‘Indeed, you do!’ the captain replied, though his tone was noticeably cooler.
Satisfied, Aurelia spun on her satin heels, and disappeared back towards the lilting music, leaving Phoebe to stare after her, suppressing a rise of emotion she couldn’t even begin to understand.
‘So modest,’ Sophie muttered beneath her breath.
‘Are you feeling quite well, Miss Fairfax?’ the captain added with a slight frown. ‘Do you wish to sit down? Or shall I procure a glass of water, perhaps?’
‘How kind you are, Captain Damerel!’ Sophie beamed, ‘but you should know my sister has the constitution of an ox! Do let’s hurry, dearest,’ she added, slipping her arm through Phoebe’s, who’d fallen as silent as the night around them. ‘Aunt bid me not to keep the earl waiting.’
‘Then we must bid you both adieu,’ the captain returned gallantly, ‘and assure you of our service, whenever it may be of assistance!’
Phoebe nodded, with the faintest of smiles, before heading towards the house.
ChapterSeventeen
Five weeks and avoiding the earl until the wedding
There was no avoiding the earl. Apart from the fact that every pair of eyes seemed to be on the unexpected guest, he was also the only one not wearing any kind of mask.
‘Ironic when he stands most to benefit,’ Phoebe muttered to herself.
‘Pardon?’ Sophie whispered.
Phoebe shook her head.
‘He didn’t expect to find us here,’ Sophie added as they threaded around the dancing, ‘on account of us not being properly out. But Aunt explained why Thomas permitted it, and he seems content. He’s a friend of the viscount’s mother I think.’
Phoebe looked across at the viscount’s mama, a dazzling creature in green velvet and white ostrich feathers, holding court with Marchioness Carlisle and other matrons, and wondered why she hadn’t considered the earl’s attendance a possibility before. He might dislike socialising but he was also an unmarried, wealthy member of the ton, well known to most of the scheming and ambitious mamas here. Briefly, she scanned their sycophantic faces, willing any of their pale daughters to take her place anytime soon.
‘I did try to escape to warn you,’ Sophie continued in a low voice, ‘but then aunt insisted on introducing herself, and explaining everything, until everyone was quite muddled and then the earl said he would see you if you were here…’
Phoebe nodded, forcing her damp slippers forward, her recent escapades fanning through her head like pages from a book: escaping Knightswood, fighting the highwayman, fighting the viscount, escaping to Bath, fighting Aurelia, fighting herself…
She had done little else but try to fight or escape, yet none of it had been enough; and now she was staring directly at her future, who appeared to be sporting the most ridiculous shirt points, a gold-thread frock coat bursting at its seams, and a wig, which looked as though it wanted to run as much as she did. And despite all of this, a small herd of hopeful mamas and their daughters were gathered around his eminent person and her flustered aunt, who was doing her best to waylay them.
‘Why Thomas hasn’t deflected him onto someone more willing, I’ll never know,’ Sophie whispered, side-eyeing her sister anxiously.
Phoebe thought of her brother’s incandescent rage the day she’d returned with the viscount.
‘Do you understand the disquiet you’ve caused? Let alone how I have burned the midnight oil trying to fathom how to tell the earl that his betrothed has seen fit to run away on the common stage, dressed in her brother’s clothes!’
She swallowed. Time was running out, and despite all her efforts, none of her escapades had felt truly noble, at all.
‘We can all be heroic in big and small ways, loud and quiet, if we wish.’
A ghost of a smile flitted across her face as she squeezed Sophie’s arm.
Perhaps it wasn’t entirely too late.
‘He may have tried,’ she returned with lightness that belied the stone in her chest. ‘But the reality is I have always been betrothed to the earl, and Thomas is merely following Papa’s wishes.’
Sophie frowned, but then their flustered aunt was upon them, with the earl in tow.
‘Ah, there you are, my dears! We thought you must be admiring the viscount’s many works of art for some are quite breathtaking, are they not, Mr Higglestone?’ She beamed at her long-suffering husband before continuing, without drawing breath. ‘The Earl of Cumberland was just enquiring after your health, dear Phoebe, following your riding fall a few weeks ago?’
She nodded so vigorously, she put Phoebe in mind of one of the laying hens at home.
‘And your uncle and I were just saying how much the Bath air has improved your shoulder and your sister’s lungs, too, weren’t we, dear?’
