Claimed by the Rogue (24 page)

“Shall I have a chamber prepared for…overnight?” Given the potential for scandal implicit in the inquiry, the older man mustered an impressive degree of sangfroid.

Shaking his head, Robert hastened to reassure him. “She should not be staying much beyond the hour, and when we depart, it will be by the tradesman’s entrance. I trust I can count on your help in seeing the area clear of servants?”

“I stand at your disposal, sir.”

Satisfied, Robert sailed on, “As Lady Phoebe and my sister are of a size, or so they were, perhaps she can borrow one of my sister’s gowns?”

“I will make an inquiry of her ladyship’s maid—discretely, of course. Will there be anything else?” he added, looking almost afraid to have asked.
 

Robert thought for a moment. “As a matter of fact, there is. When my brother-in-law returns, please inform him I wish to speak with him at his earliest convenience.”

The day’s events had decided him. It was past time he put both the past and his pride aside and took Montrose into his confidence about Bouchart. It was one thing to endanger oneself, but Robert now understood it wasn’t only him at risk. Phoebe might have been injured or worse. Putting her in harm’s path again was unthinkable. For her sake, he was prepared to eat humble pie and crow both. Between his tactical experience gained from fighting as an officer in the Peninsular Campaign and his current contacts in the War Office, Anthony would be an admirable ally. Beyond all, Robert was coming to realize that he could do with a friend in his corner.

He had but to take the first step and ask.

Luxuriating in the hipbath of now-lukewarm water, Phoebe thought back over the day. Her emotions had veered from direst fear to most exquisite ecstasy. Time spent in Robert’s company was certainly never boring.
 

The knock outside her door, or rather Robert’s door, vaulted her to high alert once more. Surmising it must be the servant returning to replenish the hot water, she stretched out a hand for the robe she’d set out within her reach—or, as it suddenly seemed, a hairsbreadth beyond.

As Robert was wont to say,
bloody hell
.

Instead of a servant, Chelsea called through the door, “May I come in?”

Bloody hell indeed
. Phoebe rose, wrapping the robe around her. For a fleeting few seconds she considered dashing back inside the dressing closet, but doing so seemed a coward’s course. Chelsea wasn’t only Robert’s sister and Anthony’s wife. She was Phoebe’s dearest friend. Despite their rocky start of misaligned engagements, their shared grief over losing Robert had forged a bond between them. Before Robert’s return, Phoebe would have sworn their connection was implacable, but now she was no longer so certain.

Heart pounding, she crossed to open the door, leaving a trail of damp footprints in her wake. Opening it fractionally, she met Chelsea’s shocked eye. “Surprise?”

Judging from her friend’s stunned face her presence was that and more. Backing up, she beckoned her inside.
 

She gave Chelsea a moment to recover. Garbed in a loose-fitting house gown in the Japanese style, Chelsea quickly entered. “This had better be good,” she whispered, reaching behind her for the doorknob.
 

Phoebe waited for the door to close before blurting out, “It isn’t at all what it seems.” Admittedly it was a lame beginning, but strictly speaking, it was also the truth. Still, thinking on how close she’d come to letting Robert bed her inside of two hours ago, she allowed she was in peril of becoming that most detestable of creatures—a hypocrite.

Chelsea walked over to the bed, thankfully still respectably made and without so much as a crease in the counterpane. Lowering herself onto it, she said, “I am the last person to ever judge you,
either
of you. I only hope you’ve taken care not to be seen.”

Arms crossed, Phoebe subsided onto a cushioned stool across from her. “So far only your butler knows of my presence and now, of course, you.”

Chelsea’s expression eased. “Good, let’s ensure that it remains that way.”

Phoebe satisfied herself with a nod. Alone with Chelsea, she berated herself on multiple counts. Foremost, she’d been a horrible friend. Confined though Chelsea was, Phoebe hadn’t called upon her in more than a fortnight, not since just before Robert’s return. Until now she’d told herself she was acting in her friend’s best interest. Blood was thicker than water, or so it was said, and by rights Chelsea must side with her brother. Rather than put her in the middle, it had seemed infinitely simpler to stay away. Now it occurred to her that in doing so she’d been a self-serving coward. There were no real sides to be taken, none save that of love.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, gaze going to her friend’s burgeoning belly.
 

Chelsea broke into a smile. “Big.” She laced her hands over her middle. “Depending upon whether this little one elects to be tardy or on time, I may or may not miss your wedding.”
 

Feeling a sudden chill, Phoebe clutched the dressing gown tighter.

“You do still mean to marry Aristide, do you not?”

Phoebe hesitated and then admitted, “Honestly, I’m not certain.”

Rather than rush to put forth Robert’s case, Chelsea kept her peace, studying her for a long moment. “May I speak frankly?” she finally asked.

Relieved, Phoebe nodded. “I wish you would.”

“For some time now I’ve witnessed the way Aristide treats you. Since you agreed to his suit, he seems to regard you more as a possession than as a person.”

Phoebe opened her mouth to defend him, but really, what was there to say? “He holds to a very traditional view of marriage,” she finally murmured.

“Regardless of whom you marry, if you let a man treat you this shabbily before the wedding, there’ll be no living with him afterward. Whomever you marry, you must command your future husband’s respect as well as his heart; otherwise, your ship is as good as sunk before it’s left harbor.”

Phoebe couldn’t help smiling at the nautical metaphor. It seemed Robert was rubbing off on them all.
 

“You don’t much like Aristide, do you?”

Chelsea shrugged. “What does it matter whether or not I like him? I’m not the one marrying him. Do you like him? Most importantly, do you
love
him?”

Again Phoebe hesitated. Certainly Aristide was handsome. He could be most charming when he chose to be. In the early days of their courtship, more than once she’d caught him deliberately mispronouncing a word to win her smile. The times he’d kissed her, she felt a not unpleasant tingling, but was that love? Phoebe didn’t think so.

Dodging the question, she replied, “He was the first person to make me laugh after Robert—”

“Disappeared,” Chelsea finished for her. “I know you’ve struggled to forgive him. I sense you’re struggling still. Do you love him? And by the by, I’m not speaking of the boy who left six years ago but of the complicated man who’s returned to us.”

Phoebe drew a bracing breath. “I believe I may.”

Tilting her head to the side, Chelsea regarded her. “Admittedly I am biased on behalf of my brother, but knowing that, would you care for my advice as a seven years’ married woman who is more passionately in love with her husband than ever?”

Phoebe unfolded her arms. “Yes, I should like it very much.”

“Until you have your answers, firm answers, don’t marry either of them.”

Phoebe couldn’t have been more shocked.

“Better no marriage than one in which you feel anything less than a full partner, let alone chattel or worse, a prisoner to your husband’s whims and wishes.”
 

Phoebe bit her lip. “Aristide says that once we’re wed, he means to keep me barefoot and breeding. He may be teasing about the barefoot part, but not about the other.” Even before Robert’s return, her fiancé’s frank emphasis on her fertility had weighed heavily upon her mind.

Chelsea rolled her eyes. “That’s absolute rot. Conjugal relations should be foremost about sharing pleasure with your beloved. You don’t have to have a baby every year, not if you don’t wish to. There are many midwives and physicians who advise it is far healthier to space out one’s family.” Cocking a brow, she asked, “Why do you think Anthony and I waited six years before having another child?”

Phoebe had wondered about the gap, but until now she’d assumed it must be happenstance, a fluke of nature. “It was deliberate?”

Chelsea nodded. “Entirely so. We wanted time to enjoy the twins as well as each other. There are ways to prevent conception or at least to lessen its likelihood. A device worn by the man is made of sheepskin and secured by a drawstring. Oh, but I’m too frank. I’m embarrassing you.”

Privately, Phoebe allowed that her flushed face could not be blamed upon the soaking in warm water. “No. Well, perhaps a bit. But I’d rather be embarrassed than ignorant, so please do go on. I want to know these things. Really, at my age, I think I should.”

As much as she longed for a child, having one with Aristide would bind her to him more irrevocably than any vows spoken in a church. Every time she tried conjuring the image of the black-eyed, raven-haired babies they’d have together, their eyes softened to hazel and their hair to russet brown. Robert’s eyes. Robert’s hair.

Robert’s babies. Robert’s and hers.

“Consider it food for thought. Speaking of which…” Chelsea pushed to her feet. “I’d ask you to stay to supper, but I’m not certain even I could come up with a plausible story to explain your presence.”

Phoebe shook her head. “I need to make my way home anyway. My mother will be wondering where I’ve got to and that is never good.”

Having had her own run-ins with Phoebe’s mother in the past, Chelsea smiled knowingly. “I’ll find you something to wear.”

Phoebe rose as well. “Thank you,” she said, suddenly impatient to be on her way.

More so than supper with her family, she had a great deal of thinking to do.

The hallway clock struck six when Anthony ushered Robert into the library. Brandies were poured and cigars summarily offered and refused.
 

Settled into the armchair facing Robert’s, Anthony asked, “How may I be of service?”

Hands laced about his snifter, Robert regarded his brother-in-law. Along with being an erstwhile rival for Phoebe, Montrose was a decorated war hero of the Peninsular Campaign. The wounding he’d sustained at the Battle of Albuera had left him with a permanent if slight limp. He was a solid ally to have on one’s side—assuming Robert could convince him that the danger Bouchart posed was real and not a fiction fabricated from jealousy.
 

Rather than waste words on preamble, Robert came directly to the point. “I believe Bouchart is a bounder out to marry Phoebe for her fortune.”

Expression inscrutable, Anthony answered, “Much the same was said of you six years ago.”

“I am aware.” His determination to disprove the rumors by seeking his fortune abroad had driven the disastrous departure from England. “Only in Bouchart’s case, the accusation isn’t false.”

He thought back to the night at Almack’s and the impromptu bidding war he’d begun to win his waltz with Phoebe. If the Frenchman were as wealthy as he wished to appear, he wouldn’t have backed down. For the sake of honor, he would have matched Robert’s most outlandish price without pause.
 

And then there was the bit about the Calvados, not damning on its own, but in the context of everything else that had occurred, another nail in the coffin of Aristide’s character. For a Frenchman from Normandy, such ignorance of the local apple-flavored spirit was exceedingly suspect.

Encouraged by Anthony’s silence, he went on, “What’s more, I believe he is willing to go to great lengths to accomplish his goal.”

Cloaked though it was, the accusation was met by a boosting of brows. “Go on,” Montrose prompted.
 

“When I was thrown from my horse, I afterward discovered that someone had cut the girth. This afternoon Phoebe prevailed upon me to take her to the…waterfront, and we were set upon by footpads.”

Anthony shot upright in his seat. “Is she all right?”

Thinking of her soaking in his hipbath above their heads, he nodded. “She is.”

Scowling, Anthony eased against the chair back. “What were you thinking to take Phoebe to such a seedy section of town?”

Robert acknowledged the rebuke was well deserved. “In a moment of weakness, and appallingly poor judgment, I gave her my word I would take her wither she wished.”

Montrose’s frown smoothed into an expression of resignation. “When one is in love with a woman, it can be dashed difficult to tell her no and stick to it. Hang difficult, it can be damn near impossible,” Anthony added, no doubt recalling his early days with Chelsea. Her schemes to raise Robert’s ransom had brought them to the brink of mortal danger more than once.

“I do not believe purloining my purse was their intent. Common cutpurses would not have laid chase as this pair did. Moreover, one of them looked to be the same ‘groom’ who handled my horse after the ball at Almack’s. When I returned the next day, no one fitting that description was employed there.”