Page 22 of The Lady Sparks a Flame (The Damsels of Discovery #2)

22

The man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.

—Michael Faraday

“Violet has missed you. So has Letty, for that matter, but not as much as Violet.”

Phoebe kept her gaze fixed on the tiny crack in the curtains of Grey’s carriage as it squeezed its way through the bedlam of Clerkenwell’s streets. The roads here were narrow, never having meant to hold the conveyances of the aristocracy. Some of them were little more than jumped-up lanes meant for livestock to walk, nose to tail.

The bones of London were there to see if you scraped away the dirt and pulled down the occasional cathedral. A nation’s capital, to be certain, but predominantly a trading city. A place for bargains and wagers. Risks and terrible loss.

“What am I supposed to say, Greycliff?” Phoebe asked. His resentment smelled like peppercorns, and she rubbed her nose with a handkerchief.

“I should think you would evince some regret.”

They’d known each other forever, she and Greycliff.

When she was fifteen, Phoebe and Greycliff had stood awkwardly side by side at a garden party once, silently agreeing not to mingle. Stationed next to a platter of tarts, Phoebe had eaten steadily while Grey watched from the corner of his eye, until she turned green and went to vomit beneath some early-blooming shrubbery. He’d directed partygoers away from the site of her ignominy until she’d finished.

That night Phoebe had cut herself so badly, she believed she might die.

They’d known each other for years, but he didn’t know her.

“I will evince anything you’d like, my lord. It doesn’t matter how I feel.” Phoebe tried to keep the petulance from her voice. “You have made up your mind, and nothing I do short of shaving my head and prancing around in sackcloth will appease you.”

Grey frowned. “Well. Sackcloths might be pushing it too far.”

“My point, Greycliff, is—” Phoebe’s explanation stopped halfway. The carriage curtains had blown open, giving her the smallest glimpse of a wagon trundling alongside the carriage. A wagon holding two familiar figures.

“Halt the carriage or I will shoot!”

The carriage stuttered to a full stop. Grey and Phoebe stuck their heads out of the windows, then popped their heads back in and stared at each other. Phoebe’s lower lip trembled.

“Don’t laugh,” he warned her.

“Is that Lucy or Laila?” Phoebe asked.

Grey stuck half his body out of the window, then sat back down and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I suppose I should count myself lucky that none of them are Letty,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

There, sitting in a wagon with “Fenley’s Fripperies” painted onto the side, were two women wearing scarves tied around their noses and mouths.

Pink scarves Phoebe wagered had cost a pretty penny.

Standing in the road was Sam.

Also, with a scarf tied around his nose and mouth.

Brandishing a pistol.

“Where did he find a pistol?” she asked, mostly to herself.

“Hullo.” Sam climbed on the lip of the carriage below the door and stuck his head in through the curtains.

“You are the worst highwayman in England,” Phoebe said.

She didn’t need him to remove the scarf to know Sam’s smile was ear to ear.

“I could have a pistol in the carriage. I could have shot you.” Grey did not sound the slightest bit worried.

He sounded constipated.

“Well, you didn’t, so here I am,” Sam announced. “Myself and my two cutthroat compatriots.”

Sam spoke giddily, and Phoebe smiled with him against her will. How could a man be this happy and not drunk?

Surely it wasn’t healthy.

“This is a robbery,” he said.

“No, it’s not,” said Grey glumly.

“Yes. I’m stealing this pretty lady.” Sam motioned with his pistol toward the street. “Now, there is a grumpy tanner in the wagon behind us and if we don’t get this robbery over quickly, he and I will come to fisticuffs.”

“Good,” said Grey.

“Sam, this isn’t a good idea,” said Phoebe.

Sam looked straight into her eyes, and Phoebe knew she needed to get the hell out of London and away from this man.

She was lost.

“ I think it’s a good idea. Lucy thinks it’s a good idea—”

“Lucy is a goddamned menace,” Grey interjected.

“I didn’t do it,” Phoebe said. “If you take me away, it makes me look guilty, Sam.”

He pulled down the scarf, his brows tilted in hurt surprise. “That wasn’t my intent. You left before we could plan together. This was the best I could do.”

Phoebe waved her hands toward him, warding him off. “Your intent doesn’t matter. It is our actions, not our intentions, by which we are judged. Go home, Sam. Take care of your sisters and leave me alone to fix this. Please.”

The tanner Sam had worried about, screamed at the carriage horses.

“?’S this a fecking robbery or a godsdamned tea party?” the man hollered.

Sam didn’t move.

“Phoebe,” he said softly, but Phoebe did not want to hear him say her name anymore. She did not want to see his smiles or warm in the heat of his regard.

The truth lay bare before her.

She could live with falling in love.

She could not live if she were loved in return and then was found wanting.

The tanner continued his diatribe and someone—Lucy or Laila—told him to shut up. That they were committing a crime in the name of love. More than a few people trying to get past the carriage and wagon had opinions on the subject of crime and love, but their words smushed together beneath the pounding in Phoebe’s head when Sam slipped down and walked away.

The carriage jerked forward, and they slowly made their way past the crowd.

“He’s a good man,” said Grey.

Phoebe nodded, staring at the top of the carriage where a scorch mark had puckered the material.

“He is the best of men,” she agreed.

They did not speak again until they arrived in the cramped mews behind Athena’s Retreat.

Grey waved away the footman and handed Phoebe out himself.

“Grantham and Kneland will follow up on the names you gave us,” he said. “Once we have enough evidence for the Home Office, you are free to go.”

Phoebe lifted her shoulder to indicate she’d heard his words.

Grey stepped in front of her before they entered the back door to the Retreat.

“I know,” he said, then coughed and stared at the darkening sky. As usual the weather in London hadn’t sorted itself and hovered between freezing rain and clammy smog. “I know,” he repeated, “what a father can do to a child. How much of what we’re told as children can hinder—or even harm—the people we become as adults and the people we love.”

Phoebe cocked her head. She hadn’t been here in England when Letty brought this frozen prince to his knees. Obviously, falling in love with Letty Fenley had changed Grey. For the better.

Grey cleared his throat, peering intently at the pile of clouds above them. “Don’t let him. Your father.” Grey stopped.

Whatever irritant had lodged itself in Grey’s throat now wedged itself into a lump in the back of Phoebe’s throat as well.

“He’s dead, Phoebe. You are alive and…don’t let him take away your future the way he took away your childhood.”

Phoebe swallowed, concentrating on breathing around the object in her throat.

Grey did not need a reply. Turning, he then led the way into the building, holding himself straight, though inside his trouser pockets, his hands were clenched into fists.

Phoebe let him lead her through the kitchens into a hallway that split in two, up a back staircase and down a long corridor on the right. She could have walked it blindfolded, so many times had she come to call on Lady Violet Greycliff, ostensibly for tea and gossip, but in truth they walked down these same corridors to the hidden laboratories of Athena’s Retreat.

Grantham used to say the halls rang with the low hum of brilliance. Certainly, there were geniuses among the scientists here.

“I take it I am not allowed to leave the guest wing?” Phoebe asked. In the corridor hung a beautiful series of etchings of the British coast of the North Sea in simple gilded frames. Another time Phoebe would have stopped to examine them. The sea fascinated her after having grown up surrounded by miles of walls.

Greycliff shrugged. “I’d say the decision was Kneland’s, but it’s Violet’s.”

“Then let me speak with Violet,” Phoebe said.

He paused before a door. “As you wish.” Before Phoebe could question him further, he turned and walked back the way he had come without another word.

Not very chatty, Greycliff.

Not like his brother-in-law, Sam.

Phoebe drew in a breath and swallowed. Swallowed her exhaustion, swallowed her fear, and tried to swallow her temper. Someone waited on the other side.

A friend, hopefully.

Once ready, she opened the door.

Each of the guest rooms at the Retreat had an outer sitting room, often with a fireplace, settee, and bookshelves, and an inner bedroom with a water closet attached.

This sitting room was painted a bright yellow, since there were no windows. A gold and ivory striped silk settee sat in the center, and a low marble table in front of it held an enormous vase filled with hothouse carnations and roses. Violet sat in the middle of the settee glaring from across the room. Next to a shelf full of bound copies of journals and pamphlets stood her husband, the object of the glare.

“I am pleased to see you again, Violet,” Phoebe said calmly, “I’m sorry it had to be under these circumstances.”

“Yes, well.” Violet sniffed, then faced Phoebe and patted the settee next to her. “Once this foolishness has been sorted, we will have a proper visit.”

“People have died,” Kneland said. “That isn’t foolishness.”

No. No, it wasn’t.

“I am ready to leave,” Phoebe said to Violet.

Kneland shook his head. “Not until we can prove you weren’t responsible.”

Phoebe ignored him and sat next to Violet. She breathed in the comforting smell of tea and sugar with a hint of lemon. The smell of a place she once called home.

“I am ready to go back to America,” she explained. Twisting in her seat to include Kneland in the conversation, Phoebe continued. “Please hurry your investigation. For certain, I could have found the proof faster, but I will not cause more conflict between…” Phoebe faltered then, unable to say the words between friends .

“Arthur will work quickly,” Violet assured her. “The sooner they find the true bombers, the better for everyone.”

She peered closely at Phoebe’s dress. “Why do you have baby spit-up on your shoulder?”

Phoebe looked down and shuddered. “Eugh. I held one of Letty’s babies. It must have happened then.”

Baby spit-up was the least of the stains on this dress. She’d been wearing it for three days straight.

“Not to worry, the stain will come right out,” Violet assured her. “My theory is a baby’s gut is too immature to digest the milk it takes in. That stain is simply regurgitated breast milk.”

When Phoebe retched slightly, Violet patted her shoulder. “The more interesting question is why and how this changes once solid food is introduced.”

Against her better judgment, Phoebe found herself discussing the possible chemical reactions that might happen in a baby’s belly. Soon enough, Kneland had left with some murmured words about “distracted” and “remember to eat.” Two hours later a maid came by with tea and a plate of sandwiches.

Although Phoebe had no interest in the role acid played within the human digestive system, she kept asking Violet questions. She didn’t want to remain at Athena’s Retreat, but goodness, it was lovely to remember for a while how things had once been.

···

“Oh, for the love of all that is holy, if you are here to botch another robbery, you can turn around right now.” Grey’s mouth pinched into a surly twist.

Sam, because he was a fine fellow, resolved not to roll his eyes at his brother-in-law’s expression. He supposed a viscount with a past as a secret agent being held up in public by two girls and a shopkeeper’s son might be a smidge embarrassed. Still, that was three days ago. A better man would be past it by now.

“I’m not going to rob you. I wasn’t robbing you before.” Sam considered his words. “I was attempting a kidnapping .”

Grey snorted. “You did a piss poor job of it.”

Fine fellow or not, Sam lost some of his patience with the man. “I would have done an excellent job of it if my victim hadn’t told me to go away.”

They stood in a small receiving room on the first floor of Athena’s Retreat. Sam had been here plenty of times before when he came to see Letty before she’d married, or when he stopped by with his hedgehog, Fermat, to visit Mala Hill. A cheerful pink-and-red-striped paper covered the walls along with paintings of different types of spiders displayed in lovely gilt frames. A tiny fire jumped in the grate, lending light but not much warmth.

Grantham and Kneland were sitting at a small cards table next to the fire, a few papers spread out between them. Kneland wore a pair of spectacles that did nothing to lessen the intensity of his gaze.

That man was scary.

“I’ll admit that plan was ill thought out. I should have known Phoebe was with you by choice. She’s too good to have been caught unawares,” Sam said, not bothering to hide the pride in his voice. “The time for scheming is over. I’ve a plan.”

“Lord save us from your plans, Fenley,” Grantham said from his seat by the fire.

“My plans have made me a fortune,” Sam retorted. “I’ve a brain, even if I lack a title before my name.”

Grantham said nothing in the loudest way possible one could say nothing. He crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, and shook his head as though Sam were a precocious child.

“Sam…” Grey began.

Ugh.

That tone of voice. The tone that said because Sam was not highborn, his plans—his ideas, his dreams, and his aspirations—were too big. Too unreasonable. Too impatient.

This is how life was for Phoebe or Letty or Sarah. They had massive brains and outstanding talent but were considered merely a step above children in their abilities by the men who held the power. Even if their genius was acknowledged, their personhood was never in question—they were women and thus less than.

Similarly, Sam had many times stood before a group of titled men while they looked through him, as though the place in which he was born determined the boundary at which he was expected to stop and be grateful; to keep his ambitions small and frustrations to himself.

“Let her go,” Sam said, cutting off whatever pap Grey had been poised to spew. Something about waiting for men in charge to take care of things.

Well.

Sam was a man in charge as well, even if he wasn’t a lord.

“If you don’t think she did it, I will find a place to hide her until the auction is complete.”

Kneland and Grantham looked over at each other. Neither said a word.

“Why keep her cooped up here?” Sam asked them. “What of her family? Her mother must be—”

“Listen!” Grey snapped.

Sam shut his mouth. Grey’s manner had shifted from annoyed brother-in-law to former government agent in an instant.

“Phoebe’s mother is the sole descendant of the House Gediminas,” Grey said.

Sam shook his head to convey his ignorance.

“The Grand Duke Gediminas and his children ruled Lithuania for three hundred years of prosperity. They brought peace with Poland and are credited with bringing Christianity as well.”

The tiniest pebble of foreboding roiled in Sam’s stomach. This was to do with Phoebe’s family—with that terrible manor house in the north.

Grantham picked up the story, no hint of condescension in his voice. “When Napoleon set his sights on the region, his emissaries approached the last living member of the House Gediminas. It was a girl, Aldona, who was fourteen at the time and lived a cloistered life. She was surrounded by a group of men whose families had been loyal villeins. They housed her, fed her, and advised her.”

A fourteen-year-old girl.

The portrait Sam had seen in the music room was of a woman far too young to have had so many children. He pictured Phoebe’s mother standing stock-still in the hallway at Prentiss Manor before dinner that night.

Small.

Lost.

Fragile.

“The Lithuanians welcomed the French without a fight and promised to support Napoleon if he kept Russia at bay,” Kneland said, his gravelly voice carrying easily across the room. “Aldona’s advisors, however, they went a step further.”

“It…whatever they did, it wasn’t enough,” Sam said, remembering his history. “Russia took over in the end.”

Kneland nodded. “In hindsight it was a bad deal, but the Lithuanians wanted to remain independent so badly, they blinded themselves to the French army’s flaws.”

That made sense. Hope could make anyone see things that weren’t there.

“In return for their allegiance,” Grey explained, “Napoleon promised to restore the House Gediminas by setting Aldona, and her husband, on the throne.”

Good God.

Sam was sick to his stomach where the pebble of foreboding had grown into a boulder.

“Napoleon sent her here at fourteen to wed the marquess?” Sam asked.

Grey nodded, sympathy melting the ice in his gaze.

Sam thought of his sisters at the age of fourteen. Too young. Too bloody young.

“Why would Fallowshall agree to help Napoleon?” he asked. “How could any man with his history betray England?”

Walking down the hall of ancestors at Prentiss Manor was a walk past the history of their nation. This had to have weighed heavily on the marquess.

“As you’ve witnessed, Prentiss Manor is not a rich estate,” Grey said.

Again, Sam thought back to the painting of the beautiful young woman and her girls; both the living, and the dead. A fourteen-year-old innocent wedded to a strange adult, having to bear his children, alone in that haunted house. What might that do to a woman’s soul?

Sam would never know the helplessness of being a woman trapped in a marriage. Oh, there were ways for women to leave, but they required funds or extended family and a willingness to brave ostracism.

Poor Lady Fallowshall never had that.

“Wait,” Sam said. “Why was she sent to marry an English noble and not a French one? And the marquess? Why wasn’t he charged with treason?”

Grey scratched the underside of his chin where a hint of shadow had appeared. “He didn’t commit treason because Napoleon was defeated before they went back to Lithuania,” he said. “Instead, Fallowshall claimed he met his bride the last time he visited the country. He immediately fell in love with her and rescued her from the evil machinations of the French and the Polish. The truth is he had an affair with Aldona’s married chaperone, Maria, and left the country after finding out his lover had become pregnant.”

Jonas.

“Reports were that Maria’s husband was livid. The official word is she died of a fall,” said Grey. “The child disappeared when he was six.”

The entire scenario—the child bride, the narcissistic marquess, the bastard son—it made Sam sick.

Phoebe’s mother had expected to be a princess in return for marrying a sadist. The sadist had expected a throne in return for taking a bride not of his own choosing.

“You never told me this,” Sam said. “Awfully important information.”

Grey shrugged. “We didn’t think you needed to know.”

Sam gritted his teeth and swallowed a curse. Obviously, information was currency, and his brother-in-law wouldn’t toss it about to just anyone.

“Even if you had told me, that was before we were born,” Sam said. “The war is over, Napoleon is dead, as is Phoebe’s father. None of this matters.”

Grey disagreed. “It matters to the Home Office,” he said. “It matters to the head of Military Intelligence who fought the French on the peninsula.”

“What if Russia leaves?” Kneland asked, his raptor’s eyes hard and black, searching for the weakest part of a man. “The Hunt women are still the last descendants of that house.”

“So what?” Sam asked the question even though he already knew the answer.

“So, it’s a powerful incentive to start a revolution,” Grey said, then yawned. “If you can recruit a group of men who would do anything to upset a monarchy, then arm them with weapons that cannot be defended against, it might be enough to convince the Lithuanians to rally behind a long-lost princess.”

“Phoebe’s sister Alice is married to an influential nobleman,” Kneland pointed out.

“Don’t be daft. Those women were abased and abused by the marquess,” Sam retorted. “The last thing they want is to raise an army against the Russian empire.”

Grantham frowned faintly as though he couldn’t comprehend Sam’s remarks, a hint of pity in his eyes. “You don’t understand what you are taking on if you defend Phoebe.”

“I am not ‘taking on’ anything,” Sam countered. “Phoebe is a person, not a problem.”

Grantham stood and walked to the mantel, poking at the fire.

“Yes, Fenley. I know she is a person. I’ve known her for years and am aware her father was a tyrant.” Grantham’s mouth pulled down on one side and he glanced at Kneland, then set the poker against the wall. “It doesn’t excuse her from accountability for her actions. She was not supposed to return without permission. It makes her look guilty.”

Kneland stood as well and moved the poker to its tray. “There are hundreds of thousands of women who have similar if not worse backgrounds. None of them set off bombs that killed constables.”

Sam threw his hands up in disgust. “No, they don’t all make bombs, but they do continue the cycle of violence that begat them and mistreat their children, their husbands, themselves. It isn’t an excuse; it is a motivation. And she didn’t set off the bomb that killed the constable, she invented it.”

Stepping forward, Grey put himself between Sam and Grantham. “Do you know for certain, Sam, that Phoebe had nothing to do with the violence at Kennington Common? Were you with her the entire visit to Prentiss Manor?”

“Indeed, as was her mother, the marchioness, and her sister Lady Karolina,” Sam retorted. “The four of us were boarding a train to Liverpool that morning.”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Kneland said. “She could have planted it the night before and set a timer. Lady Grantham taught me that trick. Or had one of the Omnis set it for her. That’s what happened the last time.”

Letty had told Sam about the demonstration where the bomb went off after Phoebe had been shipped to America.

Phoebe had claimed the weapon was not perfected when Adam Winters told one of his men to use it at the demonstration. Letty had been unsympathetic to the claim Winters hadn’t trusted Phoebe’s intelligence and had his men set the bomb off. Incorrectly, as it happened, causing death where it was meant to cause mayhem.

“This isn’t like the last time,” Sam insisted. “She isn’t the same person, and this isn’t the same set of circumstances.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I have told you what we learned in the pubs the other day. It sounds as though a splinter group of Omnis, mainly Welsh, have regrouped to protest the Corn Laws.”

Grantham stretched his leg out and moved the poker tray a foot to the left. “Why don’t you leave the investigating to those of us who know what we are doing and go back home?”

“Have you always been this obnoxious, or is it something to do with your marital state?” Sam asked, practically seething with rage.

Kneland sniffed. “Yes, he’s always been this obnoxious.”

Grantham scoffed. “It is not obnoxious to state the obvious—”

“Yes, it is,” said Kneland.

“It can be,” Grey agreed.

“Makes you want to punch him in the face,” Kneland continued.

“If you could reach that high, I’d let you take a swing.” Grantham’s face flushed with affection. “As it is, I have to hold you off with one of my massive arms…”

Grantham reached out and set his palm on Kneland’s forehead as though pushing away a child, even though Kneland was only an inch or two shorter than the earl. Quick as a wink, Kneland trapped Grantham’s hand and twisted the earl’s arm behind his back.

“Could the two of you please stop touching one another, for the love of Christ,” Grey complained.

Sam sighed.

Men.

“When we asked you to go to Prentiss Manor and report back your observations…” An enormous yawn interrupted Grey’s words and the viscount blushed, covering his mouth. “?’Pologies. No one sleeps when there is colic in the house,” he said.

A prickly shiver tapped at Sam’s neck. He set his palm there, expecting a breeze, but the curtains were closed, and no draft swept through the room.

The door to the parlor stood partly open.

Sam had closed it when he’d come inside.

He ignored whatever Grey was saying and ran to the doorway. Sticking his head out, he looked down both sides of the hallway. No one was there.

Except.

She didn’t wear perfume, Phoebe. She could have drifted through the world smelling of dried lavender and money, but she didn’t.

Phoebe Hunt smelled…peppery. Plus a note of sage. Tart. Salty.

Sam inhaled, trying to detect something beneath the familiar cleaning scents of beeswax and vinegar.

“What are you doing?” Grey asked, having followed him into the hallway.

“Phoebe was here,” Sam said.

He tasted her on the back of his tongue.

“She’s upstairs in one of the guest rooms, yes,” Grey allowed, “but you heard what she said, Sam. She doesn’t want you to rescue her.”

Sam sucked on his lower lip, then sighed. “Not the problem, Greycliff. The problem”—he spun on his heel slowly like a weather vane pointing in the direction of a storm—“the problem is she was here . She heard you say I was investigating her family.”

Grey had the grace to appear embarrassed. He washed his face with a hand, pulling his mouth down into a frown. “Now she thinks we were gossiping about her family?”

“No, you idiot.” Sam slapped his palm over his eyes. “Now she thinks I only took the time to get to know her at Prentiss Manor to report back to you. That I took advantage of the lot of them.”

“You did go there to take advantage of them.” Grey’s tone of aggrievement plucked at Sam’s nerves like the sound of knives scraping across a piece of porcelain. “You went to look good for the marchioness so she’d let you marry Phoebe’s sister.”

“Yes, that is why I went,” Sam agreed. “It isn’t why I stayed .”

He sighed, wondering how long it would take for him to convince Phoebe of the truth and if it would involve harm to his person.

Most likely.

Nothing for it, though.

“Sam, whatever it is you are thinking, I need you to wipe it from your brain. Right. Now.” Grey said, reaching over to set a hand on Sam’s shoulder, perhaps to restrain him. “You and Phoebe are the mismatch of the century, and none of this will come out the way you expect it.”

True.

Courting Phoebe was a terrible idea. She was so infamous that doors would slam in his face rather than swing wide open. She wouldn’t want Sam’s courtship anyway. She’d come back only to help her mother and her sister and would return to the wilds of America to…do whatever it was she did over there.

Holding up coaches. Sharpshooting contests with rugged men in silly hats. Finding gold in the riverbeds. Being extraordinary.

Phoebe Hunt summoned a love that broke your heart, made you doubt everything that came before, and could get you killed. A love his sister read novels about. A love that inspired men to paint. To write poetry. To abandon long-held dreams and make one’s way through the rest of life unsure of anything other than that one single love.

This was not the love Sam had ever wanted for himself, but the world kept spinning on its axis (supposedly—no scientist had yet been able to convince him the world was round) no matter what Sam’s wishes might be. The world had spun Phoebe into Sam’s path, and he would hold on to her now.

“What are you expecting, Sam?” Grey asked gently. “Phoebe will remain in England for you? Even if we came to an agreement with the Home Office, can you imagine her baking a lemon loaf in your kitchen in Clerkenwell? Tidying the scarf display in your new emporium? You can’t keep her. It will only hurt you both.”

“ Keep her?” Sam was aghast. “She’s a phenomenon, not a hedgehog. I don’t expect to keep her. I simply want to say goodbye before she sets sail to conquer a continent.”