by Merry Farmer
“Oh, how scrumptious,” Miss Garrett said, clapping her hands together. Suddenly, it seemed as though she didn’t want to leave them all alone after all.
“How dare you, sir?” Lord Cosgrove practically shook as he glared at Danny. “You are not worthy to pick up Lady Phoebe’s handkerchief, let alone marry her.”
“That’s not what Phoebe thinks, do you, love.” Danny winked at her.
Phoebe was reasonably certain she’d stepped through the looking glass into a mad, new world—a world where pub owners with low-born accents flirted with daughters of marquesses and winked at them in company. Worlds where ladies worked as shop girls and working class men were granted land development deals by parliament. Where American heiresses hosted tea parties and plotted with country gentlemen while their fiancés looked on without seeming to care. The world of order and propriety she’d known as a girl was completely gone, and she wasn’t sure she knew what to do with the new world she found herself in.
“I will marry whomever I wish to marry,” she said, squaring her shoulders and summoning as much of her pride as she had left. She glanced from Danny to Lord Cosgrove. “I will command my own destiny.”
“That’s right, love, you will.” Danny nodded sharply.
“And who are you to speak thusly to a lady of Lady Phoebe’s standing?” Lord Cosgrove demanded.
“We truly shouldn’t be here,” Miss Garrett whispered to Mr. Mercer over to the side.
“I’m not about to leave,” Mr. Mercer muttered to her in return.
“I am the man who can make her happy,” Danny said, turning to confront Lord Cosgrove. “And by the end of tomorrow afternoon, I am going to be Parliament’s choice to develop the land in Earl’s Court. Not you.”
Lord Cosgrove bristled. “Can you be so sure?”
“On which account?” Danny asked. “Because I think we both know who Phoebe would choose between the two of us.”
Lord Cosgrove flinched as though offended, but looked as though he, too, knew which way the wind was blowing on that score. “How can you be so sure you’ll win the development deal?” he demanded instead.
A shrewd, almost frightening grin pulled at one side of Danny’s mouth. “I want to make a deal with you, Cosgrove,” he said in an ominous voice.
Phoebe’s stomach flipped at the way he spoke, and she raised a hand to press against the butterflies that were beginning to rage.
“What sort of a deal?” Lord Cosgrove asked, eyes narrowed.
Danny glanced around at Phoebe, Miss Garrett, Mr. Mercer, and Lord Harrington, all of whom watched him as though witnessing a drama. “Everyone here knows you ordered the fire that destroyed my pub,” he said.
Lord Cosgrove turned a disturbing shade of puce. “You can’t prove it.”
“Can’t I?” Danny arched one eyebrow.
“I…I was so careful,” Lord Cosgrove whimpered.
“I will make a deal with you,” Danny went on, his smile growing. “I will drop any efforts to investigate the arson, and I will never tell another soul as long as I live that you were responsible.”
Lord Cosgrove blinked. “Truly?”
“If you drop your bid for the land development contract in Earl’s Court,” Danny finished.
Phoebe’s eyes went wide. She gaped at Danny, marveling at how easily, and apparently callously, he could drop his quest for justice.
“It’s a deal,” Lord Cosgrove answered immediately.
Phoebe turned her gape on him. “You would give up on your pursuit of the development deal so readily?” she asked Lord Cosgrove with as much incredulity as she wanted to ask Danny how he could give up on his pub.
“Shake on it,” Danny demanded, thrusting out his hand.
Lord Cosgrove winced, then took Danny’s hand. The two of them shook on the deal, looking as though they were each trying to crush the bones in the other’s hand. “I will send word to the parliamentary committee immediately, telling them I wish to focus on my family’s holdings instead of developing land in London.”
“And I will pen a note to my friend, Lord Clerkenwell, at Scotland Yard to let him know the coppers won’t need to bother with the investigation into the arson,” Danny said.
Lord Cosgrove blanched the way a man might if the ship next to his had been exploded by cannon-fire while leaving his unscathed. Phoebe was more surprised by the fact that Danny had managed to get Lord Clerkenwell to open an investigation into the fire after all, in spite of it being deemed unimportant the last time she’d heard of the matter. Unless Danny were bluffing. She simply didn’t know anymore. Men and their business dealings were enough to give her a raging headache.
“There,” Danny said, his usual, cheeky grin returning. “I’m glad that’s settled.”
Rather than looking cowed and defeated, Lord Cosgrove grinned right along with him. “You truly are a mercenary bugger, aren’t you?” he said slyly.
“In business, yes I am,” Danny admitted.
“In your choice of a bride too,” Cosgrove went on, glancing to Phoebe. “My solicitor, Mr. Grey, tells me that his assistant, a Mr. Healy, received a call from one Lionel Mercer and you, Mr. Long, just last week, and that you made inquiries about a certain will.”
Phoebe’s confusion doubled, particularly when Danny suddenly looked more anxious than she’d ever seen him. He stole a sideways glance at her.
“So you must, of course, have learned about the conditions of Lord Darlington’s will where it concerns his daughter’s inheritance,” Lord Cosgrove went on.
“I have no inheritance,” Phoebe said. “Father left me and Mama nothing but debts.” She was suddenly uncertain of the one thing that had guided her life for the past several years, as underscored by the smug look Lord Cosgrove wore and Danny’s equally guilty look.
“Are you so very certain of that?” Lord Cosgrove said, his grin widening. He glanced to Danny as if he’d won the contest after all.
“I….” Phoebe couldn’t say that she was. She’d been so busy trying to put a roof over her and her mother’s heads and food on their plates for the last few years that she hadn’t had time to question the way Mr. Grey had never fully answered her questions regarding the execution of her father’s estate. She’d left the matter to her mother and trusted that her mother would handle things.
She’d been an utter fool.
“I have an inheritance after all?” she asked, blinking and feeling vaguely sick at the notion. At least, sick that she hadn’t done more to find out about it earlier.
“Your father left you his estate in Herefordshire,” Lord Cosgrove informed her.
“But the estate is entailed away,” Phoebe said, feeling light-headed.
“No, it isn’t,” Danny told her, looking far guiltier than she was comfortable with.
“Not only is it not entailed away,” Lord Cosgrove went on, “it belongs explicitly to you under the terms of your father’s will. Unless you marry, of course. Then it goes to your husband.”
Phoebe sucked in a breath, her heart pounding against her ribs. As much as she didn’t want it to, everything suddenly made sense. Lord Cosgrove’s interest in marrying her had nothing to do with his care of her in particular. As her father’s friend, he must have known about the conditions of the will and the estate. Beyond that, he must have felt that he could use the profits from the estate to finance whatever developments he’d planned for Earl’s Court, thus increasing his money. But if she married Danny, which Danny had announced she would, he wouldn’t have the capital for any sort of land development. Backing out of the Earl’s Court deal wasn’t a concession to Danny’s threat to bring him up on charges of arson, it would enable him to save face.
And as for Danny….
“You have always said that you dislike the way you’re treated because of your birth,” she said, barely above a whisper. “But marrying a titled heiress, inheriting an estate in the country, would change all that.”
“No,” Danny growled. “That’s not—�
�� He huffed out a breath through his nose, lowering his head and rubbing a hand over his face.
“Did you know before you proposed to me?” she asked, her voice shaking. She already knew the answer, as much as she wished she didn’t, but she needed to hear him admit it.
“Not because of your inheritance,” he insisted, though his face had gone bright red. “Phoebe, I love you, and I would marry you if you were a match-girl without a single friend in the world. You are the sun and the moon to me.” He reached for her hands.
Phoebe pulled her hands away the moment he brushed them, taking a large step back and nearly knocking into Miss Garrett—who continued to watch the scene unfold with wide eyes. “I don’t know what to think,” she whispered. Her heart told her one thing, but her pride insisted on another.
“You know that I will always stand by your side, Lady Phoebe,” Lord Cosgrove said imperiously. “As a friend of your father’s, and of your dear mother’s, not to mention a fellow member of the aristocracy—” he shot a peevish look at Danny, “—I will always offer you help and solace wherever I can.”
Phoebe glanced up at him, indignant that he would still press whatever excuse for a suit he had when she was in the middle of a crisis. She shook her head and took another step back. “I cannot face this mad situation right now,” she said, frowning at Lord Cosgrove, then meeting Danny’s eyes. “I need to think.”
She turned and started out of the room.
“Phoebe,” Danny called after her, jogging to catch up.
Phoebe stopped, turning to him and holding up her hands to ward him off. “Give me some space to think,” she told him.
Danny’s mouth hung open, but he didn’t say anything. Finally, he closed his mouth and let his shoulders drop. “All right,” he said, taking a step back.
Phoebe stared at him for a long, lingering moment, then turned and fled the room, no idea what she would do with her life taking yet another strange twist.
Chapter 18
He’d gone and mucked up the best thing that had ever happened in his life. Danny was as certain of that as he was that Cosgrove would try another underhanded trick to yank the Earl’s Court deal right out from under him. There was no point in loitering around Hopewell House once Phoebe was gone, so he made the politest goodbyes he could and stormed sullenly out into the streets of Mayfair. His mood was so rotten as he headed back to Fitzrovia that refined ladies and frightened children jumped out of his way, as if he were a bear that had been let loose in London.
He had to speak to Phoebe, to explain why he hadn’t told her what he’d learned about her inheritance sooner. He needed to explain his own fortune and all the reasons why marrying her wouldn’t be the mercenary act Cosgrove had painted it to be. It was long past time for him to stop teasing Phoebe by letting her persist in thinking he was nothing more than a pub owner and landlord. Except now that she believed he’d been devious about her inheritance, God only knew what she would think of him for conveniently hiding the full truth of who he really was.
“Phoebe?” He banged on the door to her flat once he made it back to Fitzrovia. “Phoebe, we need to talk,” He banged again, then paused to consider that complaints about his brutish exuberance were what had sparked their earlier argument. He knocked more sedately and softened his voice to say, “Phoebe, please let me in.”
The door across the hall opened and Mrs. Washburn, another of his tenants, popped her head out. “They’re not at home,” she said.
“They’re not?” Danny’s heart sank.
“The old one was all giddy about meeting up with a gent who wanted to discuss a proposal. And Miss Darlington had work, I believe.”
Danny’s heart twisted in alarm. “Thanks,” he told Mrs. Washburn, then charged down the hall to the stairs. Leave it to Phoebe’s mother to get wind of trouble between him and Phoebe right away. The proposal she had to discuss could only be the same, tired drivel of Phoebe and Cosgrove. Thank God Phoebe had made her feelings on that score abundantly clear to Cosgrove.
But as he strode down to Oxford Street, hailing a cab to take him to Harrods faster, doubts crept up on him. Phoebe had a mind of her own. She’d changed from a defeated dove to a woman of strength, even in the short time he’d known her. He could see her doing whatever it took to conquer the world that had once rejected her. Could that extend to marrying Cosgrove after all?
He couldn’t entertain the thought, even though it continued to poke at the back of his mind. His cab reached Harrods, and he leapt out, overpaying the driver, and charged into the shop. He turned heads as he charged through the outer departments to the aisle of counters selling ladies’ finery, where Phoebe worked. But the young woman behind the glove counter was not Phoebe.
“Where is she?” he asked, spinning in a circle and looking everywhere he could, as if she would pop out of the woodwork. Shoppers and staff alike flinched at his frantic energy and backed away from him. “Where is Phoebe?”
“She came in for a few minutes,” the young woman behind a counter selling handkerchiefs said. “But she didn’t stay.”
“Dory had to rush in from hosiery to fill in for her,” another young shop girl said.
The nest of anxiety in Danny’s gut grew. It didn’t help that Phoebe’s pinched-faced manager, Mr. Waters, showed up on the scene.
“Can I help you?” he asked with a sniff, glancing down his nose at Danny, even though Danny was taller.
“I was looking for Phoebe,” Danny said, annoyed, but without the patience to either play along with the man’s assumptions about him or assume a superior air and put the man in his place.
“Miss Darlington is on probation,” Mr. Waters said with a sneer.
The imperiousness of the way the man spoke shifted Danny from anxious to defensive on Phoebe’s behalf. “What do you mean, probation?” he demanded.
“She failed to work her shift today,” Mr. Waters said. “And she begged off on her shift tomorrow. She said she had a desperate family matter to attend to. That is the only reason I did not sack her on the spot. That, and the fact that she is one of my best girls.”
Danny cringed at the way the man spoke, but he didn’t have time to call him out for it. “Where is she now?” he asked, shoving a hand through his hair and already planning how he would fly to her.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Waters answered peevishly. “I do not track the personal lives of my staff like—”
Danny launched away from the man, no interest at all in anything he might say. He left Harrods and walked home, hoping to catch a glimpse of Phoebe somewhere in Mayfair or along Oxford Street as he went. He thought of searching through Hyde Park, pounding on the doors of every former friend she’d had, even going to Cosgrove’s house and demanding to know whether the man had plans to marry Phoebe just to spite him.
In the end, all he could do was drag his exhausted body and troubled mind home. The sun was beginning to set by the time he made it to his flat. He’d tried knocking on Phoebe’s door again, but still received no answer. All he could do was fix himself a pathetic supper from the bits and pieces he had lying around his flat, strip off his rumpled and soiled clothes, and flop into bed. Even then, he did nothing more than spend a restless night tossing and turning, worrying about what Phoebe must think of him, and plotting ways he could redeem himself in her eyes.
He was an utter mess the next morning. His head pounded, and dark circles made his eyes appear sunken. It was the morning of the hearing before the parliamentary committee for land development, though, and if he wanted to make a good impression on the men who would, he hoped, barring last minute hijinks by Cosgrove, award him a deal that would both enrich him and give Dandie’s friends a safe place to live, he had to make a good impression. He forced himself to dress with care, shave, and groom himself to look like an enterprising businessman, even though his heart was no longer in it.
In a last-ditch attempt to make things right, he stopped by Phoebe’s apartment on his way to the hearing.
> “Phoebe?” he called through the door with what he considered amazing restraint, knocking instead of banging. “Are you there?”
To his surprise, the door flew open, and Phoebe stood there, eyes wide, as though she were surprised to see him. “Danny,” she said in a flat tone.
He drank her in with a glance, his heart squeezing anxiously at what he saw. She would always be beautiful to him, but she looked a little worse for wear. Her face was wan and her eyes slightly red, as though she’d been crying, or as if she hadn’t slept either. Her hair was arranged in a perfect, elaborate style, though, and she wore one of her finer gowns.
“Danny?” she asked when he’d done nothing but gaze at her for too long. “What do you want?”
Everything within him wanted to answer, “You,” and to sweep her into his arms for a kiss that would change her mind about his boorishness and villainy—if, indeed, that was what she thought of him now—and make her want to spend the rest of her life with him.
“I…I’m on my way to the parliamentary hearing,” he said instead, insides twisting awkwardly over how sheepish he felt.
“Good luck, then,” Phoebe said.
She stepped back and attempted to shut the door on him.
Danny’s heart nearly broke at the gesture. He wedged his foot into the doorway and slapped his hand against the door to keep it from shutting. “Please don’t shut me out,” he said.
She sighed heavily and stepped deeper into the room, allowing him to walk into the flat behind her. Phoebe’s flat was always well-kept, but there seemed to be more dishes waiting to be washed on the counter that he could see through the kitchen door, and for some reason, her mother had what looked like every gown she owned strewn across the furnishings in the main room and was fussing over them.
Phoebe’s mother glanced up from her fluttering and gasped, “He cannot be here,” glaring at Danny. “Not now. Not when…when we have so much to do.” She glanced covertly at Phoebe.
