Chapter 8
“Ican’t believe you’re doing this!” Hannah cried as Phoebe dragged her back downstairs. “You’re really going to tell Father?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Hannah, yes. Of course, I’m going to tell Father. What do you think—that I’m going to pretend you’ve never come home again? I feel like he’s going to notice!”
Hannah harrumphed at this, but she didn’t offer an argument because, really, what argument was there to give?
And, yes, Phoebe supposed that she could have let her sister have a moment to explain before dragging her before their father. It would have been kind. It had been a very long couple of days, however.
“There you are, Phoebe,” Lord Turner said without turning around. “Now that we are home, I think it is time that you finally explain—”
His words cut off as he spun and saw his younger daughter.
“Hannah,” he said in the flat tone that he usually reserved for Phoebe.
All the argumentativeness that Hannah had presented to Phoebe vanished in the face of their father’s narrow-eyed stare. She shuffled her feet and frowned. The expression made her look much younger than her twenty years, and Phoebe had to shove down the surge of protectiveness that rose in her.
It was true that Phoebe had served in a maternal role for her little sister for years now—for more than half of Hannah’s life. But the reality was that Hannah wasn’t a child any longer, and Phoebe wasn’t her mother.
She could protect Hannah from some things, but not necessarily from the consequences of her own actions.
“Father,” Hannah mumbled, looking down at her feet.
“Can you tell me,” Lord Turner asked, tone snide, “why my favorite daughter would take my efforts to secure her a good marriage and not only throw them back in my face but do so in a way that embarrassed me in front of a duke? In a way that was all but guaranteed to lead to a scandal? In a way that made your sister worry for your wellbeing?”
Phoebe felt that there were many things to object to in this series of questions. The comment about Hannah being his favorite daughter was true—they all knew it—but saying it out loud did seem to be a bit beyond the pale.
Not to mention that her father’s hierarchy of concerns, starting with his personal embarrassment and ending with Phoebe—just Phoebe, apparently—being worried, felt like it could do with a bit of reordering.
Though again, Phoebe supposed she couldn’t fault him for his honesty.
“I’m sorry?” Hannah ventured.
Huh. Phoebe could have told her that it would not work. Their father was like a shark, and he treated apologies like blood in the water.
“You should be sorry,” he said, sounding no less angry, “but you also should begin explaining yourself. Immediately, please.”
Hannah looked at Phoebe. Their father also looked at Phoebe.
“Oh, no,” Phoebe said, raising her hands in a gesture of innocence.
“Do not look at me—not either of you! I, too, would like an explanation for what is happening here.” She lowered her voice a little when she looked back at her sister.
She just couldn’t help herself. “I really was worried, Hannah,” she said softly.
“You ran out into the snow, and I… I didn’t know if you were safe. ”
“I left a note!” Hannah said defensively.
Turner’s head snapped to glare at Phoebe. He seemed relieved by the opportunity to return to form and take out his anger on his least favorite daughter.
Apparently, that one smarted a little, Phoebe noted absently.
“Why is this the first I’m hearing about a note?”
“It didn’t have anything useful,” Phoebe told him. She had plenty of experience on the receiving end of her father’s scorn, so she knew better than to apologize. “Which is why I would still like to hear an explanation from Hannah.”
Hannah looked pale as she shrank under the stares of her father and her sister. She shuffled some more, gnawed at her bottom lip, and then relented.
“Fine,” she said with a huff. “If you must know, I… I fell in love.”
“What?” Phoebe cried.
“Who is this scoundrel?” their father demanded, his expression thunderous. “Why has he not courted you properly? Is he unsuitable? Is he married? Is he poor?”
Only their father would consider a married lover to be better than an impoverished one. Phoebe couldn’t resist rolling her eyes.
“What Father means to say,” Phoebe said pointedly, not that this was likely to have any material impact on Lord Turner, “is can you tell us who he is?”
Their father grumbled as if to suggest that this was not at all what he meant, but he didn’t interject.
Hannah waffled a little bit more, shifting her weight. Phoebe could practically feel their father’s patience wearing thin.
“It’s Lord Lyle,” she admitted eventually.
Phoebe felt her shoulders slump in relief. Lord Lyle was a viscount—not to mention that he was scarcely thirty, unmarried, and not poor. He might not be as wealthy as the Duke of Redcliff—few were—but he was an eminently suitable match.
Which was why it really was outrageous when their father said in a tone that held no room for argument, “No.”
“Um,” Hannah said, darting a glance to Phoebe, who offered her a shrug. She didn’t have answers, no matter that the two of them seemed determined to make her answer for everything. “Yes? I mean, yes,” she said again, this time more definitely. “We are in love.”
“No!” said their father. His tone suggested that he was about one protest away from stamping his foot and crossing his arms like a small child who had been denied a treat. “You are not going to marry Lyle. He’s merely a viscount!”
“You’re merely a viscount,” Phoebe couldn’t resist pointing out.
Her father scoffed as though Phoebe was missing the point so desperately that it didn’t even merit a response.
“You are not going to marry a viscount,” he said to Hannah. “You are going to marry a duke. The Duke of Redcliff. It’s already been arranged.”
Hannah’s pout also looked like a child being denied a treat. Phoebe was so glad they were discussing a topic as serious as her sister’s marriage with such a level of maturity.
“But I love Lyle,” she said in a very small voice.
The Viscount’s scoff was louder and harsher this time. “Love,” he said dismissively. “Love is a fairy tale for children, Hannah. You are not a child. You are going to love for the betterment of this family, not for some sort of ridiculous little whim. Do you hear me?”
There was a long, pregnant pause. This was the point where Hannah usually gave in to their father’s demands, unless Phoebe intervened on her behalf.
And Phoebe almost did say something, as she watched the distress cross Hannah’s face. But before she could intervene, Hannah squared her shoulders.
“I will not marry the Duke,” she said firmly. Her expression wavered a bit, and her voice was a great deal smaller when she added, “I can’t.”
Phoebe felt her face go as pale as Hannah’s as the meaning of this set in.
Lord Turner took longer to take in his daughter’s meaning.
“Of course, you can,” he said dismissively. “I’ve already done all the hard parts for you. You only have the easy bit left. You walk down the aisle and keep your mouth shut until the bishop tells you what to say. Couldn’t be simpler.”
“Father…” Phoebe said.
“Don’t interrupt, Phoebe! Your sister just needs to understand—”
He broke off as he finally understood.
There was a long, long silence.
“You’ve been compromised,” he said flatly.
Hannah’s eyes were damp with tears as she nodded.
There was one more fraught silence before the explosion.
“You complete fool,” he spat, rage contorting his features. “How could you be so stupid, Hannah?”
Phoebe had long since become inured to her father’s insults, but Hannah received them less often, so she flinched at each invective. Phoebe crossed to her to wrap a comforting arm around Hannah’s shoulders, but she feared that any interruption to her father’s tirade would only make it worse.
“To let yourself be compromised?” Lord Turner said, throwing his hands in the air as he paced back and forth. “By a viscount?”
That would be what he focused on, Phoebe thought disgustedly. As if Hannah would have been sensible if only she’d let herself be compromised by someone with a loftier title.
Phoebe had been silent long enough. It was time to try to wrangle this conversation back on track.
Christ, it was exhausting being the sensible one. She wasn’t built for it. She was built for risk-taking and defying expectations.
“And you and Lord Lyle… plan to be married?” she asked as gently as she could.
Hannah nodded so vigorously that she no doubt risked giving herself a headache.
“Yes, yes, of course!” she said, and Phoebe sincerely hoped that her sister’s faith would be rewarded. “He just needs to… manage some things before he approaches you, Father.”
“And why did he not manage these things before taking the time to compromise you?” Lord Turner asked acidly, and Phoebe hated that she was thinking along the same lines as her father.
But he made a good point.
And maybe Hannah knew it, too, because her pout resumed. This iteration was clearly defensive.
“He did arrange to pick me up from the Redcliff estate!” she protested. “I sent a letter for him to follow us, and he did. He came for me. He rescued me.”
In what was nothing less than a heroic effort, Phoebe did not roll her eyes at Hannah's characterization of Lyle retrieving her from a safe, comfortable duke’s estate as a “rescue.” The Duke of Redcliff was cold, stubborn, and extremely high-handed, but Hannah hadn’t been in danger in his home.
Lord Turner was looking at his daughter with a disgusted expression on his face.
“You’ve really made a mess of things, Hannah,” he said. “What are we supposed to tell the Duke now? He won’t want a soiled dove. Who would?”
This was going a bit far.
“Father,” Phoebe protested, angling herself between Hannah and her father. “There’s no reason to be unkind. She made a mistake—in not handling things properly,” she added at Hannah’s noise of protest.
“He’s a good man,” Hannah muttered loyally. Phoebe ignored this.
“She made a mistake?” the Viscount echoed incredulously. “She has done nothing but make mistakes!”
“But perhaps,” Phoebe said meaningfully to her father, “this is not the right time to harp on all of those mistakes. Perhaps,” she went on in that same pointed tone, “now is the time to focus on solutions.”
Phoebe wouldn’t say that she regretted protecting her sister. She had never regretted doing such a thing.
But Lord above, her father did love to try to make her regret it.
He turned his eyes on her, smiling in a way that promised that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say next.
“Fine, Phoebe,” he said acidly. “If you are so determined to ensure that your sister not face any consequences for her actions—if you are so determined to focus on solutions—then why don’t you be the one to decide what we are going to do about the Duke of Redcliff?”
He said this with all the dramatic panache of an actor delivering the final line of his big monologue. Phoebe didn’t react, merely to annoy him.
“Certainly,” she said with a lightness that she didn’t feel. “I’ll come up with a solution that will leave everyone content.”
He clearly hated that she wasn’t fighting with him, which was the primary reason that Phoebe was ever agreeable when it came to her father. While Hannah still lived under his roof, Phoebe had very few avenues for resistance without risking her sister’s future, so she indulged where she could.
“Oh,” the Viscount said. “Right. Good. You will do that.”
“Happy to,” Phoebe lied with a polite smile. “Now that that’s settled, shall I take Hannah up to bed? It’s been a very dramatic day.”
Lord Tuner was clearly suspicious of Phoebe’s intentions, but he was just as clearly uncertain what she planned with all this agreeability and politeness.
“Very well,” he said. And then, because he loved to get in the last word, he added, “We are leaving for London in two days. When we arrive, we will have dinner with the Duke. I trust you will have your solution by then, Phoebe.”
She didn’t even blink.
“Certainly, Father. Goodnight!”
And then she hurried Hannah from the room before her father could think of something else to say—or worse, some other responsibility to lay at her feet.
“Phoebe,” Hannah said.
“Not now,” Phoebe interrupted. “Upstairs.”
“But Phoebe—”
“Not. Here.” Phoebe gritted the words out through her teeth, giving a hasty nod to a maid as they passed. The staff mostly dealt with Phoebe, but that didn’t mean she wanted to put them in the hard position of keeping secrets from their employer.
It was only when they made it upstairs to Hannah’s bedchamber and the door was closed tightly shut behind them that Phoebe turned to face her sister, resignation causing her shoulders to slump and her spine to bend.
“Phoebe,” Hannah said, voice tremulous. “There’s… something more.”
Phoebe closed her eyes. She’d realized it already, but she hadn’t dared even think it in front of their father.
But it had been obvious once she found out that Hannah had a lover. It made everything else come together too easily—the pallor, the tempestuous emotions.
“I know,” she said, feeling as exhausted as she’d ever felt. She looked at her little sister, who was regarding her nervously but with hope and excitement in her eyes, too. “You’re expecting.”