Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
P erhaps she should just learn to accept it—sleep was not coming to her tonight. Neither was peace of mind.
In fact, it would seem that neither of them would be coming in the next week. Or month.
Or anytime soon.
Phoebe groaned as she turned her face into her pillow and let out a long, loud scream borne out of the intense frustration boiling in her chest. She could not believe that she had done the absolute impossible.
She had kissed her husband. She had kissed Charles Montgomery.
And he had kissed her back —there was no denying that.
She admitted that she had been furious at first. Combined with the frustration that had been brewing within her for heavens only knew how long… well, her Mama had always warned her not to lose her temper, and lose it, she did.
Spectacularly.
But did she regret it? Absolutely not.
Phoebe might be ignorant in many things, but thankfully not so much as to overlook what had happened tonight. After learning to flirt within an inch of her life, she had managed to wrangle a kiss from her stoic husband—and what a kiss it was!
It was like being thrown into a hurricane. Like being tossed about in a stormy sea.
Only, she certainly enjoyed the thrill it sparked in her body more than she did a natural disaster.
So, he is not as unfeeling towards me as he seems , she thought with a silly grin.
That was not to say, of course, that Charles was pleased with the outcome of tonight’s events. He had been furious when he discovered her missing and no doubt, he was even more furious after that stunt she pulled.
She sat up in bed with a frown on her face.
“He is going to want to avoid me,” she pondered to herself. “And that simply will not do.”
But what to do about it? From what she knew about her husband ever since she moved into Wentworth Park, he could be just as stubborn as she was. Maybe even more so.
Phoebe, however, could be quite persistent herself. Perhaps it remained to be seen just who could be more tenacious between the two of them.
“I cannot lose,” she muttered to herself as she swept her legs off the bed and slid her feet into her slippers. “But I cannot sleep right now, either.”
She grabbed her robe draped over a nearby chair and wrapped it around her lacy night shift—a gift from her mother, as part of her trousseau. She recalled how Daphne had smiled slyly at her when they saw that particular addition to her wardrobe. Phoebe, however, had felt that it was a rather frivolous item of clothing.
Pretty, yes, but certainly impractical.
Especially without a husband to admire it on me , a quiet voice taunted in her head.
Phoebe smiled grimly. She had lived with that voice for the better part of her life. It had been especially loud after she made her bow, and then at every social event thereafter.
Back then, she had listened to it. Feared it even.
Now, she had learned to simply live with it. She had become adept at disregarding it to a certain degree.
Still, there were times when it bothered her.
Not tonight, though , she told herself firmly. Tonight, I will not let it get to me.
She had learned soon after becoming a spinster that the best way to quiet that mocking voice was to find something else to occupy herself with. Reading certainly would not do—it only spoke louder during the quiet moments.
The awkward moments.
She sighed as she lit one of the candles that Amelia had insisted on using before she had convinced her maid to throw the curtains open.
“Hmm… looks like they do have their purpose,” she mused to herself as she tiptoed out of her bedchamber.
She looked out into the empty corridor, half expecting someone—perhaps Huxley or even Charles himself—to jump out of the shadows and tell her to go back to bed, almost as if she was an errant child caught sneaking past her bedtime.
She knew that Charles had warned her to stay within the confines of the manor as much as possible. She knew he probably would have strong objections to her wandering about in the darkness—no, she was certain he would have them, those strong objections.
But she found that on nights when sleep eluded her, a nice walk often did the trick far better than a glass of warm milk ever could.
Phoebe never really knew why he was so suspicious of just about everything. It was almost as if he feared that someone or something would come at him if he so much as let his guard down for a breath.
It is rather hard to think of him being afraid of anything , she thought to herself as she quietly made her way out through the back of the manor.
As soon as she was outside, she let out a soft sigh, feeling her chest expand as her lungs took in the fresh air. She smiled slightly as she felt the cool breeze blowing at her cheeks. Overhead, the stars were sprinkled across the night sky, almost as if someone had spilled a bag of tiny diamonds onto a sea of dark velvet.
She turned back and saw that the manor was shrouded in darkness in very much the same way she had always seen it from her bedchamber back in Townsend House.
It was funny how she never saw it as foreboding—only that it was mysterious and somehow thrilling .
Just like its lord and master.
As soon as thoughts of Charles cropped up, she felt the burn creeping up her cheeks and knew they were not from the cold wind. It seemed that the more she saw him, the more she could not put him out of her head.
And after that kiss they shared in the dining room, it felt as if he had lit a fire in her that could not be extinguished. A savage hunger for something that she could not sate.
She wanted to feel his lips molding over hers once more. She yearned for those strong arms to encase her in a steely, passionate embrace. She longed to feel his skin on hers, as strange as it may sound.
“I suppose this is why they warn young ladies from engaging in such proclivities,” she muttered to herself as she instinctively drew her robe over her frame. “This…it is enough to drive one insane just by thinking about it over and over again…”
But Phoebe was no longer some frail debutante—she had been very much a spinster before she had become a wife. She supposed that certain… desires were bound to crop up in her age.
Or were they? Perhaps she was just odd like that—just as she had been awkward in so many things.
She let out a sigh as she let her mind wander freely, allowing the night air to carry her cares away for the time being.
Tomorrow is another day , she told herself. I shall worry about it when it comes…
She slowly turned the corner when she saw it—a faint, flickering light emanating from the gaps in the ground a short distance from her.
Phoebe frowned as she slowly approached it, realizing all too late just where her late-night rumination had taken her.
It was the trapdoor. The very same one where she first met Charles after chasing Whiteson over the wall.
Only this time, her feline friend was nowhere to be found and she was dressed in nothing more than a thin robe and an even thinner shift.
At that moment, Phoebe realized that perhaps it was not such a good idea to go venturing out of the manor in such flimsy clothing. After all, Wentworth Park was quite different from Townsend House, with its draconian rules for just about anything .
Perhaps those rules truly had been set for a reason.
But even that could not calm the sudden sense of excitement that thudded in her chest.
Unlike that other night, someone was actually in the room beneath the trapdoor tonight, if that flickering light was any indication.
Could it be Charles?
Phoebe recalled the strange contraptions she had seen there once. She had never seen them before and had absolutely no idea what they were supposedly for.
Were they truly torture devices that her husband used on some prisoners?
If they were, then just who was Charles torturing, and why would he need to do that? She felt that her husband was simply not the type of person to do something without reason.
If he was insane, then there had to be some sort of method to his madness.
Phoebe held her breath as she cautiously approached the trapdoor. She heard a loud thud and her heart jumped in her chest.
Dear God in heaven, that sounds very much like flesh meeting against something!
She knew she should turn back—Charles himself had warned her to stay away from this secret room of his. Nervously, she had agreed then.
But that same nervousness was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it had gone to that same distant place her logic and common sense had flown off to.
Instead, all she felt was a thrill. As if she was some explorer on the verge of making a very important discovery…
If Charles truly was a murderer, then she supposed that she had every right to know just what her husband was up to—as foolhardy as that sounded.
Lips pressed into a grim line, Phoebe reached out to open the trapdoor as the strange thuds resounded in quick succession, almost falling into some kind of rhythm. Quietly, she tiptoed down the stairs, squinting in the dim lighting.
As her eyes adjusted to the flickering light provided by a lone lamp, her mouth fell open in a short scream.
Charles stiffened at the sound of that soft scream, his muscles going taut at the slightest hint of danger. He whirled around, ready to face the intruder, his eyes cold and steely.
Only for his mouth to hang open at the sight before him.
“What,” he asked in a low, dangerous voice. “…are you doing here?”
Standing before him was none other than his delectable wife—the very same one who had carelessly teased him just a few hours prior.
The same wife who had driven him to seek the diversion of this secret room because he could hardly sleep even after he had physically relieved himself of the torment that she had wrought on him.
However, it seemed as if Phoebe was just not done teasing him yet.
Her hair was deliciously unbound, falling down her delicate shoulders in wanton waves that begged for his fingers to sink into them. And—good God—what was that she was wearing?
Or rather—what was she not wearing?
That robe she had wrapped around herself was as thin as a spider’s web, barely leaving enough to the imagination—well, enough to tantalize him further, that was what!
He watched as she seemed to get over her initial shock at finding him there in the dead of the night. She seemed to bristle in affront, her eyes narrowing at him. She lifted her chin most defiantly and if that fire of hers did not arouse him further, then nothing ever would.
“I could ask the same of you, My Lord.”
Charles was now thoroughly convinced that Phoebe Townsend— Montgomery had been sent to this earth merely to cause him a carnal agony of the very worst kind.
Spinster, indeed! All of London must have gone blind if they could not see the temptress encased in that—
Well, she was barely encased in anything as it stood—and it plagued Charles that it was all he could think about at the present.
That, and taking his slow, sweet time unwrapping that ridiculously flimsy attire of hers…
“Did I not tell you earlier not to come back here?” he growled, stalking towards her.
All his senses were keenly attuned to her now—the sight of her in that diaphanous robe. The subtle fragrance of her that heated his blood. The sound of her breath coming out in soft gasps. The warmth that seared him from where he stood.
All that was left was the taste of her in his mouth, on his tongue.
She looked up at him warily. Her pink tongue darted out and traced her bottom lip—a nervous habit, he presumed.
A deliciously nervous habit.
“I-I could not sleep,” she murmured, her wide gaze meeting his. “I-I thought I would take a walk…clear my head a little…”
She backed away from him just the tiniest fraction, but it was enough to unleash that untamed part of him that Charles had spent the better part of his life keeping under rigid control.
He reached his arm out to her, his palm open and upturned.
“Come here, Phoebe.”
He half expected her to turn and run. To go back to the manor and to the safety of her bedchamber.
He gathered that he looked rather frightful as he stood right now.
When she slid her smaller hand into his, he felt a feral grin trace itself across his lips. His fingers closed over hers and he gave her a swift tug that sent her stumbling onto his chest.
His bare chest.
“I shall show you what happens when you disobey me one too many times, dear wife,” he growled.
His fingers sank into her thick, luxurious mane at the back of her head as he tilted her head up to meet his fierce and demanding kiss.
If he was going to burn, then he was going to burn with her .