To Distraction by Stephanie Laurens

Author:Stephanie Laurens [Laurens, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-10-03T09:53:26+00:00

Chapter 13

Phoebe stared out of the carriage window at the houses slipping past. Those hosting entertainments were well lit; guests were departing from some, the clop of horses’ hooves and the revelers’ gay voices ringing in the air. The evening was well advanced; a few blocks away in Mayfair, the haut ton would be gathering shawls and reticules and preparing to leave their balls.

She owned to a fleeting wish that she’d been among them and not facing a situation that could at best be termed difficult—but then Miss Spry would have been ruined. Jaw setting, Phoebe dragooned her wits into battle order and turned them on Deverell.

On how she was going to cope with him.

He was clearly going to be a very real problem. Indeed, after witnessing all he had that night, he’d become a real threat to her enterprise.

Tucked in the corner of the leather seat, her face turned from him, she was nevertheless aware of him beside her—of his hard body, warm and alive, of steely muscles coupled with an incisive mind. Of his strength, not just physical but on numerous other planes as well.

He would be a formidable adversary. Could he be converted into an ally?

Or if not that, could she at least persuade him to keep silent?

She couldn’t say; she would have to feel her way. The carriage turned down a quiet street. She inwardly grimaced. After he’d so blatantly used Fergus’s injury to jockey her into coming to his club—into meekly walking into the lion’s den—of one thing she felt sure: He would use whatever advantage fate handed him, wield whatever power he held and call in her mounting debts of gratitude to pressure her into telling him all—everything he wanted to know.

How to avoid that was what she needed to know.

The carriage slowed, then halted. Deverell leaned past her, opened the door, then stepped out. Turning, he offered his hand; clasping her fingers firmly, he helped her down to the pavement.

She looked about while he sent his lad—Grainger—hurrying up to the house. He returned in less than a minute with a footman; a precisely dressed, rotund, butlerlike individual followed.

While Grainger and the footman assisted Fergus from the carriage, overseen by the butler, Deverell led her up the paved path, past neat bushes and shrubs toward steps leading up to the house’s—club’s—front door. She glanced left and right; the building was similar to other houses on the street, in no way extraordinary. Number 12 Montrose Place flew no flag to indentify it as a club for wealthy gentlemen.

“This is your club?” She felt compelled to confirm that.

“Yes.” Deverell glanced back at the others. “The Bastion Club.”

He guided her up the steps and through the open front door. In the hallway—tiled and recently painted, fresh but rather austere, quite definitely masculine with its lack of ornamentation or anything as softening as a vase of flowers—he lingered, waiting for the others.

When all four were inside and the butler had shut the door, Deverell nodded toward Fergus, who seemed exhausted.

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