The Sweetest Revenge

by Dawn Halliday

  Picturing Lord Archer and Anna in a carriage, kissing, struggling to disrobe, Isabelle fanned herself with her hand. “Oh goodness, Anna.”

  Anna smiled dreamily. “The first time was rather rushed, I must admit. It was the release after the year of pent-up erotic desire, I daresay. But then, he took me to his bed—”

  “You did not even reach the bed the first time?” Susan asked.

  “Er…not exactly, Susie. It was on the wall, I believe, just outside his bedchamber.”

  Isabelle gulped.

  “But the second time, on the bed. Oh, Susie. It lasted all night. Nobody has ever taken such care with me; nobody has ever taken the time to give me such pleasure, not since…”

  Isabelle held her breath, half expecting Anna to say “Leo,” but she did not finish the sentence at all.

  “…and then we held one another and talked until dawn when we fell asleep. It was the most beautiful night of my life.”

  Isabelle gazed at Anna, at her flushed cheeks, her happy smile. Was this what having a lover was like?

  Could she do it? Could she cut her heart loose from Leo’s death grip and take a lover? Could she sacrifice her reputation as a decent woman?

  She almost laughed aloud. In the years since Leo had taken her innocence, as much as she tried to attain the reputation of a decent woman, she never had. She never would.

  Anna rose, stepped to the window, parted the heavy curtains, and gazed outside. “He would not harm me. He only wants the best for me. He loves me.”

  Susan cast Isabelle an alarmed glance. How quickly Anna had forgotten her own advice to be cold, calculating, and careful. Isabelle feared for her. She nodded at Susan in encouragement.

  “I imagine you will not wait long before you see him again.”

  “I certainly will not wait long. We have plans to meet again this evening. His carriage will be by at eight.”

  Susan sighed and spoke softly, “Please…don’t do anything foolish. I am so glad you’re happy. I just don’t want to see you hurt, dearest.”

  Anna crossed the room, bent down, and kissed Susan on the cheek. “Of course I won’t do anything foolish, Susie. Thank you. What would I do without you to look after me?”

  Those words hung in the air for several moments. What would Anna have done, indeed?

  She stroked a whorl in the carved arm of Susan’s chair. “But I haven’t told you what I came to tell you. Susie, Isabelle, I believe Leo is reformed of his dissolute ways. We should let him go.”

  Susan tilted her head up to Anna, her eyebrows drawn together skeptically. “What on earth could have possibly given you that idea?”

  “He apologized. He said all the times he debauched a virgin, it was an accident, a mistake, and that he wouldn’t intentionally do it again.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Anna gave a solemn nod. “I do. He said he was sorry for it.”

  “Do you not think you are being too easy on him, Anna?” Susan said. “Perhaps your current state of carnal bliss has made you more forgiving than you would otherwise be?”

  Anna seemed to consider this seriously; then she said, “You know I seduced him in Peterborough. I flirted shamelessly, then invited him to my bedchamber.”

  Susan shrugged. “Of course you did. It does not signify. I am exhausted by women feeling they must shoulder the blame for men’s indiscretions.”

  “But I believe I gave him the wrong impression. I have been thinking about it. I wanted him to take me, then take me away from that place.”

  “There is nothing wrong with that,” Susan said.

  “I was full of romantic notions. I thought I could make him love me. I pretended to be an experienced woman, and I exploited what little I knew of men. He couldn’t have known I was an innocent until it was too late.”

  “And then, instead of doing the right thing, the honorable thing, he fled in the middle of the night,” Susan said bitterly.

  “Yes.” Anna gave a sad sigh. “That is true. He panicked, I believe. But this morning…well, I tried it again.”

  “Tried what?”

  “I tried to seduce him like I did that night. Only I’m rather better at it now.”

  Prickling jealousy stabbed Isabelle directly in the heart, and for a second, just a second, she hated Anna for touching something she considered hers. Then it went away, and she cursed herself for a fool.

  “And?” Susan asked.

  “He would not be seduced. Well, that’s not quite accurate. His cock was eager enough, but his mind was not so ready to comply.” She turned to Isabelle, set her hands on her hips, and assessed her with shrewd moss-green eyes. “He would not stop asking for his ‘Belle.’”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lady M came to Leo in the early afternoon. He was warmer now, because Hercules had taken pity on him and given him one of his own clean, dry shirts. It was too large by half but much better than being chilled to the bone by his own soaked shirt.

  He was losing his mind. Lady M, whoever the hell she was, and Anna Newton had destroyed his gentlemanly veneer, which unfortunately had proven much thinner than he would ever have guessed. Too bad. He was finished with politeness. Lady M was the leader, and by the devil, she was going to hand over Belle; then she was going to let him leave this place.

  He knew better than to reveal his knowledge of Mistress Jane’s identity. He had made that mistake with Belle, and look where it had led. Nowhere. No, he’d hang on to that juicy tidbit, keep it a secret until it would behoove him to expose it.

  Now was not that time.

  A gentleman would stand and bow when a lady entered. He did neither. He sat up, fisting his hands behind his back. The fringes on the chaise’s cushions pressed against the backs of his calves.

  “Good afternoon, Leo.”

  “Release these damned shackles, Lady M.”

  “Do not speak to me disrespectfully, Leo. If you do, I shall leave.” Her voice was tight.

  He spoke through clenched teeth, since he couldn’t get his rigid jaw to open to get the words out properly. “Do you see what you’ve done to me, goddamn it? You’ve turned my blasted, wretched world upside down in the space of a few days. That’s what you intended, is it not? You’ve shown me what a louse, no, what an ass, I am, haven’t you? Now let me take my miserable hide home, and I will not bother you again. Nor any of the likes of you. Just allow me to speak with Belle before I leave. There are… I must tell her a few things, talk to her first.”

  “Is this a new ploy, Leo? Like the one you attempted on Mistress Jane earlier today? It will not work with me.”

  “Ploy?” He rose to his feet. “You think this is a ploy? I do not know your complaint against me, Lady M. But I have an inkling of Mistress Jane’s, and I know Belle’s. What can I do to make things right? Nothing. That is the truth. But what do you want from me for it? To spend my life in this cellar?”

  “Isn’t that the life you relegated them to when you debauched them?”

  She was close. Just a few feet away. If only his hands were free, he could grab her.

  She continued. “Innocent young women, taken in by a scoundrel, an uncaring rogue. You confined them in a metaphorical cellar, Leo. You did that to them. Why should I let you go? Don’t you belong here?”

  She was right, damn her to hell. He raised his chin. “Be that as it may, I surmise that you do not intend to keep me here for the remainder of my days. Tell me what I must do, Lady M. Shall I consign a monetary allowance on both of them? Will that allay the pain I have caused?”

  She made a scoffing noise. “Hardly. Men always think their money will solve every problem. Stupidly, I might add. What of a woman’s day-to-day existence, her loneliness, her desperation? What of her losses in family, in reputation? How can you repay that?”

  He shrugged, tried to appear defiant. But of course, she had him, and he knew it. She was right. Everything she said was right. Shame hardened to a stone in his chest, so heavy and hard he thought it might drag
him beneath the cellar floor.

  “I cannot repay it.” He stilled his face into an implacable mask. God, what a fraud he was. Inside, around the rock of shame, he was one shredded, raw, aching wound. What he had done to Anna Newton, what he had done to Belle…

  He squared his shoulders so she would not see him falter. “Let me go, Lady M. There is nothing I can do.”

  “No.”

  “No?” He lurched forward, heard her footsteps as she retreated. “What then? Will you flay me, skin me alive? What will happen next?”

  “Oh, Leo,” she said softly. “You have come far, but not far enough. Recognizing your sins is only the first step. But you still do not understand. We have not yet had our revenge.”

  Revenge? How in God’s name could they make this worse?

  “And how do you plan to go about taking your revenge, Lady M?” he sneered, stepping closer to her. This time, she held her ground.

  “Not only must you recognize what you have done, but we must feel certain that you would never do it again.”

  “I won’t do it again.” There, he’d said it. And he meant it this time. “Now let me go.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  “I speak the truth.”

  “No, Leo.”

  She was a scolding mother, telling her child he would go to bed without his dinner for yet another night.

  He hated her.

  “I’m warning you, Lady M…”

  “Your threats do not scare me. They become redundant. They only make me lose the drop of respect I’d maintained for you.”

  “Just bring Belle to me.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Damn you! You do know her. Bring her to me, Lady M.”

  “No.”

  “I want Belle.”

  “No.”

  She was retreating, leaving him. Hinges creaked as the door swung open.

  “Bring her to me, Lady M!”

  “I’m sorry, Leo.”

  “I need her. Bring her to me. Bring Belle to me!”

  But the door slammed shut. She was gone.

  ***

  Susan’s garden was a tiny affair but quite pretty this time of year, with blooming flowers in dark autumn tones. After breakfast the following morning, Isabelle sat on a lone garden chair reading a copy of the newest illicit book Susan had acquired, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Her French not being nearly as good nor as practiced as Susan’s, Isabelle found it a struggle, and she had hardly labored through five pages when Susan came outside to join her. She rose to greet her friend.

  “No, no. Don’t get up,” Susan said, waving a handful of papers at her. “I’ve brought letters for you.”

  Letters? Her life had changed so much since she’d met Susan and Anna. Now, not only was she receiving gifts, she was receiving letters. She looked up inquiringly at Susan, who held them out to her.

  The first one was a note from her great-aunt:

  Isabelle, Lass,

  I have heard from miscellaneous sources that you went to the theater. Come visit me tomorrow afternoon, for I fear I have some explaining to do.

  Believe me, Your Great-Aunt Mary.

  Isabelle read it silently once, then aloud to Susan. “What does it mean, do you think?”

  “Heavens, who knows? One could only assume you’ll learn the answer once you go.”

  Still shaking her head, Isabelle opened the second note.

  Dearest Miss Frasier,

  Please allow me to visit you this afternoon. Eagerly awaiting your (hopefully) positive response,

  Philip Sutherland

  Shaking her head, Isabelle silently handed Susan the slip of monogrammed stationery.

  Why did this man seem so infatuated with her? Where did he come from? He was so different from all the men she had ever known since her summer with Leo.

  There was no reason for Mr. Sutherland to be smitten with her. None whatsoever.

  Susan peered at Isabelle over the top of the note. “You will return a positive answer, I hope? We wouldn’t want the poor man to drown in his own besotted misery, would we?”

  “Why is he doing this, Susan? He wants more from me than friendship, I think.”

  “Oh yes, you’re right on that score, Isabelle. He wants more, and it seems he’s willing to go along with the friendship pretense in hopes of eventually getting what he wants.”

  “But why? What have I done to encourage the attentions of such a man?”

  Susan shrugged. “You are not unattractive, Isabelle.”

  Isabelle smiled wryly. “That’s hardly an endorsement of my allure.” She gazed at her hands, her short, bitten nails. “Mr. Sutherland is rich and handsome. He could have half of London, ladies and Cyprians alike, on their knees, begging for the attention he’s been giving me. Of all those beautiful, knowledgeable women, why me? In the end, I am naught but a shy country spinster, imperfect in looks, full of social blunders, whose bottom is too round, hips too padded. It makes no sense, Susan. No sense whatsoever.”

  Susan snorted. “You are hardly fat. And you’ve lost at least half a stone since you’ve been here. In fact, I begin to think you dislike LaForche’s creations. Should I hire someone else to do the cooking for the remainder of your visit?”

  Isabelle rose from the garden seat, clasping her arms around her frame. “You know that’s not it. I’m…I’m overwrought. It’s difficult to eat in such a state.”

  “Nonsense. Anna and I are managing it just fine. Anna, especially. I begin to think she has gained what you’ve lost. In any case, you are a lovely woman, and you appear much younger than your five and twenty years. I am astonished that more suitors aren’t hovering at my doorstep, although that could probably be explained by your lack of exposure. If we were to attend the theater without Mr. Sutherland hovering solicitously over you, I assure you they’d flock to you in droves.” Susan smiled graciously and held out her hand. “Come inside with me, Iz. I believe it is going to rain.”

  Isabelle gathered her book and the letters and clasped Susan’s hand. Sure enough, as they walked toward the house, two big drops fell on Isabelle’s upturned face. Susan tugged her inside and shut the door behind them, turning to peer through the windowpane as thunder rumbled in the distance and the scattered drops massed into an angry downpour.

  “Oh, I do love the rain, don’t you? As children, Thomas and I used to sneak outside barefoot to wiggle our toes in the mud, much to the dismay of the governess.” She gazed outside, smiling with her reminiscence. “She said we’d catch our deaths. Thomas’s father beat him more than once for it, but I played the innocent girl and escaped relatively unscathed, my mischievous ways still intact. Poor boy. I led him into more birchings than he deserved.”

  Isabelle watched Susan in fascination as she turned from the window.

  “Come, let’s go upstairs.”

  Isabelle followed her upstairs and finally into her bedchamber suite. “Did you spend the whole of your childhood with Lord Archer, Susan?”

  Isabelle diligently kept her gaze averted from the curtained bed she’d heard creaking the night before.

  “I did. You see, my parents died young, so I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle. We were of an age, and the villagers used to say we were linked at the hip. But when he went off to school, things changed.” She sighed heavily and sank down before her escritoire.

  “Time, I suppose, can change everything,” Isabelle murmured.

  “It does,” Susan agreed.

  Sometimes, Isabelle had tended to live in the past in order to avoid the desperation of the present, and yet the rest of the world continued on, changing, growing. Nothing stayed the same.

  “Some parts of us will always retain the closeness we once had,” Susan said, “but now most of our lives have been spent apart, and we have had such different experiences. He purchased his commission in the army and was on the Continent for many years. I married young, had a child young, was widowed young. I became hardened by the life of an Eng
lish widow; he became hardened by a life on the battlefield. Two very different educations, two very different results.”

  “Do you really no longer trust him?” Isabelle asked. “Why do you warn Anna off him so strongly?”

  “No, I don’t trust him completely. His years on the battlefield did little to educate him about women. He wants Anna in his bed; he is infatuated with her. These things I know. But I do not know when he will tire of her, and when he does tire of her, what he will do, or how Anna will respond.” Susan inhaled deeply. “But she is happy now, happier than I have ever seen her, and I would not take that away from her.”

  Isabelle wondered if there were cracks in the composed mask Susan wore. Susan certainly kept her emotions under tight rein. Isabelle wanted to ask if she was happy with her own lover. Did Pierre make her happy? As happy as Lord Archer seemed to make Anna?

  “Susan, may I ask you something? Something private? It is quite all right if you say no.”

  Susan drew a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “Of course. I keep no secrets from you, Isabelle.”

  “Well, I’ve been wondering something since I came to stay here.” Isabelle drew in a breath, suddenly unsure. Susan gazed at her expectantly. She resolutely pressed on. “Are you and Pierre, that is, do you, er…?” She paused, flustered.

  Susan’s brow furrowed. “How did you know?”

  Oh dear. Caught. “Well, I suspected. I noticed a certain lingering look occasionally between the two of you. And then, well, I apologize, when I went to Leo the night before last, I heard him…er…here when I was making my way back to my room.”

  “I see.” Susan’s tone was clipped, and Isabelle’s heart sank.

  “I’m very sorry. I did not mean to eavesdrop—” But she had, and she had stood there, eavesdropping, for several minutes.

  Susan raised her hand. “It is quite all right, Isabelle. My walls are too thin, I daresay. In any case, Pierre was vexed with me that night. You probably heard some of his angry rumblings.”