Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01] (27 page)

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Authors: Desperately Seeking a Duke

BOOK: Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01]
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Phoebe backed up in dismay as Calder pushed his way into the room.
He turned, his gaze flicking into every corner. “I’m going to rip him apart,” he growled.
“Now, my lord … you cannot blame him alone—” Phoebe stopped and swallowed hard, belatedly remembering the stories Mr. Stickley had shown her. The rumor that claimed that Calder had killed his wife and her lover in a jealous rage.
She probably ought to have remembered that before she’d let Rafe go back to—
“Wait—” Ice struck deep within her. “Rafe didn’t find you?”
Calder glared at her, his rage unabated. “
I
was not lost.”
She shook her head, waving aside his fury. “Listen to me. Rafe left early this morning to speak to you. He thought it was the right thing to do—”
“I was not hard to find. Your letter found me easily enough. Then again, my brother doesn’t worry about the right thing to do—as you may have noticed. All his life he has tried to take what is rightfully mine—”
“Oh, shut it!” Phoebe made a sound of frustration. “Calder, put it behind you and listen to me!”
He stared at her in surprise, then huffed out a breath. “No one tells me to ‘shut it.’ Ever.”
Phoebe waved a hand. “Yes, yes, I know. Everyone quakes in their boots when you stride by, blah, blah, blah.”
He scowled and opened his mouth. She clapped her hands together sharply. “Now listen to me! Something terrible has happened to Rafe!”
“Good.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t mean that.”
“I—” He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that reminded her so much of Rafe that her heart hurt. “I don’t know what I mean. I never do when it comes to Rafe. My brother is the only one who can turn me inside out like this—”
She let out a breath. “Trust me when I tell you that it is mutual.”
He shook his head. “No. Rafe always knows exactly what he’s doing—whatever will plague me off the most, usually.”
“And would leaving me here alone while he
didn’t
go to see you plague you off?”
Calder hesitated. “No. He’d be more likely to stick around to watch the fur fly.”
She threw out her hands. “Exactly! I mean—it is not in character to disappear, either way, is it? It’s almost as if someone—” She went very still. “Oh, no. The highwaymen!”
Calder gazed at her. “I’m listening but I’m not following.”
Phoebe began to pace worriedly. “Last night—on the road—we were attacked! There were two of them—one had a pistol! They disabled the servants and jumped Rafe—I beat them off with a tree branch when they were trying to drag him away!”
He held up a hand to stop the torrent of words. “You beat off two armed highwaymen with a tree branch?” He
frowned at her. “You aren’t at all who I thought you were, are you?”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “Not even a little tiny bit. So sorry.”
He blinked. “And yet, I am not sorry … which is odd.”
“Lovely. Right. Let’s get back to Rafe, shall we?”
He sighed. “It seems we always do.”
She went to the window, though there was nothing but the night to see outside. “He left here early, barely past dawn. If we retrace his steps, and question anyone who might have seen him, we might be able to find him—”
“Not we. Most especially not you.” He folded his arms. “I shall hire investigators—Bow Street runners—to find him, assuming he wants to be found. You and I will go back to London.”
She shook off the suggestion. “No. I want to go looking for him—”
“Phoebe.”
Perhaps it was the unexpected gentleness in his voice, but she turned in surprise to see Calder gazing at her with compassion in his eyes.
She beat back the tide of fear and worry. “He didn’t leave me, Calder. He would never leave me.”
His lips tightened. “Then he will know to look for you at Brook House, won’t he? If he comes back to the inn, we’ll leave a note for him here.” He bent to pick up her abandoned wrap. “You cannot stay here, Phoebe, and you cannot tromp the roads looking for him.”
She pressed her fingers over her mouth, thinking hard. She didn’t want to leave this shabby room—
their
shabby room—the only place in the world where they were not a rake and a wanton, but simply lovers, meant to be together forever.
However, Calder was right. She’d not hear a thing, waiting in this tiny room while the walls closed in and her
nerves wound tighter. At Brook House, she would have Sophie, and clean clothing, and first stab at any news Calder received from his investigators.
She let her hands fall and trailed her fingers over the dingy bedpost.
Sorry, my love.
Then she took the wrap from Calder’s hands and preceded him out the door, her head held high.
RAFE WOKE TO feel pounding in his head.
Not again.
This time he didn’t expect to find his arms full of naked Phoebe, the finest cure known to mankind. This time he immediately remembered how he came to be where he was.
They’d been waiting for him. Not a mile down the road, where the hedges grew high and the morning traffic toward London had not yet begun.
And he’d ridden right into it, scarcely aware of his surroundings, his thoughts occupied with memories of Phoebe, trembling and perspiring in his hands, her hair tossing on the pillow as he played her like a flute …
A man stepped from the bushes, a small, dapper man with a handkerchief tied over the lower half of his face. Not the highwayman of the night before—at least not the one he’d seen.
He’d turned to try to spot the other one, but it had been too late. The first blow glanced off his temple as he tried to duck, but the second must have done the trick.
Here he was, bound and gagged, in the back of a cart that smelled of rotten vegetables, covered by a length of scratchy burlap that let the light spike through his aching eyes in tiny bright squares.
He suppressed the need to struggle against the tight bonds and simply closed his eyes. There was no point in
wasting strength and losing his one chance at surprising whoever his abductors were.
It would be nice if he could first figure out why anyone would want to abduct him. Once upon a time he would have assumed he owed someone money, but no longer. His tally sheets were clear. He was broke, but not indebted.
Phoebe wasn’t in the cart with him, so he hoped that meant they weren’t after her. Of course, if they had been, they would have taken her the other night, tree branch or no.
She’d be safe there at the inn, with the servants around her. She would wait for him while he figured out a way to get himself out of this mess.
He was tied very securely. It was obvious that he was going to stay right where he was, until someone else released him.
Damn it.
At Brook House, the next several days went by with excruciating slowness. Sophie tried to help by finishing the translation.
“Then he leaned over and gave her a kiss, and when his lips touched hers, Briar Rose opened her eyes, woke up, and looked at him fondly. After that they went downstairs together, and the king and queen woke up along with the entire court, and they all looked at each other in amazement.”
2
Deirdre listened to the end of the tale with irritable scorn. “So that’s it? All those men die and this one walks right in—and he’s her true love?”
Phoebe looked up from where she’d been staring into the coals. “Sometimes I suppose love is simply a matter of timing.” She wished Rafe had had better timing—to propose first, for instance.
During the day, when everyone’s doubts about Rafe’s character roused her protective instincts, it was easy to be steadfast and faithful.
At night, however, when the household took their doubts to bed, her own secret ones began to rise.
Are you sure he’s coming back to you?
She was sure. Absolutely positive. Adamant, even.
You were sure about Terrence, remember?
The familiar ache throbbed, deep in her heart. No. She’d been too young then, too lonely and susceptible. This was entirely different.
Then why does it look so much the same?
TESSA, WHO WAS most satisfied with recent events, sat down at her cluttered vanity and began to plot to get Phoebe to leave forever. One unfortunate side effect of this delightful mess was the way that Brookhaven’s protective instincts had been aroused. He was actually acknowledging that damp whiner Phoebe’s existence!
It would not do for Brookhaven to get truly attached now, not when Deirdre’s chances had just risen so dramatically.
Tessa smiled into the mirror, distracted by her own beauty once again. “Why of course, Your Highness!” she cooed. “I simply adore my daughter’s new home at Brookhaven!” She winked. “Why, Your Highness, I thought you’d never ask!”
PHOEBE WAS WAITING for Calder in his study when he arrived after breakfast. There was something to be said for a man who was always precisely where he was supposed to be.
She stood when he entered. “My lord, I have only this morning realized that you have yet to formally call off our wedding.”
Brookhaven glanced at her once, then continued around his desk to rifle through a stack of documents. “I don’t see any point in rushing into things.”
This from the man who had proposed less then seven
hours after seeing her at a ball. “It must be done, my lord! I will not have the world thinking I’m wedding one brother when I intend to wed the other!”
He still didn’t look at her. “I don’t see that it is any of the world’s business one way or the other.”
She drew back. “Well … no, of course it isn’t.” She raised her chin. “And I don’t care what anyone thinks! But to leave matters as they are …”
Oh, no. He didn’t, did he?
“You don’t … you cannot still want to marry me?” She gazed at him with a frown. “Why would you—after what I’ve done?”
“I could hardly end the engagement without making your … indiscretion public knowledge. I wouldn’t reveal it, but that sort of scandal only causes more speculation and curiosity. Trust me on that score. Eventually someone would put it together and you would be disgraced.”
She folded her arms and tilted her head. “All very noble of you, I’m sure. Except that a man like you—you do not forgive easily, I think. I spent the night in an inn with your brother—”
“Half-brother.”
She shook her head and went on. “With your brother, whom I love completely.”
“Who has abandoned you.”
She didn’t flinch. “He did not. You underestimate him, as you always have done.”
“Then where is he? It has been days!”
She closed her eyes and took a breath. “I do not know. I worry—”
Oh God, the worry!
She opened her eyes and fixed him with renewed ferocity. “Wherever he is, he needs our help, not our censure. If I married you, I would be guilty of the same abandonment you accuse him of—and so would you be.”
“You are loyal,” he said. “I admire that. The fact remains,
however, that he is not here. You are now ruined, you have no commitment from him that the two of you will marry—”
She brushed that off. “I told you, it is understood.”
He snorted without humor. “Miss Millbury, if I list for you all the women who thought they had some sort of ‘understanding’ with my brother …” He trailed off, for she was smiling at him. “What is it?”
“You called him your brother.”
He sighed. “You will hear nothing against him, will you? How can you be so blind?”
She smiled again, this time a bit sadly. “I am not blind. I know who he has been, just as you do. More than you, perhaps, for he held nothing from me. I know that he aches to belong, that he wishes no more of life than to care for Brookhaven, which he loves. I know that he is in agony over what we have done to you—”
“That I doubt.”
“That you should never doubt,” she retorted. “It was I who seduced him, you know. He did his best to resist the attraction at every turn. I’ll admit, he wasn’t very good at it—but he’s had so little practice, you see. All those married ladies and merry widows …” She shrugged. “I fear he’s a bit too good-looking for his own good.”
He frowned slightly. “He told you all this? I am surprised. Confession is not his usual form of persuasion.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Calder. He does not play a role with me. He is only Rafe, bastard son and scorned brother, gambler and light-footed lover no more—simply a man without a true home in this world.”
Calder stiffened. “I never scorned him. He has never been turned from my door.”
“No. He knows that. But it will never be
his
door, don’t you see? Can you imagine what it was like for him, to be brought up with you, knowing that his home, his heritage, his world would never truly be his? A legitimate
brother, even a younger one, might hold out some hope that he will inherit, or at least be part of the legacy. A bastard son, especially one with all the love for the land that any father might hope for, taught and groomed for every responsibility that you have—but he will never know.”
“He had possibilities,” Calder said stiffly. “He was given his rightful portion when our father died. He wasted it on cards and women.”
“He was eighteen! And angry and lost, as well. He loved your father, despite how the marquis favored you over him. He made mistakes, a great many of them. Yet have you not noticed that since your … your crisis … that he has changed his ways? He came back to support you, so you would not be alone.”
Calder stood abruptly, moving to the window with jerky strides. After a long moment, he passed a hand over his face. “I thought he’d simply run out of money. I thought he’d seen my situation as insurance that I wouldn’t be likely to throw him out.”
She lifted a hand, but did not touch him. He wasn’t the sort of man one reached out to comfort. “He has changed. He has paid off his debts. He no longer frequents the tables. He hasn’t been blind drunk in years.”
“Once.”
“What?”
“He drank himself into a stupor on the day I told him you had agreed to wed me.”
“Ah.” She let out a breath. “That was a mistake, you know. I thought the proposal came from him. I didn’t know his full name.”
Calder turned back to face her. “I figured that out eventually.”
“You did? Then why—?”
He looked away. “I liked you. You are … a rather different sort of girl. I thought that if you grew to know me, you might …” He shrugged. “Anyway, it wasn’t as though I could break the engagement without causing an enormous scandal.”
Too true. It had been threat enough to keep her from doing the same for far too long. “It would have been less of a scandal then than it will be now,” she said ruefully.
He fixed her with his black gaze once again. “Then don’t do it. At least … at least let the matter lie for now. If—when Rafe returns, there will be plenty of time to straighten the matter out then.”
Put off the madness until Rafe was back by her side? It was tempting. God, she missed him. Worry tugged at her constantly, like a fishing line snagged on something vital.
Oh, Rafe.
She wrapped her arms about her chilled midriff.
Where are you?
Calder was waiting for an answer. She took a breath. “But the world is watching, my lord. Won’t anyone think it odd that the wedding arrangements have come to a halt? We must tell the bishop—”
“We will … in time. Right now, I think it best if we go on as if nothing has happened. Give Rafe time to do whatever he has gone to do. Give the world time to talk of something else. Who knows, perhaps someone will do something more scandalous in the meantime and we will be nothing but a sentence at the bottom of the scandal sheet.”
Phoebe managed a choked laugh. “That would be lovely. I long to be nothing but a sentence.”
The corner of his lips twitched. “As do I.”
The agreement made her uneasy, but she nodded. “We will wait, then. For now.”
Coward.
It would only be until Rafe returned. Only until she could tuck her hand in his when she had to face the world’s censure. He would never want her to go through it alone.
Her reasoning was sound and Calder was right, she knew. So why did she feel as if she’d committed something a little bit like a betrayal?

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