“Phoebe!”
Her heart leapt, tripping in her chest much like she imagined a rabbit’s would when surprised by a fox. She glanced over her shoulder and sure enough, Malcolm was in pursuit, only steps from her.
She stopped, turning to face him with her best admonishing scowl. “I told you not to sneak up on me.”
Malcolm came to a halt, too. His chest rose and fell quickly, air leaving his lips in great white puffs. “I was hardly sneaking,” he countered. “Surely you heard the heavy breathing. And the pounding footfalls. Or at the very least, the grumbling of the poor souls I shouldered out of my way in my rush to get to you.” One side of his mouth lifted in the half grin she remembered so well, and her heart tripped even faster.
Lud, he was still beautiful. The years had changed him, outwardly at least. His features were sharper, leaner. His shoulders seemed wider. The dimple in his chin was more pronounced even amidst his afternoon stubble.
But his short dark hair was still given to curl, especially after he’d exerted himself. His straight Roman nose still flared just enough at the bottom to be the perfect counterpoint to his long square jaw. And his eyes—they were still the most intense green she’d ever seen outside of nature. They reminded her of the striking center of an amaryllis—the verdant shade startling in contrast to the flower’s white-and-scarlet petals.
“Why did you dash off like that?”
She blinked at his question. She’d fled because she’d been overwhelmed by her feelings—old painful ones washed over by newer vexing ones. But she wasn’t about to share that with him.
“Why did you follow me?” she countered. She could think of no reason.
He reached into the pocket of his overcoat. “You dropped something.” He pulled out a folded paper.
Her hand dove inside her cloak, patting at her inner dress pocket, but only her petticoats crinkled within. “Oh!” she said, grabbing the square of parchment from his gloved hand. She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you for returning it to me.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied. “Who is P.A. Ellison?”
Her eyes shot to his. “No—no one,” she got out as she shoved the souvenir into her skirts.
“No one?” A dark brow winged above his piercing stare.
“Just a friend,” she muttered, looking away. She would not open her dreams to him, nor make herself vulnerable to him ever again.
“Hmm. You seem awfully attached to that scrap of paper for him to be ‘just a friend’,” he teased, but she heard the question in his voice.
He thought P.A. Ellison was a man? Well, of course. That was the point, wasn’t it? Still... “It’s really none of your concern.”
“I see,” he said, drawing out the last word in a way that made her wonder just what he thought he saw. “You never answered my question. Why did you rush off so quickly?” He cast her a sly glance. “To meet a ‘friend,’ I suppose?”
“Indeed,” she said pertly, gratified when his sly glance widened to a surprised stare. She let the silence stretch a beat or two before clarifying. “Friends, actually. I became separated from my party,” she fibbed. “And I really must catch up with them before they get too far ahead. Good day again, Malcolm.”
She’d only gotten two steps away when his arm slipped inside hers. “Allow me to accompany you, then. Just until you find your friends, that is.”
She tugged at her arm. “That really isn’t necessary—”
“Oh, but it is,” Malcolm said. “No telling what rabble runs in this crowd.” He spanned the field of ramshackle booths and tents with his free arm. Laughter burst from a temporary pub, a bit too loud and lusty for the middle of the day. “Gin and ale flow freely here, and as the afternoon wears on to evening, it’s bound to get only more raucous. I can’t very well leave you alone.”
“Really—”
“No, Pheebs.”
She barely held in a growl of frustration. Where was his concern for her five years ago? Then she would have appreciated it.
But now, she wanted nothing more than to be left alone. By him. By her father. By any man who thought to tell her what she could or could not do.
She leveled her best glare on him.
It didn’t seem to move him in the least.
God save her from a gentleman who thought he was protecting a lady. The battle wouldn’t be worth the little bit of time she’d have to spend in his company. “What time is it?” she asked on a sigh.
He looked strangely at her, but reached into his waistcoat and pulled out his fob watch. “Nearly three of the clock.”
Which meant she needed to stay here at least another hour before she could safely go home anyway. And no matter how bothersome Malcolm could be, he was infinitely better than Mr. Jones. Or her father, for that matter.
But she had no intention of making it easy for him. She knew just how to tweak his nose for being so high handed, and if she gained a spot of revenge for what had happened five years ago, all the better.
She tucked her hand into his elbow. “Fine. Come on then,” she said, tugging him toward the carnival amusements.
Chapter Three
“You want to do that?” Malcolm stared dubiously up at the massive swings that had been erected on the ice. The bodies of old carriages and boats had been strung with ropes and suspended on wooden frames that resembled nothing more than the letter A. Some were low to the ground, but others were rather high. Squeals of laughter—and terror, he suspected—rang from the riders, who were sent sailing between burly men with arms the size of his thighs.
“I do,” Phoebe said.
He’d never been one for heights. Surely she remembered that. He eyed her, but she gave him a smile that was as innocent as pie.
“Now pay the man, if you please.”
Cheeky wench. “I’m not in the habit of paying to do things which might kill me,” he grumbled, reaching into his pocket nonetheless and handing over coins for both of them.
“Of course you are,” she replied, her eyes on the adventure ahead. “You buy liquor, do you not? Horseflesh? Sporting rifles? Any one of those things can kill you, and I daresay none of them are as fun as this promises to be.”
“On the contrary, each of those activities is quite fun—not that I expect you would have much experience with them. Unless you’ve taken to tippling the sherry... Are you foxed, then?”
She huffed, but the corners of her lips tipped up. “No.”
“Pity. That would at least excuse your desire to board this contraption. Now I can only conclude that you are mad.”
She did laugh then. “You aren’t the first to think that, and doubtless won’t be the last.”
“Now that I believe,” he said, covering his upper arm with his other hand lest she take offense. He didn’t relish the thought of another wallop. She only shook her head at him and looked away, the curve of her smile still lingering on her lips.
It was nice, this easy companionship. There’d been precious little of that in his life of late, particularly with ladies of marriageable age. Ever since he’d set foot back in the capital city a fortnight ago, it was as if he wore an invisible target: Eligible viscount, aim your daughters here. How different it was, this back-and-forth he had with Phoebe. It must be the ease of long connection.
“Actually,” he mused, “I may have been the first to think you mad. We have known each other a very long time, after all, and I distinctly remember thinking you were cracked from the moment we met.” He smiled at the memory. “Twirling then, too, you were. In that field of blue flowers that—”
“Lobelia siphilitica.”
“Lobelia what?”
Phoebe scrunched her nose. “A rather unfortunate name, I agree. It’s the classification for the great Blue Lobelia. Some botanist named it so because it was thought to help cure syphilis. Which it doesn’t, mind you. My friend, Miss Claremont, is rather an expert at healing herbs and plants, and she says that is rubbish.”
She tilted her he
ad. “You know, it’s too bad the Blue Lobelia wasn’t named after a bluebird, like its red cousin, the Lobelia Cardinalis. It’s much nobler...” She trailed off as his grin widened, a light blush staining her cheeks.
“There’s the Phoebe I remember,” he said. Her incessant chatter about everything she knew—and Phoebe knew heaps—used to drive him mad. For some reason, today, he found it...well, if not charming, endearing. “Do go on.”
But she only laughed at herself, shaking her head. “Fortunately for you, it seems to be our turn.”
She moved past the gatekeeper and made her way to one of the swings. She chose the highest off of the ground, the minx, flashing a grin over her shoulder before clambering up the ladder. After nearly a dozen rungs, she gained the thin platform, where another workman waited to help her into the seat.
With a sigh, he followed, forgoing the man’s assistance to settle carefully in the seat across from Phoebe. His stomach turned a bit as the swing shimmied beneath them.
“Isn’t it amazing up here?” she cried, turning her head this way and that as if she were trying to see everywhere at once. “I can see the whole of the fair. Look! People are ice skating upriver.”
Her movements made them sway and bob on the ropes. Malcolm clutched at his seat and squeezed his eyes shut. As if that would save him if he plummeted to the ground and broke his fool neck.
“An extra coin to you both if you push us as high as you can,” Phoebe called down to the men on the platform below.
“Aye, miss!” answered one of the behemoths, rather too enthusiastically.
Bloody hell.
Then he was thrown against the back of his seat and they were flying.
Only the devil knew how long the interminable ride lasted. It felt like hours, in which some rather unmanly sounds may or may not have passed his lips. He’d gotten through by fixing his eyes on Phoebe. Her hood fell back and with each change of direction, long curls flew forward or back as she laughed with delight. Mad female, indeed.
He couldn’t get down the ladder fast enough.
“You certainly earned this,” Phoebe was saying to the men as she paid them their promised coin. “Thank you so much.”
She turned to him as his feet landed back on solid ground, her smile bright and her eyes alight with exhilaration. He was momentarily stunned by her visage. It made him want to do anything she wished, just to keep her looking so.
“I shall never let you talk me into such reckless folly again,” he complained instead as they left the swings behind and continued down the main thoroughfare.
She laughed. “Don’t be such a fogey. You just didn’t care for it because you weren’t the one in control.”
“That’s not true,” he objected. “And I am not a fogey.”
She gave him a look that was just short of an eye roll. “Of course it’s true. Let’s take the things you said were fun to you a moment ago. Drinking? You decide how much you imbibe. Riding your mounts? You hold the reins. Sport shooting? You choose what to aim at and when to fire. It’s all in your control. What’s not to like?”
There she was, spinning his head again. “You weren’t in control of the swing either, and you enjoyed it entirely too much.”
Her brow furrowed as she glanced over at him. “I suppose that’s because, as a woman, there is so very little I have control over anyway.” She seemed to ponder this a moment. “If I couldn’t appreciate things out of my control, I’d rarely enjoy anything, given I’ve had so little say over my own life.”
He detected a subtle bitterness there, he thought. Malcolm contemplated what she’d said as he stopped at a booth to purchase them each a slice of gingerbread topped with treacle. After he savored a spicy sweet bite, he said, “I’ve never considered how frustrating that must be.”
Especially to a woman as bright as he knew Phoebe to be.
She dabbed delicately at the corner of her mouth. “Why would you? You’re a man, in charge of your own destiny. You’re free to walk to the park or to the shops on your own. You can study what you like. You can talk about whatever interests you. You can do anything you wish.”
“Ho, there.” He held up a hand. “That’s not true. As a man, I have myriad responsibilities. To my estates, to our country, to my family. I can’t just go gallivanting—” He cut off as she raised her eyebrows and dipped her chin at him as if to say oh, really? He chuckled, shaking his head. “I have become a fogey, haven’t I?”
She only smiled and gave a little shrug before taking another bite of her gingerbread.
Damn but he’d sounded like his father just then. An ache of regret twinged in his chest. He’d give anything to see the old man again, even if it meant enduring one of his many lectures on duty.
Malcolm knew he’d been a bitter disappointment, always off...well...gallivanting. As a young man, his father’s expectations had seemed a prison, trapping him in the countryside. When he’d finally escaped to Cambridge, he hadn’t looked back. Not until the messenger had arrived with news of his father’s unexpected death.
The old pain flared. He should have been there. He’d just thought there would be plenty of time to settle into the man his father wanted him to be. But a sudden fever had snatched his sire away, and forced Malcolm to grow up. He’d had hard lessons to learn these past few years.
“All I am saying is that it’s not all roses being a man, either,” he said.
She stopped walking and squared her shoulders to him. “Trade me, then.”
He pressed his lips together. She had him there. No way would he willingly become a woman, even if it were possible. That would be a fresh kind of hell. No, there was nothing he could do for her there.
But he could give her this afternoon. He sighed. “I suppose you’re going to want to ride that Flying Dutchman next.”
He nodded to the apparatus behind her. A thick pole had been affixed with great beams in the shape of an X. Tied to each of the ends were small boats done up to resemble the mythical ghost ship, complete with ragged sails. In them, people flew round and round in the air as the whole thing was turned by four oxen and their handlers.
Phoebe’s eyes widened with surprise. So she had remembered his more cautious nature. The little she-devil. He almost rescinded his offer, but then she clapped her hands together as her surprise turned to delight. “Oh yes, let’s do!”
And he found he couldn’t disappoint her, gull though he was. He just hoped his treacle stayed down.
It did, through that and several other rides. He let Phoebe lead where she would, though he did try to steer her towards a more sedate game of bowls when she insisted she wanted to try skittles. But she was determined to play the pub game so he didn’t argue. He just stayed close and glared down every man who dared look at her. He grinned as he recalled her whoop of triumph when she’d rolled a floorer by knocking all nine pins down in one throw. He couldn’t picture any one of the delicate young ladies he’d encountered in the ballrooms recently doing that.
They ended their day upriver, where ice skaters glided along with varying skill ranging from graceful to comical.
“Shall we?” he asked. “We can place a wager on who stays on their feet the longest.”
“Save your coin,” she boasted. “I have wonderful balance.” She winged a brow in his direction. “When I’m not being snuck up on, that is.” But her stern look was banished by the spread of a smile, and he found he couldn’t look away from her.
She broke the gaze first, turning west. The sun now hung low in the sky, bathing the dips and spires of London’s magnificent buildings with feeble fading light. “I must be getting back, anyway,” she said.
A curious weight settled in his chest. Disappointment, he realized. He hated to lose her company.
Malcolm offered to see her home in his carriage, but Phoebe declined. He settled for escorting her safely to one of the many hackneys waiting on the city side of the river.
As he took her hand to help her up, she turned to him, her
eyes crinkled with bemusement and something he couldn’t quite place. “Thank you for today, Malcolm. It was...” She pursed her lips. “Unexpected.”
“I’ll try to see that as a compliment,” he drawled.
Her cheeks pinked. “And lovely,” she hastened to add, her lips settling into chagrin. “Unexpectedly lovely.”
He kissed her gloved fingers, then handed her up into the hackney.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” he replied once she was seated.
And he couldn’t have. That was the perfect descriptor for both the afternoon and, he was surprised to realize, for Phoebe.
Unexpectedly lovely.
Who would have thought?
He tapped the side of the hackney and stood watching it long after it had pulled away.
“Oi, Coverdale!”
Malcolm turned to see three of his old mates from Cambridge hailing him.
They exchanged greetings before Malcolm apologized for not showing to meet them. “I ran into an old friend.”
“Indeed.” Chester Harvey chortled. Malcolm had never cared for Harvey overmuch. His cruel streak had never sat well. But he was well-liked in society, and he’d never done Malcolm an ill turn. “Was that Lady Dervish’s hand you were kissing just then?”
Malcolm frowned at him. “Who?”
“You know,” Lord Davies chimed in, “the annoying chit. Miss Anson, isn’t it?”
“Hell, Coverdale,” offered Smythe, the third in the group he’d once run with that now seemed a lifetime ago. “You’re the one who dubbed her the Whirling Dervish. Harvey just bestowed a title upon her.”
“Aye.” Harvey inclined his head. “Only title she’s likely to get.”
The trio laughed as Malcolm’s memory churned. Then his stomach churned as his soon-to-be not friends enlightened him on a few matters.
And his unexpectedly lovely afternoon went straight to hell.
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