Chapter 23 #2
“Liar,” Clio teased cheerfully as the various attendees of that night’s ball swirled around them.
Clio, Phoebe, and Aaron had decided—begrudgingly, in Aaron’s case and Phoebe’s, too, to an extent—to attend this evening to facilitate an introduction between Hannah and Clio and to show the union between the two families to the ton at large.
This latter explanation was for the benefit of Lord Turner and had made Aaron grumble even more.
“I daresay he doesn’t deserve the courtesy,” he’d argued, even as he’d tried to snag a half-dressed Phoebe and drag her back into bed—her bed this time as he’d arrived while she was in the midst of her preparations and dismissed her maid with the insistence that he would help her finish getting ready.
He proved to be not helpful in the least.
She batted away his hands.
“You should have thought about that before you practically purchased a woman you’d never met from her father,” she scolded.
Aaron flopped back on her bed with a groan. They’d spent the day together, and it had felt like they were living inside a soap bubble—charming, idyllic, and utterly fragile. Phoebe hoarded every moment.
“How am I supposed to be properly contrite about that when it worked out so well for me, though?” he lamented.
She shot him a chiding look over her shoulder.
“Do you think flattery will make me change my mind?” she asked.
“I can hope.”
It had taken her an age, but eventually Phoebe had managed to get herself ready to go, and they had descended the stairs to find Clio, whose bemusement at being forced to wait for so long vanished into a smug, understanding look in an instant.
“I see,” she said.
Aaron had scowled. “You,” he said sternly, “are my little sister, and therefore, you see nothing.”
Clio gave Aaron a look that Phoebe had seen countless times on Hannah’s features, which was a comparison she chose not to investigate too closely, even with the newfound warmth she felt toward her husband.
“Of course, Aaron,” she said sweetly. “So, shall we go?”
Aaron had grumbled something that approximated assent, and so they had departed, Clio’s beaming grin practically burning them with its brilliance.
The moment that they’d arrived at the ball, some gentlemen had rounded on Aaron like vultures on carrion. He had shot Phoebe and Clio a betrayed look before turning to the conversation.
Clio had proved immediately popular, which Phoebe supposed was no surprise.
Not only was she newly returned to London, but she was beautiful, charming, wealthy, and well-connected.
It was quite the list of appealing qualities to gentlemen of the ton—and their mothers who might usher them in the direction of a profitable potential bride.
Phoebe didn’t begrudge her the popularity, even if she did feel a bit awkward standing off by herself.
Soon, however, she spotted Hannah and was glad that she was alone—as her sister was beckoning frantically to her from her position where she stood half-concealed by a very large potted fern.
Alarmed, Phoebe rushed over.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, keeping her voice low even as her eyes ran over her sister, looking for some sign of physical distress. Was Hannah hurt? Was there something wrong with the babe?
“Loyd’s mother is here,” Hannah said in tones of utter horror, and Phoebe really had to hold herself back from smacking her sister upside the head.
“Good Lord, Hannah,” Phoebe said, dropping her head back in her exasperation. “I thought you were injured.” Then another thought occurred to her. “Does this mean that Loyd told his mother who you are?”
Hannah pouted. “No,” she said, and Phoebe wasn’t certain if this was good news or bad news.
On one hand, if Dowager Lady Loyd knew about Hannah and Hannah was still hiding, it didn’t bode well for any upcoming nuptials between Hannah and her lover.
On the other hand, if Loyd still hadn’t spoken to his mother, Phoebe was even more tempted to punch him in the jaw.
“Hannah,” she said, trying not to sound overmuch like a scolding parent, “he cannot delay any longer.” She hated to say it, but she couldn’t let it go unremarked upon. “Are you sure he… intends to actually do so?”
Hannah’s expression went wide and wounded.
“Of course, he does!” she insisted. “He’s just trying to ease the way. He already told his mother that there’s someone he fancies. She was very cross to start, but he said that she’s adjusting to the idea. Soon enough, he will be able to tell her who I am!”
Phoebe rubbed her forehead tiredly. Aaron had been right. Leaving the house had been a grievous mistake.
“So the two of you have been in contact?” she asked. She didn’t even want to know how Hannah was carrying on this affair of hers. It seemed like one of those cases in which she would only regret learning details.
Again, Hannah looked appalled, but this time her ire was evidently directed at Phoebe’s foolishness.
“Of course,” she said. “We’re in love. Wouldn’t you want to talk to someone you love?”
Phoebe fought not to flinch at the doubtfulness in Hannah’s tone, like she could not imagine any kind of world in which Phoebe might love someone.
Phoebe resisted the urge to look around the room for her husband, not when she needed to focus on her sister.
“We write letters,” Hannah said with clear pride at this brilliant gambit. “He signs with a false name to hide our tracks.”
“Grand,” Phoebe said wearily.
She was becoming extraordinarily concerned that Hannah was treating this all like a lark, like she was just some girl enjoying the thrill of exchanging clandestine letters with a handsome young boy—and not like a woman who was, in only a few short months, about to become an unwed mother, shunned by Society if that lover didn’t manage to behave like an adult and speak to his own goddamned mother!
But Phoebe recognized the stubborn set to Hannah’s shoulders, so she didn’t argue—not here, not now. Instead, she just promised to make Hannah’s excuses to Clio and Aaron and left her sister hiding behind the plant, apparently content to remain there.
Clio was still dancing, and she didn’t immediately see her husband, so she wandered out to the veranda to think. It was freezing out there, but the chill kept everyone else inside.
That was good. She needed to think.
“You’ll catch your death, sweetness.” Aaron’s voice was a low rumble from behind her, the sound followed by the heavy drape of his coat over her shoulders. The wool was warm from his body, and it carried the wafting scent of Aaron’s shaving soap.
“What about you?” she asked, turning to smile up at him even as she clutched the coat contentedly around her.
He shrugged. “It was a positive crush inside. I’ll have a moment before any chill gets me.”
Phoebe smiled at him. London Society was thin for the holiday season, and the ball was not remotely a crush, and it wasn’t nearly as warm inside as it would have been at a ball during the social Season.
It was ridiculous that she found it wonderful that he was lying just to please her.
She used to be a reasonable woman before her husband got his hands on her.
“Well, thank you,” she said graciously.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked as he draped his arms around her waist, holding her tight against him.
She paused only slightly before deciding to tell him the truth. He was her husband, wasn't he? And they’d reached a new understanding of one another.
“It’s my sister,” she said. “She is increasing. And I cannot figure out how to help her.”
At first, Phoebe thought that Aaron’s stiffness was just because he was processing the shock of what she’d just said. But as the seconds ticked away, he didn’t relax.
Instead, he took a step back until she was forced to drop her arms from around him.
“Phoebe,” he said flatly. “Please tell me that this is some sort of horrible joke.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, but no.”
“She allowed herself to get pregnant?” He hissed the word like it was a swear, one too daring for even a hardened naval man like himself.
Phoebe didn’t like how he made this sound as though Hannah had been alone.
“Well, the man she was with was involved,” she said pointedly, but this didn’t make Aaron relent. Instead, he hardened more.
“This is not something to make light of,” he snapped.
“I’m not making light of it, I just—”
He took another step back from her. Phoebe started to get a very, very bad feeling.
“Goddamn it, Phoebe!” he exclaimed, a hand going to his head where he clutched at his hair as though he realized his skull was going to erupt with the force of his fury. “Goddamn it all. I told you—I told you. I told you I could not abide any scandal. And now you tell me this? And you knew?”
She should have expected this, she realized. She should have expected his anger. This scandal would affect him now, too.
She had just thought that she would matter more to him than the scandal.
“I did,” she confessed.
He gaped at her, shaking his head.
“How could you?” he asked, sounding appalled and betrayed.
This question wounded her in return, even if she did understand why he was asking.
“Because she’s my sister,” Phoebe said, feeling incredulous that she had to explain such a thing. “Wouldn’t you protect your sister if you could?”
His incredulous expression matched her own.
“Yes,” he said, nodding at her. “I would protect my sister. In fact, I am trying to protect my sister whom you claim to care about, and yet I find that you are the very thing that I need to protect her from! What have you been teaching her, in all that time you spent time with her? Have you been telling her that throwing away her reputation on foolishness is really nothing to get upset about?”
Phoebe’s eyes went wide, and she only just prevented herself from putting a hand to her chest to cover the hurt from the blow he had just delivered.
“I wouldn’t hurt Clio,” she protested.
His scoff was a harsh, guttural thing.
“No, certainly not,” he said, his words dripping sarcasm.
“Just like you would never hurt Hannah, I’m sure.
You only model recklessness for her throughout her life and then act surprised when she gets herself in trouble.
And now, Clio has become attached to you as well.
God only knows what peril you’ll direct her toward! ”
“Aaron!” she protested, but he was lost in a fog of worry and anger.
“If you hadn’t spent so many years determined to be scandalous just for the sake of the thing,” he railed, “if you’d just acted like a normal young lady, been proper and dutiful, then none of this would be happening.”
Distantly, Phoebe realized that they were both doing the same thing—lashing out because they were hurt and afraid. But that didn’t stop her from doing it any more than it stopped Aaron.
“And then you and I never would have been married, you do realize, don’t you?” she retorted. “Or maybe that’s what you would have preferred—I never was your first choice, was I?”
He was pacing now.
“Don’t be melodramatic, Phoebe,” he snapped.
“I’m just telling you the facts of the world.
This is how Society works. And in Society, women who foolishly allow themselves to be taken advantage of by cads who don’t marry them first find themselves shunned.
And you—what? You trick me into helping you protect her so that my sister doesn’t bear the consequences of your sister’s idiocy?
So that you can corrupt my sister with this perversity? ”
Rage choked Phoebe at the insult to her sister, feeling like a fist clenched tight around her throat.
“She fell in love,” she told him. “Not because I showed her how to be scandalous but because I loved her. I showed her love, and she wanted to find love in return. And yes, I think she was a bit na?ve about how she went about it, but that doesn’t mean her principle was wrong.”
“How we go about things is what determines who we are,” he countered.
“If she acted na?ve in this, it’s because she is na?ve.
Just like you were na?ve to think that you could gad about the city unchaperoned without getting into trouble.
You’re just sour because the trouble landed on your sister instead of yourself. ”
“I would rather be how I am instead of how you are,” she countered. “At least I showed my sister the benefits of caring for another person. You showed Clio coldness and disdain and broke her heart, instead.”
“Do not talk about my sister,” he snarled.
“Or what?” she challenged. She was lost to the ebb of her anger now. “You’ll send me away, just like you did to Clio?”
He slashed his hand through the air as though dismissing her words, and Phoebe found that his refusal to speak felt even more painful than any cruel words he could hurl at her.
It was like he was throwing her away, just like he did to anyone who did not fit into his vision of how things ought to be.
“Fine,” she said, feeling tears prickle in the back of her eyes. “Fine. If this is what you want—if you want to be alone so badly—I shan’t stand in your way any longer. You win, Aaron.”
She prayed he would stop her. He had to stop her, didn’t he? He had to.
But he just gave her a disdainful look, like she was a soldier whom he had failed to bring up to muster.
“Don’t make a scene, Phoebe,” he said, and his voice was icy in the way it had been when they first met. It was only now that she realized how far they had come from that initial meeting—and it stung like the press of snow against bare skin to hear it again.
She tore his coat from around her shoulders and thrust it back at Aaron, not waiting to confirm that he had it in his hands before she let go. Tears were blurring her vision now, and she needed to be gone before he saw them fall.
“Do you know what’s the worst part of all this, Aaron?” she asked, staring at the wall of the house so that she wouldn’t look at him. If she looked at him, she was going to start crying immediately. “That I let myself feel something. I knew better, but still, I let it happen.”
And then she left him behind before she could let herself reveal anything more that was really best kept to herself.
Just like her blasted, weak heart.