A state he’d gone out of his way to ensure.
Even now she was amazed at her brazenness, but when he’d eventually drawn his hand from between her thighs, let her skirt fall, and then tensed to step away, she’d grabbed his shoulders and, admittedly in rather elliptical phrases, suggested he take what he wanted. That he stop being so damned controlled and come inside her.
He’d understood her perfectly, but his jaw and his determination had only firmed. He’d leaned close, one arm braced on the tree above her head, wound a finger—the same finger with which he’d earlier pleasured her—in a lock of her hair, then caught her eyes and told her, bluntly, how it would be when he did.
In a bed, with her completely naked, not a stitch to hide behind, with him totally naked, too, and with adequate light so he could see her as he took her.
The picture he’d painted had been brutally primitive; before she’d even had time to absorb it, he’d swiftly kissed her, then seized her hand and towed her from the tree—all the way back to the lawn and the other guests.
After that, of course, her distraction had been complete.
It still was. Thinking of anything else was hard enough, but keeping her wits focused seemed well nigh impossible.
She continued to ply her sponge while she wrestled with the possibilities. Tried to. In the end, she sighed and settled for acting on intuition. “Don’t go out tonight—not you or Fergus. I don’t want to risk it.” Not with Deverell potentially out there prowling. “Send a lad with a message first thing in the morning, as if he were being sent on the usual morning errands. Give Jessica my best wishes for the interview, and tell Emmeline to send word—again by a lad—afterward.”
Skinner shot her a sharp look. “You’re being very careful with his viscountship.”
“If you’d spent much time in his company, you’d understand why.”
“Is he really likely to kick up a stink if he realizes what you’re up to?”
Phoebe grimaced and gazed into the distance. “I don’t know,” she eventually replied. “But I don’t want to risk finding out.”
By the next evening, by the time she and Edith entered Lady Gosforth’s ballroom, Phoebe was no longer certain what she might or might not risk.
What she was certain of was that Deverell’s step-by-step approach had pushed her to the limit of her endurance. The previous night, even though she’d known she wouldn’t see him, her senses had expected to. She’d felt deflated, unutterably bored for the entire ball, unable to find one good moment, take one scintilla of pleasure in the evening.
She hadn’t even been able to concentrate on chatting, talking and keeping up with the ton’s news as she needed to do. Her mind had simply refused to focus.
A state of affairs that had continued unabated through not just the evening and a restless night but the entire ensuing day. While she had thought of Jessica attending her interview with Lady Pelham, thought, too, of numerous other aspects involved in the smooth functioning of the agency, she hadn’t been able to convince herself that any action on any such count was urgent—more urgent than fantasizing about when next she and Deverell would meet, and what they would do when they did.
Never before had she been prey to such mindless wool-gathering
; it had to stop.
Standing by the side of Lady Gosforth’s ballroom near the chaise to which she’d conducted Edith, Phoebe plotted and planned. Luckily, Gosforth House was an excellent venue in which to ensure Deverell came to the point.
Impatience gripped her. When poor Mr. Camberley approached and asked her to dance, it was all she could do to refuse with civility; it was so irritating not to be able to simply state that she was waiting for someone else.
She’d assumed Deverell had been learning where she and Edith would be each evening through Audrey, but just in case, she’d remembered his instructions of where he could be reached and dispatched a note to Montrose Place bidding him join her at Gosforth House. She’d kept the note brief. It was possible, even likely, that he would misinterpret her purpose in summoning him, but that was immaterial.
The important thing was that he should come.
It was after ten-thirty, the middle of the evening, when Deverell strolled through Lady Gosforth’s ballroom doors. After exchanging greetings with his host and hostess, who were acquainted with his family, he moved into the room, preparing to search for Phoebe—only to discover her making a beeline for him.
His instincts flickered, but, his glibly charming smile in place, he went to meet her.
“Miss Malleson.” Taking her hand, he bowed—instantly felt, through just her fingers, the nervy tension thrumming through her. Straightening, he continued to smile easily as he asked, “What is it?” His tone conveyed his instant alertness, his awareness that something wasn’t as it should be.
She acknowledged it with a tight little nod. “I need to speak with you alone. Come with me.”
Linking her arm with his, she turned to one corner of the long room. He moved smoothly, covering her hand on his sleeve, looking attentively at her—disguising the fact that she was leading him, not the other way around. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Before he could pursue that, Maria, Lady Cranbrook, beckoned imperiously; perforce they had to stop and chat before moving on.
He realized that Phoebe was making for a door most of the way down the room. She was giving an excellent imitiation of Marshal Blucher, marching in a straight line directly toward her goal. Glancing swiftly around, he noted with some relief that, courtesy of Lady Gosforth’s being one of the principal hostesses and her ball therefore being a certifiable crush, the crowd in the room was so dense that their forced march wasn’t as noticeable, as revealing as it would otherwise have been.