by Sophia Nash
“Delight-ed.” He sat on a crude wooden bench with a bottle and a glass half filled with amber liquid. “Welcome to the ’ouse o’ sticks.”
She carefully relatched the door and studied the spectacle before her. Indeed, there were pieces of wood in every direction, helter-skelter along the walls and floor. A single candle illuminated the large chamber.
“I thought you gave up drinking.”
“Did.” He picked up the bottle and held it up to the candle. He squinted his eyes and examined it. “Did you know that yer eyes are this eg-xact same color?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled.
“But yer don’t taste like Armin—Armin . . . Frog water. You taste like—like . . .” He was concentrating so hard that he frowned.
Good God. She walked toward him shaking her head. “All right, big bad wolf, how much did you drink of that bottle?” She could see a little more than half of the bottle was empty.
“No’ enough.”
Thank the Lord she’d had Calliope teach her how to converse with recalcitrant individuals. “I see. And are we sharing?”
His eyes swung back to her. “No.”
“Do I have to ask another little piggy to help me?”
The murkiness in his eyes receded a little and he smiled hugely. “Only if the piggy don’ eat rashers o’ bacon.”
“But swine eat absolutely everything and anything,” she retorted.
“Don’t I know it,” he said, more shrewdly than she thought him capable of, “ ’specially when they’re stayin’ at my town house in Lonnon.”
“Look, I won’t even try to understand what you’re talking about.” She grasped the neck of the bottle he held, and he immediately slapped his other large, hot hand on top of hers.
“James,” she said softly, pleading, and kneeled to his level.
He stared at her, his eyes glassy but more direct than she had hoped.
“I need to say something to you, but you need to be clear-headed. I must apologize, I think.” Her voice trailed lower with embarrassment. “But first I need you to tell me the absolute truth. Are you in love with Amelia Primrose or not?”
He laughed darkly. “I thought we settled that point.”
“No we did not. I assumed but you did not confirm. Directly.”
“You have no idea what-er you’re talking abou’.”
“You’re doing it again. And changing the topic.” She could not hold their locked gaze. She broke away first. “And you’re three sheets to the wind.”
He laughed without any amusement in his voice. “I can be sober if absolully necessess—too many esses.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
“Oh, all right.” His glassy eyes became half shuttered. “I’ll answer any question you want. But you’ll have to play me for it.”
She shook her head. She’d never imagined he could be like this. And she was uncertain of his answer, uncertain of his frame of mind. She would have to go along with his mood until he was steadier. “Play you for it? Since when did you begin wagering?”
“I always wager when I’m foxed.”
“Well, at least you are sober enough to know how ridiculous you are.”
“Truth serum. Spirits always work in that fashion, don’t you know?”
“Now you tell me.” She shook her head.
“You’re not going to use it against me, are you?” His brown eyes were huge in his long face and for the first time ever Isabelle spied a hint of boyish innocence in their depths.
“Oh, no,” she said, careful to keep her smile to herself. “Not at all.”
“I can tell when you’re lying,” he said with the smallest slur.
“Okay.” It was best to agree with him at least half the time when he was this combination of, ahem, blind and all-seeing.
He placed the bottle on the nearby end table and stood up with remarkable fluidity and ease.
“Where are you going?”
He walked to a circular foot-wide object somehow mounted on the wood beams in the half shadows of one corner. He was plucking things off it. “Here.”
“Illuminating.”
“Darts are always illuminating.”
“I refuse to wager on this. I’ve never played.”
“Your choice,” he said. “No wager, no answer.” He walked back to her.
“But I told you, James. It’s a simple, very small . . . easy question.” She paused. “And I’m really here to apologize if I’ve—”
“Done,” he replied. “Forgiven.”
“But I haven’t even fully explained what I’ve done or why I must ask your forgiveness.”
He extended his hand and opened it. Six wooden darts, each wrapped with a bit of lead, lay in his wide palm. He ignored her words and instead nodded toward the darts.
“Are those crow feathers?” She wasn’t sure if that might be a good sign or bad, given her experience in London.
“Turkey.”
“Lovely,” she said, feeling quite the opposite.
“We’ll play . . .” He paused. “ . . . going bust.”
“Perfect.” Just perfect. Exactly as she felt.
“Three darts. Whoever is closest to the center wins. If I win, you answer my questions. If you win, you get to bore me with an apology that isn’t neccessessss—” He shook his head and the irises of his eyes seemed to slosh about. “Yes, well, and I’ll answer your questions.” His smile was too large. “Perhaps.”
She sighed loudly. “I never knew you were so competitive in spirit.”
“There’re a lot of things you don’t know about me, Isabelle.” His eyes burned with intensity.
She grasped three of the proffered darts, touching the flesh of his hands. She tried hard not to show how his skin always made her remember their kiss.
“It’s a little like using a firearm. Remember what I taught you?”
“Of course I remember.” She remembered every last bit of it. How his large arms felt three years ago when he’d insisted on teaching her, in case she ever found herself alone and in danger. His chest and arms had been so warm and something much more than just comforting as he’d stood behind her and shown her how to grip, aim, and fire. How that scent of his had drove her to nearly turn and kiss him. How she had not been able to think or speak properly without acting and feeling like an idiot. And she had been so self-conscious she had spit out the absolute stupidest things ever. And she had even giggled. She never giggled. Only children would do such a juvenile thing. And all the while she was certain he had known what she was about.
“You, first.” He waved his arm in the direction of the target.
She did as he bade. The dart fell far short of the board. “This isn’t like shooting at all.”
“I know,” he said with a grim laugh.
“Have you always been this insanely determined to win?”
“Golf should have been your first clue.” He stepped up to the mark, and threw his first dart within an inch of the center.
Without thought, she asked, “How do you do that?”
“Simple,” he replied. “Just envision Sussex’s face in the center. In your case, you can envision mine.”
She was getting nowhere. She had to win this blasted, silly game. Isabelle’s second dart flew wide of the center, but at least it was fairly close to the same horizontal plane. “I get it. But I might need a few more practice shots before we begin.”
“Nope,” he announced like a common sailor. “Play has begun.”
This was ridiculous. “Don’t you dare. This is important. And you’re not like this normally. You’re acting like Sussex at his worst. And you’re not like Sussex.”
“I know,” he said cryptically. “I’m not like him at all.” He had moved into position. He pulled back his arm and let loose.
This time it barely caught the edge of the bottom of the board.
“Now look what you made me do,” he said.
It was so uncharacte
ristic of him that she chuckled.
“There’s no laughing in darts.”
“Is this sort of like how there’s no picking up someone else’s ball in golf?” He was being ridiculous.
“If you laugh at me, the wager is off,” he stated, his head tilted as if it was too heavy to hold up. “Unless I win, of course.”
“Of course,” she repeated dryly.
He might have become quite a wit when foxed, but she knew better than to take him seriously. The man simply could not go against his natural character to live up to his word. He would answer her questions if she won.
And so she took aim one last time. Then held her breath, closed one eye as she focused down the line of her raised arm. With a quick motion back, then forward, the dart flew within a half inch home. She did not move, did not react. She knew better than to utter a word to Mr. Drunk as a Sailor on Leave and Proud of It. She still had not won, and he had most likely about three thousand and one more games under his wildly competitive belt to her one round.
And then he did something Isabelle had never, ever, ever seen James Fitzroy do.
He took her place in front of the target without a word.
He took his aim.
And then shockingly, instead of throwing the dart, his arm, seemingly acting of its own accord, slowly returned to his side, the dart still in his hand.
She could not understand. But when her eyes flew to his face, ashen beyond recognition, a blast of cold enveloped her body. He appeared to give up.
“Play the last dart, damn it,” she whispered harshly.
His bleak eyes turned dark, his pupils overtaking the irises. “If you insist.” He tossed the dart sideways and it disappeared between two adjacent boards. “You win.”
And she suddenly didn’t like the sound of those words. “I win what?”
For the barest second she spied behind his mask. Unbearable sadness lurked in the depths of his dark eyes, and beyond that . . . the weight of a world of secrets.
Chapter 13
“What do you want to know? If it’s about Amelia Primrose, the answer is no.”
“No to what?”
“I’m not in love with her. At least not the way you might think, Isabelle. I admire the person she is, but I am not romantically inclined in her direction by any degree. And I never was.”
“Then why did you look at her—” She halted. “—touch her . . . say—”
“Because I would protect her from any harm, as I would anyone for whom I hold a deep respect.”
He seemed as sober as she had always seen him in the past.
“From whom does she require your protection?”
He appeared to consider her question very carefully. He searched her eyes. “From my brother.”
Her heart plummeted in confusion and shock. He was obviously more drunk than she had thought. “You don’t have a brother,” Isabelle said slowly and with great care.
“Edward Godwin, lately the newest Duke of Sussex, at least as soon as the House of Lords declares it, which I’ve arranged to be the first order of business as soon as Parliament reconvenes.” He paused and his voice dropped, “Edward is my half brother.”
She could not form words.
“He is the son my father sired before me—the one who should have been his heir if there was any right in the world,” he continued quietly. “But there is little right, is there? You see, my grandfather got wind of my father’s intention to marry a woman far beneath his station. And my grandfather would have none of it.”
She closed the distance between them and took one of his hands between her own. It was as stiff and as cold as a frozen glove lost in a snow bank.
“My father loved her, as I understand it.” He could not seem to form the next words, and then he did. “And they anticipated the wedding. The next day my father went to my grandfather and told him his intentions. My grandfather put an end to it quite effectively.”
“How?” She could barely breathe.
“Very easily. He immediately shipped his heir to a naval commander whom he had supported, and then my grandfather tried to pay the young female a stipend. She refused. But soon after, she and her family left the neighborhood. It is not difficult in retrospect to understand why. She was not only ruined, but with child. And so, in humiliation and in secret, she bore the infant.” He looked away blindly. “Edward. My half brother.”
She prayed he would tell her all before he—or rather, she—broke down. “He doesn’t know, then,” she said flatly.
“His mother or our father would have told him if they wanted him to know,” James said, emotionless. “She thought my father had deceived her, used her even when he did not come after her. She didn’t know my grandfather had arranged for his own son and heir to be impressed and dragged out to sea to join the Royal Navy. And when my father returned when his father died and finally learned what had ultimately become of her, it was too late.”
“I see,” she said faintly. The sadness of it was staggering.
“You see, she apparently had beauty and youth on her side.” He swallowed, and she could see his Adam’s apple bob awkwardly. “And fortunately, while she lived in a remote nowhereshire corner of Wales, she caught the eye of the reclusive, tonnish neighbor of her aunt with whom she had been sent to live, buried in a suitably obscure cottage.”
“The former Sussex,” she said as calmly as she could.
“Yes.” His eyes were old and sad. “Does that answer all your questions?”
She looked at him, not wanting to stop the flood of information.
“Of course not,” James said, and he shook his head slightly. “So then, to clarify . . . Edward is not the new Duke of Sussex, and yet he is.”
“Well,” Isabelle said, “if his mother was married to the former Duke of Sussex when she gave birth to Edward, he might be your half brother in theory, but in name he is unquestionably Sussex.”
“Edward was born a month prior to her marriage. The former duke was infatuated by her—said he could not live without her—despite all. Apparently she gave birth before the former Sussex decided to marry her, saddled himself with an heir that was not his, gave up the lease on the house he had taken in Wales, and then he took her on the Continent for three years to hide the truth from everyone in England.”
“And how do you know all this?”
“My father was a man who left no stone unturned when he was determined to find something out . . .” He paused. “And then he got on with his life, and performed the duties of his station, but he never forgot. My father bade me to always watch over Edward when he lay on his deathbed and admitted all to me.”
“He asked you, the younger of two gentlemen, to look after the elder?”
He would not answer.
“But what has this to do with Amelia?” she badgered him.
“She is the only other person who knows. My father dared not allow me to be the only living person who knew the truth. Indeed, he trusted no one. I do not blame him, considering his father’s actions.” He shied away from her hand that reached out to him. “He asked Amelia Primrose to bear witness. She heard my father ask me to watch over his firstborn. The one who resembled him in looks, manners, and speech. His rightful heir. The one who should have been the Duke of Candover when he died.”
“He did not say that,” she whispered, horrified.
“Yes, he did,” he said stiffly. “And he meant it.”
“He absolutely did not mean it,” Isabelle insisted. “Why would you suggest that? Your sisters once told me their father loved you more than any of them. More than anyone, they said.”
He spoke so softly she had to lean in to hear him. “Really? Is that love? Informing me that the love of his life was not my mother? That he had been living and breathing a charade with his wife and family? That he still loved the Duchess of Sussex, a blacksmith’s daughter who had borne him a son, the true heir he always regretted not being able to see?”
His
face became a mask without a hint of emotion. It was the face she knew all too well.
“Yes,” he began sardonically, “well at least Sussex’s duchess had a sense of humor. She named her only child after my dear grandfather, the one who had impressed his own heir and offered her money to disappear, all because he would not have a butcher’s daughter for his son’s duchess. But I digress.”
“Go on,” she whispered. The only thing she could do now was bite her tongue and listen. It was what he needed.
“I only tell you this to show you the error in your thinking regarding my father,” he said stiffly. “We have always been frank, something rare. At least for me.”
She nodded, her heart heavy with his pain.
“Do you truly think he held much affection or even esteem in his heart for me—as you suggest—when he beseeched his second son, me, the product of an arranged marriage to a lady of impeccable lineage—to watch over the son of his heart?” He closed his eyes and shook his head when she tried to speak. “And insisted my sister’s abigail witness it in its entirety?”
“Oh, James,” she said sadly.
He stared at her, his tic beating a tattoo along the edge of his jaw.
“He was,” she whispered, “secretly in love with her his entire life, obviously. And he had not protected her. He had done the worst thing a man can do to a female—left her unprotected. He was obviously mortally ashamed, and deeply wounded by his father. Imagine how he felt. And you—so dutiful, so careful to place your family’s needs above your own. Just look at how you are with your sisters. You were the only one he could trust with the bitter truth.” How could she help him to see something she was not even certain was true? “Obviously, he had to make certain this part of him was at least protected—and not alone in the world. Sussex knows you’re his brother, right?” She had an awful feeling it was the reverse.
“Of course not,” James said, annoyed. “For Christsakes, have you not been listening? My father didn’t want the son of his heart to be burdened with the knowledge of his mistake.”
She felt so ill she did not know what to say. She finally uttered blindly, quietly, “Your father should not have involved Amelia. He should have overcome his distrust and told you alone, and in a loving way. It would have been far better had he written it all in a private letter to be opened only if you died without an heir. But—”