Remington corrected her. “My mother’s son. It was her way. Thaddeus and I adopted it.”
“Then I won’t mention it to Fiona.”
“Better you don’t.”
Mrs. Tyler was at a loss to understand the conversation but that did not stop her from inserting herself into it. “If there is a question before you, why not let the judge decide? He is coming toward us now.” She cast a mischievous glance at Remington. “Shall I be witness to a marriage today?”
Remington turned to Phoebe. “Will she?”
Phoebe stared at him. Shock left her cold.
“Phoebe?” Remington set the biscuit on his plate. “I thought last night... you said... you said it wasn’t your secret to tell, so I told it to you. I thought it was settled then.”
Phoebe rose to her feet stiffly. “You thought wrong,” she said tonelessly. “It was not your secret to tell either.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Two days after Remington and Phoebe returned to Twin Star, there was still nothing settled between them. There were apologies, politely accepted, but they changed very little. Phoebe was ashamed that she had left the table so abruptly that she failed to make the acquaintance of the judge and had left Remington and Mrs. Tyler to offer excuses for her. Remington deeply regretted that he had misunderstood their conversation and believed that with his secret revealed, Phoebe meant to marry him before they left Liberty Junction. He was no closer to understanding what it was that she needed to hear before she would marry him, but he was clear that whatever it was, she was not expecting to hear it from him.
Perhaps he should have been relieved to know it, but what he was, was frustrated, and he did not take any particular pains to hide it.
“He’s showing himself,” Fiona told Phoebe.
“What?” Distracted, Phoebe looked up from her book and saw Fiona was intending to join her in the parlor. She managed to keep from sighing and closedA Tale of Two Citiesaround her finger. “I’m sorry, Fiona. I didn’t hear you.”
Fiona chose to perch in the middle of the sofa. Out of habit, she smoothed her gown and set her hands in her lap. “He’s showing himself. That’s what I said.”
“Who?”
“Remington, of course. Really, Phoebe, you can be obtuse at times. Or is it simply that you do not wish to see?”
“Oh, I think it must be that I’m obtuse.”
“And now you are being perfectly disagreeable.”
Now Phoebe did sigh. She removed her spectacles, carefully folded the stems, and placed them on the table at her side. “Is there something in particular you want to say? Perhaps explain what you mean by Remington showing himself?”
“Why, he’s positively surly. I’ve seen the like before, of course, but not since you arrived. It is quite an achievement that he maintained that façade of cheerfulness for as long as he did.”
“Cheerfulness? I believe that is overstating his general disposition.”
Fiona waved aside the objection. “You know what I’m saying. He is unpleasant to everyone. I am rather more immune than others, but he set Ben back on his heels this morning, pinned that young Johnny Scooter fellow to the—”
“Johnny Sutton,” Phoebe said. “Or Scooter Banks.”
“Does it matter? It was one of them pinned to the corral by Remington’s abusive language. He has barely spoken to Thaddeus in spite of several overtures, and last night he went straight to the bunkhouse after dinner and slept there.”
Puzzled, Phoebe frowned. “Are you pleased? Satisfied? Concerned? Or simply the harbinger of doom?”
“There is no need to wax dramatic. I want you to know him for what he is, Phoebe. I could see you were developing an attachment. I can’t say what I thought he was doing because it would not be polite, but I believe your feelings were becoming fixed. If something happened on your trip to Liberty Junction that changed that, then I, for one, am glad of it.”
Phoebe did not respond immediately. Her quiet had a purpose. She needed it to preface what she wanted to say to Fiona, and she needed Fiona to hear her. When she saw Fiona lean slightly forward in anticipation of her reply, Phoebe judged she could speak. “Nothing happened on our trip,” she said. “My feelings for Remington have not changed; they are as fixed now as they were before we left. As to the composition of those feelings, it is not for me to say to you before I have said the same to him. You should leave it at that, Fiona.”
Phoebe watched with jaded amusement as Fiona flungherself backward on the sofa. She stopped short of placing her wrist against her forehead and a hand over her heart, but otherwise was the embodiment of waxing dramatic. Phoebe was tempted to applaud, but that would have been giving the performance approbation it did not deserve.
“You are in love with him,” said Fiona.
It was no mere statement Fiona flung at her. It was an accusation and it was all Phoebe could do not to recoil. “Am I?”
