To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

are excellently well behaved.”

She read the message in his amused green eyes: Excellently well behaved, just like their owner. She humphed and led the way inside.

Emmeline was in the kitchen, standing over the table kneading dough. Miss Spry stood beside her, grinding nuts. Birtles sat in the chair by the fire, keeping out of the way. He grinned and rose as Phoebe entered; he nodded to her, then rather more warily at Deverell as he appeared behind her. “M’lord.” His gaze returned to Phoebe. “How’s Fergus?”

“Improving but still under the weather. He swears he’ll be well by this evening.” With a smile for Birtles, Phoebe went to Emmeline. “Biscuits?”

Emmeline had frozen, her gaze on Deverell; she shook herself, looked down at her hands, then nodded and resumed working her dough. “I thought to send some with Jessica tomorrow—for the trip.” Emmeline glanced at Miss Spry beside her. “Constance kindly offered to help.”

Phoebe pulled a straightbacked chair to the table and sat. “I hope you’ve recovered from your ordeal? It was certainly a shock, having him chase you like that.”

Constance Spry glanced up and met her eyes; a small smile curved her lips, then she looked back at the mortar in which she was grinding almonds and walnuts. “It helped seeing his lordship hit him. Now whenever I think of him, I see his eyes rolling back and him going down like a sack of onions.”

Phoebe grinned at the image; busy with Fergus, she hadn’t seen what Deverell had actually done, only the results. “Before I leave today, we must talk—you, Emmeline, and I—so that we have some idea of what sort of position will best suit you. But first, I must speak with Jessica.”

Emmeline nodded, her gaze fixed on her dough. “She’s upstairs packing.”

Behind her, Phoebe could hear Birtles and Deverell talking, something about horses. He seemed inoccuous—well-behaved—enough, and Birtles well knew his wife’s difficulty over large and powerful gentlemen; Birtles wouldn’t let anything upset Emmeline.

Reassured, Phoebe rose and headed for the stairs.

She found Jessica in the small room at the rear of the first floor, carefully folding her few belongings and setting them in her battered satchel. She looked up and beamed when she saw Phoebe, and quickly bobbed a curtsy. Phoebe smiled back, well-pleased; the panicked look had gone from Jessica’s eyes. Just a few days with Emmeline and Birtles, free of any hint of threat, and Jessica was once again the bright, cheerful lass she should have been.

“You’ll manage very well with Lady Pelham. Just remember…” Perching on the edge of the narrow cot, Phoebe described her ladyship’s eccentricities, and also gave Jessica a potted history of the family, so she would know what gentlemen she might expect to encounter, without making a point of it informing her that they were all rather old and staid, and therefore unlikely to pose any problem.

Downstairs, Phoebe heard a deep voice saying something, then the bell on the front door of the agency tinkled, and the door shut. She inwardly frowned. Had Deverell gone out?

Rising, she wagged a finger at Jessica. “One thing—if ever you do run into any difficulties of that nature again, do remember that you can always return to the agency. But in Lady Pelham’s household, you won’t need to worry—her housekeeper and butler are excellent people.”

Jessica blew out a breath. “It’ll be such a relief, miss, not having to guard against…well, you know, every minute of every day.” Jessica rushed on to thank her; Phoebe held up a hand, stemming the flow, and told her to enjoy her work with Lady Pelham, and that would be thanks enough.

Leaving Jessica reassured and firmly focused on taking up her new position, Phoebe returned downstairs. She turned right along the narrow corridor that linked the shop at the front with the kitchen. As she reached the kitchen’s threshold, she realized the voices she was hearing—Emmeline’s and an indistinguishable male rumble—were coming from the shop; when she glanced into the kichen, Constance was alone, neatly forming the dough into shapes on a baking tray.

“Just tell me where. Up here?”

Startled, Phoebe swung around. The cultured accents were Deverell’s. She walked quickly to the archway giving onto the shop, trepidation rising. Was Emmeline alone with him? Was she panicking…?

The sight that met her eyes brought her up short. Far from panicking, Emmeline was directing a viscount—a large, powerful, overwhelmingly male lord—as to precisely where she wished several big boxes containing various files to be placed on the high shelf running along one side wall.

Setting one box on the shelf, Deverell stepped back, dusted his hands, then turned to pick up the next. He saw Phoebe, met her eyes. He hesitated for a second, then hefted the box. “Seeing I was here to keep an eye on you all, Birtles stepped out to order some coal.”

He said it as if it were the most normal thing in the world for a viscount to be left at the beck and call of females running an employment agency.

“A little to the right, my lord, if you would.” Apparently subject to the same delusion, Emmeline stood back and pointed. “With a little bit of space between—that way Birtles will be able to grab each easily when we need it down again.”

Deverell followed her directions without a murmur, then turned to heft the next box.

Mentally shaking her head, Phoebe stood in the archway and struggled not to stare.

That was the start of a very odd week. If she’d paid more attention to the incident with the boxes, perhaps she would have been rather less surprised by, or at least better prepared for, the subsequent developments.

Over the following days, having gained an inch, Deverell steadily invaded her world. And not just her daytime world but that of her nights, too; having once found his way to her bedchamber, he had no difficulty retracing his steps on the following and subsequent nights, much to Phoebe’s confusion.

She wanted him there, in her bed, yet every night she felt she was falling deeper under his spell, deeper in thrall to the magic they wove, not independently but together. That was the most enthralling aspect—the give and take, the reciprocity of pleasure, of desire, of need.

There was so much she’d yet to learn, yet every night’s lessons only made her more eager, more curious, more involved.

A dangerous situation.