Her joy evaporated.
“You won’t stop playing with me now, George, will you? Now that I’ve won?”
“Like hell I will.” He glared at her. “I finally have someone decent to play against. I’ve invested six years in you, Phee, and I intend to be paid back.”
She wished she could summon the courage she had possessed a month and a half ago when she had flirted with him for the first and only time in her life. Courage that would allow her to say, “And how would you like to be repaid, George?” and put her hand on the back of his neck.
And he would turn to her and kiss her.
But that wasn’t real.
She already knew what would happen if she did touch him and ask that question. He would grimace, shrug her hand away, and say, “You can repay me in games, of course.” Or he would level her with another glare, leave the room, and never come back.
She moved around the table to face him. “I’ll pay you back, George. By winning.”
He looked up at her. “You better. You better win so much that I’m scared to play you.”
“We won’t play again? Right now?”
“As much as I want a rematch, I think we had better stop for today.”
“Oh.”
“Attention must be paid. This is not a moment to gloss over. You won the game, Phee. Let’s let the victory linger. I want you to enjoy it. Because you arenotgoing to win the next game. There’s a fire in my belly now.”
“And I lit it?”
He stood abruptly, pushing his chair back. “I must go.” He left the library with none of his usual courtesy, no farewell, no reminder to her to be on time for her next lesson.
She looked down at the chessboard. Despite her restraint, she had said something wrong. She went over her words in her head. Maybe the reference to a fire in his belly was something wicked? Something like the achy pulsing she got between her legs at night in her own bed when she thought about him?
She would have to be more careful from now on. George didn’t see her as a woman. She was Bumblephee to him, the little neighbor girl he had taken on as a pupil. Teaching her chess. Vocabulary. Grammar. Riding astride, wearing a pair of his old breeches. And her own family all said George had taught her to walk when she was one.
She mustn’t push him away with her breasts. Or by showing she had feelings he didn’t share. He would run away, just as he had now. And she wouldn’t be able to bear losing him, her best friend in all the world. That would be too awful.
From now on, she’d be what he wanted. His student, his chess protégé, his friend. She could do that. She could do anything if it meant keeping him.
Three days later, he was back, the same as always. She wore one of her high-necked dresses. She paid attention to the chessboard. They played three games that day, and she won one. Again, he was delighted for her. And she was relieved. She had not scared him away.
Two weeks later, his father died and he became the Baron Danforth. He was very busy now and even more serious. But he still made time to play chess with her. “It helps me, it relaxes me,” he said. And she felt some pride that she helped him that way.
Six months after that, Phoebe overheard her male cousins talking about George’s mistress, an actress living in London.
He was well and truly a man now. And she was still a little girl to him. But she was only six years away from being twenty. Six years away from being very old for a woman.
Ten
“Good evening, Wynn.”
“Good evening, Lady Phoebe.”
Phoebe stepped into the front hall of the Danforth town house.
“It’s been so hot, hasn’t it, Wynn? I can scarcely believe it’s evening when the sun is still so high.”
“Yes, my lady. May I take your hat?”
“Oh, yes, let me unpin it. Lord Danforth wouldn’t like it if I wore a hat while we played chess, would he? He would claim it distracted him. Then I would be to blame if he lost the game.”
