Scandalous Innocent Read Free Page A

usual procedure for a young lady in her position would have been to go and live with her nearest relative, but wild horses could not have dragged her up to Manchester to live with an aged widowed aunt who had made no contact in all Phoebe’s thirteen years. So she remained in the care of Mrs Overshott who, while being distant in relationship terms, was devoted to her, and sensible of her privileged position. And although the house at Mortlake was too large for them, Phoebe clung to it as to a life raft, being the one place where the spirit of her beloved brother still remained. The people of Mortlake gave her their support in every way possible, but there was only so much they could do to ease her grief.
    Predictably, those traumatic events left their mark on her, not least of which was a feeling of guilt at being the only one left in the family, as if she had somehow been marked out for special treatment. Why her? Why had she been left the wealth that they had worked so hard to acquire? And what had her brother meant when he had told her he had to get something for her? Was it her fault he had died? No one, it seemed, could provide an acceptable answer to that, or to the dark troubles that haunted her adolescent years. She grew into the kind of beauty that brought her instant attention, and friends, and power to sail through the teething pains of youth at too fast a pace, taking whatever was offered before it could be snatched away from her again.
    The one person to whom life had also dealt some unkindness, the one Phoebe would talk to about herself, was Elizabeth, then the Countess of Dysart. She too had had a stormy upbringing during the violent Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell when her father had had to escape danger and leave her mother to hold Ham House against possession by soldiers, alone with four daughters, three of whom had disabilities. Elizabeth, the only healthy one, had married Sir Lionel Tollemache, but had lost all but five of her eleven children. Yet she had always had time for Phoebe whenever Phoebe could find time for her.
    Elizabeth wished it had been oftener, especially after hearing how the blossoming young beauty had attracted the attentions of young blades on the lookout for wealthy wives, particularly innocent and helpless ones with no parents to get in the way. No warnings could slow Phoebe down. Her reputation as a wild beauty reached the Royal Court. No event was complete without her. Elizabeth had heard how Mistress Phoebe Laker was living life as if, without any warning, it might all come to a violent end before she could sample its gifts, and not even Elizabeth could make her understand that life’s gifts have a price, and that some of them are more expensive than others. It was only Mrs Overshott’s gentle restraint that saved Phoebe from acquiring more than a reputation for wildness.
    Moving through to the new south side of the house, Phoebe was impressed by the size, the opulence, the vivid colour schemes that were the Duchess’s hallmark. ‘We’ve doubled the size,’ the Duchess said, proudly. ‘Come through to the new dining room. I think you’ll like it.’
    The Duke and Sir Leo followed. ‘You’d better say you do, lass,’ the Duke mumbled, ‘or there’ll be nothing but bread and water for your dinner.’
    ‘Nonsense!’ his wife chided him, simpering a little. ‘How could she not like it? This is the smaller of the two, Phoebe. The larger one is above the hall. Well, one cannot entertain royalty in a room of this size, can one? And the hall is really not convenient any more,’ she said to the Duke’s shaking head.
    Privately, Phoebe thought that the continuation of the black-and-white chequered floor might have been better changed to polished wood. But the Duchess’s conspicuous display of wealth was, she supposed, a reaction to those early years of childbearing when the Civil War had prevented any thoughts of spending except on essentials. Now, it was as if she was