by Diane Gaston
She could not absorb the compliment.
Lady Faville appeared. ‘What was the commotion?’ she asked Phillipa, but then noticed the general. ‘Oh, General Henson. How nice to see you again. When our Miss Songstress ran out, I wanted to follow, but dear Mr Everard convinced me to stay. You do recall Mr Everard, do you not, General? You met last night.’
‘I do indeed,’ he answered.
Mr Everard stood behind Lady Faville, but addressed Phillipa. ‘You should not have dashed out, miss. You might have encountered danger.’
‘She had a brush with it,’ Henson said. ‘Nothing of consequence, but it has upset her, I think.’
Lady Faville’s eyes widened. ‘What happened?’
General Henson explained about the men caught cheating and, while Lady Faville listened and asked questions, Phillipa backed away and returned to the supper room. It was abuzz. There had been a fight, they said. Xavier had overpowered the culprit. A big fellow, they said. Imagine. A man who looked like Campion overpowering a man like that.
Phillipa had seen him fight. Xavier had taken on three men the night they were attacked.
And once again the man in her vision appeared to her.
This time he was real.
She asked the servant to bring her a brandy. Mere sherry would not do to calm her nerves this night. She retreated to a table far in the corner and, after the servant set the glass in front of her, she picked it up and took one sip, then another. Her hand shook.
She closed her eyes and tried to make sense of it all.
The man was real...
‘Phillipa?’
She opened her eyes and Xavier stood before her.
* * *
It had taken Xavier some effort to find Phillipa tucked away at this corner table. Reaching her had been even more difficult. The patrons delayed him, asking questions about what transpired in the gaming room.
She looked grateful to see him.
He sat. ‘Were you injured?’
She shook her head.
‘What possessed you to come to the gaming room, Phillipa?’ He put her hand in his. ‘It could have been dangerous.’
She averted her gaze. ‘I feared for you.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘Foolish girl. I have plenty of men to come to my aid, if necessary. Think of Cummings. What man could be a match for him?’
‘I was not thinking. I heard the sounds—’ Her brow furrowed and she looked at him with an uncertain expression. ‘May we talk alone? I know it is presumptuous, but could we talk in Rhys’s drawing room, perhaps?’
He immediately stood. ‘Of course.’
Only a few people slowed him down with questions and comments as he led her through the room and out into the hallway. When they started up stairway to the drawing room, he glanced back and saw Daphne staring at him from the supper-room doorway.
Xavier leading a woman up to Rhys’s private rooms? What conclusion would Daphne make? He did not care. His worry was for Phillipa. She seemed unsteady under his touch.
They entered the drawing room and he brought her directly to the sofa. ‘You are shaking, Phillipa. Are you certain you are not injured?’
‘It is not that. Really.’ She pulled off her mask and rubbed her scar. ‘I could not stand the mask another minute.’
There was more to it than the mask.
He walked over to a cabinet and brought out a bottle of brandy, pouring one glass and handing it to her before pouring another for himself.
He sat next to her on the sofa. ‘Tell me what happened.’
She took another sip of brandy and reached out, almost touching his face, but withdrawing her hand. ‘First, tell me if you are hurt. There was a fight, they said, and I saw the other man’s bloody face.’
His skin yearned for her touch, but he spoke as if nothing had affected him. ‘That fellow had the worst of it. He should not have tangled with me.’ He took her hand, relishing the warmth of it. ‘It is all over now. They will not be back.’
She nodded and slipped her hand away. He took a gulp of brandy. His desire for her surged, but this was not the time.
Eventually she spoke. ‘There was a gentleman—he kept me from falling. General Henson. Do you know who I mean?’
He nodded. ‘I know the general.’
She turned away. ‘I am fearful you will think me mad.’
‘Mad?’ He could never do so.
‘I saw the general before.’ She took another sip and swallowed. ‘That night we were accosted by the three men. One man knocked me down and—and—suddenly I was someplace else. Someplace that smelled like the sea. When...when you helped me up, your face was a different face. It was that face of that man. The general.’
His face was another face?
‘It was a vision.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I had the vision again. Several times. Falling. Smelling the sea. Seeing the face. It was always as though I was in a different place, but only for an instant.’ She pressed her finger to her forehead. ‘I do not understand it.’ She waved a hand. ‘In any event, the visions stopped and I thought them gone, but when I lost my balance it almost returned. This time, I saw the general. The real one, I mean.’ She took a breath. ‘I am certain it was the general’s face in my vision, but now he looks older.’
Xavier’s brows knitted.
She put her hand to her scarred cheek and turned away. ‘You do think me mad.’
‘No. No. I am trying to make sense of it.’ He pulled her hand from her face. ‘Are you certain it was a vision? Perhaps it was a memory.’
Because the pieces fit.
‘If it was a memory, I would have remembered it!’ Her voice rose. She glanced away again as if in thought. ‘It was familiar, though. As if I ought to have remembered it.’
‘Maybe it was a memory about your fall.’ She’d smelled the sea. That could have been Brighton.
‘My fall?’ She looked confused.
He touched her scar. ‘Listen to me. I know of soldiers who have memories of battles so vivid they think they are there again. This could be a memory. What do you remember of that event? When you fell at Brighton?’
She put her palm where his fingers touched. ‘I was running up stone stairs and I fell. Or I must have fallen. My mother said I fell. I remember running up stone steps and falling. That is it.’
She did not remember it all, but Xavier did.
It had been dusk in Brighton and he’d been out poking around at the base of the sea wall. Sometimes people dropped things from the top of the wall, while they were gazing out to sea. He’d found coins, a watch, all sorts of treasure.
He heard the sounds of a quarrel. A man and woman, mere shadows at that time of day. He saw the man hurry away and the woman rush after him. And, then, there was the little girl—Phillipa.
He should have stopped her. The steps were too steep, too slippery to run up at that pace. Instead, he just watched. And saw it all.
The woman was Phillipa’s mother. Lady Westleigh.
The man. Could it have been General Henson?
‘Do you remember a man being there when you fell?’
‘No one was there,’ she insisted. ‘My mother found me and picked me up and carried me home.’
‘Do you remember that?’
She shook her head. ‘Do you think the general was there?’
Xavier had never seen the man’s face, but he’d worn a coat that might have been an officer’s coat.
‘My mother would have told me if a man was there.’ She touched her scar again.
Would it help if he told her? He wanted to.
He could not tell her, though, not when he’d sworn a promise not to.
He’d given his word.
* * *
Phillipa pres
sed her fingers against her temple. ‘I do not know what to think.’
Could her vision be a memory? It could not be the hallucination she feared, because General Henson was real. One could not conjure up a person and then discover he was real.
It must be a memory.
Xavier handed her the glass of brandy. ‘Drink the rest. It will calm you.’
She took it and did as he told her.
The clock on the mantel struck the hour.
She picked up her mask. ‘I should return to the supper room. People will think it odd that I am not performing.’
He stilled her hand. ‘You are under no obligation to perform. You may stay here and rest until it is time for the hack to arrive.’
She had another hour. ‘No, I’ll play. The music will help.’
She put her mask in place.
‘I’ll tie the ribbons for you.’ His voice turned low and soft.
What a marvellous voice he possessed. It could soothe. It could menace. It could make heat rush through her.
His fingers did the job of securing her mask gently but competently and his warm hand slid to the bare skin of her neck. ‘There.’ He rose from the couch and extended his hand to help her up.
This time his hand felt strong and secure. ‘I’m certain everyone will wonder where you are,’ Phillipa said, to cover up the silly emotions he aroused in her.
Emotions that nearly betrayed her long ago when she’d fancied herself in love with him.
He left her at the doorway of the supper room.
She entered the room and all heads turned to her. ‘I am back,’ she said to them in a cheerful voice. ‘Do you wish me to play?’
Several voices called out their assent and she sat down on the bench to the pianoforte and quickly looked through her music for something she could manage in her shaken state.
Something joyful, she thought, to raise everyone’s spirits.
Lady Faville approached her. ‘Are you feeling better, Miss Songstress?’
The appellation surprised her. ‘Yes. I am quite recovered.’
The lady’s full pink lips turned up in an angelic smile. ‘Was it not kind of Mr Campion—Xavier—to allow you some time to refresh yourself.’ Her smile faltered a bit. ‘I assume that was why he took you out of here. He is nothing if not the kindest of men.’
Phillipa supposed everyone knew she’d gone with Xavier to the private rooms, but surely they would think nothing of it. They thought her in the employ of the Masquerade Club, so it should not feel odd for the manager to speak to her alone.
But it rankled that Lady Faville commented upon it. ‘Yes. I was shaken up by all the excitement, and—and almost falling.’
‘Did you almost fall?’ Lady Faville asked with a mere touch of scepticism.
‘I did,’ Phillipa assured her. ‘And the general caught me.’
‘How exciting!’ cried the lady. She turned solicitous again. ‘As long as you did not hurt yourself. I would have been desolate if my new friend were injured in any way.’
New friend. Even if it was merely Phillipa’s envy that prevented it, she could not ever consider this creature a friend.
‘Thank you,’ she said tightly and turned to her music.
Chapter Eight
The next morning Phillipa resolved to ask her mother about her accident all those years ago. If it had been possible that there was a man present, surely her mother could tell her.
Phillipa had slept late, exhausted by the night before. She missed her mother at breakfast and could only hope she had not yet gone out.
She checked her mother’s bedchamber first, but she was not there. She started down the stairs and spied Mason below.
‘Mason, where is Mother, do you know?’ she called down.
The butler looked up. ‘In the drawing room, m’lady, but—’
‘Thank you!’ She was near the drawing room. She knocked quickly and opened the door. ‘Mama—’ she began, but stopped short.
Quickly rising from the sofa was a gentleman.
General Henson.
Her mother spoke as she, too, rose. ‘Phillipa! How good it is you have come. I want you to meet this dear old friend of mine.’
Dear old friend?
She stepped forwards and tried to look calm. What was he, of all persons, doing in her mother’s drawing room?
Her mother took Phillipa’s hand and pulled her closer. ‘Phillipa, may I present my dear friend, General Henson.’ Her mother gave the general a fond look. ‘Alistair, my daughter.’
‘This is Phillipa?’ The general smiled as he had smiled the night before. In the better light of day, the lines of his face were more apparent. ‘I cannot believe you are grown up.’
Phillipa’s heart pounded painfully. ‘Did you know me when I was a child, General?’ she asked, remembering in time to extend her hand.
He clasped it in a fatherly way. ‘I saw you when you were little more than a tot, my dear.’
He, of course, noticed her scar, but did not seem surprised about it. He must have known about it, but she had been much older than a tot when the accident happened. She’d been seven years old.
‘I do not remember you,’ she said. Although, apparently, she did.
He exchanged a glance with her mother. ‘No reason why you should.’
‘The general invited me for a drive in the country,’ her mother broke in. ‘Does that not sound delightful?’
The man looked apologetic. ‘I would include you in the invitation, but, alas, my curricle is a small one.’
‘Do not concern yourself,’ Phillipa replied. ‘I have much to do today.’
‘My daughter spends her days playing the pianoforte.’ Her mother’s tone was disapproving, of course.
‘Does she?’ The general smiled in delight. ‘What a worthwhile occupation.’
‘How do you know my mother?’ Phillipa asked. ‘I do not recall her mentioning you.’
‘We met in B—’ He stopped himself. ‘We met long ago through—through other connections. For most of the time until now I have been off fighting wars.’
‘Well, enough of that,’ her mother said with false cheer. ‘We ought to leave, Alistair, if we are to return in time for me to dress for the opera.’
‘As you wish.’ He gave her mother a warm glance, but turned back to Phillipa. ‘Will you do me the honour of allowing me to escort you to the opera as well as your mother? Your mother has graciously invited me to join her in her box.’
‘Thank you, but I rarely go out.’ Perhaps she should go. Find out more about this general. And her mother.
Her mother took the general’s arm and led him to the door. She turned her head back to Phillipa. ‘If you do not wish to come, Phillipa, be so good as to send a note to Miss Gale, inviting her to come with us. Do it quickly so she will have time to send a reply.’
‘Yes, Mama.’
She watched them leave, her mother happier than she’d seen her in years.
Phillipa might have spent her time in near seclusion, but she was not so green a girl not to guess that her mother’s relationship with General Henson was not merely friendship.
Had he been there, the day she was injured? If so, why had her mother not said so?
* * *
After her mother and the general left the house, Phillipa paced in the music room. She could not play a note, let alone compose one, although she forced herself to write to Miss Gale.
She wanted to talk to Xavier. He was the only person with whom she could discuss this latest of events, finding the man in her vision seated with her mother in the drawing room.
Time passed much too slowly, though. She might indeed go mad if she had to wait until the middle of the night.
Why wai
t? She could call upon him. She’d done so once before, although she’d thought she would be calling upon Rhysdale. Calling upon one’s relation, even one born on the wrong side of the blanket, would not cause too many questions, but calling upon a single gentleman could not be proper.
She did not care. She was not an ingénue. At twenty-three, in her situation, she was solidly on the shelf. Who would care what she did?
And her mother was not at home to question where she went or why.
* * *
She summoned her maid to help her don a walking dress and, before leaving her bedchamber, had the girl find a straw hat with so much netting her mother would have been pleased to see her in it. When she stepped out into the fine day, her face was well shaded from anyone recognising her as well as from the sun.
She walked as quickly as she could without attracting notice. As she neared the spot where she and Xavier were attacked, she slowed her pace. Anxiety fluttered inside her. She’d not walked this route since that night. Once there, the events returned to her mind, but without the darkness, the area held no lingering menace. She paused, wondering if the vision would recur.
It did not.
When she tried to recall the face in the vision, she saw only the man who’d been seated with her mother, who’d caught her when she almost fell.
She reached the door to the Masquerade Club, its innocent appearance striking her anew. She sounded the knocker and Cummings opened the door.
She almost greeted him by name. ‘Lady Phillipa to see Mr Campion, please.’
‘Not here,’ the footman said.
‘Oh dear.’ She’d not considered this.
He stared at her for a moment. ‘At the Stephen’s Hotel, mayhap,’ he finally said. It was an impressive string of words for the close-mouthed man. ‘Doesn’t come ’til later.’
The Stephen’s Hotel was not far and it was still early enough to walk back by Bond Street. She could stop by the hotel and ask for him. It was a brazen idea, but very unlikely that anyone would know about it.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Cummings nodded and closed the door.
Only after she set off for Bond Street did she realise how odd it was for Cummings to give Xavier’s direction. Had Cummings recognised her? As more than the woman who had called upon Rhys that day?
