1818_Isabel

by Suzanne Enoch

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And what if your magic orb tells you one thing, and your heart another?”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in such things.”

  “I don’t. You do. Though I don’t require an orb to tell me who to care for.” Adam put his hand over hers where it covered his chest.

  “You called me an impossible woman,” she said, gray eyes as deep as the sea. “I’m afraid I must likewise declare you an impossible man.”

  He smiled, the bindings holding his heart tethered breaking loose when her sweet lips curved to match his expression. Adam leaned in – and stopped when she put her free hand over his mouth.

  “If you kiss me now,” she whispered, “I’ll never be able to figure this out.”

  Adam supposed if she shifted her affections to match the direction of the wind or simpered and flirted and didn’t care to be serious about any of this, he wouldn’t have felt as drawn to her as he did. That didn’t make it less maddening. He knew. He was willing to overlook her silly fascination with magic. Isabel, though, didn’t seem to wish to overlook his doubts.

  He kissed her palm before wrapping his fingers about her wrist to pull it away. “It goes against every instinct I possess to simply stand aside and wait,” he said. “But you’ve clearly convinced yourself that you don’t need to make a decision with your heart because the orb will do it for you.” He stepped away from her and bent down to pick up the blanket, shake it out, and fold it.

  “That’s not fair, Adam.”

  It didn’t please him, either. With a noncommittal grunt he shoved the blanket through the basket’s handle, then picked the whole thing up. “Shall we?” he said, and offered his arm again.

  Still scowling at him, she grabbed hold as they ducked through the brambles and picked their way back to the curricle. In two days the enemy would be not just at the gates, but inside the house. Not his house, but nevertheless one of which he’d grown supremely fond. And one that was under his protection.

  Alton would do whatever he could to convince Isabel that her blasted orb had chosen him. For once Adam wished he could lower himself to do the same. Or at least to wish that the magic it supposedly possessed, and that she believed in so strongly, was real.

  Because he knew down to his bones that Isabel belonged with him. It was only his ability to convince her that concerned him. Worried him. Terrified him.

  13

  Isabel lay on her stomach, chin on her folded arms, and stared at the orb in its golden-clawed base just beyond the end of her nose. “Glow,” she muttered. “Show me a face. Shine a beam of light. You’re meant to help me.”

  Nothing. She freed one arm and tapped the moonstone with her forefinger. It wobbled, then righted itself again. Pursing her lips, she blew on it.

  “Are you angry because I hid you in my riding boot? I would put you on display if I knew how and why you kept disappearing. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  It remained where it was, doing nothing. Just as it had done nothing since she’d retrieved it from Adam’s bedchamber the second time. With a sigh she caught hold of it and sat upright. How disappointing if the orb had used up the last of its magic. Without it, would Nimway Hall still be…itself? What would she pass on to her oldest daughter – if she could tear herself away from dreams of Adam in favor of the much more sophisticated Geoffrey? The property, of course, but not only did Nimway mean acreage, it was myth and legend and promise. And magic.

  And if the orb still held magic, why wasn’t she worthy enough to see it? To have it help her choose the path of her life? After all, she had one man who also cared about Nimway but who refused to see its heart. And she had another man who believed as she did, who was charming and flattering and who wanted to give her a fairy-tale life, but who left her wondering how much time she would be able actually to spend at Nimway Hall.

  Jane knocked on the door. “Isabel?”

  “I’m still in here.”

  Her companion pushed open the door and practically bounced into the room. “He’s just crested the rise,” she announced. “Not five minutes away, now.”

  Of course “he” would be Geoffrey Bell-Spratt. Giving the orb a last, warning shake, she wrapped it in her dark-blue scarf and tucked it against her elbow. “Then let’s go say hello, shall we?”

  “Are you certain you want an old spinster like me to join you? You’ll have Simmons and the footmen there to keep everything proper.”

  “You’re part of my family, Jane. If you and he don’t get on well, he’s not the man for me.” Isabel joined her companion at the door. “And with the orb not doing anything, I am relying on your assessment of his character.”

  “Very well, but it’s entirely possible I’ll become lost in his gorgeous blue eyes and not pay attention to anything else.”

  Isabel snorted. “Then we can both be lost together.” The orb bumped against her arm, and she tightened her grip on it. She’d said she would show it to Geoffrey, and with its tendency to vanish she wasn’t taking any chances.

  “I just hope Mr. Driscoll doesn’t decide to wander by while Lord Alton is here. You said they don’t get along.”

  They headed down the hallway together. “No, they do not, though neither of them will bother to tell me why. But I informed Adam that I would be entertaining tonight, and with whom. And I instructed Simmons to have Mr. Driscoll’s dinner brought to his bedchamber. I’m not taking any chances.”

  “This is very exciting. I hope the orb does glow or spin or whatever it’s going to do. Then we’ll have a wedding, and your parents and grandparents will come, then you’ll have a daughter, and she’ll have your birthmark as well, and Nimway Hall will have its next guardian. And it all begins tonight!”

  A shiver of unease ran down Isabel’s spine. Her entire future, laid out in one sentence. What if the first step, the orb, failed? Did that mean her ancestors didn’t or wouldn’t approve any match? That they didn’t approve of her? Would she be the last guardian?

  “Isabel? We need to go downstairs, my dear.”

  Her hand clenched the stair railing, and she was most definitely not moving. Isabel shook herself. “Of course. A stray thought caught hold of me.”

  “A good thought, I hope?”

  “How could it be otherwise?” Forcing a smile, she continued down to the foyer.

  Discounting her anxiety over tonight’s dinner, she actually did have several reasons to be thinking happy thoughts. The bees had two actual hives now, and the honey Mr. Hayward had showed them how to extract from the chest of drawers had graced her toasted bread this morning. A half dozen orange trees had arrived, and so had Mr. Hodgins, giving her hope that the orangery would be finished before the cold weather set in. Top Drawer Honey could be selling its first jars by the end of next spring.

  Adam had given her his calendar, and she’d begun making notations of her own to remind her what needed to be seen to and when to do it. Initially all the tasks, and the variety of them, had felt chaotic and overwhelming, and whenever a new task appeared she had to quash the instant feeling that she wouldn’t be up to managing it.

  To her great surprise, though, she’d begun to discover that life at Nimway Hall had a rhythm to it. A heartbeat, almost. And slowly, very slowly, she felt as though she could feel its pulse. For that, she could thank Adam.

  Oh, he was so close to being a perfect match for her. There were times over the past few days she’d been able to forget for minutes at a time that he – an employee – had never once hesitated to tell her that she was wrong about something. In fact, he seemed to take a particular kind of delight in arguing with her. And in claiming that his opinion had more merit than hers because it was based in logic rather than instinct and things she simply knew to be true.

  Simmons opened the front door, and she tried to shake herself free of Adam, of remembering that he was equally generous with praise when she performed her new duties up to his standards. Before she even had time to take a last, deep breath
, Viscount Alton strolled into the foyer. Swiftly he handed the butler his hat and coat. That done, he walked up, took her free hand, and bowed over it.

  “It seems like weeks since I last set eyes on you, Isabel,” he stated, brushing his lips against her knuckles. “You are a vision.”

  Now that was how a gentleman should greet a lady. It pleased her that he’d noticed the mauve-and-black silk gown she’d donned; she and her mother and Jane had gone to Paris themselves to order it. She curtsied as well as she could with one hand captured and the other holding the well-wrapped orb. “Thank you, Geoffrey.”

  His gaze lowered to the bundle in her arms. “Is that it? May I see it?”

  “Let’s repair to the drawing room, shall we? I’ll show it to you while we wait for dinner.”

  “Certainly. Lead the way.”

  He trailed Jane and her up the stairs, but paused every few feet to praise something else he’d noticed about Nimway Hall. The cornices were magnificent. The foyer chandelier was exquisite, of a crystal that most houses couldn’t afford. The stairway bannisters were of the finest mahogany he’d ever seen, and the price of mahogany was outrageous these days. A frown furrowed her brow, but she swiftly banished it again. There was nothing wrong with seeing the beauty in things. And if he’d used as fine a compliment on the curtains as he had on her gown, well, that was merely his way of expressing himself. As for his knowledge of what the bits and bobs of Nimway were worth, perhaps it was just another foible. None of Nimway was for sale, after all.

  “I tried to find a record of when, precisely, Nimway Hall was built, to give me some insight into its architecture,” he said, as she led the way into the drawing room.

  “What did you discover?”

  “I discovered that if there are records somewhere, I can’t find them. All I can say with any certainty is that there’s been a house on this spot, in one form or another, for a very long time.” He turned in a slow circle. “A very long time.”

  “I could have told you that,” Isabel returned, smiling. As she spoke, though, Adam’s warnings about Geoffrey and his motivations began swirling through her mind. She didn’t want them to be there, because she preferred being able to take people at their word. She wasn’t gullible – or at least she thought not – but since she knew Adam Driscoll to be an honest man, it would be stupid and naïve on her part to disregard his warnings. Especially with the orb not giving her any clue yet which way to turn.

  “We have been here for ages, Geoffrey, even if our surnames change with each generation, because that is what happens when a property passes down the female line. Why are you so interested in our architecture now?”

  The viscount faced her straight on, his expression the typical one of mild amusement. “You sounded like a true guardian of Nimway Hall just then, speaking through the ages. It gave me goosebumps.”

  And that had been a fine compliment. “Thank you.”

  He held out one hand. “May I see the orb now?”

  Abruptly Isabel wanted another moment or two, a few more seconds to think and to breathe. For heaven’s sake, her fate rested on all of this. Or at the least, her future. She squared her shoulders. In essence she’d been waiting for this moment for eighteen years. And that was long enough.

  Looking down, she removed the blue scarf from around the old orb. Keeping her fingers from touching it to avoid influencing anything, she held it out to Geoffrey.

  With his attention seemingly divided between the orb and her, the viscount lifted it out of its blue nest. “It’s exquisite,” he mused, holding it toward the nearest lamp.

  The stupid thing didn’t glow, but then it hadn’t been doing that for the past few days. Still she kept a close eye on it, because if there was ever a time for the orb to do something magical, it was now.

  “You said it glowed when you touched it?”

  “Yes.” More or less, anyway.

  “Well. I’m not seeing…” The viscount trailed off, his expression folding into an attractive frown. He didn’t seem to own an expression that wasn’t attractive.

  “What is it?” Isabel asked.

  “It feels… That is, the moonstone feels warm.”

  “Well, you’re holding it.”

  He nodded, his frown deepening. “Yes, but…” He shifted one hand, touching the golden claws. “The stone is warm. The gold enclosing it is not. I’m sure of it. In fact, it’s quite warm, but not intolerably so.” His mouth curved in a surprised smile. “Remarkable. I feel…content. Happy. Like I’m precisely where I’m supposed to be.”

  Hmm. Perhaps the glowing had just been an acknowledgment of her, and she’d misunderstood what that meant. She’d never really held it long enough to determine whether it emitted heat; she’d been too occupied with poking it and shaking it. “Let me feel it.”

  Geoffrey started to hold it out to her, then pulled it back again. “I think… Yes, it’s cooling.” Blue eyes caught hers. “I could never have imagined. Thank you for sharing it with me, Isabel.”

  When she took it back the stone felt only slightly warm, but he’d admitted that the heat had begun to fade. Was that the sign, then? Had the orb spoken? It didn’t feel…special enough, momentous enough for something that meant so much to her future. And yet the orb had reacted when he touched it, which was more than it had done for her since the first time she’d held it.

  He still gazed at her. “This is significant, then?”

  Across the room Jane cleared her throat before she conspicuously turned away to gaze out the darkened window. That was as private as dinner this evening would get.

  “Ah,” he said quietly, clearly reading the situation. Lowering his chin he took a long step forward, removed the orb and scarf from her hand to set them on a side table, and slid his arms around her waist.

  She closed her eyes as his lips touched hers, anticipating that lifting feeling, as if on the inside she were weightless, jumping down from a very high tree. His slightly damp mouth pressed more firmly against hers, and his tongue pushed between them and bumped against her teeth and her tongue. Her insides stayed just where they were, behind the ribs that he was now squeezing with his palms.

  Stifling a scowl, Isabel put a hand on his shoulders and rose up on her toes to kiss him more deeply. His breath smelled of cigars and, try as she might, she couldn’t…soar. But he was perfect. The orb certainly thought so. This was stupid Adam’s fault. He kissed far more proficiently than he had a right to do. Without his kisses lingering in her thoughts, she would be feeling those butterflies, the lightning coursing up her spine to her fingertips.

  Behind her something thudded to the floor. Oh, no – the orb? If she’d broken it now, then she’d still managed to muck up the future for her descendants. Breaking the kiss, she turned around. The scarf remained on the side table, but the orb was most definitely not with it.

  “Oh, no,” she breathed, sinking onto her hands and knees to look under the table, the couch, and the nearest chair. Nothing. “Help me find the orb!”

  Jane gasped and for some reason decided to look behind the window curtains on the far side of the room. Then again, there was no telling where it might have gone.

  “I’ll check beneath the couch cushions,” Geoffrey announced, and began turning over pillows.

  Isabel risked a sideways glance at the viscount as they searched. He wore the same mildly amused expression he seemed to spend most of his time showing the world, eyebrows slightly arched, mouth slightly curved – the pleasant look that she found most handsome.

  It shouldn’t have bothered her to see it now, but it did. If he knew as much about local legends as he claimed, he knew what the orb meant. And he’d kissed her, knowing it was the first kiss of many they would share. Yet there he was, doing a fairly poor job of searching, and wearing the same expression he’d had when they’d been at the mill, when they’d gone walking in East Pennard, and when they’d dined at the Two-Headed Dragon.

  If the kiss had pleased him, she couldn’t tel
l. If it had been the worst first kiss ever, she couldn’t tell. Congenial was one thing, but where was his passion?

  “Miss Isa… Oh, there you are,” Simmons said, as he entered the drawing room and found her crouched low on the floor. “Dinner is served.”

  She caught hold of the back of the couch and pulled herself upright. “Well, this isn’t the first time the orb has vanished,” she said, settling her skirt and hiding her frown. This man wasn’t just a guest, and she couldn’t spend the evening crawling about on the floor. Something momentous had happened, and now that she had what she’d wished for, she couldn’t quite help wondering whether a mistake had happened, after all.

  “Simmons,” she said, “the orb fell off the table here, and it seems to have gone missing again.”

  “I’ll send James and Franklin in to scour the corners,” the butler said dryly, holding open the door dividing the drawing room from the dining room.

  “Thank you,” she returned, grimacing as she took a last look at the floor. Where the devil had it gone? But then Geoffrey took her hand and placed it over his arm, practically towing her into the dining room.

  Although Lord Alton outranked her this was her home, and so Isabel took the seat at the head of the table. Generally Adam sat at her right elbow, and for a moment it felt odd to have another man seated there. But she’d asked this one over because she’d wanted a question answered. Now that it had been answered, however, she abruptly wasn’t at all certain she agreed.

  “Tell me,” Geoffrey said, as the footman brought around a delicious-smelling fish-and-leek soup, “how did your ancestors manage to keep such a profitable property with the female line? If there’s no daughter, does it pass to an aunt or a female cousin?”

  “Yes, it does. There have been occasions when that was necessary. As for how they managed it, I’m not certain. It’s always been that way. I believe it’s been contested in the courts more than once by jealous male relations, but to no avail.”

  “And the only magic here is the orb, choosing husbands for guardians of Nimway Hall through the generations?”