Thank goodness no one commented on her lateness to the breakfast table. Her mother and father had become resigned to it, she supposed. And she really did not want to be reprimanded as if she were a child any longer. Soon she would be the mistress in her own house and she would choose the breakfast hour and she would never be late again.
Her mother and father were still eating, but her brother Andrew had already finished his breakfast and his plate had been removed. However, Phoebe knew that his speed in eating was only because Andrew was at the breakfast table on sufferance. His own, that is. He despised mealtimes. He likely had eaten one egg and one corner of toast and declared himself stuffed. Phoebe looked down at her own plate, piled high now with ham and bread and butter and honey cakes. She was going to eat it all. She was hungry. Being a satisfied woman did that to you, she supposed. No wonder matrons grew fat.
“Good morning, Mother,” Phoebe said.
The Duchess of Abingdon turned her head to look at Phoebe. Her own mother had not let her waistline grow in the years since her marriage. Mother was as slender as ever. Andrew took after her, of course, and Phoebe got her more generous figure from Papa’s side of the family.
What did her mother’s willowy form mean about what she and Papa did behind closed doors? Papa was a bit stocky and so affectionate that he must still bed his wife. But maybe her mother did not enjoy it. And perhaps her mother also did not know about self-pleasure.
“Such a large breakfast, Phoebe.” A mild rebuke.
“The honey cakes are particularly good this morning, dearest girl,” her father said and belched.
“Abingdon,” her mother said reprovingly.
Oh. That’s why Phoebe called Thornwick by his title. Mother did the same to Papa, not using his given name of Erasmus. “A ridiculous name,” she had heard her mother say one time to Lady Huxley. No wonder her siblings had such dull names. Her three older sisters, the twins Judith and Deborah as well as Abigail, and her younger brothers, Andrew and Daniel. Like her mother’s own name of Esther, all from the Bible, save Phoebe. Papa had been the one to insist on the name Phoebe, from the ancient Greek. Although, come to think of it, there was a Phoebe mentioned in the Bible, too.
That was the first thing she was going to do this afternoon when Thornwick called on her: get permission to call him Arthur.
“Mother, when His Grace visits this afternoon, may we be in the drawing room?”
“Certainly, Phoebe. Where else would you be?”
“May we be in the drawing room,alone?”
Her father smiled and chuckled. The duchess gave him a glance as if to sayleave this to me.Phoebe looked to her brother for support, but Andrew was gazing toward the windows, playing with a teaspoon in his right hand, sawing back and forth, changing the angle slightly with each movement, the fingers of his left hand pressing down on the table as if it were the fingerboard of his violin. He was clearly itching to escape to the music room.
Phoebe turned back to her mother. “Thornwick had to suffer the entire family last week after he proposed. Can’t we have some time alone together? After all, soon we will be alone together all the time.”
Her father laid his hand on top of her mother’s. “I seem to remember your parents allowing us some lovely time alone together before we were married.”
Her mother said stiffly, “We had a chaperone.”
Her father laughed. “Your blind and deaf great-aunt. A figurehead of a chaperone. A chaperone in name only, dear. Do you remember—” He got out of his chair and whispered something in his wife’s ear. He was grinning even more broadly when he resumed his seat.
The duchess did not smile but she looked at her husband. Fondly, Phoebe thought. Well, as fondly as Mother was capable of.
“I remember,” the duchess said.
“I thought you would remember. We nearly started the twins that afternoon.”
The duchess’ nostrils flared. “Abingdon!”
Please Papa, you are injuring my case rather than helping it right now.
Phoebe said quickly, “His Grace is not a rascal like Papa was. He would not do anything improper.”
Her mother took a deep breath. Her father raised his eyebrows.
Phoebe wondered why she had not argued she herself would not do anything improper.Because it’s not true. After yesterday, I’ve become a wanton. And I want everything.
“Please, Mother!” She could hear her own voice was on the verge of a whine. “He will only be here a half an hour at the most.” Although a half an hour was more than enough time to make a baby. If she and George had not wasted time with kissing and arguing and her own climax, George could have easily spent inside her in a quarter of that time.
But he had not spent inside her, had he? Even though they had both been quite wild at the end. How like George to be able to control himself in that way.
Her mother studied her. “Do you promise to press His Grace on the matter of the wedding date?”
“Yes, Mother.”
