Rexanne Becnel (12 page)

But Phoebe was not of a mind to cooperate. All she saw was a hard, amoral creature whom she was ashamed to claim as a sister.

In the face of Phoebe’s scorn, Louise’s smile faded. “How could I what? Come home after my poor, old mother died? Come to visit my own daughter? Search for my sister here when I couldn’t find her at Plummy Head?”

“Don’t try to pretend you don’t know what I mean.” Phoebe stalked into the room and glared down at Louise. “I heard what you said before. You only came here because Lord Farley had you searched out. What I want to know is how you could steal from your baby, your own flesh and blood? How could you?”

A mulish expression turned Louise’s face hard. “It was
my
money too. I’m the one who had to bear her, to get thick and ugly and fat. My figure has never been the same. Never! You’d understand what I meant if you’d ever had a child of your own.”

Phoebe’s nails dug into her palms; it was the only way to prevent herself from slapping Louise. Could anyone really be that self-centered and uncaring? Could any mother be? “You might have borne Helen, but I raised her. I was the one who saw how she pined for her real mother. For you. But all the while you were off entertaining yourself and worse, depriving her of the support her father thought he was providing.”

Louise jerked to her feet. “It’s not like it was that friggin’ much! D’you have any idea how much it costs to live in town?” She tugged on the frilly cuffs of her stylish gown. “No. Of course you don’t. ’Cause you’ve lived your whole life in that stupid cottage with your stupid goats and that stupid garden. Meanwhile I’ve had to work like a fiend just to keep up appearances.”

“Yes. And I can see just how you’ve suffered. Is that Belgian lace?” Phoebe flicked the extravagant ruffle at Louise’s throat. “And the gown. Is it French silk or Italian?”

Louise’s green eyes narrowed to slits. “You couldn’t possibly understand what’s required to get by in London.”

“No? Maybe that’s because I was working so hard to get by in Yorkshire. Maybe it’s because I was making over my old dresses to accommodate a growing child’s needs. Oh, what’s the use?” Phoebe threw her hands up and turned away. Louise had always been vain and selfish—and greedy. Phoebe had just never realized how much so. She would never change, nor could the past be altered. But the future…She turned back to face her.

“So, I suppose you’re here to hand Helen over to him. How much is he paying you for her?”

Louise jutted out her jaw. “He’s her father, you know. He doesn’t
have
to pay anything to take custody of her, him being a viscount and all. Any court in the land would give her over to him. I really don’t have any choice in the matter—”

Phoebe raised a hand to cut her off. “How much?”

Louise gave her a hard smile. “All right. All right. He’s giving me a lot. That’s all you need to know. A lot.” She patted her elaborate coiffure. “Honestly, Phoebe. I don’t know what you’re so upset about. Look around you.” Her hand gestured around the room. “The girl will be growing up in the lap of luxury now. Mother would be so pleased.” Then, “Poor Mother. I was positively devastated when I received your post. Do you plan to sell the cottage?”

“Good lord,” Phoebe exclaimed, aghast at the extent of her sister’s avarice. “First you steal from your own child, then you sell her away from everything she knows. Now you want to sell our family home out from under me? Well, the answer is no. I’m not selling Plummy Head.”

“It’s half mine, you know.”

“I’m not selling!”

Louise rolled her eyes. “Oh, very well. You don’t have to shout. And I didn’t sell the girl. Lord Farley is just generous, is all.”

Phoebe made a rude noise. “Yes. Generous.”

Louise smoothed an imagined wrinkle in her bodice. “If you dislike him so, why are you here?”

That quickly, guilt rose to compete with Phoebe’s fury. “He needed help with his children, so he offered me a position as their governess.”

Louise’s eyes narrowed and her expression turned crafty. “Are you sure that’s all he wants, little sister?” Then she laughed. “You’re such an innocent. I know you’re angry with me, but take a bit of advice from one who knows. There are certain men who are simply impossible to resist. Once they set their sights on a woman, there’s nothing she can do to resist him—and Viscount Farley is just such a man.”

She strolled around Phoebe, studying her with an assessing eye. “Should he ever develop a taste for rustics, I fear you might be in grave danger.”

Every word struck Phoebe like a blow, like the hammer strike sealing a coffin, confirming the terrible truth she wanted to deny. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, relieved Louise was behind her now and couldn’t see her face. “I assure you,” she stated through clenched teeth, “I could never approve of a profligate like Lord Farley.”

Louise laughed. “So you say.”

“I mean it.” And she did. At that moment Phoebe hated James Lindford. He was manipulative and shallow and self-serving. A perfect match for her sister.

“Very well then,” Louise said. “But there’s no reason you cannot profit from his situation, Phoebe. If he wants you to be governess to his burgeoning brood, be sure you make him pay. Now that there’s three children to mind, you must ask for a higher salary than whatever it is he’s proposed. And consider. If he weds, he’s bound to have even more brats.” She gave a knowing chuckle. “The man’s very good at making babies. A veritable baby maker. Of course, there was all that mess in town with his fiancée. Did you hear about it?”

Numbed by everything that had happened, Phoebe barely managed to reply. “Yes, I heard.” From guilt to rage to desolation, then back to rage, her emotions pummeled her like an angry sea venting its all against a crumbling dory. This last surge of guilt, however, managed to swamp her, turning rage to exhaustion and resignation. Her shoulders slumped, and shaking her head, she turned to leave. She still needed to find Helen and Izzy. Since she hadn’t found them at Farley Park, they must have run off into the woods.

“Where are you going?” Louise demanded.

“To find Helen.”

“She’s not your responsibility anymore, Phoebe. Her father has servants for that. They’ll find her.”

Such a complete inability to comprehend the love of family for family didn’t warrant a response. Like a desperate creature gasping out its final breath, the last bit of affection Phoebe felt for her sister died.

“I should think you’d be grateful she’ll be taken care of forever,” Louise went on, following her into the foyer. “Now that you don’t have to care for her every minute of the day you can afford to spend a little time on yourself. Fix yourself up; maybe even find a beau of your own. You’re still young enough to catch a man, you know. You could get married and have your own children.”

Phoebe just shook her head.

“Come now. Don’t be angry with me, Phoebe. Let me help you. I can show you how to fix your hair. You’re not that bad looking, you know. A few tricks with kohl and carmine. A little powder to whiten your skin. Why, I can make you beautiful.”

All Phoebe wanted was to escape—from Louise, from this house, from this nightmare she’d somehow blundered into. Then from the corner of her eye she detected a movement. Above them Lord Farley had paused at the top of the stairs—Helen’s father and the primary source of her pain and disillusionment.

Swallowing the sudden rise of unwonted emotion, she turned to face Louise who stared expectantly at her. “I don’t want to look beautiful, as you term it, not if it attracts the lowly sort of men you cavort with. You know, the sort who gets a woman with child, then abandons her.”

She left with her cold words hanging in the air, damning them both for the selfishness of their careless behavior.

Only one of them felt the sting of her accusation, however. Only one of them felt any guilt or shame.

And only one of them recognized that in finding his long-lost child, he might have lost his one hope for pulling his fragile little family together.

James paid Louise to leave early.

He gave her fifty pounds for her journey home, as well as a letter to his London man-of-business authorizing a considerable amount to be transferred into her account once she legally signed over all parental rights to Helen. To sweeten the deal and hasten her departure, he offered her the use of his traveling coach complete with driver and footman to take her back to London. Anything to get her out of Farley Park and far away from Phoebe and Helen.

But as the heavy coach lumbered down the long driveway, with specific instructions to the driver not to take her anywhere near Swansford Village or Plummy Head, James found no relief. He stood at the window, blindly following the carriage’s progress, and pondering his dismal situation. The problem was, he was deluding himself with details, and that only worked for so long.

Yes, he wanted Louise LaFleur—once Louise Churchill—as far away from him and his family as possible. The very sight of the woman sickened him. But she wasn’t the villain here. It was him. Louise’s shallow self-absorption was merely a weak reflection of everything he’d been in his life. Smug. Confident. Careless. Plowing through life with never a thought for the damage he left in his wake.

Money solved all problems. That had been the central philosophy of his life. And it still seemed to be. Just as Louise relied on her feminine charms to get what she wanted, he relied on his title and money. If you don’t like the mess you’ve gotten into, throw money at it until it goes away.

The truth was, they were two of a kind, pitiful examples of the human race at its very worst. From the outside they looked fine. But inside, where it counted, they were rotten to the core.

And together they’d succeeded in devastating the two people least deserving of pain.

Outside, a bank of low clouds scudded across the late afternoon sky. An ugly day all around. God, would spring never come?

He rotated his neck, then rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the knotted muscles there. Finally he turned and, head sunk low, he trudged up the stairs.

At least Leya was asleep. In the midst of all this chaos she had somehow managed to have a good day. But where had Izzy gotten to? And Helen?

He stared down at his sleeping child, the youngest of his three. But for the first time that day he allowed himself to think about his middle child. Helen. That shy little girl, so exquisite and delicate, was his, the third of the daughters, the one he’d been searching for.

It was a comfort to know that at least she had received a good upbringing, that she’d been safe all these years and surrounded by love. But her first seven years were still lost to him.

What a fool he’d been. If nothing else, he should have visited his children, made an effort to know them sooner. He could have prevented Izzy living the wretched life she’d been forced into. He could at least have given each of them the image of a father to hold on to, the face of a man who cared about them.

Instead, he’d paid off their mothers, pretending he’d done his duty by his children when in reality he’d just been ignoring them. Was it any wonder they hated him?

He stroked Leya’s baby-soft cheek, and smiled at the automatic sucking motions her little rosebud mouth made. At least he’d come to his senses in time for Leya. He would make certain she always knew that her father loved her.

As for the other two…He looked back at the window, out at the dreary afternoon sky. He owed it to them to be their father. Better to start late than to abandon them altogether. And the first thing he needed to do was find them.

Smoke from her cottage chimney swept west on the wind. Phoebe sighed as she hurried across the muddy field. They were here. For the first time that day she felt good.

When she burst into the kitchen the stench of scorched food assaulted her nose. They’d obviously burnt something on the stove. But she was too happy to see their startled faces to care.

“I’ve been so worried!” She flung herself to her knees between their two chairs at the table and hugged each of them to her. “Don’t ever frighten me like that again. Do you hear me?” She gave Helen a severe look, then Izzy. But she ruined the effect by hugging them again so tight that Helen yelped.

“Sorry.”

“I’m not going back there,” Izzy said, ducking out of Phoebe’s embrace. “You can’t make me.”

“Me neither,” Helen said.

Izzy picked up a hard, scorched biscuit and slathered it with butter. Helen mimicked the action. “I’d rather live here,” Izzy said. “You’ll let me, won’t you?”

“Say you will,” Helen pleaded. “She’s my sister, you know.”

Izzy paused with the biscuit halfway to her mouth. “But I’m not stayin’ if that bitch comes to live here.”

“Izzy!”

The girl rolled her eyes. “All right. Not if that…that
woman
decides to live here too. If she comes to Plummy Head, I’m running away and this time nobody will find me. Not ever.”

“Me too,” Helen echoed, though a trifle less certain than Izzy.

Despite the utter seriousness of their threats, Phoebe had to swallow a smile. In all the drama of this dreadful day, the one fact she’d overlooked now stared her straight in the face. Helen and Izzy were sisters. Leya too. And happily, it seemed that the startling revelation had drawn the two little girls together.

She watched as tough Izzy smiled at sensitive Helen, and Helen smiled back. Just as Izzy had become fiercely protective of Leya, so had she now accepted this newest half sister and brought her into the fold of her odd little family. Likewise, it seemed that Helen had found an older sister to look up to.

They were becoming a family. It was only a father and their mothers that they lacked.

At the moment, however, Phoebe didn’t want to think about the troubling adults in this awful muddle. She had the girls safe here; Lord Farley would take care of Leya. For now she just wanted to sit down and rest.

“Izzy’s sleeping in my room with me,” Helen said as Phoebe put away her cloak and boots.

“All right.”

They were asleep long before dark, however. In front of the fireplace with Helen reading a story to Izzy—a happenstance Phoebe had at one time wished for—they slowly dozed off on the rug with Bruno curled happily between them.

Standing in the doorway between the kitchen and parlor, Phoebe wondered if she and Louise had ever shared that strong a sisterly bond. She couldn’t recall ever being as close with Louise as Izzy and Helen had so swiftly become.

Inside her chest the aching hole she’d tried to ignore yawned like a terrifying, bottomless chasm. They were here now, two innocent children, their lives subject to the whims of their fickle parents. Unfortunately, not being a parent to either of them, Phoebe had no say in how long they would remain under her roof. Eventually Louise or Lord Farley was bound to come for them, and she would have to let them go.

As if she’d conjured up just such a visitor, a noise in the yard alerted her to someone’s approach. Bruno lifted his head, but lazy puppy that he was, he flopped his tail once, sighed and rolled to his other side, then went back to sleep. Bracing herself, Phoebe unpinned her apron and smoothed her hair. If it was her despicable sister Louise, she would bar the door. Just see if she didn’t.

But if it was Lord Farley…

“Are they here?” he asked, still astride his steed when she opened the door.

Staring up at him Phoebe nodded. Her throat had perversely become too tight to speak.

He stared down at her. His animal snorted and stamped. “May I come in?”

“They’re napping.”

“I’ll be quiet.”

She wanted to turn him away, but they were his children. Both of them. Phoebe’s fingers tightened on the door. “Very well.”

She didn’t watch as he dismounted his horse and saw to the animal’s needs. But even in the warm comfort of her familiar kitchen the image of him on his horse stayed in her mind. He looked tired. Also, perhaps, a little contrite. She pressed one hand to her knotted stomach. He was not a terrible father, she reminded herself. Not entirely. And he was trying to improve. He was just a man who continually allied himself with the wrong kind of women.

But that made her stomach hurt even worse. It had been bad enough knowing he had a world of experience with women. But to put a face to one of them, to know one of them had been her sister…Phoebe trembled with conflicting emotions.

She wanted to hate him, and until just now, she had. But at the sight of him, seeing that his concern for the children was real—somehow her hatred thinned and weakened and wanted to retreat.

Only she couldn’t let it.

When the front door opened Phoebe busied herself in the kitchen with filling the tea ball and pouring simmering water into a cup. She heard him remove his great-coat, hat, and gloves, then peek into the parlor. Bruno whined a greeting, but from the children no sound came. Then he strode to the table, each footfall an ominous sign that the time had come for her to face him.

“Louise is gone,” he began.

Thank God
. But even that happy fact couldn’t lighten Phoebe’s mood. She carried the tea to the table. “How did you manage that?”

His eyes were dark, shuttered against any display of emotion. He shrugged. “I gave her what she came for: money. Then I sent her back to London in style.”

Phoebe frowned. “In style? Oh. In one of your coaches.”

“The big one.”

She looked down at the teapot and gave the tea ball a jiggle. “I’m sure that pleased her enormously—although you may never see either the coach or your driver again.”

“Even if that were true, I’d still believe that I got the better of the bargain.”

They stood on opposite sides of the ancient table, solid English oak. But more than old wood separated them. The gulf between them was created by society, by custom, and now, by Louise.

They were still connected through Helen, though—Helen and the unfortunate physical attraction between them. Despite her rioting emotions, Phoebe knew she had to be forthright.

“What happened before—” Her face heated with color and she shook her head, breaking the hold of his eyes. “It can never happen again.”

She waited, and when he didn’t respond, she noisily pulled out a chair and sat. “Now that we agree on that, I suppose you’ve come to take Helen away from me.”

She heard him sigh, then also sit. “Helen needs you, Phoebe. And so does Izzy. I’m not fool enough to think otherwise. I came here to make sure they were all right. And that you were.”

“I’ll manage.” She lifted her gaze to him. “You needn’t waste any time worrying about me, Lord Farley. I’ve managed very well all these years, and I’ll continue to do so—unless it is your intent to take Helen off to London or some distant place like that.”

“No. I won’t do that. At some point, of course, she’ll need to go to finishing school.”

“Yes. I want that for her too.”

“Meanwhile, I want you to continue as governess to them all.”

“Here at Plummy Head. Not at Farley Park.” She was in no position to make demands, but she knew she couldn’t go back there, not to the scene of her capitulation to him. Still, she knew the balance of power had shifted today. He held all the cards, as he surely knew. For he could eventually hire another governess, whereas she could never find a replacement for her darling Helen.

Slowly he nodded. “Yes. For now it might be best if you continue to give them their instruction here.” He paused. “How angry are they with me?”

She let out a humorless laugh. “Izzy vows she’ll never return to Farley Park again. And Helen’s going along with anything Izzy says.”

“I see. Are you going to help me regain their trust?” His long fingers turned his cup in a restless circle upon its saucer. “Or will you encourage them in their anarchy?”

“It’s up to you to earn their trust.”

His hand stilled on the cup; his eyes remained fixed on her. “Do you think I can?”

Phoebe was slow to answer. “They’re just little children. In time, yes, I believe you can win their trust—if you don’t do anything stupid.”

A long silence stretched between them. Then he said, “Can I regain your trust?”

She shook her head. “No.”

It wasn’t the answer he expected. Phoebe wasn’t certain it was an answer she believed.

“No?”

She steeled herself against the traitorous emotions fomenting in her own chest. Only the most foolish of women would ever trust this man. “I trust you to do your best for your daughters. You’ve already shown more concern for them than most men in your position would.”

His mouth twisted in a half-smile. “But you don’t trust
me.
With
you.
”

“Why should I?” She stared challengingly at him.

“What if I said I wanted to change the sort of life I’ve been living? I’m trying to make a good home for my girls. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

Phoebe swallowed hard.
Not when you’re seducing the hired help.
But she wasn’t ready to discuss that. “If your Lady Catherine doesn’t have faith in you, why should I?”

His eyes narrowed. She’d scored a direct blow with that one. It didn’t make her feel particularly good, but still she pressed her advantage. “Tell me this, when your daughters come of age, what sort of men will you want for them?”

His brow creased in irritation. “That’s not fair, Phoebe. As you said, they’re only little children.”

“Not for long. In a few years young men will be calling on Izzy, and soon after that, Helen. Will you approve of men like yourself?”

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “All men are like me, Phoebe. All of them.”

“They are not.”

“Yes. They are.”

“Maybe in London. But not here.”

“Everywhere.”

“If that were true I would have lost my—” She broke off, confused and embarrassed. Angry. “They’re not all like you.”

“Trust me, they are. The difference is in the women. Some say yes more easily than others.”

Her face went scarlet. “Are you saying I’m the easy sort?”

“No. No, not at all.”

“Yes you are. Two weeks is all it took.” Trembling, she pushed away from the table. “This isn’t going to work. I think you’d better leave.” She stood, tilting her chin belligerently even as she knotted her shaking hands within the folds of her skirt. If he didn’t leave, she was afraid she might burst into tears, making an utter fool of herself.