Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
P hoebe was mortified .
Even as she lay in bed, she could still recall how Charles had walked away from her stiffly, as if he could no longer tolerate how foolishly she was behaving. He did not need to turn around for her to know that he most likely wore an expression of disgust.
“I acted like a total peagoose!” she moaned to herself. She threw the covers over her head as if it would lessen the shame she felt.
It did not .
She had dropped hints the whole night and all but thrown herself at him like some desperate strumpet—only to be calmly and coldly rebuffed.
Even then, she had wanted nothing more than for him to reach out for her, to lay his lips upon hers… to assuage the fire that had been burning within her from the moment he had caught her sneaking into his estate in the dark of the night.
Never before had she thought that fear and desire made for such a heady concoction, but it did.
Heaven help her, it truly did.
And now, all she could think about was how she might convince Charles to kiss her. To ravage her. Make her his in every sense of the word—whatever that truly entailed.
If only she was not such a miserable failure.
Perhaps I should just give up on trying my hand at seduction , she thought morosely as she turned in bed. Clearly, I have not the talent for it—or the physical attributes to achieve a modicum of success in that area.
She had always believed that a new day brought forth new opportunities and if she failed at her attempts at seducing her husband that night…
Well, did she not just discover what not to do if she wanted to attract him to her bed?
Perhaps she could simply find some other way to get him there.
Or perhaps Daphne might know a way.
She narrowed her eyes as she pursued that thought. Did Minerva not just tell her how much success her sister enjoyed in just this Season alone?
Perhaps it was time to expand her education to Townsend Manor…
“Absolutely not.”
To her credit, Phoebe stood her ground and absolutely did not tremble in the slightest when Charles shot her a chilly glare when she told him of her intention to visit Townsend House.
“But it is practically next door!” she argued. “Surely, you cannot mean to keep me a prisoner here at Wentworth Park!”
Men had been killed for simply walking out their front door. How much more if she casually traipsed over to the house next door?
Charles shuddered to think of what could happen to her—of those warm brown eyes dead and lifeless, her soft, sensual lips pale with the kiss of death…
He could not— would not allow it.
“You are not a prisoner in Wentworth Park,” he told her. “But you may not come and go as you please. This house has rules .”
“Far too many of them,” he heard her mutter under her breath.
When he glared at her again, she just raised her chin defiantly.
Good heavens, the woman was determined to exasperate him at every turn. He had just spent the better of the night tossing and turning with what appeared to be the most durable awakening of all time—no thanks to her antics at dinner—and now, sleepless and unable to think straight, she would demand this of him?
What was a man to do? Of course, he would not allow it!
“But—”
“My decision is final , Phoebe.”
This time, she glared at him and the sight of it strangely made him feel as if he was an errant schoolboy once more. Nobody— nobody —had ever gone against his wishes ever since he stepped into adulthood.
Why was his wife so determined to bait him at every turn?
And why did he find it strangely alluring?
Charles shook his head inwardly. He had to be going mad—that was the only explanation for it.
“Very well, My Lord,” she seethed, her tone icy. “I shall not inconvenience you any further with my presence. Besides, I just meant to inform you of my intentions.”
He nodded noncommittally. “Consider myself informed, then.”
He heard her utter a sound of complete and utter feminine frustration and then, with a swish of her skirts, she turned around and exited his study, that gorgeous head of hers raised high, sensual lips drawn into a disapproving line.
How was it that even her anger was utterly titillating? Just now, he had been sorely tempted to bend her over his desk and…
“It seems you have invoked the displeasure of the Marchioness,” Huxley remarked softly as he entered the study mere moments after Phoebe left.
Charles let out a soft sigh. “I am doing my damnedest to keep her safe, but—”
“But Her Ladyship has plans of her own,” the butler finished for him with the most annoying grin Charles had ever seen.
Why was it that after marriage, it appeared as if everyone had just set themselves against him?
“She has no idea just how much danger she is in,” he gritted out.
If she did, then she would understand…
“Then, why do you not let her know your concerns, milord?”
Charles sighed and set his pen down. Perhaps she did deserve to know some of it.
To a certain degree.
But would someone like Phoebe, who had been raised in relative ignorance to the dangers of his world, understand?
Charles shook his head. Besides, he did not want to shatter his wife’s innocence.
He had taken his vows to protect from the shadows and those oaths still held.
Even now.
Especially now.
“Not a prisoner indeed! Well, what does he call this ?”
Phoebe was seething as she left the study and she was still seething a good half hour later as she sat in the gardens beside Whiteson, who stretched out lazily on a warm patch of grass. He looked up to her and blinked his luminous eyes at her.
“Well, if he can spend the rest of his days cooped up in his study, I cannot!” she declared softly.
Whiteson let out a soft meow as if in agreement.
“You think I am right?” she turned to him with a brilliant smile. “Of course you would think that, you little rascal. And was it not you who taught me that walls are meant to be scaled?”
Charles likely did not think so similarly. Walls to him were most probably there to keep people out.
Or keep them in. Apparently, it went both ways and both of them were his intentions.
But if her husband could thrive in such conditions, isolated from the rest of the world—by God, Phoebe could not .
Besides, Charles did not really have to know, did he?
She could scale the short wall that ran between the two gardens, visit her family, and then be back just in time for dinner.
Or afternoon tea, even.
Phoebe had had a great deal of experience observing her husband—it had been that particular pastime that indirectly landed her in this marriage, after all—and she knew that he stuck to a strict regimen at all times. He would not leave his study earlier than six, which was truly more than enough time for her to return.
He would never notice her absence, as sad as she was to realize it.
That sorrow, however, was rather short-lived, for the very thought of seeing her sisters again after a week of marriage was more than enough to buoy her flagging spirits.
And when she talked to Daphne, she could very well ask her sister for advice on how to seduce her husband.
Or even just get him to consider spending a night or two in her bedchamber.
She might have accepted her lot as a spinster back then, but she decided she could not remain wholly ignorant on matters of the bed when she was married!
And definitely not when she had a particularly handsome husband.
If Phoebe was anything, she was fiercely determined once she had set her mind on something, and that something presently was Charles Montgomery.
In her bed, of course—whatever that entailed.
She picked the poor cat up from the ground, causing Whiteson to let out an indignant yowl at being unceremoniously manhandled.
“Courage, Whiteson,” she whispered to him. “We are going over to Townsend House. Is that not exciting?”
The cat meowed and looked at her dubiously. Phoebe just rolled her eyes at it.
“Have a little more faith in me, will you?” she smirked. “I managed to scale this wall looking for you in the dark . I can very well accomplish the same in broad daylight, I assure you!”
Whiteson meowed again as if to say, “I do not think this is a good idea…”
Phoebe, however, thought it was a very good idea and as if to punctuate that particular thought, she began walking towards the very wall that divided Townsend House and Wentworth Park.
She looked at it and sighed. It was not a very tall wall. Even a child might easily scale it if they were of the mind to do so—and Phoebe was a grown woman with precisely the mind to do so.
“I gather that this appears to be a rather unladylike undertaking, my dear Whiteson,” she grinned at the cat. “But nothing we will not be able to accomplish without a bit of perseverance, hmm?”
The cat gave her a look that reeked of apathy, before it calmly and gracefully scaled the wall ahead of her.
“What a braggart you are, my feline friend!” she chuckled. “Well, I shall show you that we humans are just as capable!”
With that said, she looked around her, and seeing nobody within the vicinity, she began to most unceremoniously hike her skirts above her ankles as she prepared to tackle the wall before her.
She only prayed that Charles would not catch her thus.