“What makes you say such a thing?” he asked carefully.
“You seem unable to relax.” Her tone betrayed nothing.
He tilted his head to catch a glimpse of her expression, fully expecting to find her deep brown eyes turned on him. Analyzing. Perceptive. Piercing any barrier he might choose to erect. But her lids remained firmly closed, not as one asleep, but as if she made a concerted effort to shut out the world. “Why are you holding your eyes closed?”
“Because I don’t want to lose this moment.”
Her reply made him regret the question. Rather than divert the topic, he’d managed to bring it into even sharper focus, like a maid entering his chamber at noon to throw back the draperies onto a bright, sunlit day, one he did not wish to face. A flood of light after a night’s carousing that invariably caused his head to pound and illuminated the stubble on his cheeks and the shadows beneath his eyes. It only served to emphasize his flaws.
“You don’t have to lose it. You can hold it in your memory forever.” There. That sounded sufficiently sentimental.
“Yes, and by next week, a memory is all I’ll have.” Another woman might have made that reply sound wistful. Isabelle stated a fact, but the fact was tinged with an edge that implied she was trying to convince herself.
“Isabelle—”
“Don’t. Don’t make empty promises to try to convince me otherwise.”
He brushed a kiss to her hairline. “Sleep.”
He tried to do the same, but his mind refused to let him drop off. Damn it, he wanted to make those promises. What was more, he wanted the words to have substance. He wanted to make them as much a vow as the oath he’d sworn earlier.
And that realization scared the hell out of him.
* * *
ISABELLE awoke trembling. Shadows filled the bedroom, and rain drummed steadily on the roof. Beside her, the mattress lay cold. “George?”
Silence answered her question. She shook off the last vestiges of sleep and pushed herself upright, the soreness between her thighs a reminder of what had transpired in this room. Explicit images rushed through her mind—his hands, his lips, his tongue, his body had all combined to wring every last ounce of pleasure from her.
A shiver crept down her spine, and she groped for her chemise. The thin cotton was an insufficient barrier against the cold.
And why had George gone off when they might have blended the heat of their bodies to ward off the chill and night dampness? She padded to the other room. Empty. The fire had burned down to embers, but she didn’t think she’d been asleep more than an hour.
Blast the man. The least he could have done was waited until morning. He might have allowed her a few illusions, long enough to last the night, before he stripped her of the fantasy. And what fantasy was that? That she might find a man willing to care for her, to share the burden of raising her son, to lighten her load just a little? Someone willing to bring her a little joy, a little laughter, and, yes, a little love?
Hadn’t she learned the first time she couldn’t depend on a man? He’d take what pleasure he wanted and abandon her. Clearly George Upperton was no better than Jack’s father, even if he did come wrapped in a more attractive package. Charm and wit would ever be her undoing.
She strode to the fire and plucked her still damp gown from the hearth. George’s clothes, of course, were already gone. She fumbled with the laces of her stays and shook out her skirts before easing the damp fabric over her skin. She pulled where it clung until it draped uncomfortably from her shoulders. It would have to do. She’d be more miserable by the time she returned to her cottage. Let every last raindrop that soaked her be a reminder, a layer in her armor she would use to shield herself. Men were not to be trusted.
Squaring her shoulders, she strode to the door, yanked it open—and collided with a solid wall of a man. She swallowed a cry and stepped back. The figure turned, and relief flooded her, but rather than warming her, the back of her neck heated, while her fists turned icy. “What are you doing out here in the rain? You’ll catch your death of cold.”
Darkness shaded George’s expression. Just as well. If he was about to give her the cut, she preferred it swift and silent like the blade of a guillotine.
“I thought I’d return before you woke up.” He ran his fingers down her arm, the barest of touches, but the gesture reassured. “I did not mean for you to wake alone.”
“Then why didn’t you come in?”
“I was trying to work out a solution.” He glanced away, and she almost pictured him as a boy, hands clasped behind his back, dragging a toe through the dirt. The very way Jack sometimes acted when he’d done something laudable.
“Solution?” she prompted.
“Yes, well, I was hoping for a stroke of genius, or at least a stroke of lightning, but the storm seems to have passed. I was caught up in the absurd notion I might work out what’s happened to your boy. I didn’t want to come in without an answer.”
“Oh.” Her heart doubled its pace. And she’d doubted him after that heartfelt vow. “Oh.” She stepped closer, out of the shelter of the doorway. Drops of rain struck her face and damp garments, but she hardly cared now. “If you had something to work out, you must have some news.”
“None, unfortunately. That’s why my notion was absurd. I wanted to catch Revelstoke before he took himself off to bed and see if he’d heard anything from his riders.”
“And?”
“It’s as we feared. If there were signs to find, the rain has washed away all traces.”
“Surely they’d have made inquiries at inns and such.” George had already said straight out there was no word, but she couldn’t hold back her plea. “As we did.”
“I’m afraid the weather curtailed that bit of it, too. No one was able to get very far.” Again that fleeting touch, as if he still thought her fragile. Or perhaps not her, but whatever lay between them now. “It’ll likely be another day before we get a chance at any more news. I’m sorry.”
“It’s hardly your fault.”
“Yet I am sorry for your sake.”
She reached out and squeezed his arm, hoping this small token communicated what her tongue could not. He caught her hand, tangled their fingers and pressed back. Somehow the gesture felt as intimate as when their bodies had joined.
“Thank you, for everything. I don’t—” Something filled her throat, blocking the rest of the sentence. Goodness, and it all sounded so final. “I don’t know how I’d have got through these two days without you.”
Had it only been two days? Those two days encompassed two lifetimes—Biggles’s and Jack’s.
“However long it takes, I’ll see you through to the end.” He still clasped her hand, and through that connection she felt the sincerity behind his words.
She drew in a lungful of night air, heavy with rain and the scent of the nearby sea. Life was going to be unbearable once he left. How had she allowed herself such an attachment in so short a time? Yet she couldn’t deny it, even if she knew better.
“I’d kiss you, but I’m soaked again,” he said through a smile.
“Then come in out of the weather.” She followed his lead and lightened her tone, although the weight still burdened on her shoulders like an overlarge cloak. “You still owe me a forfeit.”
His grin broadened in response, decadent, promising, sinful. He’d already fulfilled that promise once, yet her insides still melted. At last, she understood the attraction a man held for a woman. It wasn’t simply the creation of a child within her. It was the pleasure in the act—at least with the right man.
“Did you have anything specific in mind? I’m yours to command.”
Oh, how she wanted to take him up on that offer. Temptation nudged at her. She could ask for kisses. She could ask him to take her back to bed. She could ask him to show her something new. And yet … “You know what your forfeit is. I let you off last night. I’m calling for it now. You’re going to play for me.”
“But that would mean returning to the manor.”
“I know. I’ll take my chances.” Besides, as late as it was, the other houseguests ought to all be in bed.
His fingers curled about her hand. “Then shall we make a run for it?”
She ducked after him into the drizzle. The rain soaked into her already damp gown and chemise, but she didn’t care. George’s mere presence and the lingering afterglow of his lovemaking warmed her through. They ran across the lawn toward the main house. Darkened windows overlooked the broad expanse of grass like so many blank eyes. Heedless of the growing dampness, he skirted the side of the manor.
At an out-of-the way door, he paused. “We can go in the back way. My room isn’t too far from the servants’ staircase.”
She crossed her arms and leaned against a rough stone wall. “You have a pianoforte in your room, do you?”
“Er, no, but I have a change of clothes and a rather comfortable bed.”
“Your forfeit didn’t involve a bed.”
He placed his palms on either side of her head and leaned enough that the warmth from his body blanketed her. “It could if you changed the terms.”
“I’m not changing the terms.” She ducked from beneath his embrace. “Yet. You’ll have to convince me otherwise.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CLAD IN dry clothes and raising a branch of candles, George slipped into the ballroom. “It’s safe to come in.”
The house lay in darkness, candles extinguished, fires banked. Even the servants had taken to their beds, and George had moved silently through the corridors to avoid rousing the hall boy.
Isabelle padded into the space behind him. In this room, like in George’s bedchamber, the hearth glowed with the faint orange of dying embers. Crouching before the grate, he stirred the ashes until he coaxed a feeble revival from the remains of a blaze.
He glanced up to find Isabelle standing over him. “I might still lend you something.”
“I won’t parade about the house clad in a man’s garments, even if everyone else is asleep. I’ll dry out, eventually.” She gestured toward the piano, lurking at the back of the space. “Your forfeit.”
“Indeed. You stay here and let yourself dry, while I—”
He rolled back on his heels, pushed himself to his feet, and ventured deeper into the room. What looked like a sheaf of paper had been abandoned over on the piano bench. Someone’s music? He picked it up. No, not music—the pages contained sketches. No doubt it belonged to Miss Abercrombie, she of the all-seeing gaze.
Idly, he leafed through the pages. Miss Marshall stood, cold and composed on the first one. Miss Abercrombie had somehow managed to capture her subject’s icy, superior stare in just a few deft strokes of charcoal.
On the next page, Leach grinned raffishly, the size of his teeth exaggerated. In his hand, he held a pack of cards, but an ace peeked from his sleeve. “She got that one wrong,” George muttered to himself. “If he cheated, he’d win a lot more often.”
The paper rattled as he turned the next leaf. Miss Abercrombie had captured Julia and Revelstoke in an unguarded moment. Their charcoal effigies stared into each other’s eyes, holding one of their private, wordless conversations. The artist had all but portrayed the dialogue on the page.
At one time—not even a week ago—George would have asked one of his friends to put him out of his misery before he looked at a woman like that, all besotted and soft. Now all he could think of was Isabelle. Had she ever looked at a man with such a love-struck expression? Had she simpered over Jack’s father?
The thought turned his stomach. And if she looked at George that way, what would he do? In the past, he’d have run fast in the opposite direction the moment a woman gazed on him with dewy eyes, but if Isabelle wanted to turn such an expression on him …
His heart sped up, but with an effort, he shook the image from his mind. He’d consider that possibility another time, ideally once he was out of her presence. When the chance of such a thing occurring in reality was remote.
In his haste, he practically tore the sketch of Julia and Revelstoke, but as soon as he’d turned the page, he wished he hadn’t. Staring back at him was his own portrait.
“Whoever drew this is quite talented.”
In spite of himself, he jumped. Isabelle had managed to creep up behind him.
“Talented, yes.” Unnervingly so.
“Is that the way you dress when you’re in Town?”
As with the other portraits, Miss Abercrombie had exaggerated a few key details. On him, it was the clothes. Somehow she’d managed to put a gleam on his boots that might have outshone the sun. His collar points rode impossibly high, until they nearly engulfed his face. His cravat was knotted into something absurdly complicated, and his hair …
Absently, he raised a hand to test. Just as he thought. Nobody wore his hair piled in such a ridiculous manner, not even Beau Brummell before his disgrace. Certainly not George Upperton. Was this how the world saw him then? Nothing but a useless dandy whiling away the summer and autumn months until the fashionable returned to Town and he could go back to sleeping off the days and haunting the gaming hells at night.
But that was exactly the sort of man his father wanted him to be. Shallow. Dissolute, if not quite debauched. With such lessons, George had proven himself an apt pupil.
He cleared his throat. “Not to this degree. I can’t think of anyone who would.”
“I can.” Before he could ask her for examples, she pointed. “Did the artist know you play?”
Miss Abercrombie’s penetrating gaze had seen through him. She’d sketched him standing, just as he’d posed for her outdoors, but she clearly hadn’t filled in the background until later, until he’d inadvertently revealed his secret. She’d added the bulk of the piano looming behind him, and through his awkward stance, she’d managed to make it appear as if his portrait self were trying to hide the instrument from the viewer.
“Brava, Miss Abercrombie.”
“You’re stalling, you know,” Isabelle prompted. “If I had anything to wager, I’d wager you don’t wish to fulfill your forfeit.”
HIS fingers stilled, and the final, pure note faded into the night. Such skilled fingers, whether they rippled across a keyboard or her body. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth at the thought.
As Isabelle Marshall, she had known dandies, such as the sketch of George portrayed. Men who spent hours deciding which topcoat went with which pantaloons, men who drove their valets to distraction until their cravats were tied just so. Self-aggrandizing braggarts. Men whose best friend was a well-polished cheval glass. Men who were just as shallow and flat as that best friend.
Something about Upperton struck her as different. With him, the emphasis on appearance was mere façade. He hid his true self behind that front, a far deeper person with far deeper concerns and, perhaps, pain.
His eyes blinked open, as if he were awakening from an hour-long trance. “Do you play?”
The question caught her off guard. “Not like you.”
“You must have learned. Isn’t the ability to pound a few notes out of pianoforte part of a proper young lady’s upbringing?” A tinge of cynicism accompanied an undue emphasis on the word lady. It set her on edge. “That’s how it was in my household.”
“I was much better at stitchery.”
He rose from the bench. “Come. Sit.”
“But I’ve nowhere near your talent.” Not to mention, she hadn’t touched a keyboard in years. She curled her fingers into a fist.
“I’ve performed for you. I wish you to perform for me.” His tone brooked no argument. At the same time, a stream of liquid warmth washed through her midsection. Part of her wanted him to perform as he had in the cottage. As he had in her kitchen.
Again, yes, again.
Perhaps if she acquiesced, this strange mood of his might turn into something more pleasurable. She took a seat in front of the keys, pausing to smooth her skirts beneath her,
and set her hands the way she’d been taught—right thumb on middle C, the smallest finger of her left hand an octave below.
“It’s been ages. Honestly, I’m not sure what I remember.” The last time she’d sat at a piano and played for anyone had been before her debut. Just another innocent girl in white displaying her accomplishment to the ton. Making her family proud. “What shall I play?”
He shifted until he stood directly behind her. She fancied his breath stirred the hairs at the top of her head. “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.”
“That’s a serenade for strings.”
“There’s a piano arrangement.”
“But Mozart.” She dropped her hands to her lap. “Have pity.”
“My sister Henrietta butchers it with shocking regularity.” A surprising measure of bitterness infused his tone. “You can hardly do worse.”
She nearly turned her head to look at him, but recalled just in time their relative positions. It wouldn’t do to set her face in an embarrassing spot.
He leaned into her, his chest to her back, his cheek against hers. The scent of cheroot and brandy and male teased her nostrils. He placed his left hand on the keys and led her right forefinger to high G. “At least play the melody.”
She depressed the keys, haltingly ascending and descending the first few measures, ever aware of George at her back, one arm nearly embracing her as his accompaniment quickly turned into counterpoint. She fumbled over a few more notes before stopping altogether. His left hand drummed out a merciless allegro rhythm. Even when she’d been in practice, she’d never have kept up.
He went on, humming the melody under his breath, until that too drifted into something unfamiliar. He kept the proper chords but changed the sequence. Improvising, the way the original composer was reputed to have done. So lost in the refrain, he hadn’t even noticed she’d folded her hands in her lap.
“If you wanted Mozart,” she observed, “you might have chosen one of his operas. I might at least attempt singing.”
His fingers came to a rest for a moment. His right arm snaked around her, encasing her fully, trapping her against the instrument. Then he pounded several heavy chords. It wasn’t until he reached a series of tinkling notes that sounded like mocking laughter that she recognized the opening strains to The Magic Flute. The opera, of course, had been scored for a full orchestra, but he managed to capture its spirit with a single instrument.
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