Phaedra’s temper fired. ‘Virgil is a prince among men. If anything, she’s married above herself.’
‘Not in our world she hasn’t,’ Sir Nathan said smugly. ‘Now, come on over here and take my arm. We’ll walk back to the ballroom and you can give me that dance you owe me.’
‘No.’ Phaedra backed up. At her back was the door joining the library to the saloon. If she could reach it, she could slip into the crowd there. Sir Nathan would not risk a scene.
Sir Nathan’s eyes flicked behind her, noting the outline of the door. ‘I’m not in the mood for “no” tonight.’ He growled. He lunged for her in a quick movement that belied his heavier bulk.
Phaedra darted aside but the move took her away from a clear path to the door. He was stalking her now and she had no outlet. He closed in, penning her between the wall and himself. She was going to have to fight.
‘Have a care, Sir Nathan.’ Phaedra gathered her bravado, her eyes indicating the door to her left. ‘Anyone could walk in at any time.’
The reminder didn’t have the desired effect. He was close enough to smell now, his strong cologne overpowering at this range. It was not a subtle scent, not like Bram’s spices. ‘I wouldn’t mind if they did.’ He leered. ‘In fact, I hope they will. A compromising position is all I need. Your brother would be hard-pressed to deny me after that, and so would you.’ He grinned evilly. ‘Perhaps you’ll think about that before you decide to scream. Do you really want anyone to see you with your skirts up?’
His hand was at her cheek now, his rough knuckles stroking her jaw. His other hand was on himself, caressing the bulge in his trousers. ‘How about a kiss for your future husband?’ His face angled towards her, his breath rife with the remnants of his dinner, his mouth open. This was her moment. Phaedra raised her arm and swung her vase, catching him on the side of the head. The vase shattered. Sir Nathan stumbled, momentarily stunned from the blow.
His hand went to his head and came away with blood.
‘You bitch, you’ve cut me!’ he roared. He lunged for her. Desperate, Phaedra sidestepped his off-balance grab and flung open the door, sending him stumbling into the ballroom where he promptly careened into Bram. Champagne spilled on clothes, crystal shattered on the floor and the music came to an undignified halt while everyone stared. It wasn’t every night a man bumbled into a ballroom with blood streaming from his head.
Phaedra sucked in her breath. Bram’s eyes flicked over Nathan’s shoulder to her. She bit her lip. For a moment she thought Sir Nathan wouldn’t recognise Bram. ‘Well, look who we have here. It’s Lord Bramford.’ Sir Nathan sneered in contempt, pressing a white handkerchief to his head.
Lord Bramford? The reference made no sense. What was Sir Nathan playing at? From the corner of her eye, Phaedra caught sight of Captain Webster with Alicia on the periphery of the ballroom.
Webster stepped forward. ‘Are you sure about that, Sir Nathan? He looks like the head groom to me, that fellow they picked up in Buxton.’ Bram had gone stiff, his jaw clenched.
The crowd drew a tight circle around Nathan and Bram, sensing a noteworthy drama was about to unfold. If she had any sense, she’d fade back into the library and put a discreet distance between herself and the scene. Maybe everyone would forget to ask why Sir Nathan was bleeding. But she couldn’t tear herself away any more than the guests could.
‘Well, hey, maybe he is.’ Sir Nathan squinted in contemplation. ‘No, no, I am sure this fellow is Lord Bramford, the Earl of Hartvale’s son.’
Earl’s son. Phaedra clutched the door frame for support. The little inconsistent pieces reeled like the glass shards of a kaleidoscope in her mind, forming a pattern of truth; the sense of command, his effortless grace in dancing, his reluctance to discuss his family, even the boots she’d noticed the first day testified to what her intuition had screamed all along—Bram Basingstoke was no mere groom. But she hadn’t listened.
She’d been too wrapped up in the sensual game they’d played. She’d been duped, absolutely, thoroughly and completely. Phaedra felt sick. Giles was going to kill her for this.
Giles. The full import of Sir Nathan’s revelation struck her anew. Not only had she been duped, Giles had too. She wasn’t the only one who was going to suffer. Giles would bear the scandal of having hired an earl’s son to work in the stables in the first place. After the year he’d had, it was the last thing he needed. She forced herself to concentrate on the scene unfolding.
‘I could be wrong.’ Webster gave a casual shrug. ‘Hard to know really, the last time I saw him he was...’
Naked. The situation which had seemed bad a moment ago was about to get a whole lot worse, proving that all things were indeed relative. Any moment the whole story was going to come out and the district would know of her folly, unless Bram’s fist got to Captain Webster’s mouth first.
It did, and within an hour the party had disassembled entirely, the last carriage pulling out of the Castonbury drive on the stroke of eleven, an early night even by country standards. The fete had been a complete debacle.
‘They’re all going home to write letters.’ Aunt Wilhelmina harrumphed as Giles gathered the family in the blue sitting room where they’d toasted an evening of success just a few hours before.
Giles shot Aunt Wilhelmina a quelling look, his grey eyes twin storms. ‘I think letters to petty relatives are the least of our worries at present.’ Phaedra did not think she’d ever seen her brother this angry, except for the other night. But this was a different kind of anger. This anger was boiling under a lid, in an attempt to remain contained, far worse than honest anger given free rein.
Lily put a gentling hand on his shoulder. ‘Giles, we should give people a chance to explain.’
‘What is there to explain?’ Giles ground out, taking a seat near the cold fireplace. He glared at Phaedra. ‘Sir Nathan has a head wound and you were in absentia from your own party at the time.’
Phaedra pleated the thin fabric of her skirt. ‘I would hardly call it a head wound.’
‘I would hardly call it a coincidence,’ Giles pressed. ‘I’m not interested in quibbling over the particulars.’
‘I had gone to the library. I’d wanted a moment to be alone, but he followed me.’ She told the story carefully, leaving out certain elements. She made no mention of Bram or of the information Sir Nathan had threatened to reveal. The rest of the story poured out in cautious bits. Sir Nathan had touched her, had forced her to the wall when she’d resorted to shattering the vase against the brute’s head.
‘I will call him out over this,’ Giles said tersely when she’d finished. ‘Scores will need to be settled. I shall call on Sir Nathan tomorrow.’
That was the last thing she wanted. ‘Whatever for? I settled the score tonight, and an expensive score it was. That was Wedgwood porcelain I broke over his head.’ She didn’t doubt Giles’s prowess with firearms but Sir Nathan wouldn’t hesitate to reveal the rest of what he knew. Who knew what Giles would do then?
‘There are things men should settle between themselves,’ Giles insisted. ‘Sir Nathan thought to compromise you in your own home. Such an action cannot go unaddressed. Which brings us to you, Mr Basingstoke. Care to explain what an earl’s son is doing working in my stables?’
Heavens, it was true. If Giles was saying it, there could be no doubt. Phaedra had hoped Sir Nathan had been making wild accusations but those hopes hadn’t lived long. She looked at Bram, all nature of emotion warring inside her. Anger over being duped, anger at not seeing what had so obviously been in front of her from the start, anger, too, at herself.
‘I’m up here on a repairing lease.’
Phaedra’s stomach fell. She knew what a repairing lease really was. Her old worries came back. He’d been passing the time and she’d been a foolish dalliance to while away the hours of his banishment. He clearly wasn’t in Derbyshire for his health. There were few reasons young, healthy gentlemen came to Derbyshire other than to mend their reputations.
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All the I told you so’s of the world seemed to be pounding their victory in her head. He had used her and all the while she’d been falling in love. She’d told him her dreams, told him things she’d not shared with another ever, and in return, he’d used her.
Bram was looking at her. She could feel his gaze but she could not look at him. She couldn’t bear to see the truth of it, that this cruel subterfuge had been a game. Bram was about to disclose all his secrets. In a moment she would know all about him. She’d spent weeks wondering. Now that the moment of truth had arrived, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, after all.
He began to speak, his gaze moving away to Giles. ‘I told you in Buxton, Montague, that I worked at Nannerings, the riding school in London, and I’ve mentioned as much to Phaedra as well. I have not lied to you about my qualifications.’
‘You left out some pertinent details,’ Giles interjected. ‘Such as the fact that you weren’t just a riding instructor, but an earl’s son. And secondly, why were you forced to leave?’
Bram’s eyes shifted back to her but Phaedra wouldn’t look up. ‘A woman,’ Bram answered tersely. ‘I left over a woman.’
Phaedra’s eyes focused on her hands in her lap. Of course it was a woman. He was a handsome man and he’d all but admitted he’d been highly sought after.
‘Did you love her?’ Phaedra asked quietly. There might have been no others in the room except for the reminder of Aunt Wilhelmina’s sharp indrawn hiss of a breath.
‘Phaedra, such a question!’ she scolded, a bastion of propriety to the last. ‘That’s hardly appropriate.’
‘I think it’s very appropriate, considering what you’ve been up to,’ Giles broke in. ‘Go on, tell us about this woman.’
‘No. I did not love her,’ Bram announced to the room at large.
Phaedra did look up at that. ‘You gave up your job over her and yet you had no feelings for her?’ She didn’t like where this analogy was leading. The situation was far too reminiscent of what had happened here. He was leaving over her.
‘I had no choice. I shot her husband in a duel,’ Bram said matter-of-factly. ‘Many people thought it should have been me who’d taken the bullet. After all, he was a wronged husband and I a mere cuckolder.’
‘Did you kill him?’ Giles asked with a great amount of sangfroid. Phaedra couldn’t help but notice Aunt Wilhelmina leaning forward, careful not to miss a single word in spite of her teachings to the contrary about gossip and rumour.
‘No, I did not.’ Bram was speaking to Giles now. ‘But the incident was enough to make it necessary to leave London. My father thought it best I leave town for the duration of the Season.’
‘Your father the earl,’ Giles put in.
‘Yes. I am the Earl of Hartvale’s second son, Lord Bramford Basingstoke.’ To his credit, Bram didn’t try to deny it, although there would have been little point to it at this juncture. The jig was up and he knew it.
‘And now you’re here.’ Phaedra rose, wanting to pace and spend some of the angry energy she’d accumulated. What had begun as the most marvellous interlude of her life had taken a dark cast. It was ending poorly. ‘You’re repeating the same pattern. I understand. I was just another student at Nannerings to you.’
Tears burned in her eyes. What a fool she’d been to think this would be special to him, that she’d be special to him. What she felt now was her fault. He’d not promised her anything beyond the moment. She’d been warned about the overwhelming persuasion of the heat of passion.
‘What is all this talk about?’ Aunt Wilhelmina interrupted.
Lily swept forward, taking charge of Wilhelmina. ‘I think it’s time you and I let the three of them talk. I’ll have your maid fix up some warm milk. You must be exhausted.’
‘Phaedra, go with them,’ Giles said. ‘There are things that need to be said privately and it won’t help you to hear them.’
She did go. But she lingered outside the door. She shouldn’t have. The moment the door was shut, Giles began to speak again. She pressed her ear to the wood. ‘You are an earl’s son. You have knowingly misled my sister and me by pretending to be someone else. Your masquerade has brought shame to our family, all for the sake of appeasing your boredom, no doubt.
‘Additionally, you’ve compromised my sister. Your rank and a gentleman’s honour demands you marry her and restore the family name. The sooner, the better, I think. We can tell everyone it was a fairytale courtship. The ladies will know how to shape the story to make its oddities romantic instead of scandalous.’
Outside, Phaedra clenched her fists. She didn’t want a forced marriage to a man who cared not a fig for her. But Bram’s response came as a blow.
‘No, Montague. I won’t do it. I won’t marry your sister.’
It was the final nail in the coffin, the absolute death blow. Phaedra put her hand to her mouth and fled. She’d been an abject fool.
Chapter Eighteen
Giles Montague’s men had caught up with him in Buxton in much the same place Giles had found him, although in a slightly more inebriated condition. Part of him had expected it, the part that knew Phaedra had meant it when she’d said she’d go to the Derby. But Giles, who ought to have known better, wasn’t sure and, as an unpleasant result, Bram found himself standing before a man only two years his senior as if he were a recalcitrant schoolboy caught pranking the headmaster.
Phaedra’s brother met his gaze across the expanse of polished desktop. ‘She’s gone.’ To his credit, Montague looked suitably worn. Dark circles suggested the man hadn’t slept well in the days it had taken to track him to Buxton and bring him back. ‘She and that damned colt of hers are out there, somewhere, alone.’ Giles waved a hand to indicate the vast world beyond Castonbury. ‘I haven’t a clue where she is.’ Montague’s fist came down hard on the desk, rattling the inkwell. Giles Montague was not a man used to being frustrated. ‘I don’t suppose you know where she is?’
Now they were getting to the heart of the summons. Giles Montague was desperate. ‘If I did, what would you do?’ Deuce take it, Bram hated being put in this position. He didn’t like the idea of Phaedra and Warbourne roaming around with only each other for protection any more than her brother did. But Bram liked the idea of Phaedra being dragged home, her dream in tatters, even less.
Not even days of endless drinking had been able to soften the image of an angry, hurt Phaedra the way she’d looked that last night. It was no wonder she wouldn’t forgive him, he could hardly forgive himself. Now, Montague was asking him to betray Phaedra again.
Montague’s jaw tensed. ‘If you are holding out on me and she’s hurt, I will personally...’ Montague’s threat didn’t make an appearance. Bram’s temper exploded. He leapt across the polished surface of Montague’s irritatingly perfect desk. Bram unseated Montague and the pair hit the floor, a brawl fully under way. Giles Montague knew how to fight, Bram would give him that; he knew from their previous go-round. But the man was tired and Bram was fully fuelled with righteous anger.
Bram straddled him, pulling hard on Giles’s cravat. ‘Do not assume you are the only man here who is worried about her,’ he said through gritted teeth. He released the cravat and stood up. ‘Have I made myself clear?’
Montague rose and brushed himself off. ‘She belongs back here where she is safe. She is the daughter of a duke. This is not a game.’ Bram tensed, waiting for Montague to take a swing at him. But Montague merely resumed his seat, his grey eyes hard.
Bram shook his head. ‘She sold her mother’s pearls for that horse, for that chance. I won’t sell her out for less.’
Montague thought for a moment. He crossed his arms, having come to a decision. ‘All right, what do you propose?’
‘I’ll go after her. I’ll bring her home after she races the colt. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep her safe.’ Although it might be difficult to do that at close range. He’d be the last person she’d want to see.
Montague met the suggestion with a
sceptical look. ‘And may I ask who will keep her safe from you?’
‘You will have to trust me to act on my best judgement.’
Montague snorted. ‘Forgive me if I find that a bit hard to accept. To date, your “best judgement” has done nothing short of compromise her.’ But Bram thought that was the least of his worries. Phaedra had barely looked at him, too angry to meet his eyes. If he went to Epsom, maybe he’d have a chance to win her back, on his terms and hers, not Giles Montague’s.
‘Still, it looks like I’m your best choice.’ It wouldn’t serve to correct Montague on the compromise part.
‘You’re my only choice. If you know where she is, you’d better find her fast and you’d better be serious about protection. You can take Merlin and the coach if you’d like.’ Montague paused. His offer of the best and fastest the Montague stables had to offer said enough. They were men of the world, they knew what sordid underbelly lay beneath the glamour and speed of flat racing. The faster Bram caught up to her, the better.
* * *
He’d failed to protect her. Giles waited until Bram Basingstoke had left the room before letting his head slide into his hands. Now he was reduced to desperate measures. It was sheer lunacy sending the man who wanted to seduce Phaedra after her as protection. Lord, maybe he had already seduced her for all Giles knew. He should have gone after her himself like any self-respecting brother would have done. Only he didn’t know where to look with any certainty and apparently Basingstoke did. Oh, he knew she’d gone to race the damn colt. The question was where.
Had she gone to the Doncaster spring races in Yorkshire? Had she ventured south, racing her way towards Epsom? Perhaps she would dare the standard classics at Newmarket? The Two Thousand Guineas Stakes were next week. He didn’t know and he couldn’t very well waste time running from venue to venue, not when he was needed here as well.
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