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en them out of desire and liking and what she knew, on her part, to be love. But Ashe did not love her, thank God. He would not fight for her beyond all reason.
‘But you had to be noble about it, had to do the honourable thing, even if that overrode your duty to your family,’ she added with the intention of throwing oil on the flames.
It worked. Ashe stalked forwards as she retreated before him, until she was backed up against the door with nowhere to go. ‘Attempting to do the honourable thing is part and parcel of my duty to my family, to my name,’ he ground out. ‘And I had thought that I had found a woman worthy of that name, one who would stand by me and my family and fight to bring it, and the lands, back to where they should be. I was wrong.’
He stood back and Phyllida turned before he would see the tears or read in her eyes that her heart was breaking. She left the room without a word and climbed the stairs to her bedchamber. Some foolish part of her was straining to hear the door open behind her, Ashe’s voice calling her back. But, of course, it did not happen.
It was quite extraordinary, how much a breaking heart hurt, Phyllida thought as she stood passive while the maid unpinned her hair and removed her gown. Mama, loving foolishly and too well, had died of a broken heart. Her daughter was not going to have even that release, she was going to have to live with the wounds for the rest of her life.
Chapter Twenty
Lady Eldonstone was kind and regretful and exceedingly courteous when Phyllida made her difficult confession that she did not think she and Ashe were suited and that it would be best if they did not meet again. Phyllida was certain that beneath the tranquil poise the older woman was concealing considerable anger that her son was being spurned by someone who had every reason to be grateful to him.
She took herself off before breakfast, back to Great Ryder Street and the news that Gregory was staying with the Millingtons for a few days, presumably to bolster the family while they decided what to do about the return of their prodigal relative.
‘You all right, Miss Phyllida?’ Anna asked, peering closely at her as she took her valise. ‘You look as if you’ve been awake half the night crying.’
‘Nonsense, of course not.’ Just all night, alternating between tears and frozen indecision. What to do? Where to run? ‘I have got a cold coming or something, that is all.’
‘I’ll make you up my remedy,’ the maid said. ‘Oh, and there’s a letter for you. I was just about to get Perkin’s boy to take it over to you.’
Phyllida picked it up. Not a hand she recognised, ordinary paper, thick, clumsy writing. She trailed into the drawing room and sat down, opened it with no curiosity. A bill, she supposed.
A large engraved card fluttered out and she picked it up from the floor.
Mr Harry Buck’s House of Pleasures for the Discerning Gentleman.
Below that was printed in the heavy black handwriting. Three o’clock this afternoon. Come back to work. Don’t be late. I’ll need a little sweetener to keep this secret all to myself.
Phyllida dropped the card as though it had moved in her hand. It lay at her feet, as dangerous as an adder. Overcome by nausea, she staggered to a bowl on a side table and was violently sick.
‘Lord love us! What’s the matter now?’ It was Anna, fussing and anxious.
Phyllida closed her eyes and dragged her hand across her mouth. ‘Don’t know, something I ate perhaps. I’m sorry, I’ll wash the bowl, you shouldn’t have to.’ In a minute, when she could think, when she had stopped shaking.
‘Nonsense. You come up to bed now, my lamb, and I’ll send for the doctor and his lordship.’
‘No! Not Lord Clere!’
‘Your brother, I meant. Now come along, you lean on me.’
‘All right. Thank you, Anna. Don’t send for the doctor, I will be all right presently. And don’t worry Gregory, Miss Millington needs him. But I will lie down for a while, then I have to go out this afternoon.’
‘In this state? You’ll do no such thing, Miss Phyllida. It’s bed for you.’
Ashe ate his breakfast wearing his best diplomatic face while his family pretended valiantly that nothing was wrong, that they’d never had a houseguest and that they were not desperate to know just how affected he was by Phyllida’s defection.
He then strode off to Brooks’s club, mentally kicking himself when he realised he was averting his eyes from the turning off St James’s Street into Jermyn Street.
He already knew enough members to make negotiating the entrance hall and finding a quiet corner to bury himself behind a newspaper a trial, but the club was used to gentlemen seeking peace and quiet after a hard night and no one seemed offended by his curt nods of greeting.
The newsprint swam in front of his eyes, the words meant nothing. Damn the woman. He had lost a night’s sleep alternating between anger and aching arousal.
Phyllida didn’t want him, she thought marriage to him would be a life sentence to unhappiness and she didn’t even desire him. Their lovemaking had simply been an exercise in getting over a traumatic incident in her past.
It was only hurt pride, of course, this sick ache inside. That and unsatisfied lust. He had been used. Used to get her out of a scandal, used to conquer her fears, and now she no longer needed him so she simply walked away. It seemed that her disinclination to marry him overcame his title, his wealth and his prospects.
Ashe folded the newspaper with savage precision and slapped it down on the table beside him. He needed to hit someone. He didn’t care if they hit him back, he just needed the outlet of violence.
