Candlelight Wish (2 page)

“Georgeana Middleton?” Lucy Saunderton demanded with scorn in her voice. “Why ever should I wish to visit her? Even if she does live in that beautiful house with her great-aunt. I should not like her any better if she lived in a palace!”

“She was the only one of the day students I could think of on the spur of the moment.” And that was because she had only that afternoon set both Miss Middleton and Miss Saunderton to copying out letters as a punishment for arguing when they should have been attending to their lessons.

“Well I should never have thought of her,” muttered Lucilla, then added as they turned off Trim Street and into Barton, “London at last! Oh Miss Caldicot, I can hardly believe it! If only my sister Juliana had not been in the family way I should have been brought out already during the Little Season for I shall be eighteen in a few months and that is quite old.”

“Ancient,” agreed Phoebe, a touch of her usual amusement returning to her. “Practically an ape leader. I wonder why you should even bother at such a late date.”

Lucilla giggled. “I knew you could not really be angry with me, best and dearest of my teachers. It was only a lark after all.”

“A lark?” This time it was Phoebe who halted, staring at her charge. “Stealing from your room when you were supposed to be in bed to keep a tryst with a man is a lark?”

“With a gentleman,” Lucilla corrected. “An officer.”

“Do you truly think that makes your conduct less reprehensible?” demanded Phoebe.

Lucilla’s gaze dropped to the toes of her dainty slippers and she started forward once more. “I did nothing so truly terrible.” Her voice took on a sulky note.

“I see. Then you intend to tell your brother all about tonight’s escapade?”

Lucilla spun to face her. “You-you will not tell him, will you? Oh you couldn’t be so cruel.”

“Not after I was at such pains to convince everyone at the school that you are with one of the other girls,” Phoebe reminded her.

Lucilla groaned. “Georgeana Middleton will tell everyone she never saw me tonight. You may depend upon it!”

“Not,” said Phoebe with a measure of satisfaction, “if she wishes me to remain quiet about a small indiscretion of her own.”

Lucilla brightened. “No, really? What has she done, Miss Caldicot?”

“Have I ever told anyone about your escapades?” Phoebe demanded.

“No, dearest Miss Caldicot,” came the subdued response. “And you know I am grateful.”

“Then I am hardly likely to reveal anyone else’s, am I?”

Lucilla fell silent and they turned into Queen’s Square before she spoke again. “Do you know things about many of us?” she asked in a fascinated tone.

“Almost every single one of you,” Phoebe averred, though without much truth. “Come, the street seems deserted,” she added, casting a considering gaze up and down the quiet square.

To her relief, very few lights burned and these stood at sufficient distance to make their own passing that of mere shadows. Phoebe propelled Lucilla across to the school, cast an assessing glance at the darkened upper story windows and nodded in satisfaction. The school slumbered in peace. They might well slip in undetected. She mounted the shallow steps and tried the door.

It wouldn’t budge. In disbelief she tried again. She had left it on the latch to assure an easy return. She tried once more, not wanting to accept that someone doing the final rounds for the night had locked them out.

“Can we not get in?” Lucilla whispered, alarmed.

“Oh we can get in. It will just be a bit more difficult than I had intended.” Phoebe returned to the street, regarding the entry with disapprobation, then with a sigh slipped down the area steps. But here the door to the kitchens remained firmly barred against them as well. Phoebe stepped back, eyeing the windows, considering.

Lucilla peered over her shoulder. “What are we to do?”

Phoebe led the way back to the street then cast an uneasy glance around the square. Ridiculous, of course, yet she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling someone lurked nearby, watching them. She shook off the sensation and turned her attention to the lower floor windows. The second one over in the music room had a latch that tended to stick. It might not have locked properly. She clambered onto the iron railing but a lady of her inadequate inches could not so much as touch the sill even from this added height.

“We must get in,” Lucy hissed. “Let me try.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” drawled a deep masculine voice from just behind them. “You are sure to fall, Lucy and you could hardly make your curtsy to society with a sprained ankle.”

Lucy jumped. “Miles! Where—what—” She broke off, staring aghast at her elder brother.

Phoebe, who still balanced precariously on the iron railing, looked down in consternation upon the solid figure of a broad-shouldered gentleman of considerable height. In the darkness she could make out little of his features except for a pair of bright penetrating eyes that held her within their spell. She swallowed and found herself breathless in a manner that had absolutely nothing to do with her current predicament.

“Miss Caldicot, I presume? May I assist you?” His voice sounded polite but aloof.

There was nothing aloof about his actions though. Before Phoebe could respond, he reached out, caught her about her waist and lifted her easily from her perch. Her weight troubled him not at all—which was no wonder, as insignificantly tiny as she was. Still the strength of his hands and the reassuring solidity of the chest against which she found herself pressed sent an oddly pleasurable shiver through her.

He set her on her feet and for a moment she experienced a sense of loss as he withdrew his support. Ridiculous of course but the sheer power of the man washed over her, making her vividly aware of his nearness.

His brow lowered in a frown but before he could speak, Lucy broke in. “What are you doing here?” she wailed. “Oh if it isn’t just like you to appear just when—” She broke off.

“Just when you were getting into a scrape?” He made the question sound innocent.

“Oh I hate you!” the girl cried.

“Of course you do,” he soothed. “But I do not believe this is the place to tell me so in detail, do you? I know this may seem an outlandish suggestion,” he added, turning back to Phoebe, “but you might find it much easier to enter if you simply apply the door knocker.”

“No!” cried Lucy.

Phoebe eyed him with speculation. “A kindhearted gentleman,” she suggested, “might help us to gain entry without announcing it to the household.”

“But I am not a kindhearted gentleman. I am a brother—and a guardian.” And with that he mounted the steps and suited action to words.

Lucy cowered and Phoebe glared at his back.
A most disobliging brother
, she fumed but already the maid Sarah opened the door to them and only one course presented itself to Phoebe. She swept up the stairs, pushing Lucy before her, then turned on the threshold and held out her hand to Lucy’s brother. “I must thank you again for escorting us home, sir. Come, Lucilla, it is time and past you were in your bed. Good night, sir,” she added over her shoulder.

“But we have not yet finished our discussion.” Somehow he stood in the darkened entry hall just behind her, the door firmly closed to the street.

“It is quite late,” she protested, inserting a note of authority into her voice.

He ignored it. “I shall not keep you long. Is there an office we might use or would you rather remain here?”

Here where every girl in the school who chose to peer over the banister might hear. She forced a smile to her lips. “The music room perhaps?”

“Miss Caldicot,” whispered Lucy, her voice strained, her expression one of extreme anxiety.

“Run along to bed, Lucilla. I feel certain your brother will call again tomorrow.”

“You may depend upon that.” He regarded Lucy with a creased brow.

The girl sniffed, cast one last appealing glance at Phoebe then made her way up the stairs. Phoebe knew a temptation to follow her but forced herself to light a taper from the single candle that burned in the hall then crossed to the room where she had spent many an unpleasant afternoon with her music classes.

She lit the nearest candelabrum and heard the door close with a fatalistic thud. Well she was for it now, she supposed. Gathering her courage, she turned to face him and saw him clearly for the first time.

He swept a shallow curly beaver from his head, revealing a riot of thickly curling hair that in the indifferent light might have been any dark shade. It gleamed with mahogany highlights. Wide-set eyes studied her from above a nose with a decidedly aquiline cast and a generous mouth curved upward in a cool assessing smile that nevertheless turned her knees to jelly. If she were of the same nature as her romantically inclined pupils, he might set her heart fluttering. As it was his effect on her bore a distinct resemblance to the time one of the younger girls had catapulted into her stomach.

With an unusual measure of difficulty, she commanded her voice. “What is it you wished to say, sir?”

“It is Miss Caldicot, is it not?” The cordiality had left his tone and the eyes that regarded her held a cold glint of steel. “I wish to be quite certain about that.”

She inclined her head. Every instinct warned her to be wary. He exuded an aura of power, of implacability, that challenged her own authority here where he was the visitor and she at home and supposedly in charge. “And you are Sir Miles Saunderton?”

He too inclined his head. “Now that the niceties have been observed, you will oblige me by explaining where my sister went this night. And we shall save considerable time if you do not try to fob me off with that nonsense about Miss Middleton.”

“She wished to attend the concert at Sydney Gardens but the Misses Crippenham decided they would rather the girls not go.”

“So my sister slipped out when she was thought to have gone to bed?”

Phoebe made no response.

“I see. You don’t know. Did you find her alone?”

She raised a haughty eyebrow. “As you saw, none of our other young ladies went with her.”

The creases in his brow deepened. “That is not what I asked and well you know it. I cannot imagine even a young lady as flighty as my sister slipping out to a concert on a chilly night merely for the novelty of it. She went to meet someone, did she not?”

Phoebe straightened to her full five feet and a hair. “I have no idea why she went. You shall have to ask her that yourself.”

“I intend to. But as her guardian I believe I have the right to be informed of such matters by her instructresses.”

He had, of course but she didn’t feel like admitting it.

“An officer, I presume. Foot or Hussar?” he asked.

She blinked. “How—” she began then broke off at the triumph in his expression, vexed with herself for giving that much away.

“I might have known. Where did she meet him? Or do you not know that either?”

Phoebe stiffened. “I am sorry if we have not guarded your sister as well as you might like but—”

“As well as I have the right to expect,” he snapped back.

Her chin rose. “We are not accustomed to young ladies who must be kept under constant surveillance.”

His eyes flashed with sudden anger. He opened his mouth, closed it again then after a moment said, “I see there is no point in speaking with you any further.”

“Indeed there is not,” she agreed with extreme cordiality.

“Then I will wish you good night.” He gave her a curt dismissive nod and strode out.

She remained where she stood, fuming at the high-handed tone he had taken with her, at the sheer arrogance of the man. Obviously he was too accustomed to having his own way, of having his every whim catered to. She would miss Lucilla Saunderton of course but the girl’s absence from the Academy would be a small price to pay not to have that supercilious brother inflicted upon her again.

Then the probable consequences of this acrimonious interview dawned on her. He would lodge his complaint with the Misses Crippenham in the morning. Would they blame her for Lucilla’s reprehensible behavior? Reasonably they could not. But little of reason characterized those two ladies when the reputation of their Academy lay at stake. She could only hope she would not become their burnt offering on the altar of respectability. If she were to lose her job— But that did not bear thinking about. She would not lose it. She could not.

Holding that thought in her mind, she extinguished the candles then made her way up the several flights of stairs to the tiny apartment in the attics that was her room. Originally supplied with a narrow bedstead, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers with a small mirror, Phoebe had added to it a padded chair, a small writing desk and a bookcase crammed with her favorite volumes of poetry and literature. A colorful counterpane covered the bed, a rather fetching brass candelabrum she had purchased quite cheaply from a pawnbroker stood on the writing desk and a bowl of dried flower petals rested on a tatted lace table scarf on the dresser, wafting a delicate scent throughout the chamber. More tatted lace covered the single window and what little spare time Phoebe could muster she devoted to making another piece to go under the candelabrum.