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‘Go—’ With an effort Isobel moderated her tone so as not to frighten the children. ‘Nathaniel, Annabelle, go inside and ask Cook to find a proper bandage for Annabelle’s hand and tell her I said you may have a slice of cake each.’
They ran, tears and strange men forgotten, before she changed her mind about cake directly after breakfast. Isobel stood up, the kitten unregarded in her hands. ‘You are not welcome here, Giles. How did you get in?’
‘The brawny yokel outside is guarding the front gate, but he does not appear to have the wit to work out that there is a perfectly obvious track leading to this one.’ Giles strode across the straw-strewn yard and stopped by the mounting block.
‘What do you want?’ Isobel demanded.
‘To discover if what I suspect, what my mother believes she has discovered, is true.’
‘Your mother discovered? So this is blackmail?’ Is it a secret that lays you open to blackmail, perhaps? Giles had asked. He knows, she thought, a sort of bleak misery settling over her, eclipsing even the fear.
‘It would have been if I had not caught Geraldine in time and made her tell me exactly what she had discovered about you. She’s as protective as that mother cat and has about as many scruples.’
‘What do you think you know?’ Isobel asked. Her lips felt stiff, the question almost choked her, but she had to know what she was fighting.
‘That you have a love child whom you gave away to your friend to raise as her own.’
‘I did not want to let her go!’ The kitten gave a squeak of protest and Isobel set it down next to its mother who promptly began to wash it. ‘It was the only thing to do. I suppose you think I have no courage because your mother kept you.’
‘I have to thank her for that,’ Giles said.
‘It seems she had no scruples about shaming her family or taking you from your grandfather’s care. You grew up with a mother who had a scandalous reputation, and, apparently, she had no concerns about bringing you up to have to fight every day of your life because of who you are.’
‘She gave me life and she gave me, I hope, some of her courage. But she had to fight for so long that she does not know how to stop. When I discovered that she had found out something to your detriment and was coming here to threaten you with it, I stopped her.’
‘How? Are you telling me you can control that woman?’
‘Oh, yes. She believed me when I told her that if she tried to hurt you I would take her back to the Dower House, lock her in and keep the key. I have done it before when she went beyond the limit and I’ll do it again if I have to.’
‘Then I must thank you for that, at least,’ she threw at him. ‘But if you have the situation under control, what are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to make sure you were safe here, that her agents had gone. I knew you had a secret before she discovered what it was.’
‘How?’ She had been so careful…
‘Just putting together things that you said. I realised it was something here, in Herefordshire, something to do with Needham.’ He took a step towards her, then shook his head and turned back to hitch one hip on the mounting block. ‘I must have gone over every word you have said to me, Isobel. Every silence, every moment when there was such sadness in your eyes. Until I realised she was on your trail all I wanted to do was protect you by keeping away.’
‘Why, Giles? Why did you care so much? Are you—?’ Isobel broke off, her courage almost failing. But she had to know. ‘Are you telling me you love me after all?’ she asked flatly.
‘No,’ he said, his face tight and stark. ‘Nothing has changed, Isobel. I care for you, I want to keep you safe. And I am every bit as ineligible for you as I ever was.’
Her pride would not let her weep or plead. ‘What a good thing,’ she said. ‘Of course, I have realised that I do not love you—it was a foolish infatuation when I was lonely and miserable. Now I am doing the Season and looking for a husband—I will be delighted if I never see you again.’
‘I was a foolish infatuation, was I, Isobel? In that case either your acting skill is incredible or you have equally good powers of self-deception. You fell in love with me and I believe your current protestations as much as I did those at Oxford or at the ball.’
‘I am not a good actress, merely someone telling the truth,’ she said forcing the words out between numb lips. ‘I needed what you could give me at Wimpole. I needed heat and warmth and…affection.’ One brow slanted up satirically at the euphemism. She felt her cheeks burn red. ‘You do not care for me now, so why are you concerning yourself? I told you at Oxford that I did not want you.’
‘On the contrary, at Oxford you told me I had betrayed your trust and your feelings.’ He stood up and took one step towards her before her upflung hand stopped him.
‘I would say anything to get rid of you,’ she threw at him, desperate to hang on to the last
shreds of her self-control. ‘I do not want you, I do not need you—all I need is your silence and for you to keep your blackmailing mother silent also.’
‘So the little girl is your daughter and your friend is raising her as the twin of her son.’ He glanced down at the Border Collie puppy that was attempting to chew the heel of his boot, picked it up by the scruff and handed it to Isobel. She caught it up without taking her eyes from his face and clutched the warm squirming bundle to her bosom like a shield. ‘She has your eyes. May I see her?’
‘No! I have told you, I do not want anything more to do with you. Go back to London and marry a wife your mama will buy you. She will purchase your heirs in the same way as she bought your accent and your education and your smooth society manners.’
‘No one controls my life.’ There was anger in his voice. ‘Not since I was a child. Do you condemn my mother for wanting the best upbringing she could get for me? What do you buy for your child, Isobel? Do you pay for her clothes and her nurse? Will you pay for her governess? Will you search for the right husband for her when she is old enough to make her come-out, even if you do it from behind the walls of your own home? Or will you wash your hands of her and leave it all to Mrs Needham so you can walk away and find this husband you seek?’
