Chapter Six

T he steady clatter of carriages on the street outside had been a harbinger of things to come. Chris had known he'd be braving a gauntlet of disapproval this morning, when he intended to call upon Phoebe's family. He just hadn't known how much of one it would turn out to be. Every Toogood in London had descended upon the home next door. Every last one of them. Six sisters, one brother, their various spouses, and every damned child they had between them. All twenty-seven of them, he suspected. It was enough to ice his blood in his veins. The front door was cast open at his knock not by a butler—which was not strange if only for the fact that Chris doubted that the man could have successfully waded through the throng of people waiting therein to reach it in time—but by a trio of little girls likely between the ages of six and eight. "Who're you?" the middle one inquired, glaring up at him mulishly from beneath the fringe of blond bangs that obscured her forehead. "Mr. Christopher Moore," he said. "I believe I'm expected." The littlest one produced an exemplary scowl. "I don't like you," she said. And then she turned and shouted, "Auntie Phoebe! He's here! He's here and I don't like him!" The tallest of the three plunked her small fists upon her hips. "Did you bring flowers?" Flowers? Why the devil ought he have brought flowers ? This wasn't a morning call, where he might have been expected to bring some sort of courting gift. The woman had been secured already—publicly. There wasn't the least need to curry favor with the use of such things. "No," he said. She gave a haughty sniff. "I don't like you either," she said. The urge to snatch the child up by the collar of her dress and give her a good shake was nigh-overwhelming. Chris fisted the handle of his cane instead and strove to remind himself that strangling a small child would hardly make a good impression, regardless of how much said child might've deserved it. "Ye don't got to like me," he snarled, and the child's eyes widened at the abrupt shift of his speech. "But ye do got to let me in." " Victorias !" The strident call sailed over the gaggle of children clustered in the foyer, and then—there was Phoebe, wending her way through the throng. All three of the girls blocking his path turned to look. "Whatever are you doing? You know you're not meant to answer the door." "He didn't bring flowers!" the tallest said defensively. "He's supposed to—" "He's supposed to be admitted properly," Phoebe said, fixing a stern look upon the child. "We don't keep callers waiting upon the steps." With a chorus of aggrieved sighs, the children—little more than bridge trolls, really, attempting to exact a toll from him—backed away from the door, allowing him just enough space to slide inside. "Victorias?" he inquired of Phoebe. "All three of them. Collectively, we call them the Victorias," Phoebe said, in a vaguely-harassed tone of voice. "Victoria," she said, indicating the tallest, "then Vicky. And then Tory. There's a Victor, too, but he's just six months old." "Good God." With a sort of effortless grace that could only have come of years of practice, she ushered the children off. "It does simplify things a bit. There's five Williams, four Elizabeths, and three Davids, too. Across twenty-seven cousins, there's just eleven names in total, so you've got a halfway decent chance of getting them right. Would you care to come in?" "At the moment, I'm reconsidering. Seems a bit cramped." And undeniably hostile. "I'm surprised I wasn't greeted with a weapon." Though that wasn't saying much. The swarm of children that had coalesced within were somewhat more threatening than the business end of a pistol might've been. He found himself wondering just how many he could take in a proper fight. His bad knee was no doubt a liability, but the cane would serve as a reasonable improvised weapon— "Tea?" Phoebe inquired, lifting her voice to be heard above the swell of the children's chatter as she shepherded him into what must be the drawing room. "With this many children about?" Chris asked, suppressing a shiver as they passed through the door. "Best make it whisky." And here were the rest of the Toogoods, all crammed into a drawing room too small to comfortably contain half their number, taking up every last available seat and a good deal of the floor space besides. "Best make it quite a lot of whisky," he amended. Every one of them looked like they'd rather enjoy taking him outside and beating the stuff out of him. Even the women. Maybe especially the women. Phoebe was trying very hard to hold back a grimace. "At this hour of the morning," she said. "I mean to say, I don't think—tea would really be—" "No, no." This, from who could only be the patriarch of the clan. "Whisky sounds like just the thing. Haven't got enough teapots to accommodate all of us, anyway. Baxter, would you be so kind?" How the butler meant to navigate the seething mass of children outside the room was beyond Chris, but the man seemed to be bracing himself for the battle, and so Chris sidled to the side to allow him to pass. "Now," said Papa Toogood, summoning a bit of firmness to his chin. "I believe we have much to discuss." "I'd rather wait for the whisky. Few too many Toogoods on hand to be comfortable without it." It had been the wrong thing to say, and he'd known it from the very moment the words had crossed his lips. But then, given the circumstances, Chris doubted very much whether there had been a right thing to say. Papa Toogood had not appreciated this. His brows lowered over his narrowed eyes, and his cheeks puffed with a surfeit of words that he was no doubt too well-bred to give voice to, however much he might have liked to do so. "Yes, well, perhaps you ought to have thought of that before you placed my daughter in the position of needing to wed with all haste." "A swift wedding is the obvious remedy for that," Chris said. "Swift is as swift does," Papa Toogood said, with a frown. "As you cannot secure a special license—" "Of course I can." A bark of incredulous laughter broke from the couch nearby. The man who had issued it had the look of Phoebe about his eyes. The brother, Chris though—Laurence, if he recalled correctly. "How could you possibly?" the man asked. "You've got to be a peer, or the child of one." The tiniest sneer touched the corners of his mouth, and his nose lifted as if he'd caught a whiff of something foul. "The legitimate child of one." It wasn't the first time a member of the aristocracy had rubbed his face in his bastardy. It wouldn't likely be the last. But he was going to have to let the charge pass without a physical confrontation, even if his knuckles ached with the effort to restrain himself. "I've killed men for less," he said casually, and watched the color drain from the man's face. "I'm not quite so sensitive about the circumstances of my birth, you understand," he added. "It's just that I have a certain reputation to uphold. So knocking a few of your teeth in wouldn't be personal, really. Only necessary for keeping up appearances." He lifted his cane in his hand and jabbed the bottom tip at the viscount's son. "Even I know that a gentleman does not sit while a lady stands. Offer your mother your seat." The woman standing beside him—her once-blond hair fading into a stately grey—jerked at the demand. "It's quite all right," she said, in a faintly warbling tone. "It isn't. As a matter of principle"—of which he possessed remarkably few—"I will not be condescended to by a man who imagines himself above me by virtue of birth while failing to exhibit the social graces required of his station. Offer your mother your goddamned seat ." This time, the man did not mistake it for a request. Like a marionette jerked about by the strings of an unseen puppet master, he jumped up from the couch. "Mama, would you—" "Yes; yes, of course." The viscountess slid into his vacated spot and folded her hands in her lap. Probably it hadn't been a deliberate oversight on Laurence's part. The viscountess had a sort of nervous energy to her that suggested she'd been doing a great deal of pacing, and hadn't wanted the seat anyway. But with just one well-chosen demand, Chris had commandeered control of the room. Not so much as a whisper floated through it. He said, "As it happens, the Archbishop owes me a favor." Several favors, actually. Chris was not ordinarily in the habit of calling such favors in, since the mere fact that they existed tended to be more valuable by far than what could be gained from them. A man's entire attitude could be shifted by that currency, and he was generally loath to surrender the power that came with it. "He will issue a license to me." The viscountess wrung her hands in distress. "But the scandal of it all." "Mama, there will be a scandal regardless," Phoebe said. "Is it not best we put it to bed as swiftly as possible? At least then the gossip will include the word marriage , and that—that's preferable, isn't it?" To the scandal of being caught in an illicit embrace? Absolutely. And still, at the merest suggestion that an expedient wedding was a necessary thing, the mood of the room shifted toward mourning. Chris half-expected the women present to excuse themselves to don widow's weeds. It was to their credit, he supposed, that they evinced such loyalty to one of their own. He wouldn't have wanted his sister yoked to a man like himself, either. Baxter arrived once more, weighted beneath the strain of dozens of small glasses arranged upon a silver tray and a bottle of whisky tucked securely beneath his arm. How he had made it through the gauntlet of children outside unscathed and without having dropped a single glass, Chris could only guess. As a guest—even an unwelcome one—the first glass went to him. He said as he sipped, "This evening," he said. "We'll be married this evening." The viscount choked. "Impossible," he said. "There's arrangements to be made—negotiations, settlements, legalities—" "I think we both know that there is no time for such frivolities." Not that the viscount had much of a leg to stand upon in the demanding of them. Perhaps, if Chris had come hat in hand, begging permission to marry her. But this was a different situation entirely. Phoebe needed a damned husband now, however she had to get one. "Frivolities!" the viscount blustered. "This is my daughter's future we are discussing, sir. I will not give her into the keeping of a man of your reputation without certain assurances—" "You misunderstand me," Chris said. "I don't care what she comes with. I don't care how much you've settled upon her. I have no need of it." "But her dowry—" "Will be hers exclusively." "Are you mad?" Now this question seemed to be in earnest; indeed the whole room goggled at him as if he had revealed himself to be a bedlamite. "No," he said. "What I am is very, very rich. I've more money than I could spend in a lifetime." A few offended sniffs, no doubt from those among their number who thought it crass to discuss money. Or, more likely, from those who thought it distasteful that a man of his humble origins had more of it than did they. "The only thing I require of Phoebe is her consent before a man of God. So if you've arrangements to make, I suggest you make them here in the next few hours. I'll return with a special license by nightfall." Mama Toogood wrung her hands so tightly that her gloves were in imminent danger of coming straight off of her fingers. "Nightfall! But you can't be married in the evening. It's unseemly." With a special license in hand, they could be married whenever they damned well pleased. "Can you be packed by nightfall?" he asked of Phoebe. "Yes, I—I think so." She sounded more than a little harried, and her eyes kept drifting about the room, skittering from one person to the next, as if uncertain whom she was meant to comfort first. "It shouldn't present too much of a problem." "Phoebe, darling." Mama Toogood extended one hand in entreaty. "Really, it's—it's not so dire as all this . Surely it won't hurt to just take a bit of time to collect ourselves. We need make no rash decisions just yet." Several murmurs of agreement went up; hands offering consoling pats. Chris would have found the solidarity in it all—the staunch loyalty—reassuring, if it had not been levied against his suit. With a beleaguered sigh, he shoved one hand into the pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew one of the scandal rags that had been delivered to his doorstep just this morning. He slapped the page into Mama Toogood's extended palm. It had been folded over and over again to fit within his pocket, and yet the words Miss Toogood and scandal were still plainly visible printed straight across the front. "That's just one," he said. "I've got half a dozen more in a similar vein. It is exactly that dire." Mama Toogood's mouth pinched in as if she'd bitten into something excessively sour. "The tide of gossip will turn within the week," she said, though the words sounded less certain and more pleading. "There is always some new scandal for the Ton to latch onto. And—and besides…Lord Statham is still seeking a wife and a mother for his children. He'd be willing to overlook such a minor indiscretion." Christ, was he the only one who had noticed how pale Phoebe had gone in just a score of words? As much as they might love her, they didn't know her. And yet, she strove to come up with something, anything, to tell them—anything but the truth, he suspected. Probably she couldn't. She could not look at her parents and her siblings and their large, chaotic, happy families, and tell them she did not want their idea of what happiness was. She could not tell them that their happiness would make her miserable. But she was going to be his wife. It was his duty—or would be, shortly—to manage such things for her. So he said, in a voice that brooked no argument and which he hoped would serve as a warning while he was gone fetching a license, "Statham had his damned chance. Now it is gone. If you've a single shred of intelligence to share between the lot of you, you'll make whatever arrangements you must and see that Phoebe is packed when I return. She'll be coming home with me this evening. As my wife."

∞∞∞

"It's not so bad, Mama. I'll have quite a lot of pin money." The jest that Phoebe had attempted to make of the situation fell so flat that she would have sworn she heard a thunk as the words struck the ground between them. Mama made a choked sound deep in her throat, a thick and harsh complement to the tiny sniffles she'd been issuing all afternoon. "I have only ever wanted you to be happy," she said, her fingers moving in restless little motions, picking at imaginary lint upon Phoebe's gown. "A woman's first daughter," she said, "is such a wonderful blessing." "There's seven of us, Mama," Phoebe said dryly. "Yes, but you—you, my darling, are my first. My first precious little girl." Mama's lips quivered, and she pressed them together to still them. "I remember the night you were born, the days I led you about the garden on your leading strings. I remember sitting up with you when you caught scarlet fever and watching your father teach you to ride your first pony. When I close my eyes…" She did, her dark lashes fluttering against her cheeks. "When I close my eyes, you are my little girl again, for just a few moments. You'll understand someday." Good God, she hoped not. "Mama—" "I wanted better for you than this," Mama said fervently. "I know your time out in society has not been easy for you, but this …" "He's Emma's brother, Mama. How bad could he truly be?" "Her illegitimate brother. Unacknowledged by his father. Legally, he is no one." "That's hardly his fault, Mama." Probably he didn't require her to defend him to anyone, but it seemed somehow unfair to be judged on the basis of one's birth alone. "He's done a great deal of good for the country," she said. "As a spy ." Mama said the word as if it were a filthy one. "Like Lord Rafe," Phoebe said. "And you did not hold it against him." "That's different. Lord Rafe is—is—" Noble, Phoebe surmised. The son of a marquess, and now the brother of one. "Lord Rafe is Lord Rafe," Mama concluded weakly. "We know his character. His family. He is a man of consequence, of principles." "Mr. Moore is going to be my husband," Phoebe said. "Could you try to be pleasant to him? For me?" Mama's eyes began to glitter with a sheen of tears. "I suppose I shall have to," she said bravely. "I could not bear it if her were to take you away from me. To send you off to the countryside, or—or—" She cast about, struggling to find some suitably horrible fate. "Or to a convent," she said at last. "A convent! Mama, how medieval. And besides, we're not Catholic." "I'm only saying that we do not know him," Mama said. "He might be capable of anything. Anything at all." "He might," Phoebe allowed, "but we should do our best to give him the benefit of the doubt. And, Mama, he owns the largest house on the street. I cannot believe that he would be eager to abandon a house he spent such a sum to purchase. And I—I shall be right next door. Just over the wall." "Yes, but—will your family be welcome within?" "I shall see that you are. After all, it will soon be my home, too." Phoebe collected one of her mother's cold hands in her own with a gentle squeeze. "But it is ever so much easier to welcome pleasant guests than unpleasant ones. Perhaps you shall find common ground between you, if only we can all strive for a relationship that is not contentious from the outset." "Oh, my dear," Mama sighed. "I fear the only common ground we shall have is you."