If only he were right.
The sob she had held at bay emerged, a quiet, pathetic sound. Millie walked away from him, along the western wall of the church, away from the path that would return her to the road and the sight of others. She wanted nothing more than to hide, to go to ground and escape.
She heard Isaac following behind her, his boots crunching along on the old gravely walk that might’ve once been a fine stone path around the whole of the church.
“Miss Wedgewood, come back. Please, stop.” She heard his protests but ignored them. At least until he caught up to her, which was likely quite easily done considering how much longer his stride was than hers. “Millie, I am sorry.” His hand brushed her arm, not taking hold, but it was enough of a touch to make her halt in her directionless flight.
“I apologize a thousand times over.” Though he spoke earnestly, she did not look up at him. The tips of his boots came into sight as he stood before her. “Anyone who knows me will tell you that I often rush into things without thought. I do not measure my words before I speak them. This was a terrible example of both faults. Please, will you forgive me?”
Millie took the reticule from her wrist and pulled at the strings, attempting to free them enough to find her handkerchief. “There is nothing to forgive. You taught me a lesson.”
She nearly jumped in surprise when he lowered himself to one knee before her, removing his hat as he did. The man looked as though he paid supplication to the Queen.
She sniffed and finally took hold of her handkerchief. She pressed the linen square to her face and glared at him over its edge. “What are you doing now?”
His grin appeared, crooked and contrite. “Begging you for forgiveness, Miss Wedgewood. Humbling myself before you. Please. Forgive my thoughtless words, my foolish actions. I was in a temper when I saw Weston with you. He is a cad. An unscrupulous womanizer. But I behaved as though he and I were cut from the same cloth. It is inexcusable.” His shoulders fell, as did the smile from his face. Though he started his speech with dramatics, it ended with sincerity.
Her heart softened. “I goaded you, sir.”
“I ought to have behaved better anyway, miss.”
“I will forgive you.” She let herself relax, ready to admit fault as well as defeat. “Thank you. You really did rescue me.”
Sir Isaac had the grace not to gloat, nor even appear pleased at her admission. He stood again and replaced his hat, then brushed off the knee that had hit the dirt. “I am sorry it was necessary. Millie, please be more careful.”
He spoke her Christian name with the gentle familiarity she needed.
It was such an exquisite kiss, to have it mean nothing—
How awful.
“I will do my best.” She did not know what prompted her to add the next sentence. “But I am afraid I cannot avoid him.”
“Why ever not? The man is a rake.” Sir Isaac snorted, then he offered her his arm. She took it, as naturally as she ever had. “Stay in the corner opposite him the rest of the house party. I can inform him if he comes within six feet of you again—”
“Do not trouble yourself.” Millie smiled despite the seriousness of her thoughts. “You would quite ruin my luck if you did that. You see, I have to spend time in his company. Not just because of the house party.”
“Then why?” he asked, halting their progress at the corner of the building, where they were once again within sight of the road. “He is not worth a moment of your notice.”
Millie wanted to tell him. But when Isaac learned of what she had agreed to do, he would think her too low a creature for even Mr. Weston’s attentions.
Chapter 16
When Millie did not answer him, Isaac’s thoughts rehearsed every conversation they’d had since their first meeting. Reputation. That is what it came down to for Millie. Reputation and her family’s place in Society. Somehow, Mr. Weston factored into her calculations to regain both of those things.
“Let us return to the castle and the carriages. I will tuck you into mine with your Sarah—” She started when he spoke the maid’s name. “—and return both of you to the house. I will make your excuses—tell everyone you are ill.”
Millie appeared tired. Whatever strength and fire he saw in her before had drained away. “Very well. Perhaps that is for the best.”
She said nothing more on their walk, or as he put her into his carriage. Her silence, the paleness of her cheeks, would inform any who saw her that she wasn’t in the pink of health.
It took hardly any time to find the maid, make the appropriate excuses to the correct people, and then join both Millie and her maid in the carriage. They began the journey back in silence.
Millie kept her eyes closed and her head tilted against the corner of the carriage. Sarah had taken the rear-facing seat, and rather than risk the maid’s discomfort he sat next to Millie. They said nothing as they bumped along on the road leaving Orford. Nothing for a quarter of an hour.
Finally, the maid closed her eyes and leaned into her own corner, giving way to sleep.
Isaac had nearly decided to do the same when Millie turned toward him, her eyes open and full of a sadness no one should bear alone.
“Tell me,” he whispered, barely hearing his own voice above the noise of the carriage.
Her expression did not change. But she spoke. So quietly he had to lean closer to hear. “I am not a good person, Isaac.” She had dropped his title. Why did that make his heart leap? “I have an arrangement with Lady Olivia and two of her friends.”
“Does someone like Lady Olivia even have friends?” he quipped, a tiny smile his only reward. “What do you mean? What arrangement?”
“My family is desperate,” she said slowly, seriously. “My parents need to find their footing in Society again. For financial stability. For their future. For mine.”
She lowered her gaze to the seat between them, and he looked too, seeing that their hands nearly touched. He lifted one gloved finger and placed it upon the back of her hand, tracing across her knuckles.
“I understand desperation, Millie.” Did she mind when he used the short form of her given name? It was so much better than what her parents had put upon her. “But what does that have to do with Lady Olivia? With Weston?”
“Lady Olivia and her friends promised to reintroduce me, my whole family, into Society if I performed a task set by each of them. I completed the first task in London. The second task is to find something about Mr. Weston that is a vulnerability, a mark against him Society will not forgive, and share that information with Mrs. Vanderby. The third task…” She turned her hand over, inviting him to slide his fingers between hers. “The third task is you.”
“Me?” He tightened his grip on her fingers and bent until he could see beneath the brim of her bonnet. He had to fold nearly in half, given how low her head hung. “What do I have to do with anything?”
“Lady Olivia wishes me to find a way to wound you. Not physically, of course. But she means for you to hurt.” Though the pronouncement ought to have chilled him, Isaac found he wished to comfort the confessing woman.
“All of that, just to put in a good word for you?” he asked quietly.
Her head came up at last, her eyes blazing. “I told her I would not do it. The day I told you I feared I must leave, I told her the agreement must end. I promise. As I came to know you, I felt how wrong it was. But I cannot—she made certain I must do as she says, or my whole family will face worse than we already have.” Her voice broke on the last word, and she tried to disentangle her fingers from his.
Isaac looked to where the maid sat, then decided he did not care what she thought. He released Millie’s hand, only to put his arm about her shoulder and guide her into his embrace. She laid her cheek against his chest without protest.
The tearful explanation that followed was partly muffled. “The man once engaged to my sister, he is at the house party. The Viscount of Carning. He is here. He is a dreadful, awful, wicked, power
ful villain. He has agreed to enforce Lady Olivia’s agreement. If I do not do as she wishes, every tiny piece of respectability my family still holds will be gone. He can ruin us. Take away everything except the land my father inherited from his father. My mother will be heartbroken. And they even know where Emmeline is—though I have never heard from her since she left our home.” Her shoulders trembled beneath the weight they held, the weight of an entire family’s future.
His heart ached for her, for the trouble she faced. Brought upon herself, in a way. But he had seen many a desperate person in his time as a soldier. He had been desperate himself, since the war.
“When we see no way out, we do what we have to do to survive,” he said quietly, noting that the maid had opened her eyes and appeared not the least bit as though she had slept. When she saw him looking at her, the young woman’s expression turned pleading, as it had at the castle.
Sarah the maid thought he could save her mistress.
Essie would remind him it was not his responsibility to save everyone.
How could he turn his back on Millie? She had confessed everything to him. Had given him her trust. She needed an ally.
Isaac could not save everyone. But he could help Millie. “What can I do to assist you?”
“You cannot—”
“I can. And I will.” He gently set her away from him, met her red-rimmed eyes with his gaze. “Tell me everything. Every word of the agreement you made. We will fulfill it, and the moment you are free, you will let my family introduce you back into Society. Into the part of it where you belong. Not Lady Olivia’s circle of corruption.”
In as few words as possible, Millie recounted her mother bringing her to Lady Olivia’s notice, then went into greater detail as she told him the whole of the ordeal and the horrid bargain she’d felt forced to make.
Millie had put herself in a terrible position. But it was not an impossible one. “At least I know why I am Lady Olivia’s target,” he admitted, the weight of all she told him making his shoulders sag. He leaned back against the seat and removed his hat.
“You do?” she asked, somewhat shyly. He had never seen her shy since their meeting. It was rather endearingly sweet.
“Normally, I would never divulge such a thing to anyone.” He shot a look of warning at the maid, who nodded mutely, her promise of silence in the gesture. “But Lady Olivia has dragged you into our past through her actions and threats. Shortly after I returned from war, she paid me a visit. She came to my home, alone. During a storm. My servants showed her inside my house, offered her shelter, and I came into the room where they put her to play the part of a good host.” He released a frustrated sigh and rubbed at his eyes, as though he could erase the memory of that horrible evening. “When I arrived at the room, she was not appropriately attired.”
Millie’s soft gasp made his ears turn red. A gentleman would take that whole scene to the grave. But she needed to know where Lady Olivia’s anger had come from, why the daughter of a marquess sought to avenge herself upon a lowly baronet.
“I was shocked, and she…made a request.” That was the most polite term he could use for what the woman had said to him. “I left the room without a word. I locked myself in my study after telling the butler to have her removed. I might have handled the situation poorly. The servants saw things, heard her say things. I have no doubt she regards herself as humiliated and ill-used.”
What must Millie think of the whole situation?
“I understand,” she said. Not softly, but firmly. He saw a flash of anger in her eyes. “I understand entirely too well.” She looked to her maid. “Sarah does, too.”
“Yes, miss. Sir.” The maid appeared ill.
Isaac wanted to leave the entire subject behind them. Never discussing it again. “So we understand now the motivations, and what you must do. We have to see it through, Millie. Free you from these troubles. If you will let me speak to Silas—”
She broke in at once. “No. Isaac, you can tell no one. What would he think of me? What would your sister think?” She shuddered. “You promised we spoke in confidence. Please. You cannot say a word of this to anyone else. This is my problem, my mess to clean up, not yours. Not the earl’s.”
“They could help, I am certain of it.” Though he spoke with conviction, she kept shaking her head.
“No. Please, say nothing.”
Isaac put his hat upon his head again. “Very well. I will say nothing unless you bid me to do so. But you cannot stop me from helping, Miss Millicent Wedgewood.”
Her smile appeared, tentative at first. “I would not dream of it. You are my rescuer, as Sarah is, and I am grateful for that. Also, Isaac—” A little color came back into her cheeks. “Please, keep calling me Millie.”
* * *
That evening, still feigning illness in her room, Millie sat in the window. Knees tucked beneath her chin, forehead against the cool glass, she stared out over the stables to the clouds creeping across the sky. Sarah took the gown for the next day out of the wardrobe and held the material out by the shoulders. “This one, miss?”
Barely adjusting the tilt of her head, Millie eyed the blue dress with interest. “If you think it best, Sarah.”
“It does look quite lovely with your hair and complexion,” Sarah assured her. “And tomorrow is the tour of the gardens, sewing, and then the evening card party.”
“Yes. A long, wretched day. At least Lady Olivia cannot expect much from me, with the men out fishing on the marquess’s yacht.” Millie put her feet upon the ground and stretched her arms above her head. “Do you think I can avoid dinner this evening? It is only an hour away.”
Sarah sighed and went about gathering Millie’s underthings for the next day. “I wish you would, miss. Wish you’d avoid everything and go home. But it’s like you said to Sir Isaac. We’re caught in a trap.”
“I wish Sir Isaac did not have to know.” Though it was somewhat of a relief to her. Millie started to pace the room, her slippers hardly making a sound on the carpet. “It complicates matters.”
“Sir Isaac?” Sarah asked, turning away from Millie and busying herself with the dressing table. “I believe he gave you leave to use his Christian name after you said, ‘call me Millie.’” Sarah peered over her shoulder at Millie, grinning boldly.
Millie felt heat at the back of her neck and in her cheeks. “He is a comrade-in-arms now, Sarah. That is all I wanted him to understand.”
“Oh, is he?” Sarah adjusted the hairbrush. “Is that why you two looked all snug and safe in the carriage together?”
“Stop your teasing, Sarah Morton.” Millie lifted a cushion from the chair beside the empty hearth and threw it at Sarah’s backside. The maid giggled when it hit her and fetched it up again. “You know very well I cannot be more than friends with him. He is only a baronet. Mama would not approve.” She dropped inelegantly into the chair. “He hasn’t enough influence in Society to please her, or to help Papa.”
Sarah brushed off the cushion and brought it back to the chair, setting it in Millie’s lap. “So you don’t think he’s handsome?”
Millie hugged the pillow to her, fingers tangling in its fringed corner. “He is most handsome. I can think him handsome without being more than his friend.” He had such an engaging smile. And how safe she had felt, leaning into his embrace in the carriage.
“And you don’t think him especially noble or kind?” Sarah folded her arms and fixed Millie with a stare more appropriate to a nanny scolding a child than a servant barely a year older than her mistress.
“He is both of those things.” Millie could not deny that at all. She twisted the fringe around her fingers, still thinking of their time together in the carriage. Their fingers interlaced had made her heart dance, then tucking herself against his shoulder had been the most protected she had felt since—since before Emmeline left. “He makes me feel as though I have found shelter in a storm.”
Sarah nodded once. “I see, miss. So you’re just friend
s with him, because that’s how friends often feel about one another.”
“I would not know. Aside from you, I have had no friends since my sister left.” She smiled fondly at her maid, lest Sarah think any insult was meant. It was more than a little unusual for a woman to befriend her maid or trust her so well. “I have been thinking about Emmeline a great deal of late.” Bringing up her sister would decidedly move the topic of conversation away from any affectionate feeling she had for Isaac.
“Quite natural, I’m sure.” Sarah fetched her mending basket and took out the nearly finished lace collar. The intricate work required time and signaled that Sarah had no intention of helping Millie dress for dinner. Good. Millie could avoid the viscount and Mr. Weston, as well as Lady Olivia.
“I only wonder if Emmeline is well.” Millie pulled the pillow tighter to her chest, staring at nothing as she remembered her sister. Emmeline had always shone like the sun, brightening every room she entered. She had the perfect golden curls, eyes so blue one felt that they had stolen their color from the sky. Emmeline hadn’t been as short as Millie and had the more desired, willow-like figure of a sylph.
She had always treated Millie kindly, too. Like a friend as much as like a sister. They had told each other everything. Emmeline had been eighteen years old when the viscount proposed. Papa and Mama had been shocked, honored, and hastily agreed to the match.
Perhaps too hastily.
“For years I have been so angry with her,” Millie whispered, more to herself than to Sarah. “But I cannot find it in me to be angry anymore. Especially after seeing the viscount again.” She shuddered and tucked her feet onto the chair beneath her. “Imagine how horrid a life she would have had, married to him.”
“It’s wise to think on that.” Sarah cocked an eyebrow upward but did not take her eyes from her delicate work. “My mam always told us that you can’t change a person, no matter how you try. If she’d have married the viscount, he’d be as horrid to her as he was to you. I feel sorry for his poor wife.”
Engaging Sir Isaac: An Inglewood Romance Page 18