Uncle Higglestone downed his brandy without comment.
‘But you can see this for yourself of course, Your Lordship! Doesn’t Miss Fairfax look quite the picture of vitality and health?’
Phoebe avoided Sophie’s gaze, certain she’d heard the estate manager say the very same when Thomas made enquiries of the deer herd.
‘Thank you, Aunt, I do feel most recovered, thanks to your care. Good evening, Your Lordship.’
Phoebe sunk into a low, dutiful curtsey, conscious that the mamas trailing the earl were watching with both interest and suspicion.
‘Miss Fairfax and … the younger Miss Fairfax,’ the earl nodded, waving a port that almost matched the colour of his cheeks. ‘It is most excellent news that you are recovered. Indeed, I have just come from Knightswood Manor, where your brother assured me all Fairfaxes descend from good,healthy stock!’
Phoebe reddened as the earl descended into a belly rumble that put his frock coat under even more pressure. She could just imagine Thomas tripping over himself to assure the earl of such a thing when he heard of her injury. Perhaps this visit was a surprise inspection to reassure himself that he wasn’t being shortchanged.
‘In truth, Your Lordship, I’m sure my aunt has much to do with my recovery,’ Phoebe returned evenly, ‘she has been most attentive.’
‘Oh dearest, that is too kind, I?—’
‘Youth forgives everything,’ the earl interrupted, tossing back the remainder of his port, ‘I’ve often considered its benefits are wasted on the young, who do not appreciate them at all! Though I hear you’ve also been taking the waters? Tell me, how do you find them?’
Phoebe glanced at her crestfallen aunt and felt a sudden flare of protectiveness.
‘In truth, Your Lordship, all I can taste is mud!’
Matilda’s words were out before Phoebe could stop them, and at precisely the same moment two things happened. The first was that all the listening mamas gasped in unison, and the second was that a tall, elegant figure stepped in beside her aunt, distracting everyone.
‘It’s a new expression among the young set, my lord,’ Viscount Damerel interjected smoothly. ‘Mud as inmudicinal, which no one can dispute. It is the sulphur, I am told.’
‘Oh … I see,’ the earl conceded slowly, with a frown. ‘Well, I’ll take your word for it, Damerel.’
He reached out to take another port from a passing footman.
‘I don’t usually dance, Miss Fairfax,’ he continued condescendingly, ‘but as this is aprivategathering, you may do me the honour, and then escort me to the card room.’
‘As you please, sir,’ Phoebe replied, every feeling revolting at the thought of dancing with an overstuffed pheasant.
‘I believe a quadrille is starting now, that will do,’ he added, tossing back the contents of the glass.
Phoebe raised her eyes to the viscount. His face was shuttered, his manner composed, and there was no evidence of the man she’d glimpsed beneath the magnolia tree.
Had he meant any of it? Or had he just been entertaining himself the way he’d entertained Aurelia?
She flushed dully.
What did any of it matter, anyway?
It seemed as though the whole world turned to watch her dance with the most coveted, yet ridiculous, suitor in the room. And to make matters worse, the earl’s dancing turned out to be a form of mincing, crossed with a few half-remembered steps from his youth. Yet every way he turned, the ambitious mamas simpered and smiled, his birthright exonerating all crimes.
Phoebe fixed her gaze over his rounded shoulder, so conscious of Aurelia and the viscount dancing only a few paces away. They were indeed the most handsome couple in the room; matched in every way, and now it seemed their dancing was perfectly timed too. She painted her face with a smile and tried to ignore Aurelia’s sidelong glances; but the earl’s unsteady progress, and insistence on humming aloud, ensured no one was looking anywhere else. She lowered her gaze, feeling as conspicuous as he looked, and burning with humiliation that this ridiculous person was soon to assume control of her life. Then the music moved on, heralding a brief change in partner, and she looked up to find herself directly opposite Captain Elliot.
Phoebe smiled wanly, never more grateful to see his warm eyes.
‘Don’t look so hopeless,’ he whispered as they stepped together, their hands creating an arch above their heads. ‘You know, we aren’t so different, you and I.’
She smiled benignly, conscious that the viscount and Aurelia were close by.
‘Trying to freeze time, before life catches up,’ he whispered as they stepped together again.
She glanced up at him, their brief interlude in the garden with Dr Kapoor flitting through her thoughts, and suddenly, she justknewhe couldn’t be responsible for Aurelia’s situation. She’d glimpsed the secret behind his dancing eyes, and if she wasn’t much mistaken, that secret had much more to do with a Lieutenant of the East India Company, than the daughter of Marchioness Carlisle.
