Free Almost a Gentleman by Pam Rosenthal

newspaper said of him?
    "… more truly at home in his own bounteous fields and among the yeomen whose rights he seeks to protect."
    Fortunate yeomen
, she thought.
    Anyway, he'd made it abundantly clear that he didn't approve of city life.
And he certainly couldn't approve of me
. Or of Phizz Marston anyway.
    There
is
no
me
, she reminded herself. There was only Phizz Marston. For with Kate's clever assistance, Lady Phoebe Claringworth had been buried next to her son and husband, ten days after Henry and Bryan's joint funeral. It had been Kate who, under cover of nursing Phoebe all by herself, had dismissed the disrespectful, inquisitive servants, spirited Phoebe home to the country, found a suitable female corpse to take her place, and bribed the doctor to register Phoebe's death in the parish records.
    Only Kate and Phoebe's brother Jonathan knew the truth; everybody else had willingly accepted Kate's story and had deferred to her insistence upon a simple burial service with a closed casket. The official word was that Henry's mother, the older Lady Fanny Claringworth, having suffered a fit of apoplexy upon learning the news of her beloved son's death, was too incapacitated to visit her injured daughter-in-law. But the more knowledgeable among the
ton
whispered that the old lady had always loathed Phoebe anyway—for coming from such an obscure corner of the realm, for maintaining her own opinions, and for being
much
too tall in the bargain. The inner circle smugly agreed that the older Lady Claringworth had been quite satisfied see the younger Lady Claringworth dead and buried.
    Not that any of it matters now, Phoebe thought. The only thing that matters three years later is that Phizz Marston is the only thing left of me.
Cold, frivolous, Phizz Marston, who prowls London by night and hates children
.
    And takes lovely young men to bed.
    Or
had
done so, anyway—at least one of them. For Phoebe knew that episode of her life had come to an end. She'd continue having Billy visit her, but it was clear to her that these would be chaste, fa-milial sorts of evenings, times for him to rub her feet and her to inquire after his welfare. Perhaps she'd even help him work on his reading. He'd be disappointed, of course, but he'd accept it. Their intimacy had been profound enough to lay the basis for friendship. These meetings were going to cost her a small fortune (she'd have to dip into the fund she saved for emergencies). It would have been a lot of money to pay for sex; no one would believe her, she thought, if she told them she was paying it to keep Billy out of someone else's sexual clutches. Still, Billy deserved to have someone to fuss over how he got on. And anyway, it was pleasant to have someone to fuss over.
    Of course, appearances would continue to suggest something a great deal more lascivious. If he hadn't already done so, Lord Linseley would be bound to hear the rumors about Marston's taste for the male sex.
    As if he'd need to hear rumors.
For
—she blushed a bit here—
he'd be a fool if he hasn't already noticed how much I admire his looks
.
    She shook her head. The earl of Linseley was clearly no fool.
He's simply too secure in his manliness, to be disturbed by another man's desire
.
    She might have asked him a bit more about his plans, she thought now, rather than nattering on so incoherently about Mr. Blake and his work. For if she'd asked him exactly when he planned to leave London, she'd know whether she needed to worry about meeting him again before her departure next Thursday morning.
    As things stood, though, she might run into him anywhere the
ton
gathered. At the club where she'd agree to dine tonight, or at the theater afterwards. Or at Vivien's? No, he wasn't a gambler; she wouldn't see him at Vivien's.
    But how about the day after tomorrow at Almack's? Yes, surely he'd be there.
    For a glorious, forbidden moment she allowed herself a tiny fantasy: Lord Linseley approaching and asking her to dance, her own