Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01] (24 page)

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Authors: Desperately Seeking a Duke

BOOK: Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01]
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Phoebe hesitated for a very long time. She’d never told—the vicar had been so adamant. Now that she probably ought to tell—after all, she did not want there to be secrets, not with Rafe—she couldn’t seem to form the words.
“Oh,
bugger.
” No, those weren’t the words, although the vulgarity did make her feel a bit better. “Rafe … I … I’m not—” She gazed mutely at him, unable to continue.
Rafe smiled gently at her, his eyes crinkling in that way that made her turn to mush inside. “Phoebe, I’m not upset with you. You’d be surprised how many of the prim young ladies of the ton … well, aren’t. The myth is preserved for the sake of some gentlemen, but I assure that I am far too blackened myself to be one of those.”
She continued to look at him, loving him more by the minute, but unable to say what needed saying.
He reached to the floor, holding his pounding head on with the other hand, and handed her back the shirt. “Why don’t you put this back on for a moment? You’ll be easier if you aren’t nude.”
She slipped it over her head, grateful for the understanding in his eyes. Then he took her hand in both of his and rested it on his hard stomach.
“You aren’t a virgin,” he said for her. “There was a man.”
“Terrence,” she blurted.
“And Terrence was … ?”
His grip was easy and comforting. She took a breath. “Terrence was my dancing master.”
His grip tightened, just for an instant. “He was your teacher.” His voice was just a tad flat, with something dark flashing in his eyes … then it was gone and only comfort remained.
Phoebe nodded, finding it easier to swallow now. “You don’t know very much about me, Rafe.”
He stroked a lock of hair away from her face. “Then now is a good time to learn more.”
Phoebe took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Most of it isn’t very exciting. I lived in the vicarage of Thornhold all of my days until coming to London. I don’t remember my mother very well, but I do recall that she always seemed to be coming and going. She had all the duties of a vicar’s wife, visiting the ill and infirm, mediating disputes between the village wives, looking after me and my father, plus she took on the duties of several servants in order to save money. She died when I was but five years of age—probably of exhaustion.
“I was too young to be left on my own, but the vicar said there was no money for a nurse or governess and I might as well do that job myself.” She smiled in memory. “In many ways I did not mind such glorious neglect. For the most part I ran wild with the less supervised children of Thornton. I climbed trees with the butcher’s son and beheaded my dolls with the poacher’s daughter. In my ignorance I believed myself to be well loved and tended, for I knew nothing other than the vicar’s rather vague affection, rarely bestowed.”
Rafe nodded, pulling her close to him. “Lost little girl.”
She sighed, snuggling deeper into him. “This might have done me well enough, but it went on too long. No one seemed to notice that I was a child no longer, but was
becoming a young lady who ought not to be lying in the meadow after dark, staring at the stars, holding hands with the milliner’s son. I did not mean to be bad, but I knew little of what was right and wrong. The vicar said I ought to have listened more closely to his sermons, but after hearing the same ones all my life—he only has a dozen or so—I found other matters to occupy my mind while at church.”
Rafe chuckled. Phoebe closed her eyes to let the sound she loved rumble through her. “Then one day, when I was nearly fifteen, Lady Tessa arrived with Deirdre. She pointed out to my father that I was blossoming right out of my childish dresses and doing it rather nicely indeed. In his surprise I suppose he overreacted. He all but locked me in my room while he searched high and low for people who knew how to teach a young lady the things she needed to know. All I knew was that after a lifetime of freedom I was imprisoned for no reason I could see.”
Those days so long ago … she’d been so confused, so unable to understand what she’d done wrong. Rafe’s arms tightened about her. “Go on,” he murmured.
“Well, eventually, the vicar engaged a governess, a lady’s maid—who knew less about hair than I did, thank you very much—and a dancing master, an impoverished young gentleman by the name of Terrence LaPomme. The governess stayed for less than a week before throwing up her hands and declaring me hopeless. Thank heaven that Thornhold had a decent if rather mouse-eaten library, for I was able to learn many things on my own.
“My new lady’s maid immediately discovered the butcher’s son—my former playmate, if you recall, who had grown into a strapping fellow, indeed—and thereafter spent her nights sneaking down the trellis from my bedchamber window and leaving me to my own resources.
“The only person who seemed to care that I learned about being a lady was Terrence. I was willing to learn anything he
would teach me, for I was much impressed. He seemed so fine to me, so elegant and handsome, in an ‘if only the world had not been so cruel to me’ sort of way. As I look back, it is obvious to me now that he was merely dissipated, but at the time I only saw the romantic tragedy of his self-proclaimed ‘wasted brilliance.’”
Rafe had gone very quiet beneath her, but she could hear his heartbeat quicken. He was angry at Terrence, of course, as she had been for so long. She smoothed her hand over his chest, wordlessly thanking him for listening instead of leaping up to find Terrence and beat the stuffing from him.
“Terrence did teach me to dance, I’ll grant him that much. In addition, he convinced me that he loved me and that we had been brought together against all odds because we were fated for one another. It quite did the trick at the time, of course. My head was most remarkably turned. I agreed to run away with him.
“So, foolish child that I was, I followed my maid down that trellis one night with my possessions wrapped in my shawl and slipped away into the darkness with Terrence LaPomme, useless rake and despoiler of virgins.”
She sighed deeply. She’d kept that secret for so long … and yet the world had not ended when she’d uttered it at last.
“What happened?” Rafe kissed the top of her head. “What happened to Terrence?”
“After the one night with me, he disappeared the next morning. The vicar found me a few hours later, of course. There was only one road from Thornton toward Scotland and I had left that note about fleeing to Gretna Green, despite Terrence’s warning not to. But it was too late. I spent the night in the same bed with Terrence and I am quite thoroughly ruined.”
He laid his cheek along her crown. “Not to me.”
She breathed him, feeling so light she thought she might
fly. His heat surrounded her, protected her—she was safe in his arms, as she’d never been safe in her life.
“Well, Terrence apparently thought so, for I woke that morning alone. I looked out the window to see the back of him, riding away as if his life depended on it. I never saw him again. Then the vicar came and took me home.”
“Was he very angry with you?”
“Cold.” Phoebe shivered. “From that day onward he was so cold to me. He covered my absence with a lie and then he locked me in my room to think on what I’d done, for three solid months—”
“What?”
She pressed him back down, easing his fury. “Another man might have beaten me within an inch of my life, but he didn’t … although there were times when I would have rather been struck than be treated with that icy distance.
“By the time I was released, I was so horribly lonely and trembling for the slightest freedom that I found myself quite able to conform to the vicar’s new rules of decorum.”
“Rules?”
“Oh, yes. I was to wear only the most demure of gowns. I was to keep my hair tamed at all times. I was never to run, or laugh out loud, or speak to strangers, or to men at all, even if I had known them all my life. I was never to venture anywhere without the company of my new middle-aged and shrewish lady’s maid—who refused to come to London, thank heaven.
“Let me see, there were more … I was not to chew too quickly or to ask for seconds. I was only to leave the house to manage domestic affairs, for I became in effect the housekeeper, or to go to church, accompanied by the vicar, of course. I was not to voice opinions or to beg for treats or make complaints or—well, you get the general idea.”
“I cannot imagine that went well at all. You are not so pliant.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I did it all. I committed myself completely to becoming the new Miss Phoebe Millbury, perfect daughter and lady. It wasn’t that difficult. All I had to do was to kill the old Phoebe.”
She trailed her fingers over his chest. “At least, I thought she was dead, but I think perhaps she was only sleeping … until that night in the moonlight when you awakened her.”
He caught her hand and laced his fingers into hers. “You are not the only one who awakened that night.”
She sighed happily. “Oh, good. I was hoping you’d talk, too. I shall settle back and listen to your story now.”
He laid his head back and gazed up at the cracked plaster ceiling. “My story … well, my mother died when I was quite young, as well. I was eight when Brookhaven came to get me. I knew I had a father who was someone important, but I had never seen him before that day. I like to think that he truly cared for my mother—that I was not born out of a mere moment of lust—but I suppose I’ll never know. Lady Brookhaven, Calder’s mother, lived somewhere else entirely. We rarely saw her. She didn’t seem to care about my presence one way or the other. She died a few years later, but I’m not sure Calder even noticed. He was entirely his father’s son.”
Phoebe nodded against his chest. “The heir.”
“Of course. For our entire lives, Calder came first. First to the table at dinner, first to receive his own high-blood horse, first at our father’s hand in learning about the estate and the legacy of the Marbrooks.
“What about your father? Did you believe he preferred Calder?”
Rafe shrugged. “All I knew was that Rafe was the enemy. Our father was the ground we battled over. Since Calder was first at Brookhaven, I took the other firsts.” He let out a breath. “This is the part that is hard to tell you.”
She raised her head to look at him. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not a virgin?”
He laughed and gave her a little shake. “Don’t jest. I didn’t jest when you were doing the telling.”
She kissed his chest in apology.
He went on. “I was first to swive one of the willing, giggling chambermaids, first to go brawling with the burly smith’s sons, first to drink myself insensible with wines stolen from the family cellars. First to be thrown out of the better schools, first to have a married woman as a mistress, first to be a scandal in the newssheets.”
“And your father? Did he notice how much effort you put into this?”
He smiled. “Indeed. I was an embarrassment. I was a smear on the family name. I was on the road to ruining Brookhaven with my gambling debts.
“You’re not who they thought you were.”
“Yes, I am. And they didn’t know half of what I’ve done.”
“What you’ve done … but not what you are.”
He kissed her for that. “Yet you see, I was also the last—the last to realize that what I really loved was Brookhaven and its people. Brookhaven, which will always and forever belong to Calder and his heirs.” He let out a long breath. “Belong to the Marquis of Brookhaven, who has no heart for it at all.”
She reached up to stroke her fingertips over his cheek. “But you changed for Brookhaven.”
He smiled sadly. “Too late. Calder does not see that I have paid my debts or that I have made good investments since. I have nothing to show for it at the moment, but I believe in what I have done. I believe that it will pay off in the end. But Calder will never allow me to help him run Brookhaven. And now—”
“And now he will never trust you. Because of me.”
“Phoebe, I lost nothing there. There was no possibility that Calder would ever look beyond my past. I could spend the next ten years wringing myself into knots for him—to no avail. He gave up on me years ago.”
She frowned. “I suppose I do not understand this brother thing. He is not your father. He is but a few months older. How does he become the one whom you must please?”
“He
is
Brookhaven. He is my home … my only family.” Until now. For the first time Rafe was beginning to get a glimmer of what he’d destroyed in his need for Phoebe.
She raised herself up on her elbows and gazed at him soberly. “The vicar might never forgive me. Calder might never forgive you. Are you sorry?”
She was so beautiful, her eyes dark with worry, her mussed hair falling over them both, her sweet face saddened by what they had both given up … for this very moment, in each other’s arms at last.
Uncomfortable with the conflicting joy and loss within him, Rafe grinned instead of answering. “Phoebe, I think I feel well enough now.”
Her eyes searched his for a moment longer, then her slow smile began. “Why, my lord, whatever do you mean by that?”

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