Chapter Eight #3
As he hadn’t kept his voice down, deliberately, Lady Brockwood’s head swiveled in their direction, her eyes bright with calculation. She probably already had him and Phoebe up the aisle in her head.
Phoebe kept her head lowered, the picture of a demure young lady. “Why, thank you, my lord.”
This was a different girl to the one who’d accosted him with a cricket bat in the early hours of the morning.
“I had hoped to have conversation with you.” This time he did drop his voice and out of the corner of his eye could see Lady Brockwood straining to listen to two conversations at the same time.
She must not know which way to look. Despite the pain of his bruises, he found a smile trying to cross his face.
Phoebe raised her eyes. “You had?”
“Why yes.” His voice dropped further. “I of course wished to reassure myself that you had reached your home without any mishap befalling you.” He paused. “And without your absence being remarked by anyone.”
She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, no doubt afraid her aunt might catch his words.
“As you can see, I am home, and no one knows of my nighttime excursion.” She paused.
“And I even managed an hour or two more of sleep. Although I own to being quite exhausted now. Thanks to you and your propensity to creep uninvited into the houses of Mayfair.”
“I never creep. I walk in boldly as I have just done. But I will agree to the fact that I am uninvited, although, as you can see, I will have been invited at some time into each of the houses I then visit in the dark hours of the night.”
“I wish you would not talk of this now,” she whispered.
Her hands had made nervous fists in her lap.
Clearly she didn’t want to see him caught.
That was promising. “I see my aunt staring at us and the lower your voice goes, the more she becomes suspicious. You need to find some bland topic we can discuss that will not necessitate such whispers between us.”
“I find the chitchat of the drawing room to be quite stultifying. Like you, I’m tired after the adventures of the early hours and have had even less sleep, thanks to the pain I’m suffering.
” He couldn’t resist teasing her about her part in his lack of sleep, and was rewarded by a flare of the Phoebe he thought lurked within.
No, knew lurked within. Well-hidden, but there, nevertheless.
He nodded to the fireplace. “And the heat in this room will only serve to make me sleepy if I have to talk of the weather or some other such triviality.”
“Drawing room talk should be trivial, or so my aunt says.”
He chuckled. “She is quite right, I fear. That is a rule every mama would wish to inculcate into their offspring. Nothing untoward should go on in so exalted a place as a drawing room. In fact, nothing at all should be spoken of between a young lady and a gentleman that might touch on reality.”
Her brows twitched. “You are something of a cynic, my lord.”
“In view of the fact you know me well enough to hit me with a cricket bat, I think you might call me Gabriel.”
He saw her swallow and color began to rise to her cheeks again. She really was a girl who blushed easily. However, she drew herself up taller. “And I suppose you wish to take the liberty of addressing me as Phoebe.”
“If you are offering it.”
She frowned. He could sense her wavering. Part of her must want very much to do as he suggested, but another part was warning her against allowing a self-confessed burglar such familiarity.
He tried a smile, and winced. “Just look at what you’ve done to my face, and pity me.”
This made her smile. “I might consent to your suggestion but could not do so in any place my aunt was present. She would jump to conclusions, if she hasn’t already done so. And neither of us would want that.”
The urge to say that he very much wanted her to jump to conclusions blossomed, but that wasn’t what he said. “Then perhaps it might be wise for me to take you somewhere she is not.”
Her brows shot up. “What, now?” Her voice had risen in surprise, and Lady Brockwood, who’d been straining to listen to Evesham and Miss Nicholson’s conversation as it was bound to be the most important to her, stared.
He shook his head, which hurt. The laudanum must be wearing off. “Not now. But perhaps tomorrow. I could call at eleven and take you walking in the park.”
“She will most certainly jump to conclusions if you come to take me out walking.”
“I can deal with that, have no fear.”
“And I could not go unchaperoned.”
“Bring your maid. She can walk six paces behind us so she won’t be able to overhear us.”
For a moment he thought she might be going to refuse. She was quite a conundrum. Then, to his delight, she nodded. “I would be pleased to walk with you tomorrow, Lord Gabriel, as long as Aunt Fanny says I may.” She paused. “But only to learn more of your secret project, you understand.”
Disappointing. He’d rather hoped her apparent enthusiasm might have been for his company. Perhaps he could make it so. Time would tell.