Deceiver

by Nicola Cornick

  Marcus nodded slowly. "He can have been little older than you at the time, however."

  "He was eighteen," Isabella said. "He thinks that he could have stood up to our father, yet he did not."

  Marcus was silent for a moment. "I suppose that he felt he had compromised his integrity by failing to stand against your father's summary decision to marry you off. Today, at least, he has regained his self-respect."

  Isabella looked at him thoughtfully. "I have always had the feeling, Marcus, that you did not like Freddie. Why is that?"

  Marcus hesitated. "I admit that I thought him a lightweight. But the animosity was never on my side. I always sensed that Freddie disliked me for some reason."

  Isabella frowned. "He has not spoken of it to you?" "No."

  "And you do not know why?"

  Marcus shook his head. "I have no notion."

  There was a brief silence. Marcus could see a faint, with­drawn expression creep into Isabella's eyes as though she was thinking of something else, but when she spoke it was to change the subject.

  "And what about Edward Warwick?" she asked.

  Marcus sighed. "Unfortunately, he will live, too. It would have been easier had he died and saved us the difficulty of deciding what to do with him."

  He saw a flicker of what looked like pain in Isabella's eyes. "You could always let him go," she said.

  Marcus looked at her in astonishment. "Bella, the man tried to kill you!"

  "Well, no," Isabella corrected him. "He was merely using me as a hostage to try to buy his freedom."

  Marcus's lips thinned. He would never forget the way he had felt when Warwick had held the knife to Isabella's throat. He had been within an inch of shooting the man down and only Alistair, urgently grasping at his jacket, had recalled him to sanity with the whispered words that he would kill Isabella if he did not take care and wait his chance. A blinding fury had possessed him when he had seen the thin red line on Isa­bella's neck where the knife had grazed her. But the fury was tempered with fear; a fear greater than anything he had felt before. She might have been hurt. She might have been killed. His Isabella. . .

  His hands tightened on hers at the thought and she winced. He let her go reluctantly. He did not want to. He wanted to clasp her to him forever through sheer terror that she might otherwise be taken from him. He did not want to lose her.

  "The man is a dangerous criminal," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "He would never have let you go, Bella. He is a murderer and a felon. He has to hang."

  Isabella's eyelashes flickered. He looked at her candid blue gaze and her sweet mouth, and wanted to crush her to him.

  "I do understand," she said. She shivered. He felt the tremor go through her. "Did you hear what we talked about, Marcus?"

  "No," Marcus said. "We could hear nothing. I was hoping that you might tell me. And," he added, "tell me what you were doing in the attic in the first place."

  He saw her shift then and set her lips as though she faced a difficult task.

  "I went up into the attics to choose a memento of India," she said. Marcus realized that he must have looked astonished, for she added, "I feel for her, Marcus. We were never close and I doubt we ever could have been but still I feel for her." She was quiet for a moment. "I think we might have under­stood one another."

  Marcus nodded. "And Warwick?"

  Isabella sighed. "We talked of his son." She pressed her hands together. "I know you cannot let him go, Marcus, but the man has suffered every day. He will continue to suffer, never being able to find his child, not knowing if he is dead or alive. I understand a little of how that must feel." She broke off, head bent.

  Marcus's face set hard. There was a painful compassion in her voice and it struck a chord of sympathy in him, no matter that he did not want it to do so.

  "I understand some part of how you feel about that," he said slowly.

  Her eyes flew to his face.

  "Do you?"

  "Yes. That is to say, when you told me about India's child, I had some sympathy for Warwick's plight. But for the man himself. . ." He shook his head.

  In the candlelight, Isabella's eyes seemed very bright and blue. "Do you think we shall ever be able to find the child?"

  Marcus hesitated. He did not wish her to suffer further, but he could imagine that if she did not hear the truth, she might make a crusade of trying to find and help India's lost son.

  "He is already found," he said.

  He saw the light leap into Isabella's eyes, then die just as swiftly as she read his expression.

  "Is he. . ." She paused. "Is he dead, Marcus?"

  Marcus nodded. His face was set. "He was never far from home at all. He was Edward Channing, the lad Warwick sent to search my house for evidence right at the beginning."

  Isabella gasped. "But Warwick had looked everywhere for the boy! How was it that he did not know?"

  Marcus made a slight, negative gesture. "I cannot be sure. We know that the boy was born in Scotland and subsequently adopted by the Southerns' gardener and his wife. They moved to London but on the death of his adoptive parents, Edward returned to Salterton and lived with the Channings. Channing's wife was a distant connection of Edward's parents and also worked for Lord John Southern for many years. Perhaps Lord John wished the child to be somewhere where he could watch over him."

  Isabella's brow furrowed. "Yet Warwick could not discover the truth."

  Marcus shook his head. "Lord John chose well with Channing. He is a taciturn man. But the boy was wild—no doubt like Edward Warwick had been wild in his youth. He fell into bad company."

  "He fell in with Warwick," Isabella said slowly. "Oh, the irony of Warwick not knowing that this was the very boy he sought!"

  Marcus's face was hard. "The irony is harsher than that, Bella. Edward Channing ran away to join Warwick in London but he fell sick and Warwick abandoned him. He died in the poorhouse. The reason I discovered the truth about Edward's parentage was that it came out when I went to tell the Channings the news of Edward's death."

  Isabella pressed her hand to her mouth. "Warwick killed his own son! "

  "He abandoned him to die, certainly."

  Isabella made a pitiful noise of distress. "Marcus, I cannot bear it. Does Warwick know?"

  "Not yet," Marcus said. He spoke slowly. "It seems fitting to tell him. Warwick will die a quick death, unlike some of the others he condemned through his criminality. To know the ultimate irony, that he had his own son within his grasp yet failed to recognize him, to know that it was his fault Edward died. . . That would be punishment indeed."

  "That would be too cruel," Isabella whispered.

  Marcus shook his head. "Life cannot always be neat and painless," he said.

  Isabella closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them again her gaze clung to his. "No one knows that as well as I," she said.

  Marcus took her hands in his. "It shall never again be so," he said. "I swear it."

  Isabella watched from the window as they took Ned Warwick away. He was escorted in chains down to the quay by a detachment of sailors from HMS Sapphire. They were to take him to London by sea for his trial. It seemed a huge amount of trouble for a man who seemed so sick he could barely walk under the weight of his restraints. Isabella remem­bered the dank cell in which Marcus had been incarcerated, with its walls leaching damp and the stench and sourness of imprisonment in the air. She shuddered. Day after day, without release, ending only in death. . . Yet that would be Warwick's punishment anyway, regardless of whether or not he was caged. He would never find his son now. He would either die unknowing or die tortured by the truth.

  Isabella watched the sad procession out of sight around the curve of the esplanade. Plenty of the residents and visitors to Salterton were treating it as a rather amusing spectacle. She felt sick at the sight. She crossed to the mirror that stood on the dressing chest. She leaned her hands on the sturdy wooden top and stared long and hard at her reflection.

&nbs
p; Life cannot always be neat and painless, Marcus had said, and she knew it was true, for now she was faced with the greatest dilemma of all. She knew now that she was not pregnant with Marcus's child. To her confusion and shock, she had cried when she had discovered it, as though she had secretly wanted his baby after all. Now there was nothing to keep them together unless the love and trust they had been trying to build over the last few weeks was strong enough, and that she did not know. What she did know was that she re­spected Marcus enough to tell him the truth about Emma's parentage and after that it was up to him.

  She was terrified.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  It was a glorious summer day in Kinvara Cove. Pen and Isabella had taken a picnic down to the sands. They had swum from the rocks and sat in the sunshine and talked lazily. After the painful emotions of the previous day, it had been wonderful.

  Pen was looking flushed and pink and very young. "Bella," she said.

  "Hmm?" Isabella murmured. They were sitting in a shel­tered spot. The sun was making her sleepy. She knew that she must tell Marcus the truth very soon. But she wanted to have one peaceful day before she and Marcus discussed the future.

  "Being here at Salterton has reminded me of something that I should have told you long ago," Pen said. She hesitated. "I am sorry. . ."

  Isabella opened one eye and squinted at her sister from under the brim of her straw bonnet. "More confessions, Pe­nelope?" she said "You frighten me."

  She thought that Pen was looking quite frightened herself.

  "It was about the letter."

  "Which letter?"

  "The letter that Marcus sent you asking you to elope with him."

  Isabella sat bolt upright. "Elope?"

  Pen stared. "Surely he has told you? I always wondered whether it would have made any difference. . . . Whether you would have run away from Ernest."

  Isabella raised a hand and stopped her. "Wait, Pen. Marcus never asked me to run away with him."

  "Oh, but surely. . . I was certain that was what it must be!" Pen bit her lip. "I found the letter under the door of the bedroom that had been yours. It was addressed to Miss I. S. I remember it particularly be-cause it was the day after your wedding to Ernest and I wondered at someone addressing you by your maiden name. Anyway, you were no longer at Standish House, of course, because after the wedding break­fast you had stayed with Ernest in Brunswick Gardens."

  "I remember," Isabella said. "It rained."

  She felt strange. The day of her wedding had been hot but the following day there was a thunderstorm and the lowering clouds and constant downpour had seemed perfectly in tune with her mood. Even now the mere thought of it brought the same trapped and angry sensation to the pit of her stomach.

  "It did rain," Pen agreed. "That was the problem. I put the letter in my pocket, intending to give it to you when I saw you before you left for your wedding journey. But then Miss Bendey took me out to the Academy that afternoon—I think she thought I felt neglected with all the fuss around you—and we were soaked in a downpour of rain. My dress was ruined and Molly took it away as soon as we got home and I forgot all about it and never gave the letter a second thought. . ." There was an edge of desperation to her voice now. "It was only later, after you had gone on your wedding trip, that Molly brought it to me. It had been washed and dried and flat ironed before they found it—" Her voice broke somewhere between laughter and tears. "I knew it must have been from Marcus but it was too late and I did not know what to do—"

  Isabella's attention snapped up. "Why did you think that it was from Marcus? Did you read it?"

  Pen shook her head. "No. It was illegible once it had been through the wash. I threw it away. But I thought. . ." She stopped, bit her lip. "I knew that you and Marcus had been deeply in love," she said, after a moment. "I knew that you had been lovers. I did not think that he would give you up so easily."

  The sunlight dazzled Isabella momentarily and she blinked.

  "I saw you slip out of Salterton House one night when we were staying with Aunt Jane," Pen added apologetically. "And although you and Marcus were always proper when you were in public together, I could tell that there was something very strong between you. I was too young to understand properly, of course, but. . ." She smiled. "I am not certain how you managed to keep it such a secret."

  "It seems," Isabella said dryly, "that we did not."

  Pen looked down at her hands. "I am very sorry, Bella. I cannot rid myself of the thought that it might have made a world of difference." Her eyes were full of pleading tears. Isabella swallowed an answering lump in her throat.

  "It does not matter a scrap, Pen. Do not give it another thought."

  She reached out to give her sister the hug they both needed and Pen clung tight.

  "Be happy, Bella," Pen said, muffled.

  "I will," Isabella said. Her heart felt wrenched. Pen would be so distressed if she and Marcus separated now, but her sister would never understand just how complicated matters had become.

  Looking over Pen's shoulder, she saw Alistair Cantrell coming down the cliff path toward them. He and Marcus had been over to view the progress of work on Salterton Cottage.

  "Alistair is looking for you," she said, releasing Pen with a final hug. "Run along."

  Pen needed no second bidding, although once she was on her feet she paused, looking down at her sister.

  "You will be quite well on your own, Bella?" she asked.

  "I shall be quite well," Isabella confirmed with composure. "In a little while I shall go to find Marcus."

  She watched Pen speed away up the cliff path and throw herself into Alistair's arms. They waved at her enthusiastically before they turned away and started to walk, arms entwined, across the heather toward the ruined chapel. Isabella sighed and turned away. She felt suddenly frightened. She had told herself that this was the day on which she would tell Marcus that she was not pregnant—and tell him the truth about Emma. She should have known from the start that the truth, partially told, would never be enough. But now she knew that she was in danger of destroying all the fragile structure that they had started to build between them, for what she had to say might send Marcus away forever.

  She interlocked her fingers and stared out across the sea. She loved Salterton and she loved living here, but without Marcus it would be empty of real meaning, for she loved him more than anything else in the world. Nevertheless, she owed it to him to be honest. If they were to part, at least it would be with no more secrets between them.

  She was shot through with another pang of terror.

  Nevertheless she got to her feet, dusted the sand slowly from her skirts, and started up the path toward home. She had never avoided making hard decisions, right or wrong, and now, twelve years on from the first one, she had to do it again. She prayed fervently that this time she was making the right decision in telling Marcus about Emma.

  By the time she reached the house, serene and sleeping in the afternoon warmth, she was almost beside herself with nervousness. As she went into the cool shade of the hall, she could hear Marcus talking to the architect. Their business was not quite concluded. Which meant that she had time for the one other matter that preoccupied her.

  She knocked softly on the door of Freddie's sickroom and pushed it open. The housekeeper was sitting quietly beside the bed. It appeared that Freddie was asleep. He still looked pale but he was breathing easily and his fever had subsided now. Isabella felt a great rush of affection on seeing him.

  The housekeeper tiptoed out and Isabella took her vacated seat. She took Freddie's hand in hers and, a moment later, he opened his eyes.

  "How are you, old thing?" he said with a slight effort.

  "I am well, thank you," Isabella said, smiling. "You are a hero, Freddie. You saved my life."

  A hint of color stole into her brother's lean cheek. "Devil a bit," he said gruffly. "Did what I could. That man was a nasty piece of work." He blinked. "Did Marcus tell you—"

&
nbsp; "Yes," Isabella said. "I understand why you worked for him, Freddie. There is no need to explain."

  "I'm sorry," Freddie said fretfully, pulling a loose thread from the blanket and avoiding her eyes. "Made a terrible mull of things."

  Isabella squeezed his hand. "We shall sort them out."

  "Marcus has offered to pay my debts," Freddie said in a rush. "Splendid fellow, your husband, Bella."

  "There was a time when you did not think so," Isabella said, a little dryly. "Was that because of India, Freddie?"

  She felt Freddie jump. His blue eyes opened wide and fixed on her face. "Dash it, Bella, what can you mean?"

  Isabella smiled ruefully. "After Warwick had shot you, you told me that you were glad that you had been able to help me at last. I understood that well enough, Freddie. . . ." Her smile deepened with affection. "But you also implied that you had done it because of India as well."

  She waited. Freddie lay still, his eyes closed now, his lashes dark against his cheek. Isabella's heart wrenched. He looked like the schoolboy he had been when he had fallen in love with his cousin.

  "Pen just told me," she continued softly, "about a letter she found in my bedroom at Standish House, the day after my wedding. It was addressed to Miss I.S. and she assumed that it was for me. But it wasn't, was it, Freddie? It was for India. She had been staying with us for the wedding. She shared my room the night before the wedding and she had it to herself afterward. The letter was for her." Isabella took a careful breath. "I think it was from you."

  Freddie's eyes opened. His gaze was very clear and very blue but there was something still in the depths that told her more than any words of his feelings for India Southern.

  "I wanted her to run away with me," Freddie said. His voice was a little hoarse. "I could not bear it any longer. She was so unhappy. She had been ever since Lord John forced her to give Warwick up and give her child away. I knew that she did not love me—she had always been in love with Warwick and no one else—but I loved her."