A Midwinter's Scandal - A Novella Duet

by Erin Knightley

  “Harley, Davies, and Smythe saw us together at the fair,” he went on. He couldn’t help but feel her flinch at their names. “They told me how things have been for you. I’m so sorry, Phoebe,” he said quietly, shame burning in his gut. “I never thought you would pay such a price for my thoughtless words.”

  Phoebe stopped trying to pull away. Her other arm dropped to her side and she took a deep breath. “It was so long ago,” she murmured. “There’s no need to—”

  “Yes, there is.” He squeezed her hand gently before releasing it. He couldn’t bear the intensity of her gaze as he said the rest, so he returned to a slow pace before her. He had to say things properly. She had to know that it had never been her that was lacking.

  “This is not an excuse,” he began, “but perhaps it will help you to understand. My father had no use for Town, or Town manners. You’ll remember that unlike most boys, I didn’t go away to school.”

  She nodded.

  “Father felt that a tutor—and time spent with him learning how to run our estates—was more than sufficient an education. My mother, bless her soul, browbeat him into allowing me to go to university, but as you can imagine, when I arrived at Cambridge I was completely out of my depth. Not scholastically, but socially.

  “That only intensified when I came to London and began moving in Society. Harvey, Davies, and Smythe had attached themselves to me at Cambridge—not because of my winning personality,” he gave her a self-deprecating smile, “but because I would inherit a title and wealth greater than theirs one day. I accepted that, because I wanted something from them, too. They knew their way around the ton. It was second nature to them, and I did my best to emulate them. Even when they were less than kind.

  “When you arrived in Town...” He stopped, not sure how to go on.

  “Fresh from the country?” she supplied. “Naïve and always babbling on about some thing or another while following you about like a spring lamb?”

  The shame that had been simmering inside him tightened his throat. He’d never said anything of the sort, but others had. “I never should have denigrated you, Phoebe, nor allowed anyone else to. No matter your faux pas, you were my friend. I should have been a bulwark for you, and instead I let you be rolled under a tide of mockery. All because I feared I was one rogue wave away from being fodder myself.” He hung his head, remorse weighing him down. “Forgive me.”

  Silence reigned in the drawing room, broken only by the ticking of the clock.

  He felt the soft brush of Phoebe’s hand against his knuckles before she slipped her tiny palm into his and curled her fingers around his.

  He looked up to find Phoebe’s gaze steady on him. She wasn’t smiling, but her eyes were soft and...gracious. She squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Malcolm.”

  Those three words, said with quiet strength, were a balm to his guilt, not relieving it entirely but soothing it. He squeezed back and released her, taking a deep breath. “I wish I could take back many things, but particularly what I said at the Davenport’s ball. I like to think that had my father’s death not pulled me from Town, I would have redeemed myself. I was a callow youth, but I hope that I would have intervened before I allowed Harvey and the others to push things so far. You have to know, Phoebe, I was never aware of it.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t think on it any longer. Besides, we both know that I have always been a bit of a whirling dervish—”

  He winced, knowing what he’d said about her had been used to insult her most grievously in the years since that night.

  “No,” she said and held a hand up. “I have. And I like that about me. So fret no more about the past. Had things not happened as they did, I may have tried to conform. I may even have married and now be miserably trapped in a drafty old manor somewhere with an equally miserable husband who thought he was getting a biddable wife.”

  She laughed, but the sound cracked a bit at the edges, like precious china that has been ill-used.

  “Believe me,” she went on, “I’m much happier this way.”

  Malcolm pressed his lips together. He believed she meant her words, but they saddened him. Phoebe wasn’t made for the shelf. She had too much life in her to never know passion, to never share her joy with children of her own. From what Harvey had told him, her prospects were slim, and despite her forgiveness, he bore some culpability for that.

  “I am glad that you are content, Phoebe,” he murmured. “Still, I wish there was some way I could make amends.”

  She tilted her head and gave him a small smile. “Funny you should mention that...” She sat, perching herself on the edge of the settee, patting the brocade with a nod that told him she wished him to sit as well.

  He did, curious.

  “There is a favor I would ask of you.”

  “Anything,” he promised.

  Her hands clenched and unclenched on her lap, and her cheeks colored once again. She seemed to lose her nerve.

  “What is it you need?” he prompted when she still didn’t go on.

  Phoebe closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she opened them quickly and said, “I need you to fwoo me.”

  He blinked, opened his mouth and shut it again.

  Her eyes flew wide. “Woo me!” she blurted. “I meant woo me.”

  What the devil? “You want me to...woo you?”

  “Pretend to woo me, that is,” she rushed on. “Only a little. Just enough to lead my father on for a bit. No public declarations or anything. You wouldn’t even have to put out much effort—a few tokens, really. Perhaps some candies, a nice note, an afternoon call or two—”

  “Wait,” he said, trying to catch up to her. “Let me understand you. You want your father to think that we’re courting?”

  She scrunched her face up, but nodded.

  He had to ask the obvious question, because God save him, he couldn’t answer it for himself. “Why?”

  Phoebe pursed her lips. Then she explained how her father was planning to marry her off to a wealthy merchant twice her age—in four weeks, no less—because he thought that was the best she could do.

  “But you see, Father is a terrible snob,” she said. “If he thought...” She shrugged.

  “If he thought a viscount had you in his sights, he might postpone his plans to see if anything comes of it,” Malcolm concluded.

  Phoebe sighed. “Precisely.”

  “And when your Father realizes that this...woo-age, for lack of a better term, is a sham? Won’t you just end up in the same predicament?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No. I’ll be long gone from here by then,” she said with a finality he didn’t care for.

  He furrowed his brow, trying to discern her meaning. Was she planning to run away? How? And with whom? “Do these plans of yours have anything to do with that Ellison chap?”

  Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open a tad, but she covered it quickly. His jaw tightened. They did, then.

  “Are you planning to elope?”

  “That’s really none of your—”

  “Phoebe,” he warned.

  She narrowed her eyes, but he didn’t relent. Finally she sighed. “Nothing like that.”

  He crossed his arms. He didn’t like this one bit. Phoebe had always been a chatterbox. There was a time he’d despaired of her ever shutting up. But when it came to this man, she was uncharacteristically tight-lipped. And that couldn’t be good. He tried again. “But they do have something to do with this Ellison, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” she said tightly. “Not that you should care.”

  He leaned back, bending his leg so that his left foot rested upon his right knee. He was trying to appear nonchalant about this, though inside he was far from it. “Oh, I don’t know. What if this Ellison bloke is the jealous sort and gets wind that his love is being wooed by another man? I have the right to know if I should be looking over my shoulder, don’t you think?”

  She huffed. “You needn’t worry there,” she said. Then
a tiny frown pulled at her lips. “Oh. I didn’t think that you might— You’re not already wooing someone, are you? I would hate to ask you to jeopardize any plans you have.”

  He lifted his hand and shook his head. “No. While I am entertaining the idea of marriage this season, there is no one.” He tucked his hand back into his crossed-arm stance and regarded her thoughtfully. “Yet.”

  Phoebe blinked several times. “Oh, good. Well then, what say you?”

  “I’m not certain,” he hedged. “How long did you have in mind?”

  “Easter, at the most. Likely much less, if my plans succeed. Regardless, it will be finished one way or the other well before the Season gets going in earnest. You will still have ample time to hunt for a bride,” she assured him.

  Malcolm drummed his fingers along his opposite forearm, thinking. He wanted to know more about these plans of hers. He should make certain she’d be safe and well taken care of. He definitely wanted to know more about this Ellison. But most of all, he wanted to help Phoebe. He wished to undo some of the damage he’d done, if he could.

  “I’ll do it,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting as her face lit. “On one condition,” he added.

  Her smile froze, sliding into wary territory. “What would that be?”

  “I’ll send along the requisite gifts and pay calls as I should. I’ll even come to dinner a time or two with you and your father, if you wish. But I want you to come out into Society with me.”

  She frowned, shaking her head. “Why?”

  He straightened. Because he hoped that by squiring her about, he might restore to her some social standing. That by showing some interest in her, he might open up some other opportunities for her, so that she didn’t have to choose between becoming a merchant’s wife and whatever she’d cooked up as an alternative. But all he said was, “Because I have, just this afternoon, alienated my only Society friends by pointing out to them that they are complete arses. I am in dire need of new companionship.”

  She continued to frown, which formed the most adorable V between her brows. “But I don’t wish to go out into Society.”

  “That is my condition.” He lifted an eyebrow her direction. “Now, do you want to be wooed or not?”

  She grumbled something beneath her breath, but said, “Wooed.”

  A smile split his face. “Wooed it is.”

  Chapter Five

  “I have never met a woman more difficult to woo than you, Pheebs.”

  Phoebe jerked her head up from her artwork, startled by Malcolm’s voice just behind her. She turned at the waist, given her seated position on a bench inside her favorite public conservatory, and looked up. Indeed, he loomed over her right shoulder.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he lifted a finger to forestall her.

  “Before you complain about my sneaking up on you, let me point out that had you been home once in the past three days when I’ve tried to call, I wouldn’t have to resort to such tactics. Truly, you leave a beau no choice.”

  He stepped between the stone bench where she was seated and the adjacent one, claiming the space in front of it. “You know, the first two afternoons, when I was told you weren’t at home, I assumed it meant you were simply not at home to visitors,” he said as he doffed his topper and laid it on the bench.

  His greatcoat followed, and Phoebe couldn’t help but notice the leonine way he moved as he slid out of his outer garment, all sleek yet controlled. Sunlight streamed in from the conservatory’s glass-paneled walls and ceiling, limning him with the glow of an angel—or a god.

  His wide shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist, accentuated by the fine cut of his navy tailcoat. Tawny buckskin breeches molded themselves to muscular thighs and perfectly proportioned knees, while black boots covered calves and feet that were planted in the arrogant stance of a man who knows his place in the world. Were she an anatomist rather than a botanist, she’d relish illustrating his form. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly very dry.

  “It quite hurt my feelings at first—” he was saying, and she snapped her gaze to his face, trying to catch up. Fortunately, he hadn’t noticed her staring as he’d been removing his gloves. “—standing out there on your doorstep, hat in hand, only to be turned away. I mean, why would you not be at home to me after you’d just asked me to woo you? I thought perhaps you’d changed your mind and were too embarrassed to see me.”

  His gloves landed atop his coat, and then he straightened, tugging his waistcoat into place. The rich fabric was a shade of deepest wine that reminded her of the Mexican Dahlia she’d only been able to see in Botanical Magazine, as no English gardener had yet to keep one alive more than a season or two.

  “But yesterday, I wised up,” he said, shooting her a crooked grin that was as breathtaking as any exotic flower that had ever graced that magazine’s pages.

  “Oh?” was all she could manage.

  “Indeed. After being told once again that you weren’t at home, I flat asked your man if you weren’t ‘at home’ at home, or really not at home. He admitted you were away, but wouldn’t divulge where you’d gone for anything.”

  “Then how did you find me today?”

  He sat down on the bench next to his discarded outerwear. The shade cast by a large row of potted trees beside them rendered him human again. But even without the sun’s supernatural enhancement, he was beautifully magnificent.

  “I waited outside your townhouse all morning until I saw you come out,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to have done. “And then I followed you.”

  Phoebe didn’t know what to say to that. She tried to picture Malcolm huddled in his carriage, with only a foot warmer to ward off the chill, waiting for her.

  “Whyever would you do that?” And if he’d followed her, why was he just now approaching her? She’d been sitting in this same spot for three-quarters of an hour.

  A hooded expression dropped over his eyes, though his smile didn’t change. “You can’t expect a man to woo a lady if he never sees her.”

  Phoebe frowned. That made no sense. For one, he wasn’t truly wooing her. He surely didn’t want to spend time with her just because. What was he about?

  “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” he asked. “I’d hate to intrude if you were meeting someone.”

  “Not at all,” she answered. “I was just—oh!” she cried as she turned back to her painting. A swath of green watercolor streaked across the paper where her brush must have slipped when he’d startled her. Her throat squeezed.

  Malcolm had leapt to his feet at her cry and rushed to her. “What is it?” He dropped to a knee beside her, searching for the cause of her distress.

  Only two days of meticulously drawing and hand-coloring this grouping of blooming perennials wasted. “It’s ruined,” she groaned.

  She was due to meet with Mr. Updike this very afternoon. They were supposed to have met at Lord Pickford’s symposium later in the week, but she could no longer wait. She wished to discuss specific terms now to see if leaving home eleven weeks early would even be possible. And while she was happy to disregard most societal rules, even she’d never be so gauche as to try to discuss that at the symposium.

  “It doesn’t look so bad. Can’t you correct it some way?” Malcolm asked as he peered at her easel. “Perhaps turn that bit of extra green into a leaf?”

  She’d already thought of that, but it wasn’t possible. The hideous smear ran right across one of the yellow petals of her iris, creating an unnaturally light green. “No. Nor can I change the color of the iris. If I try to mix in blue, it will turn a shade of blue-green no iris ever was, and if I try to mix in red, it will just turn to a dullish mud about the same awful brown as my eyes.”

  She blew out a frustrated breath. She’d been trying to perfect a technique, her own blend of art and botany that brought the plants to life in an engaging way. She’d been conservative in her portfolio, adhering to the expected style of botanical art
, but in this painting, she’d hoped to show Mr. Updike her heart...how she could make his books stand out from the rest and create new enthusiasts for the subject they both loved.

  “I don’t think your eyes are dull at all, Phoebe.”

  She turned her head at his words. He was quite close to her, their faces mere inches apart. Her breath caught.

  My, were they attempting to grow tropical plants in this conservatory these days? It was certainly warm enough to.

  No. This glasshouse featured mainly smallish potted trees and common garden flowers. Yet over all of their scents, she breathed in a hint of cedarwood with very subtle tones of lavender. Strange...neither of those plants grew here, either.

  It must be Malcolm’s scent that intoxicated her so...

  Wait, what had he been saying?

  “No?” It seemed as safe a reply as any, given she’d completely lost the thread of the conversation.

  “No. In fact, your eyes have always reminded me of hot roasted chestnuts,” he said, his voice deeper than normal. His brilliant green gaze held hers. “The richest brown burnished with melted gold, and quite...” His gaze dropped to her lips. “...addicting.”

  Something melted inside her, drizzling warm pleasure through her center.

  She stood, nearly knocking her easel over in her haste to put some space between them. She tried for a sophisticated laugh. “While I appreciate your adherence to the spirit of this whole affair, there’s no need for false flattery. It is only faux woo-age I require.”

  Malcolm came to his feet more slowly than she had. The intense green of his eyes seemed muddled a bit, sleepy. “As you wish,” he murmured.

  Phoebe turned her attention to cleaning and packing up her supplies. She hadn’t the time to redo her painting and she couldn’t just stand there and ogle Malcolm—no matter how eminently ogle-able he was. He would never woo her for real and she’d do well to remember that. “We need a name for our arrangement, I believe...to keep it in its proper perspective.” Yes, laughable. “Let’s call it fwoo-age from here on out.”

  She could practically hear his eyebrow lift.