She managed it. The perfect loss. Only by one point. Lady Huxley could not even summon a scowl. Her face was a cipher. Lady Fitzhugh and Olivia seemed surprised by their win but not particularly gratified.
Thornwick was right. Phoebe was strange. Inappropriate. Unfeminine and set apart from other women. If she had just beaten the best whist team in London, she would have been glowing, childishly unable to conceal her joy at her victory. But the gracious winners Olivia and Lady Fitzhugh did not even smile.
Alice was at her side with a consoling hand on Phoebe’s shoulder. She must have heard of the loss.
“Perhaps I should have done what you did, Alice, and had a cup of coffee today. Can you believe it? I have lost my Midas touch. Lady Huxley is furious.”
“It’s too bad, Phoebe. I was hoping the whist would cheer you.”
“Cheer me? I am full of cheer, Alice. I am engaged to a handsome duke, after all.”
Alice frowned. Phoebe stood abruptly, wanting to get away from her, to move to the next table.
Phoebe and Lady Huxley lost the rest of their games. By greater margins, with more obvious mistakes in Phoebe’s play. She was tired and felt the difficulty of playing to lose by just a little. And now she didn’t care if Lady Huxley hated her. She was earning the right to be a duchess with her poor play, wasn’t she? And as a duchess, she would be invited to whist parties whether she won or not. And she didn’t care to partner Lady Huxley anymore. She would learn to chat and socialize with the other women. She would have more friends than just Alice.
As she retrieved her reticule from Lady Huxley’s butler to go home and begin packing, she saw Olivia again, standing with her mother and a few other ladies, laughing.
Oh, to be nineteen again. To be nineteen and to be excited about something. To think that around every corner, there was a potential husband for her, just waiting to sweep her away. To make her into a butterfly.
Twenty
1816 and 1817. London and the Duchy of Abingdon and the Danforth Barony.
At the first ball of her first Season, Phoebe accepted a glass of ratafia from George.
“I hope my sister behaves herself tonight. You’ll make sure of it, won’t you, Phee?”
Phoebe had turned nineteen on the second day of the year. She had pushed her debut off as long as possible. She had refused to come out until Alice could come out at the same time and be at her side. Otherwise, Phoebe was sure she would dissolve into a horrible puddle of blushes as soon as she entered a ballroom.
Her mother had used her iciest voice, her already-married older sisters had cajoled, but Phoebe had stood firm. She must have Alice. And George thought seventeen was finally old enough for Alice to come out, although Alice had argued with him about her debut last year and the year before. Unlike Phoebe, Alice was desperate to start her Seasons and go to balls and parties.
Phoebe laughed. “Don’t ask for the unattainable, George. Alice doesn’t listen to me. I listen to Alice, if anything.”
He scowled. “Well, she doesn’t listen to me either.”
“She’s so popular already. I don’t think she has missed one dance. She’ll be sure to make a match quickly.”
“One can only hope. Then, thank God, she’ll be another man’s responsibility.”
Phoebe sipped her sweet drink. George was impossibly handsome tonight, his dark eyes set off by his dark tailcoat and crisp, white cravat. He had become such a commanding and capable man. Tall and strong, with broad shoulders that were well able to carry the load of rehabilitating his father’s estate and title. A man who could have any woman he wanted, and if Alice could be believed, a man who did.
When she had heard about George’s mistresses, the first one from her cousins and the later ones from Alice, Phoebe had wept. How silly that had been. Of course, George wanted women and they wanted him. And she had no claim on him or he, on her. They were friends.
Yet, he was an undeniably attractive man despite his outmoded habit of wearing a wig. She wished he wouldn’t wear it, but then, wasn’t it a sign of intimacy that he didn’t wear it when they were alone and playing chess?
Or a sign he had no care for her good opinion since he must think the wig improved his appearance.
“You look very handsome tonight, George.”
“Thank you, Phee,” he said absently, his eyes scanning the ballroom, likely looking for Alice. But his eyes came to rest on Phoebe for a moment.
He was looking at her. Not as a little girl, across a chessboard. But as a woman, in a ballroom. In her white silk gown with the neckline scooping lower than any other dress she had ever worn in his presence. The perfectly matched pearls her father had given her at age sixteen around her neck. Her hair up and staying up, for the moment. Her petticoats not dragging on the ground. Her white kid gloves covering the nails she could not keep herself from biting to the quick today.
“You look very nice as well.” He must have realized his mistake almost immediately because he added quickly, “Pretty. I mean pretty.”
A knife sliced her open from her throat to her loins. She looked at her feet and was surprised not to see her insides—her heart, her lungs, her intestines, her blood—spilling out on the ballroom floor in front of her.
That’s what comes of thinking of George that way. You really must stop this. It’s your own fault you’re hurt.
