Candace Camp - Swept Away

Pamela stirred uneasily, glancing at Varian, who was watching her. “Indeed,” she said through tight lips.

“Phoebe and I were remarking only the other day that we rarely see you anymore. We hoped that you were not eschewing social life, as some matrons do in widowhood. Phoebe thought it was probably that you, as she is, are still in mourning for your husband, but I told her I thought that could not be the reason, for you were frequently at parties after he died, and I was sure that you had put off mourning—oh, within a few months after Walter’s funeral.”

Bright spots of color leaped into Pamela’s cheeks at Julia’s words, delivered with a wide-eyed innocence that did not fool the other woman for a minute. She knew as well as Julia that there had been a great deal of talk about the brevity of her mourning for Walter St. Leger, which Phoebe’s presence in her black widow’s weeds three years after Selby’s death seemed to underscore.

“Yes. Walter never liked black on a woman,” she said in a clipped voice, driven out of her disdainful silence by the need to justify herself.

“Ah, of course.” Julia smiled with understanding. “I’m sure Walter would have been very pleased to see you. I told Phoebe I did not think it was mourning that kept you away from the small social pleasures of Whitley. I was sure it was probably some physical infirmity. I hope not lumbago—that can be a terribly painful thing, I understand.”

Pamela’s eyes shot fire. “No, I assure you it was not ‘physical infirmity’ that kept me away. Indeed, I attend many soirees and balls, Miss Armiger.”

“Indeed? Why is it that we never see you, then?” Julia wrinkled her brow in puzzlement.

“Are you determined, then, to hear it?” Pamela snapped. Julia wondered if she realized how unattractive she looked like this, her features sharp and hawklike, her eyes narrowed, and her lips, never full, reduced to a mere line. “I do not go where you are received, as you no doubt know. No woman of any standing would.”

Varian’s expression of shock and distaste as he looked at Pamela was precisely what Julia would have wished for. But all her satisfaction was wiped out when she heard Phoebe’s sharp intake of breath and turned to see the hurt on her face at Pamela’s verbal slap.

“Phoebe, I’m sorry,” Julia said softly, curling her arm around her sister-in-law’s waist.

“Mrs. St. Leger!” Varian snapped. “Really! I am quite sure you did not mean that.” He glared at her significantly.

“Everyone knows it!” Pamela retorted defiantly, still too caught up in her anger to care that she looked mean and spiteful in front of her son’s trustee.

“Phoebe, please, accept my apology,” Varian went on, turning abruptly from Pamela toward Phoebe. “I assure you that most people do not feel that way.”

Phoebe smiled at him. “You are most kind, Varian. I know that you do not.”

“Indeed not. I hope you will allow me the honor of calling upon you while you are in London.”

“Of course.”

He turned to Julia and made his apologies and goodbyes, adding that he trusted her to “take care of Lady Armiger.” Then he hustled Pamela away.

Julia turned to Phoebe. “Oh, Fee, I’m sorry. I should never have goaded her like that. I was so intent on forcing her to admit what a witch she is that I didn’t even think about you. I should have known it would hurt you. It is simply that I am so thick-skinned, you see. No, please, don’t cry.”

Phoebe shook her head, giving Julia a shaky little smile. Her eyes sparkled with sudden unshed tears. “No. It isn’t that. It was your calling me ‘Fee.’ Selby always used to call me that. Remember? He was so fond of pet names.”

“Yes, I remember.” Julia felt tears clogging up her own throat at the memory. Even Julia he had shortened to Julie, and he had almost never called Phoebe by her full name. “He called you ‘Fee’ and ‘Delight.”’

A little noise escaped Phoebe at her words. “Oh, Julia! How can it still hurt after all this time?”

“I don’t know.” Julia hugged the other woman tightly. “Sometimes I think that it will always hurt, at least a little.”

“I want to prove that Selby didn’t do it,” Phoebe said in a fiercer voice than Julia had ever heard from her. “I want to prove that it was all Stonehaven’s doing and make that dreadful woman eat every nasty word she’s ever said about Selby or you or me!”

“We will,” Julia promised, setting her jaw. “We will.”

Julia was in the sitting room the next day, her fingers busy letting down the hem on another one of Phoebe’s dresses so that she could wear it. Her mind was occupied with her plan to manipulate Lord Stonehaven into confessing to his crime. She knew that she could not allow herself to be distracted again, as she had been last time by his kiss. She had to be firm and in control, and she had decided that the best way to do that was to plan the things she would say and do to lead him to talk, down to every last word and gesture.

The housekeeper, a fussy, plump woman in a white mob cap and an equally snowy apron, was standing beside Phoebe while Phoebe went over the menus for the rest of the week. Phoebe was engaged in another of a seemingly unending series of struggles over what should be served.

“You see, Mrs. Willett,” Phoebe was saying now, “I don’t really like duck.”

“But, my lady, duck was always one of the master’s favorites.” Mrs. Willett had been used to ruling the London house largely unchecked for over thirty years. The butler might go back and forth from the country house in Kent to London with the family, but the housekeeper stayed in charge in London over the long months—and even years, lately—when the family was not there, running a skeleton staff to keep the house in shape. Her guiding rule in any situation was to do exactly as she had always done.

Julia glanced over at Phoebe, who was biting her lip and looking worried, and Julia knew that Phoebe was, as Mrs. Willett had intended, feeling like an unloving, ungrieving widow for not wanting to eat one of her dead husband’s favorite dishes.

“Nonsense, Mrs. Willett,” Julia stuck in crisply. “You and I both know that duck was our father’s favorite dish, and that is why you served it all Selby’s life. Besides, it doesn’t really matter whether Selby liked it or not. The point is that Lady Armiger does not like it. She does not want it on the menu, and I see no reason why it should be there, when your employer does not wish it. Do you?”

A look of hurt that would have crumpled Phoebe’s opposition settled on the older woman’s face. She pushed her spectacles back up her nose and said in a resigned voice, “Very well, Miss Julia—if you want it that way. I do work for your family, have done so for over thirty years.”

“Yes, I know, and an excellent housekeeper you are,” Julia agreed to soothe the woman’s wounded feelings.

“My, yes,” Phoebe agreed eagerly, a tiny frown of concern creasing her forehead. “I did not mean to imply that there was anything wrong with the way you perform your duties.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Julia jumped in before Phoebe could get carried away with her assurances and wind up telling the woman to leave the duck on the list. “I am sure Mrs. Willett understands that you merely want a change in the menu. It is the sort of problem at which she is quite adept, isn’t it, Mrs. Willett?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Willett agreed, smiling. Julia knew that in a few more minutes the menu change would have become her own idea, and woe to any of the kitchen staff who objected to it.

At that moment, there was the rumble of carriage wheels coming to a stop in front of the house. Julia and Phoebe glanced at each other in surprise. A visitor to their house was a rare occurrence—they had had no callers since they came to London three weeks ago, except for young Thomas every now and then when he could sneak away from his tutor. Julia stood up and crossed over to the windows. A sporty curricle had stopped on the pavement, and as she watched, a lad in livery hopped down from the back and hurried forward to take the horse’s head. A man, dressed elegantly and severely in black and white, was climbing down from the open vehicle. Julia’s mouth opened in horror.