Page 42 of Lord Gabriel’s Undoing

Phoebe could only bow her head, not wanting to speak badly of Atkins or any other of Aunt Fanny’s servants. All of whom she’d so far deemed trustworthy. Cecilia seemed the sort of girl who spoke her mind before she stopped to think. Papa would have approved, but not Aunt Fanny, who deplored outspokenness.

She bit her lip. Perhaps she should inquire about Cecilia’s own visit to St Giles.

“Might I ask how long ago you went with your brother into the…the rookery?”

Cecilia kept her gaze on the gardens. “Last autumn. I made him tell me everything, you see. I know exactly what he’s up to there. I always know if he’s not telling the truth.”

“You do?” Did that extend to knowing he wasn’t really her brother? Best to err on the side of caution with that. “What exactly do you know, then? You could enlighten me as I find I know very little.”

Cecilia turned, eyes narrowed. Perhaps she too was wondering how much Phoebe knew. “I know about his orphanage.”

Phoebe nodded. “So do I. He took me there.” No harm in admitting this.

Cecilia tilted her head to one side, as dogs do sometimes when curious. “He did? So you met Mrs. Thorogood and her rather odd daughter. The one with the gammy leg.”

She needed to tread warily. “I did.” In all probability Cecilia didn’t know about the cricket bat incident. She might not even know about his other identity as the Mayfair Highwayman. She found her heartbeat had begun to accelerate. Might she have to lie for him? Another thing Aunt Fanny would deplore.

Cecilia turned back to the window again. “I myself am of the opinion that poor Eliza is in love with Gabriel. The way she looks at him gives her away. I feel sorry for her, I really do. He’ll have to marry a pretty heiress—like you. Not a girl from the backstreets. With a gammy leg.”

Now that Cecilia had put it like that, Phoebe had to admit that she’d been wrong in disliking poor Eliza when really she should be pitying her. Although probably the young woman wouldn’t want anyone’s pity. It was all very difficult. Did Gabriel in any way return Eliza’s feelings? Most likely not. As far as she could tell on her brief acquaintance with the staff in Denmark Street, he treated her in the same way as Bessie and Violet. Which must be so hard for a young woman in the throes of love. Phoebe knew something of that sensation herself. Did it put her on the same footing as Eliza? Probably. Only surely she had more chance than Eliza did?

She swallowed, trying to find something to which she could change the subject. “What was St Giles like?” She didn’t ask if it would be safe for her because it was too late now, and besides which, she didn’t want to know. The decision had been made and she wouldn’t have gone back on it even if she could have. A little part of her, a part that had been dormant since Papa died, was waking up. A hot little ball of excitement coiled about her insides, a feeling of anticipation, of being alive again at last. And of not following convention. And she liked it. Especially as she would be doing it with Gabriel.

“Oh, I don’t think I could do it justice by trying to describe it,” Cecilia said, a little too airily for Phoebe’s liking. “You’ll see soon enough. And now I think we should go down.” She gave a dismissive shrug. “At any rate, I’ve had my fill of waiting. Mama says I have no patience at all, and I fear she’s correct. Come on. We’ll sneak down and nobody will see us.”

Getting out of a large house in the heart of Mayfair without anyone seeing them wasn’t quite as easy as Cecilia had deemed it. One or two hurried duckings into doorways were involved, and some rushing on tiptoes past bits of the house where the servants were working. But it was a huge house and the servants seemed few and far between. Within a few minutes they were making their way along an overgrown pathway at the side of the garden. At this time of the year the naked vines and mainly leafless bushes weren’t the best of cover, but in summer no one at all would have been able to see them.

At the end of the garden the green-painted door Phoebe had seen at the party opened into an alleyway, at the end of which they emerged into the busy Three Kings Yard. From the number of buildings and people to be seen, this must have been the Mews for all the surrounding houses, not just the duke and duchess’s. However, everyone was busy and no one spared them a glance as they hurried to the left, through a door beside a carriage house and up a creaky flight of bare wooden stairs.

Cecilia pushed open the door at the top and Phoebe followed her into a small, slope-ceilinged attic room which held only a table and two chairs and a large wooden chest. A roughly dressed man was sitting on one of the chairs, leaning back with his long legs outstretched.

Phoebe stared. For a moment she didn’t realize it was Gabriel, his appearance was so changed.

He got to his feet with a lazy swagger, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of a voluminous, tatty coat that must have been at least as old as he was. What magic was this? How was it he looked so unlike himself?

The gentleman she knew had vanished. Before her stood a man of the streets, just like the ones she’d seen from her window. Instead of standing upright and tall, like a gentleman, he’d acquired a stance and bearing that had bestowed on him the over-confident, and slightly belligerent air of someone who might well be prepared to fight with anyone who opposed him.

His clothes, of course, added to this impression. He wore loose-fitting trousers and scuffed boots that could have done with the services of his stepmother’s boot boy. Over a grubby linen shirt he’d arrayed himself in a waistcoat and, on top of that, the ancient coat, which boasted patches on the elbows and wide enough sleeves to camouflage his splinted arm. She was pleased to see he’d tucked his right hand into the front of his waistcoat for support.

The battered, and slightly greasy-looking, cocked hat that he seemed to be proposing to wear still rested on the table. Instead of being its original uniform black, it had faded along its creases from many years out in all weather, and was probably older than he was. His light-brown hair, instead of having been coaxed into the most fashionable of styles by his valet, was a tangled mess of curls, and coupled with his unshaven chin completed the impression of a disreputable villain.

Phoebe couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing, her hand to her mouth. “Good heavens. I wouldn’t wish to meet you on a dark night. You look most threatening.”

He grinned, suddenly boyish and himself again. “That’s the whole point. I can’t go in there looking like I’m an easy mark. That would be the height of foolishness. Neither do I go in there looking like I’m out to cause trouble. At least, not with an arm like this.” He touched the broken arm.

“Shouldn’t it still be in a sling?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not going in there looking like an easy mark. I’ll keep it tucked in like this for support unless anything untoward happens.”

Untoward? Phoebe wanted to ask him what he meant by that.

But Cecilia had opened the trunk. “You’re only a bit smaller than me. You can wear the same outfit I did. It’s a bit smelly, I’m afraid, but I can assure you it has no occupants.”

“Occupants?”

“Lice,” Gabriel said. “Fleas. We’re going where people don’t have enough water to keep themselves clean. Nowhere to wash, often only one set of clothes so they never get changed. When I told you they were poor, I meant they have nothing. Absolutely nothing. And while we don’t have to look exactly like the worst of them, we do want to smell like them. Can’t go in there stinking of roses. Or rather lavender—which is how you smell at the moment. I picked up the scent as soon as you came through the door. A dead giveaway.”

Phoebe nodded, clinging to the relief that even if she was going to be smelly enough to mask the perfume she’d put on this morning, with Gabriel in mind, she wasn’t going to be donning lousy clothes. Not that this possibility had occurred to her before this moment. She wanted to ask him if they were going to be doing some sleuthing, looking for traces of his mother, or if it was just a tour, much as she knew people did at Bedlam. The feeling that she didn’t want it to be a tour arose. She didn’t want to feel as though she was at the Exeter ’change and the inhabitants the wild animals for her to gawp at.