Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I t had been a week after the wedding and Phoebe was just about to lose her sanity. In those three days, she scarcely saw Charles, and even then, he usually answered her in brief, perfunctory sentences that left her at a loss more often than not.
She had tried her best to engage him in witty conversation—even though she hardly had any skill in that department. She had also invited him to do something entertaining after dinner, like cards or chess. In return, he had given her a cold look and stalked off.
In the meantime, she had been secretly taking lessons from Amelia in the art of seduction, although she had yet to implement any of the fruits of her education, mostly because she could hardly catch her husband long enough to actually try flirting with him.
Charles, she soon despaired, was probably unattracted to her and she was going to die a slower and lonelier death as his wife, compared to when she had been a spinster.
At least as a spinster, she had been allowed the relative freedoms being ‘on the shelf’ afforded her. As the Marchioness of Wentworth, she could not even set one foot outside the estate.
So, it was with great surprise that she received the news from Huxley that her husband would be joining her for dinner that night.
She looked out the window and saw that the sun was still high in the sky. “Ah, did the Marquess actually say it?” she asked the butler, her eyes wide with incredulity.
Huxley nodded. “I am certain he did, milady.”
“He would be joining me for dinner.”
“Precisely, milady.”
“Actually eat dinner with me .”
Huxley’s lips twitched suspiciously. “That is precisely what he said, milady. Lord Wentworth will be joining you in the dining hall for dinner at the usual hour.”
“That would be seven, correct?”
“Yes, milady.”
Even after Huxley left, Phoebe could scarcely believe that Charles had actually sent someone to inform her that he would be having dinner with her that night.
On the one hand, it was a brilliant opportunity for her to try her recently developed skills at flirtation.
On the other hand, she could actually be setting herself up for a massive failure.
And if that happens, then he might be even more disgusted with me! Phoebe felt her stomach clench uneasily.
“This has to stop!” she muttered fretfully to herself as she paced the length of her bedchamber. In a few more minutes, Amelia would be coming in to help her dress for dinner. She could either take her chance this evening or forever resign herself to her solitary fate.
Phoebe decided that she was not about to just accept the lot she had been dealt without at least trying something.
“Milady…”
“Oh, Amelia!” she burst out. “Thank goodness you are here!”
The maid blinked at her in stupefaction. “Where else should I be at this hour, milady?”
“Oh, never mind that!” Phoebe shook her head and dragged the maid to her armoire. She flung the doors open and gestured to the dresses neatly hung inside. “I need you to help me choose!”
“Choose what, milady?”
“A dress,” Phoebe enunciated as she flipped through the rack almost frantically. “I need to find a dress for dinner tonight that will catch the Marquess’s eye—”
“Oh! Oh my! I have been waiting for just this day, milady!”
She watched as realization dawned on her maid’s face and she smiled brilliantly. “Precisely, Amelia! I need something that will astound him. Something that will catch his eye!”
Amelia clapped her hands happily before diving into the armoire herself. Phoebe watched as her maid rifled through the many gowns that she had brought with her when she first came to Wentworth Park. Moments later, she emerged with an emerald dress with a low-cut neckline and capped sleeves.
“This one, milady!” the maid announced excitedly, holding up the dress. “You will look absolutely ravishing in this!”
It was a dress her mother had once convinced her she was going to need and one that Phoebe had long forgotten herself. It was precisely the kind of dress that one wore to attract attention. However, in her days as a debutante, there was nothing she wanted more than to avoid drawing as much unnecessary attention to herself.
She already towered over her peers by a head, at least. She could not bear the mocking stares she knew she would attract if she so much as wore such an eye-catching dress.
Tonight was different, however. Tonight, she was going to do the exact opposite and do her best to charm her husband.
Still, old habits tended to linger past their welcome and she surveyed the dress hesitantly.
“Are you sure, Amelia? I do not think I have ever worn something so—”
“Milady, trust me!” In her excitement, Amelia had quite forgotten herself and cut into her mistress’s ambivalence. “When His Lordship sees you in this dress, I assure you that he will forget himself!”
Phoebe smiled weakly. “And isn’t that what we intend to do after all?”
Amelia nodded enthusiastically. Laughing, she laid the dress aside and steered Phoebe towards the vanity.
“I shall make it so that His Lordship will be unable to take his eyes off of you tonight!” she vowed.
“In that case,” Phoebe smiled warily at their reflection in the mirror. “I shall entrust myself to your care.”
She just hoped that Amelia would not make her regret her decision tonight.
It was five minutes past seven when Charles strode into the dining room. To his surprise, there was no one present except Huxley and O’Malley standing beside a table laden with food.
“Where is the Marchioness?” he demanded coldly as he sat down at the head of the table. “Is she not coming down to dinner?”
Both servants shared a look, before Huxley spoke. “Amelia assures me that Lady Wentworth will be dining with Your Lordship tonight. She is just…” He cleared his throat and adjusted his collar with a look of extreme discomfort. “She is just getting ready .”
Getting ready. How long does one necessarily take to get ready for an informal dinner at home?
Charles himself had not even bothered to change out of the clothes he had spent the whole day in. Frankly speaking, he was already tired from studying all the documents they had sent to him and now, there was nothing he looked forward to more than the comfort of his own routines.
Unfortunately, his wife had seen fit to upend order and throw the rest of his world into chaos once more. Come to think of it, nothing had ever been the same for him ever since she stumbled into Wentworth Park a few weeks ago, looking for her cat.
He gestured towards O’Malley to start their ritual with the food.
“I am so sorry for the delay,” a cheerful voice floated into the dining hall.
Charles looked up. His mouth went dry at the sight of Phoebe smiling apologetically as she sailed into the room in a deep green dress that brought out the flawless creaminess of her skin. The fashionably low-cut neckline revealed the soft swells of her breasts. He almost reached for the glass of wine, before he realized that O’Malley had yet to test the damned thing.
Never before had he cursed his skill at observation more than he did at that particular moment.
“I hope that you did not wait overly long, My Lord,” she beamed at him in a breathless voice—and then, she fluttered her eyelashes at him.
Fluttered . Like they were some goddamned butterfly’s wings.
She had never done that before and he would have worried that she was about to faint, if not for the high color in her cheeks.
Charles could only muster a succinct nod. “It was not too long.”
She smiled at him, and he wondered if her eyes had always been the particularly intoxicating shade of brandy. He had never been one to indulge in spirits, but right now, he was feeling particularly lost. Adrift.
Maybe even a trifle inebriated.
And more than a little hot.
He frowned to himself. That is rather strange. No one has ever affected me in such a manner before.
“O’Malley!” he heard Huxley hiss at the footman.
Charles dragged his gaze to the side, where O’Malley appeared startled and, looking visibly chagrined, immediately went about tasting the food before them.
“I heard that you were quite busy in your study today,” Phoebe remarked with a sympathetic smile from the other side of the table. “Sometimes, I wonder if you work too hard.”
She poured herself a glass of wine and then began to sip at it. Charles immediately looked to O’Malley, in panic, and the poor footman began hurriedly tasting the food from each platter as Phoebe reached for the roast chicken.
At this point, if any of the dishes have been compromised, we would be unable to tell which one!
“Come to think of it,” she continued, putting her fork down. “What is it really about your work that keeps you so busy?”
He could not tell her that the slightest delay or mistake in his work could have dire consequences. He was so preoccupied with the fact that she was already clearly enjoying that particular piece of chicken, so he merely shrugged and replied weakly, “I am afraid that no one else could do it.”
She leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands, her eyes regarding him with keen interest. Her lips curled upward in a soft smile that looked positively seductive in the candlelight.
Well, he would have felt seduced if he was not so afraid that she was going to keel over and die from poisoning at any moment.
“I suppose you do not want to talk about work over dinner,” she commented. “What else might you want to talk about then?”
Perhaps if he kept her talking long enough, he could slow her down just enough for O’Malley to ascertain the safety of their dinner.
“You,” he managed gruffly. “What do you want to talk about?”
Phoebe looked quite surprised by his reply, but then her smile deepened, and Charles nearly drooped in his chair in relief when she set the silverware aside.
“Well, I was thinking about my family earlier this afternoon…”
As he allowed Phoebe to express how much she missed her family, he could not help but glance at O’Malley. The footman had been shoving the food into his mouth so quickly that his cheeks puffed out like a squirrel preparing for the winter.
At this rate, even if the food has not been compromised, he is going to be sick…
“…so, I was thinking about maybe paying them a visit sometime soon. You would agree to that, wouldn’t you?”
Fortunately, he was spared having to reply to that when O’Malley concluded his inspection of the food. He then stepped back and with a nod at Huxley, both of them withdrew from the dining room with an uncharacteristic swiftness.
“I… shall think about it.”
A tense silence fell over the both of them, punctuated only by the faint clinking of silverware upon expensive porcelain. Once or twice, he caught Phoebe looking at him from over the table, her mouth opening as if she meant to say something, but then, she would duck her head and turn her gaze back to her plate.
When the servants came in to clear their plates, the silence had gone past the point of merely being uncomfortable, becoming almost unbearable. By the time they brought out the pudding, Charles was barely hanging onto his control.
It would seem that Phoebe was not only willing to test his patience, but the limits of his restraint as well.
By the end of dinner, Phoebe was close to desperation and tears. Twice, she had attempted to breach their silence with some harmless topic to at least draw Charles into a conversation, but his complete lack of interest somehow caused her to lose all courage.
Maybe even hope.
She had fluttered her eyes at him like Amelia had taught her to. She had even leaned down to allow him to glimpse at her bosom more than five times , and he turned away from her each and every time.
She might have even felt embarrassed, if she was not so bent on getting his attention.
Finally, it was sheer desperation that made her grasp his hand as he turned to leave the dining room. She could not let this evening go to waste—not when she had gone to such great lengths to dress up and make herself attractive to him.
“Charles!” She dragged her eyes pleadingly to him, throwing all dignity to the wind. “Please, I do not want to be alone. I-I think I will go mad from all this—”
He looked mildly surprised, even as he grasped her hand gently with his own. “In that case, Phoebe, what do you have in mind?”
“I-I—” she stammered.
What did she want?
She had been so starved for companionship in the past few days that when she was finally faced with the question, she found that she could not come up with any suitable answers.
“W-we could do something entertaining,” she managed weakly. “Like cards.”
“Cards?” he repeated blankly with an arched eyebrow.
She nodded emphatically. “I am a decent player at cards. Or chess!” She was babbling now, but she did not care. “I am not very good at chess, but I could try to learn it, if that is what you want. We can also talk about books…”
The truth of the matter was that she had no particular idea what a husband and wife did when they were alone together. She had seen both of her parents enjoy each other’s company by the fireplace, playing chess or reading books together. Many times, she caught them having deep conversations between themselves.
And there was that deep yearning within her that she could not name…
She could not ask that of Charles yet, but she had hoped that they could foster a friendship, at least.
“We are both tired, Phoebe,” he told her gently. “Perhaps we should just both get some rest tonight.”
He turned and walked away, leaving her standing there alone in the dining room staring at his back as it disappeared into the hallway.
When she turned back around, the entire dining hall was empty. If the servants found it uncomfortable to find them both in some sort of discord, they did not linger to witness more of it. For that, Phoebe was at least grateful.
I have made my bed and now, I must lie in it , she thought to herself bleakly as she stumbled back into her bedchamber.
Moments later, when Amelia came to help her undress and get ready for bed, she was thankful that the maid was tactful enough to not fill the room with needless chatter.
When she finally climbed into her bed, Phoebe felt the most alone she had ever been in her entire life.
Charles closed his eyes in frustration as he leaned against the door to his bedchamber. Not too long ago, he heard Phoebe’s quiet footfalls as she walked back to her own bedchamber.
He knew he would never forget the crestfallen look on her face when he gently extricated himself from her. He had let her down—he knew it—and there was no gentle or easy way to go about it.
But her proximity had already started to affect him in ways that clouded his logic. He could not think straight in her presence. His blood all but roared for him to pull her close, drag her to his bed, and have his wicked way with her.
It had taken all of his self-control to not sweep the dishes off the table and lay her upon it, his for the taking. Like his own personal feast.
And then, she had leaned forward, and all he could see was the bounty of those soft swells of flesh above her bodice.
Charles had to leave before he embarrassed himself in his own dining hall, in front of his wife .
Never before had he ever felt such a strong attraction towards a woman, and there were so many who had tried to tempt him. Countless courtesans, each one more beautiful than the last, had tried to lure him into their arms, vying against each other as to who could distract him.
None of them had ever succeeded, and certainly, none of them had ever had even a fraction of the success that Phoebe had achieved tonight.
It was quite unfortunate that he could not tell her himself.
Charles groaned as he speared his fingers through his thick curls. Phoebe had become a fever in his blood, but he knew that to be with her in the truest sense of the word would ruin the both of them.
He would never be content with just one taste of her.
And she would be in far more danger than she already was.
He could not allow anything to happen to her. He must keep her safe at all costs.
It is only her pride that is hurt , he told himself. In time, she will recover from it and it will be as if she had never felt such things for me.
Somehow, that only made him feel worse.