Chapter Eleven

W ith bated breath, Phoebe scratched upon Chris' bedchamber door. "Chris?" she called, though she doubted she had lifted her voice enough to pierce the thick wood. No response. She hadn't expected one, really, when one considered that the hour had scarcely passed ten in the morning, and most days he did not seem to rise until noon at the very earliest. She wasn't even certain she had got the right bed chamber. There were at least fifteen scattered throughout the house, and there was every chance she'd mistaken the instruction from one of the servants and was even now rapping at the door of a…a music room, perhaps. But then, she had never needed to find his room before now. "Chris?" she called again, a bit louder. A small sound from within the room. A groan, she thought. She waited in patient silence for several more seconds, but apparently he had not elected to rise and to come to the door. Another sharp rap of her knuckles. "Chris!" A muffled thump, as of something soft hitting the door, followed by a slurry, groggy snarl of, "Go the hell away!" Well, she had not expected to find him in an amiable mood. It was far too early for there to have been any hope of that. She supposed he must simply be one of those men who were surly upon waking. She had poked the bear once already, though it hadn't been enough to truly rouse him—if one were to judge by the sonorous snore that had swiftly followed his order. But it was absolutely imperative that she wake him. She drew in a deep breath and cracked the door open, nudging a pillow out of the way. That had been the missile he'd lobbed at the door, she supposed. At least it had not been something breakable. The snoring grew louder as she opened the door a few more inches. His bed came into view, the curtains drawn only against the side that faced the window. Chris lay face-down in a nest of rumpled scarlet sheets, his face tucked into the pillow clutched in his arms, his gold-blond hair tousled and untidy, sticking up at odd angles. And he was entirely naked. She'd seen his bare arse before, if only briefly. At least a glimpse of it—though it had been quite dark at the time. But it still felt like something of a violation to gaze upon it while he was sleeping. And snoring. Shading her eyes with one hand, Phoebe ventured into the room. "I'm sorry to disturb you," she said as she maneuvered carefully toward the bed, avoiding the bits of clothing he'd left haphazardly strewn about the floor. "But you have got to wake up." The snoring ceased. He gave another groan, low and longsuffering, buried into the downy softness of the pillow he was crushing with the flex and bunch of the muscles in his arms. "I really do not," he said flatly, turning his head upon the pillow toward her. And then, incredulously, "Are you peeking at me through your fingers? Like a child?" She hadn't meant to. "I had to see where I was going!" "You might have remained on the outside of the door." Resisting the urge to stamp her foot like the child he had so baselessly accused her of being, she slapped her hand firmly over her eyes and said, "I would have, had you bothered to answer it." "Don't look away now," he said, and the ropes supporting the mattress creaked as he shifted. "I've got a nice arse. You should be so lucky as to see it." A hysterical bubble of laughter caught in her throat at the absurdity of the statement. "In whose opinion?" "It is a truth universally acknowledged," he said drolly, and she was reminded that he had not yet returned her copy of Pride and Prejudice . "Blast you, I'm awake. What the hell do you want?" The churlish tenor of his voice suggested his mood had not substantially improved itself. She risked a peek through her fingers, pleased to find that he'd at least pulled himself into a sitting position, his legs slung over the edge of the bed, and had tugged a corner of the disordered blankets over his lap. But that icy glare— She babbled inanely, "I doubt very much that the entire world has come to a consensus of opinion on the quality of your arse." Particularly because she had not been polled, and she had seen no others to which to compare it, besides. "If the entire world had been privileged enough to have seen it, they damn well would have." He scraped one hand through his ruffled hair, only managing to ruffle it further. "Phoebe. What the hell do you want?" "It's just that—my family has come to breakfast," she said, the words climbing over one another to escape. He blinked once. Again. "What has that got to do with me?" "They are requesting"— requiring —"your attendance." "Your family? Your entire family?" Strident notes of horror had sunk into the syllables he uttered, and his hands fisted in the velvet counterpane draped over his lap. "The children ?" "No! No, thank God. Just the adults." "All of them?" She winced. Nodded. Wrung her hands in mute entreaty. "That's sixteen bloody people !" His voice had edged toward a shout, and Phoebe could only give thanks that his bedchamber was so far removed from the dining room that it was unlikely he'd been overheard. Phoebe offered a helpless shrug. "You married into a large family," she said. "They do nothing by halves." "I wish to God they'd do something by quarters. Eighths, perhaps. Sixteenths, especially, would be quite welcome. I could possibly tolerate sixteenths." As if the weight of the world had fallen suddenly upon his shoulders, he flung himself backward to land upon the mattress, casting one arm over his eyes with a dramatic flair to rival a woebegone damsel in distress. "Tell them I've taken ill," he said. "Tell them—tell them I've got scurvy." Despite herself, Phoebe chuckled. "You're not a sailor, and you've got your very own orangery. How are you meant to have contracted scurvy?" "The plague, then." "There hasn't been an outbreak in a hundred years, and besides, they'd be sending for an undertaker if I did." "Hell," he grunted. "Tell them I over-imbibed last evening and am not fit for company." "Laurence knows better," Phoebe said. "As he was present evening last. He's got a tonic he swears by for just such an ailment, and he'd love nothing better than to inflict it upon you. And by the ingredients—and the smell—it might be a sight more pleasant simply to come to breakfast." "Fucking hell. There's no getting out of it, is there?" he groaned through the cage of his fingers as he scrubbed his hands over his face, and a week ago, Phoebe might have found herself taken aback at the crudity. But such language had become, if not precisely welcome , then at least a source of strange amusement. The background music of her life had become a chorus of foul words uttered without regard to her tender ears, and there was something very nearly refreshing in it. Like audible evidence that he did not consider her half so much a lady as he did a friend. Someone with whom he did not have to mind his tongue or his thoughts. "I'm afraid not," she said. "Go, then," he grumbled. "I'll be down shortly. And God help you if those miscreants you are unfortunate enough to call relations eat all the damned bacon." With a sigh of relief, Phoebe turned for the door and took herself off through it before he could reconsider his acquiescence, closing it softly behind her. Her hand lingered just a few seconds longer upon the handle than was necessary, and she paused to stop and think for a moment. He really did have a nice arse, even if she hadn't anything else to compare it to. But the rest of him had been practically covered in scars.

∞∞∞

The chatter of too damned many people and the scrape of cutlery across plates rose to meet Chris as at last he made it down to the dining room. In his banyan. Because if the Toogood clan couldn't be arsed to await an invitation, then he couldn't be arsed to garb himself appropriately. But as the chatter faded at his entry, Chris realized he might have miscalculated. The last time they'd all been assembled in his presence, it had been a goddamned madhouse—a swirling cluster of people all glaring at him as if only good manners had prevented them from dragging him out into the garden to beat him senseless. Now, in the relative calm of what looked to be a pleasant family breakfast, he could see them all clearly. He'd forgotten, somehow, due to the nebulous Toogood designation which he had assigned to the lot of them, that Phoebe had six sisters, and each of them had married before her. And married well. In addition to the viscount—the patriarch of the Toogood clan—his table boasted three barons, two earls, and a bloody marquess. Perhaps they'd contrived to begin a damned dynasty. The marquess cleared his throat and said as amiably as could be expected, "You would have no reason to know this, but while it is acceptable to come to breakfast with family in one's banyan, you are meant to have clothing beneath it. A shirt," he suggested, "and knee-breeches, perhaps." "I am aware," Chris said, and endeavored to put an extra stomp in his step, made more ominous by the punch of his cane against the floor as he made his way toward the head of the table, where the place beside Phoebe had been left conveniently vacant for him. "I simply don't care." The temptation lingered in his mind to show a bit of thigh as he took his seat just for the satisfaction of truly scandalizing, and yet—Phoebe sat beside him, stiff-spined, with such a pleading look in her eyes that he restrained himself. She wanted him to make a good impression upon them. Or at least, as good an impression of which he was capable. Which, when one considered that he could hardly fall further in their esteem, oughtn't be too terribly difficult. Lady Toogood was the first to break the silence. "Mr. Moore, Laurence tells us that you both attended a dinner party last evening," she said, with a delicate pat of her napkin to the corner of her mouth. "He tells us also that Lord Statham was in attendance." What had that to do with anything? "Yes," Chris said, as he reached for the teapot nearest him and tried to pour himself a cup of tea. Tried . The damned thing was drained of all but a few drops, which hardly coated even the bottom of his cup. Resentfully, he plunked a couple of lumps of sugar into his cup anyway. "And?" Lady Toogood directed her gaze to her husband, who was seated next to her, but the viscount seemed far more interested in the thick rashers of bacon upon his plate. Even a subtle clearing of her throat merited no reaction. Finally, the poor woman heaved a sigh so severe that the neatly-arranged greying curls piled artfully atop her head threatened to fall from their pins, made a quick motion that Chris suspected had precipitated the grunted ‘oof' sound her husband gave, and hissed, " Edgar ." "What is it, m'dear?" The viscount inquired, his fork pausing over his plate. Lady Toogood narrowed her blue eyes and gave a sharp inclination of her head in Chris' direction. "Oh, yes, quite right," he said. "My wife tells me you attended a dinner party last evening." Phoebe smothered a groan behind her napkin, her shoulders sinking. Somewhere down the table, one of her sisters snickered. He couldn't be certain which; he'd never bothered to ask their names and they had never offered them. Baffled, Chris turned to Phoebe and made no effort whatsoever to modulate his voice. "Are they always like this?" "Yes," she said. "One does grow accustomed to it." Lord Jesus, he hoped not. "Edgar," Lady Toogood said, with significantly less patience. "We have been through this already." "Really?" The man blinked, nonplussed. "Nobody told me." "I suppose you were too involved with eating the last of the damned bacon to notice," Chris suggested, and beneath the table his hand fisted upon the handle of his cane so hard that his knuckles popped. The viscount glanced down at his plate, then at the empty platter before him which contained not even one measly shred of the stuff. "It's good bacon," he said defensively. "I know. Which is why my cook purchases it. For me ." "She's got more coming," Phoebe said, in a desperate attempt to avert the disaster blooming on the horizon. "I've also requested a fresh pot of tea and more scones." There had once been scones ? Chris scrubbed one hand over his face and muttered to Phoebe, "Your family is a scourge upon my house. A biblical plague. A—" "What I meant to say," the viscount said, "is that perhaps we were all just a bit hasty in our estimation of you, Mr. Moore." "I promise you, you were not." The viscount sniffed, "While I do not condone violence—" "I do. Frequently, and with great relish." "—I was nonetheless pleased to hear of your fierce defense of my daughter." "It was in all the papers," one of the sisters blurted out with a giddy little wiggle of delight reminiscent of a puppy. Had to be one of the younger ones, then, Chris supposed. "I have it on good authority that Statham is to be stricken from his club's roster," said one of the barons. "I imagine he'll find himself missing a fair few invitations in the near future. A gentleman does not cast unjust aspersions upon a lady's character without consequence." Well, that was some good news. Chris might still find himself persona non grata within the best of homes—but so would Statham. There was a certain poetic justice in it; that Statham had earned his own downfall, straight down to the level of social disrepute that Chris had always enjoyed. Even if it didn't stick, still it produced a sort of satisfaction in him. As Viscount Toogood chided a few of his more excitable daughters over their persistence in paying altogether too much attention to scandal rags, various other snippets of conversation began to flow around the table, as if—as if this were not an invasion of his home so much as a pleasant breakfast taken as a family. A footman set out a fresh platter of bacon, and Chris dived across the table for it just before his new brother-in-law reached out. "Back off," he hissed. "You've had plenty." Laurence's mouth dropped open in shock. "Phoebe," he said, "your husband—" With a sort of patience that could only come of being an elder sister to a whole brood of young siblings, Phoebe snapped, "Laurence, mind your manners. There will be plenty left for you." The hell there would! Chris tilted the platter over his plate, determined to claim every last strip for himself—until Phoebe touched his wrist lightly. "Be good," she said softly, her voice barely audible above the racket of so many other voices. "Really, they're giving you something I don't imagine you've received often in your life." "Which is?" he asked with a scowl. "The benefit of the doubt."

∞∞∞

"The institution of marriage is fundamentally flawed," Chris complained as he slouched down upon the couch and splayed out his legs, digging his thumb into the tight, aching muscle of his knee. "Is that why you have taken refuge here?" Rafe inquired as he meandered toward the sideboard up against the wall of Em's sitting room and reached for a glass. "Fuck the glass," Chris said. "Give me the damned decanter. I've had Toogoods trotting all about my house for a week straight. They won't bloody leave!" "I'm certain that's not true," Rafe said. "Emma and I saw the two youngest at the bookstore yesterday, and then Laurence at the opera." "Thought you hated the opera." Chris scowled down at the glass of whisky that Rafe offered, which was somewhat less than he had requested. "I do. Emma does not prefer it, either, but she's got a theatre box that's been going spare too long. These days, we manage little privacy but what we can find outside of the house." Owing, most likely, to the two children that they had taken in as their own; Danny and Kitty. "I swear by all I hold holy, Rafe, if you are telling me that you've been debauching my sister in a damned theatre box—" "I haven't told you anything of the sort." But he'd damned well implied it. "And you hold nothing much holy, besides. How, pray tell, is the institution of marriage fundamentally flawed?" "Have you not been listening? Apparently, a man is obligated to endure the unwelcome presence of his wife's family. Without complaint, even!" "Really?" Rafe drew the word out to an unnecessarily sarcastic degree, and his gaze sharpened upon Chris—now his brother by marriage—who had, in fact, come uninvited to lounge upon his couch and partake of his spirits. "Of course, I would have no experience with such a thing." "That's where you ought to thank whichever lucky star you had the good fortune to be born beneath," Chris said. "There's but one of me—" "The world could hardly be expected to bear more." "—and there's damn near fifty Toogoods. Yesterday I was obliged to snatch up one of the children as the little monster came careening down the stair banister, or else he would've crashed head first into a wall." "Ah," said Rafe, and Chris had the sneaking suspicion that he had hid a smile behind his glass. "Sounds an awful lot like…oh, I don't know. A perfectly ordinary child." "Of which there have been too damned many within my house of late," Chris said, with a shudder. "There's nary an ounce of peace to be found in any corner of it. And there is always someone or something demanding Phoebe's attention—" "Why should that matter? One would think you'd be glad of it." He would have been. He should have been. It was just that he'd grown…accustomed to her presence. Now it had been tugged away from him by the obligations of family, and he— "I don't like sharing," he said. "She's my damned wife." They'd had her for nearly thirty years already. Had had a veritable monopoly upon her attention until now. "It's a marriage of convenience," Rafe said amiably. "Isn't it? I mean to say, you've both gotten what you wanted from it, have you not?" "Not as such," Chris said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Respectability is a high hill to climb." And he'd likely done himself no favors with his behavior at the Clarkes' dinner party. "Laurence wants me to apply for membership at his club. Can't imagine they'd even let me in the door." "Ordinarily, I'd agree with you," Rafe said. "Under normal circumstances, you'd be blackballed out of hand." Chris tossed back the last of his whisky. "A fine friend you are." "But you married into the Toogood family," Rafe said. "It's a large one, to be sure. It's also an exceedingly well-connected one." " Hell ," Chris grunted. "I suppose you're right. Three barons, one viscount, two earls, and a damned marquess." "That leaves out Laurence," Rafe said. "His wife is the youngest daughter of a duke." He collected the decanter of whisky, offering it to Chris, who poured himself a fresh glass. "It seems to me that Phoebe's held up her end of your arrangement admirably thus far. What did you promise her?" "That I would not require children of her," Chris said sourly into his drink. "That's simple enough," Rafe said. "You don't even like children." No, but he rather enjoyed the act that begot them. "Phoebe was relieved to learn I've already got a mistress," he said. "But—" But his convenient marriage was becoming somewhat less convenient than he'd expected. He'd always had a healthy appreciation for women. Even if he had not particularly wanted a wife, he'd been pleased to find friendship in marriage. A woman whose company he enjoyed—when she hadn't been commandeered by the rest of her family. When she was present. When she was smiling at him in approval across the expanse of the dinner table. When she visited the garden at midnight to feed Hieronymus fruit from her hand, in nothing but the thin silk of her dressing gown. When she stole trinkets and laughed in delight at the wreck he'd made of a social engagement. He'd have liked to be more of a husband than he'd anticipated being. It was the damnedest thing. "Have you ever bothered to court a woman?" Rafe asked. Chris choked upon his whisky. "Hell no," he said. "What the devil would I do that for?" "Because some women cannot be bought?" Rafe suggested. "If you are dissatisfied with the state of your marriage—" "I'm not dissatisfied," Chris said. He was just…ah, hell, he was dissatisfied. "—then you have got to change it," Rafe concluded. "Be charming." Charming? Charming ? "She doesn't want that," he said. "And I haven't got a charming bone in my body, besides." "Acquire one," Rafe suggested. "Minds change. Hearts change. Emma was happy to remain a widow, until she wasn't. At worst, you'll make yourself a more amiable companion. But there is no point in moping about upon my couch and drinking far too much whisky in the service of drowning your troubles when you might resolve them with far more efficacy if you could only work up the nerve to seduce your damned wife." Chris scrubbed at his jaw. "How the hell am I meant to do that?" "Hell if I know. She's your wife, man—what does she like?" "Books," Chris said. "Petty larceny. Cats ." Turtles, too, he supposed, but they'd got one of those already. Rafe snorted. "Best to start with the books, then." "Can't. She's out at a bookshop now. Took the carriage. That's why I walked here." He heaved a sigh, slouching further. "Jewelry, then. Got to be." Uninspired, perhaps, but his options were somewhat limited. "Can't bring myself to bring home a cat." "If you're not on your way soon, you'll not be bringing home jewelry, either," Rafe said. "Shops'll be closing." "Rubbish." There were still hours of daylight left. "You just want me gone." "I'll not deny it," Rafe said. "I've got better things to do than to listen to you whinge about the state of your marriage." "Like what?" Chris snarled—and regretted the question instantly when Rafe grinned. "Ah, hell," he said as he rose to his feet. "I'm going, I'm going. Please don't fucking say it." "Good luck," Rafe said, with a mocking, jaunty wave as Chris headed for the door. "I have a feeling you'll need it." He would turn out to be correct, as he generally was. But not for the reason either expected.