She took the horse to the bluff overlooking the oceans and lifted her face to the sky. The season had changed, and autumn crept closer. Her parents, the duke and duchess, would be preparing to return to the country soon. Phoebe had replied to Richard’s letter a few weeks ago and had informed him of his niece’s arrival into the world. Hugh had also revealed that he’d not heard from the duke and duchess.
I shall not fret about it.
Her days were too busy with the joy of learning to be a mother to be consumed with the absence of responses to their letters. In a few months, they would be travelling to England and then to town for the season, and her marriage would then fall under the scrutiny of her powerful parents and society. There was no need to wish for it to happen any earlier.
Tugging on the reins of the horse, she turned him around and nudged him into a gentle trot toward the main house. She had only been riding for about an hour, but already Phoebe missed the wonder of her baby.
And Hugh.
The very thought of him was enough to bring a flush to her entire body and set her heart to racing. They had yet to consummate their marriage, and Phoebe felt as if each day she walked on a tightrope, waiting to fall off into something wonderful and frightening. His kisses were more ravishing than before—longer, deeper, as if he fought a battle only he understood.
Phoebe was on the verge of trying to figure out how to trick her husband into allowing her to tie his arms on their bed board, so she could take advantage and assuage her ever-present hunger for him. The very thought of being so salacious and improper brought a blush to her face.
Only yesterday morning, they had taken a stroll to their special meadow, where they had kissed passionately several times. She groaned, recalling how frustrated she had been by the whole encounter that she had pushed him into the brook. He had been astonished, then his eyes had narrowed in retribution. She had raced off laughing, but he had caught her, tumbling them to the grass and taking the brunt of the fall.
There had been a question in his eyes as he had peered down at her, and she had blushed like a silly miss, not certain how to tell him the doctor had implied they could resume marital relations. Phoebe wanted him to strip her naked and be wicked with her, but she had no notion how to seduce her own husband. That was all she had thought about for the last three days, and to her great mortification, all she did was blush whenever he caught her staring at him.
Hugh kissed her every chance he got, but the dratted man always stopped, even last night when she had rolled atop him and kissed him deep and carnally. She had felt his jerk of surprise, then he had stilled before tumbling with her and kissing her until she was giddy with delight and panting with need.
But the loud wail of Franny had doused their ardour, and she had hurried from the bed to the connecting door and into the nursery. The young widowed nursemaid they hired had been softly crooning to the baby and feeding her. Phoebe had waited then had taken her daughter, sat on the sofa, and sang to her. Her baby had chortled happily, and Hugh had stood in the doorway and watched them, his stare possessive and tender.
When she had returned to their chamber, he had gone, and she had fallen asleep waiting for his return. When she had woken this morning, his side of the bed had been warm, but once again she had missed him. Phoebe had belatedly wondered if he was avoiding her.
“Hallo,” a voice called, startling her.
She whirled the horse around to see a gentleman dressed in the first stare of fashion trotting toward her. Phoebe glanced toward the mansion, comforted there were a few gardeners out and about. She hadn’t ridden with Hugh or taken a footman. After all, she was still on Winthrop property.
The gentleman slowed once he reached closer, and if she was not mistaken, appreciation lit in the gaze that scanned her thoroughly. He was quite bold. A libertine then, one with dubious intentions.
“Your regard is not that of a gentleman,” she said, instantly irritated with that rakish admiration.
His brows winged high. “Forthright, aren’t you, Lady Phoebe?”
She stiffened and peered at him closer. He was a handsome man with unfathomable black eyes. His frame was not lithe like most men of the ton, but muscular, as if he was no stranger to hard work. “I beg your pardon, but do we know each other?”
He reached into his top pocket and withdrew a small necklace with a locket attached. He flipped it open, urged his horse closer, and lifted it up for her inspection.
The small picture in that frame was her a few years ago. Her heart hammered, and she glanced up at him. “Who are you?”
“Your brother sent me to bring you home.”
Phoebe gasped. “Sent you?”
“Yes.”
She shot him a suspicious glance. “And which brother of mine is this?”
“The only one you have living, Lord Westfall.” He swept the hat off his head to reveal a shock of dark blond hair streaked with auburn. “I’m Spencer, Viscount Malfoy. My friends call me Sparrow.”
She stared at him for several seconds. Phoebe did recall her brother telling her if he was ever unavailable and she needed help, there were three friends he had that she could always rely to help. The Duke of Wolverton, the Earl of Blade, and Viscount Malfoy. How was it that one of her brother’s trusted friends had found her here? “Lord Malfoy—”
“Please, call me Sparrow,” he said smoothly.
“I only allow a few such intimacies. You, my lord, are not one of them.”
A different sort of appreciation entered his eyes, one that she equally mistrusted.
“I am duly chastised and wounded, Lady Phoebe.”
Yet she heard the vein of mockery in his tone.
She casted him a cool, indifferent glance. “I cannot understand why Richard would send you here.” She still recalled his plan to squash her marriage to Hugh.
The viscount hesitated momentarily. “Your brother has been searching for you, Lady Phoebe, and to my knowledge only received one letter from you. It took some time for me to receive instructions from him because I was busy chasing shadows in Scotland.”
“I see.” Except she did not. “And what instructions are those?”
“To bring you home, of course.”
Irritation snapped through Phoebe. “I have assured Richard I am quite settled here. It is beyond the pale he would dare send someone who is not known to me with such a message.”
“You mistake the matter. There could have been no possible way for your brother to know that you were the author of any of your letters. It could have been done at the behest of someone dastardly who held you against your will.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, never thinking her brother would have traversed such a path in his reasoning. But it was entirely possible. He was thought of as one of the most ruthless men in all of London, and their father had always lamented that he associated with undesirables and cutthroats. She did not doubt her brother had sent someone for her, even if it infuriated her the way he had gone about it. Did he believe her to be under duress?