To Distraction (22 page)

The maid’s hysteria had abated somewhat by the time the carriage turned off the cobbled street, maneuvering to enter, then rolling down a narrow lane running along the back of a long row of shops. Eventually, the horses slowed and the carriage was brought to a rocking halt.

Deverell glanced out at the rear of the narrow building behind which they’d stopped. “The Athena Agency, I presume?”

He looked at Phoebe, met her startled gaze.

When she said nothing, he reached for the carriage door, swung it open, and stepped down into the lane.

The driver was scambling down, concern on his round face. He, too, was a large man; Deverell had seen him before—in the lane by Cranbrook Manor wood.

Dropping to the ground, the driver eyed Deverell as he straightened. “Here, Fergus? You all right?”

“Aye,” came from within the carriage. “We’d best get this lot inside—just make sure you tie m’horses up good and tight.”

Deverell said nothing. Reaching into the carriage, he took Phoebe’s hand and assisted her down, then did the same for the maid, who looked uncertain and faintly shocked by his courtesy.

Phoebe looked on, a frown in her eyes. She’d halted a few feet away, making no move to go inside. He knew without thinking that she was debating whether or not it lay within her power to dismiss him, to somehow send him away.

The driver went to the carriage door, leaning in to assist the giant. Leaving him to it, Deverell moved to Phoebe’s side; gripping her arm above the elbow, he quietly murmured, “Don’t bother even thinking it.”

He didn’t meet the sharp look she threw him. Lifting his head, he called, “Grainger?”

There was a rustle behind some barrels nearby, then Grainger stepped into view. “Yes, guv?”

“Keep an eye on the horses. We won’t be long.”

“Aye, guv.”

Rather more than a trifle shaken, Phoebe watched Fergus,
now out of the carriage but leaning heavily on Birtles, pause to have a word with the lanky lad, who had clearly been keeping watch on their premises.

How had Deverell found out? How long had he known?

How much had he learned?

Most importantly, what would he do with his newfound knowledge?

His fingers tightened about her arm. Head rising, she allowed him to steer her toward the back door. Miss Constance Spry, the Chifley’s ex-governess, a quiet, rather timid but sensible young woman with excellent references and unimpeachable background, meekly followed; regardless of what had transpired, Phoebe felt entirely justified in having embarked on their precipitous rescue, inadequately planned though it had been.

Miss Spry’s situation had been desperate. That had been apparent when, that afternoon at Chifley House, leaving Edith with Lady Chifley and the two other matrons who’d called, Phoebe had stepped out onto the terrace and seen, on a path to the side of the small garden, the petite governess struggling in the arms of Chifley, valiantly fighting to avoid being kissed. Phoebe had deliberately scuffed her shoe, causing both to look up; Miss Spry had grasped the moment, wrenched free, and run.

Chifley had looked at Phoebe, then looked after Miss Spry and laughed. Cruelly. It had been clear he would be after her, with even greater determination, at the first opportunity. Nothing was going to stop him until he’d ruined her; the fact that she was a vicar’s daughter probably only incited him more.

Letting Miss Spry escape, with a sneer on his face, Chifley had started, deliberately, toward Phoebe. She’d turned and stepped back into the drawing room, feeling physically ill.

To her relief, within minutes of Chifley joining his doting
mama and her cronies, Edith, clearly struggling not to curl her lip, had declared that they had to leave.

Across the room, Chifley had bent an openly lascivious look on Phoebe; he’d certainly seen her well enough to recognize her. In the alley, however, in the dark, his attention had been fixed on poor Miss Spry. If he had recognized Phoebe, shock would have brought him up short; she felt reasonably confident he hadn’t, that at least in that respect her secret was still safe.

Nearing the agency’s door, she glanced back. Fergus was coming on slowly. She briefly scanned his face and inwardly winced at the pain she saw there. That was the only real regret she had over the night’s events.

Despite the obvious drawbacks, even having Deverell find them had had its benefits; he’d rescued them, but more importantly he’d meted out some degree of punishment to Chifley, which was more than she would have been able to do.

For that, and his help with Fergus, she was willing to at least treat him civilly, even though he’d clearly been spying on her.

Reaching past her, he opened the back door; turning, head high, she led him inside.

The door gave onto a small dark hall; a few paces brought them into the large spacious kitchen at the rear of the shop.

Emmeline had been sitting knitting by the fire, with Jessica at the table nearby, quietly chatting. Both looked up eagerly as the sounds of the group’s arrival filtered into the large room…then both women’s faces blanked as Phoebe came forward and they saw Deverell, prowling larger than life, behind her.

Emmeline and Jessica quickly came to their feet. An awkward silence fell as the others shuffled in. Phoebe walked to the hearth, bent to warm her hands at the cheery blaze; the instant everyone was in the room, she turned and waved at
Deverell, who had come to stand alongside her. “This is Lord Paignton.”

She said nothing more. The difficult silence lengthened, then Fergus groaned. Shuffling to the table, he slumped into a chair. “Begging y’r pardon, Miss Phoebe, m’lord, but m’head’s fit to split.”

Emmeline gasped, blanched; dropping her knitting on her chair, she hurried around the table. “Good Lord—what happened?”

She didn’t wait for any explanation; she fretted and fussed, dispatching Birtles for clean rags and Jessica to fetch a bowl of warm water.

Phoebe stood by the fire and let the mild pandemonium reign; she knew it was Emmeline’s way of coping, not just with the shock of Fergus’s injury but with the even bigger shock of having a man like Deverell in her kitchen.

He was the epitome, outwardly at least, of the type of gentleman Emmeline had had good cause to flee years before. Phoebe glanced sideways at him, wondering if perhaps he might feel, or be made to feel, awkward enough to leave. He was frowning—at first she thought at Emmeline, but then she realized he was looking at Fergus. More specifically, at Fergus’s cracked head.

Phoebe noticed Miss Spry, white-faced, her worldly goods clutched to her chest, trying to look inconspicuous against one wall. When Jessica returned with the bowl of water and placed it on the table by Emmeline, Phoebe beckoned to her. “Jessica—this is Miss Spry. Perhaps you would be good enough to take her upstairs and show her where she can rest.”

Ignoring the looming, attentive presence by her side, Phoebe smiled reassuringly at the governess. “You’ll be perfectly safe here. Once Emmeline has tended to Fergus, she’ll come up and see you settled. Go with Jessica.” Switching
her gaze to Jessica, she added, “We won’t need either of you again tonight.”

Jessica nodded, a trifle overwhelmed, and turned away.

Although Miss Spry’s eyes remained unnaturally wide, she bobbed a curtsy. “Thank you, miss.” Then she swallowed, cast a fleeting glance at Deverell—one Phoebe noted wasn’t so much frightened as awed—and said, “I owe you and your friends here more than I can ever repay. I won’t forget.”

Inclining her head with a certain quiet dignity, Miss Spry joined Jessica. Together, they slipped from the room.

Deverell heard stairs creak as the two young women climbed to the rooms above the shop. He returned his gaze to Fergus; after several more minutes of Fergus’s grunted protests and Emmeline’s exclamations and largely ineffectual fussing, he stirred. “Here—let me see.”

He went forward, rounding the table to where Fergus sat slumped, his head propped in his hands. He noticed the stark fear that flashed in Emmeline’s eyes but gave no sign that he realized it was due to his approach; she fluttered, but then, fists clenching, stood her ground on Fergus’s other side.

“It’s a…a
monstrous
crack.” Emmeline wrung her hands as he leaned over Fergus, gently parting the man’s thinning, curly hair to examine the severe contusion left by the viciously wielded cosh. Emmeline set her chin. “He should have a doctor see to it.”

That had been her central plaint, one Fergus had thus far refused to countenance. However, the wound on the back of his skull was larger than Deverell had expected to see. It was mostly laceration, but…

Holding up three fingers a yard in front of Fergus, Deverell asked, “How many fingers?”

Fergus glanced up. A moment passed before he said, “Three.”

Phoebe drew nearer; Deverell didn’t need to look to sense
her increasing concern. He straightened. “I think Emmeline”—he nodded to the older woman—“is right.”

Emmeline blinked, shocked.

When Fergus shot him a frowning glance, he added, “I tended enough battlefield injuries to know what needs a surgeon and what doesn’t, and while I doubt it’ll prove incapacitating, that wound needs to be looked at.”

“A surgeon?” Phoebe glanced at Emmeline. “I can’t think of whom—”

“If I could suggest,” Deverell said dryly, “my colleagues and I at my private club have a surgeon on call, one who’s accustomed to dealing with injuries such as this, and similarly accustomed to being discreet.” He met Phoebe’s eyes. “We can take Fergus there—it’s not far—and I’ll summon Pringle, our surgeon.”

Looking down, he met Fergus’s eyes, narrowed in pain. “Pringle knows more about such injuries than any man alive. He can check you over, then we’ll all feel much happier. At the very least, he’ll clean the wound properly.”

Emmeline looked as if she couldn’t believe her ears, as if she couldn’t quite believe he’d offered to help.

Phoebe was regarding him, also with suspicion in her eyes, but not for the same reason.

He met her gaze and faintly raised his brows. He did indeed want her at the club, away from her people so he could question her—something he was reluctant to do before those here, all of whom clearly saw her as their mistress-cum-leader. That wasn’t a position he wished to undermine; he simply wanted answers to his highly pertinent questions.

Her people also seemed uncertain over whether or not he posed a threat to her, and them, too; he didn’t think he did—wasn’t entirely sure why they were viewing him as they were—but that was another reason for shifting her interrogation to more conducive surrounds.

And if her concern for Fergus gave him the leverage to accomplish that, he wasn’t too noble not to use it.

He continued to look at her, awaiting her decision—as did everyone else. She hesitated, but her concern for Fergus was stronger than her wariness of him and his plans. She nodded. “That’s a very”—her lips thinned—“kind offer.”

He suppressed a grin; she’d guessed his plans.

The next few minutes were filled with yet more fuss, during which he learned that Emmeline’s husband, Birtles, was the man who had driven the carriage. He suggested that Birtles remain at the agency, his home, while Grainger drove Edith’s carriage.

Fergus fretted about entrusting his cattle to the youthful Grainger; Deverell countered with the unarguable—that Grainger cared for and drove his matched grays.

Three minutes later, he led Phoebe out to the carriage, following Birtles and Emmeline, who were guiding the still unsteady Fergus between them. In short order, they were in the carriage and Grainger was driving them through the streets. Phoebe glanced at Deverell but said nothing; the lack of privacy was a major impediment—Fergus was sitting on the seat opposite.

For his part, Deverell was content to wait; they were, after all, heading into his domain.

P
hoebe stared out of the carriage window at the houses slipping past. Those hosting entertainments were well lit; guests were departing from some, the clop of horses’ hooves and the revelers’ gay voices ringing in the air. The evening was well advanced; a few blocks away in Mayfair, the haut ton would be gathering shawls and reticules and preparing to leave their balls.

She owned to a fleeting wish that she’d been among them and not facing a situation that could at best be termed difficult—but then Miss Spry would have been ruined. Jaw setting, Phoebe dragooned her wits into battle order and turned them on Deverell.

On how she was going to cope with him.

He was clearly going to be a very real problem. Indeed, after witnessing all he had that night, he’d become a real threat to her enterprise.

Tucked in the corner of the leather seat, her face turned
from him, she was nevertheless aware of him beside her—of his hard body, warm and alive, of steely muscles coupled with an incisive mind. Of his strength, not just physical but on numerous other planes as well.

He would be a formidable adversary. Could he be converted into an ally?

Or if not that, could she at least persuade him to keep silent?

She couldn’t say; she would have to feel her way. The carriage turned down a quiet street. She inwardly grimaced. After he’d so blatantly used Fergus’s injury to jockey her into coming to his club—into meekly walking into the lion’s den—of one thing she felt sure: He would use whatever advantage fate handed him, wield whatever power he held and call in her mounting debts of gratitude to pressure her into telling him all—everything he wanted to know.

How to avoid that was what
she
needed to know.

The carriage slowed, then halted. Deverell leaned past her, opened the door, then stepped out. Turning, he offered his hand; clasping her fingers firmly, he helped her down to the pavement.

She looked about while he sent his lad—Grainger—hurrying up to the house. He returned in less than a minute with a footman; a precisely dressed, rotund, butlerlike individual followed.

While Grainger and the footman assisted Fergus from the carriage, overseen by the butler, Deverell led her up the paved path, past neat bushes and shrubs toward steps leading up to the house’s—club’s—front door. She glanced left and right; the building was similar to other houses on the street, in no way extraordinary. Number 12 Montrose Place flew no flag to indentify it as a club for wealthy gentlemen.

“This is your club?” She felt compelled to confirm that.

“Yes.” Deverell glanced back at the others. “The Bastion Club.”

He guided her up the steps and through the open front door. In the hallway—tiled and recently painted, fresh but rather austere, quite definitely masculine with its lack of ornamentation or anything as softening as a vase of flowers—he lingered, waiting for the others.

When all four were inside and the butler had shut the door, Deverell nodded toward Fergus, who seemed exhausted. “Put Mr. McKenna in the small parlor. Grainger—stay with him.” To the butler he said, “Send for Pringle. Ask him to examine Mr. McKenna thoroughly—he took a nasty knock in the line of duty.”

The butler bowed. “At once, my lord.”

Deverell glanced at Grainger and the footman easing Fergus into the room to one side of the front door, then he looked again at the butler. “Are any of the others in this evening?”

“No, my lord. Just yourself.”

“In that case, we’ll break with tradition. Miss Malleson and I will be in the library.” Releasing her, he lifted her cloak from her shoulders and handed it to the butler.

As if visiting a gentleman’s club was an unremarkable event, she shook straight the skirts of her midnight blue walking gown—long-sleeved and buttoned to the throat, it helped her blend with the night—then straightened.

Deverell’s fingers closed about her elbow; he turned her toward the stairs. “Summon us if we’re needed. And send Pringle up when he’s finished with McKenna.”

“Yes, my lord.” The butler hovered at the bottom of the stairs. “Shall I bring tea?”

Deverell glanced questioningly at her. She considered, then looked at the butler. “Thank you—that would be welcome.”

Having something between them other than just words might be helpful.

Deverell steered Phoebe up the stairs, his fingers wrapped about her elbow more in case she required support than in any sense of restraint. As they gained the first-floor landing, he glanced at her face. Head high, she showed no sign of nerves, of being unsettled.

Most young ladies, even twenty-five-year-olds, could be excused for feeling decidedly shaky after the events of the evening. Releasing her, he opened the library door and stood back for her to precede him; she swept in, spine stiff—she was clearly made of stern stuff.

Following her inside, he closed the door and reflected that that was just as well; he had very little patience for feminine fluster.

He watched as she walked slowly across the room, taking in the quietly luxurious, distinctly masculine furnishings, the deep leather armchairs, the small polished tables scattered between, the well-stocked bookshelves and the sporting magazines lying discarded here and there.

Reaching the fireplace on the other side of the room, she glanced up at the wide mirror above the mantel, briefly studied his reflection in it, then looked down and bent to warm her hands before the sprightly fire dancing in the hearth.

He remembered she’d done the same in the agency’s kitchen, yet the night wasn’t that chilly, and her hands, when he’d taken them to help her out of the carriage, hadn’t been cold.

She was nervous—or at least on edge—after all.

He headed toward her. She looked up and turned to face him. He waved her to an armchair angled beside the fire. While she moved to it and sat, he drew another around, positioning it across the hearth but further back from the flames. He sat and studied her.

He’d intended from the first to use the library; having Pringle see McKenna in the small parlor had simply been a
useful excuse. They’d set aside the small parlor for meeting with females, but it was simply too small for his present need. If he paced, or if Phoebe paced, in the small parlor they would have been too close. Far too close given the subjects their discussion was slated to encompass and the instincts it was sure to abrade.

Let alone the feelings—the reactions, the emotions—already roiling through him.

Settling in the chair, sinking into the cushioning leather, Phoebe flicked a glance at the door, concern for McKenna patently riding her. Distracting her.

“He’ll be all right.” His subtle emphasis suggested that his reassurance didn’t extend to her well-being.

Her eyes fastened on his face, her blue-violet gaze sharpening…then she shivered delicately. Crossing her arms, she rubbed her palms up and down her upper arms, as if she truly were cold…but the library was pleasantly warm.

He inwardly frowned but kept the expression from his face. She wasn’t just unsettled; she was in shock but doing her damnedest to hide it.

A sound at the door had him turning; seeing Gasthorpe carrying a tray, he waved him in. Waiting while Gasthorpe solicitously laid the tray on a table close by Phoebe’s chair, he grasped the moments while she and the club’s majordomo consulted on who would pour and the need for sugar lumps to deal with the unsettling tilt and swing of his emotions, a sudden upsurge of concern for her swamping his violent feelings of just a few seconds before.

“My lord?”

Gasthorpe’s voice drew him back; seeing the majordomo holding the teapot aloft, he shook his head. “No—I’ll take a brandy.”

He had a strong suspicion he was going to need fortification to get through the coming discussion without either
misstepping and failing to learn all he now knew he absolutely had to know, or worse, queering his pitch irretrievably with Phoebe.

Watching her sip her tea, he let his concern for her wash through him, not fighting or trying to suppress it but letting it spread, sink in, and so gradually subside. Leaving his earlier, underlying feelings still standing, still turbulent, powerful and remarkably strong, a roiling, surging clashing sea swirling beneath his tightly reined temper.

Not just coloring his temper but giving it an edge quite unlike any he’d experienced before.

A clink of crystal reached him, then Gasthorpe appeared by his elbow, proffering a glass half-filled with amber liquid. He took it and nodded a dismissal. Gasthorpe bowed and withdrew.

He sipped, watched Phoebe cradle her cup between her hands and gaze at the fire. What he felt—for her, about her—wasn’t familiar. He wasn’t even sure why he felt as he did. But given that she now meant this much to him, given their ever-deepening, soon-to-be-consummated sexual connection, given that he wanted her as his wife not just because it was a logical decision but one defined and driven by something far more powerful than reason—given, therefore, that he would have to learn to deal with her, a being he definitely didn’t completely comprehend—given all that, then exercising all due caution was assuredly the path of the wise.

She swallowed, then drew a deep, fractionally shaky breath, and held it—and he felt, once again, the ground shift beneath his emotional feet.

As if he were standing on quicksand, from both his point of view and hers.

“What, exactly, is the business of the Athena Agency?” He kept the words uninflected, let nothing more than even-tempered curiosity color them.

She studied him for an instant, then coolly replied, “That’s none of your concern.”

He held her gaze, let a moment tick by, then calmly stated, “Think again.”

When she merely arched a brow, unimpressed, and said nothing, he took another sip of brandy, then evenly said, “Correct me if I’m wrong. You—through the agency—have been assisting female servants to escape from their employment, presumably when they become the target of unwanted advances from their male employers, or males associated with their employers. You’ve been using the income from the fortune you inherited from your great-aunt first to establish and subsequently to support the agency. You own the building the agency is housed in, but Mr. and Mrs. Birtles and a Mr. Loftus Coates are the named principals of the business.”

Her face registered not just shock but another emotion that quickly resolved into outrage. “
How
did you learn all that?”

“I checked.” Even now he was amazed, prey to a combination of surprise, fascination, and frank admiration that she had not only conceived the notion but had engineered it, given it life, and, as far as he could tell, successfully run the business for years.

Spine rigid, she’d narrowed her eyes at him. “Checked how?” Then understanding dawned. Her jaw dropped; for an instant she was speechless. “You…you used your…your contacts to investigate my finances?”

Her rising tone was a warning, one he ignored. He nodded.

Fury sparked, lighting her eyes, her whole countenance. “How
dare
you!”

Spots of color rose to her cheeks; she all but vibrated with righteous indignation. The reckless sea of emotions he
was holding down surged in response to the accusation in her eyes; it would be easy, so satisfying, to let them erupt, but…

“Phoebe…” Outwardly unperturbed, he held her gaze, then quietly stated the bald truth, “When it comes to you, to matters involving you, matters that in any way might prove dangerous to you, there’s little I wouldn’t dare.”

Phoebe heard the ring of abject honesty in his words. Inwardly aghast, battling to conceal it, she read the unsettling, disconcerting, ineradicable truth in his eyes.

Not only did he know, incontrovertibly beyond any hope of her disguising the truth, far too much—far more than was safe—but being him, the type of man he was, he would never let such “matters” rest.

And,
damn!
—she’d brought this down on her own head! She’d encouraged him to engage in a liaison with her—without having thought it through. Without having recalled, not until now when she was faced with the inevitable outcome, that gentlemen like him had a tendency to assume responsibility for the women in their lives.

In a blink, she jettisoned any idea of him turning a blind eye, of her convincing him—no matter what she said or how long she argued, no matter any distraction or inducement she might offer—to simply walk away and let things be. Let her and the agency carry on as before.

But…there had to be a way. If he was a wall blocking her, there had to be some way around him—over or under or past.

She tried desperately to think, but her brain felt literally torn, wrenched and shaken, racked with worry for Fergus, laced with guilty regret that her rush to save Miss Spry had led to his injury, and simultaneously rocked by the realization that Deverell now had it in his power to completely overset all her careful work.

If he told
anyone
—Edith, even though she supported her without knowing the details, even Audrey, who was so eccentric yet would surely draw the line over a lady of the haut ton owning and actively operating an employment agency, let alone consorting with servants and members of the lower orders as she necessarily did—the entire enterprise she’d worked so hard and so long to establish would come tumbling down about her ears.

The man who sat in the armchair opposite quietly watching her was beyond doubt the most potent threat to her—on all levels—that she’d ever even imagined, let alone faced.

Eyes locked on his, green and unwavering, she assimilated that. Along with the fact that he’d made no threats, no decrees, no statements of intent. That he was waiting.

She thought back, reviewing their exchange…realized. Drawing in a slow breath, she shifted, easing her tense back. “What do you wish to know?”

He heard the question for the capitulation it was but gave no sign of gloating. “How do you know which females need rescuing?”

She drained her teacup, set it down, then told him of the network that operated throughout Mayfair and the major country houses, the housekeepers and butlers who knew each other, the interconnecting mesh of family and relatives who worked here or there, in this lord’s employ or that lady’s. “It’s not hard to hear of the problem households if you’re listening in the right quarters. Emmeline worked in a number of establishments, and she has seven sisters and two brothers, similiarly employed. Through them and her, word gets passed back to the agency.”