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morning. And each morning, she saw the wild horses, but try as she might to get close to them, they always shied away from her.
    She thought of Summerfield often. She couldn’t seem to get him out of her mind. The delicious feel of him pressed against her and his lack of concern for propriety were incredibly intriguing. She thought of his handsome face, his arresting eyes, his broad hands, and that curious black line at his wrist. She’d never been so captivated by a man—and Lord knew she had been captivated by more than one at various points in her life: a footman when she was twelve; Mr. Frank Byers, the vicar’s son, who’d bought a commission in the army; and Lord Lithgow, whom she had admired from afar, as he was, unfortunately, happily married.
    But Summerfield had seized her imagination like no one ever had, which led her to think of him in more intimate terms.
    At work in her rooms at the top of the house, Phoebe could see the comings and goings at Wentworth Hall, and there was quite a lot of coming and going. In addition to Summerfield—who would ride out, hatless, bent over the neck of his mount as if he were in a race—Phoebe saw two more men. Because both of them were similar in build and had the same golden hair as Summerfield, she assumed they were related. On one occasion, she heard arguing and walked to the window to see Summerfield calmly standing in the drive with hands on his hips as one of the other men railed about something that had him greatly agitated.
    There was quite a lot of arguing in this house, she’d noticed. She could hardly keep away from it—she heard it through the flue and from the servants she had begun to befriend.
    Mrs. Turner, Wentworth’s housekeeper, was a jolly woman. She arrived at Phoebe’s room on the afternoon of her first day at the hall with Frieda, a chambermaid, in tow. Frieda, Mrs. Turner explained, was to help Phoebe with the sewing and whatnot. Frieda smiled meekly and curtsied awkwardly. She looked to be about the same age as Phoebe. Her hair, a grayish brown, peeked out from beneath her worn cap, and she wore a black gown, as did all the chambermaids. Her eyes, however, were large and almond shaped, richly brown, and very expressive.
    When Mrs. Turner left, Frieda instantly relaxed. “God blind me!” she swore, taking one of the chairs without being asked. “I thought she meant to punish me with all this talk of needles. I don’t care for needlework in the least, I’ll have ye know.”
    “Oh?” Phoebe said, uncertain what to say to that.
    “Oooh, quite lovely,” Frieda said, eyeing the bolts of fabric Phoebe had stacked neatly on a small console table. “All for the brats, are they? Ye might nick a little for us, eh?”
    Phoebe gasped.
    Surprised, Frieda laughed and clucked her tongue. “You’ve never kept a bit back for yourself? They must pay a decent wage to you in London, then, by the look of your fancy clothing.”
    Phoebe looked down at the gown she’d made herself. It was the color of the golden wheat that grew at Broderick Abbey, the Marquis of Middleton’s county seat. “I’ve certainly not kept anything for myself! And there will be no nicking of anything,” she said sternly, forgetting, for a moment, that she was not a lady in this house.
    “All right, all right,” Frieda said congenially. “You hail from London, then?” she continued as she stretched her legs in front of her, propping them on another chair. “I’ve been to London, I have,” she said, and began to recite everything she’d ever heard of London, most of it confirmed in the one visit she had made with her father. When Phoebe did finally induce Frieda to pick up a broom—by slapping the girl’s feet from the chair—Frieda swept efficiently as she rattled on about a footman named Charles with whom she was apparently smitten—and intimately familiar.
    Phoebe was shocked and riveted by Frieda’s chatter. She’d never heard a woman speak so freely of her