‘Indeed I have,’ said the Duchess, giving her skirts a shake. ‘Even the Duke has not seen the latest changes. He and Sir Leo arrived only last night.’
‘Oh, I see. Then…?’
Just behind her shoulder, Sir Leo gave a huff of laughter as he answered. ‘No, mistress, we shall not be going anywhere. Not for a wee while. Did you hope we would?’
‘Of course she didn’t, Leo. Don’t be so provoking. Now, which of you gallant gentlemen is going to open the door? What in heaven’s name is the matter with the footmen today? Thank you.’
Sweeping through into the great hall, the sudden change of light sent a cold shiver down Phoebe’s arms, and the event to which she had looked forward with such eagerness now took on all the aspects of a burden to which, yet again, she would have to bring all her reserves of light-heartedness in order to convince those around her that she was carefree.
To her credit, Elizabeth, Duchess of Lauderdale, took her friendships very seriously. She and Phoebe’s mother had formed an affection twenty years ago while Phoebe and her elder brother Timothy were still in their infancy. Master Adolphus Laker had been an exceedingly prosperous banker and goldsmith with enough wealth to forge connections in society and clients in Court circles. Elizabeth and her first husband had purchased gold and silver plate from the Laker premises at the Royal Exchange in London, neither of them being too high and mighty to include merchants amongst their friends.
It was the Great Plague of 1665 that had put a grisly end to it when Master Laker and his wife became victims within days of each other. They had been exemplary parents, and the shock to Phoebe and her brother was severe. Although still young, Timothy had set about buying a new house for him and his sister in the country further up the Thames at Mortlake where they could live well away from such terrors. At the same time, he had revived his father’s business after so great a decline in the population. Compared to some, the brother and sister had counted themselves fortunate, living together with a distant relative named Mrs Overshott who had nursed their parents through that terrible time.
Then, as had happened to so many others, disaster struck again in the September of the following year when the Great Fire destroyed so much of the city of London, including the Royal Exchange where the Lakers’ business was. Only fate could have dealt Phoebe such a cruel blow, for after Timothy had removed all the valuable contents of the shop and transported them to Mortlake for safe keeping, he had returned to London to collect the paperwork on which the business depended: order books and receipts, stock and pattern books, tools and correspondence.
But he had left it too late, for the building was already ablaze and unsafe when he arrived, and he and his manager were trapped in the the Exchange as it crashed. Phoebe never recovered his remains. She was virtually alone without a family. Wealthy and safe, but alone and without a single grave to mark her losses.
The usual procedure for a young lady in her position would have been to go and live with her nearest relative, but wild horses could not have dragged her up to Manchester to live with an aged widowed aunt who had made no contact in all Phoebe’s thirteen years. So she remained in the care of Mrs Overshott who, while being distant in relationship terms, was devoted to her, and sensible of her privileged position. And although the house at Mortlake was too large for them, Phoebe clung to it as to a life raft, being the one place where the spirit of her beloved brother still remained. The people of Mortlake gave her their support in every way possible, but there was only so much they could do to ease her grief.
Predictably, those traumatic events left their mark on her, not least of which was a feeling of guilt at being the only one left in the family, as if she had somehow been marked out for special treatment. Why her? Why had she been left the wealth that they had worked so hard to acquire? And what had her brother meant when he had told her he had to get something for her? Was it her fault he had died? No one, it seemed, could provide an acceptable answer to that, or to the dark troubles that haunted her adolescent years. She grew into the kind of beauty that brought her instant attention, and friends, and power to sail through the teething pains of youth at too fast a pace, taking whatever was offered before it could be snatched away from her again.
The one person to whom life had also dealt some unkindness, the one Phoebe would talk to about herself, was Elizabeth, then the Countess of Dysart. She too had had a stormy upbringing during the violent Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell when her father had had to escape danger and leave her mother to hold Ham House against possession by soldiers, alone with four daughters, three of whom had disabilities. Elizabeth, the only healthy one, had married Sir Lionel Tollemache, but had lost all but five of her eleven children. Yet she had always had time for Phoebe whenever Phoebe could find time for her.
Elizabeth wished it had been oftener, especially after hearing how the blossoming young beauty had attracted the attentions of young blades on the lookout for wealthy wives, particularly innocent and helpless ones with no parents to get in the way. No warnings could slow Phoebe down. Her reputation as a wild beauty reached the Royal Court. No event was complete without her. Elizabeth had heard how Mistress Phoebe Laker was living life as if, without any warning, it might all come to a violent end before she could sample its gifts, and not even Elizabeth could make her understand that life’s gifts have a price, and that some of them are more expensive than others. It was only Mrs Overshott’s gentle restraint that saved Phoebe from acquiring more than a reputation for wildness.
Moving through to the new south side of the house, Phoebe was impressed by the size, the opulence, the vivid colour schemes that were the Duchess’s hallmark. ‘We’ve doubled the size,’ the Duchess said, proudly. ‘Come through to the new dining room. I think you’ll like it.’
The Duke and Sir Leo followed. ‘You’d better say you do, lass,’ the Duke mumbled, ‘or there’ll be nothing but bread and water for your dinner.’
‘Nonsense!’ his wife chided him, simpering a little. ‘How could she not like it? This is the smaller of the two, Phoebe. The larger one is above the hall. Well, one cannot entertain royalty in a room of this size, can one? And the hall is really not convenient any more,’ she said to the Duke’s shaking head.
Privately, Phoebe thought that the continuation of the black-and-white chequered floor might have been better changed to polished wood. But the Duchess’s conspicuous display of wealth was, she supposed, a reaction to those early years of childbearing when the Civil War had prevented any thoughts of spending except on essentials. Now, it was as if she was wading knee-deep in the brilliance of her new position, for all the rooms into which she led them, while pointing out the newest acquisitions, blazed with gilt and shone with marble. There were polished wood and crimson curtains, fringed cushions and fat tassels everywhere hanging from ropes of satin, cherubs, cornucopia, lacquered cabinets, obscene caryatids holding up ornate tables, gilded mirrors, picture frames and portraits by the score, flowery plasterwork ceilings, heavily patterned curtains hiding painted gold-knobbed shutters, knobs, scrolls, barley-sugar legs and velvet seats with yet more braid. She must have bought the stuff by the mile, Phoebe thought, imagining the poor upholsterers buried under mountains of it, crying out for air and plain surfaces.
The Duke and Duchess were examining the inside of a cabinet when a whisper at Phoebe’s shoulder reminded her, ‘You must say you like it, you know. It gets worse… er…better.’
Quickly, she turned to find the voice that had spoken her thoughts out loud, stopping the answering smile before it could show in her eyes, before he could think he was to be rewarded by even the smallest token. The chill in her voice was already there. ‘Don’t waste your precious time talking to me, sir,’ she remarked sharply under her breath. ‘If I’d known you’d be here, I would have stayed at home to tend my gentlewoman.’ She would like to have rejoined her hosts as they strolled away into the hall, but Sir Leo was in the way and, as her eyes signalled her intention, he moved aside to
stop her.
‘What, and miss all this?’ he whispered, unsmiling. ‘You may not wish to see me here, Mistress Laker, but after three years I think it’s time to put matters straight between us, don’t you?’
Her eyes blazed with dark fury. ‘I don’t wish to see you anywhere, sir, and matters are as straight as they’ll ever be. Disapproval and dislike on your part, pure hatred on mine. There. What could be straighter than that?’
‘It cannot continue, even if it were true that I dislike you. As it happens, I don’t.’
‘Sir Leo, I really do not care in the slightest whether you do or not. All I know is that I do not wish to be reminded of what happened, when I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget. The duel you fought was not to defend my honour but your own, and the result of that debacle was the loss of a good man’s life, directly or indirectly, depending on whose side you’re on. If you think three years is enough to erase the memory of that tragedy, then you know less about women than you claim to.’
‘Then it’s up to me to convince you, isn’t it?’
Like quicksilver, she dodged round him, arching her body to evade his arm, running to the doorway through which voices floated. Her silk skirts crackled angrily. ‘Find something more rewarding to do,’ she said, ‘and leave me alone.’
He let her go. ‘That, Mistress Phoebe Laker, is something I shall not be doing, whatever your wishes,’ he murmured, sauntering after her.
It was not quite so difficult for Phoebe to admire her beautiful yellow bedroom upstairs on the first floor when the sun had begun to slant across the satin-covered walls, flooding the yellow-curtained bed with light. Conveniently placed at the top of the staircase, two smaller rooms snuggled next to hers in the angle of the south front where her maid Constance had been given a small bed, to be near her mistress.
‘Now this is completely new,’ said the Duchess, sliding a heavily ringed hand over the marquetry lid of a writing desk. ‘And the tapestries came originally from the Mortlake factory when it was still in full production, but I may move them yet. A good price they were, too.’
Fortunately, Phoebe was not obliged to comment, for the Duchess had seen from the window that more coaches were rolling down the long drive, and she was quite suddenly abandoned. The last time she had seen Ham House was when it was surrounded by scaffolding, workmen’s huts and piles of bricks and wood. The hammering had been constant, the dust and mud on every surface, Elizabeth constantly interfering and scolding.
From the window, she watched the green brocade figure emerge from the door below on the south side to lean over the stone balustrade at the top of the double steps before tripping down to meet her guests. Footmen ran to catch at door handles before the coaches stopped. No one, Phoebe thought, could fault the Duchess of Lauderdale as a hostess.
Much further up the drive where it passed through the trees of the Wilderness, she noticed a lone rider on a dapple-grey horse turn to watch as the coaches reached the house. The horse pranced restively, eager to go on. A red plume in the rider’s hat fluttered in the breeze, and Phoebe saw the white flash of lace against the grey coat, and she knew instantly by the lurch of her disobedient heart who it was. His head lifted towards the upper window where she stood and, instead of scuffling back out of sight, she remained there defiantly, exchanging looks with him until he lifted his hat and swung it to one side in acknowledgement before replacing it. Then he turned and rode away. After their harsh words, anyone might have supposed he was leaving, but Phoebe knew otherwise. He was not that kind of man.
It was not the first time she had watched him ride away, although on previous occasions he had always been in the grand company of his master, whose business took him from the Royal Court in a retinue to rival that of any other minister of state. The Duke was a powerful man in every sense. His men reflected this, and none more so than Sir Leo, able, intelligent, honest and with enough influence for his opinions to be heeded. A man in his position could not afford liaisons with any but the best-bred and best-regarded women, of whom Phoebe could not count herself one. The daughter of a goldsmith, given to bouts of imprudent behaviour, the subject of gossip and innuendo, beautiful, wealthy and under no man’s protection and therefore open to any kind of verbal criticism, whether deserved or not. No, she could never have won the approval of a man like him.
For her part, Phoebe had been no more immune to Sir Leo’s attractions than any other woman visiting the Royal Court but, unlike them, she had taken care never to let him know how he affected her, how she longed for a man like him to be her guardian, her lover, her powerful keeper. His reputation was linked to more mature women with faultless pedigrees, women of the Queen’s household whose lives were as peripatetic as his, who were unconcerned by his frequent departures to Scotland for months at a time. Even if she had not been so in awe of him, and afraid of her unreciprocated feelings for him, his long absences would have made it difficult for her to form any kind of relationship and, in any case, he had never shown any real interest in her or her friends.
Occasionally, she had seen him looking her way, mostly during those embarrassing moments when the loud laughter of her group or a silly prank had made her long to be a hundred miles away. Naturally, he would believe her to be an unsuitable addition to his circle of friends, and she would not give him the satisfaction of trying to convince him otherwise. The man had enough pride already. His disapproval showed in his curt bows when she passed by, in his glances and in his silence whenever they met in a stately dance. Their hands touched, but although she would have responded to any invitation to linger, she was never the one with whom he stayed to talk.
It had been at times like that when she had most resented the clinging company of Sir Piers Kelloway, a possessive young man with an overdeveloped sense of chivalry, almost medieval in its intensity, whose insistence in being wherever she was had at first been endearing, and then annoying. He had written her love poems, sung his verses to her, dogged her footsteps, took her part in arguments as if she could not do that herself; when a chance remark had come to his ears, he had passed it on to Phoebe with childlike innocence, then immediately had challenged the one who had made it—Sir Leo Hawkynne—to take back the remark and apologise, or to fight a duel of honour.
Deaf to all Phoebe’s pleading, the self-styled protector had been determined to play the part to the hilt, though he was well aware of Sir Leo’s reputation as one of England’s best swordsmen. Prepared to die for her, Sir Piers would not listen to reason, not to Phoebe’s, or his friends’, or to Sir Leo himself, who had declared he didn’t know what all the fuss was about since he’d only been stating an opinion that had nothing to do with anyone except himself and Mistress Laker, who must surely have heard such a thing before. Sir Piers was no friend of his, but neither was he an enemy, but there was nothing he could say to dissuade him except the apology he would not make. If the fool wanted to make an exhibition of himself, Sir Leo had said, then let him.
The Duchess’s information regarding Phoebe’s wild behaviour was out of date, since they had not met for at least two years, in spite of the few miles between them. The Duchess had been fully occupied in her new role as wife of one of England’s most senior ministers, in London at her Whitehall Palace apartment, or on her other estates and dealing with her massive building projects. Two years had sped past with little opportunity to exchange news. Had they seen each other oftener in a social context instead of all the near-misses of coming and going, Elizabeth would probably have noticed how Phoebe’s manner had swung so much in the opposite direction, since the scandal that had shocked their friends. Now, far from revolving in a wide circle of fawners and flatterers, she had gained a different reputation for being unattainable, bordering on aloofness. The scandal involving Sir Leo Hawkynne and Sir Piers Kelloway had affected her deeply and, without parents to advise her and the Duchess too often unavailable, Phoebe had reacted in the only way she knew, by overreacting.
It was only when the Du
chess’s guests began to assemble at around two o’clock for the main meal of the day that she saw a side of her beloved Phoebe that was unfamiliar to her. She had warned her husband to expect a certain amount of playful teasing and some coquetry. His first bluff greeting had offered Phoebe a chance to respond flirtatiously, but she had not responded. ‘Is she not weel?’ he said to his wife in a loud whisper. ‘I thought there’d be some fluttering o’ those lashes, at least.’
‘Oh, she’ll come round,’ said the Duchess. ‘I’ve placed her between Sir Geoffrey and Lord Salisport. She knows them both. She’ll warm up with them.’ But she was wrong. Phoebe did not warm up to anything like the degree her hostess had expected, for which she did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
On the other hand, Sir Leo had heard rumours of Phoebe’s sea-change and was curious to discover whether her aversion was to the male sex in general or only towards himself. Seated opposite her at the dining table, he noticed how seldom she smiled, how she responded to her companions very soberly, refusing their flirtations and not playing one off against the other as she would once have done. Nor had there been any fluttering of eyelashes. So, he thought, his information had not been wrong. From once being anybody’s, she was determined to be nobody’s, and if that sounded too much like overstating the case, blame it on his northern education that thrived on such masculine absurdities.
She had, in fact, never been anybody’s, for the only man to whom she would once have given herself, if she’d been asked, was the one whose insult had hurt her more than if all her friends combined had delivered it. He was the man who sat opposite her at the table, the one who would ever speak his mind in a roomful of sycophants, the one she would gladly run through with a sword, given half a chance. The strange thing was that, until today, she had barely exchanged a word with him.
Scandalous Innocent Page 2
