Lord Samhain's Night (2 page)

Then he tucked her hand into his arm and they returned to the house.

That evening, ever honest, Charlie told Rupert the state of affairs. Phoebe found out when Rupert told her.

"I'm sorry to put you in such a difficult situation," he said stiffly.

"It's nobody's fault, Rupert. I'm honored that you both want me to be your bride. It's very flattering. You both know all my faults."

"There's nothing about you that could offend anyone."

"Nothing?" she teased. "When you raked me down for a hoyden when I climbed the great elm last year."

He reddened slightly. "You could have broken your neck."

She took his hand. "Thank you for caring."

He laid his hand over hers. "I do care, Phoebe, but I can't compete with a title. I won't make it difficult for you..."

Phoebe took back her hand. "A title! Stop making a cake of yourself and insulting me. I tell you what I told Charlie. -- I may not choose either of you, but titles won’t weigh in the balance."

"You were well on your way to accepting me before Charlie spoke up."

"Perhaps," Phoebe demurred. In a spirit of fairness, she kissed him lightly on the lips.

He grasped shoulders and kissed her back, fiercely. "Choose
me
, Phoebe. Choose me."

She’d made no protest, but the kiss had unsettled her. It had been too... too needy.

And now Rupert’s story added to her disquiet. It had been edged. Intended to disrupt.  

As if offering an antidote, Charlie began a humorous story. He’d loosened his cravat, but Rupert was still neat as a pin. She could be as irritated by Rupert’s precision as by Charlie's easy-going indolence, but now both seemed irrelevant.

That kiss.

Don’t be a nod-cock. It’s good to be desired by a husband.

Did Charlie desire her? Despite the words "desirable woman" she saw no evidence of it. Perhaps she was just a convenience for him. It was time he wed, and what easier choice than the girl he had known all his life; a girl well liked by his mother and sisters?

Such a choice would be so like him.

The clocks began to chime midnight. "The witching hour!" declared Phoebe, pleased to leave her thoughts. "We have to do Samhain’s Choice."

At Halloween a lady could write the names of suitors on walnuts and throw them in the fire. If a nut burned with a steady flame the gentleman was true. If it cracked in the heat, he was proved inconstant. It was all in fun, but now Phoebe bit her lip.

She’d never had even one serious suitor to test, and now she had two, both present.

“Perhaps not this year,” she said.

"Face the truth, Phoebe," Rupert said, picking two walnuts from the bowl. "You should call these Rupert and Charlie."

"No, Rupert," Charlie said.

But Phoebe interrupted. "He's right. We should be honest. Perhaps Samhain, Lord of the Dead, will help me make my choice."

While Rupert wrote on the nuts, Charlie said, "It may not be wise to call on dead gods, Phee. Perhaps they only sleep and can be revived by our belief."

"Good." Phoebe leapt to her feet, arms in the air. "Rise again, Samhain! This is your night, this is your ceremony. Guide my hand."

Rupert stared at her, aghast. Phoebe snatched the nuts but then said. "If I’m to do this, you both should also tempt fate."

"You have no competition for our regard, Phoebe," Charlie said, but as a joke.

“There must be some lady in London whose ankles please you."

"Your latest mistress, perhaps?" offered Rupert.

The eyes of the two men clashed at this low blow.

But Charlie shrugged it off. "Sweet Clarissa? A charming nymph with perfect ankles, but not at all suitable as Countess of Kingsbury. There are other candidates." He wrote on two nuts. "Rupert?"

Phoebe could tell Rupert was already regretting his spiteful interjection. "Living so quietly here in the country, I cannot think of anyone other than Phoebe."

"No bucolic mistress in the village?" drawled Charlie.

Rupert flushed. "Certainly not."

"Nan Gresham will have to do, then. She is certainly not indifferent to you."

Rupert stiffened under this goading. "Since her season, she has many more important admirers than my poor self."

"But has married none of them."

Phoebe wanted to scream at them to stop it.

"I’ll put Nan's name," said Rupert, giving Phoebe one of his dark, speaking looks. "After all, Miss Gresham is the only lady in Hertfordshire who can begin to challenge Phoebe's attractions."

"Really Rupert," said Phoebe, "that's laying it on far too thick."

"`Beauty exists in the mind that contemplates it,'" he quoted.

"Only to a point," remarked Charlie. "I don't give a fig for Nan Gresham, but her stunning beauty still exists for me."

"Did you write her name too?" asked Phoebe, and was startled by the vinegary note in her voice. How had this pleasant tradition gone so astray? She was assailed by a sense that this should not be done, but rejected it. "Let's call on Samhain to make the choice."

"Phoebe..." Charlie protested, perhaps feeling the same unease.

"Get it over with,” Rupert said. “One, two, three..."

"
Samhain!"
they cried and threw their walnuts into the fire.

A god roared.

So the puny mortals took his name in vain. They would see what came of that, indeed they would.

~~~~

Phoebe, Charlie, and Rupert all stepped back from the sudden eerie flare, but then the fire settled.

"Just the draft of our movement," said Charlie somewhat uneasily.

Phoebe tracked her offerings. The nut marked Rupert fell in the center and quickly caught. The one marked Charlie rolled backward, toward the edge of the grate. For a moment she thought it would roll out of the fire entirely, and what that would auger, she didn't know, but then it settled against the iron fire-basket. Rupert was almost burned out, slowly and steadily as one would expect, whilst Charlie’s was scarcely singed.

Meanwhile one of Charlie's offerings snapped into two pieces. "Faithless wench," he remarked. “Both your sweethearts burn steadily, brother. Are you perhaps divided in your affections?"

"It’s merely that I have solid, steady qualities. A fribble such as you must expect to attract the shallow-hearted."

"The shallow-hearted are generally so very amusing, you see, so I don’t repine" He considered the fire and then rose. "The ancient gods did not revive for us, so I'm for bed, and poor Phoebe’s none the wiser."

At that moment the nut at the front of the hearth shattered into a hundred tiny pieces.

Silence fell. Phoebe considered the nut fragments scattered over the hearth, prey to a host of disturbing thoughts, then she glanced between the brothers. Rupert looked blank, doubtless trying to mask triumph. Charlie was frowning, but then he gave an elegant shrug. "I'm hardly surprised. As you say, I'm a fribble and surely an inconstant fellow at heart. Good night."

Phoebe watched with amazement as he sauntered out of the room.

Rupert tidied away some nut fragments from the carpet. "It’s but a silly superstition, Phoebe."

"But as good a pointer as any." Phoebe's chief and chilling thought was that Charlie had shrugged and walked away with an ease that proved the test true. He didn't truly care, whereas Rupert clearly cared very much indeed.

Rupert stood. "Do you mean you will marry me, Phoebe?"

She raised her chin. "Yes."

He smiled with heart-warming intensity and she told herself she must be doing the right thing to cause such happiness. He kissed her gently then escorted from the room.

As they crossed the chilly hall, that sense of rightness drained away. Shouldn't she feel more ecstatic? It must be the thought of announcing this engagement tomorrow that was cheating her of happiness. Charlie would be hurt.

Nonsense. The only thing that would hurt Charlie Brewis was having to exert himself to find a less convenient bride.

At her door, Rupert kissed her hand again. "I can hardly believe we will soon not have to part like this, my darling."

Phoebe could hardly believe it either. How strange to be contemplating the intimacies of marriage with one who was like a brother. She looked up at him. "Will you kiss me again, please, Rupert? Properly."

He smiled and did so. Phoebe pressed closer, opening her lips, trying to find something she needed for this to be right.

It eluded her.

He broke apart, rather flushed. "How passionate you are, sweetheart. We had best be married soon."

~~~~

Despite his words, they were not married soon. Lady Kingsbury was delighted by the engagement, but would not allow Phoebe to be married with less pomp than her true daughters. Winter weddings, she said, always gave a scrambling appearance. Easter would be soon enough. Perhaps by then, she remarked pointedly to Charlie, someone else would have chosen a bride and it could be a double ceremony.

Phoebe had become uncomfortable with the idea of living in Charlie's home as Rupert’s wife. The thought of welcoming his bride here made her rather ill.

At least the bickering was over. On November 1
^st
, Charlie had accepted the news of the engagement without a blink, toasted their future happiness, had a brief discussion with Rupert about settlements, and left. He’d returned briefly for Christmas, but then spent the whole hunting season in Melton. Probably with his Clarissa.

Phoebe could see she would have been a great fool to have chosen him, but she frequently felt a temptation to smash things.

Virtually alone in the big house, Rupert and Phoebe fell back into sibling ways, with no courting behavior. Perhaps this was why he often seemed morose. The winter passed, spring arrived, with Easter and the wedding racing toward them full tilt.

When Charlie wrote to say he was a house-guest at Belvoir Castle, and three times mentioned Nan Gresham as also being there, Lady Kingsbury began to talk again of a double ceremony. Rupert took the suggestion badly. Phoebe supposed it bothered him to have his rival beside him at the altar. It certainly bothered her.

Not that Nan was precisely a rival, but with her thick dark curls and perfect, vibrant features, Nan would outshine Phoebe at the wedding and then eclipse her in her home. She could see it now – Nan, Lady Kingsbury, toast of England, laughing and flirting with Charlie over the dinner table.

Phoebe knew she’d fade away from a complete inability to eat.

It was Phoebe's practice in the evenings to join Rupert in the estate office and sew as he recorded the business of the day. That evening she said, "Rupert, perhaps we should consider living elsewhere on the estate. We could build a house of our own. There will be ample funds."

He looked up. "Actually, I’ve been thinking I should purchase an estate of our own."

"Leave King's Chase?"

"It makes no sense for me to manage another man's estate when I can afford one of my own. It would be more comfortable for you if we have our own home."

"That's what I said, but..."

"It's the common thing, Phoebe." His tone was unusually sharp. "Most girls leave home when they marry. Even if we were to build a house near here, we would still be living in Charlie's pocket. With him feeling for you as he does, it would be unpleasant, both for him and for his bride."

Phoebe stabbed her needle through the cloth. "You can hardly mean Charlie is devastated at losing me."

"It is not in his nature to be devastated by a reverse, but I’m sure he feels the loss. A loss I can appreciate," he said with awkward gallantry, "being the gainer thereby. When I told him, he said that his consolation was that you would be in the care of a man he trusts."

"When you told him?" she queried.

"Of course I went to him that night and told him. He had guessed in any case."

Phoebe concentrated on setting another stitch. So when they'd announced the engagement, Charlie had been well prepared. "You mistake the matter if you think he felt keenly. It would not matter a fig to him if we were to live close by."

"You will permit me to know my brother."

"He didn’t show any particular dismay."

"He rarely shows how he feels. You know that, Phoebe. And he was holding back for fear he held an unfair advantage, that his title and fortune would weigh with you after all. He always was a stickler for fair play." He broke off with a sigh. "Trust me, Phoebe. We should leave King's Chase."

Everything was awry again, and in ways she found hard to understand. To be away was the main thing, however. "Very well. Will you set about looking for an estate straight away?"

“Of course.” Rupert settled back to his accounts and she to her sewing, but she felt almost sick.

Had she misread Charlie?

Had she misread Rupert too? From his behavior since their betrothal, she feared she had. She suspected his feelings for her did not run as deeply as she had thought.