To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

“Oh—I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t know you were in here.”

“That’s perfectly all right, Stripes—I’m about to go out. If my aunt inquires, please tell her I’ve gone for a walk to the folly.” Phoebe hesitated, then asked, “Did all the gentlemen go riding?”

“I’m not sure, miss, but there’s no one in the library or the other downstairs rooms.”

Phoebe smiled. “Thank you, Stripes.” Turning, she walked to the open French doors and confidently stepped through.

From his seat under the apple trees close by the stream, Deverell watched Phoebe walk toward him. Safe at this distance, he let his gaze roam, over her curves and the long lines of her legs, the evocative sweep of her thighs clearly outlined beneath her light skirts as, looking down, she steadily crossed the lawn.

Crying off from the riding party, he’d taken refuge there; the rustic bench set near the bridge over the stream gave an unimpeded view of the back of the house and the walks leading to the stables and shrubbery on one side, and to the woods on the other. It was the perfect spot to lie in wait.

His quarry looked pensive, absorbed; while he might hope her thoughts were of him, of them, he doubted that was so. Her revelations last night had brought one puzzling aspect of her to the forefront of his brain.

She’d stated unequivocally that she had some occupation that demanded her full attention, something that absorbed the energies normally devoted to a husband and family. Yet when he’d later interrogated Audrey, she’d had no idea of Phoebe’s consuming interest; both she and Edith had given him the impression Phoebe was largely at loose ends—reading, writing, visiting, in general living the customary life of a fashionable lady with no commitments.

But that wasn’t how Phoebe had painted herself, and he would swear she hadn’t been lying. Moreover the existence of some absorbing occupation fitted better with her character; she was vibrant, vital, and actively alive—doing nothing was not an option. Just as he’d been chafing at the bit because he’d had no finite goal to pursue, so, too, with her; she couldn’t possibly not be actively involved in something, some scheme, some project, some real activity to engage her mind and absorb her considerable energies.

The more he thought of it—her secret occupation—the more convinced of its existence he became. Whatever it was, she was, at least in part, concealing it. He’d seen enough of her to suspect it wouldn’t be anything mundane.

He needed to know what it was—what interested and absorbed her, what endeavor filled her time and occupied her mind. There might be something in it he could use in pursuing her. He also needed to confirm that said occupation would prove no hurdle to her being his bride.

Phoebe didn’t see him until she stepped into the cool shade beneath the trees, and by then it was too late to retreat. Inwardly cursing, she halted, watching him swing his long legs to the ground and slowly stand.

He met her eyes. He didn’t grin wolfishly but simply said, “Not even a twenty-five-year-old lady should go walking alone.”

Her first impulse was to sniff and at least try to dismiss him, but insisting she was in no danger with him standing before her was patently absurd. Elevating her nose, she airily informed him, “I’m going to the folly on the hill. It’s quite a way.”

He did smile then and stepped closer. “I’ll come with you—you can show me the sights you described yesterday.”

She narrowed her eyes fractionally, trying to penetrate his amiable mask. He knew perfectly well she didn’t want him with her, but he wanted to walk with her and she had no grounds on which to deny him. She could read nothing of his intentions in his face; what reached her was his determination. Arguing would be futile.

With a gesture, she turned to the bridge. “It’s this way.”

He walked beside her in the sunshine. She kept her lips firmly shut. Somewhat to her surprise, he made no effort to fill—disrupt—the pleasant silence. Beyond the gurgling stream, the path slowly wended its way up the hill; the grade was gentle enough for her not to need his arm, for which she was devoutly thankful.

He was matching her stride, a good two feet between them, yet to her irritation that wasn’t separation enough. Enough to deaden his impact on her witless senses.

That fraught moment on the terrace the previous night, along with his suggestion of a liaison, seemed to have exacerbated the effect of his nearness, leaving her nerves twitching, her senses ruffled, and her distracted.

Somehow, he’d stirred to life a side of her she hadn’t known existed, not until she’d clapped eyes on him. To her immense annoyance, she was exhibiting all the symptoms of a schoolgirl afflicted with her first infatuation; what truly stung was that she’d never in truth fallen victim in that way, even in the schoolroom. It was lowering to acknowledge that she was infatuated now, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, yet she could hardly ignore the disturbing sensations, the way her nerves skittered and her thoughts scattered…. She felt a horrible urge to start babbling just to distract herself—and wouldn’t that make him smile?

Lifting her head, she coolly said, “Audrey didn’t say much about your time in the army, other than that you were in the Guards. In which theaters did you see action?”

When he didn’t immediately reply, she glanced at him. Pacing by her side, he was looking down; she couldn’t read his expression.

“Initially I was with the Guards, but within a month I was seconded to another arm of the services.” He looked up and met her eyes. “I spent most of the last ten years of the war in Paris.”

She stared at him. “Paris? But…”

Deverell watched her face blank, watched her work out the implications, then she blinked and refocused.

“You were a spy?”

He grimaced, but if she was going to marry him, she needed to know. “The official term is ‘covert operative.’”

To his relief, far from being horrified, she seemed thoroughly intrigued. “What did you do? Did you ferret out secrets and smuggle them to Whitehall?”

His lips quirked. “Not often—that wasn’t my brief.” He hesitated, then went on, “Prior to enlisting, quite aside from the usual education—Eton and Oxford—courtesy of my father I had an excellent grounding in business affairs. It was his forte—supply and demand on a national scale. Knowing how to influence transport, and the logistics of moving large quantities of commodities from one side of the world to the other. The family fortune derived from such enterprises.”