Phoebe raised her head though she promptly covered her reddened face with her hands. Wiping ineffectually at the tears on her cheeks, she drew in yet another halting, broken breath before following it with a sigh. “I am not hungry and you weren't supposed to follow me.”
“One could argue that it wasn't particularly polite for you to run away, either, yet here you are, skipping luncheon when everyone else is likely sitting down at this very moment to enjoy a delectably savory treat.”
Taking her continued silence as a hint that his attempt at lighthearted cajolery had failed, Edward leaned further into the carriage and asked, “May I join you?”
Her nod was hesitant and almost imperceptible and her chin had barely raised before he swung himself up and inside and took the seat across from her. Handing her his handkerchief, he watched in silence as she wiped away the wetness and got her tears under control before he asked, “Is this hysterical fit of tears in which you are currently indulging one simply born of reaction—a delayed emotional release from having learned your brother isn't going to die as you had feared?”
Watching her expressions carefully, Edward posed the other question, the one he had a sneaking suspicion was the true reason she had fled her family for the solitude of her brother's coach. “Or are you upset about the wedding?”
She refused to meet his gaze as another long-suffering sigh filled the silence. Blinking back tears, she murmured, “It is sad that the family was not able to be there for Tris and Chelsea's marriage.”
“Given how close you all seem to be, I am inclined to agree. Perhaps your brother and his new bride might be persuaded to have another ceremony? A public one in which all their friends and loved ones may attend,” he explained.
When her only reaction to his suggestion was a meager, halfhearted shrug, Edward reached out. Leaning forward, he lifted her chin until her watery gaze met his. “Phoebe, you didn't flee the room in tears until Alaina mentioned our forthcoming ceremony. Why is that, I wonder?”
Phoebe peered at him for a moment through damp lashes before her head fell back once more against the squabs. Eyes closed, her forehead creased by a frown, she asked, “Were you ever in love, Edward? Not now, of course, but before. Before your grandfather approached my brother about a marriage between our families.”
A warning sounded in the back of Edward's mind, one he knew full well he should heed. Was this the true reason for her tears? Had she thought herself in love with some merry chap prior to the agreement?
He let his hand fall and dropped back against the padded back of his own seat, pondering her words. Perhaps now that her brother was safe, she was regretting her decision. Perhaps she now wished to dissolve the arrangement and wed another instead. She peeked her eyes open to peer at him through the narrow slits beneath her lashes and he parried with a question of his own. “Were you?”
Her scoff was audible. “Of course not. I had only recently begun my first Season and you are well aware I was not attending those balls for the same reasons most young ladies do. I was hoping to find Tristan, not a husband.”
And yet she had found one, though certainly not a man of her own choosing. He decided to answer her question with as much honesty as she had his. “And I was not present at any of those gatherings you attended for the same reason most eligible male members of the aristocracy avoid them like they would a plague.”
“Of course,” she said again, only this time, her words were not accompanied by yet another endearing scoff of derision. This time, she sounded positively dejected and he feared the tears she had managed to quiet were back, waiting just one little twinge of emotion away. “Neither of us were looking for marriage.”
Shifting on the seat to find a more comfortable position, she lifted her head to peer pointedly at him and reminded, “But you did not answer my question.”
Uncomfortable now with the direction their conversation had taken, Edward sighed. “Phoebe, I fail to see how whether or not my emotions were engaged prior to our betrothal signifies in this instance. We both consented to be bound by the bargain struck between the elders of our family—a bargain to which, may I remind you, you willingly agreed.”
Staring into eyes suddenly awash with freshly pooled tears, he could not shake the feeling that Phoebe was now regretting her decision. Misery colored her expression and she had begun to play with the ring on her finger—his mother's ring—twisting it this way and that while she stared at the tufted squabs behind him, glanced at the heavy curtains covering the windows, even the little box beneath the seat opposite hers on the floor. Her eyes were seeking, searching, though her anxious gaze fleetingly resting anywhere but on him.
Unnerved by her apparent regret and irritated by his reaction to it, Edward narrowed his eyes and barked out, “No, Phoebe, I was not in love with anyone prior to the agreement. Are you satisfied?”
Her eyes filled again with tears and immediately he regretted his harsh tone. Damn it. He had followed her out here thinking to comfort her while she had a bit of a cry over her relief that her brother was safe, and now this? What had happened in that parlor to put her so out of sorts? He could feel the confused scowl pinching his brow when he said, “Phoebe, whatever you are trying to tell me is getting tangled in everything you are apparently desperate to avoid having to say. Are you trying to say without saying that somewhere along the way during the few brief weeks of our courtship you've somehow managed to fall in love?”
The sigh that slipped from her lips bespoke anguish and he felt his blood turn cold. Her vision blurred by a new swell of tears, she nodded. “Unfortunately, I believe I am.”
Fury rushed through him even as an icy chill of dread tingled along his spine. Questions raced through his thoughts while both time and the blood in his veins seemed to slow to an impossible crawl. How? When? Who? Who was this thief of hearts who had somehow slipped into Phoebe's world and stolen her affection? But most importantly, he realized through the red haze of his anger, was why.
Why should he care? Why would it bother him? Suddenly more confused now than he had been when he'd dared to speculate over the true reason for her distress, Edward felt his brows draw ever more tightly together. Rather than address the questions now disturbing his sanity more than he cared to admit, he caught upon the one word she had said. “Unfortunately?”
She shook her head and tried to explain despite the hoarseness of her tone when the words came out. “It is a wondrous thing, love. Once known, it cannot be unknown. Once discovered, there is no way to force it back into hiding.” Her voice broke around a sob but this time she raised her chin and met his gaze directly. “It quite overtakes you, Edward, twisting you up inside until neither your life nor your heart can ever be the same.”
Blinking back tears, she drew in a quick, steadying breath. “Now that I understand—now that I fully comprehend all that love can be, I find I cannot bear to be the one who keeps you from discovering it for yourself.”
Her words were laden with the sound of dashed hopes, of broken fantasies, and wondrous dreams abruptly laid to waste. Though her fingers were shaking as she slid the ring she had been toying with off her finger and held it out to him, her gaze was steady when she said, “You are free, Edward. I release you.”
18
Tristan was waiting, one booted foot propped against the bright floral wallpaper lining the back hallway wall behind him, when Phoebe returned to the house a brief time later. When Edward did not immediately follow her inside, it took only a moment more for him to realize she had returned to the house alone. “Where is Claybourne?”
“Gone,” she whispered. “Where is Chelsea?”
Tristan motioned toward the stairs. “She was exhausted. I sent her upstairs to rest for a bit before we depart. Claybourne left with Kelsing?”
“Nay, he borrowed a mount from the stables. A groomsman will return it on the morrow. You are leaving?”
“Aye, for Greeding. I feel it is imperative to have a look at the place good old Pri
nny felt would be sufficient reward for a hero such as myself.” He tried to sound flippant, but he could hear the hint of pride in his own voice. To have earned for himself what his brother had been given simply by right of birth order felt—well, it was a matter of pride, he supposed. Greeding was no dukedom, to be sure, but now that it belonged to him, he would make it his life's work to see it prosper.
“Why so soon? I felt sure Lucien would insist you and your new bride stay here until after the wedding.”
Lucien had insisted. As soon as Tristan mentioned he and Chelsea would be leaving immediately following luncheon, his brother cried nonsense and pointed out that Grandmother had already had a room prepared for them. They would stay until after the wedding. But Tristan refused.
He needed to get away from family and friends who would expect him to continue a show of affection for his new wife. He needed distance—between himself and Chelsea most of all.
“He tried.” Tristan shrugged. “Chelsea and I will repair to Greeding until the day of the nuptials. I promise we shall not miss your wedding, Phoebe.”
Phoebe's expression turned immediately to one of misery, leaving him confused. He had thought she would be pleased he was giving his blessing, at last, but her red, puffy eyes filled with tears and her choked laugh was naught more than a mockery of the sound it should have been. “In truth, you will do exactly that. I released Edward from our agreement, Tristan. I set him free and he left.”
Knowing the dissolution of the arrangement between herself and the earl's grandson was a sore spot with her, Tristan did not dare reveal his relief. Instead, he schooled his features and posed a guess at Edward's reaction. “He was angry?”
Her shrug seemed nonchalant, but the undercurrents he was noticing when he looked at her did not bode well. “He did not seem upset.”
His brows rose. A fortune hunter who did not get upset when the daughter of a duke broke a betrothal, thus removing all chance of said fortune hunter receiving the relief of her dowry, was unheard of. Had he figured Claybourne wrongly? “You must have made quite an argument to secure your freedom so easily. What did you say to him?”
Leveling a telling stare at him, Phoebe said, “I merely told him the truth, Tristan—that I had fallen in love.”
After this morning's hearing, his discovery that Chelsea was both alive and now his wife, and then being awarded a title and lands he had never expected to receive, Phoebe's news had far less an effect on his conscience than it should have.
Were he not still reeling from all that had already happened today, he would have known she was upset beyond tolerance. He would have understood without needing to ask how deeply she was hurting in this moment. As it were, even the most blatant signs of her distress had escaped him—until now.
Tristan took a moment to digest what she had said and a second more to attempt to decipher precisely what her stare actually meant. She had fallen in love with the blackguard. Not only had she fallen in love with the man, she had told him as much—and still he had gone.
Well, hell. Tristan winced.
“You told the man you are in love with him and he fled back to Vykhurst?”
Phoebe's heavenward roll of her eyes said exactly how wrong his assumption had been. “Surely you could give me some credit, brother dearest, for knowing precisely which bits of information to reveal and what to leave out. I admitted to having fallen in love, but I was not so crass as to mention with whom.”
Of course not, he thought, because had she done so the outcome might have been quite different. She had been protecting herself. If she declared her love, thereby making herself vulnerable to his reaction, things might have gone rather badly for her—if Claybourne was truly the cad Tristan believed him to be.
But Phoebe's obvious distress over the matter made him think perhaps he had missed something where the Claybourne fellow was concerned. Perhaps his confrontation at Newgate truly had been for Phoebe's benefit and not his own. It was even possible Claybourne had developed a bit of a liking for Phoebe. Maybe he had even come to love her as much as Tristan could now clearly see that she had come to love him?
“You are not happy.” Tristan said, stating the obvious in an effort to keep the conversation going. He wasn't sure why he needed her to stay, but he was certain nothing good would come from allowing her to walk away.
Her gaze moved to the stairs and he knew she was thinking of Chelsea before she looked back to him. “Would you be?”
The mere thought of losing Chelsea again made his blood run cold. “Not bloody likely.”
“I think I shall go for a walk, Tristan. I fear I shall not be particularly good company at the moment.” Her voice was thick with suppressed emotion and Tristan felt like the worst sort of cad for his part in creating her current unhappiness.
“Phoebe, wait.” He caught her arm, stilling her, halting her escape. He could see a fresh trail of wetness on her cheeks and knew she had tried to move away before he saw just how upset she was over Claybourne's apparent acceptance of her defection.
“Lucien and the earl had an agreement, Phoebe. I am sure the duke can make Edward follow through with it. If not, I, personally, would not be the least hesitant to show him the error of his ways.” He tried to inject a bit of wryness into his tone in a meager attempt to shift the emotionally charged balance of their conversation into something a bit more lighthearted but Phoebe either did not catch on or she was too upset to care.
“Why the sudden change of heart, Tristan? Was it not you, dear brother, who merely days ago insisted I do whatever need be done to end this farce of a betrothal?” There was more than a hint of accusation in her tone as she spread her hands wide and narrowed her eyes. “Well, I have done so. Edward is gone. He is gone and he will not be back. You should bloody well be delighted!”
Anger tangled with the knot of emotion in her throat, choking her words, and again Tristan felt like the veriest cad. Sheepishly, he spread his own hands in a gesture of innocence before him and said, “I did not realize you had fallen in love with the man, Phoebe. Now that I know, I would be more than happy to drag him back here for you and make him honor the promises made.”
Staring at him in pained confusion, she asked, “Would that be acceptable to you, Tristan? Would you marry a woman you knew had been forced to take vows with you? A woman who cared not a whit for—”
Her voice broke and she closed her eyes. “Chelsea loves you, just as Claire loves Lucien and Mel—yes, Melisande Ruebrige truly does have a heart and she can love!—loves Uncle Tony. But Edward—”
Drawing in a breath, she opened her eyes, pinning him with a direct stare. “Edward does not love me. It is as simple as that.”
Tristan wanted to smash his fist into something—something hard. He wanted to howl in agony over the devastation his good intentions continued to cause. Over the course of their brief conversation, Phoebe's pain had become his own.
An unintelligible curse slid from between his clenched teeth. If only he had not been drowning in his own misery, perhaps he would have realized sooner that Phoebe had developed real feelings for the man she had agreed to marry to save him, but now it was too late. At his behest, she had broken their betrothal and he knew without a doubt it was his fault.
Once again, he was the cause of her pain and she was no longer willing to allow him a chance to make things right. His sigh was laced with the sound of defeat. “If there is one thing I have learned since Chelsea came into my life, it is that nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems.”
Shaking her head in denial, whether of his words or her suspicion that he might go against her wishes in light of what he professed to have learned, she said, “You will not force him, Tristan.”
“Very well. I will not force him—if that is what you truly wish, Phoebe.”
He could see the dilemma in her gaze, knew the conversation in her head—it was the same one he had had with himself over whether or not he could live without Chelsea in his life, and like himse
lf, he knew Phoebe's answer would be no. Her fingers clenched into tight fists and she nodded as if to reaffirm her decision to herself.
“It is.”
After leaving instructions with a groom to return the mount he had ridden to Rothwyn come morning, Edward stomped his way through the darkness from the Vykhurst stables to the house, storming ever forward until he reached the topmost floor of the northern tower where he paused and stared, unseeing, about the large, circular room.
What in all that was holy was wrong with him, he wondered, his breath bursting from his lungs in quick, sharp bursts until, finally, his fury calmed and his breathing slowed. Phoebe's admission of having fallen in love should have been a relief. Walking away from a betrothal he'd never wanted should have been easy. But somehow, knowing Phoebe had fallen for a man who was not him infuriated Edward. He should not have minded one whit where her emotions became engaged or with whom but the realization that he did made him feel all crazy inside and suddenly he was angry all over again.
It wasn't as if he had chosen her as his bride. Marrying Phoebe had been an unexpected boon, a gift from his grandfather that would ensure the absolute security of his financial situation once he came into the title which should have belonged to his father. The future Earl of Vykhurst would not be penniless despite his father's choices.
Such had been his grandfather's goal but Phoebe's recantation had destroyed it in an instant.
Once his grandfather became aware of her withdrawal from the agreement, Edward knew his funds would immediately cease. Being cut off from his meager allowance as the Vykhurst heir would not be the great hardship his grandfather believed but losing the stipend would curb his ability to take greater risks with the investments he had been looking into. Marrying Phoebe would have eliminated those risks but she was no longer interested in marriage—to him at any rate.
Lady Phoebe St. Daine had fallen in love. The great pity of it all, however, was that the man to whom she had been betrothed was not the object of her newly discovered grand affection.
An Unexpected Passion (Unexpected Series Book 2) Page 15