Page 28 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
“It refers to the practice of hiring labor from taverns, my lady,” Armande answered her.
Phaedra whipped around. She had not even heard the marquis return to the dining room. He stood just inside the door, neatening the lace at his wrists. “The proprietor of a tavern sells the service of a customer to cover the cost of his drinking debts. All money earned for the work goes straight to the tavern until the reckoning is paid.”
Phaedra turned reproachful eyes upon Weylin. “But Grandfather! Wilkins said he and his family were starving. What did you expect them to live on?”
“It is not my problem, missy. I never forced the man to go swilling himself that deep into debt.”
“Oui, the poorer classes are such weak-willed wretches,” Armande said. “They only have to enter the taverns to collect their wages-nobody is forcing them to drink. The tapsters areready to ply them with a glass-the credit is so easy to obtain, and they have not the strength to resist.”
Armande’s ironic tone was entirely lost upon her grandfather.
Weylin nodded his head in vigorous agreement. “Weak-willed indeed. Why, I once both distilled gin and ran a brewery. Yet I never had any problem remaining temperate. “
Arthur Danby hiccuped. “I’m a four bottle man, m’self.”
On this absurd note, the discussion of the unfortunate Wilkins ended. Though the others seemed able to forget the man, Phaedra could not. She feared her sleep tonight would be haunted by the memory of Wilkins’s wild-eyed despair. There was no doubt in her mind of what fate awaited him. Her grandfather would see to it that Wilkins suffered the full penalty of the law for this night’s work. There was little enough she could do to help him, but she might be able to do something for Wilkins’s poor wife if she could find the woman. Phaedra thought wistfully of parting with her small hoard of golden guineas, then shrugged. So Robin Goodfellow might be obliged to waste a bit more ink before Phaedra Grantham could declare her independence from tyranny. It had taken the Americans years to do so. Surely she could endure a bit longer. In any case, she had no choice. Her grandfather would never think of helping the woman.
There was another action that Phaedra felt obliged to perform- because Weylin never would. She sought out Armande drawing him a little aside from the others.
“My lord,” she said. “I fear my grandfather has forgotten to thank you. You saved his life tonight.”
Armande’s brows drew together, his expression far from encouraging. She placed one hand upon his sleeve.
“Well, allow me to thank you. I will always be grateful for?—”
“I don’t want your gratitude.” His voice was harsh and then he added in a milder tone, “It was the most trifling service, my lady. I beg you will say no more about it.”
He grasped her hand and raised it to his lips brusquely before turning away. Armande could be one of those men who found it embarrassing to have someone in their debt and hated being thanked. Yet she had difficulty imagining the self-possessed marquis ever being embarrassed by anything.
A troubled frown creased her brow. It was more like having saving her grandfather’s life, the marquis regretted having done so.
Phaedra hoped that the Wilkins incident would bring about an early end to the supper party, but she was disappointed. With the exception of the Sheltons, who called for their carriage at once, the other guests refused to allow their evening to be spoiled by such trivial incidents as attempted murder or a man being beaten unconscious and dispatched to prison.
If she could not be rid of these people, Phaedra determined to pour out coffee in the green salon rather than the music room. She dreaded being pressed into playing the spinet. An indifferent musician at best, she was in no humor to plod through Rule Britannia, the only composition her grandfather appreciated.
She felt relieved when the card tables were brought out, easing any further demands upon her to play hostess. Disinclined to play herself, she paced before the salon’s long windows. The moon had come out at last to war with the clouds, making a feeble effort to spill pools of light into what was a sea of blackness. Not that the salon’s windows presented a breathtaking vista for they only looked out on a broad expanse of lawn.
Her grandfather’s gardener Bullock had tried to imitate Capability Brown; but alas, although he absorbed some of thegreat landscaper’s precepts, he had not acquired his taste. Bullock had leveled every tree and flower about the mansion, leaving the Heath standing in the midst of an uninspired green prairie of neatly trimmed grass.
Phaedra drummed her fingers restlessly against one of the panes of glass. Sir Norris Byram glanced up from his cards to glare at her, and she stopped, hugging her hands beneath her arms. The evening’s events had put a greater strain upon her nerves than she had realized. How she longed for the solitude of her garret, where she could curl up on the daybed, her chin upon her knees, and be alone with her thoughts- thoughts that centered upon one man. Ever since she had stood up with Armande dueling wits with him to the strains of a minuet, the marquis seemed to have taken possession of her every waking moment.
Her gaze strayed back to the salon. Most of the guests were grouped in foursomes, but Armande sat with one of the younger men, engaged in a hand of piquet. The candle’s glow cast a soft illumination over Armande’s face, somehow easing the lines of those haughty, patrician features; his eyes looked hazy and preoccupied. Phaedra could only wonder what mysterious roads his mind traveled, what secrets lay sealed beneath the curve of those sensual lips.
Her longing to discover those secrets burned as strongly as ever, but the desire had taken a subtle turn she hardly comprehended. She no longer wished to expose the man as much as she wanted to understand him. Armande had done something this night that filled her with wonder whenever she recalled it, something even more wondrous then the saving of her grandfather’s life.
Armande had defended her. Not her honor. That would have occasioned no gratitude in her. She supposed there were gallant fools enough who would have done that. Armande had defendedher mind, her right to have opinions on matters other than the cut of a gown or the latest dance step. He had made her feel that it was not so unfeminine for a woman to think, that the intelligence she cloaked beneath the guise of Robin Goodfellow was not so shameful. Any man who held such views would have attracted her interest, but that it was the enigmatic Armande who had done so intrigued her almost beyond bearing.
She could nearly hear Gilly’s voice cautioning her. If you spied a will-o’-the-wisp, Fae, I vow you’d follow it until you were hopelessly lost.
“Perhaps I already am, Gil,” she murmured. Without making it obvious what she did, she glided closer to Armande. Fanning herself, she affected a casual interest in his game.
There was no change in his negligent posture. His broad shoulders remained relaxed, one leg crooked back, the other lazily extended, displaying the outline of his muscular calf sheathed in silken hose. All the same, Phaedra felt that he was very much aware of her presence. Still waters, both of them, with not a ripple in one that the other couldn’t sense.
Phaedra immediately dismissed the peculiar notion. She tried to concentrate on the game, noting uneasily the large amount of money strewn on the table between the two men. Frowning, she studied Armande’s partner, striving to recollect his name from the introductions. Mrs. Byng’s eldest son; Charles, she believed he was. Deeply flattered by the marquis’s attention, the young man was playing too deep in an effort to impress him.
It pained Phaedra to think that Armande might be taking advantage of the man’s inexperience. Once more than willing to believe the worst about Armande, she regarded with dismay the notion that the marquis might be nothing more than a common cardsharp.
Much to her relief, the marquis was a most indifferent card player, taking no time over his discards. Charles Byng easily took the next hand. He emitted a crow of triumph as he scooped in his winnings. “Your luck is certainly out tonight, my lord.”
