To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

“Five years,” Phoebe supplied. She cast a pleading glance at Deverell.

“Perhaps”—moving around them, spreading his arms he herded Audrey and Edith toward the corridor—“we should retreat to the kitchen and you can meet all those here out of sight of any passersby. To begin with”—with his head he indicated Birtles as they passed—“this is Birtles, Emmeline’s husband. He and Emmeline manage the agency.”

Both Edith and Audrey smiled at Birtles, who blushed and bobbed bows.

Audrey looked ahead. “So how, exactly, does the agency work?”

“Come and sit down,” Deverell coaxed, “and Phoebe will explain.”

Phoebe cast him a speaking glance but followed Audrey down the corridor. Edith followed, with Emmeline behind her; Deverell brought up the rear. He stepped into the kitchen to find that Loftus hadn’t seized his chance and escaped via the rear door and the laneway but, despite what Deverell had realized was extreme shyness, had stayed to help them face this latest development.

Of course, he hadn’t known what he would be facing, but at least Audrey hadn’t raised her lorgnette in her usual, highbred, intimidating way. Instead, she stood at one end of the table, looking rather blankly at Loftus, standing, holding his hat before him, blinking rather dazedly at the other end.

Phoebe helped Edith to a chair. “This is Mr. Loftus Coates. He’s been a benefactor of the agency for some years.” She glanced at Loftus and smiled encouragingly. “This is my aunt, Mrs. Edith Balmain, whom you’ve heard me mention so often.”

Clearly uncomfortable, Loftus bowed stiffly. “Ma’am. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Deverell moved around Audrey to set a chair for her; one of her hands snaked out, caught his arm, pinched through his sleeve. “Introduce me,” she hissed under cover of Edith’s delighted returning of Loftus’s greeting.

She hadn’t taken her eye from Loftus. Detaching her hand from his sleeve, Deverell drew out a chair. “It seems to be our afternoon for aunts—allow me to present mine, Miss Audrey Deverell. She’s also Phoebe’s godmother.”

Loftus gathered his courage, faced Audrey, and bowed. “Miss Deverell.”

He didn’t meet Audrey’s eyes, for which Deverell didn’t blame him; Audrey always had a rather daunting effect on men of her generation. Holding the chair, he glanced at her.

To his surprise, her gaze fixed on Loftus, she moved past the chair, extending her hand. “Mr. Coates.”

Loftus eyed the slender fingers presented to him, swallowed, then reached for them and shook them.

Audrey beamed at him. “It’s intriguing, and rather reassuring, too, to learn that these children have had wiser counsel to call on in their endeavors.”

Retrieving her hand from Loftus’s slack grasp, smiling, she turned and took her seat.

As he moved to take the chair beside her, Deverell shot a glance at Phoebe; she arched a quick brow in return, and moved to the chair beside Edith, motioning Loftus to resume his.

Instead he cleared his throat and remained standing. “I really should be getting along.” He turned his hat between his hands. “I just called by—”

“Nonsense!” Audrey turned the full glamor of her smile on him. “Both Edith and I would be devastated to think that our advent had disrupted your meeting. Indeed, I would be grateful if you would stay—your perspective on the agency’s work would greatly assist us.” Audrey looked around, her intrigued glance including Emmeline. “I find myself quite fascinated by the agency’s enterprise.”

Turning back to Loftus, Audrey waved him to sit. “Please, do stay, Mr. Coates.”

Refusing such an entreaty was patently beyond Loftus; he hesitated, then drew out his chair and sat. Audrey turned her bright gaze on Phoebe. “Now then, dear—do tell us how things work.”

Phoebe glanced at Deverell, drew in a deep breath, and proceeded to outline the various activities of the agency. Both Edith and Audrey put questions, insightful and at times rather startling in their candor; Audrey turned a query Loftus’s way and drew him into the discussion.

Seated beside Edith, opposite Deverell and Audrey, Phoebe couldn’t help but remark how very much at ease with those of lower station Audrey was. For all her wisdom, Edith was more reserved in engaging with Loftus, and even more so with Emmeline, but Audrey was transparently specifically interested in the roles both played, and equally patently recognized no social boundaries, encouraging both to freely engage with her, and succeeding.

Edith was also interested and intrigued, but raised as a Malleson within the haut ton, hemmed in by numerous dreadfully stuffy relatives, she found it more difficult to relax among ordinary people. Although Audrey had an equally august background, and arguably an even more stuffy and high-in-the-instep family, she’d made a career of being unconventional.

And Deverell was the same. Seeing the understanding glance he exchanged with Loftus, remembering the ease with which he’d won over Fergus and Birtles, and even Emmeline, his easy way with Grainger—from whom Phoebe had now learned enough to appreciate Deverell’s appointing the boy as his groom as a “rescue” of sorts—she realized that Deverell’s interest in and facility in engaging so easily with people of lesser degree weren’t, as she’d supposed, an outcome of his military service but the result of something deeper, more like an inherited ability.

It was one she valued. She’d lost her own “distance” from others long ago, courtesy of recognizing, first with Emmeline and then all the others, that women of any station were subject to the same threats, the same fears. The same emotions as they progressed through life. That regardless of the quality of their gowns, their cultured speech or their knowledge of ladylike accomplishments, they were the same and equally worthy of help.

Of respect.

That wasn’t something Deverell had had to learn; it was a tenet he’d absorbed long ago. So long ago it was a part of his character; he was as open-minded and unconventional as Audrey, and equally likely to protect a maid as he was a lady.

And that, Phoebe realized, as she watched him lean forward and deflect Audrey’s attention from Loftus—so that Loftus could catch his breath—was quite an amazing find in a gentleman like Deverell, in a man of his class.