AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His eyebrows rose. “Nothing? You can think of nothing that you wish? ”
“I would not want to be thought of as selfish,” she whispered.
He captured her gaze in his, arresting her attention. He twirled them to a stop then, and she realized that they were at the far end of the room, where a chaise sat in near darkness.
“Selfish?”
She stared at the indentation on his chin and nodded.
He gave a little huff of laughter, disbelief in the exhalation. “Isabel, you are about the least selfish person I have ever known.”
She shook her head. “It’s not true.”
“Why would you think that? ”
She pressed her lips together, afraid of the answer.
But the desire to share it was too much.
She spoke to his chin. “I—My father gave me a chance to fix it all once. To save the house. The earldom. Everything.” She had never told anyone this. “All I had to do was go to London. And let him arrange a marriage for me.”
“How old were you?” The words were cold, and Isabel felt a sick feeling of dread—imagining that he was judging her actions. As her mother had done.
“Seventeen.”
“You refused.”
She nodded, unshed tears clawing at her throat. “I didn’t want—didn’t want the same marriage my mother had. I didn’t want to be half a woman. Half a person. He left, and never returned. My mother—she died soon after. She blamed me for his desertion.”
He was silent. Unmoving.
She should not have told him. “I am sorry if I have disappointed you.”
His sharp inhalation drew her attention.
One finger beneath her chin, he lifted her gaze to his. She gasped at the emotion there.
“I am not disappointed, love.” The whisper was low and close, so close that she felt more than heard the words. “I am furious.” Her eyes widened as he cupped her face in his hands, turning them to ensure that they were entirely out of the view of the others in the room. She felt the trembling in his fingers. “I wish I had been here. I wish I could have—”
He stopped when she closed her eyes.
I wish you had been here, too.
He traced his fingers down the side of her neck to the place where her pulse was beating out of control.
She did not want to think of the past. Not now. Not when he was so close.
“I wish you would kiss me.”
The raw confession surprised them both.
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Ah, Isabel, if we were anywhere but here …”
She dipped her head at the words. “I know.”
“Do you? Do you know how much I want you?”
She could not look at him. “Yes.”
She felt his thumb run over the soft skin of her wrist, the maddening touch setting her pulse racing. “How do you know? ”
The whisper, dark and coaxing, gave her the courage to look up at him. His eyes were dark—too dark to make out their color in this light—but she could read his thoughts. “Because I want you, as well.”
He growled then, low in his throat, and Isabel felt the noise cut a path right through her, sending pleasure pooling at her core. She started to turn her face away once more, but he stayed the movement with one finger under her chin. “No, beauty. Look at me.”
How could she deny such an urgent demand?
“I am not perfect. I cannot promise you that I will not do things that will hurt you.” He paused, his scar a pale line against his darkened skin. “But I will do everything in my power to protect you and James and these girls.”
He stopped, and she held her breath, waiting for his next words.
“I think you should consider your brother’s proposal.”
Fourteen
* * *
Lesson Number Six
Once you have captured his attention, do not waver.
Lord landing requires tenacity of purpose, Dear Reader! It is not for the weak-willed or the faint-of-heart. Once you have chosen your Knight and he has recognized you as his Maiden Fair, you must resist any temptation toward quiescence! Now is not the time to grow comfortable!
You do well to remember that battles are won and lost in their final stages. This time requires constancy, determination, and endurance!
Pearls and Pelisses
June 1823
Isabel was seated in a great copper bathtub, flushed from the steam coming off the near-scalding water. She lifted a hand absently, considering the wrinkled tips of her fingers. “He said he would use the word magnificent to describe me.”
Lara looked gleeful from her place on Isabel’s bed. “And he wants to marry you!”
The words sent a flood of nervousness through Isabel. “He did not say that. He said I should consider James’s proposal.”
“Which was marriage! To Lord Nicholas!”
“Yes, but that does not mean that he would like to marry me.”
He likely thought her a sad, pathetic case in need of saving.
Lara gave Isabel a look. “Isabel. I think that is precisely what it means.”
“No. It means that I should consider marriage. Not necessarily to him.”
“Isabel. I think you are being deliberately obtuse. It is clear that his statement referred to marriage between the two of you.”
“You cannot know that.”
Neither of us can.
“Indeed, I can! And I shall tell you why. We haven’t seen another marriageable man at Townsend Park in two years! Who would you have him suggest you marry? And…” she added, “I saw the way he was looking at you. The way you were dancing. He wants you.”
“Maybe he does want me,” Isabel said, peevish, “but I cannot imagine he wants to marry me.”
Lara lifted herself up on her elbows to look her cousin in the eye. When she spoke, her words were rife with offense. “Whyever not? You are an ideal candidate for Lord Nicholas’s bride! One might argue that, as daughter of an earl, you are well above marrying a second son!”
Isabel laughed at the idea. “Perhaps if my father weren’t quite the lowest form of aristocratic life, that would be true. As it is, I think Lord Nicholas could do a fair bit better than me.”
“Nonsense.” Lara’s words shook with irritation. “You are lovely, capable, intelligent, amusing.” She ticked the qualities off on her fingers. “Any gentleman would be lucky to have you.”
Isabel’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “Thank you, coz.”
Lara’s brow furrowed. “It was not a compliment. It was fact. You must know a man like that would not consider marrying you if he did not find the idea more than palatable.”
Palatable. What a horrible word.
Isabel did not reply, instead setting her head against the high back of the tub and closing her eyes.
Not twelve hours earlier, hearing that Lord Nicholas found her palatable would have set Isabel on edge—sending her fleeing his company and vowing never to return for fear of his opinions of her growing more committed. Now, she rather detested the very idea that he might have such ambivalent feelings for her.
How was it possible that she was beginning to care for this man? How had he invaded her thoughts in less than two days? How was it that she was actually considering placing her trust in this complete and utter stranger? She knew nothing of him, for heaven’s sake.
Nothing but how he made her feel.
She sighed. She did not like the way he made her feel. She did not like the way his words made her pulse race, or the way his wicked smiles made her skin flush, or the way his simple, honest gaze made her want to tell him everything and give him access to her entire world. To her past. And her present.
And now he tempted her with a promise of the future by going and mentioning marriage. And for the first time in her life, Isabel was actually considering the idea. It did not seem that the marriage he meant was anything like the marriages she had experienced in the past—traps, battles for power, struggles
for self-preservation.
A marriage to Nick would not be any of those things.
And, suddenly, marriage did not seem so bad.
Except…
“He has not offered to marry me.”
Lara rolled her eyes. “Of course he has.”
“No. He did not say the words.”
“Which words?”
Isabel looked down into the bathtub, noting the way her body disappeared in the darkened water, hidden by the flickering candlelight bouncing like starlight across the surface—reminding her of the darkened ballroom and their waltz … and her confession. “He did not say, ‘Marry me, Isabel.’ ”
Lara waved one hand. “A semantic issue.”
Semantics seemed rather vital, suddenly.
“Nevertheless.”
Lara stilled, leaning forward over the edge of the bed, squinting in the dimly lit chamber. “Oh, my.”
Isabel turned at the breathy words. “What is it?”
“You.”
“What about me?”
“You are … enamored.”
Isabel looked away. “I am not.”
“You are!” Lara’s words were triumphant. “You are enamored of Lord Nicholas!”
“I’ve only known the man for three days, Lara.”
“After last night … the dinner … the dancing … three days is enough,” Lara said, as though she were an expert in all things romantic.
“Oh, how would you know?”
“I know. In roughly the same manner that I know that you are enamored of Lord Nicholas St. John.”
“I do wish you would stop saying the word enamored,” Isabel grumbled.
“How did this happen? ”
“I don’t know!” Isabel cried, lifting her hands from the water to cover her face. “I don’t even know the man!”
“It seems you know enough of him,” Lara teased.
Isabel looked up. “It isn’t funny. It’s awful.”
“Why? He wants to marry you!”
“Not for any rational reason.”
Lara tilted her head. “I am not certain that there has ever been a rational reason for marriage, Isabel.”
“Certainly there has been!” Isabel insisted. “He could marry me for money, or land, or to appease society, or to add respectability to his name. But … no, he cannot be doing it for any of those reasons, because I decidedly cannot provide any of those things!”
Lara giggled at the words. “Isabel.”
“It isn’t funny, really. Well, not outside of a dark, macabre sense of humor.”
“You are being dramatic. Can you really say that you aren’t the smallest bit intrigued by the prospect of marrying Lord Nicholas? ”
The frank question fell into the silence, and Isabel looked to the ceiling with a frustrated sigh.
She had spent twenty-four years telling herself that she did not want marriage. That she did not want children. That she did not want a mate. She had had a clear vision of her future—of helping James to restore the dignity of the earldom, of securing the future of Minerva House, of aging with the not inconsequential knowledge that she was impacting the world in some small, positive way.
Until tonight, she had been perfectly satisfied with her life as she knew it.
Mostly.
And now … all of a sudden, her whole world—everything that she had believed to be true and right and certain—was turned upside down.
Had she dreamed of the rest? Of marriage and children and waltzing and love?
Yes.
If she was honest with herself, yes. In the darkness, late at night, as she lay in her bed and worried about the future, about the girls and about James and, yes, about herself, she had dreamed of what could have been. She had dreamed, quietly, of how it might have been to have gone to London and filled her dance card and ridden in Hyde Park and been well and truly courted, and found herself a man who would be her partner, and her protector.
But that dream had never come to fruition.
Because it was unattainable.
Until now.
When she could imagine reaching out and taking it.
When she could almost imagine what it might be like to love him.
Love.
It was a strange and foreign word; a fantasy that had tempted her as a child and then terrified her as she grew—as she watched her mother torn apart.
No. She would not love him.
She knew better.
But…
“I like him,” she said, the words barely sound.
Lara heard. “I know.”
“I’ve never thought that would happen.”
Lara nodded. “I know.”
And now that I do, I’m frightened of what will happen next.
“It’s rather terrifying.”
Lara smiled. “I know that, as well.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows. “You do?”
“I rather like his friend.”
“Yes!” Isabel sat up quickly, water sloshing over the edge of the bathtub. “And it seems that he feels similarly to you! How did that …?”
“I do not know! One moment I was showing him your marbles, and then I was accompanying him to feed their horses, and then … he was …” She stopped, dipping her head in embarrassment.
“He was doing something he should not have been doing, it seems!”
“Isabel!” The flaming red on Lara’s cheeks gave everything away.
“You have kissed him!” Isabel accused.
“Oh! And you are one to judge!”
Isabel laughed. “No. I suppose that I am not.”
“It’s quite pleasant, isn’t it?”
“Kissing? I’m not sure I would use the word pleasant. Thoroughly unsettling, entirely vexing, and altogether—”
“Wonderful.”
Isabel smiled. “Precisely.”
Lara grinned. “We are a pair.”
“After years with no men in sight, we find ourselves made utterly silly by the first two that happen along.”
“Not the first two. You avoided Mr. Asperton.”
Isabel recalled the reedy, snakelike man and shuddered. “It was a challenge, to be sure, but yes, I did avoid Mr. Asperton.”
Lara stacked her hands on the bed, setting her chin to them as Isabel made to exit her bath. “So … you will accept Lord Nicholas’s suit? ”
Isabel stepped out of the bath, wrapping herself in a long length of linen to ward off the chill that threatened. She approached the bed, perching on the edge of it as Lara turned to face her.
She considered the question. He was the answer to their problems. The handsome, intelligent, entertaining, good-natured answer to their problems. “Yes. If he asks, I will accept. For all of our good.”
As the words left her mouth, she knew that they were a lie. That as much as she would like to believe she would accept for Minerva House, she would also accept for herself, despite the risk that came of tying herself to this man for whom she could so easily see herself coming to care.
For whom she could so easily see herself coming to…
No. She would not make the same mistakes her mother had made.
But Nick seemed nothing like her father. He was honest and forthright and kind, and he seemed precisely the type of man who would make good on his promises.
Which made everything much easier.
She simply had to ensure that, if she married him, it would be on her terms. Yes, she would care for him. Certainly she would enjoy his company, and his wit, and his superior touch—for his touch was most definitely superior, and enough to send all rational thought flying from her head.
But she would not love him.
She turned to Lara with a smile. “Perhaps it would not be so bad, after all.”
As it began, rain ended quickly in Yorkshire. There was no gradual waning of water, no silent mist to ease the way from heavy drops to dry skies. Instead, there was a simple change, like the snuffing of a candle. One moment, there
was pounding rain, and the next … silence.
And, after three days of the constant sound of rain on the windows, the silence was deafening.
Nick looked up from his cards and met Rock’s gaze.
“Finally.”
Nick grinned. “Longing for The Stuck Pig, are we?”
“Not at all,” Rock said. “I’m simply growing tired of seeing you in that coat.” He dealt a card, and Nick, recognizing his losing hand, tossed the handful of cards he had onto the table. Rock collected his winnings. “One would think that you would grow tired of losing to me after all these years.”
Nick leaned back in his chair, taking a drink of brandy. He leveled his friend with a look and said, “I’m going to marry her.”
Rock began to shuffle the cards again, casually. “Are you? ”
“She needs me.”
“That does not seem to be the appropriate reason to marry a girl, Nick. Particularly not when the girl in question is harboring a houseful of fugitives.”
Nick narrowed his gaze on his friend. “I don’t think it’s a houseful. And I don’t believe that she’s doing anything wrong. Neither do you.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Then?”
“I thought marriage was not for you?”
Nick did not pretend to misunderstand. He had said the words dozens, hundreds of times over the last years, certain that marriage would ruin him. He’d never seen a marriage that was a success. And he knew better than to believe that he could make one from any of the options that had presented themselves. He would not bind himself to some woman for a mere strategic alliance, he had no need for a daughter of the aristocracy, no need for a boost in finances.
But he would not mind a partnership.
And when they were together, they would find pleasure in each other.
Immense pleasure.
Yes, a marriage to Isabel could be ideal.
“I have changed my mind. I quite like the idea of aligning myself with her.”
“Aligning yourself? Is that what it will be?” Rock raised a brow. “And what will you do when she discovers that you came here looking for one of her girls?” Nick did not respond. It was precisely the question he had avoided answering for the last two days. Rock dealt the cards again, and Nick considered his hand absentmindedly. “Marry her for the marbles. Marry her because you want to bed her. But don’t marry her because she needs you.”
