Deceiver

by Nicola Cornick

  Freddie shifted a little uncomfortably. "Think I'll have a word with m'sister first, Stockhaven, if you will excuse me."

  "Of course," Marcus said politely, ushering Alistair toward the door. "We shall be in the library should you care to join us." He glanced at Isabella, a smile lurking about his mouth. His look spoke of apology and promise, and Isabella under­stood it very well.

  "Good night, my love," he said.

  Isabella sighed unconsciously, then returned to her warring siblings as the door closed behind her husband.

  "Tell you what, Pen," Freddie was saying, "Cantrell won't be so interested now he's seen what a virago you are, tearing a strip off me like that. No man likes a shrew!"

  Pen blushed fiery red. "I am not attempting to attract Mr. Cantrell, Freddie."

  "And a good thing, too!" her brother interrupted causti­cally. "Nothing gives a fellow a greater disgust than a ha­ranguing woman!"

  "Freddie, Pen," Isabella interposed. "If you could cease your squabbles for just one moment to tell me what is going on, I should be grateful."

  "Have we interrupted your honeymoon by arriving unan­nounced, Bella?" Pen inquired, picking the crumbs from the tea tray. "If Marcus is not expecting to see you again tonight then I gather not. It seems a lukewarm affair, this marriage of yours."

  "That is none of your concern," Isabella said with compo­sure, resisting the impulse to tell Pen that had she not arrived so inconveniently, her marriage would have been white hot.

  "What concerns me is why you both decided so precipi­tately that a visit to the seaside was in order." She looked in­terrogatively at her brother. "Freddie?"

  Freddie shifted uncomfortably. "Fancied some company and sea air," he muttered. "No society in Town now that the Season is at an end. With you gone, too, Bella, things were dull."

  "You flatter me," Isabella said dryly. She could tell from the stubborn expression on Freddie's face that she was unlikely to get any more information from him, though she doubted that this was even approaching the truth. She could see unhappiness as well as a bullish obstinacy in his face. She decided to let it lie for a little.

  "And you, Pen?" she inquired.

  "It was your fault," Pen said, firing up. "You seem to forget, Bella, that you were the one who left London in a hurry in the first place. I was worried about you. Then Freddie rushed off and I did not know what to do. So I sent for Mr. Cantrell."

  "As one would," Freddie put in.

  Pen ignored him. "We agreed that the best thing would be to come down here and ascertain that everything was well."

  "How extraordinarily precipitate you have both been," Isabella commented dryly. "I hope you were accompanied by a maid, Pen."

  Pen's blush deepened. "Naturally Mr. Cantrell arranged for the proprieties to be observed. We borrowed a servant from his mother's establishment." She sighed. "One would expect no less of him. He is everything that is proper."

  With a flash of intuition and no little surprise, Isabella recognized that part of the reason for Pen's fidgets and bad temper was thwarted desire. She was flushed and agitated and on edge after hours in the company of a man whose behavior had been so utterly irreproachable that it would make one want to scream. Isabella prayed that Freddie's natural obtuseness would keep him from making the same deduction until she could spirit Pen from the room.

  "Well," she said placatingly. "You are here now and I am very glad to see you both. You must be tired. Are you ready to go up to your rooms?"

  "You may take Pen up," Freddie said. "I would prefer a nightcap of that brandy you have over there, Bella."

  "As you wish," Isabella said. "You do not prefer to join Marcus and Mr. Cantrell?"

  Freddie looked shifty. "Prefer to take a snifter on my own."

  Once again Isabella felt that prickle of awkwardness in his manner. It was going to be a rather difficult house party if her husband and her brother were living in a state of armed neu­trality. She sighed.

  "Very well," she said. "Then Mrs. Lawton will show you to your room when you are ready."

  She took Pen's arm and they went out of the drawing room and up the stairs. She could hear Marcus and Alistair talking together quietly in the library and, although Pen cast a glance in the direction of the door, she hurried past, her color still high. Isabella could see that she was deeply preoccupied. She made no observations about being back at Salterton Hall and no sooner had they reached the privacy of the blue bedcham­ber than she grabbed Isabella's hand.

  "Bella, there is something that I simply must tell you, and then you may cast me from the house if you please!"

  Isabella looked at her. "I am sure I shall do nothing so gothic, Penelope. What must you confess?"

  Pen threw herself down into the armchair and wrung her hands together. "Mr. Cantrell tells me that I must tell all to you—"

  "I see," Isabella said, suddenly quaking at the thought that she had misread the situation completely and that Alistair Cantrell had seduced her sister on the journey to Salterton.

  "I was going to tell you in my own time, but I never seemed to have the appropriate opportunity. It was simply that we had no money, and I was so worried about Freddie's debts." Pen's blue eyes were anguished. "Oh, Bella, please forgive me! I never meant to betray your confidence."

  "I have no idea what you are talking about," Isabella said, "although you are alarming me somewhat, Pen."

  "The gossip column in the papers!" Pen said dramatically. She dragged her portmanteau into the middle of the floor and unbuckled the lid, talking all the time. "I wrote scandal for Mr. Morrow at the Gentlemen's Athenian Mercury! All the bits about your debts and the house in Brunswick Gardens and your sudden marriage. . ."

  "I see," Isabella said slowly.

  "I needed the money," Pen said miserably, rummaging through the case and sending her underwear flying. "I thought it would not matter, Bella, but then when we got to know one another again I liked you so much that I felt an absolute traitor. . . ."

  Isabella sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. "Let me understand you aright," she said. "You are the one who was feeding those stories to the press."

  "Yes." Pen was flushed and unhappy. She sat back on her heels, copies of all the papers now in her hands. "I am so sorry! I felt as though I had betrayed you and Mr. Cantrell said—"

  "Yes," Isabella said. "Where does Mr. Cantrell fit into all this?"

  "He writes for the same newspaper. We met at Morrow's offices and Mr. Cantrell guessed that I had been the one sub­mitting the column. He urged me to tell you the truth."

  "I am glad that someone in this has some scruples," Isabella said dryly.

  Pen blushed harder. "Oh, Bella, pray do not hate me! I was so desperate for the money, but then we met up again after all these years and it felt so wrong to take advantage and I have been desperately torn." She sighed. "I see now that it was very bad of me." She sighed. "I will never do it again. There must be other ways of finding the money rather than bartering with my sister's good name."

  Isabella was silent. She understood rather more than Pen knew of what it felt like to be so desperate.

  "You made reference to Freddie's debts," she said. "I had no notion. Is that what this is all about, Pen? Are they very bad?"

  "I do not know for sure," Pen said unhappily, "but the household bills are mounting up and we cannot pay the maid and I fear there is a lot Freddie is hiding from me."

  "Such as why he came dashing down here to Salterton on a whim," Isabella said thoughtfully. "Why did you tell me none of this before, Pen?"

  "You had your own difficulties," Pen said, troubled. "I am sorry that I did not confide. I wish I had told you sooner."

  Isabella was frowning. "I cannot believe that you would sell the story of my marriage to the gossip merchants."

  Pen looked as though she was going to cry. "I am sorry! I swear I never meant to stoop so low." She sighed. "Do you hate me, Bella?"

  Isabella shook her head. "I cannot hate you, Pen.
I know all too well what it is like to be in dire financial straits. Besides, we do not have much family left, do we? We cannot afford to lose one another."

  Pen burst into tears. "Oh damnation!" She blew her nose loudly on a pair of drawers. "I am so sorry, Bella! How can I make amends?"

  Isabella sighed. "You can tell me everything you know of Freddie's situation," she said, settling back against the bed head. "And I mean everything, Pen." She frowned. "Have you ever known Freddie to rush off anywhere, least of all the seaside? There is something going on here."

  Pen got to her feet. "Yes, that was the most extraordinary thing. Of course he had had that odd letter at breakfast, and he dashed off straight away, but he never came back! I had gone to see you," she added reproachfully. "We were supposed to be attending the exhibition at the Royal Academy."

  "So we were," Isabella said, trying to sort her sister's jumbled information into order. Not for the first time, she re­flected that very clever people could sometimes be extremely hard to follow. "What odd letter was this, Pen?"

  "A letter about his gambling debts, apparently." Pen yawned. "I beg your pardon, Bella. I am so tired. I know this is making little sense." She rubbed her eyes. "He received the letter at breakfast and hurried out immediately. He never came back—he merely sent me some cock-and-bull message about going to Salterton. And he left without any luggage."

  "He has some now," Isabella said slowly. "I saw it in the hall."

  Pen frowned. "Now that is passing strange, for where could he have got it from?"

  "He could have bought some essentials on the journey, I suppose," Isabella said.

  Pen spread her hands. "But he has no money!"

  "Gambling debts," Isabella said quietly. She thought of their father and his weakness for deep play and the anguish squeezed her heart. Please, God, Freddie had not got himself embroiled with some hideous moneylender who would bleed him dry.

  "I do not suppose that Freddie told you whom the letter was from," she said without much hope.

  "No," Pen said, "he did not tell me but I knew where it came from because I opened it by mistake. It was from an address in Wigmore Street and it was signed with the name Warwick."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Isabella had been waiting for what seemed like a very long time. She had heard Mrs. Lawton escort Freddie to his room and the footmen lurching up the stairs with various items of luggage. Eventually there was the sound of voices in the corridor outside. Marcus and Alistair were parting with a quiet word. Isabella heard the door of Marcus's chamber close softly. Still she waited. After a while, the valet came out and the house was quiet. Isabella waited a little longer. Then, with a quick, nervous gesture, she scooped up her dressing robe and slipped out of the door onto the landing. She would have used the connecting door but at this inopportune moment she realized that she did not have a key to it and it seemed faintly ridiculous to knock on the door until Marcus answered.

  Freddie. Freddie and Edward Warwick. She felt sick at heart to think of it but she could not put it from her mind. She was not entirely sure what she was going to do. Marcus had seemed implacable in his pursuit of Warwick and she did not want Freddie hounded and browbeaten and humiliated. Like Pen, she had a deep if exasperated affection for her hapless brother. It would be better to confront him herself rather than to implicate him to Marcus in Warwick's plots. But that also felt disloyal. She should tell Marcus what she knew. She was deeply torn.

  She paused for a moment on the landing, knocked briefly on Marcus's door and went in. Marcus looked up with unqual­ified surprise to see her. He was sitting up in bed, a sheaf of papers scattered across the covers and a pencil in hand. Isabella realized that he had been sketching. The book on the­oretical naval architecture lay on the nightstand beside him.

  She also guessed that he was naked. Certainly his chest was bare and the sheets were slung low across his hips. Isabella found her attention veering away from Freddie somewhat abruptly. She had to remind herself to breathe.

  "Work," Marcus said, gathering the papers together with an apologetic grin. "I find that it helps to distract my mind from certain problems. What may I do for you, Isabella? I did not expect to see you again tonight. Is all well?"

  Isabella hesitated. She sat down on the edge of the bed, making sure that she kept a decent distance from him. This felt odd and very personal. She fiddled with the edge of the bedspread.

  "It is Freddie," she said jerkily. "I think. . .that is, Pen said. . .that he is involved with Edward Warwick."

  Marcus's eyes narrowed. He gave her a straight look. "Did Pen tell you this tonight?"

  "Yes, of course." Isabella felt relief and guilt in equal measure. She looked up. There was something strange and speculative in Marcus's eyes. "Freddie is in debt and—" She stopped and looked at him accusingly. "Marcus! You knew this already!"

  Marcus grimaced. "Please keep your voice down, Bella." He dropped his own so that Isabella was obliged to strain closer to hear him. "It is true that Alistair and I suspected Freddie of being involved in some way, but we did not know."

  "That is why Mr. Cantrell is here," Isabella said. She felt cold. "That is why Freddie is here." She shivered convul­sively. "What is going on, Marcus?"

  "I do not know." Marcus threw back the covers and drew her unresistingly into the warmth. She huddled closer to him for comfort, his arm about her and her cheek against his chest "I think Warwick is here in Salterton. But as yet I know nothing for certain. Your brother's arrival is an interesting development"

  "You will not hurt Freddie, will you?" Isabella asked in a small voice, tilting her chin up to look at him.

  She felt Marcus laugh. "Good God, Bella, do you think me medieval? I swear I shall not hurt my own brother-in-law." The amusement left his voice. "I imagine that whatever Freddie has got himself involved with, it cannot be so very bad. He is scarcely a hardened criminal."

  "No," Isabella said. She moved her cheek absentmindedly against Marcus's, feeling the roughness of his stubble against her softness. "I think. . . I think he has become involved in something he cannot get out of. Gambling and debts. . ."

  "And the provision of information,'' Marcus said, his voice hardening slightly. He turned his head and kissed her cheek where it rested against the curve of his shoulder. "Do you feel a little better now, Bella?"

  "Yes," Isabella said. "I am glad that I told you."

  Marcus gathered her closer and eased a line of soft kisses along her cheek.

  "I am glad, too," he murmured. "I think you must have started to trust me a little."

  His lips claimed hers and Isabella turned to him in despera­tion, seeking comfort wanting to blot out the coldness in her soul. She sought his kisses with eagerness, pressing closer to him, wanting to banish the darkness. Yet all the time, it crept back into her mind and she could not make it go. Freddie and India and Ernest. . . They flitted like ghosts through her mind, distract­ing her from Marcus's caresses so that she could feel nothing.

  Fifteen minutes later, Isabella felt as though she was suf­focating with embarrassment and humiliation as she lay beneath Marcus in the wide double bed. The house was silent and dark and she could hear nothing but his breathing and the relentless creak of the mattress. Still she felt nothing. Nothing but panic, at any rate. She could not believe it. Earlier in the evening she had wanted Marcus so much. Now she was hot and sticky and her mind was dark and tormented with old images arid secrets. She shifted painfully. She wanted to tell Marcus to stop but she could not and she was utterly morti­fied. She could not make love successfully with her husband even when she wanted to. How hopeless she was.

  "Bella?" Marcus had stopped. He reached across and struck a light.

  "I am sorry," Isabella said. "I was thinking too much."

  "Of what?" Marcus's tone was unreadable. He pulled away from her and she could feel him slipping from her emotion­ally, and it sent a chill along her spine. Was it always to be like this—the ghosts of the past ruining ever
ything between them? She did not think she could bear it.

  She put her hands over her face. "About the past," she said. "I am sorry, Marcus. I thought I could do this. I wanted to do it. I wanted to seduce you."

  The words fell into a rather sad silence and Isabella felt her heart shrivel with renewed mortification. Then she heard Marcus sigh.

  "Bella." His voice had gentled. "Tell me what you were thinking about. Otherwise we shall never get past all of this."

  "Marcus—" Isabella shuddered. The last thing that she wanted to do was to rehearse old love affairs.

  "Tell me, Bella." Marcus's tone was low but insistent. "I need to understand." Then, as she still paused, he added harshly, "Did he hurt you?"

  "Ernest?" Isabella said. She sat up, drawing her knees to her chin and making sure that the covers wrapped her com­pletely about. She did not wish Marcus to see her naked. Not now, when she already felt exposed enough.

  "No, he did not hurt me," she said. "Not in the sense that you mean." She looked up and met Marcus's eyes very directly. "I made it clear to him early on in our marriage that I would not join in his sexual games. After that he troubled me very little."

  'There is more than one way of hurting someone," Marcus said.

  Their gazes locked. In the candlelight, Marcus's eyes were very dark. Isabella swallowed hard as she looked on his face. She loved him so much already that the thought of losing him again was like a knife in the heart. This was not how it was meant to be. She had meant to protect herself but once again she had made herself vulnerable.

  "That is true," she said. "In other ways he hurt me every day, with his cruelty and his indifference and his spite."

  "You took other lovers," Marcus said. His face was expres­sionless. "Tell me."

  Isabella took a shuddering breath. She locked her arms about her knees, holding on tightly.