably the best seat in this lovely sitting room—and I should know, since I was lounging here before you entered.”
She sank into what felt like an overstuffed settee. “I thank you for warming the seat, then, sir.”
“I endeavor to please in all things, my lady,” he replied, a ripple of laughter in his voice. “Even if it means using my least gentlemanly parts.”
“Oh, Mr. MacLeish!” a second feminine voice cried to Phoebe’s right. “So risqué!”
“And have you met the bewitching Mrs. Pamela Jellett?” Mr. MacLeish continued. “She shares the settee with you.”
“Naughty, sir,” Mrs. Jellett responded. “Such flattery to a woman of my years.”
“I have indeed met Mrs. Jellett,” Phoebe said. “We both attended a house party at my brother’s country estate last autumn, did we not, Mrs. Jellett?”
“Yes, my lady,” Mrs. Jellett said eagerly. “I believe that’s where His Grace met his duchess.”
“Quite so,” Phoebe replied with amusement. The beginnings of Maximus and Artemis’s courtship had been a bit scandalous—which Phoebe was not supposed to know, but which she most certainly did know because she was blind, not deaf. In any case she was long used to riposting little digs from such society gossips as Mrs. Jellett.
“And,” Mr. MacLeish cut in hastily, “The fourth member of our party, Ann, Lady Herrick, sitting directly opposite you.”
“So very pleased to meet you,” Lady Herrick said, her voice high and a bit nasal.
“Now I,” Mr. MacLeish
said, “shall be very presumptuous and take the seat to your left so that I can gaze upon your profile and fall helplessly in love with it and you.”
Phoebe laughed at that. “If a profile is all you need for love, sir, then you must go about quite drunk on that emotion.”
“Hear! Hear!” Mrs. Jellett clapped her hands. “A fine comeback from the feminine front. What have you to say for yourself now, Mr. MacLeish?”
“Only that I’m outflanked, outranked, and outgunned by the company here,” Mr. MacLeish replied, laughing. “Perhaps I should at once fashion a white flag from my cravat?”
“Hmm, and whilst you’re busy with that,” Miss Dinwoody murmured, “perhaps I can offer Lady Phoebe some refreshment. Would you care for tea, my lady?”
“Yes, please,” Phoebe replied. “Sugar, no milk.”
She heard the silver and china clink. “I also have here some seedcake and an almond tart. What would you like?”
“A bit of the seedcake, please.”
“It’s very good,” Lady Herrick said. “You must give me the recipe so I can show it to my cook.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Miss Dinwoody said. “Now here’s your cake”—Phoebe felt a small plate laid gently in her hands—“and your tea is just in front of you, slightly on your right.”
“Thank you.” Phoebe felt with her fingertips, first the table edge and then the teacup. She picked it up and took a sip. Just right.
“Mr. MacLeish was telling us about the repairs to Harte’s Folly before you arrived,” Miss Dinwoody said.
Harte’s Folly had been the preeminent pleasure garden in London before it burned to the ground the year before. The garden had been known not only for its winding paths where lovers might meet but also for its theater and opera house—all gone now, much to Phoebe’s disappointment.
“Do you think it can be fully restored?” she asked.
“Oh, most definitely,” Mr. MacLeish said at once. “The garden is coming along nicely under the supervision of Lord Kilbourne. He’s actually managed to plant full-grown trees, can you imagine?”
There were murmurs of wonder from the ladies.
“And I’ve finished drawing up my plans for the new buildings,” Mr. MacLeish continued. Of course! He was the architect for Harte’s Folly, which explained both the scribe’s callus on his finger and the scent of ink he always carried about him. “Mr. Harte has contracted me to build a grand theater house, an outdoor musician’s gallery with boxes for the summer months, and several amusing follies to be set here and there throughout the grounds.”
“It sounds lovely,” Phoebe said, a little wistfully, for however nice the plans were, if they hadn’t started building it would be at least another couple of months before the gardens would be fit to reopen.
Mr. MacLeish’s voice was grave for the first time since she’d entered the room. “It’ll be more than lovely, I assure you, my lady. Mr. Harte plans to make Harte’s Folly the grandest amusement in all the world. He’s brought in tilers from Italy, stone carvers from France, and wood carvers from strange little princedoms in the far wilds of the Continent. I can’t understand a word they say, but the things they make are wondrous. And now he says he’ll hire dozens, nay hundreds, of workmen, all so that my buildings will be finished by the autumn season.”
“So soon?” Mrs. Jellett gasped. “I don’t believe it, sir. It simply cannot be done.”
“And yet he plans to,” Mr. MacLeish assured that lady. “By Christmas all of you will have seen and been amazed by a theatrical production at Harte’s Folly. My word upon it.”
“Then I shall be very happy indeed, Mr. MacLeish,” Phoebe said. “I fear that I’ve missed Harte’s Folly most grievously. I’ve enjoyed the other theaters in town, naturally, but they haven’t the air of a fairyland that Harte’s Folly has.”
“Oh, I do agree,” Lady Herrick said. “I like the Royal, but it’s so dark inside and quite a cramped space, don’t you think?”
“It was built for Lilliputians, I vow,” Mrs. Jellett sniffed.
“The actors’ voices seem to be dampened by the building,” Phoebe said. She turned to Mr. MacLeish. “I hope your new buildings will let the music and the actors’ voices expand, sir. The best buildings do this, I find.”
“I promise they will, my lady,” Mr. MacLeish said. “In fact… if you won’t think me presumptuous, would you be interested in visiting the gardens?”
“Oho!” Mrs. Jellett chortled. “Do beware, my lady. Mr. MacLeish may sound the innocent, but he’s just as much the devil as any gentleman.”
“He’s not so wicked as all that,” Lady Herrick said. She sounded amused. “I’ve met much worse, I assure you.”
“Never fear, ladies,” Phoebe replied. “I always have my guard with me, by decree of my brother.”
“It sounds like your brother cares very much for you,” Miss Dinwoody murmured.
“Yes, it does sound that way, doesn’t it?” Phoebe replied lightly. She turned her face toward where she thought Mr. MacLeish sat. She knew very well what Maximus would think about a trip to an abandoned pleasure garden so soon after the kidnapping attempt. She also knew that if she didn’t have a chance to be free—just a little bit—she might very well explode. “I would very much like to visit Harte’s Folly again.”
TREVILLION SET HIS empty teacup down on the kitchen table and nodded to the cook, a buxom woman with pink cheeks and a cloud of red-blond hair. “Thank you.”
She bobbed a shy curtsy. “M’ pleasure, sir.” The poor woman hadn’t known what to make of his invading her kitchen domain.
Trevillion grimaced wryly to himself as he got laboriously to his feet with the aid of his cane. The little maid who’d come to fetch him gave him an uncertain glance before turning to lead him down the back hallway.
Neither fish nor fowl, was he? His position was paid, but he wasn’t quite a servant and therein lay the problem: servants didn’t know how to treat him. Which had made the last couple of hours in the kitchen rather awkward—not to mention boring. He should’ve brought a book.
The maid mounted the stairs and Trevillion suppressed a sigh. Upstairs the ladies had come out onto the landing as they said their good-byes to their hostess. Miss Dinwoody was the blond woman he’d noticed when he’d escorted Lady Phoebe in to the tea. Miss Dinwoody looked to be somewhere in her twenties—generally much too young to have her own establishment. Curious, but Trevillion saw no sign of an older female relative to keep her company. She was fair, but not beautiful—her features, especially her long nose, too prominent for loveliness.
Lady Phoebe was flushed a becoming pink with excitement and she was smiling in amusement as Malcolm MacLeish bent over her hand.
Trevillion had a sudden rather violent urge to strike the man across the back of the head with his stick.
“Tomorrow, then?” MacLeish said.
“I look forward to it,” Lady Phoebe replied.
“My lady,” Trevillion interrupted.
She turned to him and her smile dimmed just a little.
His withered old heart didn’t crack at all. “If you’re quite ready, my lady.”
“Of course, Captain Trevillion,” she said to him. She turned her face back to the sitting room doorway where the other ladies were congregated. “Thank you so much for inviting me, Miss Dinwoody. I enjoyed myself enormously.”
For a second a strange emotion crossed Miss Dinwoody’s face—one that Trevillion couldn’t quite decipher.
Then it was gone. “Thank you for attending my little party, my lady.”
They turned and Trevillion guided Lady Phoebe to the stairs. “The first step is just here,” he murmured as they neared.
She nodded, saying nothing, and they descended in silence, Trevillion alert. Stairs were always a challenge—not just because of his leg but because the consequences should his charge miss a step would be catastrophic. He lived in fear of her falling to her death down a staircase, though to date she’d never even stum
bled while in his presence.
When they made the lower level Trevillion nodded to the butler and then they were at the outer door. The weather had turned worse, the rain coming down steadily now.
“A moment, my lady. It’s raining.” He motioned to Reed, out by the carriage.
“Mmm. I can hear and smell it.” She tilted up her face as if she could drink in the sound of the rain and he smiled, tempted to linger and simply watch her.
The footman came running from the carriage.
“Your coat, if you please, Reed,” Trevillion ordered.
“Oh no,” Lady Phoebe began, but Reed had already stripped off the coat to hold it over her head.
“This is his job, my lady,” Trevillion said. He gave an approving nod to Reed and then they were carefully making their way down the front steps.
The carriages for the other guests were lined up farther along the street. There was a flurry of movement as footmen ran out to shield their mistresses and the ladies picked up their skirts, exclaiming at the rain.
A bright-pink coat brushed by as they hastened to the carriage. Trevillion looked up sharply and felt a small jolt at meeting a pair of familiar blue eyes.
“Captain.” The other man nodded, his mouth twisting in sardonic amusement.
“Your Grace,” Trevillion replied.
The man flashed a grin and turned to run to Miss Dinwoody’s town house.
Lady Phoebe tilted her head back and sniffed. “Amber and… jasmine, if I’m not mistaken. Who was that?”
Trevillion’s eyes narrowed in speculation as he watched the pink-silk-clad back nimbly leap the front steps. “The Duke of Montgomery, my lady.”
“Really?” she asked innocently. “I wonder what he’s doing in this part of town?”
What indeed? “Come,” he said. “The carriage step is just here.”
Reed was holding open the door of the carriage. Trevillion held her elbow firmly as she mounted the step.
He glanced over his shoulder.
The door to Miss Dinwoody’s house had opened, but it was Malcolm MacLeish who stood there, not the blackamoor butler.
MacLeish frowned at Montgomery. “What are you doing here?”
Dearest Rogue Page 6