Chapter 22 #2
“Try,” she suggested, feeling faintly lightheaded. “Begin with how the humble clerk who kissed me in a portrait gallery has suddenly become an earl in a dusty lane.”
“The humble clerk who kissed you in a portrait gallery was always an earl,” he said.
“An earl in disguise.” Seeing her expression, he added hastily, “Not to mock you. Not to toy with you. I swear it. I came to Lobelia Hall as Mr. Ellison because I needed to know what kind of man my great-uncle had been, what kind of life he had led, what dangers and obligations I would inherit. I needed to see the estate through unvarnished eyes. The staff would not speak freely to an earl, but they would to a solicitor.”
“Good heavens,” Phoebe whispered, her knees feeling oddly unreliable. “All this time…?”
“All this time I have been Graeme Lockwood,” he admitted. “Now the Earl of Collumby. And all this time, you have been the only person who spoke to me as if I were a man, not a tradesman, not a solicitor, not an earl, merely a man.”
“Merely a man who lied about his name, his position, and an enormous inheritance with my initials on it,” she said tartly, clinging to indignation as the only solid ground.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “And I am trying, badly, I admit, to explain why. May I?”
She folded her arms. “You have ridden me down in the middle of a public road. I suppose I cannot stop you from speaking.”
From his perch, the carrier cleared his throat pointedly. “If you’re goin’ to be long, sir, I’ll just see to the horse’s nosebag, shall I?”
“Please,” Graeme said with a nod.
The driver hopped down and led the horse a few paces off to a patch of grass, giving them his back and the pretense of privacy.
Graeme turned back to Phoebe. Dust streaked his cheekbone. Without thinking, she almost reached up to swipe it away with her fingertips. Instead, she tucked her hands firmly under her arms.
“I should have told you about the codicil sooner,” he said.
“That is the heart of it. I did not because I was a coward and a fool. At first, I believed you were the Miss P.W. my great-uncle mentioned. You arrived within days of my learning of the legacy. You were of the right disposition, the right initials, the right circumstances. But then, you told me about Freddy, about Scotland, about the surprise of the renewed proposal. The pieces did not fit so well anymore.”
“They fit well enough that you thought I meant to bankrupt the estate,” she snapped.
“I did. For about a day. But then I read the journals, the letters… I saw the way he wrote, the way he thought. I watched you. You did not scheme or cajole. You did not so much as hint about money. You were simply… yourself. Bold. Frightened. Trying not to be. The more I observed, the more certain I became that you were not what he had imagined you to be.” His voice lowered.
“And the more certain I became that you were far better.”
Heat prickled at the corners of her eyes. She blinked away angrily. “That does not excuse—”
“It does not,” he agreed. “I told myself I would speak to the housekeeper and the chaplain first, confirm Miss P.W.’s identity before I turned your life upside down.
But then… well, you rode with me, and painted with me, and laughed in my arms. I…
I forgot everything but the feel of you against me.
I liked being myself with you, not a man who had to tell you the worst news of your life, that there was an inheritance that might be yours, but might not be, that could free you if you were the correct P.W.
, but that could have you lose the chance at more if you thought independence a better option. ”
“The worst news of my life,” she repeated, stunned. “You thought telling me there was a fortune in my name would be the worst news of my life?”
“I thought that telling you too soon might turn what we had into a transaction. I wanted… selfishly, perhaps unforgivably… more time with you where nothing hung between us except our own choices. I wanted you to have the freedom of liking me, or not, without weighing me against a codicil.” A humorless smile tugged his lips.
“And then I kissed you, and any hope of behaving prudently deserted me.”
She swallowed. The memory of that kiss reverberated through her like the echo of a ringing bell.
“You told me about Freddy, about a gentleman who claimed he loved you when what he wanted was your money. That he courted you not for yourself but for your dowry. You trusted me with that. And still, when you saw the codicil, you believed I had done the same.”
“What else was I to think?” she demanded, voice cracking.
“You hid it from me. You let me sit in your study and work beside you while a fortune sat on your desk—with my initials on it! You allowed me to talk about my lack of dowry, about my fears, about my desire simply to be wanted, and you said nothing. And then you offered me courtship.” Her throat tightened.
“How was I to distinguish between your regard and your calculation?”
His shoulders sagged. “By the one fact I never thought I would have to state aloud. I never needed a penny of that money.”
She stared at him. “No one is so wealthy they would not notice thirty thousand pounds, sir.”
“Perhaps not many,” he said. “But a man whose grandfather built a flourishing trade, whose father doubled it, and who has spent his adult life growing it further, notices a great deal less than most. The Lockwood warehouses do not vanish because one codicil moves an unentailed sum from an estate. Nor do the investments my father and I have made. The rents of Lobelia Hall matter. The livelihoods of those who depend on it matter. Thirty thousand pounds is only ruinous to them if I refuse to shoulder the loss, but luckily for us all, it is a small amount to my coffers.”
The number hit her at last. “Thirty… thousand…”
“Yes. He meant it to wound the cut-off branch of the family, I think. To punish them by bleeding the estate dry. And, in his twisted way, to keep his natural son from want.” He drew a breath.
“The codicil was not written for you, Phoebe. It was written for Penelope Woodridge. The maid he seduced but never married. The woman he cast off, believing the codicil would pay his sins.”
She could not seem to find her breath. “Penelope, not Phoebe,” she repeated.
“She came to the Hall,” he explained. “Begging only for a reference, terrified anyone should think she had tempted him. She did not even know he had left her anything. The housekeeper dismissed her out of shame. The chaplain assumed someone had informed the solicitor. And the solicitor assumed Miss P.W. would arrive waving demands for an inheritance. Instead, you arrived. A different P.W., with different troubles, and with an almost-betrothal. And I, idiot that I am, mistook you for the first.” He dragged his hand down his face.
“I have now set matters right. The codicil is being executed as it should have been from the first. The cottage and the trust are hers and her son’s. ”
Phoebe’s head spun. The road tilted. She put a hand out, instinctively, steadying herself against Graeme’s arm. He cupped her elbow, his hand firm and warm.
“So, I never…” She could not finish.
“You were never named. Which means I failed you in two ways at once. I suspected you of scheming for an inheritance that was not yours, and when I realized my mistake, I did not tell you for fear of losing the time with you I had come to treasure.”
She stared at his waistcoat, faint, confused, unsure how to respond.
“You said in your letter you relinquished any claim to the codicil, wished only to remove yourself so the estate would not suffer further.” His voice roughened. “Is it foolish for me to believe you had begun to care for me, that you might still care, might still hope?”
She did not answer. Heat surged to her cheeks.
He stepped closer, cautiously, as if approaching a skittish horse.
“You are not a fortune huntress. You never were. Every doubt I had was my flaw, not your fault. You trusted me first, but I failed to trust you in return. That is on my conscience, not yours. But if you walk away now believing that I ever courted you for money, I could not bear it.”
She gasped for air, then bitterly spat out, “Why did you court me, then, my lord?”
“For your laugh,” he said without hesitation.
“For the way you argue when you are frightened. For your ridiculous courage. For the way you looked at me when you thought I was only a clerk and still made me feel like a man worth looking at. I wish I could tell you it was love from the first, but it wasn’t.
It was irritation, then reluctant admiration, then an affection that grew every time you walked into a room. ”
He clasped her hand and held it to his heart. She did not pull away.
“I am not asking you to believe in love all at once,” he said. “Only to consider that perhaps what stands between us is not greed, but my spectacular talent for mishandling the truth.”
Against her will, a strangled sound escaped her lips, half laugh and half sob. “You are the worst suitor I have ever had,” she managed.
“I would be more offended,” he said, eyes glinting, “If I did not know the competition includes Freddy.”
A laugh burst from her, shocked and tearful. She clapped her free hand over her mouth, appalled at herself, but it was too late. The sound was out, hanging in the air like birdsong.
Graeme’s shoulders eased a fraction.
“You chased down a carrier’s cart on the Sabbath,” she said, lowering her hand. “You flew down the road like a madman just to argue with me in the dust.”
He glanced at his horse. “He and I are of one mind on the madness. But yes, I did.”
She looked at him for a long, searching moment. Dust. Stubble. Rumpled cravat. Raw apology in every line of him. “And what do you want now?”
“A chance,” he answered simply. “Only that. A chance to return to Lobelia Hall together. A chance to show you, overtly and honestly, what my feelings are and how I intend to act on them. A chance to court you properly, openly, as the man I am, not the solicitor I pretend to be. If, at any time, you decide I am not worth the trouble, you may leave with all my blessing and half my fortune besides, and I will not stop you.” His mouth quirked.
“But I would rather like the opportunity to convince you I am.”
She balked. “Half your for—”
“Hyperbole,” he hastened to clarify. “Mostly. I would prefer not to test the accounts that far. The point remains: you do not need my title or my money to make your choice. You never did.”
Her heart took a particularly reckless leap. “And what would people say if they learned their dignified new earl chased a woman down the London road to beg her to come home?”
He shrugged. “They may say what they please. But perhaps,” and this he added with a spark in his eyes, “some of them might say that for once, a Collumby chose well.”
Silence stretched between them, but it had changed, no longer a wall, rather a held breath.
Phoebe looked backed at the cart. Fanny watched, twisting the ribbon of her bonnet.
The gypsy peered unabashedly over the top of her shawl, eyes twinkling with scandalized delight.
The driver pretended to adjust the harness again, failing utterly to conceal his grin.
Turning back to Graeme, Phoebe said, “I left because I believed you had chosen money over me. Because I believed you had used your position and knowledge to… to play with my heart. I could not bear it if that were true.”
“It is not.”
“I know.” The realization had slid into her heart somewhere in his rambling and breathless confession. “You are a fool. And a coward. And very likely the worst liar I have ever met.”
“Agreed.”
“And I…” her voice trembled. “I am terrified of loving anyone again.”
“I know.”
She took a deep breath, inviting the air to fill her lungs, cool and sharp.
She thought of Lobelia Hall, of its gallery, its garden, the linden tree, even of a stranger’s son, safe now with a provision and cottage…
of the staff who had begun to treat her not as an intrusion but as someone who belonged…
of the way Graeme had watched her walk through the garden, his gaze warmer than sunlight.
“The road goes two ways,” she said at last. “Towards London. And back to Lobelia Hall.”
He nodded, squeezing her hand.
“If I return with you, you must promise there will be no more disguises, no secret inheritances, no eavesdropping behind the Ficus in the conservatory.”
He stared at her blankly. “I have never hidden behind a—”
“Hyperbole,” she teased, rather enjoying his ears turning a faint pink. “You must promise that if your fear whispers something dreadful about me in your head, you will not believe it until you have asked me first.”
“I swear.”
“And,” she added, “you must be prepared that I will likely fall in love with you. And I shall be very cross if you make me regret it.”
Something in his face crumpled and smoothed at once, as if relief had buckled him from the inside. He stepped closer still, lifting her hand against his lips, his fingers shaking slightly.
“Then,” he said huskily, “I will devote myself to never giving you cause to be cross. Or at least, not on that subject. I will, of course, still argue with you about everything else. It would be a dull marriage otherwise.”
The word hung between them—marriage—as startling as a dropped coin.
“Oh,” she said.
“Too soon. Consider it… future ambition. For now, shall we begin with the ride back?”
He turned, beckoning to the driver. “How do you feel about exchanging your passengers for my horse?” he called. “I suspect the lady would prefer to finish her journey in a somewhat more comfortable vehicle.”
The driver scratched his head. “Depends how comfortable your purse is feelin’.”
Graeme glanced at Phoebe. “May I demonstrate that I do not, in fact, need yours or anyone else’s money?”
She tossed her gaze to the sky, but said, “Very well. Buy the horse, the cart, the chickens, and the old woman’s rosary while you are about it. Then, perhaps, I shall believe you.”
His laughter spilled into the lane. He lifted her hand once more to his lips, pressing a kiss against her knuckles, reverent and shaken.
“Phoebe Whittington, you are everything I never knew I wanted. Come home with me?”
Her heart, the foolish thing, had already gone galloping after him hours ago. Catching up to it seemed the only sensible course left.
“Yes,” she said. “Let us go home.”