by C. J. Archer
And didn’t Nicholas know it. "That’s why I can’t continue the investigation."
"You have to." Ash stood and joined him at the window. Nicholas sensed his friend’s body stiffen at the sight of his mother and sister crossing the courtyard adjoining the house. "I’ll inform Walsingham when I dine with him tonight, but I doubt he will say anything different. There simply is no one else with your unique ability to access a suspect’s world."
"But the conflict—"
"Might provide you with the perfect opening." Ash rubbed his chin in thought. "You could use this opportunity to befriend her colleagues, investigate them without raising her suspicions. She’ll think you’re merely trying to re-establish ties."
That was exactly what he didn’t want to do. If Isabel learned of his plan... He already had so much to feel guilty for, he didn’t want to give her another reason. "Do I have a choice in this?"
"Not unless you want to incur Walsingham’s wrath."
And thereby the queen’s. "Very well. But I should warn you, she’s innocent."
Ash raised one eyebrow. "How do you know? What did you learn earlier?"
What had he learned? That Isabel was as bewitching as ever, and that she didn’t have a lover. He still felt weak with relief at that. "Not a great deal. Is Lawrence Shawe being watched?"
Ash nodded. "I don’t think he’s got anything to do with this incident. His credentials and reputation are outstanding. But you spoke of your wife’s innocence. What are you basing that on?"
Heat flared inside him and Nicholas clenched his fists against the instinct to hit out. He turned slowly and glared at Ash. "She’s. My. Wife," he forced out through a tight jaw. "I know her."
The earl’s mouth formed a grim line. An ordinary man would have felt threatened by someone of Nicholas’s size struggling to contain his anger, but Ash didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. "And how well do you know her after...how many years?"
"Six. But that’s irrelevant—"
"Do you know why she left you? Wasn’t there talk of another man?"
"No! I mean, yes, there was talk, but she assured me there was no one else. I believe," he said, flexing his fingers, "that she wasn’t happy with my long absences soon after our wedding. I think." Something he planned on finding out for sure in the morning.
"She didn’t see enough of you so she decided to do the very thing that would ensure she saw even less of you?" Ash grunted. "My friend, I know something of women and I can assure you that is the least likely reason for her departure."
Nicholas turned back to the window. Ash had a point. So if it wasn’t his absences, then what?
A sickening thought struck him. Maybe she knew the specific reason for his disappearances at that time.
"Continue to investigate her as well as the other apothecaries on our list," Ash said. With a sweep of his arm, he indicated the mess of papers and unopened correspondence on his desk. "Now, I have work to do."
Nicholas made to leave but Ash stopped him with a firm grip on his shoulder. "Don’t worry, Merritt, she’ll understand. But don’t explain your position yet. Not until this investigation is over. Then you have my permission to divulge whatever is necessary to mend your relationship."
It didn’t matter how much permission his superiors gave, Nicholas would never admit anything to Isabel. If she didn’t already know, then telling her about his spying would only make matters worse between them. She was a clever woman. If he explained his absences following their marriage then she would make the connection between himself and her father’s arrest.
And that would surely end any chance of reconciliation.
***
Sundays were supposed to be a day of rest. A day for attending church and conversing with friends, and for quiet reflection. Isabel’s reflections were anything but quiet. Nick had crept back into them. After years of trying to forget his face, of trying to forget his touch and smile, he was back at the forefront of her thoughts.
Usually she would see to Old Man Shawe’s needs after church then spend the afternoon visiting the other apothecaries and their wives. If the weather was particularly wintry, she would merely sit in front of the small second floor parlor’s brazier and read one of her herbals until it became too dark to make out the words.
But not today. Unable to even concentrate on the familiar Turner’s Herbal, she snapped the book shut and crossed the shop floor to the window. The sign hanging above the door flipped back and forth in the wind and Fawkner’s dog barked incessantly as it always did on blustery days. Without the constant stream of customers, Bucklersbury felt more like a sleepy village street than a busy London thoroughfare. Only a handful of people braved the conditions, heads bent into the wind, their gloved hands clamping hats in place. Nick wasn’t one of them.
Instead of retreating to the parlor, Isabel had remained downstairs once Old Man Shawe was settled with his stew and ale. She’d given the servants the day off and Fox had not returned from church (a usual state of affairs since his girl had left him), so she was alone with only her bedridden employer upstairs. It wouldn’t be long before he succumbed to his afternoon nap.
Isabel returned the book to the shelf and attempted to do some work instead. She tipped out an Angelica root from an airtight jar onto the counter then began carefully slicing it. After a few minutes, the repetitive task calmed her taut nerves and the warmth from the fire made her sleepy.
"Hello, Isabel."
She whipped round and the knife slipped, cutting her finger. She gasped, not so much from the sting but from the surprise at Nick’s sudden appearance. "I didn’t hear the door open."
He shrugged. "You must have been intent on your task. I thought you didn’t work Sundays."
"Since I had to stay here to wait for you, there wasn’t much else to do," she said with more tartness than she intended.
Nick removed his hat and cloak and hung them on the hooks near the door. "I’m sorry to disrupt your day."
He didn’t look at all sorry. He remained near the door, his gaze taking in the shelves, the jars, the fire and the back door which she’d closed to keep in the warmth. It gave her a few moments to study him in return.
Overnight, as she tossed in her bed, she had wondered if he really was still handsome or if the shock of their reunion and her longing to see him had clouded her perception. But looking at him again, big and broad but with a lithe grace, she realized it was no illusion. He had the sort of face that made women take a second look as he passed and a physical presence that could intimidate if he chose. The shop seemed smaller with him in it. And hotter. So much hotter.
The throb of her cut finger drew her attention. A stripe of blood marked the tip. She concentrated on healing it, but with Nick drawing her attention, progress was slow. His gaze returned to her and she dropped her hand, hiding it behind her. She didn’t want him to see the cut. She wanted to appear confident and sophisticated, not a skittish girl startled by her own husband.
"You’re bleeding." He pointed to a smear of blood on her skirt where her finger must have brushed against it.
So much for sophisticated. "It’s nothing."
"Let me see." He stepped closer and held out his hand, palm up like he expected her to hand over her finger as if it were detatched.
She kept it behind her. "I said it’s fine, just a little cut. I’ll tend to it later." He was so close she could smell his masculinity even above the ever-present aroma of herbs that filled the shop. Or maybe it was the memory of his smell, so familiar that her imagination had conjured it up again now that he was within touching distance.
"Since you appear to be here on your own, you might have trouble tending to it one-handed. Let me help you," he said in a low voice that slid across her skin like silk. At her hesitation, he shrugged. "Have it your way. But you’re probably dripping blood all over the floor."
Which she’d have to clean up. With a sigh, she held out her finger. The streak of blood had become a rivulet, steadily dripping onto the rushes. Nic
k retrieved a handkerchief from his doublet pocket and wrapped it around the cut. His free hand uncurled her other fingers which she’d balled into a fist. She could have resisted, probably should have, but his touch unarmed her with its tenderness.
He didn’t look at her but focused on her hand like it was the most important thing in the world. His thumb traced the creases of her palm and a tiny tremor rippled through her. He must have felt it too because he looked up and their gazes connected. The blue of his eyes blazed wildly, like a man not in complete control. She had seen that look before. During the two years after their marriage and before her departure he had looked at her that way whenever he returned from one of his long absences.
Desire.
Isabel felt it too. The need and the ache, deep inside, suppressed for so long. She closed her eyes and silently begged him to touch her elsewhere, everywhere. Her arm perhaps, or her cheek or throat. She had always loved the way his tongue caressed the sensitive flesh there.
But he stayed with her hand and unwrapped the handkerchief. He pressed her finger to his lips then drew the tip into his mouth.
Isabel gasped as desire swelled within her.
Nick planted delicate kisses down her injured finger to her palm then drew her hand up to his face and pressed it to his cheek. His breath warmed her flesh as his lips brushed her wrist.
"Oh, Isabel." His murmur caressed her, arousing her body from a deep slumber. It felt good to be touched so intimately by a man. No, not any man. By Nick. Her husband.
The man she left for a very good reason.
She snatched her hand away and stepped back. Nick’s own hands dropped to his sides like sinking stones and he straightened. His eyes, dark and hooded, studied her. His chest rose and fell as rapidly as her own and she knew he was trying to swim through the thick pool of lust to reach the surface and normality. Just as she was.
"Now that," he said with a crooked smile, "was interesting."
Isabel pressed her back against the workbench. "Don’t," she said.
"Don’t what?" His look was all boyish innocence.
"Don’t try to charm me. It won’t work this time."
"Charm you? Do you find me charming?"
Everyone found him charming. "This..." she held up the hand he had been paying so much attention to, "...is not helping matters. You said yesterday you wanted to talk to me, so let’s get it over with."
"By all means, let’s discuss why you left me. I admit to a certain amount of curiosity."
She blanched at the bitterness threading his words, so unlike him. But understandable, she had to remember. No doubt he had become a topic for gossips overnight in Newport, the village bordering his Kent lands. It would have been humiliating for any man, but especially for one from a respected family such as his. The son of a knight is not usually the sort to be abandoned by a wife, especially since he was so well liked. He must have resented the attention it brought him. He must resent it still.
"I’ve waited a long time to find out." His body stiffened as if bracing against a blow. "Tell me, Isabel, why did you leave?"
She had practiced the words over and over but they still came out in a rapid tumble. "You were always away and I was tired of being alone not knowing where you were or what you were doing."
He didn’t look in the least bit surprised. "You weren’t alone. You had my mother and sister."
She snorted. Some company those cold fish were for a young wife. If they weren’t ignoring Isabel then they were plotting of ways to rid themselves of her. In the end they had got what they wanted, much to Isabel’s frustration. It still made her blood boil to think they had won and that Nick was none the wiser and never would be.
God, she hoped he never found out the real reason for her departure because that would mean the old crow had broken her promise and told him his wife was a witch.
And Isabel couldn’t bear it if he knew. To see the disgust in his eyes when he looked at her, the loathing and perhaps even fear. If he didn’t throw her out of the house altogether, he would simply have ignored her. A far worse fate to be sure. She would have become insignificant to her husband, no better than the lowliest servant. No, even the servants received a nod from Nick when they crossed paths.
She had pictured it all in her mind before she made her decision to leave—Nick exiting the room when she entered, the sneering tone in his curt words if he spoke to her at all, the disregard for her opinion. She knew how it would be.
It was the same way her father had treated her mother when her powers came in.
Isabel had decided she couldn’t live like that. She would rather never see Nick at all than see him hate her. So she had made the hardest decision of her life and left him. He might resent her for it, but she knew it was for the best.
Except she hadn’t counted on him finding her.
And now she must lie to him to keep her secret.
"I sent you letters twice a week telling you what I was doing," he said.
She tipped her chin. "Yes, and every single one contained lies. I know you weren’t where you claimed to be."
She could determine the point at which he decided not to deny it by the way his face relaxed then reddened. "How?"
She swallowed. "I, I had you followed." Actually she’d found him using his glove as a talisman but that too was her secret. "When you claimed to be in London, the man I hired wrote telling me you were in Hampshire."
He frowned. "I didn’t notice anyone."
"He was discreet."
"If I didn’t spot him between Kent and Hampshire then he was not only discreet he was invisible."
"Stop trying to change the subject. The fact is, you lied to me."
"And that’s why you left? Without confronting me first?"
"Would you have admitted what you were doing?"
He looked down at the floor. "It’s not as simple as that." He suddenly lifted his gaze to meet hers. "There was no other woman, if that’s what you think."
She gripped the bench at her back to steady herself and watched him for several seconds, trying to determine if he was telling the truth. But then she had to look away because his gaze was so intense it almost unraveled her.
No other woman.
It shouldn’t matter, not now, but it did. It mattered very much.
"Then what were you doing in Hampshire that you had to lie to me about it?" she asked when she had regained a measure of composure.
"Business. Nothing that concerns you."
She stiffened. It appeared he hadn’t changed. He still didn’t want her sharing every part of his life. "I was your wife, your business does concern me. Perhaps if you’d told me..." No, it wouldn’t have changed anything and it wouldn’t be fair to let him think that it would.
"Not was, Isabel. You are my wife." He stood close, his body like a wall in front of her. He leaned down and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he would kiss her, but instead he whispered in her ear. "And as your legal husband, I am perfectly within my rights to take what is mine."
She knew he was trying to fluster her to break down her defenses and get her to admit her true reason for leaving, but he seemed to have forgotten that she wasn’t the sort to be easily intimidated. Not by him. She knew Nick, and frightening he wasn’t. At least not to her.
"And as your legal wife," she whispered back, "I will give it." She heard his breath catch then the hiss of it escaping. Trying to contain her satisfaction, she turned her face and brushed a kiss against the corner of his lips. "But that is all you will get from me," she added as a little shiver of excitement rippled through her. This was her Nick in all his magnificence and she wasn’t going to let him go without first sating the suppressed ache that kept her awake at night. It might not be fair, for either of them, but being fair was the last thing on her mind. The sweetness of his kiss and the heat of his body conspired to undo her and shake her resolve. She wanted to touch him, feel his big hands all over her, caressing, exploring. She no longer cared why F
ate had brought them back together or what would happen afterwards. There would be time to decipher it all later.
Desire pulsed through her and she pressed her body into his to feel more of him. He kissed her lightly then drew back. Frustrated, wanting his lips on hers again, she closed her eyes and put her arms around his neck.
"Your room," he rasped, gripping her hips to hold her back. "Where?"
"Up...stairs," she said, breathless.
She took his hand and pulled him through the back door and up two flights of stairs.
"The old man...?" he said.
"Will be asleep by now." She led him into her bedchamber and closed the door. "We have the place to ourselves."
She pushed him back against the door because the bed seemed too far away, and unfastened his hose from his doublet. She had to touch him, feel him inside her before she went mad. When she freed his erection they both gasped. He was thick, ready. She touched the tip with her thumb, smearing a droplet around the smooth skin, smiling a little as he sucked air between his teeth. She stroked him, thinking about the countless times she’d touched him there then not thinking about anything at all except that he was with her and it felt so good, so natural, so right.