by Merry Farmer
“If I have to,” Phoebe said, glaring at the door. The handle wouldn’t turn. The door was locked. She banged on it with her fist. “I demand to be let in,” she called out.
“Phoebe, darling,” Danny said, the barest hint of humor in his voice as he stepped up behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder.
He didn’t have a chance to go on. The door swung open, and a stiff man with grey hair and impeccably tailored livery stood in the doorway, both as greeting and clearly blocking her way. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“I’m here to see Lord Cosgrove,” Phoebe told the man, squaring her shoulders and drawing on wells of courage she didn’t know she had. “We both are.” She glanced to Danny behind her.
The doorman sniffed, barely showing any sort of emotion as he stared down his nose at both of them. “Women are not permitted here,” he said. His lip curled as he glanced to Danny and added, “Nor are street toughs.”
He attempted to shut the door without another word or glance, but Phoebe slammed her hand against the wood to prevent him.
“We will see Lord Cosgrove,” she demanded. “He has horrible crimes to answer for.”
“You will not,” the doorman said, pushing on the door.
Phoebe didn’t have the strength to stop him from slamming it, shutting her and Danny out without a further word. Fury more potent than any of the frustration she’d felt in the years since her father’s death boiled through her. She’d been made fun of, insulted, and tossed aside; she’d been dismissed by former acquaintances and shouted at by members of the May Flowers, but she’d never had a door literally slammed on her by a man who saw her as little better than a stray dog in the street.
“I have never been so insulted in my life,” she seethed.
“I have,” Danny said, reaching for her hand and leading her away from the door. “So much for the genteel manners and graciousness of the titled class, eh?”
It was a bitter pill to swallow. Her whole life, she’d believed she’d been born into privilege, but now she could see that that privilege was nothing more than bullying when put to bad use. It took far more than someone’s status in life and the family they’d come from to make them a good person.
“Come away, love,” Danny urged her, slipping a hand to her waist and escorting her back to the street. “We don’t need them anyhow.”
They started back the way they’d come, but before they got more than a few paces, one of the windows on the ground floor of the club flew open.
“Good gracious, Lady Phoebe. What are you doing with an oaf like that on a morning as lovely as this?” Lord Cosgrove said, sticking his head and shoulders out the window.
Phoebe nearly saw red. She marched to stand directly under the window, facing Lord Cosgrove, “You, sir, are a villain of the worst sort,” she shot up at him.
Lord Cosgrove had the audacity to look affronted by her comment. “Me, my lady? Why, what have I done but shown you utmost kindness and consideration?”
“You have shown me nothing of the sort. You have egregiously wounded my dear friend, Mr. Long, by burning down his pub,” Phoebe shouted back at him, not caring how many people on the street around her were staring at her in alarm.
Lord Cosgrove looked just as alarmed. “I am wounded by your unfounded accusation, Lady Phoebe,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest. “As you well know, I was in attendance at Lady O’Shea’s ball last evening.”
“It was Danny’s ball,” Phoebe seethed.
“And I have several sources that can confirm I went straight home at midnight, slept like an angel, and came here first thing this morning,” Lord Cosgrove ignored her. Several grey-haired old men just behind him in the room hummed and guffawed in agreement. “So you see,” Lord Cosgrove continued, “there is no way I could have set fire to anything. And why would I concern myself with a pub.” He sniffed.
“You know damn well why,” Danny growled, standing protectively behind Phoebe. “And you didn’t have to light the fire yourself to be responsible. Your men were seen. You left a note.”
“Did I?” Lord Cosgrove blinked innocently. “That doesn’t sound like me at all. I haven’t written a note or a letter since my dear mama died these twenty years ago.”
The men in the club behind him laughed at the joke.
Phoebe was ready to scream in frustration. “You will not get away with this,” she said, as furious as she was helpless.
“Lady Phoebe,” Lord Cosgrove said in a condescending tone, utterly ignoring her threat. “It would seem that you are in dire need of being rescued. That blackguard clearly has you in his clutches and has poisoned your mind. Please, consider my suit. My offer of marriage still stands. I would gladly swoop in, like your knight in shining armor, and rescue you from the clutches of a devil like him.” He wrinkled his nose as though Danny stank and nodded at him.
Danny might still have smelled of smoke, but it was the scent of a man who had been wronged and who had worked until his hands bled to save something that was really and truly his. Men like Lord Cosgrove inherited their land and lived like leeches off of it. Danny had inherited his pub and poured his blood, sweat, and tears into it to make it and his other properties better.
“I know who the beast is in this scenario,” she said, tilting her chin up and standing with pride and, she hoped, grace. “It is not Mr. Long.”
“If ever you need—”
“I would no more marry you than I would marry a sea serpent,” she cut Lord Cosgrove off before he could spout anymore nonsense. “You can offer me nothing, whereas Danny can offer me everything.”
Her deliberate use of Danny’s given name caused Lord Cosgrove to blanche. A moment later, his expression took on a bitterness that twisted his features into ugliness. “Suit yourself,” he sniffed, leaning back into the room. “I shall not be responsible for the consequences.”
Without another word, he slammed the window shut and disappeared deeper into the room.
“That went well,” Danny said with deadly humor.
Phoebe didn’t even crack a smile. She turned away from the club, taking Danny’s hand and marching along the street. “If he wants a fight,” she said, “then we will give him one.”
Chapter 13
“It’s tragic, simply tragic,” Phoebe’s mother said several days later as she glanced out one of the large windows of their flat at the charred remains of The Watchman pub. “It’s absolutely pitiable.”
Phoebe was in more of a hurry than usual, buttoning her high collar and searching the main room of the flat for her purse as she rushed to get ready for work. “Yes, Mama. It is a terrible tragedy that Mr. Long’s pub was destroyed.”
Her mother turned away from the window, the frills of her morning robe flapping as she did. “No, not that. Although that is terribly sad in its own right.”
Phoebe eyed her mother askance. “Then what?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“It’s a tragedy that the smell of smoke now pervades everything I own,” her mother said.
Phoebe sighed and rolled her eyes. She had neither the time nor the patience to deal with her mother’s arrogance. She found her purse and started toward the coat rack beside the door. The only thing that prevented her from chastising her mother outright was the fact that Mr. Waters had expressed his concern to Phoebe just the day before that she had the faint whiff of a fireplace about her.
All the same, her mother huffed and went on with, “You’ve no idea how embarrassing it is to take a pleasant stroll in Hyde Park with one’s friends while smelling of smoke.”
Phoebe reached for the door handle, but paused and turned back to her mother. “Is Lady Denbigh speaking to you again?”
“What?” Her mother looked both offended and intrigued by the idea. “Heavens, no,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I was referring to Lord Cosgrove.”
Phoebe’s heart dropped to her stomach. She stepped away from the door, storming across the flat to glower at her mother.
“Mama, how could you, in good conscience, spend a single moment of time with that despicable arsonist after what he did to Mr. Long?”
Her mother reeled back, nearly toppling into her chair at the table by the window. “Good heavens, Phoebe. How could you stoop to make such an accusation of such a fine man as Lord Cosgrove? And when he has so generously offered for your hand when no other man will.”
Phoebe’s mouth dropped open, but her indignation was so fiery that it took a moment for her to sort through the wealth of offensive things her mother spewed to find an answer. “Lord Cosgrove all but left his calling card at the scene of the fire, Mama. He is guilty. And for the last time, I have no intention of marrying him. Ever.”
“But he’s a viscount,” her mother argued.
“I don’t care if he’s the bloody King of Siam.” Phoebe jerked away from her mother, marching to the door.
“Mind your tongue, girl,” her mother called after her. “You’ve been spending too much time in company with that Mr. Long. He’s corrupted you thoroughly. And no well-born man will want to marry a woman who has been corrupted.”
Phoebe’s face flared hot at her mother’s words. On the one hand, she was absolutely correct. Danny had corrupted her thoroughly. More thoroughly than her mother could ever know. One night of passion and bliss was bad enough, but she’d utterly thrown caution to the wind and crept up to Danny’s flat just the night before for a repeat performance. She’d told herself that Danny was heartbroken over the loss of his pub and that he needed comfort, but if she were honest with herself, that was merely an excuse for what she wanted. And what she’d wanted was to be naked and free, wrapped around Danny’s powerful body, with him hard and thick inside of her. He’d given her exactly what she wanted and more.
But the deeper reason that she blushed and sped from the apartment without addressing her mother’s accusations was because she knew deep down in her soul that if Danny would ask her to marry him, she would say yes without hesitation. Nothing would have made her heart happier than to be Mrs. Danny Long. Her. The daughter of a marquess, who had been presented to Queen Victoria at her coming out and who had been offered up as a potential bride for men of title and standing. She thrilled at the idea of marrying a low-born pub owner who spoke too loud, laughed too heartily, and who had made a spectacle of himself in front of high society.
She loved him. That thought put a smile on her face as she marched across Oxford Street, skirting the grand houses of Mayfair, on her way to Harrods. She loved Danny Long to a degree that was almost ridiculous. She’d given her body to him joyfully, in spite of having the wickedness of such a thing drummed into her from earliest youth. He made her smile when she was at her lowest. He made her feel as though it didn’t matter who her father was or what he had done, she was worthy of love and acceptance. She was loved.
“You’re late, Miss Darlington,” Mr. Waters said as Phoebe finally took up her position at the glove counter after speeding through preparations in the ladies’ dressing room once she arrived at work. He took a small pocket watch from the pocket of his waistcoat and checked just to be certain. “Ten minutes late.”
Phoebe breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been afraid she would be twice as late after her mother’s shocking revelations. She’d made up part of that time on the walk to work.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Waters,” she said, eyes downcast in spite of knowing how much Danny detested when she looked that way. Where Mr. Waters was concerned, an act of contrition went a long way, so she used that fact to save her skin. “My mother was poorly this morning, but I raced here as quickly as I could.” She also knew that Mr. Waters had a weak spot for mothers, seeing as he’d adored his own, who had passed away shortly after Phoebe had been hired.
Sure enough, sympathy, and a certain amount of grief, softened Mr. Waters’s features. “Understood, Miss Darlington. Just see that it doesn’t happen again.”
“No, sir.” Phoebe added a curtsy that would have made the Prince of Wales proud.
As soon as Mr. Waters left, Phoebe blew out a breath and set to work, readying her station for the moment when the shop’s doors opened. A strange sense of pride came over her as she straightened up rows of gloves in their trays, added the newly-arrived stock from the boxes that had been stored under her counter to the display, and dusted the shelves behind her. She wondered if the maids who had worked in her father’s country estate in Herefordshire had taken as much pride in her work.
That thought led her into wondering how those maids were fairing, how the entire staff of Credenhill Grange was faring, as the first customers began to drift down the aisle, perusing everything the shop had to offer. She’d loved Credenhill Grange, had grown up there. The estate was beautiful and filled with the only happy memories of her childhood. Her father’s transgressions had mostly involved London, so the country estate had always felt like a refuge. She had no idea what had become of it now. It had likely been entailed away to some distant, male relative, or sold to pay off the last of her father’s debts. Her mother had been too distressed and distracted to make inquiries of her father’s solicitor—not to mention blanching at the idea that she, a woman, should have anything to do with something as masculine as business—and Phoebe hadn’t dreamed she could make those inquiries herself. Not as an unwed daughter with no friends and no help from any quarter.
She wasn’t that same, lost, weak woman she’d once been now, though. And she had friends. Perhaps Danny could help her search out her father’s solicitor to determine what had happened to the estate. Though it would break her heart if it had fallen into the hands of someone who didn’t care and hadn’t maintained it. Perhaps if she—
“There she is, Maude,” Lady Jane’s voice shook Phoebe out of her conflicted thoughts. “The starlet of the hour.”
Phoebe clenched her jaw and took a deep breath, steeling herself to face Lady Jane and Lady Maude yet again. The gorgons seemed to have nothing better to do anymore than to pester Phoebe at work.
“Good morning, Lady Jane, Lady Maude,” she greeted them with a smile that was little more than her gritting her teeth. “How may I help you today?”
The two ladies exchanged wicked looks, sending dread straight to the pit of Phoebe’s stomach. Lady Jane held a journal of some sort that was printed on pink-tinged paper. The snakes in Phoebe’s stomach writhed harder. She had a sinking feeling she knew exactly which periodical Lady Jane had.
Lady Maude, tilted her nose up and surveyed Phoebe as though picking out a race-horse to bet on. “Yes, the resemblance is unmistakable. It’s her, all right.”
Phoebe shrugged as casually as she could. “I’ve never pretended to be anything other than who I am.”
Lady Jane ignored her, unfolding the journal and clearing her throat before reading a passage. “Lady X was a vision of false innocence. The angelic gleam of her blond hair stood in direct contrast to her sensual mouth and tempting figure. The way she swept through the ballroom, all purpose and energy, would have been irresistible to even the most staid of men. But the impostor was not bound by rules of society or propriety. He followed her with a wolfish gleam in his eyes, knowing that he would have her by the end of the evening.”
Lady Jane lowered the periodical and smirked at Phoebe. “I wonder if the other descriptions given in the story are as accurate.”
Phoebe swallowed, a tremor forming inside of her. “May I see?” she asked, cursing the crack in her voice, as she held out her hand for the journal.
Lady Jane looked reluctant to hand the paper over until Lady Maude said, “Oh, give it to her. I want to see her face when she finds out she’s been exposed.” She added extra emphasis to the final word, along with a gloating grin.
Lady Jane sniffed and handed the journal to Phoebe. “I want that back.”
Phoebe ignored her, poring over the page Lady Jane had been reading from. It was near the beginning of what appeared to be a serialized story. Along with a description of a ball and of a leading lady
that seemed very much like her, the page described a man that was undoubtedly Danny. Phoebe scanned further along the story to find exactly what she expected to find—a shockingly erotic account of passion…that wasn’t entirely unlike what had actually occurred between her and Danny after the ball.
She flipped back to the first page of the journal, unsurprised to find herself holding the latest edition of Nocturne. Her curiosity about the sensational journal flared into a sense of anxiety. So she and Danny were the latest victims of the unknown author’s fantasies, were they?
She feigned indifference as she handed the paper back to Lady Jane. “I’m surprised that you’ve corrupted your morals to the point of reading erotica and flashing it about in public as though it were a moralizing pamphlet.”
Lady Jane’s smirk vanished and Lady Maude’s smugness turned to disappointment.
“You know that’s you and that horrid beast from Lady O’Shea’s ball the other night,” Lady Maude said.
Phoebe shrugged. “It could be anyone. The details are vague at best.” They weren’t, but Phoebe wasn’t about to let on that she and Danny had, in a way, been discovered. “I don’t concern myself with wickedness like this.”
As soon as Lady Jane took her paper back, Phoebe busied herself tidying trays of already neat gloves. Both Lady Jane and Lady Maude looked painfully disappointed in her reaction.
“You realize your reputation will be destroyed because of this,” Lady Jane said.
Phoebe glanced back to her with a sharp laugh. She held her hands to her sides, glancing around her area of the shop. “What reputation? Any standing I had with your lot evaporated years ago. Don’t you agree?”
Lady Jane looked downright bitter at that thought. “Well,” she sniffed, tucking the salacious journal under her arm. “I simply thought you would like to know what is being said about you and that man after your performance at Lady O’Shea’s ball.”
