“Oh, sweet,” Phoebe crooned, opening her arms. “Come here.”
Clio indulged in a little sulk as she tucked herself into Phoebe’s embrace.
“I know you love him and all that nonsense,” Clio pouted, “but Aaron is a complete ninnyhammer, and I hate him.”
“You don’t mean any of that,” Phoebe said amiably, “but I’m sure that he deserves your irritation. I do love him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a man.”
“Men,” Clio said darkly. Phoebe laughed.
“He will come around,” Phoebe said with a level of patience that irritated Clio more than anything. Still, she kept her temper under wraps, if only because she lacked the energy to be angry with anyone else today.
“It’s not just Aaron, though,” she lamented. “I went to see the Duke of Metford, and he?—”
“You went to see the Duke of Metford?” Phoebe interrupted, startled. “By yourself?”
Clio pulled out of Phoebe’s arms enough to shoot the older woman an incredulous look.
“Yes, yes, I know how that sounds, coming from me,” Phoebe huffed. She’d spent her years before marriage sneaking to all sorts of scandalous places by herself. “But when I snuck off to meet a specific man, it was—you may have met him once or twice—your brother.”
“This is not like that,” Clio corrected. “I just … wanted to know where he stood. Where he really stood, not where Aaron wants him to be standing. I mean, he doesn’t seem like the kind of man who listens to what others demand of him. He was verydecisivewhen the carriage crashed, you understand. He hauled himself up the side of the carriage like it was nothing, then lifted me out—practically with one arm! Doyouknow any gentleman who could lift a ladywith one arm?”
She glanced at Phoebe to punctuate this point, but found herself facing down a deeply irritating smirk.
“It isnotlike that,” Clio reiterated.
“Of course,” Phoebe said, not remotely convincing. “I understand. I just recognize these feelings …”
“If you say ‘from my brother,’ I am going to slug you,” Clio threatened.
Phoebe didn’t say it, but she went about not saying it in a highly ostentatious manner.
“I’ll grant you that Aaron never pulled me from a dangerous carriage,” Phoebe said. “It sounds like something out of a novel. Tell me how it happened.”
Clio grinned, tucking her leg up beneath her so she could look directly at Phoebe.
“Oh my goodness, it was so sudden!” she exclaimed. “I was just riding along and then all of a sudden, the world was tilting to its side. I covered my head and curled up, of course, so I wasn’t hurt.”
“Thank the Lord,” Phoebe murmured.
Clio shot Phoebe a smile. “Indeed. But I’ll admit that itwasrather frightening to find that the bottom of the carriage was now the side. And every time I moved, the whole thing felt very … wobbly.”
Phoebe’s hand went to her chest in alarm.
“And then …” Clio couldn’t hold back her smile. “All of a sudden, someone appeared at the window, even though it was now atop the whole conveyance. He climbed like it was nothing! And—did you know that he has an injured leg? You wouldn't know it from the way he climbed, though. Like it was nothing!”
“You said that,” Phoebe observed, clearly amused.
“Yes, well.” Clio sounded more than a little bit defensive. “It was impressive. That’s all.”
“I’m certain it was,” Phoebe said blandly.
“Itwas!”
“Of course,” Phoebe said.
“I mean it,” Clio insisted.
“I’m agreeing with you.” Phoebe’s smile was like an attack.
