A Night of Forever

by Bronwen Evans

  Everyone felt sorry for Isobel’s injury, but her collarbone would heal. Marisa’s injury would be with her for life. She’d need her friends. And no matter what happened between Isobel and Arend, Isobel planned to be one of them. “Where’s Arend?”

  “Pacing the house like a caged lion.” Her father’s voice held resigned amusement. “I thought you might have wanted me to get rid of him.”

  She was suddenly very sleepy. “He should get some sleep.”

  She did not hear her father’s reply. The throbbing in her shoulder faded away and she entered dreamland.

  —

  When Isobel woke again, the first thing she noted, aside from the pain, was the brilliantly sunny day.

  Her spirits immediately lifted. Victoria was dead and they were all safe.

  “Do you need more laudanum?”

  Marisa had been quietly reading a book. She must have heard Isobel stir.

  Isobel wanted to say no, but when she tried to move, the pain ricocheted up her arm. “A little, thank you.”

  Once Marisa had poured some magic from the bottle and helped her sip it, Isobel settled back in the bed.

  “Marisa,” she said, “how are you with all of this? Really?”

  Marisa sank onto the edge of the bed. “I’m pleased it’s all over. And I’m happy everyone is safe.”

  “But?”

  “But…” A tear rolled down Marisa’s cheek. “What do I do now? Go home to the estate? I can’t have Maitland’s children. How can I create a warm, happy family for him now?”

  Isobel’s heart broke. “Oh, Marisa. I don’t know what I can say. I’m not sure there are any words to ease your pain. All you can do is focus on what you do have—a man who loves you more than life itself.”

  “You are right.” Marisa swiped angrily at her tears. “I am lucky to have Maitland. It’s just…a part of me worries that he has no choice but to put on a brave face. We are married and he’s too honorable to do anything about it. Like d-divorce me.”

  “Divorce?” She wasn’t sure whether to shake her friend or laugh. “If I wasn’t in so much pain, I’d laugh. Of course Maitland has a choice. He’s made it. You are his world. He would never give you up. You mean more to him than even his wealth and title.”

  “Now, perhaps.” Marisa stood and moved to the window. “But will I be enough for him over the long years? He’s a man who needs family.”

  Everyone needed family. “You have his half sisters.”

  “Yes,” Marisa said with a nod. “And they are lovely little girls.”

  Isobel didn’t know if she should say what she was thinking. But Marisa adored children, and had such a big heart full of love to give to them.

  “There are so many children who need good homes,” she said. “Children whose parents have died or deserted them. None of them may be the next Duke of Lyttleton, but you can bring joy and love into your home. Why don’t you look at helping those children?”

  For a few moments Marisa stood stiffly with her back turned, and Isobel worried she’d gone too far. Presumed too much.

  Then Marisa leaned her forehead on the window and pressed her palms to the glass. “You are right. Look at the little children begging in the streets.” Her voice took on an excited edge, and she swung round to face Isobel. “I can help. I can give these forgotten little children a home.”

  “Not all of them,” Isobel warned, concerned that Marisa might run down to the street and gather up every orphan she saw. “You can’t help them all.”

  “No. My orphanages will do that. But I can create a family too.”

  That sounded right. “Yes. I believe you can.” And she knew that Marisa would. Isobel just hoped Maitland was prepared to be head of a very large, extremely boisterous family.

  “Thank you.” Marisa came back to the bed, sat down on its edge again, and leaned over and kissed Isobel’s cheek. “Thank you for helping me see my path. Love is not only about blood, is it?”

  Isobel shook her head, and for a little while they sat in companionable silence, busy with their own thoughts.

  Finally Marisa said, “Speaking of love, Arend’s like a stallion with a broken bit between his teeth. He’s desperate to see you. For some reason he thinks you’re angry with him.”

  Isobel nestled into her pillows. The pain was fading. “Not angry. Just disappointed. He didn’t trust me.”

  Marisa frowned. “Of course he did. Who do you think understood about the hairpins?”

  Isobel must have looked as blank as she felt, because Marisa went on. “Maitland had all the other men convinced you’d left of your own accord, but when Sebastian found the first hairpin, Arend took the lantern into the tunnel to look. He would not have done that if he truly believed you’d deceived us all.”

  Hope kindled deep in Isobel’s belly. Arend had not let her down. The pain in her armed dimmed a little more.

  “Will you see him?” Marisa pleaded. “I’ve never known him to be so on edge.”

  She wanted to see him. “Yes, but I’d love a cup of tea and something to eat first. I want to be able to remember what we talk about, and the opiates are making my mind so muddled.”

  “I can certainly do that.” She winked as she stood up. “Mrs. Clarke has a tray ready and waiting.”

  When Marisa left, Isobel closed her eyes, meaning to let the sun in the room warm her. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she was aware of were soft, familiar lips kissing hers.

  Her eyes flew open, and she looked into familiar hazel eyes. The most beautiful eyes ever, and they stormed with swirling emotions. Arend’s eyes.

  Her heart warmed, and she hardly noticed the pain.

  He pulled back and took a chair that had been placed near her bed. Then he reached for her hand. “Isobel,” he said, “I love you.”

  Chapter 24

  Even with dark smudges under her eyes, her hair a bird’s nest of knots, and her mouth open in shock, Isobel was still the most beautiful woman Arend had ever known.

  Beautiful. And surprised.

  He did not blame her. He’d surprised himself by the declaration, but at least he knew he spoke the absolute truth.

  “Don’t worry,” he hastened to say. “I’m not expecting you to return my feelings. I understand I cannot make you love me—and that you have very good reasons for not doing so.”

  He glanced down at her little hand in his. His thumb massaged her palm in slow circles while he gathered his thoughts.

  “I just want the chance to tell you that, deep down inside, I’ve always known you were trustworthy. I just couldn’t bring myself to open up and let you in. I used the excuse of what Daniela did to me in Brazil to make everyone think I didn’t trust women. But that’s not true.”

  Her hand curled around his. “It’s all right,” she said.

  “No, it’s not.” He had to make a clean breast of this now. No holding back. “I’ve been a coward. I don’t have an issue with trust. I have an issue with fear. I’m not a good man, Isobel. My fear is that if a woman gets too close, she will learn the truth about me. About who I am. I’ve done things that—”

  “Stop.” She squeezed his hand, hard. “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t care. The man I know—the one who pulled me from that dreadful carriage weeks ago—is a man I can love.”

  Her words hit him like a cannonball to the chest. “But I thought—”

  “I know.” She squeezed his hand again, but more gently this time. “You are not the only one who has learned something these past few weeks. You can tell me what has been eating you up inside, but only if you want to, and because it might help you forgive yourself. The only person who cares what happened in those five lost years is you. You don’t seem to be able to get past your memories of that time, and because I love you, I hate seeing you hurting.”

  When she struggled to sit up, Arend leaped to help her, plumping up her pillows. But she couldn’t hide her grimace of pain. Isobel wasn’t the only one who hated to see a lov
ed one hurt. He poured her more laudanum and offered it to her.

  She shook her head and grimaced again. “I want to remember this conversation. It’s important. And I need to say something too.”

  He returned the glass to its place beside the bottle and sat down again. “Tell me.”

  “I was wrong.” She licked her dry lips. “I was wrong to insist that you share your past with me. I know the man you are. Good, kind, loyal, honorable, and”—her mouth curved up at the corners—“so sensual my body cries out for your touch even when I feel like I’ve been trampled by a bloody big bull. No, listen to me, please. I don’t care if you never share those lost years with me. But I hope you can find the strength to talk to someone—a friend like Hadley, for instance—so you can move on.”

  His body shook, fine stress tremors he hoped she couldn’t discern. “You are my friend, are you not?” he asked. “You told me you wanted to be my friend.”

  “A friend,” she whispered. “Yes, and so much more.”

  “Then I could tell you.” He watched her face. “Or are you worried that whatever I share might change your opinion of me?”

  She looked at him, seemed to really look at him. “I’d kiss you senseless right now if I had the strength—and if this shoulder didn’t ache like the devil.” She sighed. “Arend. I’d never think any less of you. In fact, if you have risen above terrible darkness to become the man I know and love, I will admire you even more.”

  “You say that now.” Sweat trickled down his back. “But we are more than friends.” Was sharing his burden the right thing to do? What about sharing it with her? He’d promised himself that he would be honest and trusting, the qualities she wanted in a husband—the very qualities that now might cause her to walk away. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You’ll never lose my love.”

  How could she sound so certain? “So you would marry me without knowing my past?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  His own heart burst open at her words. She wasn’t aware he knew she’d heard what Victoria had said. She knew he’d been Mademoiselle Boldier’s slave. And yet she was prepared to marry him without his telling her.

  She must truly trust him. Truly love him.

  The realization humbled him, and brought him to his knees, quite literally. He knelt on the floor, still holding her hand, and let himself believe.

  “You’ve been the brave one,” he said. “From the moment we met. You were a little afraid of me to begin with, I think, but you had the courage to trust me. You saw something in me that I could not see myself, and believed in it. You knew how dangerous it would be to become involved in the hunt for Victoria, yet you still agreed to do so, because you wanted to help your friends and find the answers concerning your father’s death.”

  Her smile was pure confidence. “I knew you’d never let anything happen to me.”

  Never let anything happen to her? She lay in bed, pale and wounded, with a scar on her cheek that together with the scar from Dufort’s bullet would be a constant reminder of how badly he had failed to keep her safe. “That didn’t work out so well. I almost got you killed—several times.”

  She smiled. “From where I’m lying, it seems you did a good job of saving me.”

  God, he loved her. “I’d have gladly taken a bullet for you.” He’d expected to do just that when Victoria had aimed her pistol at him, and he was grateful to have had the chance to protect his beloved Isobel. “Gladly.”

  “I know,” she said. “I can tell from the look on your face that seeing me like this pains you more than it pains me.” Obviously his disbelief also registered on his face, because she gurgled with laughter “All right. Perhaps not as much as it pains me.”

  He couldn’t help it. He had to kiss her. He rose from his knees, leaned over her bed, and took her mouth with his. Gentle. Restrained. Which changed into something less gentle and restrained when his naughty Isobel thrust her tongue deep into his mouth.

  Conscious of her injury and the fact she truly did believe him to be an honorable gentleman, he broke the kiss, drew back, and lowered himself once more to his knees, still holding her hand.

  “Stop distracting me,” he growled, only partially teasing. “I’m trying to be the brave one now.”

  Her laugh was tender. “You don’t need to prove how brave you are, Arend. I already know. You’re here with me, trying so hard to be the man you think I want you to be. Yet I love you just the way you are.”

  “I want to be your perfect man.” It was true. Terrifyingly true.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered. “No one is perfect.”

  “You are.”

  “If you think that,” she said, suddenly tart, “you’re going to be sorely disappointed. I have many faults. I’m headstrong. I’m nosy—”

  She certainly was. “You’re perfect for me.”

  Just do it. Get it over with and have faith that she loves you enough.

  “Seven years ago,” he said, speaking fast, needing to get it out, get it over with, “I went to France. I went in part to find out what had become of my family’s home and in part to see if I could set up some form of trading company. I spoke French, knew good brandy when I tasted it and fine silk when I touched it. I thought Maitland might help me set up a distributorship in England.”

  She nodded, eyes alive with interest. “It sounds like a good plan.”

  “Perhaps it would have been had there not been so many French exiles there, all with the same plan.” He looked down at her hand in his. “I soon ran out of money and was too proud to ask Maitland for help, to admit I had failed. I had no money to get home.”

  Isobel had never known hardship. She could hardly understand the concept of not having any money. But she did know that if she found herself without coin, her pride would stop her asking for charity. She’d find some way to work for the money.

  “A woman—” Arend’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “A woman,” he said again, “with money and power offered to introduce me to her contacts and to help set up my business.”

  His fingers tightened on hers. “At first she did introduce me to men who could provide product to trade and help set up trade routes. Then her help slowed.” His cheeks turned deep red. “She convinced me these things took time, and as I was living in her comfortable Paris home, I decided to be patient.”

  “You were lovers?” Of course they had been. How else would a woman keep such a man pliant?

  He inclined his head. “She was a beautiful woman. Older than me, perhaps in her early thirties, she was the most hypnotizing creature I’d ever met. Clever, witty, intelligent, and, yes, beautiful.” He could not look her in the eye. “On the outside.”

  Isobel guessed immediately what was coming. Now that she understood how evil people could be, she suspected that this woman had used Arend in vile ways. She didn’t really want to know how. It wasn’t important. “She used her beauty to control and manipulate you. There is no shame in that.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed once, twice, three times. “The things I did because of her—”

  “I don’t need to know every detail, my darling.” His haunted face ripped her apart. If the scheming witch had been in the room at that moment, Isobel would have made her sorry she’d ever been born. “I can guess.”

  A muscle in his jaw tightened, and he shook his head. “You could never guess. An innocent could not begin to imagine the games she enjoyed. They made even me ill.”

  More than sorry she was ever born, Isobel thought. “I only care because she hurt you.”

  “God.” His eyes glittered. “I love you.”

  He blinked, lifted his chin, and drew in a breath. “In the end, once I realized that she had no intention of helping me, I decided to leave. Jonathan needed a partner to go to Brazil with him. He had a crazy idea of searching for diamonds. He’d been told of an area to the south where they could be found on the ground. I thought his scheme far-fetched,
but I was desperate to leave Paris.”

  Dear heaven. No wonder he felt so guilty about Jonathan’s death. Jonathan had helped him escape.

  “Juliette—her name was Juliette—discovered I planned to leave her. You once asked me what the scar on my buttock was. It’s not a scar. It’s a brand. She heated a gold franc and burned the image onto my skin so I would never forget what I had become. Her slave.”

  Tears filled Isobel’s eyes. Tears of compassion. Of helpless fury for a young man in the talons of such a woman. “I’m so sorry she did that to you. It must have hurt dreadfully. But you beat her—you survived.”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Did I? Sometimes I wonder. The pain of the wound faded, but the disgrace of being her plaything stays with me. The brand is a constant reminder of the type of man I am.”

  “No.” Of this she was absolutely certain. “The type of man you are does not have to be dictated by a brand or decreed by the mistakes you made in your youth. You are a man formed by the obstacles you have overcome, by the quality of those who truly love you, the ones who stand with you, and the ones who would give their lives for you.”

  She was getting through to him. She sensed it. Saw it in the set of his shoulders, the crease forming between his brows. “Your fellow Libertine Scholars see what I see—a man who is good, kind, loyal, and totally worthy of being loved.”

  Now his eyes didn’t glitter with unshed tears. He let them form, let them fall. “Thank you for saying that.”

  “I say it,” she said gently, “because I mean it.”

  They sat in silence as he fought with his emotions. When Isobel thought he had mastered himself, she asked the obvious question.

  “How did you escape her?”

  Arend did not hesitate. “Jonathan staked out her house. Then he showed me where to climb out an attic window and escape over the roof. Of course it wasn’t straightforward. She and a gang of her thugs came after me as I made my way to the boat. The only reason I escaped was that another powerful man—one she’d cheated out of a great deal of money—used that opportunity to attack her.”