Page 74 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
“Aye, for all the good it did. Even that locked box of his which looked so promising yielded nothing.”
“You pried into Armande’s wooden chest?”
“You needn’t look at me as if I stole something of value from the man. All I found in the box was this.” Gilly fumbled for something tucked in his inner pocket.
Phaedra blanched with horror. “Gilly, you shouldn’t have taken anything from his room! Whatever it is, you must put it back before Armande finds it missing.”
“Not until you’ve seen it. It is nothing to make such a great fuss about, unless you can see more significance in a pretty bit of porcelain than I do.”
“Porcelain?” Phaedra repeated. Her brow furrowed in puzzlement until she focused on the delicate object Gilly balanced in his hand. It was a shepherd boy with curling dark hair and blue eyes. There might have been a dozen such ornaments to be found upon the shelves in London’s great houses, but the style of this particular one had a flair all its own. Phaedra knew immediately whose hand had wrought that delicate statue.
She stared at it until the entire room blurred. As from a great distance, she heard Gilly’s voice calling to her. “Fae? Phaedra! It is only china, not a blasted ghost.”
But Gilly was utterly wrong. That was exactly what he clutched between his fingers, a ghost from seven years past. Its phantom twin was buried upstairs in her dressing table drawer.
The light from the small candle in Gilly’s hand provided feeble illumination, hardly enough to hold at bay the engulfing darkness of her bedchamber. Yet it was sufficient for her task. The taper’s soft glow flickered across ‘the two sculptures Phaedra set side by side atop her dressing table-the winsome shepherd lass with her melancholy smile reunited at last with her mate, the sad-eyed shepherd boy playing upon his pipes in a pose so lifelike Phaedra half-expected the haunting melody to fill her room. Works of art, both of them, fitting gifts to have delighted the monarch Franz Joseph and his sister, the lovely Marie Antoinette.
Instead the figurines served as a memorial to another brother and sister, James and Julianna Lethington. Phaedra told Gilly all she knew of the Lethington tragedy, from Julianna’s hopeless love for Ewan which had led to her destruction, to James’s own death upon the gallows.
When she had finished, Gilly touched the head of the porcelain shepherdess almost as though he caressed a living thing, his green eyes bright with compassion. “And now,” he said, “you know what became of the younger brother.”
Phaedra’s gaze flew to the shadowy outline of the door leading to Armande’s chamber. She still wanted to deny that Armande was Jason Lethington, but there was too much evidence against him.
Besides his cherishing the shepherd figurine, there was his extraordinary knowledge of the processes that went into making china, and the flash of pain in his eyes that long-ago day when he had recognized the dove-gray cloak belonging to Julianna. Phaedra realized with anguished clarity what torment she had put Armande through when she had had him arrested andcarted off to Newgate. The prison’s grim interior had reminded him, he had said, of the death of a friend. Not a friend, but his own brother, James.
“Forgive me, my love,” she murmured. She had been privileged this summer for an all-too-brief time, to glimpse the young man that Jason Lethington must have been, the blue eyes formed for laughter, the sensitive mouth for tenderness. Now that she understood the bitter sorrow that had made it possible for him to transform himself into the icy marquis, she grieved for him. Aye, and feared for him at the same time.
“Hester likely found the shepherd,” Gilly mused aloud. “After seeing the piece you had, she must have guessed the significance of it, threatened Armande with exposure, and he?—”
Her cousin broke off, his hand clamping down over hers, giving it a fierce squeeze. Gilly’s face bore no trace of his former belligerence, only a sadness that matched her own.
“I understand what you’re feeling for the man, Fae. The poor devil. He’s endured more than enough grief to drive any man to madness. And Madam Pester only got what she’s long deserved.”
Gilly stroked the back of his fingers along the curve of her cheek. “But no matter what pity I might feel, I can’t take the chance that he might hurt you. If he realizes that you also know his secret?—”
“He would never harm me,” she said. “Just because of what his brother did, you talk as if murder runs in his blood. After some of the things I have done to him, Armande had cause and more to—I mean Jason had …” She halted in confusion, raking her fingers through her hair, not knowing what to call the man. She took refuge in the one fact she was sure of, saying fiercely, “He loves me, Gilly.”
“Mayhap he does. But even if he does not seek to silence you, he could harm you in other ways.”
She shook her head, wanting to convince her cousin he was wrong. But she couldn’t. Too oft had she received similar warnings from Armande himself. How hard had he struggled to put distance between them because of his fear of hurting her.
“You’ve not thought this through, Fae,” Gilly persisted. “What do you imagine Jason Lethington is doing here in your grandfather’s house, pretending to be some French marquis?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly.
“He could only have one motive-revenge against those that destroyed his family. With Ewan dead, that leaves only one man Lethington might yet hold accountable, the old gaffer.”
Gilly’s suggestion chilled her. “My grandfather? Don’t be ridiculous. He was not involved in the feud between the Granthams and Lethingtons. All he did was arrange my marriage to Ewan.”
“For a man bent on vengeance, that might be enough.”
“But he saved my grandfather’s life.” Phaedra’s argument faltered as she remembered Armande’s strange behavior that night. He had refused to be thanked for his deed, and even then she had marked in him a shade of regret that amounted almost to self-disgust. She recalled his cryptic words-that he had come to London with but one purpose in mind, and he feared that she would hate him when he had done.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “If Armande has come to the Heath to harm my grandfather, why hasn’t he done so? He’s had plenty of opportunities.”
“There still may be much we don’t understand. Hester’s ramblings about the Lethingtons and this—” Gilly picked up the shepherd, “doesn’t offer proof of Jason’s identity. We have to attempt to turn back time, by about seven years.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Phaedra asked.
