by Sara MacLean
Not that she cared if he found her flattering or not.
Liar.
Isabel ignored the little voice in her head.
“You cannot dance? ”
Of course he would latch on to that. “Not really.”
“Well, that seems like it would be easy to fix.”
She gave a little laugh. “In case you had not noticed, my lord, there are not very many dance masters this far north.”
“Aren’t you lucky that I am here, then? I would very much like to teach you to dance.”
She swiveled her head toward him in disbelief. “I beg your pardon? ”
“I think we should begin tonight. There is a ballroom in this house, is there not? ”
“Yes.” Surely he wasn’t serious.
“Excellent. After dinner then?”
She blinked. “After dinner?”
“I shall take that as resounding agreement.”
“I—”
“You aren’t afraid, are you?”
Well, now he’d thrown down the gauntlet.
She cleared her throat. “Of course not.”
He smiled. “I did not think so. Now, if you would stop distracting me, I will see you at dinner.”
“I—yes, of course.” In a daze, she began to move through the statues toward the door.
“Oh, and Isabel?”
The sound of her name on his lips was a wicked promise, even from a respectable distance. She spun back, suddenly breathless. “Yes?”
“Just for tonight … shall we pretend you aren’t in mourning?”
The words sent a thrill through her, and she had an immediate sense that if she were to agree to his request, it would change everything.
She took a deep breath, hovering on the brink of an answer for a long moment. No matter what she told herself, she was not immune to this man and to his charms. He was the ultimate temptation. And she wanted to give in.
She took a deep breath.
“That sounds like a lovely idea.”
Thirteen
* * *
Nick had just tucked in his shirt in preparation for dinner when the knock sounded on the door to his bedchamber. He snapped around at the sound, immediately on edge, then shook off the response.
If he were honest with himself, he would admit that he had been on edge since his afternoon with Isabel … and that he was eagerly awaiting the evening ahead.
But then he had little interest in being honest with himself.
A second knock sounded, and he turned in time to see James poke his head through the narrow space between the door and its seat.
“I hear you are joining us for dinner.”
Nick raised a brow in response. “I had planned to, yes.”
James nodded solemnly. “Good.”
The boy did not move from his position, half inside, half outside the room. Instead, he watched as Nick turned back to the looking glass and lifted a comb to tame his sable curls.
For a few moments, neither of them spoke, until, finally, Nick said, “Would you like to come in, Lord Reddich? ”
The words unfroze the boy, and he scurried into the room, closing the door firmly behind him. “I would. Please.”
Nick hid his smile, instead watching his visitor in the mirror as he finished his toilet. He adjusted the sleeves of the linen shirt he wore before he smoothed its body along his torso. Lifting his cravat from where it lay on a nearby chair, he said, “Was there something you wanted?”
James shook his head, distracted by the sure, strong movements of Nick’s hands as he began the intricate collection of movements that would result in an elaborately knotted cravat. “How do you know how to do that?”
Nick paused. “I’ve known how to do it for a very long time.”
James crept closer, transfixed. “But … how did you learn?” Nick thought for a moment. “I suppose my valet taught me.”
“Oh.” There was silence as James considered the answer. “I shall have to learn to do that before I go to school, I would think.”
Nick turned. “Would you like me to teach you?”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “Would you mind very much?”
“Not at all.” Nick removed the strip of linen from his person and placed it around James’s neck. Turning the boy to the looking glass, he walked James through the movements until the cravat was a fair approximation of the knot Nick had created earlier.
James leaned into the mirror, considering the neckpiece from several angles as Nick moved away to don the rest of his dinner attire. “It looks very well.”
There was something in the boy’s pride that tugged at Nick’s memory. While he might not remember how he learned to tie a cravat, he did remember the powerful desire for approval, for acceptance as a man.
When Nick had been James’s age, his mother had deserted them—absconding in the middle of the night with little but the clothes on her back, leaving twin sons and a desolate husband in her wake. In the weeks following, his father had disappeared, as well, pulling further and further into himself, leaving Nick and Gabriel to fend for themselves—to survive the crushing blow of the loss of two parents. They’d been shipped off to school within a month, thanks to the intervention of a committed aunt who had been aware of the devastation their mother had wrought.
Nick had spent the first year at school working as hard as he could—eager to impress his father, convinced that if, when he and Gabriel returned home for the summer holiday, he had received top honors at school, somehow he could convince his father that his sons were enough.
He had learned quickly that nothing would ever be enough to assuage his father’s pain and guilt at losing his marchioness. But looking at this boy, the young, resilient Earl of Reddich, he remembered what it was like to try. And to believe that he might succeed.
And he wanted to give this boy what he had never had.
“Indeed, it does. You will have to practice to get it perfect, but it shouldn’t take you long.” Nick buttoned his waistcoat, watching the boy’s eyes light with pleasure as he unwrapped the linen from his neck and practiced in the mirror once more. When the tip of the earl’s tongue emerged at the corner of his mouth, and he screwed up his face trying to recall the movements he had just learned, Nick laughed and came forward to help. When the cravat was tied once again, James grinned up at him.
Who would have guessed that here, out on the Yorkshire moors, he would find such satisfaction as he did when he made the Townsend children smile?
Of course, there was nothing childlike about the elder Townsend.
As James destroyed his handiwork to try his new craft once more, Nick allowed his thoughts to turn to Isabel. One moment, she was pushing him away, telling him that she wanted him gone from her house and her life, and the next she was confessing her past, and her secrets and coming apart in his arms, sweet and sensual and splendid.
He’d never met a woman like her.
The way she had laid herself bare, confiding the story of her father’s desertion, of her mother’s desolation, of her own commitment to keeping what little family she was left with together, of keeping Townsend Park working despite the devastating blow of the loss of its master—Nick was entirely intrigued by this enigmatic female.
“Around the other bit once more,” he coached James as he reached for his topcoat.
James followed the instruction carefully. “I have been thinking.”
“Yes?”
“I think you should marry Isabel.”
Nick froze, coat halfway up his arms as he considered the boy’s serious countenance. “I beg your pardon? ”
“It is logical, really.”
“Is it?” Of all the things the boy could have said, this was not the one that Nick had expected.
James nodded once. “Yes. Isabel would make an excellent wife. Shall I tell you why? ”
“By all means.”
The boy took a deep breath, as though he had been practicing his words. “She is very good
at running a house. She knows her sums better than anyone I’ve known. Also, she can sit a horse as well as a man. Perhaps when it stops raining you will see for yourself.”
“I shall look forward to it.” Nick was surprised by the truth in his words.
“Also, she is excellent at charades.”
“A quality any man should look for in a wife.”
“There are other things, too.” James tilted his head, thinking. “She is not ugly.”
Nick felt a smile tugging at his lips. “No, she is not. But may I suggest that you not say it in quite that way to her? ”
“I shan’t. But perhaps you could say it. Girls like compliments.”
“If you have learned that at such a young age, you shall be fine when it comes time for you to interact with the fairer sex,” Nick said. “I shall happily tell her that she is not ugly.”
He faced his reflection in the mirror, noting his young companion, watching him carefully in his irredeemably wrinkled cravat.
“I think you would make a good husband.”
Nick looked to James, decided to tell the truth. “I am not so certain.”
James’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”
Nick did not speak. What could he say to this boy that would make sense?
“Is it because you are not titled?”
“No. I do not think a title makes a good husband, always.”
“Nor do I. My father was not a very good husband.”
Nick nodded. “I am sorry to hear it.”
James shrugged. “I do not remember him.”
“Do you wish that you did?”
The boy thought for a long moment. “Sometimes.”
Nick drew in a deep breath at the word, so honest. He knew what it was to be a ten-year-old boy with no one to look to for guidance or help or advice. And he understood the confusion James was feeling with the man they called his father gone without ever having been more than a mystery. “What would you say if you could meet him now?”
James shook his head once. “I cannot meet him. He is dead.”
“It does not matter. What would you say? ”
James looked out a nearby window for a long minute before turning back to Nick. “I would tell him that I plan to be a much better earl than he was.”
Nick nodded solemnly. “I think that is a fine thing to say.”
James was silent for a moment, considering his words before adding, “I would also ask him why he did not want us.”
Nick did not like the tightness in his chest at the boy’s words, so familiar. Had he not asked himself the same thing for years after his mother had deserted them? “I cannot imagine that he did not want you.”
James’s large brown eyes were clear and forthright. “But you do not know.”
“No. I do not.” Nick felt the heavy weight of importance this boy would place upon his answer. “But I can tell you that if I were in his position, I would absolutely want you.”
“And Isabel?”
“And Isabel.” The truth of the words was rather startling to him, and he moved away to run a comb through his hair once more.
James tracked his movements. “Then you would consider marrying her? ”
A ghost of a smile crossed Nick’s lips. The young earl had clearly learned his tenacity from his sister. He set his comb down and turned back. He’d never seen anyone look as hopeful as James did in that moment, as though a proposal from Nick were all that it would take to make everything right.
What James did not know was that Isabel would want nothing to do with Nick when she realized the truth about him.
The thought grated. “I think that Isabel might not like the idea of us negotiating her marriage without her in the room.”
“I am earl, you know. This is the business of men.”
Nick barked in laughter. “And as a man who has a sister nearly as obstinate as your own, I suggest you never say that again as long as you would like to remain alive.”
James sighed. “Well, if it matters, I choose you for her.”
“I am flattered by your endorsement.” Nick raised a brow. “Has there ever been another man in consideration? ”
He should not be asking such questions.
James nodded. “Men come to collect her sometimes.”
Nick’s jaw went slack briefly. “To collect her?”
James nodded. “Mostly, they come because they’ve won her.”
“They’ve won her? As in, her heart?”
He did not like the idea of that.
The boy shook his head. “No. They’ve won her in a wager.”
Anger flared. Surely Nick had not heard that correctly. “They’ve won her in a wager with whom? ”
James shrugged. “With our father, I expect.”
Nick clenched his teeth. The idea that the former Earl of Reddich would have gambled away his only daughter—would have gambled away Isabel—was simply too much. Nick wanted to pummel something. Immediately. He clenched his fists tightly, imagining the pleasure he would take in putting his fist into the face of the smug aristocrat who had taken that bet. And the dead aristocrat who had suggested it.
He wanted to ask more, to gain more insight into this insane world where Isabel and James had been raised, but he could not. He forced himself to relax the muscles that had gone instantly alert at the boy’s revelation. It was not his place to ask about such things. At least, not right now.
Right now, he was going to dinner.
And then he was going to teach Isabel to dance.
Isabel had been about to go abovestairs to check on James and Nick when she heard them coming down the center staircase just outside the dining room. Her pulse quickened at the deep rumble of Nick’s voice in the hallway. Despite straining to do so, she could not make out his words; but the simple tenor of his deep, dark voice was enough to set her on edge.
She smoothed the skirts of her gown, immediately nervous about her appearance—it had been a long, long while since she’d had cause to wear an evening gown, and the one she had rescued from the depths of her wardrobe and had quickly aired that afternoon was embarrassingly out of style. Certainly the women with whom he socialized regularly in London were utterly au courant; they were surely beautiful and poised and would never dream of being seen in a dress more than a month old, let alone several years past its prime.
She winced as Nick and James shared a laugh in the hallway outside the door. She should not have agreed to his silly request. She felt like a complete imbecile.
And then he entered.
Without a cravat.
The collar of his shirt was open, leaving a wedge of warm bronzed skin, framed by white linen and the dark green topcoat he had been wearing when he had arrived the previous day. When he and James entered the dining room for dinner, Isabel’s attention was drawn immediately to that tantalizing triangle of chest, and it took her a second or two to recover from the surprise of it.
When she raised her attention to his face, she realized that he was staring intently at her, his eyes raking over the bodice of her gown, lingering on the spot where its edge gave way to the slope of her breast before traveling up to meet her gaze. She recognized the masculine admiration there, and, blushing, she redirected her attention to her brother.
Only to discover that he was wearing an equally unlikely dinner ensemble: short pants, a dirty linen shirt, and an elaborately tied—if hopelessly wrinkled—cravat. Nick’s cravat. He’d taught her brother to tie a cravat.
Warmth spread through her and she smiled at her brother. “What a fine knot!” The boy preened beneath her praise, and she met Nick’s eyes. “Thank you.”
He was making it very difficult not to like him.
Rock noticed his friend’s missing neckpiece and laughed, a great booming laugh. “You seem to have forgotten something, St. John.”
Nick grinned. “I hope you will forgive me my strange attire, Lady Isabel,” Nick said, teasing in his tone as he stepped forward and lifted her hand
to his lips, the caress scorching through her glove. “You see, I found that I had an avid pupil in neckwear this evening.”
An image of James and Nick working together to tie the cravat flashed in Isabel’s mind, and it was a powerful fantasy—in which James had a man to guide him through these complex and uncertain masculine hoops, and in which Isabel had a partner to help her navigate the challenges of raising a young earl.
A partner.
What a lovely word.
She met Nick’s eyes for a long moment, lost in the idea of him here, able to help. Shaking her head of the thought, she said, “Not at all. I am certain we can find you another cravat now that yours has been … appropriated.”
“Given freely, my lady.”
He had a remarkable smile. One that made her feel as though there was too little air in the room.
“Well, there is no reason for us to stand on ceremony this evening. I am happy for you to go without the neckwear if you are.” Isabel held her breath, considering this man and her brother and the charming portrait they made. Nick was instantly more accessible. More endearing. More attractive.
Too attractive.
Clearing her throat, Isabel said, “Shall we eat?”
They moved to the table, which had been elaborately set—at Gwen’s orders, Isabel would wager—and the gentlemen helped the ladies into their seats. There was an intimacy to the movement as Nick held Isabel’s chair for her, the way he leaned in, bombarding her with heat and the scent of sandalwood. She turned her head fleetingly in his direction to thank him, and his whispered, “It is entirely my pleasure,” barely loud enough for her to hear. She felt the soft touch of his breath on her bare shoulder as he added, “I knew you would be stunning in red.”
A flood of pleasure shot through her.
He was a dangerous man.
She shook herself of the thought, entirely inappropriate, and was rewarded by the arrival of dinner. Gwen had outdone herself tonight—creating a meal of simple, hearty food that had come almost entirely from Townsend lands. It was not extravagant—certainly Lord Nicholas had had more sophisticated meals—but it was well seasoned and well cooked, and a feast by the standards of Townsend Park.