Without George Upperton.
“You do not have to do this. I am far beneath you. What would your family say?”
He bolted off the bed, still naked and oh, so distracting. “To hell with my family. They have no say in this matter.”
She shook her head, even as she wrapped the sheets about her and sat. “Forgive me, but it is quite naïve of you to think so.”
He threw back his head and let out a shout of laughter. “Naïve? Oh, isn’t that rich? I don’t think anyone’s referred to me as naïve since my first year at Eton. Come to think of it, they didn’t even call me naïve then.”
“You may think yourself quite worldly in most areas, but this is one where I believe I have a little more experience.”
He crossed to her and seized her by the shoulders. “Do you really think so? Perhaps we should do a comparison. What your family expected of you and what mine expects of me. And we’ll see which of us outdoes the other.”
Men always had to turn the most inane topic into a competition. Well, she wouldn’t have it. If she refused to play his game, perhaps he would stop this madness.
“Come now. Let’s have a go.” His fingers bit into her upper arms. “Let’s start with you. I can guess easily enough. They wanted you to make a brilliant match that would enhance their social connections.”
Only an heir to a dukedom. The memory of the Duke of Amherst’s oldest son sent a shudder through her. If she’d gone through with her expected role and married him, she’d have doomed herself to an endless succession of parties, calls, routs, all of it expected. All of it predictable. Comfortable, luxurious, socially acceptable, but ultimately sterile.
Her lips stretched, but she feared the expression was only a poor semblance of a smile. “It hardly takes any kind of thought to work that out. The same can be said for any daughter of the ton. At any rate, I believe you’ll agree I failed spectacularly.”
“Would you consider telling me how that came about?”
Once again, the strangeness of his mood struck her. He flitted from one topic to the next and dashed if she could follow his thinking. “Do you really want the sordid details? And after you’ve made me an offer, no less?”
He started, as if someone had just pierced him through. “Not the sordid details, no. I only wonder how such a thing came about when clearly …” He grabbed a fistful of forelock and pulled on it. “It’s just … In the eyes of society, you’re of the highest breeding.”
“That’s what my family liked to think.”
“But … but you don’t believe that to be true.”
“I know that not to be true. I lived it. Perhaps I didn’t wish to live that way the rest of my life.” She rolled to her back and contemplated the canopy. Heavy blue velvet, draped just so, comprised the hangings. “I hardly know anymore, but perhaps that was why I let myself be taken in. He was quite persuasive, you know, and not in the way you’re thinking. He had a way of expressing himself. I think he fancied he could talk himself into and out of any situation. That’s how he managed an introduction in the first place when my family would never have countenanced me consorting with him. That’s how …”
“That’s how he talked himself under your skirts.”
“He did.” She let the admission float in the air, stark in its simplicity. “And now I’ve let that happen again.”
He grasped her shoulder, forcing her to turn and look him in the eye. “How can you say such a thing when I’ve just made you an offer?”
“It was hardly a serious offer.” She waved a hand to shoo the idea away and at the same time convince him to release her—and cover himself.
The gesture didn’t work. If anything, his grip tightened. “I was in complete earnest.”
“All right.” She sighed. “Let’s suppose for a moment you were. My family would hardly consider it a brilliant match. I regret to inform you they would consider you beneath me. Or they would have. Then.”
“I know that much,” he muttered. “A mere mister wasn’t good enough?”
“My family? They’d have settled for no less than a title, preferably a duke or a marquess. I’m afraid I ended up a great disappointment to them.”
He looked away for a long moment. “Disappointment,” he said under his breath. “Yes, let’s talk about disappointment.”
“If you bring me before your family, I’m sure you’ll do the job quite nicely.” She backed out of his grasp, as a new thought occurred to her. A disturbing, even disillusioning thought. “And that’s what your offer is about, isn’t it? Your family has put pressure on you to marry.”
“My mother had been threatening me with young chits and introductions enough to drive me mad, yes, but …” He shook his head as if to clear it. “That isn’t why I made you an offer.”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t because you ruined me.” Her voice wobbled on the final word. Blast it, she’d been doing so well keeping control of her emotions. Why must she slip now when she needed to set him down? “Haven’t I had enough men use me already?”
“Use you?” His arm slashed in a gesture toward the mattress. “Is that what you think happened between us? I don’t recall having to coerce you in the slightest.”
A soft knock at the door saved Isabelle from having to reply. A good thing, too, for her throat had suddenly constricted past the point where words would emerge. Once again, she was about to be caught.
* * *
“WHOEVER it is, I’ll get rid of him,” George muttered. “We’re not through discussing this matter.” Of all the damnable sense of timing.
He waited until Isabelle had recovered her clothes and retreated into a far corner, before reaching into the wardrobe for his banyan. He crossed to the door and cracked it open.
His sister stood in the corridor, already dressed for the day. “There you are. Nobody’s seen you since yesterday.”
Only Revelstoke when he’d gone to gather information, but he wasn’t about to tell Henrietta that. “If Mama’s sent you to remind me of my social duty, it’s really not a good time.”
Henrietta stepped forward, as if expecting him to invite her in.
Remembering Mrs. Cox yesterday, he planted his feet firmly on the threshold. “I’ll come down to breakfast if my presence is required.”
“That isn’t the problem.” Her eyes, suspiciously red-rimmed, narrowed. “Do you have somebody in there?”
“That is none of your affair. And you oughtn’t know of such things.”
She turned her gaze skyward. Come to think of it, her nose was rather puffy as well. “I am five and twenty, and I’ve listened to enough gossip. Really, George. You’d better not have lured one of the younger ladies in there.”
“And give Mama a chance to thrust me in front of a parson? The very idea.” He nearly caught himself wincing at the idea of Isabelle overhearing this conversation, given what they’d been arguing about. “Now who’s been putting such ideas into your head? If it’s that Leach character, I’ll be talking to Revelstoke about acting as my second.”
Her face went oddly blank. “No one’s seen Leach in two days. I thought perhaps you knew something. If he’s been helping in the effort to find that boy, for example, I might feel a bit better.”
He reached out hesitantly and patted her shoulder. “There, there. The man’s clearly an idiot. You can do far better. Unless—” He broke off as a new thought clicked into place. “Good God, did you say he’s been missing for two days?”
“Yes, and what of it? You’ve been nowhere to be found for about the same time.”
Two days. The timing was too damned convenient. Jack, Biggles, and now Leach. “That’s not true. You’ve found me. Leach is still conspicuously absent.”
She let out a puff of air too anemic to be termed a sigh.
“Chin up. I thought you’d decided not to marry.”
“I have. This only decides the matter. Still, a girl likes to know a man might find her fanciable.”
“Worry about t
hat when you’ve found someone worthy of you.” Leach in no way fit that particular bill. Not if George’s growing suspicions amounted to anything. Although what a grinning idiot like Leach might have to do with a young boy’s disappearance was anybody’s guess.
Henrietta squared her shoulders. “Make sure you turn up at breakfast. If you’ve got someone spirited away in there, you don’t want Mama coming up here next.”
George drummed his fingers against the side of the door until the pink flounce of Henrietta’s day dress disappeared round the corner. He forced himself to turn the latch carefully before he faced Isabelle. She still stood in the far corner, dressed now and half hidden by the bed’s hangings. “How much of that did you overhear?”
“I don’t make a habit of eavesdropping.” So stiff and polite she was. He could almost imagine the young lady she’d been before her downfall, clad in a white ball gown like any other chit who had just made her bow, but more regal.
“I should have asked you this days ago. I’m an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.” He strode about the end of the bed to stand before her.
“What?” She eyed him warily, as if she already knew she wouldn’t like the answer to her question.
“Who were you meeting that night in the garden?”
The color drained from her already pale cheeks. “I … I don’t even know. I received a note, but it was unsigned, and I did not recognize the handwriting.”
George rubbed his stubbled chin. “What are the odds?” he muttered to himself.
“The odds of what?”
“According to my sister, there’s been another disappearance. You wouldn’t happen to know a chap by the name of Reginald Leach, would you?”
Isabelle shook her head. “No, definitely not.”
“Jack gone, Biggles missing”—he counted the names out on his fingers—“and now Leach. And a man accosted you in the road that night.”
Only the ape George had confronted was a lot bigger than Leach. Poorly dressed, as well. In fact, the man’s size and dress reminded him of someone—the man who had pounded him in Lucy’s bedroom. Her brother—supposedly. Which made no sense. What did the one have to do with the other?
On the other hand, Isabelle did receive a note, and George still had Leach’s marker. It was worth a try.
He crossed to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You wouldn’t still happen to have that message, would you?”
“No, I burned it.”
“All right.” He ran his hands down her arms in what he hoped was a soothing manner. Pity it was doing nothing for him. “All right. We’ll just have to hope another clue will turn up.”
Footsteps echoed in the corridor, gradually getting louder and then fading. The household was wakening. At any moment, a maid might beg entrance to see to his fire. He had to get Isabelle out of here before then. It wouldn’t do to expose her to another bout of female shrieking over scandal and ruin and lack of morals.
“For now,” he added, “I think I’d best see you home.”
GEORGE might be turning over some sort of plan in his mind, but maybe he was also grateful for the distraction that had forestalled their earlier argument. He was hiding something. Isabelle knew as much without a doubt, the same way she could always tell when Jack had been up to no good. Her son had a particular smile, too broad and innocent to be truthful. Heavens, Jack. And when would she have news of her boy? Please let it be today.
George, apparently, possessed the same expression. Perhaps all males did.
Dressed now, they walked down the main thoroughfare of the village, George chattering about inconsequentialities and beaming like an idiot. Did he expect her to fall for it?
No doubt he did. She’d fallen for the rest, after all, and let him have her body. Images from the previous night flashed through her mind. Hot, fleshy images accompanied by a melting sensation at her core.
Oh, yes, she’d fall again, given any sort of provocation. He’d awakened something inside her, something insidious and demanding like his talent, only this was a hunger for more of him. If she closed her eyes, she could see the angles and planes of his chest. Her fingers recalled the texture of those muscles. Her tongue recalled the taste of his skin. A hunger, yes, but one that required all of her senses to fulfill.
All her senses, all her body, all herself. More the fool, she, if she gave in to it. But she would. This compulsion was beyond her resistance.
The note lay just past the threshold when she opened the door. An innocent little folded square of paper, all pristine whiteness, the same sort of stationery as the first. Her pulse throbbed in her neck. This must be news. It had to be.
Pressing a hand to her throat, she snatched it up.
If you want to see your son again, you’ll bring one thousand pounds to the crossroads where the drive from Shoreford house meets the main highway to London. Tomorrow night. Come alone.
She blinked, but the terse note read the same on the second try. Her legs suddenly refused to support her weight, and she swayed. A pair of strong, long-fingered hands at her waist steadied her.
George. She’d nearly forgotten his presence. “Here. What is that?”
Wordlessly, she handed him the scrap.
“A thousand?” He balled his hand about the paper. “Good God.”
“I haven’t got a thousand,” she replied mechanically. Breathing was difficult when someone had just stuck his fist in your gut. Or perhaps a pole-axe was nearer the mark. “Not tonight. Not even next year.”
“I have.”
“George, no.” She turned. “I cannot take your money. Not after last night. It would make me feel as if you paid me for my favors.”
Pay for her favors, and yet she’d do anything for her son. Could she stoop to selling herself for the money? What was her pride and dignity next to her boy?
He seized her, his long fingers like shackles curled about her upper arms. She felt as if he could crush her small bones, should the notion take him. “Whatever passed between you and me, Jack’s kidnapping had nothing to do with it. What I—Christ.”
The expression on his face stunned her. Never in all her girlish dreams of a future suitor had she imagined such intensity, such gravitas mixed with pure emotion. The heat in his eyes liquefied their steely gray. It pinned her to the spot, while an answering fire ignited within.
“Let me do this.” Even his words were weighted with whatever had moved him. Lord above, with that voice, the man might entice an angel to sin.
“I need to know why.” How she’d managed such a steady tone, she’d never know. Inside, she was all aquiver.
He reached into his topcoat and withdrew a purse. Its knit sides bulged. He tossed it onto her table, where it met the wood-planked top with a heavy clunk. “I have the blunt. You do not.”
Good Lord, the man carried vast sums in his pockets and cast them away like pence. She placed a hand over her racing heart. “You just happened to be carrying a thousand pounds on your person?”
A taut smile stretched his lips. “I doubt there’s even five hundred there, but it’s a start. And no, I don’t make a habit of carrying so much coin on me.” He waved a hand, the gesture only apparently nonchalant. An odd tension settled over his face, pulling his cheeks rigid. “I won at cards.”
“You must know I cannot repay you.”
GOOD God, he was on edge. Only moments ago, he’d nearly spouted his feelings like some hysterical female. Ridiculous. He might well care, might well be prepared to protect her at all costs, might well want to spend every waking minute with her.
Hell, he’d meant that proposal, not because he’d spilled inside her, but because of these damnable feelings. And she’d refused to take him seriously.
At any rate, a man didn’t just admit to such things. He expressed them through gifts and through sacrifices and through pleasure rendered. He offered bloody marriage. If worse came to worst, he expressed them through music, but to put them into words?
“I d
o not require repayment. Your happiness is repayment enough.”
Her chin puckered, and she choked on a sob, falling against his chest, shoulders heaving. He slid his hands to her back, his palms mapping her shoulder blades before slipping upward to tangle in her hair.
What a rotten liar he was. He’d even lied to himself. Feelings be damned. Whatever was welling in him could not be described in such flimsy terms as feelings. In a matter of days, she’d worked her way into his heart with her unique blend of pluck and vulnerability. Raised to be the consummate lady, quiet and dignified, she didn’t wilt beneath the weight of her reduced fortunes.
He looked over the spare room—stone hearth, rustic table and benches, herbs hanging from the ceiling, open cupboard full of vials. This was all she had, and it wasn’t even hers. He could offer her better, offer to take her away from all this and give her some semblance of the life she’d once known.
He had, damn it, and she’d all but turned him down.
Such a tiny thing she was, burrowed against him, and yet she managed to take up his entire heart. She stirred, but instead of nestling closer, she raised her head. Reflexively, his arms tightened, but she resisted, her body going from boneless to just stiff enough to warn him.
She was thankful, but she had not completely surrendered. A well of unshed tears glittered in each eye, but rather than soften, the liquid had the opposite effect. No frightened doe, his Isabelle.
“I hate it.” She pushed away from him, her kissable mouth firming into a line.
“What do you hate?”
“That I am in a position to take and never give.” She turned slightly, showing him her shoulder and the soft curve of her breast. She wrapped her arms about her waist, hugging herself, replacing his comfort with her own. Proud as any princess, she tipped her nose toward the ceiling.
Yes, he could imagine her in a sumptuous ball gown, standing in the light of a hundred candles, fending off suitors. He’d never have stood a chance.
“I keep no tally, and I ask for nothing in return.”
Ashlyn Macnamara Page 23