Chapter Nine
The following morning at precisely ten minutes before eleven, Phoebe was waiting in the drawing room in the company of Aunt Fanny.
Also present was a slightly jealous Mattie who had not received an invitation from any of her callers to go walking in the park.
Although she was too polite to say anything, Phoebe, who knew her cousin well, could feel the resentment in her cousin’s stabbing of the needle into her embroidery with every stitch.
Much as they loved one another, this did not preclude the occasional resentment surfacing.
The two girls were seated side by side in the window, mainly so Phoebe could continually peep out of it to see if she could spot Gabriel arriving. She’d been given her own blood-spotted sewing, but it lay untouched in her lap and no one seemed to have noticed.
Indeed, Aunt Fanny, glowing with a deep sense of her own astute success in presenting her niece and so speedily securing her the attentions of the second son of a duke, was engaged in embroidering a handkerchief she’d announced was for Phoebe’s trousseau.
This statement had managed to only increase the hint of jealousy from Mattie, who probably considered her mother’s industry should be applied only to her own trousseau.
However, Phoebe knew Mattie would not be cross for long, as they were the best of friends, even if that friendship had so far depended on Phoebe being the underdog in it.
Now, Mattie leaned in closer to Phoebe, keeping her voice down so her mother wouldn’t hear.
“You are something of a dark horse, you know.”
Phoebe, whose heart was hammering with well-hidden excitement, or at least she hoped it was hidden, stretched forward for her tenth peek into the street and had to make a grab for her sewing as it threatened to slide off her lap.
Nothing. Not unless you counted the normal tradesmen going about their deliveries, a nursemaid walking the children she was in charge of, several carriages and a variety of different sorts of people on foot.
No sign of Gabriel at all. Might he have forgotten he’d invited her to walk in the park with him?
Or might his injuries be preventing him from coming?
Maybe he’d decided, on sober reflection, that someone who’d attacked him with a cricket bat was not the sort of young lady his family would approve of, and he didn’t want to come after all?
She looked back at her cousin. “What do you mean, I’m a dark horse?” She kept her voice to hardly above a murmur.
Mattie leaned forwards to look outside as well. “I don’t see him any more than you do.” She sat back again. “I mean, you hid it well that Lord Gabriel had taken a fancy to you. You let me think it was Lord Evesham who was taken with you.”
“I did? He has?” If only. She would like nothing better than for Lord Gabriel to fall in love with her, but this visit must surely be for quite another reason. He wanted to encourage her interest in his pet project.
Mattie huffed. “Of course he has, you goose. Why do you think he’s asked you to go walking in the park with him?”
Amongst other things, because he wanted to keep her sweet, that was what, and prevent her from giving him up to the authorities.
The penalties for robbery were harsh, whatever the destiny of the funds raised from it.
He could easily end up hanged. Or even transported to Botany Bay as a convict.
The thought of all the dangers he faced thanks to his predilection for helping himself to things that weren’t his sent a cold shiver down her spine.
But she didn’t say any of that. “I think he’s just being polite.
” If only he wasn’t, though. She would more than like it if he’d asked her out because he liked her.
It might even be sufficient to make her change her vow never to marry, which of course had been made before she realized what true love was like.
Indeed, the more she thought about him, the more she was inclined to think she might indeed be in love.
After all, try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
But she wasn’t about to reveal that, for the thing she feared most was being disappointed and people knowing she was. That would be entirely too embarrassing and she had no intention of making a fool of herself. And besides, one could not be disappointed if one never allowed oneself to hope.
All the same, her heart was pitter-pattering in anticipation and she couldn’t prevent it from doing so.
In the end, Lord Gabriel managed to make his arrival without either Phoebe or Mattie spotting him from the drawing room window.
Phoebe was just resigning herself to the conclusion that he wasn’t coming, when Bowles announced him quite unexpectedly, and he stepped into the room looking as immaculate as he’d done the day before.
However, the bruises on his face had now darkened to a frightening blue and black.
His eye, however, was not quite so closed up.
Fresh guilt surged, but Phoebe pushed it away. He had deserved it, and any other person disturbed in the middle of the night like that might well have shot him dead. So in a way, he’d been lucky she hadn’t had Papa’s old pistols under her bed.
He swept a bow that encompassed all three of them.
“Lady Brockwood, Lady Phoebe, Miss Nicholson. How charming you all look. If I were not so handicapped I swear I would ask all of you to step out with me to the park. But alas, I have only one serviceable arm with which to escort a lady. So I’m afraid it will just have to be Lady Phoebe who accompanies me. ”
Goodness, he was good at flattery and sweet-talking.
Aunt Fanny appeared most satisfied by his words.
“Why, Lord Gabriel, you make me feel quite young again. It’s not every day a young gentleman as handsome as you are calls me charming.
” She fluttered her fan. “And I must say that today you look much improved on yesterday. I hope you have sold that clumsy horse who inflicted such damage on you.”
His smile held mischief. “On the contrary, my lady, I intend to keep the horse and school it until it has no wish to do me further damage. It is a particular favorite of mine and a very beautiful creature. It would be a great shame to see it sold.”
Phoebe was not such a fool as to be unable to work out that he was talking about her.
The blush rising up her cheeks could not be controlled.
She glanced across at him and found his eyes dancing with further mischief.
How annoying he could be. Hopefully neither Aunt Fanny nor Mattie would be able to work out the double meaning of his words.
But…he’d called her beautiful. Again. Might that mean he liked her?
Didn’t men only ever fall for beautiful women?
Gabriel gestured at the window with his good hand. “I fear it might rain later on, so I think Lady Phoebe and I had best go out immediately, so I can have her back here without fear of getting wet. If that suits you, Lady Brockwood?”
Aunt Fanny nodded, still managing to look as though she thought Phoebe’s success at securing a walk in the park with the second son of a duke was all down to her.
“Of course. I don’t want my niece to catch a chill.
Wear your warm pelisse, Phoebe dear, and take a muffler and don’t forget your gloves. ”
Phoebe rose to her feet. “I won’t.”
Very shortly, Phoebe found herself in the street outside Aunt Fanny’s house in the required pelisse, bonnet, muffler, and gloves.
Behind her stood Atkins, also well wrapped up against the chilly day, and by her side stood Gabriel, who had donned a smart beaver hat.
If one ignored his broken arm and battered face, he could be said to look very elegant.
The picture of a dashing young man about Town.
As usual, there was no sunshine to be seen, but at least it wasn’t raining. Yet. Although she would have wanted to go even if it had been a torrential downpour. Aunt Fanny would never have allowed it, though.
Gabriel held out his left arm to her and she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow with far more confidence than she’d done at the ball.
Here, with just the two of them, as one couldn’t count Atkins, it felt far more natural.
Not to mention that being on his left side meant that she couldn’t see the damage she’d done to his face.
In fact, all she could see when she peeped up at him was his rather noble and handsome profile, and the curl of his golden-brown hair where it poked out from under his hat. Very satisfactory.
With Phoebe casting the odd longing sideways glance up at her escort when she thought he wasn’t looking, they set off up the street heading westwards towards Hyde Park, with Atkins tucked in six paces back, as Phoebe had commanded.
Although Atkins had been with her such a long time, she had no doubt that under pressure her maid would recount everything that had gone on during the walk to Aunt Fanny, who had all the skills of the Spanish Inquisition.
Once on South Audley Street, Gabriel opened the conversation. “A good idea to keep your maid at bay.”
Phoebe nodded. “I would have done it for anyone, but as you and I no doubt have matters to discuss that would give Aunt Fanny the vapors, I thought it more than wise to relegate Atkins to a distance. She’s a faithful servant, but I fear Aunt Fanny would get the better of her.”
He nodded. “Although she’s probably imagining we want privacy for quite another reason.”