She produced a genuine smile. “Your Grace,” she greeted as he took up several empty seats for his group.
They all dominated the room effortlessly, with Sebastian casually bracing an elbow on the back of the chair next to him as he looked around the table. More than once, his eyes flicked toward hers, and she was filled with exuberance.
“Where is Lady Genevieve?” Verity asked Phoebe. They sat near one another now and so Verity did not need to raise her voice to ask the question. “I was hoping the three of us could get together after dinner and have a bit of a chat.”
“Ah, she was sitting down there.” Phoebe nodded to the vacant seat next to the one her cousin had been occupying all night. She’d spoken with her on and off, but ultimately the two hadbeen separated. “Perhaps my cousin excused herself without attracting much notice?”
“Indeed. Sometimes wine does not agree with one.”
“Speaking from experience?” Percy chuckled at Verity’s side, and their normalcy, the fact that all their masks seemed to be off, even considering this was atonevent, relaxed Phoebe further.
Still, she felt her mother’s heated scowl on the back of her neck, and she quickly turned her attention away.
Moments later, Genevieve returned, her face flushed, eyes slightly red, but took her seat quietly. Phoebe tried to catch her eye, but her cousin only mustered a small smile and motioned with her hand.
Later.
Her mother’s face lowered to Phoebe’s ear, and she hissed, “I will see you speak with other ladies and gentlemen before the end of the night. You will not spend all your time chatting with your cousin or the Duchess of Whitestone. I do not trust that group at all. They are… too open with their feelings and the Duke and Duchess are constantly pawing at one another.” Her upper lips curled in disdain. “No, a friendship with the Duke and Duchess of Whitestone is not one I wish to see you cultivate. I will have you speaking with Lord Robyn, perhaps? He is a fine, upstanding second son of the Marquess of Thrumberg. We need all the good connections we can get right now after yourfriendpublicly dragged us into that arrest.”
Phoebe’s face burned in humiliation, yet all the while, she felt Sebastian’s steady gaze trained on her. She hoped that her mother might ease up a bit so that she could slip away and spend a moment alone with the Duke, but she feared that her mother would be relentless throughout the evening.
Chapter Twenty-One
Suffering the exhaustion of too many hours of overthinking through the night, Sebastian sat in a garden chair on the lawn of Whitestone Hall, his eyes fixed on one lady and one lady alone.
Many had tried to snatch his attention, but he could not tear his attention from Phoebe.
He loved her and he intended to ask for her hand in marriage, but there was only so much he could do in the time that he was allotted.
Before he made his declaration of love public, he needed to know that her family was safe. She would be protected, regardless, because he would do everything in his power to provide for her every need and make her feel secure.
But he could not forget that Lord Tripleton’s name had been jotted in Betula’s ledgers. That meant the Earl was in debt, butperhaps, if he had dug himself into that hole, there were other dark deeds buried there along with him.
“You look as though you are ready to set this entire garden ablaze.”
Sebastian grunted, barely looking up at Vincent as he took the seat opposite him. Percy and Verity trailed in Vincent’s wake.
The scene at Lord and Lady Brennan’s had been dull, to say the least. Every time Sebastian tried to get close to Phoebe, he was thwarted. Her mother stayed at her elbow all night, whispering in her ear.
And when the Countess of Tripleton did slip away for a few moments, leaving her daughter unattended, that was when the Earl of Tripleton would swoop in and introduce his daughter to an old and practically decrepit gentlemen who was searching for a second, or even third in some cases, wife.
Sebastian’s heart went out to Phoebe, but when Verity suggested that their party retire to Whitestone, he had gone along with the crowd easily. He could not stand being in the same room as Phoebe but being denied the pleasure of her company. It was too cruel to keep him from her side.
“I just might,” Sebastian quipped.
Percy sat and pulled his wife onto his lap. Verity reached out then and patted Sebastian’s arm. “When will you tell everyone that you proposed to Lady Phoebe?”
“Not now… not yet.”
Verity pouted prettily. “I should like to begin helping her plan the wedding.”
“All in good time, my friend,” Sebastian assured her.
Vincent took a slow sip of his drink then asked, “What is stopping you from declaring your love publicly? Can you not save Lady Phoebe from her awful mother and dreadful father by whisking her away from their sides forever?”
“Phoebe has suffered through a string of scandalous ordeals in the past. First, when her parents sent her away as a child. Again, when they carted her off to Nantwich after her first Season and now…”
“Birchwood,” Verity grumbled. “His name was on the tip of everyone’s tongue tonight. The people at the supper party could barely utter a sentence without talking about the dastardly Birchwood.”
