“Get out of those wet clothes,” he snapped, “or I will get you out of them myself.”
Phoebe refused to react, even though the Duke’s refusal to back down sent chills through her.
She was a known bluestocking, and she really didn’t have any use for men. After all, she’d never found any interaction with a man that couldn’t have been more entertaining if he’d been a woman.
Women were simply better to talk to, better to befriend. She’d even known a few women who were better at being men—who lived their lives in breeches and squired their lady loves to events (and home again, though Phoebe had never been present for that part) with all the finesse of born gentlemen.
Despite this, though, she’d had flirtations with men. She’d enjoyed a drink, sometimes two, and then politely but firmly made sure they knew that it wouldn’t go any further. Some had been disappointed, but they’d all given in easily enough.
She’d never known a man whoinsisted. She should have hated it.
She did not hate it.
“Fine,” she said. She was not too stubborn to know when she was in a losing position. “Fine. I’ll go change.”
There was the briefest flash of surprise in the Duke’s face, but he covered it quickly enough.Soldiers and their self-control,she thought irritably. She was still smarting over him justpicking her up and carrying her. He hadn’t even had the decency to act like it was difficult, either.
She stormed off before he could say anything more. She didn’t trust her tenuous control over her temper enough to continue their little spat.
Phoebe discovered, however, as she followed a silent maid whose face still hadn’t lost all of its babyish roundness, that being alone with her thoughts was far, far worse than being caught up in an argument with the Duke.
And it wasn’t even just that her worries about her sister plagued her—though they did, of course.
It was more that— as she struggled with the laces of her dress, which was fortunately one she could remove herself—she couldn’t bear to let the sweet-faced maid see her in such a state—Phoebe kept hearing the Duke’s words.
Get out of those wet clothes, or I will get you out of them myself.
It was too easy to imagine the way those strong hands, which had lifted her like she was made of nothing but fluff and feathers, would make easy work of the laces of her gown. He had been competent and not at all tender, and she could picture how he would grasp her by the waist to turn her around, so he could get to the ties at her skirt. Businesslike and not at all lingering…
It was lunacy to have any sort of feelings about that.
Lunacy—and highly, highly inappropriate.
“He is marryingyour sister,” she reminded herself as she kicked aside the mass of wet fabric. “Not to mention that he is cold and arrogant andrude.”
And she would repeat that to herself as many times as was necessary.
She’d just finished putting on a new gown—which did feel much nicer than her wet frock, darn that wretched duke and his good ideas—when a knock came at her door.
It was the maid again, her head ducked low, and something clutched tightly in her hands.
“I beg your pardon, miss,” she said. She sounded Irish, though her voice was so soft that it was hard to be certain. “But dinner is ready to be served, and I have this for you.” She held out the paper. “One of the footmen found it where the mail is usually left.”
Phoebe felt an instinctive, almost motherly impulse toward the young woman. She’d always had a soft spot for shy, reserved girls—the way Hannah had been as a child. The way she still was when she wasn’t being difficult in the way that had become her preferred mode of late.
It wasn’t necessarily proper to extend that sort of softness toward a servant, but Phoebe had lived by her mother’s dying wish for a long time, and she felt no urge to go back.
“Thank you,” she said, briefly patting the younger girl’s hand as she took the paper. “What’s your name, dear?”
“Mary, miss,” the girl said, bobbing a curtsey.
Phoebe gave her one more pat. “Mary. Nice to meet you. You’re doing a marvelous job.”
For this, she got a tremulous smile before the girl curtseyed again and fled. It was the first thing all evening that made Phoebe feel good. Her father would have hated it, the sentimentality of it. That wasn’twhyit made Phoebe feel good, but it didn’t hurt.
That good feeling became a distant memory as soon as she read the note in her hand, which was written in Hannah’s spindly penmanship.
I’m sorry, Phoebe, it read.I need to follow my heart. I hope you and Father will forgive me.
