"Now, now, dear, I'm sure they would not be so barbaric as to trouble her, though of course she was a witness to our nuptials as well, and as such might have to be questioned."
The older and shorter of the two men said, "Er, no, that’s all right. We would not dare prevail upon a sick woman in such a manner."
The police questioned everyone in the house except Randall’s mother, and left after about half an hour, apologizing profusely.
"That’s quite all right. It was a serious charge, one you had to investigate," Randall said calmly.
"Yes, of course. You had to make certain that nothing irregular was going on here." She looped her arm affectionately through Randall’s and gave her most winsome smile.
They stood on the doorstep and waved the detectives off, and then looked at each other in relief.
"Thank God you have such efficient servants."
"And such a brave little wife. Thank you."
"Don’t mention it."
He caressed her cheek. "But I have to. You stood up to them beautifully."
"This was Howell’s first gambit to try to split us apart. I may have doubts about you because we do not yet know each other very well, but they will only be resolved by us being together. I’m not going to let him separate us, I promise."
Isolde stroked his broad chest, and before he even realized what he was doing his lips were upon hers, seeking, exploring, devouring. The contact between them was electrifying. As she laced her fingers through his hair, he pulled her tightly to him, deepening the kiss. She clung to him fiercely, longing to get even closer.
So close was she in fact that Randall was afraid she would be disturbed by his heated response to their kiss-his rock-solid hardness was all too apparent through the fabric of his trousers. But far from fleeing from it, Isolde wanted to run headlong to it, for she was certain that this was meant to be between them.
"Isolde, I’m not so sure we should be…." he whispered, dragging his lips from hers.
They dropped their questing hands as they looked around and realised they were standing framed in their own doorway in full view of the entire street. Including the carriage across the street which now drove on, the driver cracking the whip sharply.
Isolde shivered. Howell had been in that carriage, watching, she was sure of it….
Noting her alarmed look, he said, "I’m sorry about the kiss being so heated--"
She shook her head. "It’s no matter. I’m as much to blame as you for what happens between us like this."
She stepped inside and moved to their drawing room. "I'm sorry, Randall, truly, for I know that you think my standoffishness is all about you. But it isn’t. This sparking between us--"
"Explosiveness would be a better word, darling," he said with a grin.
"I have so many doubts. I’m sorry. I just can’t help wondering about you and the women in your past. I have a million pictures in my head, none of them pleasant. I want to be enough for you. As a wife, as your mother’s nurse, as the mother of your children."
He kissed her hand tenderly. "It’s going to take time. It can’t be forced. But you need to believe how meaningful this has all been for me. I would never equate you with any of the women in my past. They were a temporary diversion. You and I are building a life together, one that's going to last."
"I will try my best, darling."
"I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I was beginning to think there something wrong with me that I couldn’t seem to feel after Clarissa. Like I was dead inside. Like I had committed the worse sins and the more I tried to enjoy myself, the more I could see Francis’ skull grinning at me," he confessed in a whisper.
"My poor love." She put her arm around his waist and urged him to sit next to her on the sofa.
"My one saving grace is I was too scared of oblivion to do myself any real damage. Drink just enough, you might be able to forget who you are, what you are, for a minute, maybe two if you’re lucky. But even as you get to the bottom of the glass it’s still waiting for you. So I swived."
"That’s terrible," she sighed, taking one of his hands and lacing their fingers together intimately.
He shrugged. "But I have no need for anything like that any more. Just being with you, you holding my hand, is a more powerful form of oblivion. And yet clarity. For I touch you, and I’m certain that a lifetime of bliss waits for us, if only we will trust in it."
She returned the pressure of his fingers warmly. "I’m glad to hear you never succumbed to drink. After all you’ve been through, it would have been the final waste. I know you were the indulged youngest son. That your painting is very important to you. That you were never expected to inherit, have all these cares and responsibilities. That is not to say that you can’t do your duty well, even if you do not have your father to train you. In fact, I think you're secretly a lot like Michael, and you might only have ended up quarrelling. There’s a lot about you that you have left to lie fallow, but I’m sure it’s not wasted. We just need to dig it up again."
He raised his brows. "Like what?"
"I don’t know. Now that we’re married you have me to share your burdens. Even if we assume you want to spend eight hours asleep every night-"
"You mean twelve hours in bed at least, and certainly not all of it sleeping so long as you’re with me."
She cast him a sharp glance and continued, "There must be other things you can do to fill your day, like study."
"What?"
"Your painting and your study of the classics, for one. When is the last time you picked up a brush?"
"It’s been ages. I can’t afford the time with Mother being so ill."
"Your heart is in the right place, but you can’t go from one extreme to the other, from all play to all work, without suffering the consequences."
"True, but it’s my duty," he said curtly.
She shrugged. "I’m sorry. I don’t mean to dictate or interfere."
"Not at all," he said passionately. "I know you’re only trying to help. It’s just that my priority at the moment is making my new wife happy. It is a big change for you, for us both. I want you to be happy, not just myself. And if I may say so, I miss you."
She smiled softly and stroked the back of his hand. "I miss you too. But as you said, we need to focus on building a life together. For that we need to stay out of bed long enough to accomplish something."
"All right, I'll settle for the eight hours," he said with a sheepish grin.
"How about an occasional visit?" she suggested shyly.
He shook his head. "I couldn’t bear it. I don’t just want a quiddle or two with you, I want an intimacy of heart and soul. I’m willing to wait until you say you're ready for that. That you want to come back to my room to share it all the time. Anything else would just remind me of my sordid previous life. You are not a quick lay. I know it’s going to be hard for you to cope with my demons from the past, my love. But I need you to understand why there can be no walls or barricades in our relationship."
She nodded pensively. "I do understand. I don’t want that either. I just don’t know if I’m ready for all of this yet. Suddenly being an earl’s wife. And a wife."
He gave her an encouraging smile. "One day at a time. You only just learned all of the worst things about me yesterday. I’m sorry if I took advantage of that kiss on the front step."
Isolde shook her head. "You didn't. I wanted you. It’s not your fault. I could have stopped you any time. You were the one who stopped." She sighed. "Those detectives. Howell isn’t going to give up, you know."
"We’ve held him off for now."
"He’ll be back, though. We need to make sure that everything in this house is above reproach for as long as we're here," she warned.
"It is. I have no pied a terre in Town either, if that is what you’re thinking. This is my family home. I have never brought women here. I had just got back from Paris when Mark got taken ill, so I haven’t been gadding about in any way. I've been chaste f
or months. Anyone who wishes to accuse me of any side-slips, or anything else he might have up his sleeve, will be blown out of the water easily enough. The worst anyone can say is about that tart the night we met, and nothing happened. My friends at the club can bear witness to that."
"I’m sorry if I seem so mistrustful. I don’t want to be so suspicious all the time."
"I know. Just remember I have to learn to trust you as well. That's not always going to be easy for me, not after what I went through with Clarissa."
She nodded. "I understand. We need to get things a bit more settled between us first, dear. I’m sorry."
"Don’t keep apologizing. I shall do as you say. Wait for you. I’ve waited for you for a lifetime, Isolde. Surely a few more days or weeks won’t make that much difference, so long as I know that when you finally come to me again, it will be because you love me, and that it will be forever."
"Now," he said, rubbing his hands together, "what do you say to a trip out this evening to the opera?"
She nodded. "All right. If you want to go."
"Might as well get it over with. I have a box, though I usually let others use it."
"Don’t you like music?"
"Adore it, but it isn’t enjoyable without someone to share it with. My brothers and mother—"
She took his hand once more. "You have me now."
"Thank God." He gave her a quick kiss on the lips and gently disengaged himself from her questing fingers. "We will have an early supper and go. Can you be ready for six?"
"Certainly."
"And how shall you pass the rest of the day?"
"Tending your mother, embroidering, writing a letter to Philip and Jasmine explaining everything. I think they deserve the truth, and will be discreet."
Randall had the grace to blush. "The whole truth?"
She stroked his cheek. "Yes. That I met you, and no other man in the world could move me as you did, so we wed."
He kissed her on the brow. "Thank you. They’ll still wonder, though."
"Let them all wonder. I don’t care what any of them say. We’re a happy couple, and no one is going to damage that or try to persuade me you’re bad for me. Least of all the selfish Howell."
Chapter Three
Isolde’s brave words were sorely put to the test early the next morning, when she heard a commotion downstairs in the hall.
She threw on her dressing gown and ran out into the corridor, and was almost sent flying as Randall came barrelling down it from his mother’s room.
"What is it?" she asked in a panic, grasping his forearms as he steadied her on her feet.
"I don’t know. Stay here."
"But-"
"Stay here, my love, please." In an instant he was gone.
She paced up and down outside her room in an agony of suspense. She could hear raised voices downstairs.
"She’s my wife! We have her family’s consent. Her mother signed as a witness. You have no right! These accusations mean nothing!" he raged.
Isolde ran down the stairs and saw three red-uniformed men trying to subdue her husband.
"Don’t hit them, Randall! Pray calm yourself."
"Are you all right, Miss?" a fourth man in a dark suit asked.
"I’d be much better if you stopped manhandling my husband!" she hissed, her eyes flashing.
"We were told you were kidnapped and force to wed without your family’s consent," one of the men asserted.
"Darling, hold still. This is absurd. The authorities were already here yesterday. My mother and brother both signed the papers. I can’t think where you heard such rot, but my husband is a honourable man and he has done nothing wrong. Let him go," she demanded.
"We can’t do that. We have orders to arrest him for violating a minor."
"In that case I shall go to Newgate with him."
"No, Miss. We have orders to bring you back to Bow Street."
"No, we either both go or both stay. I’m not letting my husband out of my sight."
"I’m sorry, but we have our orders."
Isolde lost her temper then. "You are not taking the Earl of Hazelmere anywhere! Hopkins, send for the solicitors at once, and Mr. Alistair Grant the barrister. He is an old school friend of my husband’s and will not take kindly to having his busy schedule interrupted over what is obviously a mistake."
The leader of the small group of constables quailed. "Mr. Grant?"
"If you wish to avoid vexing him, then I suggest you come in here and look at our wedding lines. We were married by Jonathan Deveril, another friend of my husband and Mr. Grant. You will see the licence is above board, and the signatures on it just as I have said.
"If Mr. Howell has told you any different he is a liar. And he is not my fiancee any longer. He hasn't been for a long time. He broke it off with me months ago, and got engaged to Fanny Clarence. Therefore he has no reason to concern himself in my affairs whatsoever. He is only a distant relative, and not a disinterested one."
"But he said that Mr. Avenel uttered threats against him, something about a duel to the death with a sword?"
She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. "Nonsense. He burst in here unannounced in the middle of our, well, conjugal relations. What I do with my husband in the privacy of our own home is our own business. He challenged him to a duel, Randall told him he was a fool. He left."
"He believes you are drugged, or being kept here against your will. He says your husband is a degenerate who has debauched other—"
"Please, sir, I have heard enough. I love Randall and am here of my own free will." She stuck out her left hand to show her wedding ring.
They demanded she recount her wedding, chapter and verse, and questioned everyone in the house all over again. They even attempted to ascertain whether or not she was sane, a fact that made Randall so livid she had all to do to restrain him.
"I am the wife of an earl, and certainly no Bedlamite. You can ask my cousin Dr. Herriot, or Dr. Sanderson to proclaim me fit if you have any doubts. If every girl who eloped was proclaimed insane, the jails would be full of young women, with some very unhappy husbands clamouring to get into prison!"
Eventually they were forced to believe all she had said. "Very well," the most senior of the four officers said. "But we will be back if any further report is made against either of you."
"Come back as often as you like," she said breezily. "Nothing will have changed. All is well here. I'm fine, and happy. Tell Mr. Howell to stay out of my marriage. What I do is no longer his concern."
She had to resist the temptation to slam the door when they had left. She seethed for a few moments, and then looked at her husband, who had moved over to the decanters to pour them both a brandy.
She took the glass he handed her with a sigh, and drained it in one gulp. Then she said quietly, "I am beginning to be of your belief that Howell will do anything to get what he wants."
"Did you have doubts about what I had told you before?"
Isolde shook her head. "No, none. I just couldn't grasp the magnitude of his evil until this incident. If my mother hadn’t signed the wedding lines, and didn’t defend you so stoutly, you would be in Newgate by now. And me in an asylum."
He reassured her vehemently, "I have friends. Alistair. I would get out and—"
"He would have come after me while you were gone. I would have been dragged to Bow Street, and from thence who knew where. Bedlam, or worse. A secret hideaway…." She shuddered.
At that he drained his own glass, and ran a shaking hand through his hair. Then he noticed her looking at his disheveled appearance with some warmth, and fastened the front of his shirt.
"Come, dearest. Let’s sit and send for a cup of tea at least." He rang the bell and went over to sit with her on the sofa.
"What time is it?"
"The clock struck eight just a short time ago."
She groaned. "What a way to start the morning." She rose, took his brandy glass, and set it and hers down on the
tray. Then she went into the dining room and sat.
Randall rang the bell in their now, and pulled out the chair next to her. He put his elbows on the table, and reached for her hands. She placed them in his instantly.
"This is becoming a nightmare for you, isn’t it?"
"No. We had a magical evening at the opera last night. I love being with you, Randall. It’s worth all the challenges, just to see us both happy. Howell is just grasping at straws. He would do anything to see us miserable."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 4 (The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Sets) Page 31