“Jahj.” Her mother saw she still didn’t understand and translated. “George. You said it long before you ever said Mama or Papa. You would clap your hands and crow his name whenever he came into the room. And it was because he paid such attention to you, Phoebe, and he thought everything you did was a miracle. And when you got older, he never ignored you or teased you as so many older boys do when younger girls tag along after them. And when you were a very young woman and he was a man, do you remember how often I would come into the library when you had your chess lessons? Your father tried to calm my worries, saying he had undertaken to have a good chat with George about it, but I still thought George might try to take advantage as most men would with a doting girl. But he never did.”
“Yes, but how do you know that?”
“You could never keep an important secret from me, Phoebe. I would have known if you had been kissed or interfered with in some way. I knew something had happened to you the week you got engaged to Thornwick. You were no longer a maiden, I was sure of it. I thought it was His Grace you had been with, but when I saw you and George together at the house party, I knew it had been him.”
“I’m sorry, Mother.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about to me. Aren’t I lucky to have my baby girl so close to me even though she’s married? And to have a grandbaby on the way whom I will get to cuddle to my heart’s content? But you must promise me to try to let go of this idea that you aren’t good for George or he isn’t good for you or he thinks you’re not good enough for him. It simply isn’t true.”
“It feels true.”
“But it’s not. He was your teacher for a long time. Now you must be teachers to each other. Give him husband lessons. Let him give you wife lessons. You don’t have to be perfect pupils, but you must try. I promise you’ll never stop learning. You two have such a long and loving history together, Phoebe. This is just another chapter in it. Maybe not the most pleasant one or the sweetest one. But it is one. I would give anything to have one more chapter of any kind with Razzy.”
Razzy. Short for Erasmus. Phoebe had not known her mother had a pet name for her father. She had only ever heard her call him Abingdon.
“It’s hard, Mother.”
“Yes, it is. But you have your whole life together ahead of you. It will be worth it.”
Thirty-Five
George came in from his long morning ride, only wanting to see and talk to Phoebe. She hadn’t come to breakfast before he had left the house. That had been too much to hope for. Of course, she was still upset at him for what he had confessed. And he had not made anything better by taking her that way in her bed even though she had asked for it, had said she wanted nothing else from him.
But he wanted something else from her.
He went to her bedchamber. She wasn’t there. He rang for Dawson and when she came and he asked her where Phoebe was, Dawson’s face turned white and she said she had thought my lady was still sleeping.
He tried to calm himself.
He went through the house. Not here. Where was she?
She had promised. She had said she wouldn’t run away. Of course, this was before she had found out George was responsible for her failed Seasons, for feeling herself unwanted and unloved. It had been bad enough he had given her no reassurance that she was desirable those years. He had also kept others from doing so.
He went through the stables, the outer buildings.
Then he remembered the priest hole. Not the one at the Abingdon house, but the one here, in the cellar.
Phoebe knew about the Danforth priest hole. She had gone in it once when she was six and he was ten. He had stood outside the door, calling for her to come out but unable to force himself to go in after her. Finally, she had crawled back out, giggling, her dress and face and hands dirty, and he had scolded her, angry because she had scared him so much, made him feel so weak.
He went down to the cellar that held the priest hole and managed to heave the heavy metal door open.
“Phoebe!” he called.
There was a sound, some faint whisper of something, a soughing. It could be her crying. He crawled in, calling her name. The door closed behind him with a clang.
She wasn’t in the passageway or the blackness beyond. He listened and called and went over every bit of the chamber with his hands in front of him, feeling the walls, and didn’t find her.
He blindly groped to the passageway and crawled back through. To his horror, he found he couldn’t get the door open. When it had fallen shut, something had bent or broken and there was no budging the door now.
He yelled and shouted and pounded for a long time.
He closed his eyes. He thought it might help him forget he was lying in the dark, trapped, alone, sure to die. It didn’t. He hated being in the narrow dark passage, so much like a coffin to his mind, but no one would ever hear him if he backed up into the larger chamber beyond. He had to be by the door.
Every few minutes or so, he would rouse himself to bang and shout. Over time, his knuckles and the sides of fists become sore from pounding. Already, his voice was hoarse from shouting.
He twisted his neck so his face was directly next to the bottom of the door. He thought he could feel the barest whisper of fresh air coming to him through a minuscule crack between the door and the stone floor. But there was no light.
Hours must have passed. Was it night now?
