Free A Dark and Brooding Gentleman by Margaret McPhee Page B

question. ‘Mrs Hunter has then told you something of my situation?’ she said carefully.
    ‘She has. If it is not too delicate a matter, may I enquire as to your father’s ailment?’
    ‘The doctors are not sure yet. Until they are, he must be confined.’ She stuck to the story her father had devised.
    ‘Confined, you say?’
    She glanced up to find Hunter’s gaze upon her. And it did not matter how many times she had told the story previously without the slightest betrayal, sitting there in the coach before him, Phoebe felt guilt scald her cheeks. ‘Indeed. It is a most worrying situation.’ At least that was truthful. ‘I fear for him.’ She glanced away out of the window, thinking of her father’s poor swollen facethe last time she had seen him and the threats so vilely uttered against him. ‘More than you can imagine. Without these visits I do not know how either of us would survive the time.’ Her words halted as she realised just how much of the truth she had revealed and when she looked back she found Hunter was watching her with a strange expression upon his face.
    ‘What of your mother?’
    ‘She died when I was a child.’
    ‘And you have no other family?’
    ‘My sister died almost two years past.’ Phoebe could almost speak of Elspeth now, but it had taken such a long time.
    ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ he said and something of the chill had thawed from his voice.
    She glanced round at the change in his voice, met his eyes once more. And something unspoken seemed to pass between them, some kind of shared experience that bound them together.
    ‘And you, sir?’ she asked. ‘Do you have any other family?’
    ‘None.’
    ‘Your father, he—?’
    ‘I do not speak of my father, Miss Allardyce.’ And the coldness was back again just as if it had never gone.
    ‘Please forgive me. I did not intend to stir painful memories.’ Phoebe understood what grief felt like, how, just when you were not even thinking upon it, the smallest, most unexpected thing could trigger a rush of emotion so intense you were plunged into the depths all over again and the ache in your heart caught the breath from your lungs and made you weep. And she did not imagine a man like Hunter would wish to revealsuch emotion. It was only nine months since his father had died.
    She watched the blur of earthy colours through the carriage window, content to let the silence grow between them. And even though her focus was on the passing moorland she could feel the weight of Hunter’s gaze heavy upon her. She did not look round. She wanted no more questions about her father.
    The minutes passed.
    ‘You do not know, do you?’ he said at last, his voice softer than normal. And when she looked round at him there was almost disbelief on his face. And then as if to himself, ‘She has not told you. I did not think—’ He stopped himself.
    Phoebe shook her head. ‘I do not know of what you are talking, sir.’
    He smiled; it was a cold smile, a mirthless smile and in his eyes there was an anguish he could not quite hide. ‘I suppose that at least is something.’ Their gazes held and for that brief moment there was such pain in his eyes that Phoebe could not help herself from reaching her hand towards him.
    Hunter’s gaze dropped to her hand and then slid back up to meet her eyes and the same stony control had slotted into place.
    She froze, suddenly conscious of what she was doing, and pulled her hand back as if it had been bitten.
    ‘You did not answer my question, Miss Allardyce—in which hospital is your father being treated?’
    Only then did she realise that he was the only person since she had started as Mrs Hunter’s companion to ask her that question.
    ‘The Royal Infirmary.’ It was the closest hospitalto the Tolbooth. She dreaded what more he would ask and where his questions would lead. Her nervousness around him made it hard to think straight and she feared what she might be tricked into revealing. But to her