Unbefitting a Lady (17 page)

Tears burned in her eyes. What a fool she’d been to think this
would be special to him, that
she’d
be special to
him. What she felt now was her fault. He’d not promised her anything beyond the
moment. She’d been warned about the overwhelming persuasion of the heat of
passion.

‘What is all this talk about?’ Aunt Wilhelmina interrupted.

Lily swept forward, taking charge of Wilhelmina. ‘I think it’s
time you and I let the three of them talk. I’ll have your maid fix up some warm
milk. You must be exhausted.’

‘Phaedra, go with them,’ Giles said. ‘There are things that
need to be said privately and it won’t help you to hear them.’

She did go. But she lingered outside the door. She shouldn’t
have. The moment the door was shut, Giles began to speak again. She pressed her
ear to the wood. ‘You are an earl’s son. You have knowingly misled my sister and
me by pretending to be someone else.
Your
masquerade
has brought shame to our family, all for the sake of appeasing your boredom, no
doubt.

‘Additionally, you’ve compromised my sister. Your rank and a
gentleman’s honour demands you marry her and restore the family name. The
sooner, the better, I think. We can tell everyone it was a fairytale courtship.
The ladies will know how to shape the story to make its oddities romantic
instead of scandalous.’

Outside, Phaedra clenched her fists. She didn’t want a forced
marriage to a man who cared not a fig for her. But Bram’s response came as a
blow.

‘No, Montague. I won’t do it. I won’t marry your sister.’

It was the final nail in the coffin, the absolute death blow.
Phaedra put her hand to her mouth and fled. She’d been an abject fool.

Chapter Eighteen

G
iles Montague’s men had caught up with him
in Buxton in much the same place Giles had found him, although in a slightly
more inebriated condition. Part of him had expected it, the part that knew
Phaedra had meant it when she’d said she’d go to the Derby. But Giles, who ought
to have known better, wasn’t sure and, as an unpleasant result, Bram found
himself standing before a man only two years his senior as if he were a
recalcitrant schoolboy caught pranking the headmaster.

Phaedra’s brother met his gaze across the expanse of polished
desktop. ‘She’s gone.’ To his credit, Montague looked suitably worn. Dark
circles suggested the man hadn’t slept well in the days it had taken to track
him to Buxton and bring him back. ‘She and that damned colt of hers are out
there, somewhere, alone.’ Giles waved a hand to indicate the vast world beyond
Castonbury. ‘I haven’t a clue where she is.’ Montague’s fist came down hard on
the desk, rattling the inkwell. Giles Montague was not a man used to being
frustrated. ‘I don’t suppose you know where she is?’

Now they were getting to the heart of the summons. Giles
Montague was desperate. ‘If I did, what would you do?’ Deuce take it, Bram hated
being put in this position. He didn’t like the idea of Phaedra and Warbourne
roaming around with only each other for protection any more than her brother
did. But Bram liked the idea of Phaedra being dragged home, her dream in
tatters, even less.

Not even days of endless drinking had been able to soften the
image of an angry, hurt Phaedra the way she’d looked that last night. It was no
wonder she wouldn’t forgive him, he could hardly forgive himself. Now, Montague
was asking him to betray Phaedra again.

Montague’s jaw tensed. ‘If you are holding out on me and she’s
hurt, I will personally...’ Montague’s threat didn’t make an appearance. Bram’s
temper exploded. He leapt across the polished surface of Montague’s irritatingly
perfect desk. Bram unseated Montague and the pair hit the floor, a brawl fully
under way. Giles Montague knew how to fight, Bram would give him that; he knew
from their previous go-round. But the man was tired and Bram was fully fuelled
with righteous anger.

Bram straddled him, pulling hard on Giles’s cravat. ‘Do not
assume you are the only man here who is worried about her,’ he said through
gritted teeth. He released the cravat and stood up. ‘Have I made myself
clear?’

Montague rose and brushed himself off. ‘She belongs back here
where she is safe. She is the daughter of a duke. This is not a game.’ Bram
tensed, waiting for Montague to take a swing at him. But Montague merely resumed
his seat, his grey eyes hard.

Bram shook his head. ‘She sold her mother’s pearls for that
horse, for that chance. I won’t sell her out for less.’

Montague thought for a moment. He crossed his arms, having come
to a decision. ‘All right, what do you propose?’

‘I’ll go after her. I’ll bring her home
after
she races the colt. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep her safe.’
Although it might be difficult to do that at close range. He’d be the last
person she’d want to see.

Montague met the suggestion with a sceptical look. ‘And may I
ask who will keep her safe from you?’

‘You will have to trust me to act on my best judgement.’

Montague snorted. ‘Forgive me if I find that a bit hard to
accept. To date, your “best judgement” has done nothing short of compromise
her.’ But Bram thought that was the least of his worries. Phaedra had barely
looked at him, too angry to meet his eyes. If he went to Epsom, maybe he’d have
a chance to win her back, on his terms and hers, not Giles Montague’s.

‘Still, it looks like I’m your best choice.’ It wouldn’t serve
to correct Montague on the compromise part.

‘You’re my only choice. If you know where she is, you’d better
find her fast and you’d better be serious about protection. You can take Merlin
and the coach if you’d like.’ Montague paused. His offer of the best and fastest
the Montague stables had to offer said enough. They were men of the world, they
knew what sordid underbelly lay beneath the glamour and speed of flat racing.
The faster Bram caught up to her, the better.

* * *

He’d failed to protect her. Giles waited until Bram
Basingstoke had left the room before letting his head slide into his hands. Now
he was reduced to desperate measures. It was sheer lunacy sending the man who
wanted to seduce Phaedra after her as protection. Lord, maybe he had already
seduced her for all Giles knew. He should have gone after her himself like any
self-respecting brother would have done. Only he didn’t know where to look with
any certainty and apparently Basingstoke did. Oh, he knew she’d gone to race the
damn colt. The question was where.

Had she gone to the Doncaster spring races in Yorkshire? Had
she ventured south, racing her way towards Epsom? Perhaps she would dare the
standard classics at Newmarket? The Two Thousand Guineas Stakes were next week.
He didn’t know and he couldn’t very well waste time running from venue to venue,
not when he was needed here as well.

Giles pulled open the narrow top drawer of his desk and pulled
out a letter that had come just that morning from Harry. It was short and had
been written in haste. Harry’s excitement was nearly as palpable as the air of
mystery. Harry had discovered something. He didn’t say what it was, or perhaps
he
couldn’t
say. But the hint was there. The muddied
waters surrounding Jamie’s death were clearing. Harry was getting closer to
something
.

He wished he could be there when Harry found the answers, and
Harry
would
find them. Harry was thorough and
meticulous. He would leave no lead unexplored. And when he had his answers,
Harry would exact justice if there was any to be had. Growing up, Harry had
worshipped Jamie, they both had. Giles had been just young enough to look up to
his brother and just old enough to be his constant companion. He’d never had to
follow at a distance like young Harry.

Those had been heady days, striding around Castonbury like
young gods. He had a hundred pictures in his head of Jamie, hands in pockets,
wind blowing his hair back as he strode across the fields so confident, so
immortal, so sure in his knowledge that one day all this would be his.

Giles rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Neither of them had
ever guessed Castonbury would skip Jamie and come straight to him. Neither of
them had wanted that. If Jamie walked through the door right now he’d hand it
all back. Lord, he’d give anything for Jamie to walk through that door.

Giles shook his head. Such imaginings were not worthy of a
grown man. They were weak and fanciful. Yet he couldn’t help thinking how
different things would have been if Jamie had come home. Maybe Kate would still
have married Virgil. Maybe Phaedra would still have run off with her blasted
horse. But Father would still be in his right mind instead of withdrawing into
the past and ‘better days.’
And maybe you would not have
discovered Lily
,
his conscience scolded mercilessly.
Be careful
what you wish for.

Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if things would have been
different,
better
,
if Jamie had come home.
Edward
too
,
his conscience railed again. Edward
and Phaedra had been close as the two youngest. Perhaps Edward would have
tempered her wildness...or aided it. Giles chuckled at the idea. Edward had been
the angel-boy when it had come to looks but he’d been wilder than all of them.
No doubt, Edward would be with Phaedra right now, traipsing across the country
to race that colt and thinking it was a jolly lark to run away from home. He’d
have loved Phaedra’s new horse travelling cart.

It would have been good to have Edward with her, better than
Bram Basingstoke, although what Phaedra really needed was him, Giles, and his
voice of reason to weigh against her recklessness. But he could no more be with
Phaedra than with Harry, no matter how much he wished it.

He could not leave Castonbury. It would mean leaving Father and
who knew what kind of trouble he and that mincing valet of his, Smithins, would
get up to if left unwatched. It meant leaving Alicia unsupervised, a thought
that sat poorly with him.

To add to his pile of wishes, he wished he felt more
comfortable about her claim to be Jamie’s wife. In truth, it was Jamie’s action
in the whole bit that didn’t ring true. Jamie
knew
he had to marry better than her. But Giles also knew better than anyone the kind
of things being on a battlefront could do to a man, the types of feelings it
could engender. Jamie would have not been immune and perhaps he’d been less
prepared for those emotions than a man who’d been taught to expect life in the
military.

Giles glanced down again at Harry’s cryptic note. Short, terse,
mysterious, it hardly seemed worth the effort to frank it all the way from Spain
with such vague references. But it was the last line he wanted to read over and
over, the last line that kept him here, another reason he could not go hunting
Phaedra.

Dear brother, there is hope.
I will not stop until I’ve exhausted it all.

Hope for what? That a body had been recovered so funds could be
released? Hope that Jamie had had a decent burial, after all? That he wasn’t
mouldering at the bottom of the Bidasoa? That Harry had incontrovertible proof
about the legitimacy of Alicia’s marriage so that the family could go forward in
certainty about the future of the dukedom?

Or the wildest hope of all that there had been some mistake,
that Jamie hadn’t drowned that fateful day on the river? Such a hope was sheer
madness and Giles pushed it away. No one thought that any more. Too much time
had passed and Jamie would never have let them languish in grief-ridden suspense
this long, nor would Jamie have forsaken his wife and child, if that’s what they
were.

Giles pushed back from the desk. He had to get out of this
room. He wouldn’t get any work done at this rate. He’d saddle up Genghis and
ride out to see Lily. When he’d proposed a proper, long engagement, he’d never
dreamed it would seem this long. He should have married her last summer and been
done with it. He could hardly wait to have her with him all day, every day, even
if it was simply to look across a room and know she was there.

* * *

‘It’s official. She’s not here, damn it all.’ Sir Nathan
drained the last of his glass and set it down on the table beside him with a
thud. ‘My sources tell me Lord Bramford was back at Castonbury today, without
her.’ He had reasoned the pair of them would be together. It would have made it
easier to extract his due revenge for the ball if they had been.

Across from him, splayed out in a chair and still nursing a
discoloured jaw, Hugh Webster perked up. ‘At least we can get Lord Bramford.’
Hugh rubbed the side of his face. ‘He packs a helluva wallop.’

‘I know,’ Sir Nathan replied drily. ‘But it can’t be obvious.
We’ll look guilty if anything happens too close to home.’ Subtlety wasn’t Hugh
Webster’s strong suit when it came to revenge, although the fellow was plenty
crafty.

It was down to revenge now. There was no sense trying to be
discreet. Phaedra wouldn’t marry him, short of being dragged to the altar by her
hair. While that created a rousing fantasy, the actuality of such an event
seemed unlikely.

Webster was grinning. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Going after the colt. She’ll learn she can’t mess with me and
not pay. A little nobbling would be just the thing to teach that lesson. The
only thing now is tracking her down.’

Hugh chuckled. ‘How hard can it be to find a woman and a horse
travelling with that odd contraption of hers? I know a couple fellows in the
village who would be up for it.’

‘Perfect. If anything goes wrong, we can blame them. The
Montagues will never be able to officially trace anything back to us, even if
the fellows squeal.’ Nathan refilled his glass.

Hugh raised his glass meaningfully. ‘It’s time for
revenge.’

‘Past time.’ The Montagues were about to get what was coming to
them.