“Agnes Smith, your ladyship.”
“Miss Agnes, in the morning, please visit Mr. Humboldt on Brook Street. He will have five hundred pounds waiting for you, and he will help you find a job.”
Agnes’s lips parted, and she stared helplessly at Phoebe. “Are you funning me?” she whispered hoarsely. “That is a fortune. And no one will hire me once…once they understand my circumstances.”
Hugh’s fingers moved. “It is a mere pittance.” However, Phoebe did not relay that to the quietly weeping woman.
“Rubbish, you are a respectable widow, and I hope you may have a skill?”
“I am an excellent seamstress, your ladyship!” she said eagerly.
“There. I am certain you will be able to find your way. A little bit of help was simply needed.”
A profusion of thanks erupted, and even the little boy started to smile despite his rumbling belly. Several minutes later, they deposited her to her abode, and the carriage turned around to take them to Grosvenor Square.
“Thank you,” she said, with a small smile at her husband. “Not many would have agreed to take her in the carriage.” But then Phoebe was already intimately acquainted with his honor and kind considerations.
He gave her another one of those long, searching stares but proffered no reply. Phoebe glanced out the window into the sleeting rain, her thoughts churning. “I would like to start a charity…or a program that would help women…women who have children out of wedlock who are left to suffer indignity, shame, and poverty. There must be other options than giving away their child to an orphanage or the poor house.” She looked at him. “Do you think this is possible?”
His hands lifted. “You have enough wealth to invest in dozens of charitable causes.”
Something tender swelled in her chest. “My brother and his friends, the Duke of Wolverton and the Earl of Blade, invest in many charitable endeavours to help the poor of society, especially those made orphans either by the war or parents who do not care. I would like to start something similar but directed toward women with few options. If they have no skills, I could have a program that teaches them whatever is necessary for them to find employment and then to help them find a job and housing. I think it sounds like it will be a large undertaking.”
“I will allocate one hundred thousand pounds to you for this endeavour. I have also been remiss in my duties, and a yearly stipend will also be allocated for your personal use. Whenever you need my input, I am here.”
Phoebe almost choked. “I…thank you.” It astonished her that he would so readily support her and entrusted her with such a fortune to do as she will. He clearly believed in her and did not think her too young. She wished she could wrap this feeling around her like a blanket and wear it with her always.
“Your brother sounds like an admirable man.”
She smiled briefly. “Though he can be an arrogant fool sometimes, especially when he sent that bacon-brained idiot for me, he is also very wonderful.”
His eyes hooded, and that careful mask slid into place once more. Anxiety beat in her breast, and she gripped the edge of the squabs. “Richard was afraid that somehow you took advantage of my desperate plight and everything inside of him told him that I must be rescued. He is so mistrusting of others, except for his wife, of course, that it never occurred to him that I might be contented. Once he meets you, he will see that he has nothing to worry about.”
“Did the man who took you hurt you? I suspected he drugged you.”
“Yes, I was drugged. But he did not hurt me. I was more frustrated by his audacity and worried that you might not know what happened to me,” she whispered.
To this her husband said nothing, and the lantern in the carriage dimmed, casting him in more shadows.
“My brother might try and object to me leaving.”
“He is allowed to try. He will be disabused of the notion that he has the right to interfere in your decisions anymore.”
It was astonishing that she could detect menace in his signs. Perhaps it was in the still, coiled way he sat.
“I do not wish for a quarrel between you both,” she murmured.
He leaned forward so the light from the lantern splashed across his cheeks. “And if there is, where shall you stand?”
She wrinkled her nose. “What a silly question. By your side, of course, quarrelling right along with you.”
This seemed to surprise him, and her heart jolted.
“Do you not know that you have my loyalty?” she whispered.
That you have all my heart, she cried silently.
He made no reply but disappeared back into the shadows. Phoebe could feel his stare like a living entity. It felt heavy and questioning. And how her heart trembled while her thoughts swirled with a thousand questions. They arrived at Grosvenor Square several minutes later, and they alighted in front of one of the most impressive four-story town homes. The house faced Grosvenor Square Gardens and had a pretty view from the front windows of a beautiful Grecian-style statue of a half-draped lady carrying a large water vase.
They entered and made their way upstairs to a palatial chamber. She crossed the threshold and strolled over to the low-burning fire in the hearth. Unable to keep the most important question out of the dozens, Phoebe whirled around. “Are you not even a little bit angry or disappointed that you saw another man kissing me?”
No expression crossed his face, and nothing flickered in his eyes. “No.”
The depth of his indifference broke her heart. “I own I do not believe you to be a man with a jealous or possessive nature…but your indifference to George’s action is insupportable. If I had ever come upon you with a lady kissing you, I would be terribly angry and hurt.”
She fisted a hand on her hip and glared at him. “Why, I might even act as Lady Blade did last season when she challenged her husband’s former mistress to a duel for daring to kiss him! Does it not bother you that…that he stole a kiss from me?”
He sustained this impassioned cry with no more than a blink.
His unwavering gaze disconcerted her, and his eyes were no longer indifferent, but they glittered with something incendiary. He came over to her, used his forefinger to lift her chin up, then dipped his head. Phoebe felt the barely perceptible touch of his mouth against hers. There was a beat and another before he framed her face with his hands and plundered. She could barely summon the breath to speak or offer a token of protest. Not that she wanted to, even if she found his intensity alarming.
He plucked the pins from her hair, scattering them onto the carpet. In between passionate kisses, he undressed her, without care for the fragility or the expense of the gown. He managed to remove her gown, stays, and chemise with frightful efficiency in between long, passionate kisses. When she remained in only her stockings, garters, and dancing slippers, he swept her into his arms and bore her down on the sofa near the hearth.