Not even if the kiss had been… remarkable.
She felt a blush threaten to overtake her, but her father was still watching.
She pretended to sleep for the rest of the journey. It was uncomfortable, and she got a wretched crick in her neck, but it was better than sitting in that miserable silence with her father’s rage.
When they finally arrived back at their estate, Phoebe found the housekeeper looking distinctly unsettled.
“Welcome back, Lord Turner, Miss Turner,” she said with a bobbed curtsey, during which she tried to catch Phoebe’s eye.
Phoebe gave the woman a subtle nod of acknowledgment. The staff generally came to her first with any concerns; they’d done so ever since Phoebe’s mother had died more than a dozen years ago. Lord Turner might pay the bills, but he generally considered himself far too important to deal withwomen’s work,like handling domestic matters.
That was what daughters were good for, after all.
“I’m going to go clean up after the journey,” Phoebe murmured. “Excuse me.”
“Don’t dally!” her father demanded as Phoebe headed up the stairs. “You still have plenty to account for!”
Phoebe, who had approximately nothing to account for, ignored him and kept heading up the stairs. The housekeeper waited a beat, then followed Phoebe.
“Miss Turner,” she said when they were out of sight, “you need to return to your bedchamber—at once.”
Her expression was wide and uncertain. Phoebe felt fairly certain she knew precisely what this was about.
“Thank you, Mrs. Gulliver,” she said, her mouth flattening into a line. “I will do that at once.”
The woman’s shoulders relaxed.
“Thank you, Miss Turner,” she said. “Now I must—His Lordship?—”
“Go,” Phoebe said. Her father would often remind the staff of his returned presence after coming back from traveling, typically by issuing a flurry of deeply irritating commands. The longer they went unanswered, the more persnickety he would get.
“Thank you, Miss Turner,” the housekeeper repeated, bobbing one more curtsey before heading back to corral the staff, who would no doubt be scurrying hither and yon.
Phoebe took a moment to rub the sore spot between her eyes. She suspected that her headache was going to get worse before it got better.
Then, she headed to her room and opened the door.
“I can explain everything,” Hannah said.
CHAPTER 8
“Ican’t believe you’re doing this!” Hannah cried as Phoebe dragged her back downstairs. “You’re really going to tell Father?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Hannah,yes. Ofcourse,I’m going to tell Father. What do you think—that I’m going to pretend you’ve never come home again? I feel like he’s going tonotice!”
Hannahharrumphed at this, but she didn’t offer an argument because, really, what argument was there to give?
And, yes, Phoebe supposed that she could have let her sister have a moment to explain before dragging her before their father. It would have been kind. It had been averylong couple of days, however.
“There you are, Phoebe,” Lord Turner said without turning around. “Now that we are home, I think it is time that you finally explain?—”
His words cut off as he spun and saw his younger daughter.
“Hannah,” he said in the flat tone that he usually reserved for Phoebe.
All the argumentativeness that Hannah had presented to Phoebe vanished in the face of their father’s narrow-eyed stare. She shuffled her feet and frowned. The expression made her look much younger than her twenty years, and Phoebe had to shove down the surge of protectiveness that rose in her.
It was true that Phoebe had served in a maternal role for her little sister for years now—for more than half of Hannah’s life. But the reality was that Hannah wasn’t a child any longer, and Phoebe wasn’t her mother.
