Friends and Foes (15 page)

Sorrel sunk down on the stairs in defeat. What had possessed her to even attempt such foolery? She could quite easily have rung for Jenny to retrieve her walking stick in the library. Sorrel felt certain she’d left it there the night before. She distinctly remembered Philip haughtily walking out and leaving her on the floor, unable to rise. Only through great effort had she managed to pull herself to the sofa. The rest of the night had dissolved into little more than a blur.

She must have fallen asleep. Her next memories were of Fennel’s voice, though she could not recall what he’d said. She vaguely remembered a distinctly masculine scent, something with a hint of cedar and leather. Sorrel thought she’d been carried. In her sketchy memory the arms had been Philip’s, but she also recalled a loose-collared shirt, no cravat, no blindingly bright waistcoat. She couldn’t imagine Philip ever appearing anything but the flashy dandy.

Sorrel leaned her head against the banister only two steps below the landing and derided herself for being a fool. She’d discovered her walking stick missing with plenty of time to have it fetched. But, for reasons she did not feel ready to examine, she’d struck on this idiotic idea of making her way to the library without it. She had not truly attempted to walk on her own in a long while.

She would be bruised, Sorrel knew. Just the effort of coming down the corridor had sent her reeling into furniture, though she’d managed to remain upright. With her cane she could reach the landing in less than a minute. Without it she’d needed a quarter-hour. Then she’d reached the stairs. She had not attempted stairs without her cane. A full flight stretched out before her. If she lost her balance, she’d tumble the entire length.

Sorrel had gingerly tried her footing on the first, only to realize she was unequal to the task. Her heart pounding in her throat, Sorrel had slowly, cautiously lowered herself to the step where she sat frustrated at her helplessness and angry at the madness that had convinced her to even attempt a walk of independence.

Footsteps echoed one floor below. Sorrel hoped to see a servant pass the landing beneath her. She could request her walking stick be retrieved, and, before long, she’d be back on her feet and could put this embarrassing episode behind her. She watched rather anxiously for movement, discovering the stairs were extremely uncomfortable.

To her dismay, Philip appeared below. Sorrel suddenly hoped she wouldn’t be noticed. Why did he always appear when she looked like a fool? She’d had to practically beg him to help her from the floor in the library only to have him walk away. How much satisfaction would he get out of leaving her stranded on the steps?

“Sorrel?” He’d seen her.

She watched him ascend the stairs and tried to look unaffected, as though being seated on a stairwell were perfectly rational behavior. “Good day.” Her voice sounded less desperate than it had the evening before.

“My brothers and I used to sit on the stairs at Lampton Hall when Father was expected home from London,” Philip said, quite casually taking a seat beside her. “We made quite a picture, I am certain. Covered in mud, if memory serves, and grinning like the collection of imps that we were.”

“I am new at stair sitting,” Sorrel said. “Ought I to have rolled in mud first?”

“So what brings you to this inauspicious area of the house?” Philip leaned back, his elbows on the stair behind, his long legs stretched out across the steps below.

He made such a contradictory picture that Sorrel couldn’t help staring a moment. His clothes were “all the crack,” as Fennel would have said, that same pompous cravat knot Sorrel had come to find almost humorous, coupled with a deep-indigo jacket atop a lemon-yellow waistcoat. Despite being dressed as a fop, Philip reclined on a stairway as easy as anything, something far too undignified for a dandified gentleman.

“Surely you weren’t sitting here waiting for me to make my magnificent appearance.” Philip raised an eyebrow, which, in any other person, Sorrel might have thought held a hint of self-mockery.

“I am here because I have been acting rather unreasonably,” Sorrel admitted with a shrug of her shoulders.

“You are being punished, then?” Philip’s lazy smile spread to a mischievous grin. “You realize, of course, that I was one of the official Jonquil Freers of Criminals.”

“What?” Sorrel couldn’t help a chuckle. His words were almost nonsensical, but the look on his face was positively boyish, unfettered excitement mingled with innocent devilry.

“It started with Layton, the brother just younger than me.” Philip’s eyes grew wide with animation. “When either he or I would be kept in the nursery as punishment for something I am certain we were wrongfully accused of doing”—he raised an eyebrow as if to say he was certain they’d been absolutely guilty—“we would make a game of freeing the captive brother. Eventually we spread our expertise to extricating the rest of the family from similar punishments.”

“Sounds as if you had ample opportunity to hone your skills.” Sorrel smiled at the picture of a close-knit, loving family. She’d wished for precisely that all her life.

“Our governesses and tutors were exceptionally cruel.” He feigned misery at the fabricated memory.

“So you are going to rescue me from my punishment?” Sorrel asked.

Philip moved nimbly, squatting on the stair directly beneath her, and looked eagerly into her face. She could easily picture him as a lanky seven-year-old planning one madcap scheme or another. Sorrel had the sudden urge to reach out and muss his hair, certain he’d spent most of his childhood in a state of complete disarray.

“It could be dangerous,” Philip told her with a raise of his golden eyebrows.

Sorrel nodded quite seriously. “I understand,” she said gravely.

“We could tie bedsheets into a rope and climb out the nursery window.” Philip rubbed his chin. “But perhaps that is a bit drastic.”

“A bit.” Sorrel fought back a smile.

“Perhaps, if we move quickly, we can descend the stairs—we will, of course, be terribly stealthy—before your warden notices you have defected.”

“My punisher keeps a very close eye on me,” Sorrel warned, knowing she had resigned
herself
to her current position.

“Is she watching now?” he whispered conspiratorially.

Sorrel nodded, her gaze locked with his crystal-blue eyes. He looked slyly around them before looking at her again, seemingly scrutinizing her. Philip shifted and sat on the step, continuing to watch her. “Have you endured her chastisement often?” he asked, some of the lightness gone from his tone.

Fighting back a lump in her throat, Sorrel managed a nod. She’d been hard on herself all her life.

“What did you do today that upset her?” He eyed her rather knowingly as he spoke the last word, as if to indicate he knew she referred to herself.

Sorrel let out a humorless chuckle. “I tried to prove something.” For some reason, Sorrel couldn’t look at him as she made the painful admission. “In the end I mostly just looked foolish.”

“What were you trying to prove?” Philip sounded honestly compassionate. Where had the frippery-obsessed dandy gone?

She took a deep breath and found herself confessing despite her determination to do no such thing. “I wanted to see how far I could go without my
affectation
.” Sorrel hated the bitterness in her tone.

Beside her Philip fell silent. Sorrel didn’t dare look at him. She was not ready to see mockery or disdain. She could not endure further humiliation.

“You came this far without your walking stick?” His voice was quiet, each word spoken slowly and clearly.

Sorrel nodded. “The stairs were too much, though.” She bit down on her lip to keep it from quivering. Even a toddler could navigate stairs.

“And for that you are being punished?”

“I suppose my warden is rather harsh.”

A warm, strong hand gently caressed her cheek, and Sorrel nearly let a tear slip. Philip softly turned her toward him, his look brimming with compassion. “Why is she that way, Sorrel?”

Sorrel tried to look away, but Philip’s hand was deceptively strong. Tears stung the back of her eyes. How had their conversation dissolved into this? She
never
cried. Sorrel could only recall a handful of times in her entire life she’d let a tear escape.

Philip hadn’t broken eye contact. His thumb tenderly stroked her cheek as he waited for a reply.

“I don’t know,” Sorrel managed to mouth soundlessly.

“She doesn’t need to be,” Philip said, looking directly into her eyes. “You came a significant distance.” He pulled his hand from her cheek and chucked her chin. “
I
am impressed.”

“You are?” Why did his words make her want to smile?

Philip nodded. “All the way to the stairs without your
affectation
? I couldn’t last ten minutes without my quizzing glass.”

A laugh escaped before Sorrel could prevent it. “I have not seen your quizzing glass make an appearance in several days.”

“Perhaps you are simply learning to overlook it.”

“Not likely.”

They sat watching each other for a moment. Sorrel wondered if Philip felt the tension in the air between them. Each beat of her heart seemed to come harder, more intensely than the last. Just when she decided Philip could hear the pounding in her chest, he broke eye contact and took friendly hold of her hand.

“Are you ready to escape?” he asked, the boyish grin back in a flash.

Sorrel managed a smile of her own and nodded.

“I believe we’ve decided the nursery window is out of the question.” Philip looked ponderous.

“Absolutely out of the question,” Sorrel seconded.

“That leaves us only the stairs.” Philip shrugged. “Best get on with it else we’ll get caught.”

“I cannot negotiate stairs without my cane, Philip.”

“If I can give up my affectation for ‘several days,’ you can give up yours for the length of a stairway.”

“Philip,” Sorrel protested—she knew for a fact she couldn’t make it down without support.

He seemed not to hear but rose and pulled her to her feet as well. The usual moment of precarious balance followed before Sorrel righted herself. Philip’s hand on her back proved more unnerving than helpful, though she went to great lengths to hide her discomfort.

“Now, one hand on the banister,” Philip instructed.

Sorrel had no choice but obey, lest she tumble top over tail down the stairs.

“And I will take the other,” Philip said. He winked at her, and she prayed he didn’t see her blush.

She placed her arm through his as lightly as she could manage—the thought of revealing to him the extent of her helplessness nearly undid her. With a white-knuckle grip on the banister and a shaky breath, Sorrel stepped with her right leg, all her weight on the functioning left. That was the easy part, she knew. The next step would require her right leg to bear her weight. She hesitated.

“You can do this, Sorrel,” Philip whispered in her ear.

She resisted the urge to look up into his face. She couldn’t make heads nor tails of this new compassionate, caring Philip and didn’t dare try to solve the puzzle while fumbling down a flight of stairs.

Sorrel lifted her left foot and immediately felt herself reeling off balance. Philip’s arm closed more firmly around hers. Pain shot through her shin. Clenching her jaw against the agony, Sorrel brought her left foot to the step beside her right and quickly shifted her weight. Almost immediate relief surged through her leg, and Sorrel breathed an audible sigh.

“Only two flights left to go?” she asked, trying to sound more lighthearted than she felt.

“Try leading with your left,” Philip said.

“My—”

“Step down with your left. Let it bear the weight and the balance. Bring the right down to it.”

“But wouldn’t the right have to hold me up while I stepped down?”

“Use the banister and my massively muscular arm to support you while you step down.”

Again that self-mocking tone. Philip usually exerted cocky self-assurance. He confused her more all the time.

“You won’t let me fall?” That sounded more like begging than she’d intended—she only wanted to know she wasn’t about to break her neck. She braced herself for some glib reply.

“If I can see the steps without my quizzing glass,” he answered, squinting quite dramatically.

She gave him an exasperated look that made him laugh. She couldn’t help a smile of amusement herself. “You are so absurd sometimes.”

“Confess,” he said. “You enjoy it.”

“Perhaps a little.” She would not admit to more than that.

“In that same spirit of honesty I will say that I enjoy your sharp rejoinders
a little.
”

“Only a little?” She had found their battle of wits quite enjoyable at times. Had he not?

“You will not wring further confessions from me,” he said. “We have not time. We are in the midst of an escape, you will recall.”

“Ah, yes.” Sorrel turned her eyes once more to the stairs. What had she gotten herself into? “This must seem terribly pathetic to you.” Perhaps if she acknowledged the ridiculous picture she made, he would not find the need to comment on it.

“I know pathetic when I see it,” Philip said, “and this is
not
it.”

With steely determination, Sorrel muscled back the lump of emotion his words created. She would not add to her embarrassment by growing teary. “Thank you for that,” she said.

“Try the left this time,” he offered encouragingly.

To her surprise and satisfaction, Philip’s suggestion proved sound. The step still was not easy to take, and she still refused to lean on him as heavily as she would have on her cane. He squeezed her hand as if he recognized the relief she felt at even a slight decrease in pain.

“There can’t be more than thirty steps left.” Philip spoke with all the glee of a seven-year-old with an armful of pilfered biscuits. “At this rate we’ll be in the library before your warden has any idea you’ve escaped.”

They took another step. “She always manages to catch up with me,” Sorrel said as she eased her way farther down.