A Night of Forever

by Bronwen Evans

  “I’m afraid the only fire is in your library, my lord,” Jeeves said. “Allow me to arrange for a fire to be lit in the drawing room.”

  Arend could read the censure in the man’s eyes. The drawing room was full of threadbare furniture and contained no paintings. Arend rarely used it, preferring his library or bedroom.

  Isobel stepped forward. “Thank you. And perhaps some tea.”

  At Jeeves’s hesitation, Arend said, “Lady Isobel Thompson. My fiancée.”

  Jeeves didn’t blink. “It is a pleasure to welcome you to your future home, my lady. On behalf of the staff, may I wish you every happiness. I shall organize the tea and see to the fire.”

  The man must have heard of Arend’s engagement through the gossip sheets, because Arend himself had certainly not told his staff. And if the engagement had been real, he should have.

  Even in his preoccupation he was very conscious of Isobel’s reaction to his home’s entrance hall. He did not miss the compassion that filled her eyes, or the way her lips firmed as she observed the faded wallpaper and peeling stair rail.

  “I did warn you.”

  “Yes, you did.” An encouraging smile settled on those firm lips as she swept past him, following Jeeves into the drawing room.

  He was close enough to hear her sharp, indrawn breath as she took in the state of the room.

  It was as if Arend was seeing his home for the first time himself. Through Isobel’s eyes, he noted the large patches of damp staining the wall near the large bay window. Smelled them too. He took note of the tears in the drapes.

  Hot spears of shame stabbed in his gut.

  He should not have let the house reach this stage of deterioration. He should have renovated long before this.

  “Well, my lord,” Isobel said. “Your house would profit from a woman’s touch.”

  It was the kindest understatement possible.

  They sat in silence on slightly musty-smelling chairs until the staff had lit the fire and brought them tea.

  Arend poured himself a large brandy. He needed it to fortify himself for the revelations he’d be expected to make tonight.

  “Jeeves,” Isobel said, sounding brisk and efficient, “would you ensure the fires are lit upstairs, please? His lordship wishes to show me through the house so I may see how much work is needed to make this our home.”

  The corner of Jeeves’s mouth lifted slightly. It was the closest Arend had ever come to seeing his butler smile. “Very good, my lady.”

  Once Jeeves had closed the door behind him, she turned to Arend. “I hope you don’t mind me ordering your butler about.”

  “Not at all.” He began building his internal fortress. “I heard the word ‘upstairs.’ Anything that takes you nearer to my bed is fine with me.”

  He wanted his words to frighten her, or warn her, or both. Part of him hoped she’d run before he had to make any more revelations. Coward.

  Her face turned a delicate shade of pink, and the monster in him rose up and howled. He should escort her home immediately, because if she stayed, if she walked upstairs with him, he knew what would happen.

  Instead she shocked him by saying, “Tea and a chat first, I think. You promised to share some of yourself with me, and at the moment, the part I want to share does not require a bed.”

  “Very well.”

  He slumped into the chair opposite her, teetering on the brink of an abyss. His choice was now to bare his soul and risk possible hurt again, or to close down forever and starve his very essence to death. He had promised to try to believe in her innocence. He would try.

  “Your family must have had a large number of paintings.” She indicated the faded outlines on the walls.

  “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “My mother sold them one by one after my father’s death.” At her steady, assessing gaze he added, “We had no money.”

  She nodded, only sympathetic interest in her face. “I believe most of the French nobility fled France with little to their names.”

  “At least my family kept our heads,” he said, and cursed himself when her face paled at his blasé reply. “We fled before the Reign of Terror mainly because my father learned he would inherit the title of Baron Labourd from a very distant English cousin. His estates in France had been unprofitable for many years. Ironically, my father had perfect timing. Not long after we left, most of France’s nobility were driven to an appointment with Madame la Guillotine.”

  “Fate, perhaps?”

  Arend didn’t believe in fate. “Perhaps. However, my father ran through his new estates’ money like it was water. He never seemed to understand that spending more than one earns results in dire consequences.”

  Isobel sat forward in her chair, and the firelight bathed her face in a golden hue. “What kind of consequences?”

  Arend sighed and rubbed a palm over his face. God, he felt tired.

  He got up and poured himself another drink. “My father was befriended by the Duke of Lyttleton, Maitland’s father, and suddenly our money woes disappeared.” He laughed, but there was no joy in him. “Father thought he’d found a pot of gold under a rainbow, but the rainbow had only one color: black. Our savior, the Duke of Lyttleton, was the devil in disguise.”

  Chapter 14

  “I have heard about Maitland’s father. Marisa has shared a little of her husband’s upbringing.” Her face had taken on a look of cold revulsion. “His father was a monster.”

  Arend sat down and tossed off half his glass of brandy in one gulp. If he kept talking, he’d need to keep drinking, and then Isobel would have to carry him upstairs. At least then her virtue would be safe.

  If he were a gentleman, he would drink the entire decanter. But he was weak. Like his father.

  He didn’t want her to leave, so he set the snifter on the table still half full.

  “His Grace soon owned my father,” he said. “And my father did anything he requested. When I learned he’d refused to take part on the night the others raped Victoria, when I learned he’d walked out, I had some respect for him. That died when I discovered he was only interested in saving himself. He didn’t want to lose his soul completely, so would not join in with those perverted wolves, but he left a young girl to their mercy.”

  He itched to pick the snifter up again and drain it dry.

  Isobel’s hand shook a little as she took another sip of her tea. She set the rattling cup back on the side table.

  “Portia mentioned you have a sister and a brother,” she said with obvious effort.

  “My sister, Mosella, the eldest of us, died in childbirth the day I returned from Brazil.”

  Pain slashed along his skin as he remembered receiving the news from Hadley. His sister had sacrificed herself for them—for him—and his wealth had come too late to help her.

  “My brother, the youngest of us, had entered the Church long before I returned. He is the vicar at the Claymore estate. I asked Hadley to look out for him while I was away, and like the honorable man he is, he was true to his word. Curtis says he’s happy doing God’s work.”

  Arend believed in God because he believed in the devil, and if the devil existed, it was only logical that God existed too. But he barely kept in touch with Curtis. He didn’t wish to taint his brother with his hatred of a God who had long ago deserted him. He sent Curtis a stipend every month. He had no idea if his brother used the money or gave it away, but the gesture eased Arend’s bleakness.

  “And your mother?”

  Another wasted life. “She died of influenza six months after Mosella’s wedding.” Would she still be alive had Mosella been able to stay with her? “If my sister had waited, I would have found a way so she didn’t have to wed a man she barely knew.”

  The compassion in her eyes was almost his undoing.

  “You must have been a lonely little boy, a foreigner growing up in a strange land.”

  No, he was not going to discuss his isolation. “Everyone is alone at some point in their lives. You
learn how to manage. You should know. You were alone when your father died.”

  “True. As an only child, I’ve been alone most of my life.” She looked at him. “I’m tired of being alone, Arend. When I marry, it will be to a man who is first and foremost a friend, and only then a lover.”

  Once he would have scoffed at that idea, but he’d seen it happen. Five times now. His fellow Libertine Scholars had found exactly what she described, and envy of their happiness burned deep inside him.

  “Your friends are prime examples, aren’t they?”

  “For the moment.” Her raised eyebrows challenged him to go on. “Love is like a drug in the beginning. Euphoric in it’s very nature. Over time, the euphoria dies away and one is left, at best, with ex-lovers who can’t remember what drew them to each other in the first place.” God, it sounded bleak and bitter.

  “Which is why it’s important to be friends first,” she said. “There has to be something deeper than lust and desire.”

  “Friendship is not something one first thinks of when meeting a beautiful woman.” He couldn’t remember when he’d ever looked past a woman’s physical perfection.

  “Perhaps that has been your problem,” she shot back.

  He thought of Daniela and Juliette, the two women who had changed the course of his life, and not for the better. If he’d looked past their obvious beauty, would he have recognized the evil lurking beneath? Could he be in the same situation here? What lurked under Isobel’s radiant innocence?

  “I know what you are thinking.” Isobel leaned forward slightly, her earnest expression made him nervous. “You’re thinking, how can you be friends with anyone you cannot trust? Tell me: is it only women you expect to betray you?”

  The words “only women” threw him. He wanted to say no, but the more he considered her question the more he realized it was partly true. He was more likely to trust a man than a woman.

  Isobel must have seen the answer in his eyes. “She must have hurt you badly.”

  She? No. They. Isobel wanted to be friends. If he told her about Paris, and Juliette, and his time as Juliette’s plaything, friendship would be impossible. He would disgust her. He disgusted himself.

  “I hurt myself.” At her puzzled expression he added, “I didn’t heed the warnings, too dazzled by—” He broke off.

  “Lust?” she suggested.

  His throat tightened. “Greed.”

  “Money.” Isobel sank back into her chair, a look of understanding on her face, and, to his relief, no judgment. “I’ve never experienced poverty, or had to worry about money. I can’t really imagine what it would be like.”

  Poor food. No medicine. Ragged clothes. Being the object of scorn and derision. Dependence on others. Powerlessness. “You wouldn’t want to,” he said, and heard the rasp of pain in his own voice.

  She sat waiting expectantly, as if for more revelations, but he did not wish to ruin this night with disturbing memories. His nightmares came far too often as it was. It was time Isobel answered some questions of his. “Tell me about your childhood.”

  She blinked and turned away slightly to gaze into the fire. “There’s nothing much to tell. Mine was completely normal. My father adored my mother, and when I was really young, our home was filled with love. But there was an undercurrent of tension. As a child I didn’t understand. Now?” She looked away from the fire and down to the hands clasped tightly in her lap. “Apparently my mother almost died giving birth to me, and my father worried for her life should she conceive again. He was right to worry. She died giving birth to a stillborn son when I was six. I don’t think Father ever recovered.”

  She ignored her tea and reached over to pick up his snifter of brandy. The smell of the strong liquor made her splutter and her eyes water. Blinking and trying not to cough, she shoved the snifter blindly in his direction.

  Suppressing a grin, he took it and placed it safely out of her reach. His Isobel was not a drinker.

  “Once my mother died,” she continued, when she was again in command of herself, “my father blamed himself. He gambled more, drank more. I think guilt drove him.” She tilted her head, studied his face. “Sometimes you have a similar look about you. Yes, that one, where darkness moves behind your eyes and then disappears. Unburdening oneself of secrets can be good for the soul.”

  She’d seen the darkness? He slammed his most impassive mask into place and stared her down. His soul and secrets were his own business. Move on. Move on.

  Finally she sighed and looked away. “Then, one day, Father arrived home with Victoria as his wife. I knew something was wrong. He visited Mama’s grave every Sunday and sat talking to her. He once told me he would never replace my mother. Oh, he had other women, a mistress or two here and there, but he swore he had only one love, and would have only one wife, a son be damned. I was proud of him. I thought him so romantic until he came home with her. I never forgave him for his betrayal.”

  He understood that. “Of your mother?”

  She shook her head. “Of me. Letting me believe my mother was all that mattered to him. That’s when I decided that love was a lie. Once Victoria moved in, I simply wanted to marry any man who would give me a reasonable life so I could escape from the hypocrisy of such a home.”

  Arend also understood the belief that love was a lie, and the need to escape from a prison by any method. “Then meeting the Libertine Scholars’ wives changed your mind again?”

  She nodded. “And discovering that it’s unlikely my father married Victoria from choice.” She held his gaze. “I don’t believe a man should be judged his whole life for one foolish mistake, Arend. It’s how he picks himself back up and tries to live a good life that counts.”

  He swallowed hard. He’d made many mistakes, not just one. Mistakes that cost people their lives.

  She rose from her chair to kneel at his feet. She ran her hands up his thighs. “You must have learned from your mistakes, because I know that you are a good man.”

  He studied her, feeling his body stir and harden at her touch, wishing she was right. Her thick midnight-colored tresses gleamed almost dark blue in the firelight. Her face, like that of a Greek goddess, was not diminished by her injury, and her pert bosom rose and fell rapidly as she sat at his feet, like an offering from the gods. He ran a finger down her cheek, tracing round her wound. “If I am such a good man, I would not have brought you here.”

  “I asked to come. It has been worth it. I can already see how your childhood shaped you.”

  “Can you?” He doubted it. Unless she had experienced society’s scorn, and had gone from day to day never knowing when creditors would come knocking to throw one into debtor’s prison, how could she understand? “If my childhood taught me anything, it was to be wary of appearances. An angelic face can hide a multitude of sins. I hate to think what my home says to you.”

  “See, you can share your feelings.” She smiled and moved in further between his parted thighs. “I’m beginning to trust in your ability to share your secrets.”

  Foolish Isobel. “That’s your first mistake.”

  “One of us has to trust the other or this partnership will never work.”

  —

  Arend must have had a lot of women approach him, and Isobel had never tried to seduce a man before. His lack of obvious response to her touch and her words was not a good sign.

  Because her palms were damp, she rubbed her hands along his thighs to dry them. When the muscles stirred beneath her fingers, she slid her palms higher, thrilling as his muscles moved and tensed under the pressure.

  She had almost reached his groin when his hand shot out and grasped her wrist.

  “You are playing with fire, my lady.”

  Her breath caught in her throat at the heat in his eyes. She must be doing something right.

  To her disappointment he stood, pulling her up with him. “You wanted a tour of the house. The upstairs fires should be well lit by now.”

  The fire in her belly was
well lit too. The heat from his body beckoned her closer. She put her hand on his chest and could feel a solid beat under her fingers. Her heart raced and pounded. His was as steady as a rock. Apparently she was the only one of them who was affected.

  He stepped around her and held the door open so she could pass through. When she mounted the stairs she could feel his eyes upon her back.

  But once she reached the upper floors her mind took another direction. The house was in even worse condition than the dilapidation downstairs suggested. There were signs of obvious serious leaks, and some of the wooden shutters appeared to have rotted.

  When she entered the master suite and found it draped in protective dust sheets that were clean with no apparent dust, she turned to him in confusion. It was as if this room remained unused.

  “Why do you not sleep in the master suite?”

  The words had not finished leaving her mouth when she saw his expression in the candlelight and knew. He didn’t think he was good enough to sleep in the master suite.

  She walked slowly toward him, not taking her eyes from his. Then she casually walked past him and closed the door to the hallway, shutting them in.

  No fire had been lit in this room, and the cold made her shiver. Or maybe it was what she was about to do that had her shaking.

  She walked over to the large four-poster bed that dominated the room and placed her candle on the small table next to it.

  After removing the dust sheet, she saw that the bedspread was a deep, rich burgundy, and when she drew it back the sheets beneath were clean and silky soft. Not damp or musty.

  “The maids make up the room every day, hoping I’ll take up residence in my proper place.”

  “It is your proper place,” she said, and drew down the quilt.

  “You’re making my suspicions rise. Why are you trying to seduce me?”

  She jumped. She had not heard Arend come up behind her. His voice was low, dangerous, and his French accent was back—a clear sign he was losing his battle with self-restraint. The grimness of his mouth countered the heat in his eyes. He was warring with himself, and she was about to take the decision from him.