“Unfortunately you are a man, Charles, and thus you don’t wish to heed my warnings. I’m getting dire feelings about this. Very dire. Will you promise to send out a search party for Phillip in the morning?”
Charles gently disengaged his sleeve. Her sharp fingernails had left a pucker in the soft velvet. His valet would have a fit. He began smoothing it out as he said, “Teresa, as long as this blizzard continues, it simply isn’t safe to send out anyone. They would themselves become lost within feet of the front gate. No, we must wait until the storm blows itself out, then if Phillip doesn’t come, we will search.” He looked at her lovely white throat. He pictured his fingers wrapped around that lovely white throat. He sighed, adopting a placating voice that worked each and every time with his mother. Whenever he used the voice, she called him her dear boy. “Come, there is nothing we can do now. Would you care for some cards? Perhaps some dancing?”
She drank down more of his late father’s excellent champagne. A small smile played over his mouth. Actually, truth be told, he thought it more than likely that at this very moment, Phillip was probably quite at his ease in some inn or in a nearby residence, downing warm ale and seducing the prettiest girl about. Since Phillip had returned from the Peninsula, suffering a wound in his shoulder from the battle of Ciudad Rodrigo, he had adopted the attitude that discomfort of any sort was to be avoided at all costs. He saw her thump down another empty glass. What was he to do? To say? He’d try it another way. “Don’t forget, Teresa, that Phillip was a soldier. Even if he did find himself caught unawares in the blizzard, he would have the good sense not to continue on his way to Moreland. I’m certain he’s well protected from the elements. Were it possible, I would imagine his very good manners would dictate that he send me a message. However, the blizzard is an effective dampener of manners.” With a flash of inspiration, Charles realized what he had not said. “You know, wherever he is, I know that Phillip must be missing you terribly.”
He was a genius. He had scored a perfect hit. She preened. Oh, Lord, he mustn’t forget to beg the absent viscount’s pardon tonight in his prayers.
“Do you really think, Charles, that Phillip is just at this very moment pining for me, that he is—”
Charles was saved by the appearance of Edgar Plummer, a marvelous guest in his newly revised opinion, and his sister, Margaret. Plummer was old as dirt but he was smart. He liked Charles and thus sought to save him. Mr. Plummer bowed over Teresa’s hand. “Allow an old man to tell you how very lovely you look this evening, Miss Elliott. Won’t you please play the pianoforte for us?”
She refused three times, the seemingly accepted number of refusals to denote modesty, then allowed Mr. Plummer to lead her to the pianoforte at the end of the long drawing room.
“Oh, goodness, Charlie, now we’re in for it. She’s going to play some more of her tedious French ballads. Just wait, I’ll wager she’ll dedicate them to poor Phillip.”
Charles groaned. “Don’t say that, Margaret, she just might hear you.” He led his sister to a red brocade settee lovingly made for the family in the early part of the last century. “At last the lady is well occupied. Remind me to buy a Christmas present for Edgar. I will give him my favorite watch fob. Yes, that’s it. Watch fobs are excellent gifts.”
“Was she bothering you again about Phillip?”
“It’s her Greek chorus. I think Miss Elliott has matrimony in mind for Phillip. I did have the good sense not to tell her that the viscount is likely relieving his tedium during the storm in the arms of some Yorkshire beauty.”
Margaret, in all seriousness, said low, “But where, Charlie? At some inn? I thought Phillip was more discriminating in his taste. A taproom wench?”
Charles grinned. He’d rather expected to shock her, but it was not to be. She’d been married to Sir Hugh Drakemore for nearly a year now and his shy, frequently tongue-tied little sister was now worldly and assertive. He quite liked the change in her. As for her husband, Sir Hugh still seemed the same—serious, quiet, studied in his reflections. Ah, but there had to be more, a lot more, just look at the change wrought in Margaret. “No, you’re right. That’s a problem. Phillip is very selective. Perhaps he is visiting one of our neighbors and it is a daughter or wife he is currently enjoying.”
“No, Charlie, Phillip wouldn’t seduce a married woman.”
“Now, how would you know that?”
“He told me.”
“Margaret, surely you’re jesting with me, surely—”
“No, really. I asked him, you see, once about two years ago when I fancied myself in love with him. He was so nice. He knew exactly how I felt and he was very careful of my feelings. I had heard that he’d bedded Mrs. Stockton, the ambassador’s wife, and he hadn’t. As best he knew, he’d turned the lady down and out of spite she’d spread rumors that he’d seduced her. It angered him, Charlie. He said married ladies were no longer on the playing field.”
Margaret, in love with Phillip? Charles had never guessed, never even speculated. “Come to think of it, I can’t think of a single married lady that Phillip has bedded. You no longer, er, feel this way toward Phillip, do you, Margaret?”
“No, not after I met Hugh. One week with Hugh and every man I’d ever met faded out of my mind.”
“Good.”
“But you know, Charlie, I’ve often wondered why he has never married. I know for a fact how many lovely young ladies would gladly accept him.”
“Now therein lies a tale. Have you ever met the Countess of Bufford?”
Margaret cocked her head to one side, making the brown ringlets over her left ears fall to her shoulder. “Of course. She’s a leader among the ton. Mother dislikes her intensely, but she told me she is too powerful to cross, that I must always watch my back around her. I told Mother that she looks so lovely, so innocent, so guileless, but Mother just laughed and told me not to trust her. I know that Lord Bufford adores her. What does she have to do with Phillip?”
“When she came out six years ago, she quickly earned herself the title of the Ice Maiden. She was endowed with both splendid beauty and wealth, and her instant success followed naturally from both of these facts together. Phillip was a young captain in the hussars, in London that spring because his father, the late viscount, had just died. Phillip was young, inexperienced in the ways of women like Elaine, and raw with grief from the death of his father.”
“Good God, you don’t mean that Phillip fell in love with that awful woman?”
Charles shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not certain exactly what it was he felt for Elaine, but I do know that he wanted her. Is that love? I don’t know, Margaret. Phillip was only twenty years old, a boy. And boys are prone to lust, no other way to put it. Ah, look, Edgar is pleading with Miss Elliott to continue her concert. Cross your fingers that he will succeed.”
Miss Elliott broke out into another song, a doleful rendition of a French ballad of the last century. “At least she sings well,” Charles said.
“Come, Charlie, tell me what happened.”
9