‘I’m perfectly fine, Phoebe,’ he said, surprised to discover that he was. ‘Put your notebook away and let’s get out of here. I’m hungry.’
‘Is Rules nearby?’
‘Rules? Oh, you mean the chop house? Yes, it’s just down there.’
‘May I take a look?’
‘It won’t be open at this hour.’
‘I know. I just want to get a feel for what a London restaurant looks like.’
‘You want to peer in the windows? I think you’ll find that they are curtained.’
‘Please?’
Owen laughed, shrugged and took the slight detour to Maiden Lane. As he had expected, the place was in darkness, with curtains drawn over the windows, the door barred. Phoebe, to his amusement, jumped up to try to peer through a crack in one of the curtains, then put her eye to the door. ‘There’s no menu,’ she said. ‘In Paris, all the restaurants and cafés have a chalk menu outside.’
‘There’s no menu because it never changes. Oysters. Puddings and pies. Game. It’ll probably still be the same a hundred years from now.’
‘You’ve eaten there?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
‘You didn’t ask. Inside it’s plush and ornate with velvet banquettes. Now can we return home? There’s a hackney stand over there.’
‘Yes, let us—why is that man staring at you?’
Thinking that he was more likely staring at Phoebe, Owen turned around, only to be confronted with a very old acquaintance.
‘Owen Harrington, as I live and breathe. It is you, isn’t it?’ Hugo Burnes-Smythe crossed the narrow lane towards them, his hand held out in greeting. ‘Good lord. I thought I was seeing a ghost.’
‘Hugo.’ Owen eyed his former friend with some misgiving for he was clearly three sheets to the wind. ‘How are you?’
‘More approp—approp—question is, how are you?’ Hugo took a tottering step back. ‘You’re on your feet. I heard you’d lost your legs.’
‘No, mislaid them temporarily. I have them both back in my possession as you can see.’
‘Excellent news, excellent. I’ve just remembered something else,’ Hugo said, peering over Owen’s shoulder at Phoebe. ‘Heard you’d tied the knot. ’Scuse me, Mrs Harrington—oh, excuse me, not Mrs Harrington. Was pretty sure Olivia Braidwood was a blonde.’
‘I didn’t marry Olivia Braidwood, Hugo.’
‘I remember now. Lucky escape for her, that’s what they are saying, though you look remarkably well to me.’ Hugo shook his head. ‘Where was I? I’m a bit befuddled, if you want the truth. The Running Footman race was today—race that you called your own, too, now I come to think of it. Your record time still stands, you’ll be pleased to know. Now that you’re back in town, maybe you’ll show ’em a clean pair of heels next year?’
‘I rather think race running is a bachelor’s sport. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Hugo, my wife and I are heading home for our breakfast.’
‘Of course, of course. Could do with a bite to eat myself. I’m off to an Early House.’ Hugo pumped his hand again, made an uncertain bow in Phoebe’s direction and staggered off.
‘What on earth is an Early House?’ Phoebe asked.
‘A tavern that opens for the market traders and porters. Not a place you’d care to eat, I assure you. Come, let’s go before I meet any more ghosts from Owen Harrington’s past,’ he said, ushering his wife across the road where, to his relief, a cab had just arrived.
‘Who was that man?’ Phoebe asked, once they were comfortably settled in the hackney.
‘Hugo Burnes-Smythe. I didn’t think it was a good idea to formally introduce you.’
She chuckled. ‘I doubt he will even remember meeting you, never mind me. What on earth is the Running Footman race?’
‘There used to be a tradition of hiring a footman to run alongside your coach—I mean a tradition amongst the upper echelons who liked to demonstrate their superiority to mere mortals,’ Owen said sardonically. ‘The Duke of Marlborough was one such. He raced his own footman from Windsor to London—he was driving a coach and four, the footman was...’
‘On foot! Against a coach and four! That is preposterous. I presume the Duke won the race?’
‘Only just. The poor footman died from his exertions. The race was set up in his memory,’ Owen said, cringing. What had once seemed to him a fitting tribute, now seemed, recounting it to Phoebe, not only insulting but ludicrous.
‘Jasper told me that you were a talented runner.’
‘I used to be. I loved the sense of freedom it gave me, and I did enter that race and won it several times. But even if I could, I can’t imagine doing such a thing now.’
Or any of the things he’d done in the past, Owen though—save his gymnastics. If he had remained in England instead of setting out for the Continent two years ago, he’d probably have been with Hugo tonight, celebrating another win. He’d have been wandering aimlessly through Covent Garden, half-cut, half-awake and half-aware, and when he woke up later, he’d look back on the day as one well spent. Seeing Hugo was a reminder of the sort of man he had been, and he didn’t like it one bit. Which was exactly why he’d left London in the first place.
The hackney dropped them at the door, and Phoebe, after checking as usual that he was not in need of assistance while pretending that she wasn’t checking at all, bustled off to the kitchen to hand over her basket of fruit and vegetables to Murray. Owen made his way to his own room to take off his hat and coat, deep in thought.
He had so dreaded meeting any of his former friends that he’d closeted himself away. He’d become so accustomed to thinking of himself as an object of pity, yet Hugo had seemed to him the pitiful one, a fossil locked in amber. The life that Owen had lost was a pretty worthless one. Did that mean he’d rather be as he was now, even if it meant his nightmares would continue to haunt him, living with the blank space in his mind and his blank moments? He didn’t know the answer, but it wasn’t as straightforward as it used to be.
Certainly not since Phoebe had entered his life. He wondered what she would have Murray cook up with her harvest from this morning. Smiling to himself, Owen quit his rooms in search of breakfast and his wife, to find out.
* * *
Phoebe had spent the two days following their trip to Covent Garden working on compiling draft menus. This morning, she planned to try cooking some of the dishes and, wanting to have the kitchen to herself, had given the staff the day off. Pulling an apron on over her day gown, she decided to start by making both a beef and a vegetable stock. But as she began to assemble the ingredients on the huge scrubbed pine table which took up the centre of the room, her mind went completely blank, and her heart began to flutter in her chest so fast that she was compelled to sit down.
Stock, she mouthed, beef stock. The most basic thing to make, she’d done it a hundred, a thousand times, but she could not for the life of her think what else went into the pot save the roasted bones. It had been her responsibility to put the various stocks on first thing in the morning at La Grande Taverne. They simmered all day on the big range, and had to be skimmed every fifteen minutes for the first hour, then every half-hour after that. A good stock was the base for so many sauces. She knew how to make a good stock, for heaven’s sake.
Though Pascal had claimed she didn’t. Pascal had said that her stock was like dishwater and her pastry was like leather. But he’d used the stock every day, and surely if it was like dishwater then he wouldn’t have put it anywhere near his precious dishes? And as for her pastry—but Pascal had always been a bit derisory about pastry and patisserie, claiming it was women’s work and that was why she hadn’t made a complete pig’s ear of it.
She could cook. She knew she could cook, and it was time to stop questioning herself—something she hadn’t realised she did quite so often, until Owen pointed it out. But since he h
ad, she’d been thinking about it a good deal. She was very guilty of running herself down, expecting to fail, and astonished when she succeeded. It wasn’t so much that Estelle undermined her as such, she just felt so inferior in every way to her talented, beautiful and charismatic twin. Owen was right, she had fled to Paris to escape the unflattering comparison, but he was also right when he said that it had been easy for Pascal to destroy all the confidence she’d built up over her two years in the city—because she’d never really believed she was worthy of his attention in the first place.
Well, no longer. Phoebe picked up an onion and began to chop furiously. She was a damned good cook and she would prove it to everyone, starting with Owen. Who knew nothing of such matters. But who believed in her, which Pascal did not. And who understood that her cooking deserved an audience, which Estelle did not.
Owen believed in her enough to emerge from his self-imposed isolation to go shopping with her. He’d done it for her, and she hadn’t told him nearly enough, how grateful she was, or how much she admired him for doing it. When he had proposed, he’d been adamant that he was gaining as much from their marriage as she was, but thinking back over the weeks since they made their vows, Phoebe found that difficult to believe. The confidence he had in her was immense, to say nothing of all the practical help he’d given her. And she’d repaid him so far with doubts and indecision.
He deserved more than that. He wanted her to succeed. He wanted to be part of her success. She owed it to him and to the fates which had brought them together at the Procope, to have a bit more confidence in herself. She was only twenty-three, and she had made a disaster of her first job, and the best chef in all of France, the culinary capital of the world, said that she couldn’t cook, and her twin said that she shouldn’t, but she would prove them wrong and she’d prove Owen right!
Phoebe put the lid on the vegetable-stock pot, and looked with surprise at the beef-stock pot beside it, bubbling away. She didn’t remember making either, but that was a good sign. Cooking was instinctive, it was in her blood. She might be neither mature and confident like Kate and Eloise, nor talented and entertaining like Estelle, but she was born to be a chef!
* * *
Two hours later, with dinner prepared and the kitchen tidied Phoebe, excited and inspired, decided to seek out Owen. After a brief check of the main rooms downstairs, she concluded that he must be working in his study. He had never forbidden her from visiting his suite of rooms, but nor had he ever invited her. Pushing open the door, she found herself in a square hallway, tiled in black and white marble, and the choice of three doors. One would be Owen’s bedchamber. One would be his study. She couldn’t imagine what the third one would be. A soft thud from behind the nearest door made her jump. Listening carefully, she thought she could hear him moving about, so she knocked. There was no answer, but the noise of movement continued. Opening the door carefully, Phoebe peered in.
The room faced out on to the back gardens of the town house, the curtains not yet drawn against the fading light. The walls were lined with bookshelves overflowing with books. A comfortable sofa faced the fireplace, there were more books stacked on the floor beside it, but here convention ended. The polished floorboards were bare save for a large rush mat, on which lay a set of heavy-looking metal weights. A bar was suspended about four feet high between two supporting poles at the other window. And in the middle of the room, his back to her, was Owen, working on another set of bars.
She knew immediately that she was intruding on a very private space, but Phoebe couldn’t move for fear of disturbing him. Positioned in the middle of the bars, he was stripped to the waist, wearing only a pair of loose cotton trousers, his feet bare though he still wore his gloves. As she watched, he took hold of the bars and began a series of lifts and dips, his legs tucked up under him. He moved fluidly, with apparently little effort, the muscles on his shoulders and arms flexing rhythmically. Moving smoothly on from one exercise to the next, he continued to dip while holding his legs straight out in front of him. His skin was damp with sweat, but his breathing remained regular. She could see, from the way he moved, that this was a regular routine. His upper body would delight a sculptor, Phoebe thought, pretending to an artistic appreciation that she was very far from feeling, for she was in thrall to something far more feral, fascinated by the sheer athletic power of him. He’d told her he had resumed his exercises but this was akin to acrobatics.
His arms straining now, he was holding his upper body quite still and working on his legs, straightening them, then lifting them together until they were at right angles to his body. His breathing was becoming laboured, sweat trickling down his back, but still he continued to work, ten, fifteen, twenty repetitions, until he finally let his legs fall, clinging to one of the bars to support himself, and breaking the spell Phoebe had fallen under. She moved, meaning to back out of the room without him seeing her, but he whirled round, and she froze to the spot.
‘Phoebe! How long have you been there?’
‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to spy on you, I did knock, but you clearly didn’t hear because you were—you were—and then I started watching because it was so—goodness, I’ve never seen anything like it, you are so strong, and so graceful, and it was like a dance, and I—’ She broke off, flushing. ‘I should leave.’
She was backing out of the door. ‘Wait,’ Owen called. ‘I’m finished for the day. Was there something important you wanted to ask me?’
‘No, I—yes. Do you do this every day?’
‘That was your burning question?’
‘No, of course it wasn’t. I didn’t even know that you did—do these exercises have a name?’
‘Gymnastics. From the Greek, meaning to exercise naked. Fortunately for the sake of your modesty,’ Owen said, picking up his cotton gown and pulling it on, ‘I’m not a purist.’
‘But you are most certainly an athlete.’ Closing the door behind her, Phoebe smiled at him. ‘To be so—so accomplished, you must work very hard.’
‘I can’t do half of what I used to do. Years ago, when I was fourteen or fifteen, I saw a performance by a Russian brother and sister called the Flying Vengarovs. They were acrobats, most renowned for their routines on the tightrope. I was utterly entranced by them, and the next day, I sought the brother, Alexandr, out at the theatre where he was practising on equipment just like this. I knew that I had to learn to do what he could do. He knew of a place I could get lessons.’
‘And you proved an apt pupil?’ Phoebe ran her hand over the smooth wood of one of the bars. ‘What is this apparatus called?’
‘Parallel bars.’ Phoebe was flushed. Embarrassed, Owen assumed, though the way she was looking at him, the softness of her smile, the fact that she was looking at him and not at the floor or the ceiling or even the bars made him wonder. ‘This is called a pommel horse,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately I have no use any more for the vaulting variety.’
Phoebe followed him across the room. She studied the piece of equipment, smoothing her hands over it as if she were stroking a real horse. ‘What do you do with this?’
She could not possibly realise the effect she was having on him. He could not quite believe the effect she was having on him. Contrary to what he had come to believe, that side of his nature was very far from dead. ‘It was originally used to help soldiers practise mounting and dismounting from their horses. A skilled practitioner can support himself on these,’ Owen said, indicating the pommels, ‘and then swing his legs around underneath him.’
Phoebe frowned. ‘I can’t imagine how you even mount this thing, never mind swing about like a pendulum.’
‘What you do is...’ But it was much easier to demonstrate than to explain, and if he focused on demonstrating, he’d be able to ignore Phoebe and the disturbing effect she was having on him. Owen divested himself of his robe. ‘Let me show you.’
Holding on to the pommels, he mounted the
horse smoothly—something he couldn’t have done a month ago—and positioned himself, legs stretched outwards and together, arms braced. The strength, he had learned, came not from the arms but from the centre of his body. He clenched his stomach muscles. Closing his eyes as he concentrated, relishing the new, solid muscles his dedicated training had developed around his abdomen, he began to swing his legs around anti-clockwise, which was marginally easier on his right hip. To move with such freedom was still so new to him, Owen gave himself over to the pleasure of it, barely noticing the pain of his protesting hip as he changed direction, then finished with a forward-balancing handstand before dismounting.
He had forgotten all about Phoebe until he opened his eyes again to see her gazing rapt at his sweating body and it felt so damned good, that raw appreciation, and he’d worked so diligently these last few weeks, he felt he’d earned it.
‘I’ve never seen anything like that,’ she said, ‘but you are obviously very good.’
‘Not bad,’ Owen said, ‘for a few weeks’ work.’ His training regime, so radically different from the one his doctor had prescribed, had begun painfully, for he had launched himself into the exercises as if there had not been a gap of more than two years. Forced to go back to basics, progress had been frustratingly slow at first, but as he had started to improve, he had come to enjoy his new regime. ‘It’s as much about technique as strength,’ he said to Phoebe. ‘It’s easy to achieve a basic level of competence when you have nothing else to do.’
‘I think you are being extremely modest. I couldn’t even climb on to that thing without a mounting block to boost me.’
He didn’t think. He forgot who he was now, and he acted on impulse, just as he would have done if he’d been the man he was before, in the presence of such beguiling beauty, putting his arms around her waist and sitting her up on the horse effortlessly.
Phoebe gasped in surprise, laughing. ‘Owen! My goodness, it looks a long way down from up here.’
A Wife Worth Investing In Page 11
