Chapter 16 #2
“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand. “I didn’t ask you to go.
Please don’t back away.” He swung his attention back to Poole.
“Miss Comerford is my friend, Poole. She will not be spoken to in that manner. Not in my house, certainly never by you . You who are not fit to shine her shoes. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
The butler shifted and his nostrils flared. “Yes, sir.” He accentuated both words. “I only thought you would want to be gentlemanly enough to keep the proper part of your life away from…from this part.”
“Excuse me.”
All three of them froze because it was Phoebe’s voice that interrupted. She had come into the entrance to the foyer from the hall and stood staring not at Silas, not at Poole, but at Arabella. To Silas’s surprise, Arabella’s cheeks turned bright red and she stared at the floor.
“Poole, my brother is absolutely correct that you have no right to keep a friend from him. You should know better.” She moved forward and extended a hand.
“Miss Comerford, I’m Phoebe Broughton, Silas’s elder sister.
I’ve heard a great deal about you and have always wished to meet you.
You’re even more beautiful close up. Won’t you come join my brother and me for tea? ”
Arabella lifted her chin. “I would not wish to intrude.”
“It’s no intrusion if you are invited, is it?”
Arabella glanced at Silas, then shook Phoebe’s still outstretched hand. “I suppose not. You’re very kind.”
“Good.” Phoebe pivoted back toward the parlor. “That’s settled. Come along you two.”
Silas began toward the parlor, but Arabella caught his hand. He looked down into her face, trying not to catch his breath at her beauty and the raw emotion she normally hid which was now plain in her eyes.
“I can leave,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have barged in.”
“I want you here,” he said. “And apparently so does she.”
She sighed, but let him take her arm and guide her to the parlor. Phoebe was already preparing Arabella a cup of tea and glanced up from the sideboard as they entered together. “Do you take sugar and milk, my dear?”
“Er, yes,” Arabella said. “Both.”
“Generously,” Silas added, and smiled at her as he recalled the first time they’d had tea together. In this very room, in fact. A very early moment in their affiliation that made him smile.
“A woman after my own heart,” Phoebe said, and handed over the cup. “Hopefully this is enough.”
Arabella sipped the brew and nodded. “Oh yes, thank you.”
They sat together, though this time Phoebe took the chair across from the settee and Silas made his place next to Arabella on the couch. He could feel the tension in her, coiled in every muscle, vibrating even through her hair. She glanced at the door from time to time, as if she might bolt.
“Tell me about yourself, Miss Comerford,” Phoebe said.
Arabella blinked. “I…I don’t know what to say. I think what I’d normally share isn’t fit for your ears.”
To his surprise, Phoebe laughed and leaned forward. “That sounds fascinating. But I can see you’re very uncomfortable and that won’t do. You are clearly important to my brother and thus you must be important to me. I’m not trying to embarrass you or make you question yourself.”
Arabella shifted. “You’re a lady, though.”
“But not an entirely innocent one. My first husband was Viscount Musgrave.”
Silas wrinkled his brow that his sister would bring up her first marriage as a way to put Arabella at ease. But he watched as Arabella’s expression shifted, her lips parted and her eyes widened a fraction.
“Oh,” she said softly. “I-I see. Yes, I knew of him. Not knew him, though, Mrs. Broughton. I want to make that very clear.”
Silas’s eyes went wide as he realized the reason his sister had brought up her husband.
She had known he would be recognized by a courtesan.
And though Phoebe’s chin was lifted, the pain in her eyes was clear.
He hadn’t realized she had suffered so much.
Of course, he’d been very young during her first marriage.
But it was a reminder that she was a person with a full life of her own.
Pains and fears and regrets of her own. It was easy to forget that when he thought of his siblings.
“That’s kind of you,” Phoebe said. “I didn’t think you did know him.
I think you were not old enough to be in the life when he died, but I assumed his name must still be bandied about in the circles you are associated with.
His proclivities and cruelties weren’t something people forget and I’m certain he expressed them on his lovers as much or even more than he did with me. ”
“Phoebe,” Silas whispered, and reached for her hand. She let him take it and for a moment their gazes held. “I-I wish I’d known.”
“You were a little boy when I married him, just barely a man when he passed. I love the suggestion that you would have ridden to my aid, but you could have done nothing, just as Charlie and Reggie could do nothing. It was what it was.” She looked at Arabella again.
“But I bring this up not to inspire further discomfort in you or grief in my brother, but because I may not be as innocent as you assume. So I will ask again, will you tell me a little about yourself? I truly wish to know.”
Arabella nodded. “I was born in Granger.”
“Oh, that’s a lovely area.”
“It was beautiful in places, yes,” Arabella’s lips thinned slightly. “And not as much in others. My father is Albert Comerford. He was not particularly well known. The second son of a second son and made his way as a solicitor in the country there.”
Phoebe nodded. “And what of your mother?”
“She died when I was very young,” Arabella said with a quick glance toward Silas since it was a question he’d asked himself not long ago. “I have two sisters, which I’m assuming you know.”
“I do. I once saw who I think is your middle sister…is her name Eve?”
“Evelina,” Arabella corrected.
“Evelina, a very pretty name. Well, I saw her at the opera last year, with the Duke of Southwater. She’s truly lovely. I think more people were watching her than paying attention to the presentation.”
“That’s likely true,” Arabella said. “She’s impossible not to watch when one is the room with her. Not only because of her beauty, but she’s kind and very witty.”
“I’m certain she must be. Have you met Miss Comerford’s sisters, Silas?”
Silas had been so caught up in this conversation between these two women who were so important to him that he had almost forgotten he might be included in it. He blinked. “Er, yes. Julia, the youngest, a few weeks ago and Evelina just two nights ago.”
Phoebe nodded slowly and then turned her attention back to Arabella. She was clearly about to ask more questions, but Arabella spoke instead. “What about you, Mrs. Broughton? I know you have two other brothers. And you have children, as well.”
“Yes,” she said. “Three from my first marriage and one from my second. A daughter and three sons. All of whom think their pirate of an uncle is fascinating.” She turned toward Silas.
“You have only seen them twice since your return, though. Once when you first arrived and in passing at the bookshop. Certainly you must come over soon and see them again.”
He smiled at the thought of his niece and nephews, who he liked a great deal but also tended to avoid so that he wouldn’t bring them harm or confusion. “I think I might be a bad influence.”
Phoebe laughed. “I’m certain you are, but all children need a little bad influence in their lives. Besides, I think you are not quite so wicked as you play at.”
Arabella snorted and he pivoted to look at her. “Et tu, Arabella? You participate in this slander?”
“Your sister has the right of it, I fear. You may at your heart be the best of men, play acting at being a scoundrel.”
He arched a brow and she blushed ever so slightly. Good, he hoped she was thinking of the very many ways he’d been the perfect scoundrel with her lately.
Phoebe seemed to miss the intensity of that connection, though, and was laughing full out now. “Good, I’m glad to see I have an ally in this thought.”
“If you two spread this nonsense around, I will be forced to take legal action.” He leaned back, folded his arms and gave them both a playfully stern look. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“I’m certain you will,” Phoebe said. The clock on the mantel chimed and she sighed. “And now I fear I must leave you two. My daughter has a fitting this afternoon that I want to attend.”
They all rose together and Phoebe extended her hand to Arabella without hesitation, just as she had in the foyer.
“I’m very pleased you stopped in so I could meet you, Miss Comerford.
A friend to my brother is very much a friend to me.
I hope that if I see you out and about in the world, you won’t mind if I greet you. ”
Arabella’s lips parted, for if a lady such as Phoebe greeted her in public that would be a shocking event. But she inclined her head. “I -I would be very pleased to meet with you. Perhaps we’ll bump into each other in Mattigan’s bookshop.”
“I hope so, it’s one of my favorite places in the city. Good day. Silas, will you see me out?”
He nodded and gave Arabella a quick glance before he led his sister from the room and into the foyer. He could read her expression—she had something to say.
And he just hoped that her kindness and warmth to Arabella wasn’t just some act and that whatever she would say about the woman who had come to mean so much to him wouldn’t put a further wedge between him and his family.