Improper Wager: Scandalous Encounters

by Reed, Kristabel

  The woman looked up at him and offered a small curtsey. “Your Grace, pardon the intrusion.”

  Bringing to bear every ounce of generations of Strathmore arrogance, he folded his arms across his chest. “And you are?”

  “Forgive me, I am Alison Harrington, Isabella’s mother,” she said, though when she said her daughter’s name, it wasn’t with the affection of a long-lost child. It was with a hiss, as if she spat the word.

  Jonathon knew that tone all too well from his own mother’s tongue.

  “Welcome to Strathmore Hall,” he said, giving the woman the benefit of the doubt despite her poor manners. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m sure Isabella is pleased to see you. Let’s go inside and find her.”

  She stepped to the side as he made to pass her, but her words stopped him. “I’ve come to have a private word with you.”

  He slowly turned. “All right,” he allowed. “What is this regarding?”

  He very much doubted it related to a surprise or a gift, but Jonathon waited.

  “Isabella is not a proper duchess for you, I’m sorry to say,” the woman said.

  “Pardon?” he demanded, harsher than the polite word implied.

  She drew herself up as if her full height mattered. “I’m uncertain what Isabella has said to you or what lies she has spun, but she is not a proper young woman. She’s a defiant girl who has ruined herself. Isabella left England with an unsuitable man and without the benefit of marriage. Has she informed you of that?”

  His eyes narrowed, and Jonathon looked around but they were alone, him and Isabella’s mother. Furious, jaw clenched, he grabbed her arm and dragged the woman farther from any eavesdroppers. His rough treatment and obvious anger didn’t stop the woman’s vicious tongue.

  “Did she tell you how she sullied herself?” she demanded. “How she left her parents’ home?” She sniffed and didn’t seem to notice either his move to pull her away from the house or the anger beating through him.

  “She was not traveling with relatives.” The woman shook off Jonathon’s arm and tossed her head in a way he admired in Isabella. On her mother, the move simply annoyed him. “She was living with a lover.”

  “I see,” he managed through clenched teeth.

  “I’m sorry to be so blunt,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “But it had to be said. You need to annul your marriage to my daughter, Your Grace. I will be willing to sign a testimony against her so you may leave this marriage without need to arrange for her support.”

  He saw red. Pure red anger that momentarily blocked his vision. No one threatened his wife. Not even her mother. Especially not her mother.

  Feelings he thought long buried about his own mother now reared up with a malicious bite. His mother would’ve dismissed him just as Alison dismissed her daughter — however, at the very least, his mother had never tried to cut his throat as Alison tried now with Isabella. To leave her mired in scandal she had no hope of escaping.

  Jonathon attempted to clear his anger, to think rationally, but all he heard was Alison’s threat to Isabella. All he saw was that vindictive, proud smile on her face. He took a moment before he physically tossed this woman out of his house, then another.

  For Alison Harrington to have been at the manor this early in the morning, she had to have stayed in the village. She could have stopped their wedding before it began, embarrassed Isabella in front of the entire county.

  Instead, Alison had waited. Perhaps it was partly not to embarrass him, but Jonathon doubted that. No, her entire reason for confronting him here, after the wedding itself, had been to hurt Isabella in the worst possible manner.

  To have the entire village see Isabella tossed out of her new husband’s home.

  “No.” He spat the word and stepped closer.

  “I refuse to allow you to continue to speak in such a manner about my wife. I don’t know what your petty troubles are with your daughter, but I suggest you never repeat what you have said here to another soul.”

  He stepped closer, his hand curled into fists at his side. “If it comes to my attention that anyone speaks to damage my wife’s reputation,” he added in a low voice that visibly frightened the woman, “there will be consequences.”

  Alison sniffed even through the fear he so clearly saw. “You do not understand—”

  “I understand full well,” he assured her in that same cold, calm voice, “when an old, bitter woman intends on ruining someone. It’s a tragedy you unleased your venom against your own daughter.”

  With Alison Harrington now standing before him, poisonous words about Isabella spewing rapidly from her tongue, Jonathon realized Isabella understood far more than she said about difficult parental relationships.

  What had been her reaction in Milan when he’d guessed she’d write her parents first? He thought it’d been cool acceptance, perhaps even with a hint of glee. But he hadn’t known her as well as he did now.

  Now he realized her coolness hid the same memories he carried.

  Jonathon leaned over Mrs. Harrington with all the threatening composure he felt toward a woman who spoke of her own child as this one did. She stepped back, her facade cracked but not broken. “Isabella did not listen to me—”

  “I have heard enough,” Jonathon snapped. “Your attempts at harming my wife will cease now. Unless you’d like your own reputation and finances ruined.”

  He took a half step closer, temper carefully reigned in. “How difficult would it be for a lover to tell his tale to the gossip papers? Over an illicit affair with you?” he asked quietly, deadly intent. “There are so many ways to destroy a woman’s reputation. You will live as a pariah in society if you utter one word against my wife.”

  Jonathon waited a heartbeat and added, just as softly, just as lethal. “My wife, the Duchess of Strathmore. People will watch you, and I expect you to never darken our doorway again.”

  Turning sharply on his heel, Jonathon stalked into the house, uncaring what Isabella’s mother did. Once inside the house, he shouted for Barrymore as he made his way with long, hard strides toward the front door.

  “Your Grace?”

  “See Mrs. Harrington is returned to her situation.” Jonathon looked behind him, but of course the woman hadn’t followed him. “Immediately.”

  Isabella suddenly stepped before him, an older gentleman, no doubt her father, beside her. Jonathon glared at the other man and wordlessly dismissed him. Any father who did not stand up for his daughter was not welcomed in his house, either.

  Jonathon turned to Isabella and stepped forward, softening when he saw the tightness around her mouth and the stiffening in her spine and shoulders with an unnatural tautness.

  “Forgive us, Your Grace,” her father said quietly. Behind him, Jonathon heard Mrs. Harrington’s footsteps. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

  He didn’t watch them leave, but waited until Barrymore closed the door behind them. He stepped toward Isabella then, reaching for her hand. It was cold and stiff in his own. She immediately pulled away.

  “I don’t want to discuss this,” she said and turned sharply on her heel.

  “Stop.” Jonathon snapped the word and moved in front of her.

  She looked up at him, her face impassive, but her fingers curled into the skirts of her gown, the only sign betraying her.

  He curled his hand around her upper arm and gestured to the parlor she and her father recently vacated. He wouldn’t drag her in there — damn it, yes he would. The woman who faced him now was not the same who’d left their bed only this morning.

  Jonathon knew this woman — saw it in her eyes as she once again became the closed-off gambler he’d originally met in Milan. Fear clutched a cold hand at his insides. He wanted the smiling, laughing wife he’d come to know since then.

  Even if he didn’t accept an hour with her mother had changed her, Jonathon feared he’d lost the woman he wanted. The woman he loved.

  “We need to discuss this,” he said, closing
the pocket doors, “and now.”

  Jonathon took a deep breath and folded his arms across his chest. Isabella watched him, her eyes blank, posture stiff and immobile. That fear moved along his spine, icy and panicked. Jonathon desperately looked for a way to tear down the walls she erected around her heart.

  To find the woman he’d fallen in love with, the woman he needed in his life more than he’d realized.

  “What that woman said to me was absolutely deplorable.”

  “She has her opinions of me,” Isabella said, her voice hard and thin. “And you know she isn’t mistaken.”

  She didn’t flinch at those words but merely raised her chin higher as if waiting for a blow. Jonathon had a feeling she was used to that, used to waiting for the verbal swipe.

  “She is disgraceful in my eyes,” he told her, making sure Isabella understood him. He closed the distance and cupped her shoulders. In a quieter voice but no less firm and sure he said, “And I promise, she won’t repeat it.”

  “Thank you,” Isabella said in a very polite and cordial tone. “However, this entire situation with my family has reminded me that our association is based on a wager.”

  Jonathon didn’t flinch at that statement but merely waited. She withdrew further from him with each word, though she stayed perfectly still, motionless before him.

  “I appreciate the kindness you’ve shown me these past weeks.” She nodded, her chin still tilted in defense. “But I also must remind you that our marriage is one that comes with understandings between us. If you choose to take a mistress to your bed tonight, it would not bother me. Once I have your heir, expect I shall take a lover to mine.”

  Jaw clenched, Jonathon purposely loosened his fingers from her shoulders. Her dark eyes were cool as she watched him steadily, and he saw the walls his wife carried build back up right before his eyes.

  Cursed Alison Harrington and her husband, and wished they’d never made the journey to his home.

  Breathing heavily, he took a half step back. He wanted to stomp out and find Isabella’s mother and drag her back inside. Tell her in very specific detail how ignorant and selfish she was. Jonathon wanted Alison Harrington to feel as small as she made her daughter feel. Let her know how reprehensible she was for her attack on her daughter.

  For the lack of loyalty and support from her own mother.

  Drag her father back here as well and demand he stand up for his daughter instead of being the weak-willed coward who stood behind his wife and allowed her ignorance to reign over their daughter.

  More than that, he wanted to shake Isabella. Shake her until she saw reason.

  He’d murder any man she took to her bed.

  Slowly crossing his arms over his chest, he watched her, but Isabella didn’t flinch beneath his gaze. Shouting at her would do no good, though he still wanted to shake her until she forgot her mother’s words.

  Instead he took a deep breath. It did naught to help the fury pounding through him with every beat of his heart.

  “And if I do not want that?” he spat.

  “Then you should’ve considered more carefully before you wagered yourself.”

  Jonathon moved before he realized it, gripping her arm tightly and hauling her against him. Isabella flinched, the only emotion she’d shown since he found her with her father.

  “It’s become more than a wager between us.”

  “We’ve become friends, true,” she said in a slightly softer tone. “And that will make our lives all the more pleasant. But that does not mean we shall be anything more.”

  His hand tightened briefly on her arm before he dropped it. Furious — at Isabella, at Alison Harrington, at this entire morning — Jonathon stepped back again. He didn’t trust himself.

  “Did that woman affect you so profoundly with one visit?”

  “She simply reminded me that emotions don’t belong in our marriage,” Isabella said as if conversing about the weather. Her fingers wrapped around the bracelet she continued to wear, brushed along the stones like a talisman.

  “I think you should rest,” he said, the words barely making it past his clenched jaw. “And consider what you’ve said.”

  Without another word, Jonathon turned sharply on his heel and stormed out. He didn’t trust himself not to do something stupid. Or say something even rasher. He stalked through the house and toward the stables, calling for his horse as he did so.

  He needed time. Though Jonathon suspected it was already far too late.

  At the stables he turned back and looked at the house. Didn’t she know? Didn’t she understand? Isabella had captured him with more than simply a wager.

  She was a part of him now.

  Jonathon thought she believed he was a part of her, too. It hurt, a knife twisting through him, to know she didn’t. To think she could so easily brush away all that grew between them these last weeks.

  Months of learning to trust and falling in love. With a few callous words, everything he wanted, had held onto, vanished like a cheap market day trick.

  “She can’t brush it all away,” he vowed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Isabella waited until Strathmore’s footsteps disappeared. Then she waited still, waited until the band constricting her chest eased and her fingers unclenched from her gown. But she didn’t shake. She remained standing, perfectly still, head held high.

  Strathmore Hall suddenly felt unbearably silent. It echoed around her as if the sounds she’d so quickly come to associate with it vanished as surely as her mother.

  She drew in a deep breath, and though it hurt, she drew in another one. Slowly, with her eyes straight ahead, Isabella made her way up the staircase and toward her bedroom. The duchess’s bedroom.

  With fingers that barely worked, she opened the door to the dark, somber room. Mayhap it wasn’t as melancholy as she first thought. Isabella looked around the room again, with eyes no longer blinded by the blush of infatuation.

  She’d keep this room, keep it with its dark blues and darker wood. It reflected a life of duty and obligation. Naught more. A life that now awaited Isabella. As soon as she knew for certain she was with child, she’d spend not a moment more in Strathmore’s chambers.

  No. Not Strathmore. The duke’s chambers.

  Isabella needed to remember that. Their marriage was in name only — a wager won and consummated but never more than that. Certainly not the friendship they developed. The warmth they shared. The laughter.

  Isabella stood at the window and looked out at the vast grounds. She could lose herself there; spend her days wandering the fields and wood. The stream Strathmore told her about, the one she’d earlier wanted to picnic beside with him.

  Shaking her head sharply, Isabella blinked, bringing the room — and her situation — back into focus.

  What a fool she was.

  What Manning had done was far worse than the money he stole or how he’d left her unprotected in a foreign country. She left everything for him — friends and family and future — and had given him everything, her life and her heart. And he abandoned her without a backward glance.

  In those weeks after Manning left her, Isabella vowed never to fall in love with another. It hurt too deeply, cutting her to the quick until she hadn’t been certain she’d ever recover.

  She had — oh, she had — but the scars had never faded.

  Her time with Strathmore had made her forget. Made her forget the hurt and anger and those scars. Made her see a future she once envisioned with Manning.

  No, she thought and sat heavily on the divan.

  She never envisioned such a future with Manning. They always lived in the moment. With Strathmore, Isabella all too easily saw their future. One filled with laughter and warmth and a family. The family she hadn’t realized she wanted until it’d been offered her.

  What if Strathmore did the same? What if he took all she was, all she offered, and simply...left? It’d break her.

  He was a duke; they weren’t known for
their faithfulness. Whether it be tomorrow or in two years, he’d find a mistress. Why should she allow herself to invest in him as she had? The simple answer was that she shouldn’t.

  That realization hurt far more than Isabella thought it would. Far more than she wanted it to, than she was prepared for it to hurt.

  It was dangerous, these visions of her future. They could be snatched away in a breath. Strathmore had threatened her mother, but that certainly did not mean Alison Harrington would not still release her venom and embarrass her, embarrass Strathmore.

  Simply because she felt it her right to do so.

  Could Isabella give him a chance to walk away? Distance himself from the scandal she’d surely bring down upon him? He’d gone to so much trouble with all these weddings.

  A tear splashed on her hand, and Isabella sniffed, hastily wiping her cheeks. She couldn’t break down, not now. But her fingers shook, and it hurt to breathe. Those walls she’d taken such care to erect after Manning, the ones that had crumbled the longer she spent with Strathmore only to be hastily built once more, crashed around her.

  He’d gone to such lengths to protect her and any potential child. Had she been a fool to think even a title as lofty as duke was enough to protect her from her own sins?

  The door slammed open. Isabella jumped and whirled, but was unsurprised to see Strathmore in the doorway. He looked furious, his eyes hard as they found her. He stalked into the room, the door swinging closed behind him.

  “Perhaps it’s best we sleep separately this evening,” she said.

  But her heart pounded. She didn’t fear he’d physically hurt her, but the intensity in his gaze made her breath catch. So be it. Isabella lifted her chin higher. If he wished to have things out between them now, so much the better.

  No need to prolong the inevitable.