Page 24 of Her Infuriating Earl
“Excuse me for a moment,” he said to Nathaniel and Evan, turning at the bottom of the staircase as though he meant to head upstairs.
He ascended a few steps until he was certain that all of the gentlemen had gone on without him, before retracing his footsteps and moving quietly toward the door.
Gently, he rapped his knuckles against the wood, so as not to frighten her.
“Oh, goodness!” Phoebe yelped. “I did not hear you approach.”
He smiled. “Very sneaky, remember?”
“Likely to make my heart leap directly out of my chest in fright, you mean,” she replied, not unkindly.
“Apologies.” He kept the door’s threshold between them, for propriety’s sake. “It really was not my intention to frighten you. My mother has always told me that I have an exceptionally heavy footfall—like a herd of elephants, in fact—so I assumed, wrongly, that you would hear me.”
She glanced past him. “Has everyone gone to the drawing room?”
“Everyone but you and I,” he replied. “What brings you to the doorstep at this hour, Miss Wilson, and without a shawl or pelisse? Are you not frozen?”
She shook her head. “I like the crispness of it, and I have not been here long enough to catch a chill.” Nevertheless, she hugged herself. “As for why I am here, I needed some fresh air. It is stifling in the drawing room. Consider yourself warned.”
“Ah, I am well aware.” He chuckled, wondering if he ought to give her his tailcoat. “My mother likes the manor to resemble the inside of a furnace at all times, and if we complain of the heat, she’d have the servants pile even more wood onto the fires. Even in the summer, shemusthave a fire burning. Truly, I do not think she is capable of perspiring.”
Phoebe smiled, casting him a wry glance. “Oh, did you not know? Ladies never perspire. We simply cannot do it.”
“Well, that certainly solves the mystery.” He shrugged his tailcoat off his shoulders and handed it to her, judging that it might be a step too far if he tried to drape it over hershoulders.
She waved a dismissive hand. “That is kind, My Lord, but I promise I am not cold.”
“Now, I am in something of a predicament,” he told her. “I cannot put it back on while you are without any warm garment, so I shall have to hold it, and we shall both chill ourselves in the evening air.”
Phoebe mustered a soft laugh—a sweet, charming sound that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “I would wager you wish you had not approached me at all.”
“Nonsense. I, too, was in need of some fresh air.” He edged out onto the top step, careful to maintain a polite distance.
In turn, she moved further along the porch and, to his surprise, sat right down on the middle step. “Thank you for what you did at the dinner table,” she said quietly. “You did not have to, but I appreciated it. I have my arsenal of thinly veiled insults, jibes, and retorts, but they did not seem like the sort of gentlemen who would have heeded my barbed replies. I suspect, instead, they would have laughed harder at me.”
“There is still time for me to send them away. Say the word, and I shall do it,” he urged.
She shook her head. “There is no need. I just wanted to thank you, that is all. I did not thank you properly at the dinner table, and it has been bothering me since.” She still had her back to him, but she turned her neck ever so slightly. “But… might I ask why you helped me like that?”
He had been asking himself the same question. “You will hopefully become my… sister-in-law,” he said, after a stilted pause. “It was my duty to defend you from those idiots.”
Part of him felt like he should move closer to her, perhaps sit by her side so he could see her face as they spoke, while the other part of him commanded him to stay exactly where he was. He did not feel too merry, but he did not want her to think he was an inebriate if the port still lingered on his breath.
For a long time, she did not say anything, gazing out at the dark night sky, tilting her head up to observe the blanket of glittering stars overhead. And as she did, heobserved her, realizing how entirely otherworldly she looked when she was in a more peaceful temper. Her skin glowed like a pearl, her slender neck possessed more grace than most people had in their entire bodies, and her air of calm radiated outward, putting him in a strange trance of calm.
“Their faces were rather satisfying,” she said, at last, with a note of amusement in her voice. “All through dinner, they were like little boys who had been scolded in front of everyone. I shall remember your good deed, My Lord.”
The spell broke, and he shook his head, dazed. “Does this mean you have changed your mind about my character? Am I… less of a loss than you thought?” He cleared his throat, hearing the odd thickness in it. “And, please, do not refer to me as ‘My Lord.’ Daniel will suffice.”
“My opinion has not changed,” she replied quietly, “but my manners would never allow me to be discourteous in the face of such chivalry. That is why I thanked you.”
Disappointment snaked through his chest, wrapping around his lungs, squeezing tightly. The calm she had impressed upon him evaporated, leaving behind a suffocating discomfort. What was worse, he could not explain why he was responding to her reply like that, and he was a man who liked to have an explanation for everything. All the details at his fingertips. It was part of what had made him so successful, knowing his business opponents’ next move before they were even thinking about it. But with her, he could not even predicthisnext move. She disoriented him, spinning his head in circles.
“Yes, well,” he said gruffly, “please do remember that I only aided you to be polite, and for your sister’s sake. I do not take kindly to others speakingunkindly about those who do not deserve it.”
She laughed softly. “And I do not deserve it, though I am forever in conflict with you?”
“No, you do not deserve to be insulted,” he insisted, his skin bristling at the memory of those gentlemen and their sour words. Yet, he could not admit that it was purely for Phoebe’s sake that he had leaped to her defense. He had not even thought of Joanna.
