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‘No. May I come in?’ The clock on the landing struck one.
‘Quickly. Before someone sees you.’ Isobel pulled him inside and closed the door before the thought struck her that he was even more compromising on this side of the threshold. ‘Giles, you should not be here.’ How could he be so reckless? He spoke about her reputation and then he came to her room in the small hours. Isobel let her temper rise: it was safer than any of the other emotions Giles’s presence aroused.
‘I am aware of that.’ He put down the candle and went to stand in front of the fire. ‘I could not sleep because of you.’
‘A cold bath is the usual remedy for what ails you, is it not?’ she demanded.
He gave a short, humourless bark of laughter. ‘Guilt, I find, trumps lust for creating insomnia.’
‘What are you feeling guilty about and why, if I may be frank, should I care?’ Isobel pulled on a warm robe and curled up in the armchair, her chilly feet tucked under her. There stood Giles, close enough to touch, and there was her bed, rumpled and warm, and if that was not temptation, she had no idea what was.
He stooped to throw a log on the fire and stirred it into flame with the poker. The firelight flickered across his bruised, grim face and made him look like something from a medieval painting of hell, a tormented sinner. ‘You might care. I lied to you. I care for you very much, Isobel.’
It seemed she had been waiting to hear those words from him for days, but now all that filled her was a blank, hurt misery. Isobel blinked back the welling tears. ‘I had not thought you so cruel as to mock me.’ The heavy silk of the chair wing was rough against her cheek as she turned her head away from him.
‘Isobel—no! I am not mocking you.’ The poker landed in the hearth with a clatter as Giles took one long stride across to the chair to kneel in front of her.
‘Then you are cynically attempting to make love to me.’ She still would not look at him. If he had come to her room with a heartfelt declaration of love then he would not have looked so grim.
‘That would make me no better than those three, tricking my way into your room.’ His hands, strong and cold, closed over hers and she shivered and looked down at the battered knuckles. ‘Isobel, my Isobel, look at me.’
With a sigh she lifted her eyes to meet his. ‘Whatever your feelings, Giles, they do not seem to make you very happy.’
‘That is true,’ he agreed. ‘And it is true that I care for you, and like you and want you, all those things. And it shakes me to my core that you might love me.’
‘Then why deny it? Why hurt me, play with my feelings like this?’
He released her hands, rocked back on his heels and stood up to pace back to the fire. ‘Because what I feel for you is not love and I dare not let either of us believe that it is. Because even if it was, I can see no way to find any happiness in this, however we twist and turn. I do not want to play with your feelings, I would never hurt you if I could help it. But we can do nothing about it. I believed it for the best if you thought I did not care—you might forget about me. Then I realised how much that wounded you and I could not bear not to tell you that I do care, that I want you, that in some way I do not understand, you are mine.’
The hard knot of misery inside her was untwisting, painfully, as hope warred with apprehension. I am his, he wants me, he likes me, but he does not believe he loves me? ‘And what you feel for me is not love?’ she asked.
‘I do not think I know how to fall in love,’ Giles said flatly. ‘I have been with more women than I care to admit to you, Isobel. And I have never felt more than desire and a passing concern for them, pleasure in their company.’
How carefully he guards his heart, she realised with a flash of insight. He knows he is ineligible for any of the women he meets socially, so he does not allow himself the pain of dreaming.
‘You think it is hopeless, then? My love for you, your…feelings for me?’ Yes, she thought as she said it. Yes, I do love him.
‘Of course it is hopeless. Even if I was a perfectly respectable second son, say, earning my own living as an architect, your father would consider it a poor match. As it is, he would never permit you to ally yourself to me. And you deserve a man who loves you. We can be strong about this, Isobel. Avoid each other, learn to live our separate lives.’
‘Will you not even try to find some way we can be together?’ Isobel scrambled out of the chair and went to stand in front of him. The heat of the fire lapped at her legs, but every other part of her was cold and shivery. ‘If we talk about it, perhaps we can see some way through.’
‘No. It would be wrong to wed you.’
‘I am of age, I can decide who to marry. Love grows. I would take a risk on yours.’
‘Your father would cut you off,’ Giles said. ‘Disown you.’
‘Do you want my money, then?’ she jibed at him, wanting to hurt him as he was so unwillingly hurting her.
‘No—but I do not want to deprive you of it.’
‘As your wife I would hardly starve,’ she pointed out. ‘And I am not at all extravagant. We would not be invited to all the most exclusive events, so that would be a saving in clothes—’
‘Do not jest,’ Giles said, shaking his head at her. But she could see the reluctant curve of his mouth. Misery and pessimism did not come easily to him. ‘A scandal would affect my business and then how could I support you?’
‘You are imagining the worst.’ Isobel shook his arm in exasperation. ‘What if marriage to the daughter of an earl was good for your business? I would keep the other women at bay, I would entertain, I know all the people who might commission you. You say you do not think you will ever fall in love—well then, why not take the nearest thing to it?’
‘Stop it, Isobel.’ Giles put both hands on her shoulders and looked down into her face. ‘You are talking yourself into an emotion you do not feel. I will go back to London. In a week or two you will go home and take part in the Season and you will find an eligible, titled husband and live the life you were born to live.’
