A Dark and Brooding Gentleman (15 page)

‘Think nothing of it, old man,’ Bullford waved away Hunter’s apology. ‘Just glad to see you are feeling better.’

Hunter nodded. ‘You enjoyed your visit with Kelvin?’ Over Bullford’s shoulder he had a good view of Phoebe. Arabella was sitting by her side and the three ladies seemed deep in conversation.

‘Grand to see the old boy again. Had a splendid time. Even if it was m’father that forced me to make the trip. Can’t upset the old man.’

‘Quite,’ said Hunter curtly.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to …’ Bullford blushed. Hunter relaxed a bit, knowing that it was his own sensitivity and not Bullford that was causing the problem.

‘I know, Bullford.’

‘Damned good at putting my foot in it these days.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘My fault, not yours.’

Bullford gave a nod and smiled in his usual good-natured way. ‘Your mother in good health, Hunter?’ Bullford turned to look across at Mrs Hunter.

‘She is.’ The three men’s gazes moved across the room to where Mrs Hunter was sitting. But Hunter was not looking at his mother.

‘Who is the pretty girl with Mrs H.?’

Hunter frowned. ‘That is Miss Phoebe Allardyce, my mother’s companion.’

‘Looking at the dance floor as if she’d like to be up there. Mind if I ask her to dance, Hunter?’

Mind?
Hunter felt a burst of fury just at the thought. He did not think that he could very well ask Phoebe to dance without raising a few eyebrows, notably those of his mother. But he would be damned if he’d see her being handled around the dance floor by some other man.

‘She is here to accompany my mother, not to spend the evening dancing,’ he said stiffly.

‘You’re dashed hard on the girl, Hunter. Mrs H. seems to have plenty of company at the minute, but naturally I would ask the lady’s permission first before stealing her companion onto the floor.’

Arlesford drew Hunter a meaningful look.

Hunter remained stubbornly tight-lipped.

Arlesford trod on his toe.

‘When you put it like that, Bullford …’ Hunter said grudgingly.

‘Knew you wouldn’t be so unreasonable as to see the poor girl sat in a ballroom full of dancers and music the
whole night, without so much as a chance to take a turn upon the floor for herself. Girls do so enjoy a dance. Should ask her up yourself, old man.’

Hunter resisted the urge to plant Bullford a facer right there and then, and had to stand and watch as Bullford made his way around the edge of the dance floor towards Phoebe.

‘Damnable rake!’ muttered Hunter. ‘He need not think to get any of his ideas about her.’

‘Bullford has cooled his heels much as you, Hunter. He is behaving himself these days. Besides, he is right; she has been looking at the dance floor as if she would care to take a spin upon it.’

Hunter clenched his jaw to stopper the reply he would have made.

Arlesford appeared oblivious. ‘Linwood is here.’

Arlesford did not make one movement, yet Hunter felt the tension emanate from his friend just at the mention of the viscount’s name. For all intents and purposes it appeared that Arlesford’s gaze was fixed on Bullford handling Phoebe up onto the dance floor, but Hunter knew that his friend’s attention was elsewhere.

‘Left-hand corner, opposite side of the room,’ said the duke quietly.

Hunter’s eyes sought out Linwood and found him standing behind the chairs where his mother and sister were seated. ‘He was with Bullford when I met him in Glasgow.’

‘I did not know the two of them were on such good terms,’ said Arlesford.

‘I believe their fathers are old friends.’ ‘Then more pity Bullford.’

Hunter did not give a damn about Linwood right at
this moment. He was staring at Phoebe and Bullford and wondering how he was going to endure the rest of the night.

By one o’clock in the morning Phoebe and Mrs Hunter were making their way down the stone steps outside Lady Routledge’s house towards the carriage. Arlesford had called Hunter back into the hallway to say something to him.

For all of the tension between herself and Hunter, Phoebe had still enjoyed the evening. Not only had she made a new friend of Arlesford’s duchess, Arabella, but she had actually danced three times; once with the Duke of Arlesford and twice with another of Hunter’s friends, Lord Bullford. And for all that she had longed for it, Hunter had not asked her and she knew that he was right not to have done. Indeed, he had barely spoken a word to her all night, just watched her with that same intense brooding expression and more than a hint of anger in his eyes.

They were almost halfway down the steps when Phoebe’s reticule slipped from her fingers. She turned to lift it, but someone else was there before her: a gentleman, dark-haired, olive-skinned and handsome.

‘Your reticule, miss.’ He handed it to her.

Phoebe’s heart began to beat too fast. Her eyes met his that were black as the night that surrounded them.

He lingered for only the briefest of moments, then bowed and walked away into the night.

Mrs Hunter had almost reached the carriage, but Phoebe stood, staring after the gentleman, not at the lithe confident way that he moved, or even at the dark eyes as they glanced back at her.

‘Come along, Phoebe, stop wool gathering, girl,’ Mrs Hunter called.

Phoebe made her way towards her employer, but her mind was still filled with an image of the gentleman’s walking cane—an ebony stick, mounted with a silver wolf’s head handle in which she had seen the glow of two emerald eyes.

M
rs Hunter slept late the next day. And Hunter had taken Ajax out into Hyde Park for a gallop with Arlesford. Phoebe realized that this might be the opportunity she needed. She tried not to think about what it was she was doing, stealing from the man she loved, and concentrated on the technicalities of performing the act itself.

She broke her fast alone in her bedchamber with a tray of coffee and a bread roll spread with marmalade. When the maid came to remove the tray Phoebe waited until she heard the girl disappear down the servants’ stairs, then crept out into the corridor. As she passed Mrs Hunter’s room, the one through the wall from her own, she paused and listened, but from inside came only silence. Hunter’s room was across on the other side of the main staircase. Phoebe made her way quietly towards it. She was just crossing the landing when, ahead of her, the door to Hunter’s bedchamber opened and a maid carrying an armful of bed linen appeared.

Through the open door Phoebe could see another maid still within the room.

‘Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.’ The maid bobbed a curtsy and hurried away with her load, towards the servants’ stairs at the far end of the corridor.

‘Good morning, Betsy.’ Phoebe forced a smile and made her way down the main staircase as if that had been where she was headed all along. She went into the drawing room to worry and to wait and to wonder how, amidst this carousel of balls and routs and visits, she could keep on pretending that everything was normal.

Only twelve hours later and Phoebe was sitting by Mrs Hunter’s side at Lady Willaston’s card party. The ladies were all playing in one room and the gentlemen in another. Phoebe partnered Mrs Hunter, and played against Arabella and Mrs Forbes, and then the forthright Lady Misbourne who bossed her daughter, the Honourable Miss Winslow, terribly, and who was exceptionally skilled at the game, much to Mrs Hunter’s annoyance. Phoebe was relieved the game was over and Mrs Hunter, having realised that if she was to progress anywhere in the evening she would require a partner more talented in the whist stakes than Phoebe, had allied herself with Mrs Dobson. Phoebe watched for a while, then wandered off to the ladies’ withdrawing room to powder her nose. She made her way back, thinking of the wretched wolf’s-head ring, and wondering if she dared feign a headache to return to the town house in Grosvenor Street and search Sebastian’s bedchamber. As she rounded the corner just past the stairs, heading into the foyer between the two card rooms, she walked right into a gentleman.

His hands closed around her arms, steadying her, but drew back as soon as he knew that she would not stumble.

‘I beg your pardon, miss.’

She looked up into the dark eyes of the gentleman who had returned her reticule the previous evening. ‘Miss Allardyce, I believe.’

‘I …’ Her gaze dropped to the walking cane in his right hand, to its silver wolf’s-head embedded with emerald chips, before returning once more to that dark, handsome face. And her heart was pounding and she felt the cold hand of fear touch to her blood. ‘We have not been introduced, sir,’ she said primly and made to walk on.

But he shifted his stance ever so slightly to block her path. ‘Then permit me to introduce myself. I am Linwood. You played cards with my mother and sister earlier this evening, I believe—Lady Misbourne and Miss Winslow.’

‘They are most talented players,’ she said carefully and glanced again at his walking cane, which was identical in every detail to the ring that she had seen upon Hunter’s finger. It could be no coincidence. If the wolf’s-head symbol held some significance for him, it might well explain why a man would go to such lengths to possess the ring.

She waited for the question that would follow, tried to frame her explanation within her mind as to why she did not have the ring in her possession.

‘They are much practiced. It is my mother’s favourite pastime.’

She gave a nod and looked away. Knowing the power
that this man held over her father made her feel sick to her stomach and desperately afraid.

‘Miss Allardyce?’ He leaned closer, a folly of concern across his face.

She stepped back to keep a distance between them and felt her spine bump against the plaster of Lady Willaston’s wall.

‘You appear to be a little unwell, Miss Allardyce. Perhaps I should fetch Mrs Hunter to you.’ He turned away to leave.

‘Please do not, sir,’ she said quickly and placed a hand upon his arm to stop him. ‘I am quite well, I assure you.’ She hesitated, ‘And able to answer any questions you may wish to ask of me …’

He shook his head and took her hand from his sleeve, holding it before him as if he would kiss it. ‘I fear you are under a misapprehension as to—’

‘What the hell do you think you are playing at, Linwood?’ Hunter’s low growl interrupted whatever the viscount had been about to say.

Phoebe jumped at Sebastian’s sudden appearance.

‘Hunter,’ Linwood inclined his head ‘.always a pleasure to see you.’ But the smile on his face was one of sarcasm. ‘Thought you would be busy keeping Arlesford company.’ Linwood’s face was filled with such a burning contempt that Phoebe felt shocked to see it.

‘Take your hands off her.’ Sebastian spoke quietly, slowly, every word controlled, but it did not disguise the menace of the threat that lay beneath that harsh control. His skin was white as marble beside the dark looks of the viscount, his eyes a clear cold green … and deadly.

Linwood released her hand and said silkily, ‘I had no idea you had such an interest in Miss Allardyce.’

Sebastian stepped right up to Linwood until they were too close. As he towered over the slighter man he stared down into Linwood’s face. ‘Miss Allardyce is my mother’s companion and, as such, I consider any insult dealt her an insult against my family. Do not think to start your games with me or mine.’

The word ‘mine’ seemed to hang in the air. Linwood’s gaze shifted to Phoebe’s face and she felt herself blush before he turned back to Sebastian.

Linwood smiled a dark mocking smile. ‘Is it true?’ he asked. ‘What they say about you and your father’s death?’

There was a roaring silence.

She saw the tiny telltale flicker in Sebastian’s jaw, saw the sudden change in his eyes.

‘Mr Hunter.’ She stepped quickly between Sebastian and Linwood. And then more softly, ‘Sebastian.’ His whole body hummed with violence. She knew she had to stop him before it was too late. She laid her hand against Sebastian’s lapel. ‘Please … do not do this, I beg of you.’

And then Arlesford was there beside Sebastian.

‘Miss Allardyce.’ Linwood bowed at her as if they had just conducted a civilised and polite conversation.

Bullford appeared at the other side and murmured something to both Sebastian and Arlesford so that the three men walked off into the Marquis of Willaston’s library.

Phoebe glanced up to find Mrs Hunter standing not ten feet away in the doorway of the ladies’ card-playing room, and from her pale shaken face she knew that the lady had heard Viscount Linwood’s question.

‘I seem to have developed something of a headache.

I wonder if you would mind, Mrs Hunter, if we were to leave a little early this evening.’

‘Not at all, my dear,’ said Mrs Hunter, and she allowed Phoebe to lead her away in the direction of the front door. Phoebe did not look back towards the library.

It was not surprising that Mrs Hunter slept late the next morning. And, according to Trenton, Sebastian had gone out, although the hour of the morning was so early that Phoebe rather suspected, perhaps, that that meant he had not come back to the house at all. Knowing how Sebastian blamed himself for his father’s death Phoebe could only guess at just how very deeply Linwood’s words must have cut. She felt his pain, and felt a rage that Linwood could deal such an underhand barb.

Supposing he had gone after Lord Linwood. Supposing the two of them had fought, or, worse still, duelled. Sebastian might at this very minute be lying wounded on a common. He might even be dead. Phoebe pressed her palm to her mouth, trying to quell the unbearable thought. And her heart was swollen and aching, for she knew that she loved him. Utterly. Completely.

She paced the drawing room, knowing she would not rest until she was certain Sebastian was safe. And she thought of his veiled claim on her.
Do not start your games with me or mine.
Of course people would expect him to have an interest in the reputation of his mother’s companion—should she lose it Mrs Hunter would be affected. But Phoebe knew there was so much more to it than that. Linwood guessed it, too, if that look upon his face had been anything to go by. And she worried
all the more about the ring and why he had not asked her for it, and what that might mean for her papa.

She paced and she worried—about the ring, and her papa, and Sebastian. The thoughts were running round and round, until she thought her head might explode.

She could not settle to her needlework. She read the same page of her book three times before abandoning it upon the sofa and toyed with the jet-and-ivory carved chess pieces neatly lined up upon their board in the corner, before abandoning them to stand by the window and look out on to the street. The road was quiet; only one carriage passed and a milkmaid carrying her wooden churns across her shoulders. Phoebe raised her eyes to the sky, the same white-blue sky that Blackloch sat beneath.

A flock of starlings flew by and she thought of the great black crows that cawed and the golden eagles that soared over the moor. She closed her eyes and in her mind she could see that wind-ravaged land with its bleak hills and its hardy sheep and the black curve of the narrow road that snaked across it. Standing there in the drawing room of the London town house, Phoebe thought she could smell the clear fresh scent of the wind and the sweetness of the heather and the tangy pungent peat smoke that curled from the farmstead chimneys. The storm of thoughts calmed to settle as still and cool as the deep dark water of the Black Loch itself.

She could not steal from Hunter. She loved him. And she was sure that he harboured some measure of affection towards her. There was no right or wrong answer. No simple black and white, only a world washed in tones of grey. But now that she had made the decision
Phoebe felt strangely calm. She sat down upon the sofa, picked up her embroidery and settled back to wait for Hunter’s return.

In the morning room of Arlesford House Hunter rubbed at his head and accepted the coffee that Dominic offered. The two men sat alone. The servants had been dismissed and Arabella had not yet woken.

‘I should have called him out.’

‘Maybe,’ said Arlesford. ‘Lord knows the bastard deserves it. But you have more than your own reputation to consider in this, Hunter.’

‘My mother does not remain unaffected by the insult dealt.’ Hunter sipped at the coffee and tried to shake the brandy-induced ache from his head.

‘I was not referring to your mother.’

Hunter glanced up from his cup.

‘Miss Allardyce …’ said Arlesford.

‘Miss Allardyce has no bearing on this.’

‘On the contrary, Hunter, your mother’s companion may have prevented you and Linwood brawling in possibly the worst of places, but at some cost to her own reputation.’

Hunter thought of Phoebe’s hand in Linwood’s and frowned, making the pain ache all the more in his head. ‘She did nothing untoward.’

‘Hunter, London does not know what Linwood did to Arabella. They do not understand why you and I should despise him so. Last night they saw only you cutting in on his conversation with Miss Allardyce. She called you by your given name, Hunter, and restrained you in a way that suggested a degree of familiarity between the two of you.’

Hunter winced. ‘I would not have her reputation sullied.’

‘Even though she would thieve from you?’ Hunter said nothing, but his jaw was clenched and stubborn.

‘Is she your mistress?’

‘Certainly not! Hell’s teeth, Dominic, I would not … I am not. Not any more!’

‘Then what is between the two of you?’

Hunter shook his head as if to deny the question.

‘Hell, Sebastian, any fool with eyes in his head can see the way you look at each other. You love her.’

Hunter dropped his head into his hands.

‘You love a woman who has lied to both you and your mother, who has abused her position and is intent upon stealing from you,’ said Arlesford.

‘Phoebe Allardyce is courageous and warm of heart. She is compassionate and kind.’ Hunter did not say that she had suffered as he had suffered, that she understood him, that she forgave him. ‘I cannot bear that she should suffer, Dominic. I would take her every hurt upon myself to free her from it. My mind longs for her. My heart aches for her. And, yes, my body wants her, all of her, in every way possible. Knowing that she lied, knowing that she would steal the ring—it makes no difference to any of it. If that is love, then I am guilty of it.’

Arlesford gave a gruff reassuring pat against Hunter’s shoulder. Then the two friends sat in silence for a few minutes.

‘What do you mean to do about it?’

‘I mean to discover why she is trying to steal the ring.’

‘And the rest of it?’

‘One step at a time, my friend.’

Phoebe was alone in the drawing room when Hunter returned to Grosvenor Street. He dismissed Trenton and closed the door behind him.

She came to her feet, hurried to stand before him, her eyes scanning his body before rising to search his face. ‘You are unhurt?’

‘Quite unhurt. Why would you think otherwise?’

‘Last night with Lord Linwood, and then it seemed this morning that you had not come home and I thought. I have been so filled with worry that he might … that you would be …’

And he knew exactly what she thought and her concern touched his heart. He took her hands in his. ‘Phoebe.’ He stroked a hand to her cheek. ‘I stayed the night at Arlesford House. I was angry after my encounter with Linwood and wished to cool my temper before returning here. I am sorry, I did not think you would be worried about me.’

She glanced away, embarrassed.