To Distraction

by Stephanie Laurens

  At the very last, unfulfilled.

  He’d shifted, lifted, and resettled her; she lay cradled in his arms, lying against his chest as the aftershocks of the incredible pleasure he’d wrought coursed through her.

  His hands were still on her body, still stroking, but his touch, his intent, was plainly soothing. Yet there was something more that reached her still languid senses; she wondered if she was imagining it—conjuring a worshipfulness, a devotion, a reverence that wasn’t truly there.

  Dragging in a breath, she forced her lids up and turned her head to catch his eye. “I want you to join with me.”

  His face was graven, his gaze entirely serious. “I know.” After a moment, he glanced down, at his hand gently, slowly, stroking the side of her breast. “But the time and the place is not yet and not here.”

  If she’d had more energy—if he hadn’t drained her of every last drop—she would have argued, yet she could see…she faced forward. Desire and more was etched in the lines of his face, easy to read. Desire and more infused the body against which she sprawled; there was no gainsaying the evidence of the hard rod pressed against her hip, or the sheer needful tension locked in every muscle of his long frame.

  As if he could read her mind, he bent his head to hers and brushed his lips above her ear. “Not yet. But soon.” His chest swelled, and he continued in the dark, dangerous tone that always sank to her bones, “You are what I desire, what I want. You are what I will have.”

  His next words reached her on a dark whisper.

  “And I’m no fantasy.”

  Chapter 12

  Phoebe woke the next morning with golden languor lingering in her veins.

  And expectation buoying her heart.

  “Soon” he’d said, and he was a man of his word.

  With a long sigh, she stretched under the covers, lips curving in remembered, faintly shocked delight, then the rattle of curtain rings reached her. She looked to where Skinner was briskly pulling back the curtains, letting the morning sunshine stream in.

  Skinner looked her way. “Good—you’re awake. Emmeline sent a message—we’ve an emergency to take care of.”

  Phoebe sat up. “An emergency?” She tossed back the covers. “Jessica?”

  “No—seems that’s going well. Lady Pelham wants her, so Emmeline’s sorting it out. It sounds like she’s all but settled.”

  “Then what?” Thrusting her arms into her robe, Phoebe walked to the chair before which Skinner, anticipating her need, had set her breakfast tray. She sat and looked up at Skinner. “What did Emmeline say?”

  Skinner’s lips thinned. “The Chifleys’ new governess is being hounded by the eldest son. Poor girl’s just twenty—it’s her first position in the ton. Last night, the bounder tried to force his way into her room. The housekeeper came by just in time. The girl’s frantic, but luckily the housekeeper’s a friend of one of Emmeline’s sisters, and so knew where to send to for help.”

  Sipping her tea, Phoebe was already making plans. “The Chifleys…they’re on Dover Street, I think. Edith will know.” She thought, then said, “We’ll call on Lady Chifley this afternoon and see what we can learn.” She looked at Skinner. “Send a message to Emmeline to get word to the Chifleys’ housekeeper and the governess that we’ll arrange something as soon as we can—possibly as early as tonight if we can manage it.”

  If the situation warranted it. She’d long ago learned not to rush a “rescue.” Much better to take an extra day and be sure, but if after she met the Chifleys’ eldest son and got some idea of the household she deemed the young governess at immediate risk, then they would act tonight, no matter the difficulties.

  Skinner grunted and went off to send the message.

  Phoebe gave her attention to her tea and toast, swiftly reviewing the engagements she and Edith had planned for that day. She and her aunt had an unspoken agreement; as, regardless of Phoebe’s age, Edith stood essentially in loco parentis, no specific description of the agency and its works, let alone Phoebe’s central role in both, had ever fallen on Edith’s ears.

  She knew, of course, but not having heard the facts stated, she felt no obligation to report to her brother what was, after all, only “female intuition, if not mere speculation”—something Phoebe’s father would be the first to discount.

  Edith had always, from the first, supported Phoebe’s “little crusade.” Phoebe hadn’t explained what had driven her to take up such a cause, but she’d long suspected Edith had read between the lines and understood. Regardless, if she required assistance of the sort her aunt or her cronies could provide, she only had to ask.

  Pouring herself another cup of tea, Phoebe considered how best to engineer a social meeting with the Chifleys’ son.

  Five minutes later, she realized her mind had wandered. With a guilty start, she hauled it back, faintly appalled at how constantly thoughts of Deverell intruded on her mind. Thoughts of how he made her feel, of the emotions that ran rampant when she was with him—of how much more this liaison of theirs had grown to be, so much more than she’d imagined, so much more addictive.

  All day, every day, she looked forward to the night, to being with him, in his arms again, to experiencing the next plateau of sensual delight, not just the sensations but the feelings, too, that welled and cascaded through her. With him, only him. Her lips felt permanently sensitized, her body more alive, every nerve more aware; at her own instigation, she’d become enmeshed in a sensual web, yet the fascination he exerted, the quality in him that held her attention so effortlessly, wasn’t that, or not only that.

  What it was…

  She frowned, pondering, then realized.

  With a muttered oath, she read herself a stern, mentally strident lecture on where her priorities lay. She had the agency and her purpose in life, and people who depended on her—they had to be her first consideration. Dallying with a too-handsome viscount was all very well, but what lay between them, intense and exciting though it might be, was a liaison, nothing more.

  That was all she was prepared to allow, and her first priority ensured that that was all it would ever be.

  Deverell wasn’t the fulcrum of her life—her work was. She clearly needed to keep that point uppermost in her mind.

  Apropos of which…after their interlude last night, she’d made it patently, abundantly, insistently clear that she expected to take her last and final step into intimacy tonight. If instead she had to organize and carry out a rescue, then she wouldn’t be meeting Deverell in Lady Fortescue’s ballroom, and her final plunge into intimacy wouldn’t take place. At least not tonight. Courtesy dictated she send him a note to inform him of that fact, but…if she did, he’d immediately guess she was up to something.

  The damned man was already watching the house, making organizing things doubly difficult. Serve him and his arrogance right if he turned up at Lady Fortescue’s and discovered she wasn’t there. He’d be irritated and annoyed, and doubtless she’d later have to do something to appease him—her traitorous senses came alert at the thought—but, she concluded, ruthlessly suppressing them, that would be later, after the rescue; simply discovering her absent from the ball wouldn’t tell him anything.

  It wouldn’t lead him to the agency and her secret.

  But that was assuming the rescue would indeed have to be staged tonight. First things first.

  Setting down her empty cup, she rose and crossed to her armoire. Opening the doors, she stood back and contemplated the best gown in which to interrogate Lady Chifley.

  An hour later, Deverell leisurely descended the stairs at the club, summoned by the succulent aromas of coffee and bacon. Ambling into the dining room, he headed for the table.

  Gasthorpe looked up from the sideboard. “Good morning, my lord. There’s a message just arrived for you.”

  Lifting a silver salver, Gasthorpe crossed to the head of the table, where Deverell had elected to sit.

  “Thank you.” Deverell lifted the folded note from the
tray and recognized Montague’s neat script. He smiled. “And a very good day it’s shaping up to be.”

  And if he had any say in it, the night would be even better.

  Breaking the seal, he spread the sheets, picked up the coffee cup Gasthorpe had filled, sipped, and started to read.

  The first three lines had him smiling again. “Well, well.”

  “Good news, my lord?”

  “Indeed.” Phoebe’s bank drafts—all of them—had been paid to the account of the Athena Agency. Montague had, of course, dug further; the Athena Agency was an employment agency “specializing in the employment of superior young women in genteel establishments.”

  The further Deverell read, the more he regretted not pressing Montague to take his wager. Neither he nor his man-of-business would ever have imagined the Athena Agency or anything like it as the recipient of Phoebe’s considerable largesse.

  Following a summation of his financial scrutiny, Montague had listed the agency’s address—Kensington Church Street, a stultifyingly proper neighborhood—along with the registered principals of the business, a Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Birtles and a Mr. Loftus Coates.

  The Birtles address was the same as the agency’s, but Coates lived in Connaught Square, one step away from Mayfair.

  Deverell studied the names, then folded the letter, tucked it into a pocket, rose, and crossed to sample the dishes Gasthorpe had left ready on the sideboard. After piling his plate, he returned to the table. While he worked his way through ham, eggs, and kippers, he considered what he knew and what he had yet to learn.

  When his plate was clean, he stirred and turned to Gasthorpe. “Has Grainger left yet?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Good.” His smile as he pushed away from the table held a predatory edge. “Tell him to report to the library—I’ve a new assignment for him.”

  Rising, he strolled out and up the stairs, wondering what further insights the day’s activities might yield. While Grainger watched the Athena Agency, he would see what he could learn about Birtles and Coates—especially Coates. If he had any rival for Phoebe’s affections, he wanted to know, but quite aside from that was the obvious question of what a gentleman was doing associated with an agency “specializing in the employment of superior young women in genteel establishments.”

  Deverell walked into Lady Fortescue’s ballroom midway through the evening, intent on finding Phoebe and hearing what she had to say about the Athena Agency.

  Unable to help himself, in the afternoon he’d dressed as a laborer and slouched past the agency’s twin bow windows, but he’d seen nothing beyond a desk and two chairs—empty—and a counter behind which a woman in her midthirties had been standing perusing some papers. The storefront had looked discreetly prosperous and businesslike, yet not intimidating; the glass in the two bow windows had sparkled, and the paint work had been fresh, with the agency’s name picked out in neat, bright script over the door.

  The Athena Agency had been outwardly created to inspire confidence in its well-heeled clients. Even the address, not Mayfair but on the opposite side of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, was excellently gauged to strike the right note; very definitely catering to the upper classes, yet not seeking to impose itself on the haut ton.

  Such observations had set his thumbs pricking; they were precisely the sort of minor but critical details Phoebe would appreciate.

  Other than confirming that Mr. Loftus Coates’s abode bore witness to his position—affluent, well-to-do, but not as well connected as one needed to be to move among the haut ton—he’d got little further in his investigations of the man; his servants didn’t patronize the local tavern, nor were they well known in the neighborhood shops. A trifle odd, but if Coates was a recluse, as one shopkeeper had termed him, perhaps his household staff was small, and their circle of acquaintance commensurately narrow.

  He hadn’t yet asked Montague to pursue Loftus Coates; he’d decided to see if Phoebe, once apprised of his knowledge of the agency, might make such an investigation unnecessary. If she capitulated and told him all, he wouldn’t need to investigate anyone else.

  “I’m exceedingly glad to see you, my lord.” Lady Fortescue viewed his bow with a critical eye. “It’s past time you joined the throng and made your choice. Audrey’s somewhere here—I’m sure she’ll introduce you to any young ladies you’ve yet to meet.”

  Deverell clung to his charming smile and omitted to inform her ladyship that his choice was made, his interest fixed on only one lady, and she was no longer so young. Or so innocent, except in the biblical sense.

  Leaving Lady Fortescue to the business of managing her guests, he headed for the corner where he’d glimpsed the tip of a red ostrich feather swaying above a crimson turban.

  It was indeed Audrey; she was seated beside Edith, heads together, Lady Cranbrook alongside. He greeted Lady Cranbrook, then Audrey, so that it appeared perfectly natural that he should chat a trifle longer with Edith.

  “Miss Malleson?” he asked. Somewhat to his surprise, Phoebe wasn’t hovering nearby. After last night, after her stringent comments regarding her expectations for tonight, he’d fully expected her to waylay him the instant he crossed the threshold.

  On the other hand, after last night, perhaps she’d decided to play least in sight, just to force him to exert himself.

  Edith’s washed-out blue eyes smiled rather sadly up at him. “I’m afraid Phoebe’s indisposed, my lord. Such a shame. She’s at home tucked up in bed—she must have eaten something that disagreed with her.”

  From the word “indisposed,” his instincts had gone on high alert, yet for the life of him, he couldn’t tell if Edith was lying or not. Couldn’t tell if Phoebe truly was lying moaning in bed or…

  He smiled commiseratingly and made some remark. Instead of moving away, he remained beside the three older ladies, chatting easily, yet the conversation engaged only the surface of his brain.

  The rest was racing, assessing, evaluating. The bottom line was he wasn’t inclined to believe Edith’s tale.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t cite pricking thumbs as evidence of any duplicity.

  Lady Cranbrook claimed their collective attention with some tale—and he recalled that at Cranbrook Manor it had been Phoebe herself who had whisked the maid away.

  The pricking in his thumbs was joined by an icy sensation at the back of his neck—an infallible sign that danger threatened. In this case, he was clearly not its target. Phoebe was.

  His mind tenaciously followed the logical paths: Phoebe had most definitely and unarguably expected to meet him here tonight at Lady Fortescue’s ball. She’d made a very large point of that. If instead she was whisking some maid away tonight, then the necessity had to have been sprung on her—she’d certainly known nothing of it last night—but how had she learned of the need?

  How did she learn of any such situations, those necessitating the whisking away of maids? Even more to the point, if she and her agency were behind the maids’ “abductions,” for want of a better word, then with respect to any action she had planned tonight, how had she gathered the necessary intelligence on the house, the surrounding streets, the household’s habits?

  A glimmer of an answer took shape in his mind. In Grainger’s absence, he’d set one of the footmen from the club to watch Edith’s town house and follow Phoebe and Edith on their outings. While Deverell had been dressing, the lad had looked in to report no unusual activity and had tendered a list of the houses Edith and Phoebe had visited that day.

  Deverell had forgotten to read the list; he’d left it on the dresser at the club.

  Inwardly wincing, he turned to Edith. It took him no more than a minute to subvert the conversation, then to separate his and Edith’s discussion from Audrey’s and Lady Cranbrook’s.

  “So unfortunate that Phoebe fell ill. Did you and she visit many households today?”

  Edith smiled sweetly, encouragingly, up at him. “Only three. Two this morning—old Lady Cren
shaw and then later Mrs. Fortinbras, but then this afternoon, Phoebe insisted on calling on Lady Chifley.” Edith heaved a put-upon sigh. “I really don’t know what Phoebe was thinking—Lady Chifley is always so tiresome, endlessly reciting all her equally tiresome sons’ exploits, as if they were in any way distinguished.”

  A touch of color appeared in Edith’s lined cheeks; she lowered her voice. “Spoiled, you know—every last one.”

  “Oh.” Deverell raised his brows, feigning polite interest. In reality, his interest was rabid. “How old are her ladyship’s sons? I don’t believe I’ve ever met them.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t have,” Edith assured him. “They’re much younger. Only the eldest is down from university yet, and although it pains me to be so blunt, Frederick can hardly be termed a welcome addition to the ton.”

  Deverell fought to keep a frown from his face. “Why’s that?”

  Lips firming, Edith lightly rapped her cane on the floor. “He’s objectionable. Quite objectionable.” She met Deverell’s eyes, her normally limpid gaze razor sharp. “Phoebe thought so, too. We met him briefly before we left Lady Chifley this afternoon.”

  Deverell looked down into Edith’s old eyes and couldn’t decide if she knew what she was telling him. The terrifying thought bloomed that she did and was doing so deliberately….

  He straightened, then swept her a bow. “Pray excuse me.”

  Edith smiled, sweet and soft and unterrifying again. “Of course, dear.”

  With a nod for Audrey and Lady Cranbrook, he turned on his heel and rapidly quit the ballroom; seconds later, he left the house.

  The instant he set foot inside the club, Gasthorpe came hurrying from the back of the hall.

  “My lord, Grainger sent a message just five minutes past. About half an hour ago, Miss Malleson drove up in a carriage to the back of the agency. She went in. Shortly after, she and two men—one her groom—came out and they left all together, once more in her carriage. As per your orders, Grainger remained on watch at the agency.”