Chapter One #3
‘As he arrived a full sixty seconds before us, it is possible Rochester has already told you the news.’ She used his title when speaking of him aloud, not because she was so proper but because she felt uncertain if she wanted to feel his name on her lips.
Calling him Levi hadn’t felt right since he’d become the Duke.
‘We had an encounter,’ Phoebe announced, taking her seat, then searching around the table, and then frowning.
‘Rochester has told us nothing. Finish your story,’ Jasper commanded his sister.
‘Oh, I threatened a man with a knife. Is there no brandy?’
‘A knife?’ Stanhope said.
‘It was necessary,’ Phoebe said. ‘We were set upon by footpads, and had His Grace not arrived when he did, I should have had to throw the knife through his throat, and that would have brought me no joy at all. Brandy?’
‘No,’ Jasper and Devlin said together.
Phoebe picked up the tea service and poured herself a cup, if a bit furiously. Tea seemed a very poor reward for what had just taken place.
As Levi gave more details of the encounter, Phoebe could feel the elation in her body begin to dim, and she suddenly felt…like weeping.
It was always bittersweet, being here.
Her eyes skimmed over the wallpaper. Velvet fleur-de-lis over the top of sky-coloured silk.
And the books. All the books on the mysteries of the world.
If she wanted to know how to pick the locking mechanism on a door, she could find the information here.
If she wanted to know how to load a gun or sharpen a blade, she could learn it here.
It no longer smelled of him, not like it had.
Very particularly of his favourite brandy and his favourite tobacco.
The combination was unique, and she regretted bitterly that she did not know what it had been specifically, because she did feel sometimes that she would give anything to smell precisely that again.
She did have his pipe. She kept it under her pillow.
When Kate had found out, she’d told Phoebe it was a bit grim.
But she did not mind what Kate thought.
She knew Kate had her own set of sorrows connected to her parents’ passing.
Their house, along with most of the possessions in it, had gone to their nearest male relative.
And there was the great tragedy of the March sisters.
They had no brothers. Only a cousin that they hadn’t even known, who had seized possession of all that had once belonged to them.
Subject to the whims of whether or not he would give them an allowance.
And in the end, he had not. For he had decided that the Dukes would care for them.
And to the Dukes’ credit, they had done so.
For all that they were rakes, they were good men, intent on honouring the final requests of their fathers.
‘Lady Katherine,’ Jasper gave Kate a sideways glance. ‘Is it your intent to assume control over the meeting?’
‘In the absence of men who will do so, I will see to what needs doing.’
‘I do believe this meeting concerns frocks,’ said Levi. ‘Which is a damn sight less interesting than footpads.’
‘Frocks can be perilous,’ Devlin added, ‘I have heard.’
‘The frocks in question do not concern you, Stanhope,’ Kate said. ‘They would look garish on you anyway. However, Violet, Althea, and Phoebe are in desperate need of a trip to the modiste.’
‘Althea is not debuting this year,’ Levi pointed out.
‘So she should have nothing?’
‘I didn’t say—’
‘Althea is but one year away from her debut. The ladies all need new gowns.’
‘And I rule that is your responsibility,’ Jasper said.
‘Do you? Why is that? Because I am a woman?’
‘Yes,’ all three men said together.
‘Is this the extent of the meetings?’ Phoebe asked.
‘Because I have to admit that this is very dull. I’m not interested in frocks on a regular day.
I spent too much time in the company of a pink velvet one earlier in the day and was denied an orange.
I had hoped that we were being admitted to the family meeting because it was high time for us to…
hear family secrets or, at the very least, no longer be treated as children. ’
‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news,’ Levi said. ‘We are not actually all that interesting.’ The smile he flashed her was so at odds with the dark rage she’d seen in the alley she felt momentarily robbed of speech.
It was almost as if that had never happened.
As if he had not pointed a gun at those men.
Or grabbed hold of her after.
Her heart beat just a bit faster, as it had done when he’d first appeared on the street. An echo of that moment. Her body remembering, she supposed.
‘I think that’s a lie,’ Phoebe said. ‘I also believe you know it.’
‘I never lie by accident, Phoebe,’ Levi said. ‘So you’re correct. Were it a lie, I would be well aware.’
‘That is shocking behaviour, Levi,’ Althea said, admonishing her brother.
‘It is not,’ Phoebe said. ‘I expected actual shocking behaviour to occur at these sorts of meetings. There is no smoking, we have tea.’
‘And did you think that I would give my sister a pipe and a snifter of brandy?’ Jasper asked. ‘Because if so, you are mistaken. Allowing you the use of my cannon is already a bridge too far.’
He would bring that up. ‘Oh, please. You make it sound as if I caused harm with the cannon. In fact, I’ve been quite benign in my usage. And I only ever fired it off in the country.’
‘Well, we can’t very well have you firing it off in Grosvenor Square, can we?’ Jasper asked.
‘It would be interesting,’ she said.
‘I believe it would be ruinous,’ Levi responded. ‘That would be the word you’re looking for, Phoebe. Ruinous.’
He said the word like a promise, and Phoebe could not sort out what that promise might be. She felt sweaty. She shifted and reached forward to get a piece of cake, and looked up when she felt Levi looking at her.
They’d all been fine with her, as she was, until more recently. Now it seemed they worried about scandal whenever a breeze blew too gustily, and she did understand. She had the distinct feeling they’d all hoped she would grow into more of a lady as she became…well, a lady.
But she was still Phoebe.
Truthfully, that was part of what had begun terrifying her as well. She’d also thought she might magically transform into…well, perhaps Violet. That she might suddenly be pleased with her lot in life. Eager to marry and produce children and needlepoint all day.
Perhaps she might not always think of the stallion and the mare and want to scream in terror.
Instead, the older she got, the more she yearned for something more.
The more it terrified her to be thrust toward that reality.
It made her feel like she couldn’t breathe.
‘I am hungry,’ she said.
His brow lifted, only slightly, and it was more irritating than if he’d said something provoking. She wasn’t certain why.
She took a bite of the cake. That, at least, was as pleasing as it promised to be.
‘The first ball of the Season is in two weeks,’ Jasper said. ‘And it is time we all ensure we succeed in what our parents would have wanted, for the three of you. A perfect debut, not a single hint of scandal. And marriage proposals.’
Suddenly, the cake was no longer appealing.
And she did not even want an orange.
Copyright ? 2026 by Millie Adams