Lessons in Enchantment

by Patricia Rice

  Simon came in tugging at his tie and Drew straightened it. “Do you good to practice refinement for a change. Do not hit the whisky.”

  Simon grimaced. “I’d rather be taking my sgian dubh to a few throats than choking to death to suit the ladies.”

  “You will not be taking knives to anyone’s throats, and the ladies are taking care of your children for you, so behave. They have connections to a duke. We don’t have to fight the Association with tooth and nail if we can threaten with money and power. We just need time to formulate a plan.”

  Hugh arrived with a page full of numbers and names. “Your best choice would simply be to buy the mines the Association owns. I’ve written up an estimate of costs and potential investors.”

  “I like that plan, as long as it doesn’t require my dwindling funds. It’s almost seven. Let us proceed, gentlemen. We can practice our manners before pursuing investors.” Drew shoved his cousin and his assistant toward the door.

  He didn’t give a damn about numbers and names. He wanted to see Phoebe and hear her reaction to the boxes he knew had been delivered. He hoped the seamstress had managed to prepare at least one evening gown. Maybe the gift would make her more amenable to his plan.

  So, he was deranged. A man was entitled to go off his head at least once in a lifetime.

  He could hear the low murmur of feminine voices as he descended the stairs. It was a very genteel sound in his crude bachelor household. He’d chosen a respectable neighborhood and a staid residence in order to establish himself as a gentleman, but he’d never really lived as one.

  The workshop in the withdrawing room was proof of that. The ladies had nowhere to repair before or after dinner except the formal visiting parlor.

  He found them in the parlor. He barely managed a bow without strangling while trying not to stare too openly at the lady he’d so stupidly thought to call governess.

  Lady Phoebe in an evening gown. . . Drew wildly imagined the heavens opening, the sun beaming down, birds singing. . .

  He was barely coherent as she directed him to take her mother’s arm, while she took Simon’s. Hugh trailed behind as they paraded into the dining room to the law of some etiquette of which he was hardly aware.

  Cook had found linen to cover the table. China and crystal that he vaguely recognized glittered in the candlelight. Candles! He glanced up at the gaslit chandelier. It was still there but hadn’t been turned on. First salvo to the lady. He was speechless.

  “So, this is what civilization looks like,” Simon said heartily, pulling out a chair for Phoebe on Drew’s right, then taking the one on her other side. “Ladies, you look charming this evening, more beautiful than the stars in the sky.”

  “Which you can’t see through the fog,” Phoebe replied. “And this isn’t precisely civilization. We are wearing poor Abby to the bone. I asked Cook to hire some help for the evening. I hope that was not too brazen of me, but I feared you might not be aware of the difficulty of preparing a proper table.”

  Since Drew intended for her to preside over this table for the rest of his life, he had no objection. His turn to fire the next shot. “Feel free to hire whatever help is required, but we’ll not need much over the next days while you and the countess are in York.”

  Lady Phoebe smiled and changed the subject to the children. It gave him an opportunity to adjust to seeing Phoebe in this new-found aspect of proper lady. The shiny bauble around her throat drew attention to firm high curves he’d held in his bare hands. That thought caused trouser constriction. He sought less volatile distraction.

  While Simon and Phoebe discussed ghosts—blessedly keeping his cousin from drowning in fine wine—Drew watched the new. . . footman? She had hired a footman to serve the table? Or was he a butler? The lad looked too young and brawny to be a staid butler. Did butlers serve soup?

  The countess slid a folded piece of paper over to him. Was trading notes instead of conversation a habit of the nobility?

  He waited for Lady Persephone to speak.

  “Suitable residences,” she said curtly, without further explanation.

  Ah, the price for his stupidity. Or his lust. “I’ll have Hugh assess them,” Drew replied without opening the note. If that was her contribution to the battle, it failed. His turn.

  He engineered his way into the conversation during a lull. “We wish to smuggle the children out unseen in the morning. To that end, Lady Persephone, we’d like to appropriate your trunks.”

  “I am to wear only my travel clothes while staying at the duke’s home?” the countess asked acerbically.

  “No, of course not. We have crates that can be carried to the station separately in a wagon. You may pack as much as you wish into them. But it seemed better to have the children traveling in the carriage with you and Lady Phoebe, even if they are hidden.”

  “That will not work,” Phoebe announced without hesitation. “If you fear we are being watched, I’ll need to be seen standing on the front step, waving my mother off.”

  Hugh frowned and nodded agreement. “I’ll have another crate delivered. You can ride in that. Once you are on the train, it will be simple enough—”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I have already explained to the children that I must stay here, and that my cousin will go with them to teach them to ride ponies. I do not ride.”

  Protests erupted. Drew sat silent, prepared for that declaration of war. If that was the way she wanted it. . . He clinked his wine glass against his china until everyone shut up.

  “If Lady Phoebe is to stay here without chaperonage of mother or children, then I’ll purchase a license, and we will marry immediately. We’ll have the celebration after the children are safe and your mother returns.” Gauntlet thrown, he met Phoebe’s startled gaze with equanimity.

  Twenty-six

  Phoebe’s fine and fancy dinner disintegrated into argument after that. In denial, her mother tried to draw attention to her list of properties, but no one had any interest in discussing real estate with a juicier bone like marriage to chew on.

  Simon wanted to toast the impending nuptials. Andrew ordered the new footman to remove the wine decanter. Hugh wanted to leave the table to look up laws regarding marriage and joint investments. Andrew ordered him to sit down and shut up, although it sounded more like Haud yer wheesht.

  Phoebe strained to maintain mature, ladylike decorum, but she may as well have been sitting with the children and telling them not to scrape their chairs.

  When all else failed, the countess insisted that she wouldn’t allow Phoebe to ruin herself, and she’d send her back to stay with her aunts until sensible heads prevailed. “Ruin” in her mother’s mind meant “marriage,” but the comment confused everyone else.

  When all her attempts at polite conversation failed, Phoebe chose to believe it wasn’t her failure. She had done her part. She wasn’t meant to be a leader of men. She could live with that. Her alternative was to send mice running up their trouser legs. She would resist—for now.

  Finishing the delicate sole and Brussels sprouts Cook had prepared, Phoebe drained her wine and stood. “I will check on the children and help mother’s maid with the packing. Good evening.”

  The men scrambled to reach their feet, but she was out the door before they’d moved their chairs back.

  She climbed straight to the nursery, where order might prevail. To her satisfaction, she found Enoch and Cat sound asleep, as they should be. Quiet Clare, however, was curled on a pillow on the floor, wrapped in blankets and cuddling the kitten.

  “Can we take Kitty?” she whispered as Phoebe lifted her from the floor and settled her on her lap in the rocking chair.

  Perhaps she could not control a dinner conversation because her mind worked on childish levels. Needing kitty comfort was serious business that she could handle.

  “If you think Kitty wouldn’t mind the train.” She rocked child and cat, soothing herself as well as them. “He doesn’t know what a train is, so I can’t ask him.
Why aren’t you sleeping? Morning isn’t far away.”

  “Mama worries about Daddy. She’s afraid of the train.” Clare burrowed into Phoebe’s arms. It was difficult to know how much of this might be ghost or Clare’s own fears.

  “Will you talk to your mama for me?” At Clare’s nod, Phoebe gathered her thoughts. “Tell her that you will be safe and happy. I am sending someone older, stronger, and wiser than me to go with you. Can she hear all that?”

  Clare nodded. “She hears you. She asks if you’ll help daddy.”

  “That is exactly what I hope to do. If your mother stays here, can she help me in your place?” Phoebe wasn’t certain what she asked. But she’d heard her cousins talk and thought some spirits could make themselves known.

  After a moment or two of silence, Clare giggled. “Mama says to send the villains to the roof, and she’ll take care of them.”

  Villain definitely sounded like a more adult word than little Clare would use.

  Letitia would have a lot of incentive to shove her killers from the highest precipice. Phoebe just didn’t think it was likely.

  “I’ll do my best,” she told both child and ghost. “Now, will you sleep? If Kitty is to go with you, he needs his nap.”

  “I like your pretty dress,” Clare murmured sleepily as Phoebe tucked her in.

  “Thank you. Some day, you may have one like it.” She kissed the child and slipped from the nursery, ruefully regarding the now-wrinkled silk. She simply wasn’t made for fashionable gowns.

  She didn’t even have a pocket to carry treats in for Piney and Raven. Or time to visit with them much anymore. Her nights were full now instead of lonely. She wasn’t certain how she felt about that yet. She knew what she had done with Drew was wrong. She knew he meant to right it. She didn’t know how she felt about that either.

  Not wanting to harm Drew’s lovely gift of evening clothes and shoes, she couldn’t even retreat to the roof to think. She was being pushed into propriety, whether she liked it or not.

  In that melancholy mood, she drifted back to the suite she shared with her mother to help repack clothes from trunk to crates.

  “I cannot leave you here with him,” the countess protested. “He will turn you into a meek housewife.”

  Put that way—Phoebe laughed. “There is little likelihood of that. I know I should be worried about what other people think, but it takes up all my time worrying about those I love.” She hugged her mother’s frail shoulders.

  The countess sighed in exasperation. “You are so like your reckless father that I cannot say no to you any more than I could to him. Be careful you do not go the same way I did.”

  Phoebe considered that. “I wore this gown for Mr. Blair because it was important to him but not to me. But I will not be sent away because he thinks propriety is necessary, while I believe people matter more. He knows as well as I do that he needs me.”

  “You don’t have to marry him to prove that.” Her mother snapped a case closed in disapproval.

  “That’s between Mr. Blair and me and is not up for discussion until matters are settled. I do like him a lot, Mama,” Phoebe admitted.

  The countess engulfed her in a perfumed embrace. “I know, darling, and that worries me. You may be more like your father than me after all.”

  “Is that why you came home? Because I worry about you living in this cold damp climate.”

  “Once this little contretemps is straightened out, we shall have a good talk. Now remove your rodent from my nightdresses so we may finish packing.”

  Drew climbed all the way to the roof expecting Phoebe to try flying off. Only the raven greeted him. He fed the creature a piece of Cook’s fish in the interest of solidarity. If he wanted Phoebe, he had to accept her pets.

  He wanted Phoebe, no question about that. It was the marriage part that daunted him. He’d be finding mice in his machines and birds in his attic and eventually, children underfoot. And Phoebe wasn’t exactly the sort to stay home and keep order.

  But she would see that everyone was fed properly, order the servants, and grace his bed with enthusiasm. That last part covered a multitude of sins—if he could only persuade her to the same.

  He traipsed downstairs and halted near the door of her suite. He heard women talking. There would be no having Phoebe to himself this evening.

  Drew sought Simon and Hugh, finding them in the workshop, playing with his newly re-arranged pterotype. “I just read an article saying an American has solved the key problem and sold the patent. I’ll make no fortune off that after all my work.”

  “But think of what a machine like this can do!” Hugh pounded out letters with two fingers. “If you received a printed document, wouldn’t you believe it was official?”

  Drew shrugged and sat down with the bicycle wheel. “Anyone can have a document printed. How is this different?”

  “Because we can do it right now and with no one to observe. Look, see what you think.” He yanked the paper out of the carriage and handed it over.

  Simon peered over Drew’s shoulder. “I think you need more ink and lines that run parallel instead of slipping about like drunken sailors.”

  “I was learning how it works,” Hugh said defensively. “The carriage slips and needs tightening.”

  Instead of criticizing the poor quality of the print, Drew read what Hugh had written. “This is genius. And probably criminal.”

  “Not that I can see. It’s not really official. We can’t help it if they believe it is. We’ll send it to Baron Wilkes. He’s supposedly an Association member. As one of the more powerful mine owners, he has the most to lose from Simon’s newfangled ideas. If this doesn’t draw out the cads, we’ll try a different tactic with another suspect.” Hugh rolled another piece of paper into the machine.

  “Let me fix the pterotype first.” Drew handed the paper to Simon.

  Simon read it properly this time and whistled. “Can we hire an army? You really want to send this to Wilkes? The baron has had his way in the district since I was in short pants.”

  “I really want to put Phoebe in a crate and send her to Yorkshire,” Drew growled from his machine. “But where would we be without her mice?”

  “This time, we’ll be here and prepared,” Hugh added. “And after receiving this, the real scoundrels are likely to walk through the front door.”

  Drew pointed his screwdriver at his cousin. “And you are not allowed to take a claymore to their heads. We will have witnesses on hand who will testify to anything they admit.”

  “They won’t admit to killing Letitia,” Simon said, slumping in the chair.

  “Once they see a transcript and believe their hired hands are telling all, we’ll be lucky they don’t turn tail and run. We’ll let you decide whether you want them locked up or forced to sell their mines.” Drew tightened the carriage and gestured for Hugh to try again.

  “I want them hanged,” Simon growled.

  “Not bluidy likely,” Hugh said, sliding paper into the machine’s carriage. “The Association has too much money and too much power. Just convincing a policeman to arrest one of them would require blood dripping from their hands. It’s how the Association gets away with what it does.”

  “One step at a time, gentlemen,” Drew insisted. “We bring the varlets to our doorstep and proceed from there. May I suggest another document verifying that Wilkes’ mine is encroaching on Simon’s mines? We’ll put a fancy inspection seal on it and hand it to whoever arrives, just to see the fireworks.”

  His cousin began to smile for the first time in months and reached for the stack of paper. “I like it. I’ll scribble the wording I’ve seen used and Hugh can type it up too. It will look as if it came from a government printer.”

  Drew thought scribbling lies might be safer than Simon sharpening his dirk. “And after that, someone needs to check those properties for Lady Persephone. Can we do that while waiting for the Association to arrive?”

  “Don’t send the letter yet,” H
ugh suggested. “Give them a day or two to stew first. Make certain the children are safely settled in York.”

  “You’ll be as dangerous as they are one of these days,” Drew complained, watching the keys as Hugh typed. “Remind me never to cross you.”

  Stewing villains meant hostile warfare in the near future, and he returned to pounding another dent from the bicycle rim.

  Although warfare might be easier than finding a home suitable for an interfering mother-in-law.

  Twenty-seven

  Rubbing at the tears streaking her cheeks and half-wishing she were traveling with her mother and the child-bearing trunks, Phoebe stood on the steps and waved at the departing carriage.

  “We cannot sit about waiting for villains to appear. Should we take a tour of your mother’s property list?” Andrew asked as the carriage vanished around a corner.

  Without the children, her only purpose now was to find the men who endangered them. She had hoped her aunts would let her know if they found anything of interest in Letitia’s journal, but they hadn’t. “Do you not fear the house will be attacked at any moment?”

  “They may have scalawags lurking in the shrubbery, watching for the children, but they’ll see nothing.” Andrew gestured down the street.

  Phoebe tried to unobtrusively scan the park, but the shadows were long at this early hour. The rats saw nothing unusual.

  He took her arm and steered her inside. “Hired thugs are of no matter. We want the big guns, but it will take time to draw them out. Meanwhile, I’ve set all my business on hold. First, we must decide if we wish to marry by registrar or church. Once we’ve signed the papers, I thought we could look at properties to honor that lien.”

  “I have not even signed my employment contract,” she argued. “I don’t see the point in a lifetime commitment over a night spent together, especially to a man who flings his tenants into the streets.”