He began to move quickly, driving again and again into Phoebe's snug warmth. She took him into her, wrapping him close, making him a part of herself. He reached down to find the small, sensitive bud of delicate female flesh.
"Gabriel!"
Her soft cry put him over the brink. Every muscle in his body tightened in the penultimate moment. He arched his back and gritted his teeth and then he was pouring himself endlessly into her.
She accepted all that he gave her, holding him close as he shuddered above her. He felt her tiny convulsions ripple through her and then he was lost.
Gabriel lay awake for a long while afterward. He gazed into the shadows and put his mind to the task of figuring out how best to protect Phoebe from Baxter.
Phoebe arrived at her parents' town house promptly at eleven o'clock the following morning. She knew her father's habits well. She was certain she would find him hard at work on his latest mathematical device.
He was exactly where she thought he would be. When she was ushered into the study, she found him fussing over a large mechanical contraption composed of wheels, gears, and weights.
"Good morning, Papa." Phoebe untied her bonnet strings. "How is your mechanical calculation machine coming along?"
"Very nicely indeed." Clarington glanced at her over his shoulder. "I have hit upon a way of using punched cards to supply the instructions for the various calculations."
"Punched cards?"
"Very similar to the ones used by the Jacquard looms to establish weaving pattern."
"I see." Phoebe walked over and gave him a quick hug. "That is all very interesting, Papa. But you know I was never much good with sums and calculations."
"Probably just as well." Clarington snorted. "Got enough of that sort of talent in the family as it is. I wonder if Wylde would find this engine useful in his shipping business."
"I would not be surprised. Papa, I must talk to you." Phoebe sat down. "I have come to ask you a very important question."
Clarington looked wary. "I say, now, if this is a question about married life and your duties as a wife and that sort of thing, you will have to talk to your Mama. Not my field, if you see what I mean."
Phoebe waved that aside impatiently. "I am adjusting tolerably well to married life. That is not what I wished to discuss with you."
Clarington relaxed. "Well, then, what was it you wanted to ask me?"
Phoebe leaned forward determinedly. "Papa, did Neil Baxter leave England three years ago because you paid him to go? Did you buy him off because you did not want him making an offer for me?"
Clarington's bushy brows bunched together in irritation. "I say, who the devil told you that?"
"Wylde told me that."
"I see." Clarington sighed. "I suppose he had a good reason."
"That is not the point. Papa, I demand to know the truth."
"Why?" Clarington asked, his gaze turning shrewd. "Because Baxter is back in England?"
"Partly. And partly because I felt very guilty for a long time after I learned of his death. I told myself that if he had not gone off to make his fortune so that he would be able to ask for my hand, he would not have been killed."
Clarington gazed at her in astonishment. "Good God. What rubbish. I had no notion you were harboring such thoughts."
"Well, I was."
"Utter nonsense. My only regret is that the bloody bastard didn't have the decency to stay dead," Clarington muttered. "But that's Baxter for you. Went out of his way to be difficult."
"Papa, I must know if it's true that you gave him money to stay away from me."
Clarington shifted uncomfortably and tinkered with a mechanical wheel. "Sorry, my dear, but it's true." He glowered at her. "Not that it matters now. You're safely married to Wylde, and that's that, eh?"
"Why didn't you tell me?" Phoebe demanded.
"About bribing Baxter to get out of the country? Because I didn't want you to know."
"Why not?" Phoebe asked tightly.
"Because I thought you'd be hurt," Clarington snapped. "Not very pleasant for a romantical young female to learn that a man has only been toying with her affections in order to blackmail her father. You've always been the sentimental type, Phoebe. You saw Baxter as a young Sir Galahad or some such nonsense."
"Lancelot," Phoebe said softly. "I always thought of him as Lancelot."
Clarington scowled. "Beg pardon?"
"Never mind." Phoebe sat rigidly in the chair, her shoulders very straight. "You should have told me the truth, Papa."
"Didn't want to upset you."
"Well, it would not have been very pleasant to learn the truth, I'll grant you that," Phoebe said, "but at least I would not have spent the past year feeling guilty."
"Now, see here. How was I to know you'd been feeling guilty? You never mentioned the fact to me."
Phoebe tapped her gloved fingers on the edge of the chair. She frowned, thinking of what Neil had said the previous evening. "Did you pay him off directly?"
"Good God, no." Clarington looked offended. "A gentleman doesn't dirty his hands with that sort of thing. I had my solicitor handle it."
"Neil says he does not know who paid his passage to the South Seas. He was told a mysterious benefactor arranged matters."
Clarington's scowl darkened. "Nonsense. The man knows full well who paid his passage, and a good bit more besides. We made a deal. I agreed to give the bounder enough to set himself up very nicely on condition he got out of England."
Phoebe sighed. "It's rather difficult to know exactly what to believe."
Clarington was affronted. "Are you saying I'm not telling you the truth?"
"No, Papa, of course not." Phoebe smiled placat-ingly. "I do not think you are lying. But I cannot help but wonder if different people in this little play may have interpreted matters in somewhat different ways."
"Damnation, Phoebe, there was nothing to misinterpret. When my solicitor offered Baxter a small fortune to leave the country, the man grabbed it with both hands. That was all there was to it."
"Perhaps." Phoebe hesitated uncertainly. "Perhaps not. I wish I knew what to believe."
Clarington's thick brows twitched. "You will believe your papa. And your husband, by God. That's whom you will believe."
Phoebe smiled sadly. "Do you know what the problem is, Papa? The problem is that everyone spends entirely too much time and effort trying to protect me. I am left with bits and pieces of the truth, not the whole truth."
"Been my experience you don't always deal well with the whole truth."
"Papa, how can you say that?"
"It's true enough, Phoebe. You've always seen things in a different light, if you know what I mean."
"No, Papa, I do not know what you mean."
"You ain't always realistic, my dear, and that's a fact. Ever since you were a little girl, you've been different. You were never like the rest of us. I never really understood what you were about, if you must know the truth. You were always looking for adventure, always getting into scrapes."
"Papa, that's not true."
"As God is my witness, it is true." Clarington's eyes were grim. "Never knew quite what to do with you. Always terrified you'd get involved in a major catastrophe one day, no matter how I tried to protect you from your own reckless nature. You cannot blame a father for wanting to protect his daughter."
"I don't blame you, Papa. But sometimes I felt smothered by the rest of you. You were all so very clever."
"Clever, hah. That's a joke. The rest of us could hardly keep up with you." Clarington glowered at her. "I'll tell you something, Phoebe. As fond of you as I am, I'm damned glad that you're Wylde's responsibility now. It's his turn to try to pull in the reins, and he's welcome to the task. It's a relief to be able to stop worrying about you."
Phoebe looked down at her reticule in her lap. For some reason tears burned in her eyes. She blinked them away. "I'm sorry I've been such a problem for you all these years, Papa."
Clarington groaned. He went over to her and tugged her to her feet. "It was worth it, Phoebe." He hugged her with gruff affection. "Your Mama likes to say that you kept us all from turning into complete bores and maybe she's right. Life around you has always been interesting, I'll grant you that."
"Thank you, Papa. It's always nice to know one has a useful function." Phoebe dashed the tears from her eyes and smiled.
"Here, now, my girl, you're not going to cry or anything, are you? I ain't much good with crying females."
"No, Papa. I won't cry."
"Good." Clarington was clearly relieved. "Lord knows it hasn't always been easy and I may have made a few mistakes along the way. But I swear I only did what I thought I had to in order to keep you from coming to grief."
"I understand, Papa."
"Excellent," Clarington said. He patted her shoulder. "Excellent. Well, then. That's that, eh? No offense, my dear, but I'm rather glad you're Wylde's problem now."
"And he is definitely my problem." Phoebe retied her bonnet strings. "I must be off, Papa. Thank you for telling me what you know of the truth about the situation with Neil."
Clarington was alarmed. "See here, now, I told you the whole truth, not just bits and pieces."
"Good-bye, Papa." Phoebe paused at the door. "Oh, by the way, I am planning a wonderful house party at Devil's Mist at the end of the Season. I am anxious for you and Mama and everyone else to see my new home."
"We shall certainly be there," Clarington assured her swiftly. He hesitated. "Phoebe, you won't give Wylde any unnecessary trouble, will you? He's a good man, but I don't know how patient he'll be if you make life difficult for him. He's accustomed to issuing orders and having them obeyed. Give him time to get used to your ways."
"Do not concern yourself, Papa. I would not dream of giving Wylde any unnecessary trouble." Only the absolutely necessary amount, she added silently.
Phoebe was still mulling over the conversation in her father's study later that day when she alighted from the carriage in front of Green's Bookshop. George, the footman who had accompanied her on the shopping expedition, held the door open for her and her maid.
Phoebe glanced across the street as she was handed down from the vehicle. A small man in a green cap was watching her intently. When he saw her look at him, he jerked his eyes away from her and pretended to study the contents of a shop window.
"Betsy, do you know that man?" Phoebe asked as they started up the steps of the bookshop.
Betsy glanced at the small man and shook her head. "No, ma'am. Is somethirt' wrong?"
"I don't know," Phoebe said. "But I am almost certain I saw him earlier when we came out of the milliner's. I had the feeling he was watching me."
Betsy frowned. "Shall I tell George to run him off?"
Phoebe eyed the little man thoughtfully. "No, let's just wait and see if he is still about when we come out of Green's."
Phoebe went on up the steps and into the bookshop. She forgot all about the mysterious little man as Mr. Green came forward to greet her. The elderly bookshop owner was smiling in satisfaction.
"Welcome, welcome, Lady Wylde. I am delighted you have come so quickly. As I said in my note, I have the volume you requested."
"The precise copy?"
"I am certain of it. You may examine it at once."
"Wherever did you find it?" Phoebe asked.
"Through a contact in Yorkshire. Wait here and I shall fetch it."
Mr. Green disappeared into his back room and reappeared a moment later with an old volume bound in red Moroccan leather. Phoebe opened the book carefully and read the inscription on the flyleaf:
To my son Gabriel, on the occasion of his tenth birthday, in the hope that he will live by the honorable code of chivalry all of his life. John Edward Banner.
"Yes," Phoebe said as she reverently closed the copy of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. "This is the right book. I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Green."
"It was a pleasure," Green assured her. "I look forward to doing business with you again in the future."
The little man in the green cap was still about when Phoebe and her maid walked back out of the shop.
"He's still there, ma'am," Betsy hissed in a conspiratorial tone. "Standin' in front of the glass shop."
Phoebe glanced across the street. "So he is. I wonder what this is all about. I sense a mystery."
Betsy's eyes widened. "Perhaps he means to follow us home and murder us in our beds, ma'am."
"Perhaps he does," Phoebe said. "This has all the signs of a dangerous situation." She turned to the footman. "George, tell the coachman that I believe we are being followed by a thief who means to rob us. We must contrive to escape him in the traffic."
George stared at her. "A thief, ma'am?"
"Yes. Hurry along, now. We must be on our way. I want to make certain that little man is not able to pursue us."
"The streets are crowded, ma'am," George pointed out as he handed her up into the coach. "He can keep up with us easily enough on foot."