Grayson shrugged. “Victoria’s in hiding. Perhaps we can convince Isobel to tell the bank we think someone has kidnapped her stepmother and may force her to make large payments from her account. We’ll tell them we—the Libertine Scholars—are trying to discover who is holding her captive. We’ll ask the bank to work with us and tell us the minute they receive any requests for large withdrawals.”
“Brilliant,” Hadley said. “She can’t travel as the Countess of Northumberland or it will be too easy to track her. If she travels under another name, then she may not have access to credit.”
“It may already be too late,” Philip said. “She’s probably halfway to Paris by now.”
Philip’s observation sent a chill down Arend’s back, but he shook his head. “She won’t have made the coast yet. Isobel told me she’s petrified of horses. Victoria always uses a carriage because she can’t ride.”
Hadley leaned forward, eyes lighting up. “That makes sense,” he said. I wondered why she did not simply bolt for freedom. She could have taken one of the horses in the stable the night we captured her. She must have been too frightened.”
“Even if we can beat them to the southern coast, there are miles of coastline where she could take a boat, any boat, across to France. Smugglers take anyone anywhere for a price.” Sebastian paused, slapped his thigh. “She has to wait to get the money. No smuggler will take credit. Maitland, your idea is genius.”
They ordered another round of drinks and toasted the success of their plan. Even if Victoria escaped to Paris, following the money trail would lead them straight to her.
Now the major factor that niggled at Arend was Isobel. The plan hinged on her cooperation. He hoped to God she was not in league with Victoria.
“Where is Isobel staying when Colbert brings her back to London?” Arend said. “It is probably unwise to take her to her own home. If she’s genuinely innocent, it could put her in danger.”
“She could stay with us,” Christian said, “but I don’t want to jeopardize the children, just in case.”
“I think,” Maitland said, “that she should stay with us. Marisa not only likes her but also swears the girl is innocent. She can keep a closer watch on Isobel than any of us can. My half sisters are staying with Christian. We have no children to be endangered. She can hardly stay with Arend.”
The men discussed Maitland’s suggestion and decided that placing Isobel in his home with Marisa was the best option.
Once the details were settled, they sat back—and for the first time in several days took some time to relax.
Arend didn’t care that he was drinking too much. He still couldn’t believe that he was safe with nothing more than a bung knee to show for it. As for Victoria, it didn’t matter where she went. They would find her, no matter how long it took.
The other men gradually drifted off to their rooms abovestairs to get a few hours’ sleep before heading back to London.
When Arend found himself alone with Hadley, he raised his glass. “I neglected to congratulate you on your nuptials.”
“Thank you. It’s been an amazing couple of weeks, apart from Victoria escaping.”
“Anything else you’d care to share with me?” Arend probed.
Hadley frowned. “Not that I can think of.”
“Perhaps that Sealey is your son? I noticed his resemblance to you the day I accompanied Isobel to the park, but she swore me to secrecy.” Evangeline, Hadley’s long-lost, recently widowed ex-lover, had returned to London with a son, whom society presumed to be the son of the deceased Viscount Stuart.
A smile lit up Hadley’s face. “That is supposed to be a secret. He’s Viscount Stuart as far as society is concerned.”
“One look and the truth will be known. I knew before you. I knew the day I met him.”
Hadley’s jaw went tight. “Yes, some friend you are. You could have told me.”
Not in a million years. “It wasn’t my place to tell you. It was Evangeline’s choice.”
Hadley’s brother, Augustus, had been blackmailed, and to save him, Hadley needed to marry another woman. Evangeline didn’t want to put Hadley in a position where he would have to choose between her and his brother. So she kept Sealey’s paternity secret. Although Evangeline eventually came up with a way to foil the blackmailer, it was too late. Victoria had killed Augustus before they could clear his name.
“I miss my brother,” Hadley said softly, his eyes dark with remembered pain. When he raised his glass in silent salute to his brave brother, the late Duke of Claymore, Arend joined him.
Together they sipped. Swallowed. Remembered the life Victoria had torn away in her hatred.
Then Hadley sighed and set his jaw. “Enough of the past. What are you going to do about Isobel?”
“Do?”
“By the sound of your experience in the stable, I take it things progressed further than a gentleman should have allowed.”
Arend had no intention of sharing what had passed between himself and Isobel. “I still need to know if she is guilty or not.”
“You are letting the past cloud your judgment,” Hadley said, and when Arend remained silent, he added, “Isobel is a very beautiful woman. You always did have exquisite taste in women. Not all of them have been killers. Trust your instincts, man.”
How many were enough? “I’d be foolish to forget the lessons I’ve learned.”
Hadley nodded, then studied his glass with calculated interest. “Isobel is key to our plan. So don’t upset her. And be aware that if you seduce her and she is not party to Victoria’s crimes, then Maitland will haul you to the altar himself. Are you ready for that?”
Hell no. “Is a man ever ready to be leg-shackled?”
Hadley’s eyes glinted. “When he meets the right woman.”
Something in Arend’s chest ached, then ebbed away. Hadley had found his “right woman.” Now all his friends were settled and content. It was what they deserved. They were good, honorable men. Unlike him. “You’re happy, then?”
“If Victoria were in custody, I’d be the happiest man alive.”
“Amen.” Arend gave a deep sigh that was only slightly exaggerated. “I shall behave where Isobel is concerned.”
“And if you can’t?”
“I’m not an uncouth schoolboy,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster. “I can control my urges.”
Hadley flashed him an amiable grin. “Says the man who was so lost in pleasure that he let someone hit him over the head.”
Arend rose and placed his glass deliberately on the table. “Says the man who, injured or not, is more than capable of tossing you in the horse trough.”
Chapter 12
LONDON, A WEEK LATER
Isobel’s stomach churned and her breakfast wouldn’t settle. In an hour Arend would arrive.
She had returned to London with Lieutenant Colbert, and was staying in safety with His Grace until Victoria was recaptured. Marisa was showering her with affection and was trying to take Isobel’s mind off the fact that her face had been slashed. A scar was nothing compared to what Marisa had lost in this fight with Victoria.
Hairs lifted on the nape of Isobel’s neck. Lieutenant Colbert had been vague about Arend’s rescue and Victoria’s disappearance. He had told her that Arend had been found but was wounded, his knee badly bruised to the point he could barely walk, and he was weak from lack of food.
The thought of his suffering still brought tears to her eyes. She was so grateful her memory hadn’t failed her, and that the map she had drawn was accurate enough for them to have found him.
Marisa was already in the drawing room when Isobel entered. Her friend never believed she’d been involved in Sealey’s kidnapping, especially when Sealey told his mother how Isobel had tried to protect him.
It was nerves that made her fidget with the pocket on her gown as she took a chair near the window so she could watch the street for Arend’s arrival.
How would he greet her?
She flushed at the memory of the last time she’d seen Arend. She’d been a wanton hussy. She’d allowed him to kiss her, touch her—intimately—and she dreamed of it almost every night. The images in her head caused her heart to beat in a frantic tattoo. But that was before her cheek had been split open. Now it was stitched. Would the wound repulse him? Did she care? How should she greet him?
“Do stop fidgeting, Isobel,” Marisa said. “Do you want him to see you all flushed and bothered? He deserves a very cool reception. You should make him grovel for thinking you capable of such duplicity.”
Isobel thought so too. She turned away from the window to focus on Marisa. “I don’t understand why he suspected me. I was abducted too. I could have been killed too. Why would I have put myself in a position where I could die?”
Marisa placed the handful of invitations she was reading down on the table. “I asked Maitland that very question. Apparently a woman once betrayed Arend and his partner was killed. He rarely trusts anyone now, and beautiful women never, it seems.”
She felt the heat rise into her cheeks. “He thinks I’m beautiful?”
Marisa stared at her in disbelief. “You are beautiful.”
“I’ve never considered myself beautiful, and now…” She touched her still red, raw cheek. “There is no possibility now.”
Marisa shook her head. “Beauty is not simply perfection of a single attribute of shape, form, or feature. It’s a combination of all. Your body is curvaceous, therefore men notice you. Your face is merely pleasant until one sees the sky-blue color of your eyes, the shape of your nose, and the sweetness of your smile. All of that, mixed with your innocence and joy for life, is contagious. You’re contagious.”
Her friend’s words, the way she obviously believed what she said, took Isobel by surprise. Marisa made her sound like she was somebody special. She knew she wasn’t. She was ordinary. A lonely only child, and later an even lonelier woman.
But, beautiful or not, she had discovered one truth in the last month. Where once she had believed she could make herself content with a marriage of convenience, she now knew that was a lie. Her feelings for Arend proved she wanted more. She wanted—no, needed someone she could love. Someone who would love her in return. Someone who would miss her if she were not there.
She needed a marriage where she mattered—facial scar and all.
“You appear lost for words.”
Marisa sounded so amused that Isobel had to smile. “It’s funny how differently we see ourselves compared to how others see us.”
Marisa nodded. “True,” she said. “Many people will look at me and think I’m the luckiest woman alive. Only a few will know I’m simply lucky. I have a wonderful husband. My family and friends love me. I’m a duchess…”
Her words died away.
So much. And yet not everything. Isobel reached across the gap between them, hurting for Marisa’s grief. “But you cannot have a child.”
Marisa wiped a tear from her cheek. “No. I cannot.” Then she squeezed Isobel’s hand, released her, and gave a smile that held both determination and affection. “But I can ensure that many orphans are taken care of. It is enough. I will make it enough. Maitland is being so supportive.”
That was true. “He loves you. Very much.”
“Yes,” Marisa said, “he does. I am lucky.”
They sat in silence.
Isobel was ashamed to be so wrapped up in her own conflicted feelings for Arend when her friend faced such loss, and with such courage. Marisa did not sit and pine for what might have been. She acted, knowing how fragile life was, not wasting a moment in regret.
It was time Isobel did the same. No more pining for a man who had so little regard for her that he pretended to trust her while all along playing her false. How could a man open himself to love if he could not trust? Arend might be handsome, but there was a darkness to him that perhaps would never let in the light. He might never let anyone bathe him in the warmth of love. She would be stupid to lose her heart to someone like that.
And if she had lost it already? Well then, the rioting emotions she felt whenever his name was spoken needed to be tamed. She needed to have greater self-control. She deserved more from life than second-best.
Finally Marisa sighed. “I’m sorry, Isobel. I know I should have warned you about Arend earlier. He’s a man many women find impossible to resist. He can seduce with one smile, one touch. I’ve seen it happen. I don’t think he’s even aware of what he is doing. Perhaps that’s the French side of him. If you don’t want to lose your heart, be careful.”
Being careful hadn’t helped. “I wouldn’t mind losing my heart to him if I thought there was a chance he’d lose his heart to me,” Isobel said. Marisa opened her mouth, but Isobel held up her hand. “No. Don’t worry. I’m under no illusion as to that happening.”
“I think you should know something,” Marisa began, and stopped speaking with almost guilty suddenness when the door opened and servants entered bringing tea and little cakes.
Isobel held her piece with barely concealed impatience until the butler and maids had arranged the dishes and departed. Then she accepted the cup of tea Marisa gave her. “You think I should know something,” she prompted.
“Yes.” Marisa’s smile was troubled. “Although I’m not sure how much to say.” She hesitated, considering. “I told you about the woman who betrayed him. But Maitland also told me there are five years of Arend’s life during which none of the Libertine Scholars know where he was. They know he left England to seek his fortune, determined to reinstate his family’s wealth lost when they fled France during the revolution. However, he was not in Brazil the whole time. Maitland swears that when Arend returned from Brazil, he was a changed man—and not only because of the woman who tried to kill him. Other ghosts are driving him.”
Isobel sipped her tea, grateful for its warmth in her suddenly chilled body. “Five missing years.”
Such a long time. So much could have happened. And he had never contacted his friends. There had to be a good reason. Was Arend hiding some deep fear or shame? If she could find out, get him to reveal his fears, then perhaps she could help him heal.
“I know what you are thinking,” Marisa said soberly. “Don’t. There is nothing that draws a woman more, that fires her blood more, than a man with deep emotional wounds. Many women have thought they could chase away his darkness. All have failed and paid the emotional price.”
Marisa’s words jolted Isobel back to reality. Hadn’t she just decided she needed to have more self-control? That she deserved more from life than second-best? If Arend kept part of his life secret even from the men he loved like brothers, then perhaps he was a man she had better leave well enough alone.
—
Despite his best intentions, and with his promise to Hadley reverberating in his head, Arend’s heartbeat quickened with anticipation as he mounted the front steps of Maitland’s London residence.
He was honest enough with himself to admit he was excited to see Isobel again. His desire for her had been unexpected, and he vowed to crush this powerful yearning.
“Welcome back, my lord,” Maitland’s butler greeted him. “It is good to see you safe and well.”
“Thank you, Brunton.” Arend glanced around him as he handed the servant his hat and gloves. Looking for Isobel? Fool. She would hardly rush to greet him. He was the one that had suggested a fake engagement and then treated her as the enemy.
She still might be the enemy.
“The ladies are in the drawing room,” Brunton said. “If you’ll come this way.”
He let Brunton announce him. Upon his entrance, the two women immediately stopped talking.
Marisa rose, her haughty gaze conveying exactly what she thought about him and his suspicions. “Good morning, Arend. Although I would love to stay and witness your apology, I suspect you’d prefer to grovel in private.”
She gave him no time to reply, but before she swept regally from
the room she flashed what appeared to be a warning look at Isobel.
Guilt gnawed at him when he remembered he was not the only person for whom the last few days had been difficult. Isobel sat, rigid and formal, watching him with eyes no longer innocent. Instead, they held disillusionment and sorrow. Something deep inside him shriveled at the knowledge that the death of her innocence was largely his fault. And Dufort’s.
The raw cut on her cheek would bring rage to the surface in any purveyor of beauty. Like a Greek statue that had lost an appendage, her porcelain skin was damaged, but you could still admire the exquisite artistry. She was still loveliness personified, and he would make Dufort pay dearly for damaging her beautiful face, and for every other pain he must have inflicted upon her.
He waited until Marisa had closed the door behind her before taking a seat across from Isobel.
She spoke first. Quiet. Polite. “I see your knee is still troubling you.”
Arend hadn’t realized he was rubbing the knee until she brought it to his attention. “It is getting better every day, thank you. And you? Your cheek appears to be healing well.”
Immediately he knew he’d said the wrong thing. Her hand flew up to her injury, a blush spread over her face, and she lowered her head as if she’d been a child and he’d scolded her. She looked as if she were ashamed of her injury.
“Sean—Lieutenant Colbert—did a wonderful job stitching the wound, but he believes it will leave a scar.” On the word “scar,” she lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye.
The scar itself did not upset him as much as her use of the lieutenant’s first name. Colbert’s given name on Isobel’s lips sounded overly familiar, as if there were some attachment between the two of them.
Fury ignited in his belly. She could not do that. She was betrothed to him, not to this Sean. Even as the flame of his anger surged up, he hated that he felt anything at all. But he did. The idea of Isobel feeling any sort of affection for another man made him want to commit murder.
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