Chapter 19
Phoebe’s hands shook so violently she nicked her thigh three times before managing to tuck the dagger back into the leather garter belt.
The defeated energy spiraling through her chilled her to the bones.
The only explanation for her reaction was, she was damaged.
Ross had damaged her. The hard, shocked expression on Slade’s exquisite features replayed in her mind over and over sending an invisible razor-sharp knife through her heart.
She slammed her eyes shut, palmed her face, and dropped onto the bed’s edge.
A sob of unmitigated misery and regret escaped her mouth before she clamped her lips shut, changing the sound to a whimper.
Mind-numbing panic and bone-chilling fear had caused her to overreact.
Again. She understood the look of a man who wanted her.
But she’d never seen it with such intensity on a cherished face like Slade’s.
She’d only seen it twisted with malevolence on Ross’s face and on a few fleeting strangers of no consequence like Bolingbroke.
Had bone-gnawing exhaustion caused her to lose her mind?
Had it caused her to reveal to Slade the English plan to use violence in enforcing the abolition of Heritable Jurisdictions Act?
Perhaps. But the honest truth was she trusted Slade never to betray her confidence, despite her body being unsettled around him.
Then there was that hatred she sensed in him when he spoke the name Bolingbroke.
She trusted that above all else. Besides, the MacLeans were friends of the Dunbars.
When she related the English’s latest plans to her father, he would warn the MacLeans and many others in the Highlands.
This thought lingered on her mind as exhaustion took over and she surrendered to a restless sleep.
Hours later, Phoebe faced the small, square mirror on the oak dressing stand in her bedchamber.
She gasped at how Slade’s breeches accentuated the curves of her hips.
Utterly inappropriate. And there was no place to conceal the dagger.
She couldn’t possibly make a trip to the Royal Mail to send a missive to her mother or a coded note to Falcon looking like this!
An awareness pulsated through her at the crispness of the material touching her body, because it had touched his.
She imagined she could smell his scent, clean with a hint of cloves and male surrounding her, making her insides liquid.
An image of Slade’s rumpled hair, lean, muscled torso, and bronze skin from earlier made her skin flush and breath ragged.
He was perfect, with a torso like Michelangelo’s David.
The ink mark on his right bicep in the shape of a dark coiling viper had added an air of raw, unbridled danger, so shockingly different from the amiable lad she’d known in her childhood.
Should she have gone to Aunt Penelope or to the Movement instead of coming to him?
Those distances were far greater. And her aunt would have thrown a conniption at her state of dress.
Falcon had said Impromptu and direct contact for people in our line of work is unwise.
That had left one remaining alternative.
When a creaking sounded from the front door to the lodge Phoebe stilled.
“Hello! Mistress Dunbar?”
Phoebe’s head perked up. The woman’s voice was almost musical. Phoebe exited the chamber and darted out towards the receiving area of the lodge.
She was greeted by a smiling, comely, round-faced young woman, dressed in a fashionable coral and rose colored open-front contouche gown, revealing a decorative stomacher and petticoat.
It was finished off with scalloped ruffles, trimmed elbow-length sleeves and separate engageantes.
How impractical for a lodge. The exotic feathers on the woman’s extravagant bergère hat looked about to take flight.
Phoebe stared at the woman before finding her voice. “Hello, I am Phoebe Dunbar.”
“Oh, you poor dear. You poor, poor dear. When Peter told me of your ordeal I had to come. I am Lucia Horton,” the other woman said.
Phoebe’s lips stretched into a smile at Peter’s wife. Lucia Horton’s gaze became purposeful with a downturned mouth, as if looking at a little bird with broken wings. Phoebe’s appearance must appear pitiful to someone as formally attired as Mistress Horton.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mistress Horton. Peter couldn’t stop singing your praises,” Phoebe said.
Mistress Horton pressed her startlingly white gloved hand to her chest, blushing. Peter’s wife placed the fashionable portmanteau she’d been carrying on the long table then came forward, taking both of Phoebe’s hands in her own.
“Please call me Lucia. Where is your bedchamber?”
Half an hour later, Phoebe pressed her palms against her ears as everything in the chamber spun around. She stared tongue-tied at the contents of the portmanteau that were now laid out on the bed, various items of colorful clothing, undergarments, and personal effects.
“When Peter said you not only had to make a hasty departure from your employer’s home after you found out what bad sorts they were, but that you hadn’t had time to pack, I said to myself, I must help,” Lucia said.
“But … but this is beyond generous,” Phoebe said, sounding breathless to her own ears.
“These are yours to use for as long as you wish. You are but a few inches taller than I am. Otherwise, the size is quite similar. My Peter surmised my gowns may fit you.”
Lucia held up an emerald-green muslin contouche gown next to Phoebe, then beamed.
“Most becoming. Now, take those hideous garments off so I can assist you into this,” Lucia said.
While Phoebe was grateful to Lucia, she bit down on her lip and actively refrained from crossing her hands over her chest after donning the gown.
The overpowering urge to rip the shockingly revealing gown off her body warred with her need not to offend Peter’s wife.
Its low-cut bodice was far too revealing.
At least the gown wasn’t red. Phoebe thanked all the saints for that. Since her attack, the color red made her break out in a sweat. Red was the one color she would never don again, ever—the color of Ross’s uniform.
After Lucia helped her to snugly wrap and knot the bandages around her palm and the back of each hand, she also assisted Phoebe with brushing out her hair. As Lucia then put up the sleek strands in a chignon, Phoebe spoke of her childhood and first meeting Slade while he fostered with Egan.
“In the Highlands, clan lairds often send their sons for training or fostering with warlords to prepare them for their duties as men. They forge bonds with other clans, train with various weaponry, acquire knowledge on how to do battle, manage their own clans, various livestock and farming plus they are given an enviable education in the process,” Phoebe explained.
Then Lucia described how she first met Peter, who was currently with Slade just outside the lodge tending to the horses. He came into her father’s apothecary on Loveday Street years ago. Then the tangible air of wealth surrounding Lucia made sense.
“Is your father either Allen or Hanbury of Allen and Hanbury’s apothecary?” Phoebe asked. That establishment was well known and thriving.
“My Father is a Hanbury.” Lucia brightened.
After Lucia was finished with her hair, Phoebe rose and walked over to the mirror. Her hand went up to cover her mouth as her eyes widened at her own reflection. Her appearance was head-turning. Weakness slithered down her body, bringing on a slight queasiness in her belly.