Phoebe inclined her head. “Lord Brookhaven.”
Calder turned on his heel and left, taking any power that Tessa might have yielded over her with him.
He really was a remarkable man. It was such a pity she didn’t love him.
Chapter Forty-nine
The bustle of wedding preparations moved forward with a life of its own. The servants seemed to know precisely what to do to throw such a celebration, though the last Brookhaven wedding had been four decades hence. Phoebe left them generally to their own devices. They were far more qualified than she, anyway.
The vicar spent his days nattering about the library’s “stunning collection” and studiously avoiding noticing that anything was awry with his only daughter. Phoebe allowed it, for what could he possibly do to make matters better?
Lementeur delivered the wedding dress personally. The stunning ivory creation was even more beautiful than she remembered.
Remembering meant thinking of Rafe. When she tried the dress on for the dressmaker, she wasn’t able to hide the tears that welled forth.
“Oh, sweeting, don’t drip on the silk!” He handed her a scented handkerchief and patted her gently on the shoulder while she cried on his.
When she straightened, feeling better in a numb sort of way, he smoothed her damp face and turned her to face the mirror once more.
“You are far too lovely to be so sad,” he stated firmly. “Nor will I tolerate a gloomy bride in one of my gowns. Now, tell me what is wrong.”
She told him all—every little hidden aspect of her life, for she’d grown mightily sick of her own secrets. When she reached the part about Rafe’s disappearance, Lementeur’s eyes widened in surprise for the first time since she’d begun her recitation.
Why surprise just then? Goodness, had he already known everything else?
The little dressmaker threw up his hands. “How could you keep such important information from me?” He put his fists on his hips. “Honestly, what people make me go through!”
She blinked at him. “But … I’m still getting married tomorrow, sir.”
He was in a whirl, clapping his hands for Cabot to gather his items and calling for his driver. “So much to do—” He blew her a kiss as he flew from the room. “Ta-ta, my dear! Happy wedding day!”
Phoebe was left standing alone in her room, all dressed up and wondering what part of her sad tale she’d missed.
STICKLEY GAZED AT the days-old gossip sheet that Wolfe had just thrust into his hands in confusion. Wolfe paced furiously in the tiny shack as Stickley read it.
“Wedding back on?” Stickley looked up. “How can they say this? We wrote the letter—we stole his lordship!”
“We stole someone,” Wolfe growled. “Not Brookhaven, apparently.”
Stickley blinked. “But who, then? He looks like him—he was in the Brookhaven carriage—”
Wolfe tossed back the last drop of whiskey, then flung his empty bottle across the room to shatter against the stones of the fireplace. Glass rained down upon the fine boots roughly tossed there days before. “We stole the damned bastard rake, that’s what! We left the marquis warm and toasty in London and risked everything to steal the bloody half brother!”
Stickley drew his brows together, unable to deny the obvious. Then he straightened. “The wedding!”
“What?”
Stickley stood and gathered his hat. “We can still make it if we hurry.”
Wolfe sneered. “Why would we want to?”
Stickley tugged his weskit into place and smoothed his coat. “We’ve already lost, Wolfe—and I think it very good that our plan failed. This matter was far too distasteful for the likes of me. As for the wedding itself, we are invited. At this point, the best we can hope for is to absolve ourselves of any suspicion. Don’t you think it would be questionable if we missed the wedding of our only client—the biggest wedding of the year?”
Wolfe blew out a long breath, admitting defeat. “I hate weddings.” Then he tilted his chin toward the cellar door. “What about himself?”
Stickley sniffed. He disapproved of rakes on principle. Bastards as well. Bastard rakes who tried to seduce nice young ladies fell far down the list. “He’ll keep. We’ll send an anonymous note to the nearest village as soon as we’re back. Someone will come to let him out.”
Once Miss Millbury was properly wed to a nice, decent gentleman!
DINNER THE EVENING before the wedding was extremely subdued. Phoebe remained in her “guest” seat still. There was plenty of time to move to a more appropriate family chair someday. Calder sat at the head of the table, as he had every night since he’d brought her back. Funny, she’d seen more of him since she’d betrayed him.
She used her fork to create lines in the meat juices on her plate. Calder had not kissed her again, thankfully. It hadn’t been unpleasant, but it would be a very long time before the fire of that one blissful night would fade from her memory.
Of course, she had all the time in the world, didn’t she?
She’d been going through the motions of wedding preparations, although she could not bear to so much as glance at the seating chart with Rafe’s notes all over it in a strong, looping hand. “Just do it,” she’d told Fortescue, who had nodded gravely and walked away.
When would the mere sight of his handwriting not inflame her memories? She must douse that torch. She must send that Phoebe back to sleep … possibly forever.
THE HOUSE ABOVE had been silent now for many hours. At first Rafe had scarcely noticed, intent as he was on his seemingly granule-by-granule removal of the ancient mortar in the cellar wall. It was only when another brick fell through his throbbing hands to crash onto the floor that he froze in alarm, listening.
There wasn’t a sound—nor, he realized, had there been for some time. Not a scrape, not a footfall. He listened carefully. They could be asleep.
Or they could both be gone at the same time. That had never happened before. To test it, he took the brick and flung it full force at the heavy iron-bound door of the cellar.
It boomed deeply, sending dust and grit shivering down from the ancient boards above his head.
It also broke a hand-sized hole in the mossy wood. Rafe stared, a hoarse laugh of surprise rasping from his throat. All this time, he ought to have been digging at the moldy door!
He shoved his hand through the hole, but couldn’t reach the latch. Bending, he grabbed up the fallen stone and pounded freely at the door. The hole widened instantly enough for him to thrust his entire arm through.
Moments later he was through the door and up into what turned out to be not much more than a poor shanty. There was no one there, but his boots lay discarded by the fire.
He stepped swiftly to them.
“Ouch!” He jumped back and lifted his right foot. Blood welled from where a calling-card sized shard of glass was imbedded deeply into his flesh.
The bastards just wouldn’t quit, would they? He yanked the shard out and dabbed at the cut with his filthy shirttail, cursing tightly. The blood stopped at last and he was able to put his boots on gingerly.
There was nothing else of value there—nothing at all but a discarded newssheet on the table. Time to leave. He limped toward the door.
Something caught his eye as he passed the table. Handsome Brookhaven—
He paused, reached for the sheet and read.
Oh no. Oh God, no.
Phoebe!
How could she do this? Did she know how he loved her? Didn’t she know this would destroy him—
Rafe clenched the newssheet in his hand. She had made her choice after all.
The hell of it was, he couldn’t even begrudge Calder his bride. He’d never seen his brother so lighthearted as when he courted Phoebe—nor had he ever felt more like a betraying devil than when he’d woken up beside Phoebe that morning. Calder was a good man—who would certainly never do such a thing to him.
But just because Rafe couldn’t hate them for marrying didn�
�t mean he wanted to see them together, year after year, growing closer, having children, until he himself was just a fading face at their table—poor Uncle Rafe who never married.
No. He would go to Johannesburg, try his hand at plantation life …
My dear Miss Millbury—
How odd. That almost looked like his handwriting on a scrap of paper sticking out from under the table leg. Or was that Calder’s note that he’d stolen? He bent to work it free.
My dear Miss Millbury, I regret that I am unable to fulfill my promise to you—
What the hell? Rafe stepped quickly toward the grimy window for better light. This wasn’t Calder’s note—although the similarity of the handwriting was uncanny—nor was this anything he himself had written!
I have decided against wedding you—
There was part of another line visible, the upper part of the looping script clear.
I could not bear to tell your—no, you—in person. This note is ill—no, all—you will rec—
All you will receive?
Rafe closed his eyes, trying to remember everything he’d heard in the brief argument about a letter.
“Cannot copy—”
“Signing my name—”
“Can match the—”
Forgery.
Rafe looked from the scrap of letter to the newssheet with Phoebe’s wan face drawn there. “My God.”
His kidnappers, for some utterly bizarre reason, had tried to make Phoebe believe that he had wanted no part of her after—
His gut clenched at the thought of the pain she must have felt—and after what she’d already been through in her youth! No wonder she’d turned to Calder—
The wedding!
Rafe scrambled back to the table and madly smoothed the wrinkles from the newssheet, his gaze scanning it, searching for a date. Bloody hell, where was the damned date?
There. The twelfth of May—Oh, God, what date was it now? The tenth? The eleventh?
Rafe stuffed both scraps of paper into his pocket as he ran from the cottage, his heart racing ahead to London.
Wait for me. Oh, God, Phoebe—please, please wait!
Chapter Fifty
Her wedding day dawned depressingly clear and fine. She knew that because she watched the sun rise after a long and fruitless night of questions.
Was she doing the right thing? Was she dooming herself to unhappiness? What if she never loved again? Would her life contain enough other things to make it worthwhile to breathe and eat and carry on?
As for living without Rafe—well, she had memories, good memories that she could not bring herself to regret. There were worse things than falling in love with the wrong person … of course, she couldn’t think of any right offhand.
Except perhaps being powerless. She raised her chin as she gazed out over the green Brook House garden. She would never be bought or sold again, never stolen or traded, never claimed and then discarded.
She would decide her own fate from this day forward.
RAFE TRUDGED HIS way along the road to London. Surely he wasn’t the only one traveling this way, even at this early hour with the sun barely peeking above the horizon. However, he was the only one in sight.
Even if carts had passed, he was not sure that any would have come to the aid of the ragged, filthy fellow limping along in dusty boots. Rafe realized he was unrecognizable—although with his reputation, being recognized might not fare him any better!
Such thoughts did nothing to ease the roiling powerlessness that threatened to choke him. He couldn’t move any faster than he was, for he could not force his legs to run any more. He hadn’t eaten properly in days. He would have happily asked for help but he hadn’t seen a village or even a farm since the sky had lightened.
Only pure will and his desire to see Phoebe kept him upright.
Don’t do it, my love.
Wait for me.
AFTER PATRICIA HAD helped her dress and fixed her hair, Phoebe sent her to tend to Sophie next. The kindly maid was gentle and sensitive, but Phoebe needed to be alone with all the desperation of a cat in a yard full of dogs.
Of course, that meant that the vicar was due for a visit.
He loomed in her doorway, in his usual dark garments and severely tied stock, as if he were on his way to a funeral, not a wedding.
Then again, perhaps she was the one overdressed for such a day. Phoebe’s gaze roamed back toward the sunny garden.
“I very nearly killed a man once.”
Phoebe turned in surprise.
“He was a rival, one of your mother’s suitors. I beat him nearly to death with nothing but my fists and the rage in my heart.” The vicar was gazing out of her window, his remote expression and distant tone jarringly at odds with his words.
It was impossible—a lie—yet the vicar never, ever lied. Withhold truth, absolutely, but never lie.
“He lived, but barely. I don’t think he ever truly recovered if he even still lives to this day.” The vicar reached to flick away a mote of dust from the drapery with one finger. “I would very much like to claim that he deserved it, that he’d committed some terrible crime, or had even indulged in dishonorable behavior—but he had done nothing. He’d merely twitted me about my dogged devotion to Audrey … it might have been good-natured, I don’t truly recall. I exploded upon him, dragging him to the ground and striking him over and over—”
Phoebe saw a tremor travel through the fingers of the vicar’s extended hand. It was the only sign of emotion.
“He was quite correct, of course. I was far too attached to a girl I scarcely knew—yet it had been that way from our first meeting. I touched her hand and all thoughts of others were swept from my mind. I was mad for her—and not in the way you youngsters use the word. I was quite literally out of my mind. I know of no other way to express the feeling. It was as though I could not breathe if she were not in the room—as if she were air itself to me.”
I know. Oh, sweet heaven, I know.
“She sent me away then. I begged her to allow me to stay, pleaded on my knees … I frightened her with my passion, yet she stood her ground and insisted that I take myself off and only return if and when I’d brought my madness under control.”
He turned away from the window and the memories it had reflected for him. He inhaled deeply and smoothed the lapels of his coat. His gaze, as cool and gray as ever, rested upon her face. “I joined the church,” he went on, as if he’d been discussing nothing more important than a new alter drapery. “I turned to the cold stones of the abbey to draw the heat from my blood and I gave myself up to the service of mankind in penance for my violence. When I graduated I was granted the living at the vicarage at Thornhold. I sent an announcement to Audrey of my new existence and she answered that brief note with one word. ‘Yes.’”
Phoebe swallowed. Who was this man before her? She’d thought him cold, devoid of strong emotion. Yet all this time, he, too, had been masked?
“Papa, I—”
He held up a hand to halt her. “I did not tell you this for any reason but to warn you. Hot blood runs in your veins. I handed my curse down to you. I saw it when you were fifteen and I feared for you. I blamed myself. Now …” He let out a breath and almost—but not quite—smiled. “Now I know that I carried the fear and guilt for no reason. You are stronger than I was.”
Phoebe felt her eyes burn with poignant gratitude for that crumb of approval—tears he would not want to see. She blinked them back as he went on.
“Of course, it may simply be that as a female, you are incapable of such deep emotion.”
Phoebe let out a breath of a laugh, without bitterness. The vicar was … the vicar. Life’s wheel rolled on, the world unchanged.
She stepped forward and rested her hand lightly upon his arm. “Thank you for telling me,” she said, careful to keep her tone even. “I shall take your words to heart.”
Which was all he’d truly wanted to hear from her. He nodded, that slight lessening of the te
nsion about his lips the closest thing to the smile she knew she’d never see.
“You see, you can have a life of contentment and peace,” he added casually. “I myself have never strayed from mine—but for that once at the inn at Biddleton.”
The inn at Biddleton.
Phoebe blinked. The vicar had clearly been furious that day, yet he’d not expressed it beyond a terser-than-usual tone and a white-knuckled grip on her arm—
His hand, wrapped around her elbow, the knuckles scraped and raw …
Terrence’s flight, hatless, jacket flapping, never looking back to where she stood at her window, watching him leave her behind …
“It took me nearly an hour to bring myself under control that day,” he was saying.
An hour of sitting in her room, waiting for Terrence to return to her. “You saw Terrence?”
“Saw him? I beat the living tar out of that cur. I had to threaten his life—and yours!—before he would leave you behind!”
She gazed at him in shock. He looked away from her hurt, guilty self-righteousness on his face. “You were meant for better things! I promised your mother—”
Icy fury began to rise within her. “You drove him off? I loved him!”
He twitched. “Well, he left you, didn’t he? And then—why, he sent less than a dozen letters afterward! Hardly true love!”
Letters?
Yet her fury could not be sustained against her present unhappiness. What did it matter now? She’d have been miserable with Terrence, even if he’d meant to wed her. She might not be very happy at the moment, but still her present fate was far superior to a lifetime of washing a layabout musician’s dirty stockings.
She turned away from the vicar and rested her burning eyes on the garden once again.
It looked as though the roses would bloom soon.
A FAINT JINGLING of harness roused Rafe from his trudging stupor. He looked up, blinking into the morning light.
As he watched, an apparition appeared. A jaunty little one-horse cart, pulled by a pony with lavender ribbons in its mane, sporting purple enameled sides and a gold emblem upon the door—an ornate “L.”
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