“Miss Wallington.” Redgrave’s voice was low, but firm.
Phoebe glanced from him to the two women who had remained mute throughout the meeting. “Ladies,” she said, “I had not intended to entertain today. Good day.”
With that, she quit the room.
*****
Three days later, Phoebe closed the door to the drawing room and Alistair turned from the window overlooking the gardens.
"Where is Susan?" he asked. "Isn't she to accompany us to Lady Halsey's party?"
Phoebe hurried across the room.
"You look beautiful," he said, when she reached him.
She shook her head. "I have decided not to go."
"But you're dressed."
"Alistair, you are well aware that the only reason I received this invitation is because of my engagement to Ashlund. Lady Halsey has never before invited to me to one of her parties. I don't move in her circles."
"That has changed," he replied.
"I'm in no mood for a party."
“So you have said for the last three days. It's time you resign yourself to the notion.”
“Resign myself to the notion of spying on the marquess, you mean,” she said in a whisper.
“Your engagement will circumvent the gossip that is sure to ruin you. Cut off the beast at its head, sort to speak.”
“That is not the head I would choose to cut off."
"I understand your consternation."
"Consternation?" She grimaced. "You have a talent for understating a situation, my lord."
"Better that than melodrama," he replied
"You haven't heard anything on Ashlund's whereabouts?" She would have liked to believe the marquess had changed his mind about marrying her, but that, she suspected, would be too good to be true. "I don't like the fact that we haven't heard anything from him." Or her uncle, for that matter.
"Once I hear from my man, I'll fill you in on the marquess' movements. Alistair's expression gentled. "We have no proof that Ashlund has committed any crime. If he is an honorable man, you could do worse."
“By all accounts I have made the match of the decade," Phoebe said, "perhaps even the century.” She was suddenly struck by a thought. "You don't believe he's guilty." Redgrave didn't immediately answer, and she said, "I've known you all my life, Alistair. You would never try to marry me off to a criminal." Would you?
"I am slow to come to judgment in such matters." He smiled. "You, of all people, can understand why."
"I do. Only, you weren't there, you didn't see what I saw." Kiernan MacGregor telling her to mind her own business…Kiernan MacGregor blind with rage when he attacked Robbie, and Kiernan MacGregor holding her until her dizzy spell passed…then him tucking her into bed.
“Is marriage so terrible?” Redgrave asked.
Phoebe stirred from the memories. “Marriage isn't in my plans.”
He sighed. “Have you considered putting the past behind you, letting your father’s memory rest?”
Stafford’s letters came to mind. The memory of what she read in the remaining documents brought a chill just as it had the first time she read them. Was what Stafford said true? Had Alistair kept her in the dark all these years about the truth concerning her father?
“No,” she replied. “I won't stop until I have my answers.”
“As you wish. Cry off from the marquess—when the time is right, not before.”
“Yes,” she replied caustically. “I understand my duty."
"Do you?"
"I agreed to spy for England, now I can't renege because it's too hard."
"Or too personal."
She gave a deferential cant of her head.
“Whatever transpires with Ashlund, I advise you to forget the past," he said. "Keep the memory of your father with you always—though we both know his memory has interfered with your life. If not for this obsession, you would have married long ago.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You changed after Brandon.”
Phoebe felt as if she’d been slapped. There was no denying his words, though she hadn’t thought anyone knew. Redgrave must have read her mind, for he said, “Don't look so surprised. I am a master at keeping secrets. I may have taught you all you know, but I haven't taught you all I know.”
Indeed? her mind fired back.
Would her father’s oldest friend really keep quiet and allow him to keep the name of traitor? What would her father think if he knew she was being forced to marry a man who was in all likelihood a traitor?