Persistent Earl : Signet Regency Romance (9781101578841)

by Eastwood, Gail

  She brushed an imaginary speck of dust from the deep gray skirt of her pelisse. The day was warm, and she was glad she had changed out of the black bombazine she had worn in the morning to the light muslin dress she wore now beneath the crepe overdress. “I was eighteen,” she answered. “More than ready. Some girls come out sooner.”

  “Ah yes,” he said with a chuckle that reminded her of how much she liked the sound. “Some families find that they cannot wait. I have always found that the age of the chit directly correlates to her family’s financial need—the younger they are, the worse off their parents.”

  “That is not a fair statement!” Phoebe exclaimed. “I thought you were the one who tried not to judge people. Sometimes a young girl is desperate to be married, and she all but bullies her parents into giving her an early come-out.”

  “Or sometimes she is too hard to handle, and the parents are desperate to palm her off onto someone else.”

  “Really! I can see you are quite embittered on the subject.”

  “I apologize if my remarks distress you. I have had too many young chits launched at my head, I suppose. I have grown weary of ducking them.”

  He gave her such a sheepish look that she had to laugh. “You make them sound like artillery missiles.”

  “They can be just as explosive and far more dangerous if they are truly determined,” he answered soberly. “What about you? Were you eager for your come-out? What sort of a husband did you hope to find?”

  “Well, I . . .” Phoebe hesitated, remembering a joyful, carefree young girl who had delighted in the beautiful swirl of social activity during her first Season. It all seemed such a long time ago, so far removed from present realities. That girl had been innocent and utterly, tragically blind. What could she say about it now? “I suppose I was—eager, that is,” she began woodenly. “I don’t think I had formed any particular expectations, however, about a husband. Then I met Stephen and nothing else mattered.”

  “You were married after a single Season?”

  “We announced our engagement at the end of it and were married the following February.”

  He looked at her with an oddly triumphant glint in his wide, not-so-innocent blue eyes. “You must be all of twenty-two, then.”

  She didn’t know what she had expected him to say, but it was hardly that. She was indignant and her voice rose a note or two. “Don’t you know it is highly improper to ask a lady her age?”

  He laughed. “I never asked you. I will admit that I outmaneuvered you, however. You should play more chess, so you will learn to anticipate other people’s strategy. You need to look farther ahead than simply one move at a time.”

  She wondered if their conversation was part of a larger strategy of his, and if it were, what his objectives could possibly be. She did not dare to ask him that. “I believe my chess game is passable,” she retorted instead. “I do not see life as a game between myself and a world full of adversaries, despite what you may think.”

  “A pity. I was going to offer to teach you.”

  “Are you such a skilled tutor, then?”

  He smiled rather coldly. “The Earls of Devenham and all their close relations are weaned on maneuvering other people.” He did not sound especially proud of the fact.

  They had long since reached the bench under the oak tree and had been standing in front of it continuing their conversation without sitting down. Devenham gestured now to Phoebe, asking her if she cared to sit. She guessed that he might need to, but she did not particularly wish to sit there beside him, so close. Pretending that she was not attracted to him was too difficult.

  She was just starting to shake her head when she heard the children’s cries of distress.

  “Henrietta! Oh, no, Henrietta! Come back!”

  With a sinking heart, Phoebe looked in their direction and saw just what she somehow had known she would see. Henrietta had escaped from the children and was running pell-mell toward her and Lord Devenham, the leash dragging crazily over the grass behind her.

  “I’ll get her,” the earl volunteered. He set his hat carefully on the bench.

  “But your leg!”

  “She’s naught but a fat little puppy,” he said with mock disdain. “On those little legs she shouldn’t be a match for even a lame man, especially when she’s already headed our way.”

  He went nobly forward to meet the little dog, but at the last minute Henrietta veered off and struck out in a new direction to Devenham’s left. Unfortunately for the earl, Henrietta had seen what he had not. A huge flock of birds had been feeding and resting on the grass in the area just beyond where he and Phoebe had stopped, and Henrietta was apparently convinced they were there just for her. Sounding joyful puppy barks as loudly as she could, she dashed into the midst of them, setting off a maelstrom of panicked fluttering. The noise was deafening as the birds cried in alarm and rose into the air.

  Phoebe did not hear Devenham’s own cry of alarm. She was alerted to his distress by what she saw. As he was enveloped in the swirling cloud of frightened birds, he dropped to his knees with his head bent, his hands covering his ears.

  “Lord Devenham! Oh, dear! What is the matter?” Phoebe shooed a few straggling birds out of her way as she hurried toward him.

  Most of the birds had taken shelter in the nearby trees where their continued cries and chatter could still be heard. Thoroughly disappointed, Henrietta had turned around and now intercepted Phoebe, bouncing up to her shamelessly and wagging her tail anew, quite unaware that she had done anything even slightly objectionable.

  “David, come and take her,” called Phoebe in exasperation as she captured the dog’s leash. To Henrietta she said sternly, “Go with David. Go!” She pointed to the approaching lad, hoping the dog would take the meaning. It was too late to scold the pup now. She all but threw the leash to David in her haste to turn back to the earl.

  She saw that he had not moved at all. “Lord Devenham, are you all right?” Clearly he was not. “Is it your leg?” She didn’t see how his leg, so much stronger now than it had been, could suddenly have given out on him. She realized that she was wasting her voice as she approached him, for he still had his hands over his ears, apparently frozen in place.

  Frozen. She suddenly remembered the morning in the schoolroom when he had helped to rescue Mrs. Finchley. He had frozen in place with his hands on her waist. She hadn’t understood then, but she thought she was beginning to now. She moved to him quickly and gently pulled his hands away from his head. “Lord Devenham,” she said in a voice that was warm with compassion.

  She did not quite know what to do with his hands this time. It would have been so simple if he were a child—she could have put his hands around her and given him the comfort of an embrace. As his head lifted and his eyes locked with hers, she did the only thing she could. She gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze and let them drop. “It isn’t your leg, is it? ’Tis the birds. I never guessed.”

  She noted that the color was slowly returning to his face, and that the children and Lizzie were quickly approaching with guilt, concern, and curiosity etched on theirs. “Everything is all right now,” she said, reassuring him gently as if he were a child. “Here come the others. We’ll let them think it was your leg. You can explain it to me later.”

  He nodded, a hopeful sign that he was recovering. “I don’t believe I can get up without assistance,” he said with a rueful expression.

  She smiled with relief. That seemed more like Devenham. As the others joined them she said, “Here, Lizzie, you must help me. He can’t get up.” She crouched down by his side and allowed him to place his arm over her shoulders. She motioned for the young nursery maid to do the same, and as they levered him up from the ground, he managed to get his feet back beneath him and stand.

  “Ladies, I thank you,” he said, sketching a bow. “How of
ten do you have the opportunity to aid a gentleman in distress?”

  Despite his attempt to achieve a teasing tone, Phoebe could hear in his voice that he was still terribly shaken.

  The children were all full of apologies as the little group made their way back to the carriage ride and waited for their landau to come in sight.

  “What do you have to apologize for?” a miserable David snapped at his siblings. “I’m the one who let go of the leash.”

  “But we all wanted to bring Henrietta to the park,” Dorrie said, determined to be equally miserable. “It’s all of our faults.”

  “And we all of us were playing with her. Maybe we made her too excited,” Thomas added.

  William stood silently, listening to the others, until suddenly tears started to run down his small cheeks. “It’s my fault,” he declared between sobs. “I was the one who most wanted a puppy.”

  Phoebe had heard enough. “Stop it, all four of you. What happened was no one’s fault, except possibly Henrietta’s, and we’re not blaming her either. She is only a puppy who doesn’t know any better than to go chasing birds. Lord Devenham is fine, and no harm was done—you can see for yourselves if you will only stop feeling guilty long enough to look about you.” She gave William a hug and fished in her reticule for a handkerchief.

  Devenham chimed in as if on cue. “That little episode was something of a surprise, but as your Aunt Phoebe says, you can see that I’m perfectly fit.”

  To illustrate his point, he set the tip of his cane carefully in the gravel and walked a tight circle around it. He doffed his hat and bowed nicely. It was a convincing performance, and only when he raised his eyes to meet Phoebe’s did she see that there was still something lingering there—a haunted, desperate look she would have described as a bleakness of expression if she had been pressed to name it. She smiled at him in gratitude for his support, hoping some of her warmth might help to dispel whatever it was.

  The ride back to Wigmore Street in the landau was accomplished for the most part in silence, punctuated by occasional snatches of conversation centered primarily on Henrietta. Phoebe’s mind was on Devenham, and since she could not easily look into his face, she focused on his hands.

  As his eyes had, they told her he was still shaken by what had happened. One clutched the silver knob at the top of his cane with unnecessary force, while the other maintained a tense grip on the edge of the squabs. His buff-colored cotton gloves fit like a second skin and did nothing to hide either the strength or the tension in those long, masculine fingers.

  Phoebe thought she had certainly misjudged him. After what she had seen today, she was convinced that the earl was not only unselfish but quite heroic. For some unknown reason, he had a fear of birds, yet he had climbed all those stairs to the schoolroom that day to help her and the children with Mrs. Finchley. She flinched from the memory of her angry words when she had determined he had bought Henrietta and had her delivered. She had actually accused him of trying to bribe his way into the children’s hearts. He hadn’t needed to, she reflected now, for they had taken to him naturally.

  He cared about others, whether he admitted it or not. She found that she could readily believe he had been a hero at Waterloo, despite his denials. And now she was curious to know why he worked so hard to make it seem otherwise. For it was surely his reputation more than his behavior that had made her distrustful of him.

  Upon arrival, Phoebe sent the children with Henrietta and Lizzie off into the upper reaches of the house with some vague instructions to get clean and change into fresh clothes. She exchanged a glance with the earl, thinking that they could both benefit by the same treatment after their outing, but she was afraid the chance to speak with him in private would be gone. She suggested they go into the drawing room.

  “So,” he said with a twisted half smile, “we shall end our afternoon’s adventure in the same room where we began it.” He was standing by the window, next to the gaming table that was laid out for chess.

  “I did not realize it would be quite so much of an adventure,” Phoebe replied. “I have only ventured into the park twice in a year and a half, and both times something extraordinary has happened. I don’t know whether it is enough to convince me to continue staying home, or to entice me to go more often, on the theory that I am missing a great deal.” She smiled to take away any possible sting he might find in her words. “Shall I ring for tea?”

  He shook his head. “I must apologize to you for what happened.” As if he found discussing it difficult, he moved away from the table and began to pace. His gaze was directed downward to the invisible path he followed back and forth.

  Phoebe sat down in the carved armchair near the fireplace. “You need not apologize,” she assured him. “As I told the children, what happened was no one’s fault.” She hesitated, wondering if she was right to push him to explain. “Have you always been afraid of birds?”

  A moment passed with no other sound than his footfalls across the patterned Turkey carpet onto the polished wood floor and back again. Finally, he began to speak in anguished tones.

  “I am sorry that you had to witness such idiocy. I have had a problem with that since I was a small boy.”

  “Something must have happened.”

  He stopped and lifted his gaze to the window, as if he could see through it back into his past. “Yes.”

  For a moment she thought he was not going to tell her. He fidgeted with his cane, rubbing the palm of his free hand over the smooth, round surface of its silver knob over and over again.

  “I don’t know how old I was when this happened, but I was quite young,” he said slowly. “I had followed my brother Jeremy up into the limestone hills behind our estate in Derbyshire. There are many caves, and we were exploring. I don’t think we had permission to be there, for we had no servants with us. Some of the caves we already knew well—some are even used by the locals for storage. But we went into one we did not know as well, or at least one I did not know.

  “We came to a place where the cave floor dropped down abruptly. Jeremy, being older, was big enough to climb back up, but I was not. Jeremy, being who he was, would not help me. ‘If you can’t climb back up by yourself, you’ll just have to stay there,’ he said, and he left me there.

  “We were far enough from the cave entrance that when he left with the lantern it was very dark. I was frightened, but I believed he would at least tell someone I was there.”

  A tone of bitterness had crept into Devenham’s voice. Instead of rubbing his cane knob, he now slapped his palm against it. “I was there for hours, and no one came. My dear brother told no one. If I was missed, no one knew where to look for me. I did not know if it was night or day, but it began to get very cold, and I began to hear noises around me that I knew I had not made. I had left off crying a while before that.”

  Phoebe shivered, horrified by the tale. She felt the cold as acutely as if she had been there, and she heard the coldness in Devenham’s voice.

  “To make a long story short, there were bats in the cave. There must have been hundreds—it seemed like thousands. As evening came on, of course, they awakened and began to fly about. In the darkness I was not sure what they were. They never touched me, naturally, but I did not know they would not. The sounds were terrifying to me. When I felt the air brush my skin as one flew especially near to me, I let out a scream that would have waked the dead.”

  He shrugged and turned finally to look at her. “That had both good and bad results.”

  Phoebe could not have said a word. There was a huge lump of sympathy stuck in her throat. She blinked back tears and put one hand to her mouth to stop its trembling.

  “The bad result was that, not surprisingly, my sudden loud noise disturbed all the rest of the bats that had not stirred yet. The sound of their shrieking and flapping wings was magnified in the cave, and still
haunts my worst nightmares. The sound of wings flapping reaches back through all the years that have passed and revives the terror of that little boy who still lives inside me somewhere.

  “The good result was that one of our tenant farmers who was taking a shortcut home from the local pub heard me scream. He was terrified, of course, but he went racing to the big house and informed my father that a hideous monster had taken up residence in one of the caves—that he had heard it with his own ears. My parents put two and two together, and confronted my brother. They sent up a rescue party to fetch me home.”

  Phoebe stood up and went to the earl. Not to offer him comfort at such a time went against everything in her nature, and she had already denied her first impulse at the park.

  He was standing absolutely still, one hand clutching his cane and the other at his side, clenched into a fist. Phoebe reached for the fisted hand and slipped her own hands around it. It was so much larger than her own that she needed both of hers to cover it.

  Devenham unclenched his fist and took one of Phoebe’s hands in his. He let the cane drop to the floor and put his other arm around Phoebe, easing her against his chest. They stood there quietly embracing, drawing warmth and comfort from each other’s nearness. Their hearts seemed to beat in unison.

  “Your parents did not come themselves to find you and comfort you?” Phoebe whispered.

  “Ah. My parents both believed that any son of theirs should be man enough to weather such an event without complaint.”

  “And did you?”

  “As best I could.”

  “Was your brother punished?”

  “Yes, for causing the tenant farmer to be frightened.”

  “That is terrible!”

  “Is it?” He pulled away from her a little and released her hand so that he could turn her face to look up at him. His hand slid up to cradle her cheek.

  Phoebe closed her eyes for a moment, savoring his touch. How good it felt to have a man holding her again! When she opened her eyes, she felt the sudden flood of something much stronger than sympathy flow through her veins as she gazed into the depths of his blue eyes. Her rapid pulse seemed to have risen into her ears.