The Rogue and the Rival (18 page)

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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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“Lord Huntley—”
“Phillip.”
“Phillip, that is so very generous of you,” Lady Katherine said, positively beaming at him. “Your mother would be so proud.”
Phillip winced at that; he couldn’t help it. It was just that to hear those words was like being punched in the chest. He just felt like he had lost his breath for a second. And he was too stunned to think at first. And the abbess kept talking as if she didn’t realize the enormity of what she had just said. He had done something right. That was new. He had done something someone would be proud of; that, too, was new. And he had, by some miracle, managed to do something that would have impressed one of his parents. It went without saying that was new, too.
“. . . I think you should take today to rest,” the abbess was saying, “after all you did last night. That way you can be refreshed and ready to start tomorrow with the men from the village who are coming to help. We expect that it should take about two weeks.”
Phillip agreed to that.
“Now, Phillip, is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”
He looked at her curiously. Did she know about him and Angela? She couldn’t possibly. She certainly wasn’t going to hear a word about that from him.
“No, thank you.”
“Very well, then. My door is always open to you, if there is something you should like to talk about.”
“I’ll remember that,” Phillip said and then promptly forgot about it.
He shut the door behind him and paused in the hall, wondering what to do with himself all day, and where Angela might be, and how to get back to his room. Really, whoever had designed this place must have wanted people to get lost. All the corridors looked exactly the same and followed no pattern that he could discern.
With nothing to do, he wandered around, eventually stumbling upon the kitchens, and, even better, Angela. She and her friends were sitting around the table in the center of the room, chopping up vegetables. They did not speak.
Ordinarily, Phillip would have rather done anything than sit with three women in the midst of a fight. But he was bored, and Angela was here, so he said good morning and joined them at the table.
“Hello,” Penelope said brightly. She was chopping carrots that were nearly the same color as her hair. She looked up at him and smiled.
The other one shot him a look of complete disdain and returned to peeling potatoes, clearly determined to ignore him. This must be Helena.
“Hello,” Angela said, looking up from shelling peas. “Did you want something?”
“Just company. I’m bored,” he answered. Helena snorted, and the others ignored her.
“Well, you can stay here with us, I guess,” Angela said.
“And maybe even make yourself useful,” Helena said with a daring expression, pushing some potatoes his way and handing him a knife. He looked up to find three faces staring at him expectantly. He supposed they were waiting for him to declare that such a tedious chore was beneath him. And he might have done, except that if his options were to peel potatoes or sit alone in his chamber, bored out of his mind, then he was certainly going to peel the damned potatoes. So he started, ignoring their expressions of shock, and they all continued with their work.
“How was your meeting with Lady Katherine?” Angela asked.
“Fine,” he said.
“What did you want to see her about?”
“I’m going to work on repairing the roof in exchange for money to get back to London.”
Angela muttered something under her breath to Penelope.
“What was that?” Helena asked.
“She said, ‘I told you he had changed,’ ” Penelope said loudly. “I think that is very kind of you, Lord Huntley.”
“Lord Invalid, you mean,” Helena muttered.
“I beg your pardon?” Phillip could not have possibly heard what he thought he did.
“Nothing,” Angela said quickly, giving a look to Helena. Phillip turned to Penelope and smiled at her. She blushed.
“She called you Lord Invalid,” Penelope answered.
“Penelope!” Angela exclaimed, looking horrified.
“You call me Lord Invalid?” He wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or amused.
“Not anymore,” Angela was quick to point out.
“Just for the first few days that you were here,” Penelope added.
“Before Angela started losing her wits and liking you,” Helena said harshly.
“Helena!” Angela exclaimed again, looking utterly horrified.
“I’ve been called worse,” Phillip said with a shrug, deciding to find it amusing. “Which one of you thought of it?”
“I did,” Helena said proudly.
“It does have a ring to it, doesn’t it?” he commented.
“I thought so,” Helena agreed.
“Did Lady Katherine say how long it would take to repair the roof?” Angela asked, obviously to change the subject.
“Two weeks.”
“And then you’re going to leave?” Angela asked.
“Yes.” He peered at her, trying to discern her expression. But she seemed utterly focused on her task.
“What will you tell your friends when they ask where you have been?” Penelope asked him.
“I could tell them the truth, but I doubt they’d believe it. They’ll have a good laugh over it, I’m sure.”
“And will they have a good laugh if you tell them you seduced a sister in an abbey?” Helena asked.
There were awkward silences, and then there were Awkward Silences. This was certainly one of the latter. Even Angela didn’t chastise her friend. In fact, the worst of it was that she stopped shelling peas to look at him, unabashedly curious as to what he would say.
His friends would find it hysterical if he told them the truth of the situation—not only that he had seduced a woman about to take her orders, but that she had seduced him, too. Parkhurst would probably clap him on the back and offer to buy him a drink. But he had no intention of telling anyone anything. In fact, he never confided in his friends about anything—for there was no point, when they would all rather believe what was written in the papers than something so mundane as the truth.
“Contrary to popular belief and much to the chagrin of my friends, I don’t kiss and tell,” he answered firmly. And because he couldn’t resist, “I also don’t meddle in the affairs of others,” he said pointedly to Helena.
“
Affairs
being the operative word,” she muttered before setting down her knife and quitting the room. What was it with the women here leaving the room in the middle of arguments?
“Sorry about that,” Penelope said after another moment of excruciating silence.
“It’s all right. To be expected, really,” he answered. And it wasn’t Helena that bothered him so much as the way Angela looked at him skeptically, as if she could easily imagine him dining out for weeks on his tale of seduction in the abbey. She may have thought he was changing, but she obviously didn’t think him a gentleman. He could see why she wouldn’t, what with her experience and his reputation. Didn’t mean he liked it, though.
Penelope and Angela then began discussing the different villagers, and who in particular might be working on the roof. For women who lived a secluded life, Phillip thought they knew a lot about the goings-on in town. They fully expected Johnnie and William Sloan, Penelope’s brothers, to come help with the roof, but not Rob McCabbin, as he had broken his leg jumping off of the porch in front of the Sun and Moon Tavern. He had been deep in his cups, of course. The Fitch family probably couldn’t spare their eldest boys at this time of year; too much work to do on the farm, if they were to make ends meet.
Phillip kept silent and kept peeling potatoes. Angela and Penelope seemed to forget that he was there for long stretches of the conversation, leaving him to puzzle out the strange feeling he was experiencing. He thought it might have been something like contentment.
 
Phillip did not join the sisters for lunch or dinner. Their rules about not being in the presence of a man were only flexible to a point.
During his midday meal, alone, he thought that his friends would indeed laugh themselves sick to hear that he was in an abbey. They would choke on laughter and mock him mercilessly if they heard that he had spent the better part of the morning peeling potatoes and listening to female chatter with some interest. And he knew that they wouldn’t understand if he tried to explain about Angela’s voice, and how a man could be riveted by anything she said. They would just laugh even more and call into question his masculinity.
Well, they wouldn’t laugh, because he wouldn’t tell them any of it. It was true that he didn’t kiss and tell; he didn’t need to brag about conquests or affairs or anything of the sort, because others always did it for him. They took his silence to be an affirmation.
He had ruined four women, but not as thoroughly as everyone seemed to think, because he never corrected their assumptions. No wonder he had the reputation he did.
During dinner, which he took alone again, it occurred to him that he ought to make some sort of plan about what to do when he left the abbey.
He could go to London. He had two options for lodgings, neither of which appealed to him. He could impose on Devon and Emilia. Lord knew the ducal residence in London had plenty of room. But he’d be damned if he’d ask his brother for anything. And though Emilia had obviously forgiven Devon for allowing her to be confused about his status as a twin, Phillip doubted she’d be as forgiving to him. He had, after all, tried to trap her into marriage because he needed her dowry.
And he had needed the money to prove to his father that he wasn’t the hopeless case his father always told him he was. He could have taken her dowry to fix up the estate and keep it running. Because the only thing his father cared about was the estate. It was always the damned title and the lands and the house. Nothing else mattered.
And here he was, penniless, and without a father to impress. He just had a twin who had spent his life one-upping him and who now had money to spare and a wife who hated Phillip. No, he would not darken their door, asking for help.
He did have some pride, after all.
He had friends, too. Parkhurst would let him stay at his place, even though they hadn’t had any communication since Phillip took off for Paris, since neither of them wrote letters unless absolutely necessary. Parkhurst could always be counted on to lend out some money for drinks and, Phillip realized, much-needed clothing.
It was decided. He would go to London and stay with Parkhurst.
And then what? It was harder and harder to believe that he had once been one of the wealthier men in England and due to inherit one of the oldest titles in the land. Well, until Devon had a son, Phillip was still the heir, with his honorary title of Marquis of Huntley. One day that would be relinquished, and he would be left titleless. It may have already happened, for all he knew.
But not necessarily homeless. He still had Aston House, and that could always be sold off, if necessary. And then what would he do?
With his meal finished and his future still uncertain, Phillip went to see if Angela was finished yet. The doors to the dining room were still closed. With nothing else to do, he waited in the hall.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t touched her for nearly twenty-four hours. This struck him as grievously wrong, and he vowed he would remedy it as soon as he could. To think so much time had elapsed when he hadn’t touched her, and especially when they had so little time together as it was.
He breathed a sigh of relief when the doors opened, and all the sisters started streaming out into the hall. Angela saw him immediately and smiled.
He leaned heavily on his good leg and made a show of needing her assistance to walk back to his chamber. She was clearly not fooled but did not protest. His bad leg was fine enough, really. He just wanted to touch her. But he lied anyway, so that those watching them walk off arm in arm would think he was just some poor wounded sot in need of charity, giving them less to gossip about.
Once they had gained sufficient distance from the group and found themselves in a darkened, empty corridor, Phillip stopped.
“What is it? Do you need to rest?” Angela asked, looking up at him. He smiled, because that was exactly what he expected, wanted, her to do. He didn’t answer her, not with words, anyway.
Phillip took a step toward her, closing the distance. He could feel his pulse quicken in the anticipation of touching her. He allowed a few seconds to pass, and then a few more, so that they both might revel in the feeling, because he was sure she felt the same. Like falling, with the knowledge that one was going to be caught before hitting the ground, so one could just savor the momentary sensation of falling.
When he slid his arms around her waist and she leaned in to him, he was sure that it was all the more amazing because of those few seconds of waiting.
Phillip couldn’t remember if—what’s her name—Esme had taught him the pleasures to be gained from a long pause, or if it was something he had discovered himself. At the moment, he really didn’t care, though.

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