“I am confused,” he said, his tone implying that this confusion was someone else’s fault. “Are you already married?”
Phoebe resisted the urge to squirm beneath his gaze. Did they teach that in the Navy? Or was this stare the reason why he had been promoted?
“I am not,” she said as levelly as she could manage.
This time, the Duke’s stare went between Phoebe and her father, but it did land on Phoebe again. Phoebe wished she could enjoy her father’s discomfort more, but she was too busy still trying not to fidget.
“This is irregular,” the Duke said. “Why would the eldest not marry first? Propriety dictates that the eldest sister must marry first.”
Phoebe supposed this wastechnicallya rule, though not one that anyone followed. However, shehadseen a particularly raunchy adaptation of Shakespeare’sThe Taming of the Shrewthat made a great deal of humor out of casting an octogenarian man in a dress as the ‘elder sister’ in question. Phoebe had never seen so much naked wrinkled flesh before or since.
Nor, she supposed, was she ever likely to again, now that her father had caught on to her… excursions.
Still, Phoebe was trying to do her very best tobeher very best, so she offered the Duke an easy way out of the conversation.
“I’m not certain that rule is much followed these days,” she said. “Though it speaks well to your parents’ ability to instill good manners.”
The Duke apparently felt no such compunction to put his best foot forward, for he only scowled.
“Is there a reason you aren’t married?” he demanded.
“Um,” Phoebe said. And then, because she simply could not come up with anything better, she tugged her sister in front of her. “May I please present my sister, Miss Hannah Turner?”
The Duke gave Hannah the same disapproving look that he had offered Phoebe.
“We are already late for dinner,” he said. “There’s no point bickering now. Please, follow the footman. I shall meet you in the dining room anon.”
And then he turned on his heel and left, leaving the three Turners for once in total unison as they gaped after him.
CHAPTER 3
As soon as the Duke was gone from the room, Hannah gasped as if she were dying. Phoebe looked over at her sister, who had gone as white as a sheet.
“I can’t do this,” she said, bending at the waist, a hand to her ribs as she gasped for breath. “I—I can’t—Phoebe. Phoebe, I can’t.”
The footman that the Duke had left behind to show the guests the way through the house quickly stepped aside so that he was out of eyeshot in the doorway. It was the most humanity that Phoebe had yet seen from anyone at the Redcliff estate.
Hannah kept gasping as though her stays were too tight.
“Stop this at once, Hannah!” Lord Turner snapped. “Stop itimmediately.”
Phoebe couldn’t resist rolling her eyes as she stepped between her sister and their father. Yes, shouting at a person was the best way to get them to calm down. How completely obvious.
“Hannah,” she said softly. “Take a deep breath. Slowly… with me. Come on.”
But Hannah only grew more panicked; she shook her head frantically, as if trying to dispel the vestiges of a bad dream.
“No, Phoebe, I—you don’t understand,” she said, her eyes wide, her pupils practically overtaking the green ring of her eyes that matched that of her elder sister. “I can’t. He’s so—he was so rude. He’s so cold! I can’t—I?—”
Her chest started to heave with the force of her breaths. Phoebe reached out a hand, but Hannah batted it away before it could land.
“I have to go,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “I just—I need air.”
She staggered back another step, then raced from the room. Phoebe, absolutely flummoxed by this uncharacteristic behavior, stared after her. Hannah had always been prone to the occasional moods and flights of fancy, butthis?
“Phoebe!” Lord Turner turned on the daughter who had remained in the room, his eyes flashing with fury. “How could you let this happen?”
Phoebe gaped at him. This whole evening felt like something out of a dream, one of those truly strange dreams that left her waking too abruptly, blinking in confusion to find herself safe in bed.
