AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He had not taken the news well.
Isabel was already moving toward the study, eager to get to Georgiana, to comfort the girl. Leighton’s words stopped her in her tracks. “I should like to speak with you both.”
Isabel—strong, brave girl—met the duke’s cold stare. “Your sister, Your Grace. She needs me.”
If possible, Leighton’s face became more unmoving. “I have no sister. Not today. And the woman in that room”—he paused, and in that brief silence, Nick understood the powerful battle raging within his friend—“she can wait. If you wish to remain mistress of this place, Lady Isabel, you will hear me. Immediately.”
There was an unpleasant, imperious threat in the words, one that Isabel knew better than to ignore. She squared her shoulders, not taking her gaze from the duke. With a firm “Certainly, Your Grace,” she led the way to the library.
Once inside, Leighton moved to the fireplace, staring down into the darkened hearth. There was a long silence, then: “I imagine that mine is not the only family that would be rocked by scandal if this place were found.”
Isabel took a step toward him. “No, Your Grace.”
Nick admired her for her truth in that moment.
Leighton looked over his shoulder at her briefly. “There is a part of me that wants to bring this house to rubble.”
She rocked back on her heels at the venom in his voice. She turned to Nick, and he registered the silent plea in her gaze. He must defuse the situation. He moved, leaning against a nearby pillar in an approximation of calm. “It is not the house, Leighton. And you know it.”
“Without this house, she would have been—”
“Without this house, she would still have been in her predicament,” Nick pointed out, drawing the duke’s hateful glare. “She simply would have had nowhere to run. You should thank Isabel for taking her in.”
“Yes, well, I don’t think that is going to happen quite yet.” The duke turned then, meeting Isabel’s gaze. “The way I see it, Lady Isabel, I have two options. The first, I bring the magistrate down upon your head and take the scandal I have coming now.” Isabel did not respond, remaining stoic under the angry barrage. “The second, I let her stay her. She bears the child. And the scandal comes later. At a time I cannot predict. Because you cannot reasonably protect yourself or your residents, and it is only a matter of time before everything is made public.” He turned to Nick then. “If you were in my position, St. John, which would you choose? ”
Nick felt Isabel’s gaze on him, knew that she was willing him to choose the second option. He also knew that any reasonable person would choose the first. If scandal were to rock a family, it was best that it do so at a time of the family’s choosing, so that they were prepared, so that they could arm themselves against the gossipmongers.
But there was nothing reasonable about this situation for Nick. He wanted Isabel safe. He wanted her girls safe. And there was only one way to ensure such a thing.
“I would choose the latter.”
Leighton laughed, the sound humorless. “You would not.”
“I would in this case. Because there is a factor that you have not considered.”
Isabel could no longer remain quiet. “There is? ”
He looked at her then, registering her uncertainty, her surprise, and behind it all, her fear. “There is. We are to be married. Which puts Lady Georgiana—and her circumstances—under my protection.”
The duke crossed his arms and turned to Isabel. “Is this true?”
Isabel shook her head, her face pale. “No. I never said I would marry him.”
Her denial cut Nick to the quick. The idea that she might not marry him after yesterday—after last night—was unacceptable. Anger flared, along with hurt and irritation. Years of practice kept them from surfacing.
Instead, he turned to cool humor. “Your memory is failing you, Isabel. You said you would marry me yesterday morning.” He paused, waiting for her to meet his gaze. “In the statuary. Don’t you remember?”
Of course she remembered. She gasped at the words. “That was before everything changed!“
“Indeed, it was. Before it became an imperative.” The insinuation in the words sent a blush across her cheeks.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it!“
“I know precisely what you mean. I also know I am not leaving here without marrying you.”
“I don’t need you. We are fine by ourselves.”
I don’t need you.
The statement set him off. “Yes, I see that. Because you’ve got a houseful of women in hiding with no protection for them and God only knows how many ruffians hunting for you after Leighton put out his call, a house, I might add, that is literally falling down around you, not to mention a child who needs more training than most pups I’ve met and has inherited one of the most troubled earldoms in the country, the sister of a duke about to bear a bastard child, and … you’ve been compromised! But you are fine.
“You think that asking for help makes you weak. What makes you weak is your naïve insistence that if you say you need no one, you will be able to hold everything together! Of course you need me! You need a battalion to keep this place out of trouble!” His voice rose to a thunder. “How can you possibly think that I wouldn’t marry you, you madwoman? His words echoed in the room for a long moment, and Isabel’s eyes welled with tears. He immediately regretted his words. “Isabel,” he said softly, reaching for her, wanting to take it all back.
She held up a hand, staying his motion. “No.” She turned to Leighton, “If those are my options, Your Grace, then obviously I choose the one that is least likely to ruin Townsend Park.”
The duke cleared his throat. “If what St. John has said is true, I must insist you marry, Lady Isabel, as a gentleman.” She nodded.
“I shall send for a minister.”
She nodded again, her lips pressed in a thin line, as though she were holding back tears. And then she ran from the room, leaving Nick feeling like an ass. Frustration flared. “I shall send for a minister, dammit.”
As if it mattered.
He moved to go after her, eager to explain himself.
To apologize.
To do what he could to win her.
“I would not, if I were you,” the duke intoned.
Nick turned on him. “Oh, and your actions with women today seem so very on point, Leighton.”
“She shall come around.”
“Yes, well, I’m not so sure. She is not like other women.” “I had not noticed.”
Nick moved to sit in a nearby chair, holding his head in his hands. “I’m an ass.”
Leighton took the seat across from him and removed a cheroot from the silver case in his pocket, lighting it. “You shan’t get an argument from me.”
Nick looked up. “You’re an ass, as well, you know.”
“I suppose I am.” The duke sighed. “Goddammit. Pregnant. She’s only seventeen. Not even out.”
“You can’t ignore her forever.”
“No … but I can give it some effort.”
“She’s a good girl, Leighton. She does not deserve your anger.”
“I do not want to think on her.” The words brooked no discussion. There was silence for a while, before he added, “So you are in love with the lady.”
Nick sat back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. Of course he was in love with her. She was the most remarkable person he’d ever known. “God help me, I am.”
“In my experience, the path to a woman’s heart rarely begins with announcing her being compromised to a roomful of people.”
“It wasn’t a roomful.” Nick closed his eyes. “I am an idiot.”
“Yes. But she’s going to marry you.”
“Because we’ve forced her hand.”
“Nonsense.”
Nick looked at his friend. “The Duke of Leighton has insisted she marry or he will destroy the thing she considers most dear. What would you do? ”
r /> “It is a fair point,” Leighton allowed. He took several thoughtful puffs on the cigar. “Although I will say this … Your lady does not seem the type to run from adversity.”
Nick thought of Isabel on the roof, and on the Dunscroft commons, and in the kitchens with her Amazonian army. “You are right about that.”
The duke considered his cheroot for a long moment. “Is it possible she cares for you? ”
“Not this morning.”
“You should tell her you love her.”
Nick shook his head. “That is a terrible idea.”
“Afraid she will not return the emotion? ”
Nick met the duke’s serious gaze. “Terrified of it.”
“The bulan. Terrified. How interesting.” Nick resisted the impulse to put his fist through Leighton’s face.
Leighton removed a watch from his pocket, checking the time. “As much as I would enjoy the fight you are so clearly itching to have, the girl is in mourning. You shall need a special license.”
“Which means I shall have to go to York.”
“Aren’t you lucky that I happen to know the archbishop there?”
Nick scowled. “Oh, yes, Leighton. Your arrival has brought with it the very best of luck.”
Twenty
* * *
It had not been the kind of wedding one imagined.
Nick had returned sometime in the early morning after traveling through the night to York for a special license, then back via Dunscroft to wake the town vicar and drag him to Townsend Park to perform the ceremony. He’d barely had time to change his clothes. If Isabel was to judge from his harried appearance, the deep circles under his eyes indicated that he had not slept since they had last seen each other—the graveled voice with which he spoke his vows serving as further proof.
They had married in her father’s study, with Lara and Rock as witnesses. The ceremony had been quick and perfunctory, explained to the minister as a way they could marry without desecrating the memory of her father.
The minister had not protested, so impressed had he been at the special license inked by the hand of the Archbishop of York himself.
Isabel had not protested, either.
It was, after all, the only solution.
So they had sworn to love and honor; they had pledged their mutual troth. And when he had bent to kiss her, she had turned just enough for the caress to land slightly off-center, a blessed relief, for she did not think she could bear the feel of his lips on hers in that moment when they were marrying for all the wrong reasons.
She’d left the house as soon as the vicar had, sneaking out into the western fields of the Park. She had been walking for some time—hours, perhaps—thinking.
She had seen the many faces of marriage in her life: marriage for love that dissolved into desolate isolation; marriage for escape that had become a marriage of desperation; marriage of duty that never blossomed into anything more.
In those rare moments when Isabel had allowed herself to fantasize about marriage, however, she had dreamed of a marriage that was more than isolation and desperation and duty. It was ironic, she supposed, that hers was born of all three.
But if she was honest with herself, two days earlier she had believed her marriage to Lord Nicholas might blossom into love.
His name was Nicholas Raphael Dorian St. John.
It was the most she could claim to know with certainty about her new husband.
The wind had picked up on the heath, and the long grass lashed at Isabel’s legs as she walked in a long, straight line out to the edge of the Townsend land—land that had been in her family for generations.
Land that would be saved for future generations because of what she had done that morning.
Not so selfish now.
She closed her eyes against the thought. When she opened them, the broken rails of the fence that marked the western edge of the property were in her field of vision. Another thing that would now be fixed.
She hadn’t wanted to marry him for money. Or for protection. Or because the Duke of Leighton willed it.
But, of course, she had, in part.
Hadn’t she?
”No.” She whispered the word, and it was carried away on the wind, lost in the sway of the reeds.
She had wanted to marry him because she cared for him. And because he cared for her.
But it was too late for that.
A vision flashed from yesterday, long ago now—a distant past. She had refused his suit, and he had made it seem as though she desperately needed him. As though they would not survive if he had not come and saved them. As though their time was up.
And he had been right.
She brushed a tear from her cheek. She could no longer hold it all together.
And she was terrified of what that meant.
Who was she if she was not this? If she was not the mistress of Townsend Park, the keeper of Minerva House, the one with the answers, the one to whom everyone else turned?
Who would she become?
”Isabel!” The shout, punctuated by hoofbeats, pulled her from her thoughts, and she whirled to face Nick, high atop his gray, bearing down on her. She froze as he pulled up on the reins, leaping down before the horse came to a stop. He held her gaze as he advanced, his voice raised above the wind. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
She shrugged. “I took a walk.”
“Rather a long walk for a bride on her wedding day,” he pointed out. “Were you attempting an escape? ”
She did not smile at the jest. “No, my lord.”
There was silence as he searched her face. “You are unhappy.”
She shook her head, tears welling. “No, my lord.”
“I have heard tell of brides weeping on their wedding day, Isabel, but I had always considered them tears of joy.” He paused, watching her carefully before pulling her to him in a warm embrace. “Call me my lord one more time and I shall not fix your fence. Which has something of a hole in it, if you had not noticed.”
“I noticed,” she said, the words muffled against his chest.
“Isabel. I am sorry. For the things I said. For the way I said them.” He spoke the words against her hair, the warm breath of them a promise. “Forgive me.”
Oh, how she wanted to.
She did not reply, instead wrapping her arms tightly around him. It was all she could give him right now. She let him hold her for a long time, enjoying the feel of his strong arms around her, the warmth of his chest against her cheek. For a moment, she imagined that this was a different kind of wedding day. That they had married for any reason but the one for which they had married.
That they had married for love.
She pulled back at the thought, and he watched as she smoothed her skirts and looked anywhere but at him. “Isabel.” At the sound of her name on his lips, soft and lush, she looked up and met his eyes—saw the emotion there. “I am sorry you did not have the kind of wedding of which you dreamed. I wish we could have done it another way, with a church … and a dress … and your girls.”
She shook her head, emotion making it difficult for her to speak.
He took her hand. “We left out an important part of the ceremony this morning. I assume the vicar thought that we could not fulfill its requirements, so he skipped over it.”
Confusion marred her brow. “I don’t understand.”
He opened his hand, revealing a simple gold band that lay in his palm, “It’s not what you deserve—I woke the first jeweler I saw last night in York. He did not have much of a selection. The first chance I get, I shall buy you something gorgeous. With rubies. I like you in red.”
He spoke quickly, as though she might refuse him if he gave her the opportunity to speak. It was fine, though. She did not want to interrupt. Taking her hand, he placed the ring on her finger. With a crooked smile, he said, “I do not remember the exact words …”
She shook her head. “Neither do I.”
“Good
.” He took a deep breath. “I am not perfect, and I realize that I have a long way to go to earning your trust once more. But I want you to know that I am extraordinarily happy that you are my wife. And I shall do my very best to make you an excellent husband. Let this ring bear the proof of my words.”
He cupped her cheeks in his hands, his thumbs brushing away the stray tears that fell at the words. “Don’t cry, darling.” He sipped at her lips in soft, lingering kisses, so tender and caring that, for a moment, she forgot that they had married for a host of wrong reasons.
He lifted his head and met her eyes once more, and said, “For the rest of the afternoon … for today … can we forget everything else? Can we simply have a wedding day? ”
He was buying them a day before they had to remember all those wrong reasons.
Perhaps to discover a right reason.
And, God help her, she wanted it.
She nodded. “I think that is an excellent idea.”
He grinned and offered her his arm. When she took it, he said, “The day is yours, Lady Nicholas. What shall you do with it?”
Lady Nicholas.
What a strange thing to be this new, different person. Isabel played the name over in her head, her earlier concern resurfacing. Who was Lady Nicholas? What had become of Lady Isabel?
“Isabel?” Nick’s question interrupted her thoughts.
Tomorrow. She would worry about Lady Isabel tomorrow.
She smiled. “I should like to show you the Park.”
Within minutes, they were on his horse, Isabel seated in front of him, clinging to him as he trotted the gray across the heath toward the house. As they traveled, Isabel pointed out places that had mattered to her as a child—the copse of trees where she had hidden whenever she wanted to get away, the pond where she had learned to swim, the crumbled remains of the old keep where she had pretended to be a princess.
“A princess?”
She kept her eyes on the stone structure, set on the highest point of the property. “Yes, well, pretending to be a queen seemed too much. A girl must know her limitations.”
He laughed, and stopped the horse. “Shall we tour your castle, Your Highness?”
