"Yes, Mama and Meredith were kind enough to visit today." Phoebe handed him his cup of tea. She was about to explain her brilliant plan when she heard a familiar footstep in the hall. It was accompanied by an equally familiar voice.
"Where the hell is my daughter?"
"That will be Clarington," Lydia murmured. "It's about time he got here."
Gabriel frowned. "What the devil does he want?"
The door burst open again and Clarington stomped into the room. He gave Phoebe a quick assessing glance and then rounded on Gabriel.
"I understand you have been beating my daughter, sir."
"Not yet," Gabriel said dryly. "I admit the temptation has been there on a couple of occasions, but thus far I have resisted."
"Damnation, what is this about, locking her up inside her own house, then?" Clarington demanded.
"Phoebe has become extremely interested in domestic matters of late and has developed a preference for home and hearth," Gabriel said. He gave Phoebe a challenging smile. "Is that not right, my dear?"
"That is certainly one way of putting it," Phoebe said demurely. "Will you have a cup of tea, Papa?"
"No, thank you. On my way to a meeting of the Analytical Society." Clarington shot a sharp, questioning glance at each of the members of his family. "Everything all right, then?"
Lydia smiled sweetly. "Everything is just fine between Phoebe and Wylde, dear. But there appears to be a slight problem with that odious Neil Baxter."
Clarington glowered at Gabriel. "Damnation, man, why don't you do something about Baxter?"
"I intend to," Gabriel said.
"Excellent. I shall leave Baxter to you, then. You seem quite capable of dealing with that sort of problem. If you need my assistance, feel free to call on me. In the meantime, I must be off." Clarington nodded at his wife and walked out of the drawing room.
Phoebe waited until her father had left and then she smiled very brightly at Gabriel. "I have some wonderful news, Wylde. Mama and Meredith are going to help me track down the truth about Neil Baxter. Never fear, we shall get to the bottom of this."
"Bloody hell." Gabriel choked on the tea he had just swallowed. Anthony walked across the room and pounded him helpfully between the shoulders.
"Don't look so stunned, Wylde," Anthony said as Gabriel coughed and sputtered. "You should know by now that there is rarely a dull moment around Phoebe."
Chapter 19
Gabriel managed to restrain himself until his in-laws had finally departed. The moment the last of the clan was out the door, he confronted Phoebe.
"You will put this insane notion of investigating Baxter out of your brain immediately," he said. "I will not have you getting involved in this."
"I am already involved," Phoebe pointed out. "And in any event, it will be Mama and Meredith who do the investigating. I have been forbidden to leave the house, if you will recall."
He wanted to shake her. "You don't understand how dangerous Baxter is."
"Mama and Meredith are not going to take any risks," Phoebe said soothingly. "They are merely going to make a few inquiries. Mama will bring up Neil's name over a hand of whist and Meredith will mention it to some doddering old peer who is in his cups at one of her soirees."
"I don't like it." Gabriel started to pace the drawing room. "I already have Stinton working on the matter."
"Stinton cannot move about in Society the way Mama and Meredith can."
"Your brother and I will deal with Society."
Phoebe shook her head. "You and Anthony will not be able to get gossip out of Mama's card-playing cronies. And Meredith can talk to people at her parties in a way you and Anthony could not. Admit it, Gabriel. My plan to investigate Neil is extremely clever."
Gabriel ran a hand through his hair and gazed at Phoebe in frustration. The worst of it was he knew she was right. Lady Clarington and Meredith could probe in ways that he and Anthony could not. "I still don't like it."
"I know you don't, Gabriel. It is because you are worried about me. It is very sweet of you."
"Sweet?"
"Yes. But I am perfectly safe here in the house and Mama and Meredith will not be in any danger so long as they merely ask a few discreet questions. Admit it."
"Perhaps," he said reluctantly. "But the thought of your family getting involved in all this makes me extremely uneasy."
Phoebe got to her feet and walked across the room to stand looking up at him. A gentle, rather wistful smile played about her soft mouth. "Do you know what your problem is, Gabriel?"
He eyed her warily. "What?"
"You are not accustomed to being part of a family. You have been on your own for so long you don't understand what it means to have others around who care about you. You don't know what it is to have people about who are always on your side, regardless of the circumstances."
"This is your family we are talking about, not mine," he muttered. "They arc rallying around you, not me."
"It amounts to the same thing now. As far as they are concerned, you're a member of the family because you are married to me." Phoebe's smile widened. "You must face the fact that you are no longer alone in the world, Gabriel."
No longer alone. He looked down into her warm eyes and felt something inside him start to loosen and untwist. Instinctively he resisted the hint of weakness he sensed within himself. That way lay disaster. He must not let emotion rule him.
"You think this is just another grand adventure, don't you, Phoebe? None of you knows what Baxter is really like." Gabriel paused, thinking it through. "But I suppose there is little I can do to stop your mother and Meredith from asking their questions. Perhaps they will learn something useful. In the meantime, you are to stay here in the house."
Phoebe made a face. "Yes, my lord."
Gabriel smiled briefly, in spite of his dark, uneasy mood. He clamped his hands around Phoebe's shoulders, pulled her close, and dropped a quick, hard kiss on her forehead. "Remind me to add ten pounds to your quarterly allowance."
"Why are you increasing my allowance by ten pounds? I am not short of funds."
"I owe you the ten pounds. It is in the nature of a debt of honor." Gabriel released her and started toward the door. "Your brother wagered that amount that you would not obey my command to stay inside the house. As 1 fully intend to collect from him, I feel it's only fair to give the money to you. After all, I could not have won without your assistance."
Phoebe gasped in outrage. "You won a wager based on the fact that I obeyed you? How dare you." She launched herself across the room, grabbed an embroidered pillow off the sofa, and hurled it straight at Gabriel's head.
Gabriel did not bother to turn around. He put up a hand and caught the pillow as it sailed past his ear. "I congratulate you, my dear. At the rate you are going, we shall soon turn you into a paragon of wifely virtue."
"Never."
Gabriel grinned to himself as he went out the door. He hoped she was right.
Two hours later Gabriel was no longer grinning. He walked through the door of the nondescript tavern and quickly scanned the small, nearly empty room. Stinton was sitting at a table, waiting for him. Gabriel crossed the wooden floor and sat down in the chair across from the little man.
"I got your message," Gabriel said without any preamble. "What is this about?"
"I don't rightly know, yer lordship." Stinton lifted his mug and took a deep swallow of beer. "But you asked me to hire a boy to keep an eye on yer town house while I was tryin' to dig up information on Mr. Baxter. I took the liberty of usin' my son for the job. Might as well keep the income in the family, if you see what I mean."