by Merry Farmer
“I told Lord Cosgrove that you’d be happy to see him,” her mother went on, evidently not seeing how ragingly uncomfortable Phoebe was. “And see, I was right.” She giggled and glanced to Lord Cosgrove.
Phoebe prayed for sudden death. It would have been less embarrassing than the attention she was getting. “It is good to see you again, my lord,” she said, the same way she would speak to a customer. She darted a glance to Mr. Waters, who was only barely tolerating the conversation.
“I also told Lord Cosgrove that you would be delighted to walk out with him,” her mother said.
Phoebe’s eyes snapped wide. “Mama,” she hissed. There was no way to dress her mother down the way she wanted to, though. She could only smile vacantly at Lord Cosgrove and say, “I’m afraid I am at work at the moment.”
Jane and Maude, who were still watching, giggled.
“Perfectly understandable,” Lord Cosgrove said. “Perhaps some other time.” He glanced to Phoebe’s mother. “Now that I have made your mother’s acquaintance again, I’m certain we will have ample opportunity for further encounters.”
Phoebe wanted to groan at the words. What had her mother done?
“This nonsense about working is unimportant,” her mother balked. “Surely there is someone else who can fiddle with gloves while you engage in more important matters.” She glanced sideways at Lord Cosgrove with a look of urgency. Phoebe knew exactly what her mother had in mind and rebelled at the idea.
“I’m afraid leaving work is entirely out of the question, Mama,” she said. She gambled on glancing in Mr. Waters’s direction.
Blessedly, the man stepped forward from his position. He cleared his throat and addressed her mother and Lord Cosgrove. “I’m terribly sorry to be a nuisance, my lord, but I must ask that you either make a purchase or kindly leave my staff alone to tend to other customers.” He nodded to a pair of ladies hovering near the counter.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Lord Cosgrove said, nodding to the man, then turning a wide smile on Phoebe. “We will speak again soon.”
“I’m certain you will,” Phoebe’s mother said.
It took a few more, threatening looks from Mr. Waters to get the pair to leave. Once they departed, Jane and Maude left as well, seeing as the show was over. Phoebe was relieved to be able to turn her attention to the waiting customers, but before they approached the counter, Mr. Waters tapped her arm and dragged her aside.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” Phoebe said before the man could chastise her. “I did not expect my mother to arrive like that.”
Mr. Waters pursed his lips, clearly annoyed, but perhaps a tiny bit sympathetic. “I understand your circumstances, Miss Darlington. Truly, I do. But need I remind you, yet again, that this is a place of business and not a social club?”
“No, Mr. Waters. I understand, sir.” Phoebe kept her head lowered. She’d asked to be called Miss Darlington instead of Lady Phoebe when she was hired, but there was still something soul-crushing in hearing herself addressed as such by a man whom her former self would hardly have noticed. That woman was long gone now.
Mr. Waters let out an impatient breath. “You are far and away our best sales girl,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone as adept at selling sundries as you are, Miss Darlington.”
“Thank you, sir?” Phoebe glanced up at him, not certain if he meant his words as a compliment or not.
Mr. Water’s expression was tight with impatience. “If you were not as skilled at sales as you are, Miss Darlington, I would have sacked you months ago.”
Phoebe’s spirits sank all over again. It was a harsh reality that her position in life, such as it was, now depended on the whims of a man as surely as it had when her father frittered away his money and his reputation.
“I will do better, sir,” she said, because it was the only thing she could say.
Mr. Waters nodded and returned to his position. Phoebe dragged herself back to her counter and put on a smile to serve her next customers. Inwardly, she wanted to weep. Nothing had gone right in her life since long before her father died. Every which way she turned, misery and misfortune seemed to befall her. But she’d pushed through so far. She was determined to keep pushing through as well.
That thought stayed with her for the remaining hour of her shift. It bolstered her as she gathered her things from the employee dressing room reserved for Harrods’ female staff. It even stayed with her as she headed out into a dreary afternoon. Thick, grey clouds hung low over London, giving the entire city a depressed air. The streets of Mayfair and the greens of Hyde Park might have been cheery and beautiful, but once she passed on to the narrow passageways between Brook Street and Oxford Street, the pragmatic, commercial side of London became more pronounced, giving it a dirty, dreary, and utilitarian quality.
To make matters worse, as she hurried up Oxford Street, a commotion due to a collision between several carriages forced her to make a long and arduous detour up toward Fitzrovia just as the skies opened and rain poured down.
“Blast,” Phoebe muttered, clapping a hand to her already battered hat, wishing she had an umbrella. Her only umbrella had broken the week before, though, and she had yet to save up enough to purchase a new one.
The rain quickly shifted from a light patter to a full downpour, threatening to soak Phoebe to the bone. All she could do was dash for the nearest shelter, a pub with a shingle over the door that read The Watchman. She only barely managed to avoid getting soaked enough to look like a drowned rat before leaping into the pub, though her threadbare coat and her hat dripped all over the pub’s floor. That wasn’t what caused her to gasp and question her wisdom in ducking into a pub to stay out of the rain, though. Instead, it was the man who glanced up at her from one of the tables near the front of the pub.
Chapter 2
“The shipping investments are coming along well. The stake you purchased in Riverton Shipping Enterprise is paying off nicely. But as I’ve said several times before, your portfolio’s strength is and always has been your family’s real estate investments.”
Daniel Long nodded as his man of business, Oswald Tuttle, ran through the piles of reports and ledgers strewn across one of the tables in the pub. Everything was in order as far as Danny could see, though he liked hearing Tuttle explain it all during their weekly meetings.
“How are the properties in Belgravia doing?” he asked, focusing on the list of costs and income generated by the investment he’d made in the area a year ago.
Tuttle shuffled through the papers on the table until he found the report he was looking for. “Very well, all things considered,” he said with a smile. “I must admire your acumen, once again, in knowing exactly where to purchase land, when to purchase it, and what to build on it, Mr. Long.”
Danny shrugged. “There’s a housing crisis. People need to live somewhere. Anyone who pays attention can see where the next big market for houses will be.”
He was playing down his knack for investment and he knew it. Tuttle knew it as well. Danny was the third generation of Longs to invest in real estate and come out on top. The family legacy had started when his great-grandfather and namesake had won the deed to a small property on Oxford Street in a mad-capped card game. Rumor had it that he’d won a woman in the process, but Great-Granddad had only been a green lad at the time, and since another man was in love with the woman in question, he’d gladly handed her over.
Great-Granddad had taken over the running of the Oxford Street pub, reinvesting the profits in the building adjacent to the pub. Danny’s grandfather had purchased the buildings on either side of those two and expanded the family holdings. His father had reinvested those profits in bits and pieces of land around the outskirts of the burgeoning city, growing the family fortune exponentially. But Danny was the first of the family to be sent to university on the profits. And though he hadn’t gone anywhere as grand as Oxford or Cambridge, and while his snooty classmates had snubbed him for his lower-class accent and habits, he’d lear
ned more about investing, financial markets, and compound interest than any of his forbearers.
Danny was the one who had turned a comfortable portfolio of London properties into a real estate empire. He was the one who bought up half of what was now West London before any other investor had an inkling that the property would be worth anything. Danny had the Midas touch, and unbeknownst to just about anyone, other than Tuttle and a few of his closest friends, he was in the running for the wealthiest man in London.
Lower-class accent, rough demeanor, ribald sense of humor, and all.
And he still conducted all of his business out of his beloved pub in humble Fitzrovia.
But something was missing. He’d felt it for a while, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“What’s next?” he asked Tuttle, glancing across the neat ledgers and carefully compiled information spread on the table in front of him. “What hill are we going to climb now?”
Maybe if he could find a new investment to master or a new project to excite him, he wouldn’t feel the gaping hole in his chest. There had to be more than investments and money. He had more of that than he needed. It wasn’t even fun to spend it anymore.
“There’s always Earl’s Court,” Tuttle said with a shrug, sifting through the papers in front of him and taking out a clipping from The Times. “By all reports, Earl’s Court is a veritable gold mine right now. They can’t build those terraced houses fast enough down there.”
“So we should jump into those waters,” Danny said, taking the clipping from Tuttle and reading through it with lightning speed. That was another trick he’d mastered. He could read faster than anyone else he knew and recall whatever he’d read at a moment’s notice. Him, a man who most of the toffs who danced in and out of his pub, thinking they’d have a laugh by slumming it for a night, assumed couldn’t read at all. Then again, Danny had always loved being underestimated by the high and mighty, and anyone with a stick up their arses, the way most noblemen had.
“That’s what I recommend,” Tuttle said. “There is a particular parcel of land I think you’d be interested in. Parliament will be holding a hearing soon to decide which company to grant the building contracts to. It’s here, relatively close to the new Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre.”
Danny’s brow shot up. “That is valuable property.”
“And you could easily win the contracts to develop it,” Tuttle said. “If you ask me, the area needs a man with a vision like yours to make something of it.”
A vision like his. Danny grinned at the idea, but it was hard to keep his grin in place. He kept buying properties, building on them, and selling the houses for a profit. Over and over. It was lucrative, but it was growing repetitive. There had to be something else to do with his life besides making money. He’d made it, now he wanted to enjoy it. He wanted acknowledgement too, if he were honest with himself. Secret wealth was no fun at all. But the idea of breaking into society left him cold. Why? What was the point? Those people would never accept a man like him, no matter how much cash he had. He was and always would be inferior in their eyes, a dressed-up dog that they could kick whenever they wanted to. There had to be something else he could do, some other way he could—
His thoughts were cut short as the door to his pub flew open, bringing with it the sound of rain pounding on the street and buildings outside. The rush of sound lasted only a moment before the door shut again. And there she was, framed against the dark wood, soggy and bedraggled, but strikingly beautiful. Her blond hair was damp under the ugliest hat Danny had ever seen, but the rain that soaked her lightweight coat only served to highlight her glorious shape.
And then she glanced up at him, her green eyes sparkling with shock to find him staring at her. Her cheeks were pink from walking and her lips were parted just enough to be tempting as she flinched under his gaze.
“Hello,” Danny said, standing abruptly and abandoning the table, his business, and Tuttle. He stepped around an empty table, feeling like he couldn’t reach her side fast enough. “What brings a bird like you into a rough and tumble place like this in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, love?” he asked, his accent sharp with cockney drawl.
“I…er…that is…it’s raining,” she said in a soft, refined voice, twisting to point out the window in the pub’s front door. “I don’t have an umbrella.”
“Well, come inside and sit by the fire then,” Danny said, moving closer to her than he should and gesturing toward the small, crackling fire on one side of his mostly-empty pub. It was too early in the day for the crowds that thronged the place in the evening to be there yet, which was why he and Tuttle were conducting business out in the open instead of in his cramped back office, but the few patrons who were there glanced up from their pints and pies to take a look at the unusual newcomer.
“I shouldn’t stay long,” she said, seeming to shrink in on herself as Danny shuffled her over to the table closest to the fireplace. “Only until the rain stops.” She unbuttoned her long overcoat.
“You can stay as long as you’d like, Lady Darlington,” Danny said, breaking into a wide, sly smile.
As he expected, Lady Phoebe Darlington started as he called her by name, pausing in the act of removing her coat. “It’s actually Lady Phoebe, not—” She blinked. “You…you know who I am?”
“Of course I do, love.” He winked. “We met last year, at Lady Clerkenwell’s benefit for orphans. Don’t you remember?”
He would never forget. It had been a fleeting encounter. He’d been bellowing away at anyone who passed by, bullying them into donating as much money as they could, and then some, to Bianca’s cause. Lady Phoebe had happened by with her mother. He’d been struck by her beauty in an instant. Admittedly, he had teased her in an attempt to get her to donate to the cause before being informed that she and her mother were, in fact, as poor as church mice. The brief encounter had driven home the point to him that it didn’t matter what class someone was born into these days, how much money and security they had was more about effort than birth.
Phoebe blinked at him in confusion before sudden understanding dawned in her eyes. “Oh.” Her already pink cheeks flushed deeper, stirring purely male appreciation deep in Danny’s gut. “Oh, I do remember. Mr. Long, is it?” She finished removing her coat.
“You can call me Danny, love,” he said in an overly friendly tone, taking her coat and draping it over an empty chair before pulling out a seat at the table by the fire for her. He leaned far closer than he should have to her as she sat. “All my friends do.”
“I couldn’t possibly do that,” she said, flustered.
“Course you can.” Danny nudged her chair in, then sat on the edge of the table facing her. Perhaps it made him a lout, but he rather liked the difference their positions made in their height. She had to crane her neck to look up at him. “How does it go in your circles? We’ve already been formally introduced,” he affected an upper-class accent and attitude. “So you’re free to call me by a more familiar name and talk to me like we’re friends.”
Phoebe blinked again, probably startled by his change in accent. Everyone was when he talked proper. He loved shocking the sunshine out of the nobs by presenting himself like one of them now and then.
Just as he was beginning to enjoy Phoebe’s surprise, her whole countenance sagged. “They’re not my circle anymore.”
An uncomfortable twist hit Danny’s gut. Come to think of it, he had heard some of his upper-class friends mention something about Darlington at some point. He shifted to sit in the chair beside her, gesturing for Bess, one of his bar maids, to fetch them some refreshments.
“What happened, then, love?” he asked, back to his rough and tumble self.
Phoebe eyed him suspiciously, but she didn’t shy away or get up and leave. “I wouldn’t want to bother you with my problems.”
Danny didn’t like the way she looked down. Lady Phoebe Darlington wasn’t meant to be downcast, not at all. “It’s no trouble,” he
said, his desire to tease her giving way to a genuine need to hear her story. “And it’s not like you’ve got much else to do until this rain ends.”
She glanced up, looking out the nearest window. “It doesn’t seem to be letting up,” she said in a somewhat distant voice. “It doesn’t ever seem to want to let up.”
Alarm bells sounded in Danny’s chest. He didn’t need his university degree to see sadness in the poor woman’s eyes. “Tell me,” he said, reaching out to cover her tiny, gloved hands with one of his own.
Phoebe’s eyes went wide for a moment and her hands tensed under his. She stole a furtive look at him. A moment later, she let out a breath.
“I don’t suppose it could do any harm,” she said, clearly speaking to herself. She swallowed, then glanced to Danny. “If you know my name, I would assume you know my circumstances as well.”
Danny shrugged. “Father died, leaving you and your mum with nothing but debts. No family to come to your rescue. Not exactly the darling of high society. Did I get that right?”
Her shoulders sagged and she glanced down at her hands, which she’d pulled away from his and into her lap. “Yes, I’m afraid you did,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Mama and I currently reside at a boarding house in Marylebone. I pay our rent by working at Harrods.”
Danny was impressed and let it show in his expression. “That’s a damn sight more than most women in your position would be able to say.”
She glanced suddenly up at him. “That’s not the reaction I get from most people when I confess how low I’ve sunk.”
“How low you’ve sunk?” Danny laughed. “Love, you could be selling yourself instead of, what, ladies’ knickers?”
She flushed a deep shade of scarlet and looked away.
“Sorry,” he said, no idea why he felt such a need to apologize. “I’m no better than a street urchin, I know.” He slouched back in his chair, shaping his posture and his expression to exactly what she must have thought he was—a lewd, crass bounder. He didn’t mind playing that part. It was far more fun than playing the stuffed gentleman.