The Sins of Lord Easterbrook

by Madeline Hunter

  Isabella turned her gaze from the passing countryside. She looked over with an expression as bold as she had ever shown.

  “Has Mr. Miller importuned you?”

  “No.”

  That did not answer the bigger question. Isabella's eyes dared her mistress to be a hypocrite.

  “I think that Mr. Miller is a very handsome man,” Leona offered. “Perhaps not an especially kind one, though. I sense that he is somewhat ruthless, and too inclined to just take what he wants and not consider the consequences to others.”

  “He is kind when he wants to be, I believe. As for the rest, you describe most men. You describe my father. And the marquess, for example. At least Mr. Miller does not frighten me the way the marquess does.”

  “Perhaps you should be frightened. It is different here. You need to remember that. There are no concubines in Europe. There are no rights for a woman who gives herself to a man outside of marriage, and a man can have only one wife. Her children have no rights either. Your father was European and that is why your mother had no security.”

  “Tong Wei reminded me of all of that already.”

  Leona frowned. “He did? When?”

  “When I was excited that Edmund had visited you that day. He told me that you were not suitable to be such a man's wife, and that there was no other place for you that was respectable.” She looked out the window again. “It is better in China. A woman can still have a place even if she is not suitable to be an important man's first wife.”

  Leona did not know what to say. This conversation had begun as a warning for Isabella, but was turning around and aiming elsewhere.

  “Isabella—”

  “He is kind to me. He speaks gently,” she whispered. “He is a servant too.” She blinked hard and licked her lips. “He notices me. I am not the scorned girl of impure blood to him.”

  The coach entered a little town just then. Leona joined Isabella at the window. Shoulder to shoulder, they peered out at the cottages and the lane of shops.

  There was no use in warning Isabella to be wise. No matter what had happened between her and Mr. Miller in the past or what would happen in the future, no matter whether his motives were affectionate or ruthless, that handsome blond man was going to break Isabella's heart. It was already too late to stop that.

  “Oh, my goodness.”

  Leona muttered her astonishment while she watched Aylesbury Abbey come into view.

  “I do not think I have ever seen a house so big. I have heard of such palaces in China,” Isabella said.

  The house was massive. Nor did it look at all like an abbey. A fine-boned classicism governed its style, giving its extended height and wings an unexpected lightness and elegance.

  Nothing thus far, not Easterbrook's huge house at Grosvenor Square, not the army of footmen in their antiquated livery, had prepared her for this.

  Amidst her wonder, her conversation with Isabella echoed inside her. Not suitable for such a man.

  She already knew that. She was not ignorant of status and what it meant in the world. It was just that this estate, and this “house” that loomed larger the closer they got, encapsulated and explained so much.

  I am Easterbrook.

  A little ritual attended their arrival. More footmen emerged from the house. One who accompanied her handed over a letter that was rushed inside. A man appeared. His air of authority marked him as someone of importance. He introduced himself as the house steward, Mr. Thurston, welcomed her, and escorted her inside.

  A housekeeper waited to take her in hand. Isabella was herded away. After a gentle flurry of activity and commands, Leona found herself in an apartment with three rooms overlooking an extensive garden. The furnishings dazzled her so much that she barely heard the housekeeper explain the household routine.

  The woman seemed to surmise the dismay underneath the amazement. “I would be happy to show you the property if you like. I find that visitors are more comfortable once the house is familiar to them.”

  Leona quickly refreshed herself, then joined the housekeeper for the tour. Her trader's mind calculated costs for the appointments and fabrics, only to reach sums so high that she entered a state of disbelief. The rooms themselves possessed perfect proportions that helped create an effect of calm grandeur.

  She especially liked the library. Despite its large size and its soaring ceiling, it managed to appear an intimate, warm space. The warmth of the jewel-toned fabrics probably helped, as did the many mahogany cases filled with books. A variety of upholstered sofas and chairs and reading tables kept it from appearing as vast as it truly was. Handsome landscape paintings decorated the walls.

  “The marquess prefers this room,” the housekeeper confided. “When he visits he will sit here of an evening. His mother was a writer. She used to spend her days at the writing table over there. Lost to the world, she was, as she wrote those poems.”

  Leona pictured Easterbrook in dishabille, by the fire, oblivious to the way his appearance spoke of his indifference to his wealth and position, and also his utter security in both.

  “Does he visit often?”

  The housekeeper shook her head. “He did come down for a wedding last January. The cousin of Lord

  Hayden's wife was married in Watlington nearby. A real country wedding it was, and the marquess condescended to attend, which was all the talk in the county. Not like him to accept such invitations. A very private man, the master is.”

  When the tour ended, Leona asked to return to the library. “How do I have a letter posted?”

  “Give it to the butler and it will be done. There is paper in all the writing tables and secretaires. Will you be taking supper in your chambers or the dining room?”

  Leona pictured herself alone at the banquet table that seated forty, sipping soup with six footmen in attendance. “My chambers, thank you.”

  The housekeeper left her and she sat down at the writing desk to compose a letter to Lady Lynsworth. She needed to find out if Tong Wei would return to London soon. Aylesbury Abbey was a palace with every comfort and luxury to be imagined, but she did not want to visit longer than she had to.

  Isabella arrived to prepare Leona for the evening. She reported that she had been given a fine room up above, on the same level as the most important servants.

  “The housekeeper told me to inform her if anyone treats me with disrespect,” she said with wonder. “She said the marquess specifically instructed her to help me.”

  Leona thought that remarkable. Despite the danger still coiling out of him when he sent them off in his coach, he had taken the time to add instructions about Isabella in his letter to the steward and the housekeeper. He had been sensitive to the ways Isabella's mixed race might make her an outcast in the other servants’ eyes.

  It was the kind of act that made Easterbrook impossible to understand. He could cut society right and left, he could be ruthless in his pursuits and arrogant in his assumptions, he could be self-absorbed to the point of rudeness, but he had these unexpected impulses of endearing thoughtfulness.

  A fine meal arrived. The servants set a little table in the apartment's sitting room, near the window overlooking the garden.

  “You may join me if you like, Isabella.”

  “There is a large table for us below. I will go there if I may. One of the maids is going to show me some of this palace's many chambers and buildings. You do not think that is wrong, do you? It is permitted, I hope.”

  “I suspect that none of the servants here enters places that are forbidden. You do not have to come back tonight. I will manage myself, or call for help if I need it.”

  She sent Isabella off to explore the servants’ world. She imagined the extensive staff sitting at that table below, and all the talk and laughter. Isabella would have many new experiences here and meet many new people.

  Her mistress, however, would take her meals alone, while she gazed out at a spectacular but empty garden.

  By the time the servant
cleared away the remains of the supper, dark had fallen. Leona had also made a few decisions.

  She would write to Easterbrook and explain that being sequestered at this house did not suit her. In the least she would demand to know how long he expected her to remain here. The latter point had never been discussed. In his haste to send her away, and with her emotions still jumbled from the night's events, she had never even asked about it.

  Now, however, she concluded this flight had been too precipitous, and a mistake. She might as well have published a notice, telling these men that they had won.

  She went down to the library. She would write a firm letter to the marquess, give it to the butler, and lay plans for an escape should her demands be ignored. It might be wise to choose a few books to occupy her useless hours until she learned which course she would be taking.

  On her way down, she passed an upstairs sitting room. No one occupied it, but a low fire burned and three lamps had been lit. She imagined the servants going around every evening, year in and year out, preparing the home for a family that never came.

  It was the same in the library. She opened the door to the glow from the fireplace. High-backed upholstered chairs angled toward it, creating an appealing but empty domestic vignette. A lamp sat on one of the writing tables, as if anticipating her intentions.

  She walked toward it, then stopped when a movement caught her eye. A long leg encased in a tall black boot stretched out from one of the chairs near the fireplace. She walked around the chair to investigate.

  Easterbrook sat there in a lazy, relaxed sprawl. If he had appeared a pirate at their reunion, he looked like a highwayman now. A black riding coat matched the rest of his garments, except the white shirt open at the neck. His hair still showed the effects of fast riding, and tumbled around his face in reckless waves.

  He brooded over something while he watched the low flames that fought the spring night's chill. The golden light made him dangerously attractive, and his eyes deeply mysterious.

  He noticed her but displayed no surprise. His gaze drifted over her in a line much like the sinuous, seductive lock that fell on his temple.

  Trembling thrills followed similar serpentine paths inside her. He knew how she reacted when he looked at her like this. She did not doubt that. He had named her desire from the start and used it shamelessly.

  She had been very stupid. She should have assumed he would join her here. In her fear after the attack on Mr. Miller, she had not been very clever, or nearly skeptical enough. Now it entered her mind that the intrusion into her house had suited Easterbrook's purposes all too well.

  “I did not realize that you would be visiting the country too,” she said.

  “Did I neglect to mention that? I suppose that I did. You cannot be too surprised, however.”

  No, not too surprised. Nor had he schemed to trap her here deliberately, where they would be alone together for heavens knew how long. He had merely taken advantage of the emergency that brought him to her house two nights ago, and of his resolve to tuck her away somewhere safe.

  Her certainty about his motives surprised her. She had no proof he had not been the one to send men stealing into her house to begin with. He might have decided to frighten her so badly that she would allow him to pack her off to where she could ask no more questions.

  She did not think he would have allowed Mr. Miller to be harmed, but that detail was not the real reason that she believed he had not schemed so ignobly.

  The truth was that her heart trusted him even if her mind still weighed and wondered.

  She admitted that to herself. She squarely faced what it implied. As she absorbed the significance, a wall of protection that she clung to crumbled, leaving her grasping at nothing. Vulnerability flooded her, and love flowed on its currents.

  The poignant emotion did not totally bedazzle her. Another truth whispered too, and she could not deny its voice. Even while she allowed her heart to freely feel what it had yearned to experience for years, she saw the future.

  Isabella was not the only woman whose heart would inevitably break.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  Leona sat in the other chair near the low fire. “Is Mr. Miller better?”

  “Mr. Miller should be mended enough to leave his bed in a day or two. I spoke with him about Isabella, by the way,” Easterbrook said.

  “So you are certain that he entered that library for an assignation?”

  “Very certain.”

  “Did you warn him off?”

  “It is not for me to do so. I did explain that his amorous pursuits must not interfere with his duty.”

  She could taste Isabella's eventual disappointment now, because it also would be her own. “He was only there several times. They could have spent very little time together, and yet.… I think that she has lost her heart to him.”

  “I am sure that she has. If it helps at all, I am also certain that he thinks of her affectionately, which is unusual for Mr. Miller.”

  “It does ease my worry now, but it will not help in the end. No matter what his affection, she cannot stay here with him. She does not belong in his world.”

  “I doubt Mr. Miller had thought about that yet.”

  “No, but she has. Women always do.”

  They looked into the fire, neither seeking the other's eyes. The mood grew too pregnant with unspoken words. She sought a way to dispel the heavy air.

  “Once more you express complete certainty about your view of people's hearts, Easterbrook,” she teased. “I am beginning to think it is not just normal arrogance on your part.”

  “I am not certain at all about you, Leona. If you were any other woman, I would know if you are glad that I followed you here. With you I either have to ask, or use pleasure to ensure that you are glad enough by morning.” He smiled. “I don't even know which of those choices you would prefer I take.”

  Rather suddenly they were down to very frank talk. Normally she preferred that, but tonight, with her heart fluttering so badly and a girlish excitement threatening to block all sense, she could not think clearly enough to spar with him.

  “Nor do I know which I would prefer. I am confused about everything concerning you.”

  Terribly confused now, sitting within an arm's reach of him. It was wonderful to want him and love him but also distressing to know that it would be a mistake to be glad he had followed her.

  They sat like two friends passing an hour. He did nothing to begin a seduction, and yet a low stimulation already hummed in her, flushed now by affection that warmed the arousal in perilous ways.

  She was beyond dissembling or being clever. Per haps in a few hours she would reclaim that part of herself, but here, now, in the dark and silence, basking in his sensual, masculine presence, she could not defeat the way her heart urged her to rashness.

  “What would make you less confused, Leona?”

  What would make her less confused? The question begged for more analysis than she could muster.

  “Answers,” she said. “Answers to many questions about you, and about the past and now, and about your mind and your heart.”

  “I am not accustomed to answering questions, let alone many of them.”

  “Yes. Of course. You did ask your own question, however. Do not blame me if you do not care for my attempt to answer it.”

  He smiled at the rebuke. “Do you think we could start with a mere one question tonight? There must be some that confuse you more than others.”

  “That is true. One in particular should be asked before this night gets much older.”

  “Then let us start with that.”

  It required a few moments to work up the courage to put it into words. The answer might be devastating.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “That is really two questions, depending on how it is interpreted.”

  She felt her face warm at the boldness of the second meaning he inferred. She had intended to ask why he was b
othering with her. He had heard another, specific question that emphasized the “what” and all its possible answers.

  He turned very serious. She could see no humor in him now. No lightness.

  “I never forgot you, Leona. Not your vivid spirit or quick temper or expressive eyes. I always knew we would meet again. If my pursuit has been too insistent, it is because despite all the changes the years brought, some things did not change at all. I had waited too long to experience them again.” He reached for her hand and held it in the gap between their chairs. “You asked your question as if any woman would do, as if I trouble myself with you for no purpose. To me, you are unique. You knew me, and understood what you knew, better than anyone. I think that you do now as well.”

  It touched her that he spoke so openly. It was more of a declaration than she ever expected. But it saddened her that this man who was so contained and confident believed that her incomplete understanding was the best the world had ever offered him.

  “Now, as to the other question, what do I want with you, I dare not answer with complete honesty because you might run away like you used to.” His eyes turned a little devilish. “In bed, I want whatever you will allow. I want you for as long as I can convince you to stay. Would you prefer it if I wanted more?”

  The question, asked so casually, stunned her.

  “I know that I was the first with you,” he said. “I am supposed to offer marriage. I have considered it, but there are reasons why such a match would be ill-advised. However, if you want a proposal—”

  “No. I am not expecting anything. Least of all that. I know why it is.…impossible. Certainly for you. For me as well. I could never abandon my brother like that.” She had never allowed herself to consider such a thing. A silent litany of reasons why it could never be shouted and drowned out the mere thought even now.

  “Not impossible. Just.…”

  “Ill-advised. I understand. Truly.”

  “No, you do not. Truly. Perhaps I will try to explain sometime.” His hand held hers more firmly. “Are you less confused now?”