Phoebe knew neither of them needed to mention the man’s name. When Louisa had left her father’s house to go into service, she had ended up at a low gentry’s house as a maid, where the youngest master had taken what was a liking to her. Only…his liking had not been reciprocated. Even worse, the lack of reciprocation had made the master both domineering and harmful.
He was a long distance away from Louisa now.
“This is what you need, my Lady,” Louisa said, stopping spinning as she turned back to Phoebe. “You need to feel this free, then you will be truly happy.”
“Maybe that will come with a formal separation,” Phoebe said though she wrung her hands nervously together.
“Then hold onto that idea!”
“It is a long way off yet,” she said cautiously, remembering the threat that Graham had levelled at Lady Dodge. “I’ll hope for it, but I cannot count my chickens before they’ve hatched, as they say.”
“As you wish, my Lady.” As Louisa walked back toward her and linked their arms together, Phoebe couldn’t help wondering if there was something in her words that had saddened her friend.
The two of them walked together into the house, when Louisa hurried off to attend to some of her duties, leaving Phoebe alone to wander the house. She was heading toward the library, when in the hallway she heard the sounds of metal upon metal, clattering together.
She came to a sudden stop, fearing the loud noise and what it could mean. The noise was then followed by a growl of pain.
That was Hayward’s voice!
Phoebe didn’t think too much about her actions. She ignored all her previous pleas to stay away from the man and hurried toward the noise that was coming from a door up ahead. She ran toward it and pushed it open sharply, feeling blinded by the sunlight for a moment before her eyes adjusted.
She was in some kind of sporting room in the house, with floor to ceiling windows arched at the top and latticed at the bottom, that flooded the white floorboards with light. Squinting against the glare, she finally made out the source of all the clatter and grumbles of pain.
Hayward was fencing with an opponent. Both of them were wearing helmets and black netting masks that went over their heads, whilst their torsos had some padded protection, though they wore their normal trousers below.
“Ha!” Hayward declared as he struck out with the foil in his hands and managed to strike his opponent. Phoebe winced at the sight before she realized that the weapon was blunted and caused no harm at all. “I had my payback, at last,” he said with a chuckle as he stepped away.
“That you did, Your Grace,” the other man said as he moved back and removed the helmet. The lowering of the mask revealed the face of the steward whose dark eyes looked toward Phoebe and spotted her first.
“Ah, Lady Isabella,” he said, bowing deeply. Phoebe did not miss the way Hayward snapped his head toward her. He removed the helmet, revealing his full face. “I hope we weren’t destroying the peace too much.”
“Well, perhaps a little,” she said, prompting a laugh from him.
“If you would excuse me, I best get back to work. Next time, yYour Grace, I hope to win,” the steward said as he returned his foil to some racking at the far side of the room and hurried out.
Phoebe turned her eyes back to Hayward to see he was still looking at her. Seeing him with his black hair all mussed from the fight, Phoebe felt a lurch in her chest, it prompted her to take a step toward him across the space.
“For a horrid minute, I thought someone was truly in danger in here,” she said, moving toward him.
“No fear of that, remember?” he said with a smile before he turned and practiced a few positions. He took some lunges with the sword raised and Phoebe watched on. The more she watched, the more her eyes danced along his figure, admiring the athleticism as well as the skill. When he turned back to face her, she had to snap her gaze back up to his face, pretending that she had not been admiring him so. “Besides, I’m quite good with this thing,” he said, holding up the foil.
“Quite good?” she asked. “Does that mean average? Or the best you know?”
“Oh, not the best I know,” he said with a shake of his head. “The best I knew was a Frenchman, Parisian. He could move a sword so fast I swear it blurred before my eyes.”
“You have been to Paris?” Phoebe asked, hanging on his words as she took another step toward him.
“I have,” he acknowledged, pausing with his practicing as he played with the sword in the air for a minute. “My Parisian friend taught me well though. I am not the finest fighter I have ever met, but I hold my own against a few friends of mine.”
“Modest indeed,” Phoebe teased him.
“Modest or honest?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On your skill,” she pointed out, earning another hearty laugh from him.
