What manner of pathetic fool had he allowed himself to become, sitting here with a club of eager beauties and coin to be won, waxing on with his maudlin thoughts about his childhood and his wife? He swiped the bottle from the table and splashed several fingerfuls into his empty glass. This hold Phoebe had upon him was too great. He could not give her more of him than this—it would weaken him and destroy him in ways he’d not been destroyed. She already hated him. He swirled the contents of his glass in a small circle. History had proven what happened to those who hated. Soon, that bitterness would drive his wife to seek out another and he would not be the angry, hurt man staring at her tup another, the way his father had been.
A young beauty sidled up to him. “My lord,” she purred. “Are you desiring company?” Clad in a black lace confection, she was sin wrapped with the crimson bows that held her slip of a dress loosely tied. The lush woman fingered her low décolletage in invitation. At any other point, in any other time before Phoebe he’d have unhesitantly taken the woman. He would have slaked his desire, brought her release that left them both sated. Edmund gave his head a curt shake and with a moue of disappointment, she sauntered off. Now there was Phoebe and nothing made sense any longer.
“Rutland, my good man.”
At the cheerful greeting, Edmund stiffened. Bloody brilliant. “Barrett,” he said warily. “I was just—”
The young man was as undaunted as his older sister. “Glad to keep you company.” He tugged out the chair opposite Edmund and slid into it. “Enjoying marriage?” His wry grin indicated he’d already arrived at an opinion on Edmund’s thoughts of his wedded state.
He frowned and remained silent.
Undeterred, Andrew Barrett stuck his hands into the edge of his waistcoat and tipped back on the legs of his chair, balancing haphazardly. “A bit surprised I am, if I can admit as much.”
Edmund battled back wary annoyance. “Surprised at what?” Of course, he should expect his brother-in-law would take offense with him abandoning the newly married Phoebe. Still, visiting his clubs was not uncharacteristic of a wedded gentleman. Mayhap not a just wedded gentleman, but it was quite the norm.
Barrett shrugged and then leaned abruptly forward as his precarious positioning nearly landed him on his backside for his attempt at nonchalance. “A man such as you would hardly be content with Pheebs.” A cocky grin pulled his mouth up at one corner. “A bit mouthy and motherly, I was surprised that you were so determined to have her.”
A growl worked its way up Edmund’s chest and he narrowed his eyes into thin slits.
Barrett wasn’t wholly stupid, for he bristled. “Not that I’m not glad to have you as a brother.” No, perhaps he was wholly stupid after all. “And Phoebe will make you a good wife. She is loyal and devoted.”
Edmund reached for his bottle and poured himself another brandy. The man spoke of her as though she were a damned spaniel. Yes, she was loyal and devoted as the other man claimed, but she was so much more than that. She was spirited and passionate and intelligent. “She is not a blasted dog,” he snapped, then set the bottle down hard and picked up his glass. He took another much needed drink.
Barrett blinked rapidly. He scratched his brow. “Er…I didn’t call her a dog. I called her devoted.” Glancing about, the young pup located a fiery-haired lightskirt and motioned to her. The woman sauntered over with the flimsy, crimson satin fabric molding to her every curve with each slow, inviting step she took.
The young woman stopped beside their table and settled a glass on the smooth mahogany surface. Then, planting her palms on Barrett’s lap she leaned close and flicked her tongue over the shell of his ear. “Do you require anything else?”
The young man’s throat bobbed up and down.
Edmund swiped his free hand over his face. Oh, Christ. The last thing he cared to do was sit here with this man who had his wife’s eyes while he took a whore in public for all to see. He made to shove back his chair.
“I was surprised I didn’t see you with her tonight.”
Edmund froze and probed Phoebe’s brother with a hard look.
The young man paused in the midst of nuzzling the prostitute’s neck. She giggled and swatted at him in protest. “At Lord and Lady Wentworth’s,” he clarified. “Came from there a short while ago.”
The knot twisted all the more in his gut. She’d gone out to a polite Society event. Did you expect she should stay at home, alone, while you sought out your clubs? Yes, yes he had. Because the selfish bastard that he was, he’d not considered what she’d be doing. But now he knew. She was at the bloody Wentworth’s ball. If they were to live their own lives such a detail didn’t really matter. She’d attend with—
“Was there with her friends,” Barrett supplied, as he ran a hand down the whore’s thigh.
Edmund came to his feet earning a confused look from his brother-in-law. “Where are you off to, Rutland?”
He gave a slight bow. “Barrett,” he muttered. Regardless of their connection through marriage, and by Phoebe, he still wouldn’t answer to this man or anyone. He spun on his heel and he who’d sworn to avoid polite Social events unless they suited some larger purpose took his leave from Forbidden Pleasures and made his way to the damned Wentworth ball.
“I do say they are leering more,” Gillian said on an annoyed moan.
“Yes, yes they are,” Honoria glared at Lord Pratt who eyed the trio of her, Gillian, and Phoebe.
Phoebe sighed as the young earl ran a lascivious stare over her person, before ultimately settling his hot gaze upon her bosom. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I daresay it is my fault,” she muttered. For apparently with this whole marital business came open advances and interested stares from bold gentleman no longer restricted by the polite bounds of unwed, virginal lady and gentleman. Lord Allswood caught her eye across the ballroom and gave her a slow, lingering grin. She scowled and jerked her attention away. She’d wager the title of Marchioness of Rutland did not help with the whole respectability end of everything.
Gillian groaned and together Phoebe and Honoria followed her stare to the other woman’s fast-approaching father and another prospective suitor at his side. “Go,” Phoebe whispered out of the side of her mouth.
On cue, Honoria positioned herself between Gillian and the determined pair marching through the crowd, and with a last grateful look, she all but sprinted away, weaving and darting past curious lords and ladies, and then she disappeared.
Suddenly, the marquess stopped. He scratched his head and then turned off in search of his daughter.
“Surely, there is more to life than this,” Honoria muttered at her side.
At her friend’s hopeless words, regret filled her. One time she would have had proper words of hope and an optimistic thought for the cynical one of their trio. Not this time. Phoebe stared above the heads of the dance partners now performing the steps of a quadrille. It was deuced hard to be optimistic or truly happy when you found yourself wed to a man who’d merely used you in some convoluted scheme and then was content to let you carry on your life, while he carried on his.
“He is not worth it, you know.” Honoria’s quietly spoken words brought her back from her despondency.
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. However, neither could she force out words of concurrence. The loyal butler, Wallace, had seen more in him and, at one time, so had she. Surely, some of that had been real?
“Phoebe.” She looked to Honoria once more. “Not all people can be fixed.”
“I know that,” she said quickly. Because she did. Some people were broken beyond repair and could not be healed, no matter how much you willed it, no matter how much you wished it. It didn’t, however, stop you from hoping.
She was never more grateful than when Honoria changed the subject to a far safer matter. “You know they aren’t really staring at you any more than you think they are.”
A small laugh burst from Phoebe’s lips.
Honoria leaned close a
nd dropped her voice to a low whisper. “Only you and…and…the marquess know the true circumstances of your marriage. Why, for all intents and purposes,” she motioned to Lady Wentworth’s guests. “You may as well be any newly married woman here.”
“Without the wedding trip,” she said dryly.
“Without the wedding trip,” her friend said with a nod, either failing to hear or deliberately ignore the sarcasm lacing Phoebe’s words. “They still see you as a love match.” Which is what she’d believed they would be not even three days ago after rides through Hyde Park and afternoon visits and stolen interludes at curiosity shops. Phoebe closed her eyes a moment and willed back the pain.
Her friend discreetly slid her hand in hers. “Oh, Phoebe. Not here. You are to live your own life.”
“I didn’t want to live my own life,” she said on a ragged whisper, damning Society for hovering on the fringe of her broken heart. I wanted a life with him. I wanted to be loved and happy and everything my own mother was not, nor ever would be.
The column of Honoria’s throat moved and she looked beyond Phoebe’s shoulder. Recognition flared in the other woman’s eyes and Phoebe followed her stare.
Her heart plummeted to her toes as she assessed the tall, regal lady approaching them. Phoebe had seen her before, on numerous occasions. At every one of those meetings, the woman had been polite and smiling, and cloaked herself in more than a little bit of sadness. Now, as Honoria’s Aunt Margaret, the Duchess of Monteith, approached, jealousy knifed through her being and slashed a trail of hurt in its wake. This was the woman Edmund had loved so very much that he’d have involved not only Honoria but Phoebe in his sick, twisted game of revenge.
The duchess came to a stop before them.
Honoria dropped a curtsy and greeted the too-young-to-be-a-widow duchess. “Aunt Margaret.”
Phoebe dropped a belated curtsy and stood a silent observer to the warm exchange between aunt and niece. Love shone through their similarly shaped eyes. She drew in a slow breath as understanding settled around her brain. This was why Edmund would have used Honoria, because the only person who’d possessed his love so very clearly loved Honoria. She curled her fingers into tight balls, hating herself for her own pettiness. But God help her, she loathed this woman for having possessed the only real sliver of Edmund that had existed in the twenty-five years since he’d last truly smiled.
As though feeling her intense focus, the duchess shifted her attention to Phoebe. She gave a small, sad smile. “I understand congratulations are in order.”
Incapable of words, Phoebe managed a shaky nod.
For a moment the other woman looked at her with an aching understanding and pity, a look she’d worn when she’d stared upon her own mother. Phoebe’s breath escaped her on a swift exhale. God help her. In just a handful of days, she’d transformed herself into—her mother. She lurched backwards and knocked into the Doric column at her back.
Honoria looked questioningly at her, concern radiating from her eyes.
She mustered a smile for her friend’s benefit. “I-I need but a moment,” she managed to squeeze out and then before Honoria could press her further, she spun on her heel and disappeared down the same path Gillian had taken a long moment ago. With each hasty, uneven step, lords and ladies looked at her with rabid curiosity in their cruel gazes. Phoebe collided with a young woman. The lady shot her hands out and steadied her, momentarily halting her retreat. Phoebe stared blankly at the woman with glorious blonde curls piled atop her head, who now looked at her with unexpectedly kind eyes…and pity…there was pity there, too. For everyone knew that Phoebe had gone and wed a gentleman who spent his days and nights at his clubs. A man who’d had to have her at any cost and, yet, at the same time, didn’t want her. She bowed her head and sought the proper apology but emotion balled in her throat and she swallowed convulsively.
Spinning on her heel, she continued her retreat; the young woman forgotten. A loud hum filled her ears and the crowd’s cheerful laughs and gossip exploded into an ugly menagerie of sound within her mind, until her heart kicked up a frantic, panicked tempo. She reached the edge of the ballroom and then with each freeing step away from polite Society, the sound receded and her heart resumed its normal cadence. Still, Phoebe continued walking the length of the hall, onward through her host and hostess’ empty corridors. The lit sconces cast flickers of eerie glow that danced off the gold damask wallpaper. A loud creaking, as though a depressed floorboard echoed in the silence and she froze. Footsteps sounded down the hall, and with her heart thundering, Phoebe shoved the nearest door open and stumbled inside. Hurriedly, she pressed the door closed with a soft click and then leaned against the hard wood panel.
She blinked several times in a bid to adjust to the darkened room and then took in the sanctuary she’d stolen. Distractedly, Phoebe tugged off her white gloves and tossed them down onto a nearby table.
White stared back at her. White walls, white upholstered sofas, white marble. A white parlor. Phoebe shoved away from the door and started tentatively about the room. She wandered absently over to a nearby side table and picked up a pale blue porcelain sheep. With a wry shake of her head, she turned it over in her hands studying the unexpected splash of color. In a world of white, the sheep had been painted blue. Surely, there was more to the oddly colored glass figurine. She skimmed the tip of her nail over the creature’s ears. Had the glass sheep began as white with one mistake by the artist resulting in an entirely different shade to the piece? Or had that always been what it was intended for it? An inevitable fate of…color. How very similar Edmund was—standing out, different than all other members of the ton, but not necessarily for reasons that were good or honorable. When had he been a white sheep?
With the silence of Lord Wentworth’s parlor as her only company, she set the figurine back upon the side table and confronted the true nature of her upset—it wasn’t the humiliation at being left the day after they’d wed, it wasn’t the whispers and stares of polite Society, it was her. She hated that for his betrayal she still wanted him to be more, needed him to be more. Phoebe folded her arms close and hugged herself. She wanted him to be the uncomplicated person Wallace had spoken of who’d once smiled; not that cynical, angry, and cold child who’d been ruined by life.
Her gaze went unbidden back to the blue sheep. Except, he could never be that person again. He’d been painted, and that could not be removed. Edmund would remain forever—blue. He would seek out his clubs and carry on with his women. He would exact revenge on those he felt deserving of some warped sense of justice for crimes mayhap real, mayhap not. And what would become of her?
A loud, creak rent the quiet and slashed into her ponderings. She swung her gaze to the door. Her heart jumped at the stranger who stepped inside. The gentleman, she vaguely recalled as the Viscount Brewer was not unpleasant looking; quite handsome, in fact, with thick, dark unfashionably long blond curls better suited to that archangel Gabriel. It was the glint in his eyes that marked his soul black.
“Lady Rutland,” he drawled with what most women would likely find a charming grin on his hard lips. “A pleasure to see you.”
Chapter 24
Annoyance stirred in Phoebe’s breast at the gentleman’s bold perusal and she resisted the urge to fold her arms protectively across her chest to hide her breasts from his leering stare. “My lord, forgive me,” she said, squaring her shoulders. She took a step around the table and made for the exit of Lord Wentworth’s parlor. “I’d intended to steal a moment for myself. I shall leave you to…” Her words trailed off as he slowly closed the door behind him.
“What if I don’t want you to leave, my lady?” He dropped his voice to a teasing whisper. At his boldness, annoyance slipped away, replaced with a burning anger.
She tipped her chin up. “If you will excuse me,” she said again this time firming her tone with the same steel she’d detected in Edmund’s words so many times, now knowing why he’d affected that icy cool. It gave one
strength. Even if it was merely an artificial one. There was something protective in that detachedness.
Phoebe made to step around the viscount, when he shot out a hand blocking her retreat. “Come, my lady, you arrive alone, Rutland’s wife, just newly married.” He captured a loose curl between his thumb and forefinger and her mouth went dry with fear at the boldness of that touch.
“Do not touch me,” she gritted out. She swatted at his fingers, but he merely laughed.
“Am I to believe you are not here in search of a lover who will fill the void left by your absent husband?” His hot breath fanned her cheek. Icy fear snaked down her spine as she registered for the first time the precariousness of her situation.
Phoebe made a grab for the door handle when he grabbed her wrist, capturing it in a hard, punishing hold. She winced at the tightness of that grip. “Release me this instant.” And as Society quaked with the fear of her husband’s name, she boldly tossed the reminder of Edmund. “My husband, the Marquess of Rutland, will not tolerate you putting your hands upon me.”
The viscount tossed his head back and the room thundered with his laughter; that cold, mirthless sound chilled her. “Oh, something tells me your husband will not much care.”
Phoebe pursed her lips. “You are wrong,” she snapped. For Edmund’s ruthlessness and lack of regard where she was concerned, she still did not doubt he’d destroy any man who infringed upon that which he viewed as his—including her. “He will care.” She yanked at her hand again, but the viscount held firm. “If you believe he’d allow any man to touch his wife, then you do not know Lord Rutland.”
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 166