AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Get him out of here!" Leila cried. 'Take him away before I kill him! Get him—make him—" The rest was a sob.
Eloise pulled her husband back through the door. It shut.
Silence, but for Leila's weeping.
Ismal's own eyes scalded. He turned toward her. She sat on the edge of the bed, her face buried in her hands.
He couldn't ask a forgiveness that was impossible to give. He couldn't utter apologies for what could never be excused. All he could offer was the one true thing in his false, breaking heart.
"Je t'aime," he said helplessly. "I love you, Leila."
She gazed down despairingly at him. She didn't want to understand. She didn't want to cope with him, with anything, anyone, any more.
Papa. Francis. Andrew.
And this man, this beautiful, impossible man to whom she'd given everything—honor, pride, trust. She'd held nothing back. Body and soul she'd given herself to him. Gladly.
And he had made her glad, her heart reminded.
He'd given, too.
He was, after all, almost human. She saw the hurt in his eyes, and her heart reminded her that the monstrous admission he'd just made, he'd made on his own.
"You're all I've got," she said unsteadily. "There's only you. Give me something, please. I love you. You've made me so happy. Please, let's be fair with each other." She held out her hand.
He stared at it for a long moment, his face taut. Then he put out his own hand, and she took it and joined him on the floor.
"I know I should have told you long ago, but I was afraid," he said, his eyes upon their joined hands. "You are dear to me. I could not bear to lose you. But tonight, I could not bear what was. I could not comfort you. I could not take you home. Just as I could not be there for you when the dreams frightened you. I could not take care of my own woman, because she was not my wife. And I could not prevail upon you to be my wife. I could not even ask properly. Only in joke, making light of what was most important to me, because it was dishonorable to urge or coax until I could offer with a clean heart."
"Is it clean now?" she asked. "Was that all? That night in Venice—you were the one with Papa, and those were your men?"
"It is not all of my past," he said. "Not even the worst, perhaps. I injured others. Yet those debts have been paid long since. Even to your country I have made amends. I have served your king nearly ten years." He looked up, his eyes dark. "But to you I have not made amends. Instead, I only compound my sins."
Ten years, she thought. A decade serving a foreign king, making amends by dealing with the worst and lowest of villains, the most complicated and delicate of problems. Whatever was too much, too dirty, or too disagreeable for His Majesty's government was thrust into Ismal's elegant hands.
"If His Majesty is satisfied," she said carefully, "then I ought to be. Even if—even if you killed Papa, it sounds as though you've paid."
"I did not kill him," he said. "Please believe this."
"I believe you," she said. "But I should like...just to know…what happened."
"It is not pleasant," he said.
"I rather expected it wouldn't be."
His expression eased a fraction, and he arranged himself in storytelling mode, his legs curled up tailor fashion.
Then he told her, all of it, from the time he'd begun buying stolen weaponry from her father's partner, whose name Ismal said he wasn't at liberty to mention. He told her how his planned revolution in Albania had gone awry because he'd tangled with the wrong men and become besotted with Jason Brentmor's daughter. He told her how AH Pasha had poisoned him, and how Ismal had escaped with the help of his two servants, and gone on to Venice, where he'd terrified Jonas Bridgeburton into providing incriminating information against the anonymous partner. Ismal described how he'd used the unseen Leila to hasten the negotiations, and how he'd had her drugged.
He told her about racing on to England—against his servants' advice—to get revenge on everyone he imagined had thwarted him: the anonymous arms dealer as well as Esme's lover, Edenmont—and, of course, Esme herself. He told her of the bloody climax in Newhaven and how Esme had saved his life and how he had paid the family—in precious jewels, no less—for his crimes.
He told her of the voyage to New South Wales and the shipwreck that he'd used to his advantage, and of his encounter with Quentin, who decided that Ismal could be more useful in Europe than among transported felons.
When he concluded, Ismal bowed his head—as though inviting her to whack him again.
"It would appear that eighteen hundred nineteen was an eventful year for you," she said. "Small wonder being knocked on the head hardly fazed you. I'm amazed, in the circumstances, that you remembered Bridgeburton's daughter at all."
"I remembered," he said grimly. "The instant you said your father's name. Even then, I was troubled. When you told me of Beaumont and how he took you away, I knew he stole your innocence, and this was why you wed him—and I thought I would die of shame. Ten years of wretchedness you endured, and all because of me."
She bridled. "I was not wretched. You are not to make me out as a pathetic victim of that sodden pig. He was obnoxious, I'll admit—"
"Obnoxious? He was faithless, and he did not even compensate by pleasing you in bed. He was a drunkard, a drug addict, a peddler of flesh, a traitor—"
"He made me an artist," she snapped. "He respected that at least—and long before anyone else did. He recognized my talent and sent me to school. He made my first master accept a female student. He brought me my first patrons. And he had to live with the consequences—of my career and ambition, and of all his infidelities. He may have crushed others and ruined other lives, but not me, not my life. I am my father's own daughter, and I gave back as good as I got. I nearly knocked you unconscious with the bed-warming pan a while ago. I promise you that's not the first time the man in my life has felt the brunt of my temper. Don't you dare feel sorry for me."
She snatched her hand from his and bolted up, to pace angrily before the fireplace.
"Pity," she muttered. "You say you love me, and all it turns out to be is pity—and some mad notion of making amends. When you, of all men, ought to know better. You know everything—more than Francis ever did: all my failings, all my unladylike ways. No secrets from you, not a one—and yet you make me out to be some pitiable little martyr."
"Leila."
"It's that curst male superiority is what it is," she stormed on. "Just as Lady Brentmor says. Just because they're physically stronger—or think they are—they think they're the lords of creation."
"Leila."
"Because they can't bear to admit they need us. Adam needed someone, to be sure. He never would have had the courage to eat that apple on his own. Eve should have just eaten it herself and let him wander about Eden knowing nothing, and no better than the dumb brutes about him. The idiot didn't even know he was naked. And who sewed those fig leaf aprons, I ask you? Not him, you may be sure. He wouldn't have—"
The door slammed.
She whipped round.
He was gone.
She hurried to the door, pulled it open, and crashed into him. His arms lashed about her, holding her fast.
"I am stronger," he said. "And my head is harder. But I am not a dumb brute. I made a mistake. I am sorry. I did not mean to insult you. I know you are strong and brave and dangerous. I love you for this, and for your devilish mind and your passionate heart and, of course, your beautiful body. Now, my tigress, may we make peace?"
/>
When Ismal awoke, a warm feminine backside was pressed to his groin. He slid his hand over the luscious curve of Leila's breast and dreamily contemplated lovemaking in the morning.
Morning?
His eyes shot open—to sunlight. Quelling his panic, he was gently disentangling himself when she turned and murmured and nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
Then he could only smile down at her in idiotic pleasure, and stroke her back while he thought how well they fit together, and how sweet it was to wake to a sunny morn with the woman he loved in his arms.
She moved under his caressing hand and in a little while raised her head to smile sleepily up at him. "What's so amusing?"
"I am happy," he said. "Stupid but happy."
She blinked as she, too, noticed. "By gad, it's morning."
"So it is."
"You're still here."
"So I am. Stupid, as I said. I seem to have fallen asleep."
She made a face. "I suppose it was the blow to the head."
"Nay, it was my conscience. So many weeks of guilty worry had exhausted me. You wiped away the agitation, and I slept like an innocent babe."
"Well, I suppose it's wicked and incautious, but I'm glad." She rubbed his beard-roughened jaw.
"It would not be wicked and incautious if we were wed," he said. "Will you marry me, Leila?"
She put her hand over his mouth. "I shall pretend I didn't hear that, and we'll start with a clean slate—on both sides. I have to tell you something, because you seem to have the wrong idea. I wasn't as clear as I might have been last night, and it wouldn't be fair—" Taking a deep breath, she hurried on. "I can't have children. I've tried. I went to doctors and tried different diets and regimens. I shan't bore you with the details. I'm barren." She took her hand away from his mouth.
He looked down into her anxious eyes. "There are plenty of orphans," he said. "If you wish to have children, we may acquire as many as you like. If you had rather not, then we shall be a family of two. Will you marry me, Leila?"
"Orphans? Would you really? Adopt children?"
"There are advantages. If they turn out badly, we can blame their natural parents. We can also choose our own assortment of ages and genders. We can even get them ready-grown, if we wish. Also, strays can be most interesting. Nick is a stray, you know. But that was not so difficult, even for a bachelor to manage. He at least was an adolescent when I found him. I did not have to mix pap and wipe his bottom. Will you marry me, Leila?"
