Chapter Nine

P hoebe took a sort of perverse pleasure in the fracas that had arisen within the household sometime just after midnight. She hadn't intended, exactly, to be the cause of it, but then neither had she expected Chris to come back from wherever it was he had gone when he had stormed out of the house just after that disastrous dinner and immediately set about searching for her. And then bellowing for her. Slamming doors, rousing servants, and sending the household, which had long since settled for the night, into abrupt chaos. All while she sat upon the bench at the garden wall, feeding Hieronymus from her hand and enjoying the ever-increasing panic from within the house. Finally, perhaps half an hour after the outset of the commotion, the terrace door opened, and Chris came stalking out into the night, his shoulders slumping in relief to find her at last. His shirt was half-unbuttoned, his cravat missing entirely. "Didn't you hear me calling?" he asked, his voice inflected with frustration. "Of course. I imagine the whole street heard you." But it had not created any sense of obligation within her to answer. "I thought you had gone," he said, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. "I was near to banging upon your parents' door." "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "I was not the one who stormed out of the house in a snit." She had merely stormed upstairs. That muscle flexed so hard she would have sworn she heard it creak with the strain of it. "Men don't have snits," he said, with a fierce rap of his cane upon the ground as if to punctuate the declaration. "Then what would you call your behavior, if not a snit?" "It was—I was—" Plainly he was unaccustomed to being called to account for himself. "Ah, hell. I suppose it was a snit." He lifted the cane to tap the bench. "Budge up," he said. "I was here first!" She relaxed her fingers, which were in imminent danger of crushing the assorted bits of fruits and vegetables in the cup of her palm. "It's my damned bench!" A harsh sound rent the air, too severe for a sigh. "Damn it all, Phoebe, I'm trying to apologize." "Are you? You're not very good at it." Still, even that small acknowledgment was the tiniest salve to her wounded pride. She scooted a few inches to the right. Not quite enough room for him to comfortably fit in the space she had vacated, but then she was still angry. Somehow he made himself fit nonetheless, stretching out his injured knee and bracing his cane across his lap and hers. "No, I don't suppose I am. I don't have to do it very often." "Ah," she said, in a dry tone. "I suppose you're one of those men who are never wrong, then." "No. Likely I'm wrong a great deal. It's just that I don't often feel the need to apologize for it. And anyone who's got a problem wiv it can go ‘ang." His gloved fingers pinched off a sigh that emerged through his nose. "But you're not just anyone," he said. "You're my wife." Phoebe gave a disdainful sniff and bent down to offer Hieronymus a slice of strawberry. "I am sorry," Chris said. "I shouldn't have shouted at you." "If you shout at me, I am going to shout back." Hieronymus chomped his way through the strawberry and gave her a stare of disappointment when she hadn't another slice of it to offer. "I was only trying to help," she said. "It's what you married me for." "I know," he said. "Are you going to shout at me again?" "Probably," he said. "I've got a hell of a temper and not much practice in restraining it. Sometimes I'm a miserable arse about it. So, yes, I'll likely shout at you again. But I'll apologize. Eventually. If I'm wrong." His shoulder nudged hers. "And I won't forget my waistcoat next time." Phoebe supposed it was more of a concession than she had expected of him. "I worked quite hard upon dinner," she said. "Your whole staff did." "I realized that," he said. "Earlier this evening. I went to visit Charity—" "Charity?" "My mistress," he said. "I've got a flat in Cheapside. She lives there." "Oh." Was that why he'd returned in so slovenly a state? Some strange feeling fluttered behind the cage of her ribs. Not jealousy, exactly—she'd known he had a mistress and had felt no small amount of relief over that fact. But a certain vaguely unsettled feeling that one small argument had sent him fleeing into her arms. "She said you were right. Not in so many words, but the implication was clear." Chris rubbed at his jaw, scraping his palm over the stubble that still covered it. "You'd like her," he said. "She speaks her mind. Like you." "You do need a valet," Phoebe said with a huff. "I'm a little offended that you'll listen to your mistress, but not to me." "Don't be," he said. "I didn't listen to Brooks, either. But I'll concede that you'd have reason to know, and that I ought to have listened—or at least not taken such offense." He muffled a laugh beneath his palm as Hieronymus turned up his beak at the raspberry Phoebe offered. "Cabbage," he said. "I beg your pardon?" "He likes cabbage. And grapes, and blueberries. Apples, when they're in season. He won't eat them dried. He's sick unto death of oranges. But then, so am I. Here," he said, and took her hand in his, collecting the remaining bits of fruit. "Feed him from the palm of your hand. He's an overzealous eater at times; you'll be less likely to get bitten." The scant moonlight revealed strange stains wreathing his knuckles, and a bit of torn fabric. "What has happened to your gloves?" she asked, pulling her hand out from beneath his to touch her fingertips to a stain, and they came away red. He gave a small hiss of pain. "Blood, most likely. I was still angry when I left Charity. Found some deserving fellow to take it out upon." At her blank stare, he clarified, "My old flat is above my…office, as it were, and there's a brothel next door. In my younger days, the madam paid me to teach a lesson to gents who got too rough with her girls." "And there was someone to—to teach a lesson to this evening?" "Always is." He winced as she plucked at the buttons of his gloves, delicately rolling the fabric up his wrist and toward his fingers. "Ow. Careful," he said as it stuck to his bloodied knuckles. Phoebe gave a delicate sniff. "If you didn't want to be in this position, perhaps you should have taken off your gloves first." "In public?" he asked, in an affected scandalized tone of voice, and she bit back a soft laugh. "I rarely take them off," he said. "And never in public." It seemed a curious line to draw, when he feared not to tread well beyond so many others. "Why?" she asked. With a sigh, he cast the rest of the fruit he'd taken from her upon the lawn for Hieronymus to choose what he would, and reclaimed his hand to work the buttons of his opposite glove. He stripped it away and tucked it in his pocket, turning his hand palm up to display an old wound burned into the pad of his thumb. "Got pinched for nicking some gent's purse when I was a boy," he said. "The authorities made certain I'd never escape it. Earned myself a branding." "That's dreadful!" "Could've been worse. What I'd stolen was enough to get me hanged. The branding was a mercy. Made no difference the bloke got his purse back." He withdrew his hand, flexed his fingers. "Still, it makes people uncomfortable to know they've got a thief in their midst. So I keep the gloves on." "But you were just a child," she said. "Once a thief, always a thief." The breeze tousled his hair, and he stretched out his legs, resting his back against the garden wall. "I came by my deft fingers honestly in my youth. Didn't steal, didn't eat. And I'm not above a bit of petty theft, when it suits me. When a bloke has been particularly unpleasant or condescending, sometimes I'll nick something of his just for the fun of it." "Really?" she asked, pursing her lips against a smile. "But that's so—so juvenile." "It's satisfying," he said. "I've got my pride, you know. Got a whole collection upstairs; a box of trinkets I've stolen over the years." "I'm not certain whether or not to believe you." He laid his hand over hers. "I'll make you a bargain," he said. "If I can steal something of yours—say, in the next few minutes—you'll forgive me for being an arse, and we'll go back to being friends again. Leastwise until the next time I'm an arse." "That's hardly fair," she said. "I'll be watching too closely. I assume some aspect of successful thievery requires that your target not know they are about to be robbed." "You let me worry about that," he said with a laugh, releasing her hand. "I'm a good thief. Are we agreed?" "Agreed," she said. "But I also want to see your box of trinkets for myself." "Done," he said. And he lifted his hand, holding her wedding ring aloft, the shiny gold glinting in the moonlight. Phoebe groped for her ring finger, still somehow surprised to find her wedding ring missing from it. He'd snatched it straight off, and she'd been none the wiser. "How did you do that?" she asked, enthralled. "Can you teach me?" A rueful laugh rumbled in his chest. "Your family already no doubt suspects I'm corrupting you. Might as well make a thief of you and remove all doubt. Yes; I'll teach you." And that, she thought, was a fair enough trade. She could teach him to be a gentleman, and he could teach her to be something less than the lady she had always had to be. Probably there would be a fair bit of frustration on both ends. "Am I forgiven?" he asked as he slid the ring back onto her finger where it belonged, his fingers so light it seemed it went back on as if by magic, hardly touching her skin at all until it had fit into place once more. "I suppose so," she said, and rose to her feet. "Come," she said. "We'll leave Hieronymus to his feast. Your knuckles need to be bandaged." A chuckle erupted from his mouth. "Brooks isn't likely to do it," he said. "He'd much prefer to let gangrene take me. And the rest of the staff might just slip arsenic into my tea in the morning if I rouse them all over again." "I know," she said. "I'm going to do it. I know where the salve is, and the bandages." His gold brows lifted in a high arch. "You're going to bandage my knuckles?" "Should I not?" It seemed a wifely thing to do. Or at least a friendly one. "No," he said. "Or yes. Hell, I don't know." He blew out a breath and clutched the handle of his cane, pressing the tip to the ground to brace himself to rise. " Hell ," he said again, with more feeling. "All right, then. Thank you."

∞∞∞

As the carriage clattered down the street toward Lord and Lady Clarke's Mayfair townhouse, Phoebe reassured herself that Chris had made significant progress in the week that had passed since that disastrous dinner. Probably he would always be half-civilized at best, but even if he was still predisposed to grumble over minor corrections, he had at least learned to accept them with—well, not good grace, precisely. But with fewer coarse words than she would otherwise have expected. "Just remember," she said, smoothing at her rose-hued skirts. "If you aren't certain which utensil to use, simply wait until someone else has picked up theirs and choose the same. It's practically cheating; you should enjoy that. And no foul words in mixed company. I'm certain the gentleman do not guard their words quite so closely after dinner, when they converse amongst themselves. But you'll certainly shock if you use such language at the dinner table when ladies are present." "Somehow, I've got the feeling that my definition of foul and yours vastly differ," he said. "It's not enough to be stuffed into this wretched stiff formal wear. I've got to cut out my tongue as well?" "And your cravat must stay on," she said. "In its original condition," she clarified, since he had a rather appalling habit of yanking upon it until it was loose about his neck, its frills limp and sagging. "It's too damned tight." "It's meant to be tight." The carriage was turning, beginning to slow. Phoebe wracked her brain for further reminders, regretting now that she had spent rather too much time on table manners and place settings and perhaps too little upon the art of polite conversation—an area in which he was woefully lacking. "You will want to avoid speaking of business or politics," she said. "It's considered crass to discuss commerce or money in polite company, and those with seats in the House of Lords aren't likely to welcome your opinions on their favored bits of legislation." Sounding vaguely harassed, he replied, "I don't much follow politics, but I'll do my best not to embarrass you." "Embarrass me?" Taken aback, Phoebe said, "You won't embarrass me." "Then why all the instruction? I haven't accidentally put my elbow in the pudding in at least three days." His fingers drummed out a rapid rhythm upon the door of the carriage, as if his patience was thinning. "Be honest," he said, his voice turning sulky. "You think I might trip some poor fellow with my cane apurpose and Lord and Lady Clarke will rethink any future invitations." "I don't care if they do," she said, perplexed. "Lady Clarke is a nosy gossip, and Lord Clarke is an arrogant boor. If I never receive an invitation from them again, it will be no great loss." She flicked back the curtains to gaze out the window, watching the street lamps drift by the carriage. "Then why did you accept this one?" "It's what you wanted," she said. "And besides, Emma and Lord Rafe will be present. It's the first event, is it not? That you will attend together? I thought it would be pleasant to have at least two other familiar faces. You won't have to brave the lion's den alone." A strange silence from the opposite side of the carriage, and briefly Phoebe wondered if she had overstepped, or miscalculated. At last, he asked, "You didn't want to attend yourself?" She managed a light laugh. "I've endured ten years of Seasons," she said. "And I have spent every one of them doing my best to avoid an unwanted marriage. Had the choice been my own, I would have accepted only invitations from those who could not be convinced to rescind them under any circumstances. I daresay even those would keep my social schedule quite full." "You do have an awful lot of siblings." "Laurence will likely be present this evening," she said. "Probably I should have warned you. I know he's a bit—" "Conceited?" "Protective," she corrected. "He's had seven sisters to look out for all his life." "He's a pretentious arse," he said, and the gritty inflection to his voice made her wonder if perhaps her brother had, at one point or another, been the unwitting victim of his petty vengeance. A line of carriages had taken up most of the street. They would have to walk the rest of the way to the house. Phoebe pitched her voice low as the coachman hopped down from his seat. "He improves upon further acquaintance," she said. "I don't," Chris said, and slid toward the door as the coachman threw the carriage door open. He braced the point of his cane upon the ground, gingerly stepping down, suppressing a wince as he landed. She had learned, in the short time since their marriage, that his knee tended to pain him terribly when it rained. The last three days had been nothing but rain, and he had spent the bulk of them stretched out upon the couch in the library in his banyan with a succession of hot cloths draped over his naked knee. Phoebe smoothed her skirts, turning for the door of the carriage—only to find his hand thrust toward her. "What—" "I'm meant to help you down, am I not?" "Yes, but…" But she hadn't taught him that. Hadn't expected him to know it. There were few enough people on the street at the moment, and none were paying any particular attention to them. "Come on, then," he said impatiently. "In precisely two hours, I'm casting this cravat straight into the fire, company be damned. Let's not waste time." Phoebe bit her lip against the inclination to inform him that they'd likely not be even halfway through dinner in two hours. It was his first dinner party, after all. It wouldn't do to have him cut and run out of sheer annoyance before they'd even set foot through the door. She set her hand in his and climbed down from the carriage onto the pavement—and paused. It had been dark when they had set out, and he'd been held up by some bit of business in his study. She'd not gotten more than a glimpse of him before the carriage had whisked away from the house, and the curtains at the carriage windows hadn't admitted any more than faint streams of light from the lamps on the street outside, just tiny flashes of it, really, not nearly enough to see by. But he looked like a gentleman. His hair, which he was wont to ruffle with agitated motions of his fingers at the slightest hint of an inconvenience, had been neatly trimmed and combed into an appropriately elegant style. His cheeks and jaw were shaven clean, with just the sharp, angular sideburns expressive of the current fashion leftover. He'd managed to resist the temptation to fuss with the folds of his cravat, which flowed in a tidy ripple. His tailcoat was of a dark blue superfine, which she supposed must be new. Even his trousers were perfectly pressed, and his shoes polished until they gleamed. His brows lowered over his eyes. "What?" he asked. "Have I got something in my teeth?" "You look like a gentleman," she blurted out. It shouldn't have been quite so shocking. He'd shown up for dinner every evening dressed appropriately—more or less. It was just that outside of those few hours, he was much more likely to flout conventional attire altogether. She'd lost count of the times she'd heard him stomping about in bare feet, or lounging about in his banyan. Once she'd even caught him in the orangery in nothing but a simple pair of linen trousers, which had made him look rather piratical. And they'd only been wed a week. "Ah," he said, and something of a smirk played about his mouth as he offered her his arm. "That's what the valet is for, yes?" He'd left the hiring of one to her, and she'd chosen an older gentleman called Haddington. He was a stern, serious sort of man—one of only three men who had applied for the position—and she'd chosen him because he had an air about him that suggested he was unlikely to allow himself to be bullied into compliance by a man too accustomed to wielding his formidable temper to get his way. "And how is he working out for you?" she asked. "As well as can be expected," he said, and began to lead her toward the Clarke townhouse, his steps slow and purposeful—disguising his limp, she thought, like a stray cat refusing to display weakness lest it provoke an attack. "Though I'm fairly certain he and Brooks are conspiring against me. I expect to be poisoned any day now." "Have you tried being pleasant?" she suggested mildly. "What the hell for?" he grumbled. His steps slowed still further the nearer they drew to the house, then stopped altogether just a few feet from the steps. His hand fisted the handle of his cane, his elbow straightening as if he were bracing himself. In the faint light of the street lamp in the distance, Phoebe could see the tightness of his jaw, the swallow that rolled down his throat, disappearing beneath his cravat. "Chris," she said lightly, "you're not nervous. Are you?" "No." It was issued a bit too sharply to be an honest answer, and for a moment he ducked his head. At last he admitted, "There's too many damned rules," he said gruffly. "I know you are not fond of them—" "Oh, I'm quite fond of them. Breaking them intentionally, that is to say. It's conforming to them that I've little experience with. Half the people within will resent me for having the audacity to exist, and the other half for having the audacity to force myself into their midst." "Hardly forced," she said, affecting a conciliatory tone. "You're an invited guest." "You said they'd be expecting me to fail." That was, regrettably, true. " Ton society is notoriously insular," she said. "If not for Papa's title"—and the titles of those gentlemen her sisters had married—"I'd no doubt have been cast out ages ago." "So you won't be disappointed if I fail?" Phoebe would be surprised if he succeeded. But it was no fault of his own; the deck had been stacked against him from birth. She knew well enough what it was to be judged as lacking by society, even if she had deliberately brought it upon herself. "I won't be disappointed," she said. "It's only Lord and Lady Clarke. And Emma won't be disappointed, either—but she will appreciate the effort to which you have gone for her." A strange quirk of his brows, as if the statement had somehow surprised him. "Yes," he said. "For Em." And then: "You truly won't mind if the Clarkes never send you another invitation?" "In fact, I'd prefer it," she said, and gave a gentle pull of his arm toward the house once more. "They really are a tedious pair. If you feel they have made it impossible to meet their exacting standards, please do me a monumental favor—and fail with flair."