Chapter Seven

I t was done. They were married. A simple ceremony—if one could call it that, when one considered that their union was a mockery of a marriage at best—performed in the Toogoods' drawing room as the grey evening had oozed into night, and Chris had got himself a brand new wife. Mrs. Moore. A step down upon the rungs of the social ladder, to be sure. Had she had the inclination, she could have landed a lord. But then, a lord would likely have wanted things of her that she would have been loath to give. Instead she had wed a bastard of no name and worse reputation, of whom her family resolutely disapproved, and of whom she knew next to nothing. He wouldn't be a good husband, by their standards. But since Phoebe had no standards of a husband of which to speak, excepting those that were unconventional at best and shocking at worst, perhaps he stood a chance of at least being a halfway decent friend. She'd been a good one to Em, after all—and she had, after a fashion, assisted in saving his worthless life. The largest part of the Toogood brood had already departed, thank God—and now there was nothing left but to take his wife to her new home. Their home. Hell. Somehow he'd failed to give the full weight of consideration to that fact. From this day onward, there would be a woman sharing his residence, one not in his employ and whom he could not order about like a servant. A woman who was his wife . She stood now, alone in the drawing room, with a sort of aimless air about her, as if she were uncertain of her place within it. But then, he supposed her place wasn't within it any longer. He'd left her there only to oversee the last of her things being moved from her residence—her former residence—to his. And she hadn't known what to do with herself in the meantime. They were evenly matched, there. He didn't know what he was meant to do with her, either. "It's done," he said, and she jerked as if she'd been pulled abruptly back into her body from a thousand miles away, those crisp curls swaying with the motion. "Your things, I meant to say. That's the last of them." "Oh." She flexed the fingers of her left hand, at which she had been staring. "Thank you for that," she said. "And—for the ring. I didn't expect it." "Got to have a ring." It was only a simple gold band, since he hadn't the slightest idea of what she might have preferred. "Replace it with something you like better, if it doesn't suit your taste. I'll have my man of business open accounts for you—" "It suits me well enough. I just…didn't expect ever to wear one." Her shoulders firmed. "I've said my goodbyes privately," she said. "I told my parents I'd be round to visit tomorrow. Mama got a bit too weepy this evening. And chatty." "Chatty?" "The wedding night talk." Her cheeks hollowed. "She was disappointed, I think, to learn I have not reached the grand age of nine and twenty entirely ignorant of what passes between men and women in the marital bed." "Oh?" "All of my sisters are married," she said. "And my friends. Between them, they've a great number of children. I should be quite stupid not to have learned something from them. I know what is meant to happen—at least, I've a reasonable idea." Here she glanced around furtively for a moment to be certain that they were unobserved. But then, they were now married. There was no need for a chaperone any longer. Her voice dropped to a murmur. "I simply have no interest in it happening to me." "It won't." At least, not the bit where she ended up bellyful with a babe she did not want. But the rest of it? He had not forgotten the softening of her mouth beneath his, the feel of her pressed up against him. "Mama will come around," she said. "I think she's half convinced you'll execute me before sunrise, like the king from One Thousand and One Nights ." "The king from what?" "It's a book. A king takes a new wife every night, only to behead each poor lady in the morning. Until he marries the daughter of his vizier, Scheherazade, and she tells a story so riveting he can't execute her until he knows the ending." "What a bastard. I want that book for my library." "You won't be able to read it. The original is in Arabic. I've got the French translation, but there's no English one available just yet." "Still, I want it." He hadn't yet returned her copy of Pride and Prejudice , but then, he supposed it was half his now, too. "You did promise to improve my library." "I did. It's just that books are dreadfully expensive. Perhaps you'd be better served with a subscription to a circulating library." "I like owning things." Perhaps it was avaricious of him, but it was true. There had been years—too many of them—that he'd owned little more than the clothes upon his back, and those only if he could retain possession of them through the cold winter nights. What purpose was there in having so bloody much money, if not to surround himself with the trappings of his wealth? "The cost is not an issue. Shall we?" "Shall we what?" She inclined her head, and one of those perfect starchy curls dangled near her ear. "Go home." "Oh. Yes." She took a step toward him—just one, and it had seemed somehow a difficult motion for her to make. As if something had pulled at her shoulders, tugging her back. Just briefly, a strange expression flittered across her face. "I suppose it's…difficult," she said. "To say goodbye to one's home." "Why should it be? You've lived here—what, a month?" "It's not the building that makes a home. It's the people within it." Another step, and another. "Tomorrow, when I wake, Mama will not be waiting at the breakfast table for me. Papa will not be grumbling about over-salted eggs. I mean to say, they will —only, I'll be elsewhere." "Perhaps you ought to invite them for breakfast, then," he said. "If only to assure your mother that I've not executed you at dawn." "Could I?" "It makes no difference to me. I rarely rise before noon if I can avoid it." Like as not, he'd never even know they'd been present. "You won't be far, you know." "No," she said. "Just over the wall." And yet, the strange inflection of her voice made it sound like the journey to the moon might be a shorter distance.

∞∞∞

Phoebe's new home was large…and largely vacant. She supposed that was one of the travails of owning such a magnificent property. One might have all the money in the world to furnish such a space and still have not the slightest idea of what to put in it. It had been a strange sensation to walk with him even the short distance from her house to his without the company of a maid or a chaperone. As if she had been doing something she ought not. She might have a ring upon her finger that would tell the world that nothing untoward was going on, but still she had never walked through a man's door unaccompanied in her life. A day of firsts—or a night of one, at least. That first step over the threshold felt like a leap into a murky pond. One undertaken without knowing when her feet might touch the bottom, or what sort of creatures might reside there with her. Mr. Moore—Chris—her husband —was already tugging at his cravat. "That's Brooks," he said, gesturing to the man who had opened the door to admit them, "my butler. His primary purpose seems to be irritating me. When he's not buttling , he's a right pain in the arse." Brooks caught the discarded cravat before it could touch the floor. "Don't you dare even think of tossing your coat upon the floor," he snarled. Chris tossed his coat upon the floor before the butler had even finished speaking. "Brooks," he said, "This is Phoebe. My wife." Brooks paused in the act of retrieving the coat, his dark brows sweeping toward his hairline. "Holy hell," he said. "You did it. You truly did it." Chris heaved a sigh. "I told you I would. I was quite clear before I left this morning." "I assumed they'd send you home again in a box." The waistcoat followed the coat, slung carelessly through the air, forcing Brooks to go scrambling to catch it. Chris said, "You'll have to pardon him. He's got a foul temper. Not very butlerly of him." Phoebe blinked. "I'm not certain butlerly is a word." "Is it not? Should be." "Butleresque?" she suggested. No; that didn't sound right. "Butlerlike?" That wasn't quite it, either. "At any rate, I'm certain he's a fine butler. But perhaps he'd find himself of a more pleasant disposition if you did not antagonize him." Brooks tucked Chris' discarded clothing beneath his arm and managed a relieved bow. "Thank you, my lady." "It's just Miss , actually." "It's just Mrs. , actually," Chris corrected. "Mrs. Moore. She's the lady of the house, now, Brooks, so you should take your directions from her." He plucked at the buttons on the front of his shirt with one hand, the tip of his cane striking the marble floor with each step as he strode for the stairs. "I'll be in my study for a while. Send up some supper, won't you, Brooks? Night, Phoebe." And then he was gone. Her husband had deserted her in the foyer of his massive house with only his butler for company on her wedding night. "My apologies, madam, for so unseemly a display," he said. "I'm fairly certain the master has no particular use for a butler except that he knows he's meant to have one. We don't get on particularly well." Somehow, she had the impression that her husband did not get on particularly well with most people. "If you'd prefer to leave," she said, "I could write you a letter of reference." She'd never had to do it before—at least, it had never been among her responsibilities before now. "Regrettably, I owe that miserable sod my life," Brooks grumbled dispiritedly. At Phoebe's inquisitive glance, he clarified: "My sister got herself into a spot of trouble some time ago. Got involved with Lord Lymington." "Lymington?" Phoebe was only vaguely familiar with the name. He was known to have accrued a great many debts and a good many more excuses for not paying them. Not Good Ton as Mama would have said. "He took her for his mistress," Brooks said. "But neglected to pay what he owed her. And when he didn't, she helped herself to some trinkets of his. Hardly worth what he owed, but..." But theft was theft. And theft was very often a hanging offence. Or at least a transportable one. "Of course, Lymington took exception to it. He demanded a great deal of money in recompense. Money I didn't have. I borrowed from some unsavory characters, but when I couldn't repay what I owed—well, they were determined to have their pound of flesh from me." "And Mr. Moore rescued you from them?" Phoebe asked. "Paid off my debt in full, on the condition that I come work for him. We'd get on better if he were inclined to heed my advice. Which he is not. Could you—" "We don't have that sort of marriage," Phoebe hastened to say. "I doubt he'd listen to me any better. But—" Eventually, he would have to. He meant to trade upon her name, after all, and her comparative respectability. Perhaps, slowly, she might guide him toward becoming the sort of man he meant to be. Or at least toward giving a good show of it. "That is to say, I'll do my best. But we must not expect miracles." "I see," said Brooks. "Well, then. Shall I show you to your room?" "Oh—not just yet. Could I have a look around first?" "Of course, madam. The house is yours." He gave another bow, the proper sort a butler was meant to give, and for the first time since she had entered her new home, Phoebe found herself relaxing just a little. "I shall leave you to it," he said. "You need only ring if you require assistance."

∞∞∞

The other side of the wall looked just the same, and yet so very different. There were no roses in his garden, but the fragrance of them perfumed the air anyway, blown in on the breeze from neighboring gardens, she assumed. The gardener—if one happened to exist—had been terribly lax about this duties. The stones of the walkway had not seen a good cleaning in some time, and had darkened to a dingy grey mottled with streaks of dirt. Dandelions dotted the grass, sunny yellow heads bobbing in the wind. Malformed hedges in desperate want of pruning grew wild and unencumbered, nearly overgrowing what once must have been a lovely garden path. And there, just a few feet from the bench that had been placed against the stone wall, a pond had been carved somewhat haphazardly from the lawn and lined with small, flat stones. A rush job, it looked like, and for no discernable purpose. It was not particularly aesthetically pleasing, nor large enough to be an impressive feature. Perhaps it was simply another thing he thought he had been meant to have. A butler, a pond, a wife—all necessities, to his mind, whether or not they were actually wanted . She didn't want to be wanted as a wife…but it would have been nice to have been wanted as a friend. A companion. With a sigh, Phoebe sank down upon the bench; the same one he must have occupied all those nights they had shared speaking over the wall. She had rather enjoyed those talks. He didn't seem to know how one was meant to conduct a polite conversation, and it made him—if not a pleasant conversationalist, exactly, then at least an interesting one. He was not, she suspected, at all accustomed to guarding his tongue or his thoughts with any particular degree of circumspection that might have otherwise been expected of a gentleman. Most would consider it a liability at best, and at worst, definitive proof of his low moral character. Phoebe thought it rather refreshing. Even if he had a marked tendency toward vocabulary that could strip the varnish off of a table with its coarseness, still he had a sort of earthy honesty about him that was compelling for its very rareness. They would have a comfortable marriage, she supposed. Polite, if distant. Perhaps at some point, they would be something more than merely strangers sharing the same house. If not friends, then at least friendly. There was a slight rustle of the grass at her feet, a pressure upon the toe of her shoe. She glanced down, and— "Good God, don't do that ." A beleaguered sigh sliced straight through her warbling scream. "Your parents will think you're being murdered. And you'll frighten Hieronymus." Somehow, after several panicked flails in an effort to escape the creature that had settled itself upon her shoe, Phoebe ended up sprawled across the bench. "There's a—a—" "A terrapin." There was the click of the cane against the stone, and then Chris was there, peering down at her. He bent to unwind her arms from where they had settled protectively over her chest, pulling her upright once more. "Hieronymus. He's a terrapin. And he's only a threat to dandelions." "Dandelions?" Phoebe echoed, uncomprehending. "They're his favorite treat. Your shoe was right beside one. I suppose he came up out of his pond for a late night snack. Just look." Phoebe stared down at the ground where a few inches from her right foot, a small turtle was chomping blithely through the frilly yellow petals of a dandelion head. "The pond is for a turtle ?" "Well, it wasn't for me." Chris nudged her side with the tip of his cane, a silent command to make room upon the bench she occupied. She slid carefully to the right, tucking her feet beneath the bench to avoid the turtle, and heard the soft material of her dressing gown catching upon the rough stone beneath her. "You built a pond. For a turtle. Whom you named Hieronymus ." The words, separately, made sense. Together, it was all nonsense. "You have a pet turtle?" "A terrapin." Chris sat down beside her and laid his cane across his lap—and hers, by extension. He rubbed at his knee through the fabric of his banyan, and a wince slid over his mouth. "I didn't intend to acquire him," he said with a sigh. "You'll find that a great number of my staff don't come from particularly refined backgrounds. My cook, for instance, makes a palatable cottage pie and can roast a chicken well enough, but her specialty—if one can call it that—is tavern fare at best." "Oh," Phoebe said. "I suppose we'll not be hosting dinner parties anytime soon, then." Practically anyone of her acquaintance would likely revolt if they happened to be served cottage pie as a meal in a home as fine as this. "She wants a little instruction," Chris admitted. "She knows well enough her deficiencies. It's just not mattered much before now." "I see," she said. But what had that to do with the turtle? "A few months ago," Chris said, "Emma came to dinner. The first time I'd had a proper guest, and my cook decided she was going to serve something fitting. A proper fancy meal, with several courses. And what do you suppose she decided upon for the soup?" Hieronymus had finished with his flower and took several slow, plodding steps toward the bench, stretching his neck out from his shell as if to gaze up at the star-studded sky. Phoebe uttered a horrified little laugh. "Oh," she said. "Oh, no ." "Oh, yes. Turtle soup." "But that's—it's not—" "My best guess," he said, "is that she was not aware of how expensive turtle meat is at market, since she'd never had the need to purchase it before. Probably," he said, "she didn't even know that she was meant to purchase sea turtle specifically. Near as I can tell, she stumbled upon an exotic animal importer and purchased Hieronymus instead. I suppose she must have figured he'd do well enough for a dinner for two. Except she made a fatal mistake." "Which was?" "She introduced me to him." Phoebe choked on a shocked laugh. "You're joking." "I am not. She was quite proud of her purchase. He was expensive, but not nearly so much as sea turtle meat." He dragged one hand through his hair, ruffling the gold strands. "You can't eat someone you've met ," he said doggedly. "So you named him and put him in the garden." She watched Hieronymus execute an awkward turtle-turn and set off once more in the direction of another dandelion, and supposed that that explained the profusion of them blooming unchecked. A turtle had to eat, and dandelions were a particular favorite. "Well, I wasn't about to let him become soup. Probably he wouldn't have tasted terribly good, anyway. He's less a pet and more a resident. He doesn't take up much space, and even if he's not a particularly witty conversationalist, at least he's a polite little fellow. All he wants out of life is a pond to swim in, a rock to bask upon, and a steady diet of fruits and vegetables." "And dandelions," she said. "And dandelions. One has to respect the simplicity of his existence." "A dog would be more appropriate for a pet," she said. "Perhaps a spaniel, if you've no fondness for hunting dogs." "Can't abide dogs. Or cats." A beat of silence. Hieronymus stretched his neck toward the head of a dandelion, but found it just a bit too tall to reach. Phoebe watched the turtle consider his prey carefully, then extend his neck to snip the head off of the stem with his beak. "Clever," she said, as he began to chew the decapitated bud. "Can one pet a turtle?" "Wouldn't recommend it. Leastwise, I don't think he'd much enjoy it." "Well, then, if I can't have a cat or a dog—" "I said I didn't like them. Didn't say you couldn't have one." He stretched out his leg with a grimace, and the velvety fabric of his banyan parted, revealing a bare shin dusted with crisp blond hair. Of course she had known that men, like women, must have legs beneath their trousers and feet and toes beneath their shoes and stockings. It was just that she had never seen them for herself. No gentleman would reveal such a part of his anatomy before a lady. But then, she hadn't married a gentleman. "I had a mouse as a pet, once," he said. "A little brown house mouse." "A mouse is not a pet," she said. "Mice are vermin." "In the slums, a pet is whatever animal you can keep. A dog or a cat would have been impossible," he said. "One might spare a scrap of a crust of bread for a mouse, but feeding anything larger might mean starvation…if one didn't find one's pet stolen for someone else's supper." Phoebe shuddered at the very thought of it. "So you kept a mouse instead?" "I didn't keep him so much as he lived in the wall near where I made my bed at night. He'd made a little hole there in the corner. At night, when the house was quiet, he'd come out to explore. If I had got anything to eat for dinner, I'd save over some crumbs for him and feed him from my hand. Watch him take it up in his paws and stuff it into his cheeks. I called him Freddie." "If you had got anything to eat for dinner?" she asked. "What do you mean by that?" "That's how it is on the streets. You get only what you can pay for. Or so said Scratch." "Scratch?" "The kidsman who took me in. Wasn't his name. ‘Least, I don't think it was. But all the children called him that. He had these wretched long nails, was fond of doling out slaps and gouges to the children who failed to meet his expectations. Got more than a few scars to show for it." "That's dreadful," she said. "That's life, more often than not. I owed Scratch for my keep. All the children did—four pence a day. Six if we wanted to eat into the bargain. Christ, my knee aches." His toes stretched and flexed, his leg extending in a shaky motion, as if the muscles were tight and strained. A guttural sound erupted from his chest as he dug his thumb into the flesh of his knee, and his voice grew rougher, coarser. "I was seven, or thereabouts, when me mum passed on. Hadn't anywhere to go." "Your father—" A disdainful snort. "Never wanted nothin' to do wiv me. And why should ‘e? I was just a bastard, of no use to ‘im." A strange sound of relief, like he'd plucked the last of the tension from his aching muscles, and his foot found purchase upon the ground once again. "But there's always kidsmen lookin' to train up new thieves. Scratch had a gang of nearly twenty," he said. "I was wiv him until I was fourteen or so. ‘Til he tried to sell me off to a toff wiv a fondness for children." "A fondness for children?" The sinister undertone to the words sent a shiver cascading down her spine. "Not…not simple Christian charity, then, I take it." "Not hardly," he said on a malevolent laugh. "What did you do?" "Don't ask questions ye don't want answered." It was a gentle rebuke, as far as they went, but there was an undercurrent of gravity within it. "I'm not a good man, Phoebe," he said. "I'm not even a nice one." No; not nice . But then, nice was a strange descriptor. She'd met a goodly number of people who might be called nice but could not be called good. Nice was public affability and social pleasantness. Nice was a vague sort of geniality that did not necessarily persist beyond the immediate moment. Nice was politeness feigned for the duration of a morning call or a dinner party. But it wasn't goodness , in and of itself. She was nice. But she had never thought of herself as particularly good. Chris gripped his cane in his hand, setting the tip to the ground in preparation to rise. "You found your room?" he asked. "Oh. Yes." She'd had to summon Brooks to take her to it eventually, since she'd gotten lost within the house. "Good. If it's not to your liking, choose one that suits you." He bit back a groan as he eased himself to his feet once more, a grimace passing over his features. "It suits me well enough." An awkward laugh trickled from her throat. "I suppose it will take me some time to…adjust. I'd made perhaps half the journey down to the garden before I realized I didn't have to sneak around to do it. I dodged a fair few servants in my efforts to be stealthy about it." He scraped at his mouth with one hand, muffling a rough laugh. "You're a married woman," he said. "You go where you please." She rather liked the sound of that. That long-coveted freedom which had eluded her, at last in her grasp. "Good night, then," she said. "Sleep well." Another low chortle as he turned to go, the tip of his cane clicking upon the stone path. "Unlikely," he called over his shoulder. "Sweet dreams are for the innocent. Don't step on Hieronymus; he's by your shoe." Oh. So he was. The little turtle had settled just by the toe of her shoe, tucking his head and legs within his shell until only very tip of his beak poked out. Sleeping, she thought. Her husband was not nice. But perhaps there was at least a tiny bit of goodness somewhere very deep down in a man who had saved a turtle from the soup pot and given it a comfortable home.