Page 56 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
“‘Course, ye need not worry so much about protecting your reputation. It won’t matter a jot in the end. Ye’ll never be no marchioness. That Lord Varnais don’t love ye no more than Master Ewan ever did. He’ll but use ye?—”
“I said get out!” Phaedra advanced upon Hester, not quite sure what she might have done had the housekeeper not at last shown the good sense to back away from her. She bobbed an insolent curtsy.
“Aye, just as ye wish, yer ladyship.”
As the woman marched out the door, Phaedra sank down upon the gilt chair, cursing herself. She had allowed Hester to get the better of her again, drive her to anger just when she had fancied herself immune to the woman’s vicious barbs.
The creature must indeed be a witch, searching out Phaedra’s heart with her hag’s gaze. When one tender area had healed, sheknew just where to direct a new thrust. That Lord Varnais don’t love ye ... he’ll but use ye.
Phaedra slammed the palm of her hand upon the dressing table. She would let no more of Hester’s poison enter her heart. The housekeeper was nothing but an embittered, jealous old woman. Phaedra would not allow one particle of her happiness to be snatched away by Hester’s grasping fingers.
She tried to resume brushing her hair. But she found herself staring at the golden-haired shepherdess perched before her. It was as though Hester’s malice had tainted even her enjoyment of that, the figurine’s eyes appearing sad, the hue of the lips as crimson as a slash of blood. Phaedra seized the statue and buried it deep in the dressing table drawer.
Twelve
The memory of her quarrel with Hester clung in Phaedra’s mind like finely spun cobwebs, refusing to be brushed aside. Even days later, as she jounced through London in the faded splendor of a hackney coach, she found herself thinking about Mrs. Searle.
Perhaps it was the evening fog that swirled about the carriage, turning the familiar streets of London into a nightmare world of illusion, of lurking mists that kept reminding Phaedra of Hester. Or perhaps it was the knowledge of the risk she took in being out alone, on a mission of just the sort of secrecy the spying housekeeper would most have liked to discover.
Nervously, Phaedra patted the packet that contained the writing she soon hoped to deliver into Jessym’s hands. She was supposed to be taking tea with Jonathan. Her plan was to drop off the packet and continue on to Jonathan’s house in Cheapside before her absence could be noticed. She knew her friend would willingly lie to cover her activities, but Phaedra had no desire to place Jonathan in such an awkward position.
She did not intend for her business with Jessym to take long. Phaedra adjusted the heavy veil over her face, trusting that the fine black silk would obscure her features when she thrust themanuscript out the coach window. She would not alight from the carriage, thus keeping Jessym from studying her at any great length.
Leaning forward, Phaedra risked a peek out the hackney’s grimy window to see if she could determine how close they might be to Fleet Street. But the fog blanketed everything, drawing down the curtain of night far sooner than she had anticipated. The few other carriages that dared risk travel on such an evening clattered past her and disappeared like shadow riders into the thick mists; even the clop of the horses’ hooves was muted into a dreamlike unreality.
Many of the town houses had already lit their oil lamps, which the law required them to burn above the pavement in an effort to discourage the rogues who roved London’s streets by night. This eve, the lamps flickered dimly in the graying haze. The illumination did not even reach the center of the street where the hackney coach ambled, leaving Phaedra feeling cut adrift in a sea of darkness far from the welcoming beacon of any shore.
She huddled back against the seat, wondering why she had not asked Armande to accompany her, why even now she did not trust him enough to tell him the truth of Robin Goodfellow’s identity. She was certain he was no longer angry about the article she had written maligning his pose as the Marquis de Varnais. She had never even heard him mention Robin Goodfellow again since that day they had met by the bookseller’s in Oxford Street. Then why not confide in him as she had Gilly and Jonathan?
Perhaps it was because, deep down in her heart, she feared Hester was right. Armande did not love her, was indeed planning to use her for some sinister purpose of his own.
No! She nearly cried aloud in her vehemence to deny it. How could she yet doubt the soft glow she had seen in Armande’s eyes when he looked at her, the tenderness of his kiss? Shewould think no more about what Hester had said. The woman’s malicious whispers about Armande were more of the poison festering inside Hester’s own wretched heart.
Phaedra was thrown slightly off-balance as the coach lurched to a stop. Through the haze she glimpsed a plain, straight building of ugly red brick, grim’ and uninviting. The hackney driver swung down from his perch, yanking the door open.
“This be it, milady. The address where you asked to be set down.”
“No, I didn’t,” Phaedra protested, the mist threatening to seep into the hackney’s interior, leaving her damp and chilled.”I mean, could you please knock at the door and request a Mr. Jessym to come out to me?”
The driver scowled, and it took a great deal of effort to persuade him-almost as though he feared Phaedra meant to make off with his cab and horse the minute his back was turned. By adding a considerable tip to the fare, an expense she could ill afford, she convinced the coachman to fetch Jessym.
When he had gone, she fussed with her veil, making sure not so much as one strand of red hair was showing. Her fingers felt slick with perspiration within her tan kid gloves. What if Jessym, accustomed to dealing with Gilly, refused to have anything to do with her?
The moments dragged by slowly. Phaedra was beginning to fear she had come to the wrong address when the driver returned, followed closely by a short man wrapped in a navy greatcoat and wearing a gray powdered bagwig.
Momentarily, Phaedra forgot all caution as she let down the coach window, straining for her first glimpse of Farley Jessym. The middle-aged man who thrust his face close to the coach window was quite ordinary in appearance, with a hard set to his mouth and a look of jaded weariness in his eyes. When he spoke,his voice was sharp, startling Phaedra into backing away from the window.
“Eh, what nonsense is this? What do you want that you summon me out into the streets from my home?”
She thrust the packet containing her writing out the window. “From Robin Goodfellow,” she rasped in a deep voice.
Jessym’s brow arched, his cynical face registering a flash of surprise. He yanked the packet from her grasp. Much to Phaedra’s dismay, he jerked the hackney’s door open, as well. She shrank back as Jessym leaned inside, his eyes narrowed as though he would penetrate both the gloom-filled interior and the layerings of her veil.
“So now I’m to deal with a wench, am I?” he growled. “What happened to the Irishman?”
Phaedra shrugged, trying to avoid speaking any more than was necessary.
Jessym muttered an oath. “Well, you can tell Mr. Goodfellow for me, I’m a bit weary of all this secrecy. I like to know who my writers are.”
