A Porcelain Viscountess by Hazel Linwood

Chapter 26

The physician was still attending to Louisa and Mrs Goodman was talking to Constable Jenkins when Francis took Josiah’s arm and led him away from the group, a little distance from the house and further down the pebbled driveway.

“It was the Viscount. He started the fire and must have hit Louisa, afraid he would be discovered,” he said in a whisper.

“You are certain?” Josiah asked, glancing back to where Phoebe and Diana were sat close by Louisa’s side, listening to the physician.

“He left a message painted on the chamber wall. He said it was a warning and demanded I send Phoebe back to him.” Francis practically spat with the words for he was so angry. Josiah flinched as though Francis had struck him and began to run his hands frantically through his hair.

“We cannot stay here,” Josiah said, his manner becoming deadly serious.

“Agreed. We must get everyone out of here. Where do we go?”

“My country estate in Devon is two days’ ride. We should go there,” Josiah said with a firm nod. “There’s a coaching inn we always stay at on the way. We can stay there tonight.”

“That sounds for the best,” Francis agreed, looking back to the house. The fire was out, but who knew when the Viscount could come back for Phoebe now. “There is one thing I do not understand. Why not just come and take Phoebe? Why leave behind a warning?”

Josiah gripped his hair a few more times, pacing back and forth before he spun back to Francis, his eyes widening with a kind of realization.

“Oh, we’re fools.”

“What do you mean?” Francis asked, feeling that same anger still burning in his stomach.

“I mean you are a duke, Francis,” Josiah said, gesturing to him. “Say that Viscount Ridlington was able to figure out where Diana and I went, for he obviously has done. The first thing he would do is figure out whose house this is. A duke’s no less!”

“Could you hurry up and get to the point, please, my temper is running rather short at this moment,” Francis said in a harried whisper, aware the Phoebe was looking over to them with concern and he didn’t want to scare her any further.

“I mean if he appealed to the law for his wife’s return, the law is more likely to side with a duke than a viscount. It’s a twisted world, but it is the world we live in. Money and status pay. Even if he turned up at the door and demanded Phoebe come back, you could shut the door in his face. You outrank him, Francis. That’s why he’s willing to try and get her back by other means.” Josiah’s words made Francis reel back on his feet and grip his head with both hands.

“God’s wounds…what will he try next then?” he asked with fear.

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to stick around to find out. We leave. Now. This very minute!”

“Agreed.” Francis turned and hurried back to the physician. “Forgive me for the interruption, but is Louisa in a fit state to travel?”

“Your Grace,” the physician looked flustered by the interruption and hurried to bow before nodding. “Yes, fortunately her head wound is not as bad as yours was. She will have a bruise, but she is fortunate she has no concussion.”

“Good, thank you,” Francis said and turned his attention to the three ladies that were looking up at him in confusion. “We are leaving the estate. Now.”

“What? Why so soon?” Diana asked, standing to her feet. Francis turned his gaze on Phoebe who made no objection though her countenance shifted, and she bit her lip.

“He did it, didn’t he?” she said in a breathless whisper. None of them needed to say the name to know who they were talking of.

“He did,” Francis said slowly. “He left a message, that is why we cannot waste a moment. I will leave none of you in danger. We are going.”

“Come on, Diana,” Josiah said, helping his wife to his feet. Diana made no further objection and nodded, following him.

“Mrs Goodman?” Francis called to the housekeeper. “If you would be so good as to arrange for bags for us all to be packed as soon as possible please.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” she curtsied and hurried off to see to the task. Francis turned his attention back to Phoebe and Louisa as the physician retreated from them.

“What did he say?” Phoebe asked, still in her place sat down on the low-lying garden wall. “In his message?”

“It was a warning, that is all.” Francis reached for Louisa and helped her to her feet. “You are certain you are well enough to travel?”

“Yes, thank you, Your Grace,” she said with a small smile. “I owe you my life.”

“Think nothing of it.” Francis assured her, tapping her shoulder before he reached for Phoebe and helped her to her feet too. “We must leave as soon as we can, before he comes back for you again.”

“You do not think he’ll still be here?” Phoebe said, clutching tightly to his hand and looking back and forth around the estate.

“No. He will have crept in, set the fire and run, but the Constable can stay to do a search if he wishes. We are getting out of here.”

“Where?” she said in surprise.

“Devon.”

“Devon? So far away!”

“Not to me. Not far enough to my mind.” He kept hold of her hand as he walked off, taking her with him. He found the groom for the stable nearby and began to put in arrangements for their trip.

“All the carriages, Your Grace?” the groom said in surprise. “Why all of them?”

“Because I want each of the carriages to set off in different directions. I want it to be a mass of confusion, understood?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the groom nodded, though he was still bewildered. Francis turned his eyes on Phoebe, seeing she had the same confusion in her face.

“I want to reduce the chances of your husband finding us again. With so many carriages to follow instead of one, maybe we can escape him.”

* * *

The inn was hardly the grandest of affairs, but at this moment Phoebe would have gotten down on her hands and knees and praised its existence. They had been travelling in the carriage for hours, right into the dead of the night with the darkness swathed around them. They were all exhausted and achy from having been in the carriage so long, in particular Louisa and Francis looked tired, thanks to their recent injuries, though both denied they were.

As they headed into the inn, Phoebe was aware of Francis keeping his hand in hers. They checked into the inn using her false name of Lady Isabella, hoping to maintain the illusion of her being someone else for a little longer, though Phoebe thought it futile. If Graham found her once, surely, he could find her again?

The innkeeper was very solicitous and served them all a light supper in a dining room before they began to drift off to their beds. Before Phoebe could take her leave though, Francis pulled on her hand, begging her to tarry a little longer first. She nodded, showing she understood as they said goodnight to Lord and Lady Dodge. After the door closed behind them, she was left alone with Francis once again.

“You look tired,” she said as he re-took a seat at the dining table, turning the high-backed chair to face her fully as she sat down too.

“I feel it,” he said, rubbing the bags under his eyes. “But I will get no rest until I have asked you something first.”

“Ask me what?” she said softly, waiting as he lowered his hands from his face and set his eyes upon her again. For a minute, neither of them said anything, they just gaze at once another, leaving her to dwell on what he had said to her earlier that day before he ran back into his house to stop the fire.

He is in love with me!

Such a thing she hadn’t dared to hope for, but now it had been said, she was eager to jump out of her chair and fall into his arms, just to tell him that she loved him too.

“Your husband is a demon, Phoebe,” Francis said eventually, his voice so quiet and strained that she had to lean forward to hear him. “I cannot imagine ever letting him get near you again, but he has already proved himself more than capable of finding us once.”

“I know,” she said, trying to hide the true extent of her fear, but it was no good, her hands trembled regardless. He reached out and took those hands in his, resting his elbows on his knees as he did so. With their palms pressed together, the trembling began to fade.

“I have a proposition for you,” he whispered. “A way that you could escape that man forever, and you and I…could stay together.”

“You do? How?” she said excitedly, leaning toward him with sudden hope.

“Come away with me.” His words didn’t register at first. She had to blink a few times before her mind worked to catch up.

“Away? Where?”

“To the continent.” He leaned forward even more, nearly falling out of his seat as he clung onto her hands. “Run away with me. We’ll go abroad. We’ll go to Egypt, to Paris, to Italy, all those places you wanted to see, and I have always promised I’d devote my life to seeing. We could be happy together.”

“But…living together as what?” she asked, frowning a little. He didn’t answer at first, he hung his head and stared down at their joint hands, entwining their fingers together. “I see,” she said softly, having no wish to take her hands out of his. “And you’d be willing to risk your reputation in that way? Running off to live a life with a married woman?”

“In a heartbeat,” he said, lifting his eyes to hers again. She smiled a little at these words, feeling the warmth that his love could bring spreading through her.

“I love you,” she whispered, confessing what she didn’t have time to tell him earlier.

“Phoebe,” he said her name with relief and moved toward her, loosening one of her hands from his so he could lift his hand to her face and pull her toward him. He was about to kiss her again, how she wanted that kiss, but she couldn’t take it. She placed her hand in the center of his chest and stopped him from coming any closer.

“It is because I love you that I cannot say yes.” Her words made a heavy silence fall between them that was broken after a minute by Francis’ panicked tone.

“I do not understand.”

“I could not do it to you, Francis. You’d be a duke living in sin forever more with a married woman. You’d be ostracized wherever you went! Insulted, vilified, even. I couldn’t do that to you. It would be destroying your life as you know it.” The conviction swam inside her with these words. She knew she could never be so cruel to him as to accept his offer. “I wish to say yes, to be with you, of course I do, but I could not condemn you to that stained life. I love you too much for that.”

It was not difficult to see the heartbreak on his face. He turned his head downward and tears pooled in his eyes, prompting tears to spring to her own eyes and blur her vision. He lifted her hand and kissed the back, holding onto that kiss for longer than usual, until the tears began to slip down her cheeks.

“Let me know if you change your mind, Phoebe.” He stood to his feet and left her there. “Good night.”

The moment he was gone, Phoebe’s tears came harder.

* * *

“My lady, please, you have to sleep.”

“How can I sleep?” Phoebe said, fidgeting on the side of the bed. She was sat in her nightgown on the very edge of the bed in the new room they had taken for the night at the inn. Her restless gaze passed around the room, jumping between the white curtains that were pulled tight across the tall windows, and the small fireplace in which the old fire was dying down to embers.

Phoebe wrapped her arms around her body, holding tightly onto herself as she bowed her head forward, letting her loose hair fall past her shoulders.

“How can I find peace again?” Phoebe muttered.

“You must, my lady,” Louisa said, coming and sitting at her side. “We are safe here. Hayward and the Marquess took great pains to get us here unnoticed. We are safe!”

Phoebe couldn’t believe it. Not when the bruise on Louisa’s head was so clear to see.

“How is your head?”

“I am perfectly well now,” Louisa assured her. “Now, into bed.” Louisa urged her to stand and pulled back the bed cover, practically pushing Phoebe inside in her eagerness to see her sleep.

Phoebe climbed in, but reluctantly, pulling the covers up to her neck stiffly and struggling to snuggle down into the bed. Louisa tucked a warmed bedpan under the covers then moved a candle to Phoebe’s bedside. Just before she blew it out, Phoebe held out a hand above the covers.

“Oh no, keep it lit for a little longer,” she pleaded, unwilling to see the room swathed in darkness just yet.

“As you wish, my lady,” Louisa said with a sad sort of smile before tapping her hand in reassurance. “You do not need to be scared anymore. They are taking us far away from London, and far away from the Viscount. He won’t be able to find you here.”

I wish I could believe it.

“Good night, Louisa,” Phoebe said softly.

“Good night, my lady.” Louisa padded toward the door and left, closing it softly behind her with the latch. The moment she was gone, Phoebe lifted the covers over her head, even with the light of the candle keeping her company, she felt lonely and isolated in the room.

“I will never really be free of him, will I?” she whispered to herself under the covers. She knew that no matter how long she fought for this divorce, Graham was not going to give up battling her. He’d set Hayward’s house on fire in desperation to scare her back home. It was always going to be the way now, she knew it.

She was unsure how long she stayed awake, but it had to be for hours, as she kept tossing and turning, completely incapable of finding any kind of comfort in the cot bed, though it had far more to do with what was on her mind that the state of the bed. More than once did she pull down the covers to look at the candle, and she could see the flame burning down the wax, until soon there was just a small nub of wax in the brass holder.

She fixed her eyes on the candle and found them slowly drifting closed, at last sleep was finding her, drawing her into its deep depths.

Phoebe could feel herself dreaming. There were no words, and not much happened in the dream, but there were lots of pictures. She was back at the duke’s estate, riding with Francis as she had done on her first day atop Cantante. Then she was in his house, having dinner with him. Finally, she was in the drawing room, where he had knelt before her and kissed her, showing her what a kiss could be like.

There was a sound. The thud made the dream vanish and Phoebe’s eyes shot open.

She searched for the candle, but the light had gone out. All she could just about make out in the darkness was the curling tendril of smoke seeping away from the candle wick, suggesting it had either burnt itself out completely, or…someone had blown it out.

Terrified it was the latter, she pulled back in the bed, trying to push herself as close as possible toward the wall and away from the room. Her eyes danced about the place, trying to readjust to the darkness that was lit by the tiniest slither of moonlight that bled through the gap between the curtains.

Nothing moved and there was no other sound beyond Phoebe’s own stuttered breathing. Then there was a second thud. Her head darted to the side, angling toward the sound. A shadowy figure began to move across the room.

Phoebe scrambled back in the bed, trying to sit up as the figure walked toward her, hulking and slowly approaching her.

“No, no, go away,” she said hurriedly. She opened her mouth, about to scream and call for Louisa, for anyone who could be close enough by to hear her, but the figure leapt toward her.

In the darkness she couldn’t make out their face, but she felt their hand latch over her mouth, clamping her lips shut and preventing her from making any sound beyond a whimper against their palm. She wriggled against the grasp, trying to be free as his other hand came up and grabbed her wrists, taking hold of both of them. She bit his hand, forcing him to release her for just a second.

“Graham, let me go!” she shouted, but the hand came back over her mouth, muffling her cries before she could make any other sound.

“No, Phoebe. It’s me.”

That is not Graham’s voice.