Chapter 5 #2
With a skip to the door, her maid hastening to join her, Miss Whittington offered a cheerful, “Until tomorrow, then.”
“Until tomorrow,” he echoed mechanically, though what he meant by it, he could not say.
The supper tray sat half-finished on the little table in Phoebe’s chamber, steam from the teapot long since faded. Fanny hovered over it, fussing with the napkin.
Phoebe ignored both tray and maid, gaze fixed on the rain-blurred window. A tiny smile tugged at her lips.
“Our clerk,” Phoebe said at last, “is not so impenetrable as he thinks.” She leaned back on the settee, satisfactorily tallying her victories. “Did you see him stumble, Fanny? One smile, one flutter of my lashes, and he was pudding!”
Fanny, folding the napkin with unnecessary precision, murmured, “If you say so, miss.”
Narrowing her eyes, Phoebe turned sharply. “I do say so. He postures, but he has already begun to yield. By tomorrow, he will be ready to sing my praises to the earl.”
Fanny’s silence was more eloquent than words.
However bright Phoebe’s confidence, the maid’s hesitation cast a shadow.
With sudden restlessness, Phoebe rose. “Come. Fetch my shawl. I refuse to be shut up in this room all night, however pretty the curtains. A turn about the hall will do.”
“What if—”
“What if Mr. Ellison frowns at me for wandering? Then I shall laugh at his consternation! Or what if the housekeeper scolds me? Then I shall look suitably penitent until she softens. I will not be daunted, Fanny, and neither should you. I mean to see more than the same four walls. Is the plan not that I shall be mistress of the house yet? Come.”
Fanny obeyed, retrieving the shawl.
Phoebe swept it about her shoulders, the lace edging trailing over her gown. Crossing the chamber with a decisive step, she muttered to herself, “If I am to belong here, I must try to feel more at home.”
They slipped from the east wing unchallenged, ostensibly for a walk, but really to nose about.
No one intercepted them. But then, seeing as she was the only guest, there would be no reason for staff to mill around the first floor, at least not through these corridors.
Phoebe carried a single taper to light the way.
The flame bobbed with each step, catching gilt frames and scattering shadows across the paneling.
Storm-light flashed at the windows, but the corridors themselves lay quiet and deserted.
She wondered where Mr. Ellison lodged. Had he been offered a guest suite in the bachelor wing, or was he housed with staff?
Oh, now there was a curious thought… was he a bachelor?
The question had never entered her mind, not that it mattered since she had no designs on the man, only his employer, and since, married or not, he would be charmed into loyalty, at least enough to help her win the new earl.
This was not overconfidence, she told herself. It was hope. The last vestiges of it, in fact. If she did not have confidence, she might as well slip into the dismals now and be done with it.
Without a destination, she meandered, Fanny trailing behind, more shadow than companion. A few errant turns brought them to the family apartments, their doors silent in the flicker of Phoebe’s taper. Looking both ways, Phoebe slipped through the first set of doors, more curious than cautious.
Ah, a private parlor.
Yellow paper-hangings, bright and floral, glowed warm in the candlelight. The furnishings were too new, too pristine, to have been much used. The tables were polished to a gleam, the cushions smoothed, all as opulent as her guest chamber, and all as lonely.
“Cheerful.” Phoebe ran her fingers along a marble mantel where two figurines of fig-draped maidens offered baskets of berries. Quaint tokens of a man who liked his comforts—and spared no expense.
Through a connecting door lay a salon, its powder-blue walls pale in the wavering light. A space for games and cards, she thought, with enough room for laughter to echo. The old earl, it seemed, had not denied himself diversion. Would his heir share that taste?
“Miss,” hissed Fanny. “I think someone’s coming.”
Phoebe waved her off, drifting to the narrow window. It overlooked the slanted roof of the minstrel’s hall, rain coursing down in silver rivulets, a wending waterfall. Lightning flashed, jagged against the horizon.
“Miss,” Fanny insisted.
“Oh, do be sensible. No one is coming. Why would they?”
There were more rooms to explore, but Fanny’s fidgeting pressed at her nerves. With a huff, Phoebe guided them through a side door, back to the landing—empty, of course—and turned towards the west wing by way of the connecting minstrel gallery. The taper painted the panels with restless shadows.
“Miss, ought we be returning now?”
Phoebe quickened her steps. “You’ve no sense of adventure,” she scolded, half-teasing, half-cross. Then, with a wicked grin, “If I were to present you to a bachelor marquess with a fondness for maids, would you seduce him into marriage?”
Fanny gasped, her expression tumbling from horror to mortified silence.
“Exactly so. No sense of adventure,” Phoebe declared, sweeping onward.
As she crossed the gallery, her candlestick flared, a figure stepping into view from the bend ahead. Phoebe’s heart jolted, pulse racing with the storm’s rhythm. She raised the taper high—
—and the light revealed Mrs. Redshaw, the housekeeper, her severe face caught in amber glow.
Fanny squeaked.
“Oh! Mrs. Redshaw!” Phoebe let out a startled laugh. “Heavens, I mistook you for a ghost!”
Mrs. Redshaw’s mouth twitched, though whether with disapproval or amusement, Phoebe could not guess.
“Ghosts do not haunt Lobelia Hall, miss. Not while I draw breath.” Her tone was clipped, practical, yet carried an undercurrent of pride, as though she considered herself guardian not just of the household but of its very walls.
Phoebe lowered her taper, smiling. “Then Lobelia Hall could have no better protector.”
The housekeeper’s gaze softened, just slightly.
“A house reflects the character of its master, and the Hall was kept in good order under his lordship. It shall remain so, God willing.” Her hands folded before her.
“If you wish for a turn about the house, might I suggest the portrait gallery? The storm makes the gardens unfit, but the gallery offers views of the family line, which some find instructive.” Mrs. Redshaw paused, then added with a sidelong glance, “And you will find the chapel just beyond, should you care to offer a prayer. The staff gathers there Sundays without fail.”
“I would never dream of imposing, but….” Phoebe lowered her gaze. “It would mean more than words can express to join this Sunday.”
“We would like nothing better.” With a nod, Mrs. Redshaw continued on her way before pausing to eye Phoebe over her shoulder. “You’ll find the portraits one turn to the right.”
And so, she did.
The gallery stretched the length of the house, lit only by the fitful glow of lightning through alcove windows and the warm flicker of her candle.
Faces stared down from the walls, all, presumably, belonging to Collumbys of centuries past. She paused at each, tilting the flame to study their features.
Fanny muttered from the opposite side, “Not handsome at all, if you ask me.”
Phoebe turned, stopping short. Her breath caught.
The portrait loomed life-sized: a young man, hardly older than she, standing triumphant, sword aloft over a slain dragon.
She needed no plaque to tell her this was the late Earl of Collumby.
Recognition struck her like thunder. She had never met him, never seen his likeness, yet she knew his face with a curious and inexplicable familiarity.
He was nothing like the bent, gnarled man she had envisioned, brittle as the butler. This man was in his prime, fierce and commanding, undeniably powerful. Too handsome by half, despite Fanny’s protests. And yet, the longer she stared, the colder she grew.
Her pulse tangled between admiration and unease. Strength blazed in the set of his jaw, but his eyes—good heavens, those eyes—were cold, calculating, almost cruel, seeming to cut into her. Power and menace intertwined.
“Perhaps it is just as well I never met him… at any age,” she whispered more to herself than to her companion.
Unsettled, she tore her gaze away. If this was the measure of Collumby blood, what sort of man would his heir prove to be?
Her pulse quickened, half with dread, half with anticipation.
A man of such power might crush her. On the other hand, he might be the very fortress she needed against her father’s tyranny.
Either way, she could not shrink from him.
A thunderclap shook the gallery.
Candle trembling in her hand, Phoebe drew her shawl tighter with a shiver. “Come, Fanny,” she murmured, though her voice had lost its earlier bravado. “We have seen enough.”