Page 11 of Lord Gabriel’s Undoing

Whatever was wrong with him? He sounded as though he was drunk, but how he could have got so in such a short space of time she had no idea. She’d seen men who were the worse for drink on several occasions. Papa and Uncle Robert several times, one of the grooms at Coakham, and a couple of the farm workers. Lord Evesham looked and sounded drunk, in her opinion, but how could he have been?

Julia supplied the answer. She leaned in close to Phoebe. “He’s taken opium. Come away with me. We’ll get no sense out of him when he’s like this. Mama will be furious with him.” And she pulled Phoebe away from the three young men.

Phoebe was more than happy to go. She was seeing a side to society dances she’d never have dreamed existed and it was only making her more certain of her dislike of them.

Chapter Four

It was the early hours of the morning before Atkins, with a proprietorial air to her, was able to plump up Phoebe’s pillows and watch her young mistress climb into bed. With a deep sigh of relief, Phoebe relaxed back, closing her eyes to shut out the clamorous world. Thank goodness she was back in Aunt Fanny’s house in Hill Street. Although it had not been somewhere she’d wanted to go to when they’d come up from the country for the Season, it now felt like a haven of peace and tranquillity.

If she’d had her way, she would have been home hours since, but Aunt Fanny had insisted she wouldn’t cut short Mattie’s oh-so-successful first ball. Young men had been dancing attendance on her all night and exclaiming over her looks, which of course Aunt Fanny attributed to herself, and many of them had bolstered this falsehood by exclaiming how Mattie took after her. Phoebe rather hoped Mattie had been paying attention to this, as her mother was a large lady in all directions.

They’d also shown more than a passing interest in Phoebe, no doubt news of her status as an heiress having gone before her. This had not left a good taste in Phoebe’s mouth, as none had been anywhere near as handsome as Lord Gabriel, and, as she was certain their interest was connected to her inheritance, she viewed them with a jaundiced air.

The fact that she’d half suspected Lord Gabriel of the same thing didn’t count with her. Somehow, she’d managed to endow him with a golden glow of incorruptibility he probably didn’t deserve. Most likely on account of his undoubted charm which had been missing in all the other gentlemen with whom she’d had to dance, Lord Evesham, when he’d overcome his opium-fueled inebriation, in particular. She couldn’t get out of her head his casual remark that he intended to marry her. She’d already decided that she’d rather die an old maid than marry someone like him.

Opening her eyes again, she watched as Atkins bustled about clearing the bedroom of the paraphernalia left from the ball. She set Phoebe’s fan on her dressing table, put her pearl necklace and earrings into her jewelery box, and found a space for her silk slippers in the wardrobe. She’d been lady’s maid to her young mistress for six years now, since just after Phoebe’s mother had died, and Phoebe was very fond of her. However, she did exhibit a strong tendency to try to mother her, having stood in the place of the late countess for so long, and this could be irritating. As could her insistence on always having everything tidy.

Atkins hung Phoebe’s ballgown up and smoothed the skirts with reverent hands. She’d been more than pleased that her charge was to make her debut this year and had an unnerving habit of muttering under her breath about wedding trousseaus. “Shall I fetch you some warm milk, milady? You look a little peaky, if I might be so bold as to say so.” Every so often she peppered her words to Phoebe with respect, but a lot of the time she was the one who laid down the law. In her head, Phoebe presumed, she still saw her mistress as a little girl.

Phoebe grimaced. “Is it any wonder I look peaky when I’ve been paraded before a never-ending line of gentlemen all evening? You know how I feel about that, and you know I can’t change how I feel. But none of them came back for a second dance, thank goodness.” She giggled, her spirits lightening a little. “I can safely say most of them will have gone limping home.”

Atkins, who was well aware of Phoebe’s clumsiness, let her severe face slip into a smile. “You know, milady, you’re going to have to try not to put off the man you want to marry. Although I don’t see myself how you’re going to manage that, what with how long your sainted mother tried, and then I did too, to persuade your feet to do as they’re told when you dance.”

Phoebe nodded, her expression somber once again, mainly because she was thinking of Gabriel. “You’re quite correct, of course. And no thank you to the offer of hot milk. I’m ready to sleep now. Struggling to try to disguise my clumsiness all evening has quite exhausted me. I could sleep for a full day, but no doubt I won’t be allowed to.”

Atkins smiled. “Was there no young gentleman you took to, milady?”

Phoebe felt her heart lighten as Lord Gabriel’s face leapt into her head once more. But she shook her head. Atkins might be her faithful maid but, if she divulged her secrets, no doubt somehow Aunt Fanny would come to hear of them. “None that I could mention. And I doubt any of the ones I danced with came away with a favorable impression of me. Although no doubt my mother’s fortune might persuade them to consider me less of a clumsy ox than they at first thought.”

She paused, this time thinking of Lord Evesham, which left another nasty taste in her mouth. If he was after her money to fuel his gambling habit as Gabriel had said, he would probably overlook her feet. She frowned. “Although, were any of them to make me an offer, I would refuse them outright. If I marry, which I very much doubt I ever will, I am certain it will be only for love.” Lord Gabriel popped up again, just to tease her as he was undoubtedly out of her reach.

Atkins glanced around the room with an experienced eye. Not an object was out of place. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t need anything else, milady, then I’ll be off to my own bed. What time would you like your breakfast served?”

Phoebe stifled a yawn. “Not before ten, I think. I need my beauty sleep, or I’ll be hag-ridden in the morning. Aunt Fanny would be horrified were I to appear before her like that. I’m sure Mattie will have lots of gentlemen calling to see her tomorrow, after her success at the ball, and they’ll expect me to be present, but that won’t be until much later. I can’t imagine any of the gentlemen with bruised toes will want to be calling on me.” If only he would. She pushed her longings aside and settled down under the eiderdown. “Goodnight, dear Atkins.”

“Goodnight, milady.” Atkins blew out the candles and departed.

In direct contradiction to her avowal to Atkins, Phoebe did not find it easy to settle to sleep immediately. However, she wasn’t too bothered as she had no care for getting enough of it just to please her aunt. She was young and healthy, and she could stay awake as long as she liked if it suited her.

Instead, once Atkins had closed the door and her footsteps could be heard dying away, she opened her eyes. Her room, at the less favorable and noisier front of the house, was barely illuminated by the lamps in the street outside, which, thanks to another one of the frequent thick London fogs, was not saying much.

Aunt Fanny and Cousin Mattie both had rooms overlooking the garden where the noise of the street, which continued all night long, wouldn’t disturb them. Not that Phoebe cared, for she liked lying awake and listening to the sounds of the city. She felt as though what she heard was a secret world only she had the key to. A private world Aunt Fanny and Mattie had no idea existed. If she didn’t lie awake at night to listen to it, she often woke in time to hear this secret world coming to life in the early morning.

She loved to hear the horse-drawn vehicles rumbling past, the drunken shouts of gentlemen returning after a night of gambling, the muttered voices of gong farmers going about their noisome task when they hoped no one else was about, and the sound of the city awakening as dawn approached. Many was the time she’d lain awake just listening, as it was a time when she could be herself, unobserved by anyone, but instead the silent observer of others. On warmer nights she often sat at the window to watch the street, but not tonight, for in that fog she would have seen nothing.

Thoughts of the ball had her wrinkling her nose. Of course, she’d known this was coming for months now, as she and Mattie had practised their dancing for hours on end, and Aunt Fanny had taken them to the best modistes to order gowns and muffs, pelisses and spencers, hats, bonnets, gloves, and shoes. But while they’d been doing that, the aim of it all had seemed far off and out of reach, as though it would never arrive.

But that time had come around all too quickly.

And now she was in it, the ordeal it was sure to be stretched ahead of her into infinity, with no end in sight of what Aunt Fanny had described as the round of social occasions the Season presented. A round that dear Mattie had been looking forward to with mounting excitement. A round that Phoebe had done her best to hide her feelings about for fear of offending Aunt Fanny, who only meant her well, after all, and had been so kind to her after Papa died. But nevertheless, it was a round she’d been dreading. And the aim of it all was for her and Mattie to receive offers from suitable young gentlemen so they could marry and produce heirs for these gentlemen and so the round would begin again. An unending spiral of life and death interspersed with courtships she knew she wasn’t going to like.

Lord Gabriel Wycliff’s face swam unbidden into her head, a jaunty smile on his handsome face, his blue eyes full of merriment. All very well for him. He was a man and they could do what they liked far more than young ladies could. Her heart twisted in pain. Might she ever get to dance with him again? Probably not. In fact, she’d probably never see him up close again so she might as well forget about him. She’d consigned all the other hopeful young gentlemen she’d met last night to the bin of impossibilities, so Lord Gabriel might as well join them.

With a deep sigh, she rolled over in bed, but Lord Gabriel’s face lingered as if mocking her. However, she was not such a silly girl as to be taken in by a handsome face, or at least she told herself she wasn’t. Oh no. He was most likely as much a fortune hunter as the other young men on whose feet she’d trampled. She closed her eyes with determination, desperate to consign him to that bin, which was where she’d sent the unlikeable Lord Evesham. She would not think about the ball at all, for if she did it would be bound to give her nightmares.

Sleep was a long time coming, partly due to Lord Gabriel’s stubborn refusal to take his leave of her head, but it must have come at last because if it hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been waking up with a start at some indeterminate time when it was still very dark.

One instant she must have been asleep, the next she was wide awake, all her senses alert. What for? She lay still for a long moment, listening, for she was sure some small out of place noise had disturbed her. Not a noise out in the street, which was surprisingly quiet, but a noise in here, in her bedroom. A noise where a noise shouldn’t be.