Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Five weeks and avoiding the earl until the wedding
T here was no avoiding the earl. Apart from the fact that every pair of eyes seemed to be on the unexpected guest, he was also the only one not wearing any kind of mask.
‘Ironic when he stands most to benefit,’ Phoebe muttered to herself.
‘Pardon?’ Sophie whispered.
Phoebe shook her head.
‘He didn’t expect to find us here,’ Sophie added as they threaded around the dancing, ‘on account of us not being properly out. But Aunt explained why Thomas permitted it, and he seems content. He’s a friend of the viscount’s mother I think.’
Phoebe looked across at the viscount’s mama, a dazzling creature in green velvet and white ostrich feathers, holding court with Marchioness Carlisle and other matrons, and wondered why she hadn’t considered the earl’s attendance a possibility before. He might dislike socialising but he was also an unmarried, wealthy member of the ton, well known to most of the scheming and ambitious mamas here. Briefly, she scanned their sycophantic faces, willing any of their pale daughters to take her place anytime soon.
‘I did try to escape to warn you,’ Sophie continued in a low voice, ‘but then aunt insisted on introducing herself, and explaining everything, until everyone was quite muddled and then the earl said he would see you if you were here…’
Phoebe nodded, forcing her damp slippers forward, her recent escapades fanning through her head like pages from a book: escaping Knightswood, fighting the highwayman, fighting the viscount, escaping to Bath, fighting Aurelia, fighting herself…
She had done little else but try to fight or escape, yet none of it had been enough; and now she was staring directly at her future, who appeared to be sporting the most ridiculous shirt points, a gold-thread frock coat bursting at its seams, and a wig, which looked as though it wanted to run as much as she did. And despite all of this, a small herd of hopeful mamas and their daughters were gathered around his eminent person and her flustered aunt, who was doing her best to waylay them.
‘Why Thomas hasn’t deflected him onto someone more willing, I’ll never know,’ Sophie whispered, side-eyeing her sister anxiously.
Phoebe thought of her brother’s incandescent rage the day she’d returned with the viscount.
‘Do you understand the disquiet you’ve caused? Let alone how I have burned the midnight oil trying to fathom how to tell the earl that his betrothed has seen fit to run away on the common stage, dressed in her brother’s clothes!’
She swallowed. Time was running out, and despite all her efforts, none of her escapades had felt truly noble, at all.
‘We can all be heroic in big and small ways, loud and quiet, if we wish.’
A ghost of a smile flitted across her face as she squeezed Sophie’s arm.
Perhaps it wasn’t entirely too late.
‘He may have tried,’ she returned with lightness that belied the stone in her chest. ‘But the reality is I have always been betrothed to the earl, and Thomas is merely following Papa’s wishes.’
Sophie frowned, but then their flustered aunt was upon them, with the earl in tow.
‘Ah, there you are, my dears! We thought you must be admiring the viscount’s many works of art for some are quite breathtaking, are they not, Mr Higglestone?’ She beamed at her long-suffering husband before continuing, without drawing breath. ‘The Earl of Cumberland was just enquiring after your health, dear Phoebe, following your riding fall a few weeks ago?’
She nodded so vigorously, she put Phoebe in mind of one of the laying hens at home.
‘And your uncle and I were just saying how much the Bath air has improved your shoulder and your sister’s lungs, too, weren’t we, dear?’
Uncle Higglestone downed his brandy without comment.
‘But you can see this for yourself of course, Your Lordship! Doesn’t Miss Fairfax look quite the picture of vitality and health?’
Phoebe avoided Sophie’s gaze, certain she’d heard the estate manager say the very same when Thomas made enquiries of the deer herd.
‘Thank you, Aunt, I do feel most recovered, thanks to your care. Good evening, Your Lordship.’
Phoebe sunk into a low, dutiful curtsey, conscious that the mamas trailing the earl were watching with both interest and suspicion.
‘Miss Fairfax and … the younger Miss Fairfax,’ the earl nodded, waving a port that almost matched the colour of his cheeks. ‘It is most excellent news that you are recovered. Indeed, I have just come from Knightswood Manor, where your brother assured me all Fairfaxes descend from good, healthy stock!’
Phoebe reddened as the earl descended into a belly rumble that put his frock coat under even more pressure. She could just imagine Thomas tripping over himself to assure the earl of such a thing when he heard of her injury. Perhaps this visit was a surprise inspection to reassure himself that he wasn’t being shortchanged.
‘In truth, Your Lordship, I’m sure my aunt has much to do with my recovery,’ Phoebe returned evenly, ‘she has been most attentive.’
‘Oh dearest, that is too kind, I?—’
‘Youth forgives everything,’ the earl interrupted, tossing back the remainder of his port, ‘I’ve often considered its benefits are wasted on the young, who do not appreciate them at all! Though I hear you’ve also been taking the waters? Tell me, how do you find them?’
Phoebe glanced at her crestfallen aunt and felt a sudden flare of protectiveness.
‘In truth, Your Lordship, all I can taste is mud!’
Matilda’s words were out before Phoebe could stop them, and at precisely the same moment two things happened. The first was that all the listening mamas gasped in unison, and the second was that a tall, elegant figure stepped in beside her aunt, distracting everyone.
‘It’s a new expression among the young set, my lord,’ Viscount Damerel interjected smoothly. ‘Mud as in mudicinal , which no one can dispute. It is the sulphur, I am told.’
‘Oh … I see,’ the earl conceded slowly, with a frown. ‘Well, I’ll take your word for it, Damerel.’
He reached out to take another port from a passing footman.
‘I don’t usually dance, Miss Fairfax,’ he continued condescendingly, ‘but as this is a private gathering, you may do me the honour, and then escort me to the card room.’
‘As you please, sir,’ Phoebe replied, every feeling revolting at the thought of dancing with an overstuffed pheasant.
‘I believe a quadrille is starting now, that will do,’ he added, tossing back the contents of the glass.
Phoebe raised her eyes to the viscount. His face was shuttered, his manner composed, and there was no evidence of the man she’d glimpsed beneath the magnolia tree.
Had he meant any of it? Or had he just been entertaining himself the way he’d entertained Aurelia?
She flushed dully.
What did any of it matter, anyway?
It seemed as though the whole world turned to watch her dance with the most coveted, yet ridiculous, suitor in the room. And to make matters worse, the earl’s dancing turned out to be a form of mincing, crossed with a few half-remembered steps from his youth. Yet every way he turned, the ambitious mamas simpered and smiled, his birthright exonerating all crimes.
Phoebe fixed her gaze over his rounded shoulder, so conscious of Aurelia and the viscount dancing only a few paces away. They were indeed the most handsome couple in the room; matched in every way, and now it seemed their dancing was perfectly timed too. She painted her face with a smile and tried to ignore Aurelia’s sidelong glances; but the earl’s unsteady progress, and insistence on humming aloud, ensured no one was looking anywhere else. She lowered her gaze, feeling as conspicuous as he looked, and burning with humiliation that this ridiculous person was soon to assume control of her life. Then the music moved on, heralding a brief change in partner, and she looked up to find herself directly opposite Captain Elliot.
Phoebe smiled wanly, never more grateful to see his warm eyes.
‘Don’t look so hopeless,’ he whispered as they stepped together, their hands creating an arch above their heads. ‘You know, we aren’t so different, you and I.’
She smiled benignly, conscious that the viscount and Aurelia were close by.
‘Trying to freeze time, before life catches up,’ he whispered as they stepped together again.
She glanced up at him, their brief interlude in the garden with Dr Kapoor flitting through her thoughts, and suddenly, she just knew he couldn’t be responsible for Aurelia’s situation. She’d glimpsed the secret behind his dancing eyes, and if she wasn’t much mistaken, that secret had much more to do with a Lieutenant of the East India Company, than the daughter of Marchioness Carlisle.
Phoebe swallowed, recalling the warmth between them and Dr Kapoor’s wary smile. It was so far removed from her knowledge of accepted social unions, and yet she was sure she was correct, in the same way she was sure he’d glimpsed her inner turmoil. Her lips parted to remind him that, as a gentleman, he had so many more avenues for escape than she, but he was already gone – leaving a glacial highwayman in his place.
Phoebe inhaled tightly.
‘I cannot help but believe that deep down, you know I am lost.’
His words hung on the air between them as she focused on his cravat, its folds as precise as ever. Then the dance brought them together, and his warm fingers interlaced hers briefly, sending a shiver that divided and chased across the entirety of her tense body.
‘I apologise for my earlier attentions, Miss Fairfax,’ he murmured. ‘I see now that they were entirely inappropriate. And while I cannot bring myself to regret them, I hope in time’—his gaze flickered past hers momentarily—‘that you will learn to … forgive them.’
She stole a glance up, a million thoughts racing, but then he too was gone, leaving the earl in his place, puffed-faced and purple.
Phoebe danced on, feeling oddly breathless, and never more grateful than when the last few notes of the dance spilled out over the floor. She sank into a curtsey, conscious that the rest of the guests were watching as the earl proffered his arm in a way that made his favour decidedly clear.
‘Please do excuse me, my lord,’ she murmured, ‘I am a little overcome … and in need of some air.’
The words tumbled out of their accord, and if the earl was surprised by her sudden indisposition, he was just as swiftly distracted by the herd of ambitious mamas the moment she turned.
‘Be my guest,’ she whispered, as she fled the room.
Phoebe took the wide Bath-stone steps two at a time, only slowing when she’d climbed three stairwells, and the noise of the music had receded to a distant blur. Then, finally, she allowed herself to step off the plum-velvet carpet and into a shadowy corridor lined with oil paintings. She exhaled heavily, recalling the night she’d been surrounded by the viscount’s family portraits in Ebcott Place, and how it had been the start of something she barely understood at all.
Slowly, she stepped along the corridor, savouring its quiet solitude after the scrutiny of the dance. The first two portraits were of the viscount’s mother and grandmother, the next were a series of mini paintings of his deceased father, surrounded by horses and dogs, and finally there was a portrait of the viscount with his siblings, in the gardens of Damerel Place.
Phoebe stared, trying to match the relaxed young gentleman in the portrait with the proud highwayman she’d left downstairs. He was standing behind his brother, who was seated beneath a flowering magnolia tree, while a young child with golden curls played at their feet.
‘Which explains the swing,’ she muttered to herself, peering closer. There was no mistake, it was the same lonely swing she’d discovered in the garden that evening, and the child looked no older than three or four years of age.
For a few moments she stared at their same intelligent brow, quizzical eyes, and impossibly high cheekbones – before a muffled cough suddenly disturbed the quiet.
Startled, she peered down through the silent murky corridor, her chest thumping. The last thing she needed was to be discovered by one of the servants, or even the viscount himself. He’d already insulted her this evening – she could only imagine his reaction, or the story he might tell Aurelia, if he believed her snooping in private family quarters. The thought was beyond mortifying, so she did the only thing she could think of doing, and slipped inside the nearest room.
Phoebe closed the door softly and waited. The room appeared to be a family bedchamber and particularly warm, and for a few moments she was content to hide and gather her thoughts. It was only when it had been quiet for some time, that she heard the cough again, and this time it was much closer. Carefully, she peered around a small entrance hall to glimpse a well-stoked fireplace, a small four-poster bed, an armoire, and a dresser. It was clearly a child’s bedchamber and, frowning, she ran her gaze from the thick eiderdown, to the roaring fireplace, to the tightly closed window on the opposite wall.
‘Are you looking for something to steal?’
Phoebe caught her breath as she spied a head full of golden spiral curls, just visible above the eiderdown.
‘Perhaps a little time,’ she smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t suppose you have any of that lying around here, do you?’
Two dancing blue eyes joined the golden spiral curls.
‘I have too much of it in this bedroom,’ the child grumbled, before coughing again in a way that stirred old memories for Phoebe.
In a heartbeat, she was beside her, sitting her up and rubbing her back in a way that always helped Josephine. However, this child was much younger, eight or nine years at most, and the cough showed little sign of abating.
Alarmed, Phoebe looked round for any of the tonics or tinctures she’d used with Josephine over the years, but her bedside glass was empty, and the child was already gulping for breath.
‘Do you have any medicine? Can I call for your nurse?’ Phoebe hushed, recognising the warning signs of a lung seizure.
But the child only clung to her, and struggled for breath in a way that filled Phoebe with mounting fear. She looked into her face; at her reddened cheeks, laboured breath, and scared eyes, and knew she had to act. Her sister had suffered with bronchospasms long enough for her to know how swiftly she could deteriorate.
Swiftly she scanned the room again, looking for anything with which she could improvise, and found herself staring through the window at the spring sky. In a blink, she was seven years old again, and watching Harriet hold Josephine close to the nursery window, praying the moorland air would work its magic. As it had, so many times. She glanced down at the child and knew there was no time to waste. This may not be Knightswood, and she wasn’t their dear old nurse, but the principle had to be the same.
Jumping to her feet, Phoebe ran across the room, and tried to force open the old window but it refused to budge. She whirled frantically, looking for anything that might help, until her gaze landed on the fire poker. Without hesitating, she snatched it up and drove it into the window with all her strength. There was a moment’s silence, before it fractured like a giant spider’s web and then it fell away, letting a stream of fresh air fill the room.
‘Come on!’ she exclaimed, running back to the bed, and scooping up the semi-conscious child.
She wheezed something unintelligible, her lips already blue-grey, and Phoebe’s alarm intensified. She’d watched Josephine suffer too many times not to know the signs of a severe attack, and this child was so young. Swiftly, she ran towards the window, and turned her towards the evening air.
‘Harriet used to help my sister in this way,’ she whispered, ‘and it always worked. Just keep breathing.’
Her soothing tone was so at odds with the fear threading her veins, as she listened to the child dragging in each hoarse breath, before expelling it on a rattling wheeze. She pushed her closer to the fresh air, rubbing her back and willing her lungs to ease. Josephine had rarely suffered so acutely, and certainly not for a long while. And suddenly, all of Phoebe’s own troubles seemed so insignificant as to barely warrant a second thought. How she could even think herself stifled, or in want of adventure, when a young life could dangle so precariously, was beyond her comprehension. All that mattered was this moment, and each breath she managed to preserve. Silently, she waited and counted, watching the hollow at the base of the child’s neck depress with effort until, finally, just when she was beginning to think it might all be in vain, the little girl inhaled deeply, and a tide of colour flushed her face.
‘You can have … some of mine … if you like?’ the child whispered tearfully, finally able to finish her earlier thought.
A flood of relief filled Phoebe’s limbs as she smiled down at the little girl, who seemed entirely oblivious to her predicament.
‘I’ll let you in on a secret,’ Phoebe whispered, taking care to keep her in the fresh air. ‘I would turn back the hands on our nursery clock, when I didn’t want to go to bed!’
At this the child exhaled such a gurgle of laughter, that Phoebe worried she might actually set her off again.
‘What is the meaning of this?’
The arctic voice startled them both into silence, before Phoebe lifted her gaze to find the viscount regarding her stonily.
‘Why are you up here? With Florence?’ he barked, striding across the room until he towered over them both.
‘Alex! Alex!’ Florence bubbled happily, stretching out her arms as though she hadn’t just narrowly escaped a violent lung seizure.
‘Alex is my big brother!’ she confided. ‘Look, Alex … a pretty thief came … and smashed my window…!’ She grinned as though that covered everything.
It took all of Phoebe’s reserve not to roll her eyes as the viscount bent to scoop Florence up, and even more so when the ungrateful creature proceeded to throw herself around his neck, and proclaim him the best brother in the whole wide world.
Instead, she inhaled deeply, and resigned herself to the fact that this was probably not going to all end well at all for her.
‘I apologise for the window,’ she began, ‘but when I heard Florence…’
‘This is not the first time I’ve discovered you somewhere you really shouldn’t be, Miss Fairfax!’ the viscount interrupted in a searing tone. ‘You have clearly endangered my sister, and damaged my property! Might I remind you, this is my private home?—’
‘Dr Kapoor!’ Florence squealed, just as a large flare of indignation tore through Phoebe. ‘I had a cough, but then a thief broke the window, and saved me!’
To Phoebe’s great surprise, Captain Elliot’s friend, Lieutenant Kapoor, appeared in the doorway and was across the room in a few swift steps.
‘Hush now, Florence, we must remain calm if this is true,’ he murmured. ‘Miss Fairfax?’
He smiled kindly while Phoebe flushed, vacillating between the shame of discovery in the viscount’s private quarters, and the downright injustice of his wrath.
‘There was no tonic, honey, ginger, anything!’ she garbled in a rush. ‘Even laudanum – much as I detest it – would have been a help! I had no choice but to break the window!’
Phoebe caught her breath, aware it sounded lunatic even to her own seasoned ears, before looking up into the viscount’s face. His jade eyes had never glittered so coldly, and all at once she knew it wouldn’t matter what she said.
‘You had no choice but to expose my sister to the cold night air, which could have killed her?’ he replied crushingly.
‘Yes… No! It wasn’t like that!’ Phoebe fired, unable to believe she’d ever wondered if she’d misjudged him. ‘I have a … sister with the same condition.’ She exhaled, the events of the evening finally threatening to topple her. ‘Cold air can exacerbate the problem, but it can also help!’
‘With respect, Viscount Damerel,’ Doctor Kapoor frowned, ‘Miss Fairfax was not wrong to act as she did. There is much research to suggest that altering the air temp?—’
‘I don’t care about your damned research!’ the viscount snapped, rounding on Dr Kapoor. ‘I brought Florence back to Bath as you suggested, and not one of your measures have improved her seizures!’
Phoebe stared, suddenly recalling the viscount’s urgent family business at The Swan Inn, and then his mention of the same when she arrived in Bath. Could it have all been to do with Florence’s condition?
‘Again, with respect, sir,’ Dr Kapoor tried valiantly, ‘we’ve yet to implement any of my measures. For example, my research indicates eucalyptus, ginger, and garlic can all have a positive?—’
‘Not now! I must remove Florence from this draught,’ the viscount cut in abruptly. ‘Dr Kapoor, please escort Miss Fairfax back to her party immediately, I am sure the earl will have missed her.’
Then he turned and strode from the room, as though the moment beneath the magnolia never happened at all.