1818_Isabel

by Suzanne Enoch

  As he pulled on his work gloves a gray shadow startled him, darting from beneath the bed and jumping onto the windowsill. “You need a collar with a bell on it, Mist,” he commented. “And where did you come from, anyway?” He’d spent weeks learning the house and its surroundings. No small gray cat had caught his attention anywhere. “Ah, you’re magic. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  With a flick of her tail the cat jumped to the floor again. His gaze, though, remained on the windowsill and the oddly shaped object leaning in its corner. Stripping off his gloves again, he walked up to the window.

  For some reason, even after hearing Isabel describe the mysterious missing orb at least a half dozen times, he’d pictured it as being round. The smooth, milky-white stone, though, was oval. A bit smaller than his fist, it was nestled in a delicate gold setting of eagle or owl – or dragon, he supposed – claws reaching up from the base.

  It felt, in an odd, dreamy way, like the house – old, but ageless. Frowning, he picked it up. The sun through the windows had warmed the stone’s surface, and a rainbow of iridescence shone through its depths. Whatever it was rumored to be it was lovely, and for that reason alone he could see why Isabel had been so determined to locate it.

  Adam held it up to eye it more closely. “Aren’t you supposed to speak the name of my true love now?” he asked. “Or do you only do that for Nimue’s daughters?”

  The even more pressing question was how the devil it had come to be on his windowsill. He hadn’t spent a particular amount of time looking in that exact spot, but he was also reasonably sure it hadn’t been there this morning – or any time before that. But every servant in the household knew the legend of the orb. If one of them had found it, he or she would not have simply left it behind in his bedchamber.

  It made no sense. He looked around for the cat and found her sitting beside the door. The orb was fairly solid, even with a hollowed-out bottom. A small cat wouldn’t have been able to haul it about, much less jump three feet into the air with it in her mouth.

  “If you’re waiting for me to ask you where this came from,” he muttered at Mist, pulling a pressed cravat from a drawer and wrapping it about the orb, “don’t bother. I’m not asking you. You’re a cat.”

  Mist preceded him out of his bedchamber and led the way downstairs to his makeshift office. The butler crossed his path, as did one of the downstairs maids, but he did nothing more than nod at them. The carefully wrapped item in his hand belonged to Isabel de Rossi, and she should be the first – or second, rather – to know about it.

  And if she or someone else had secretly found it and then placed it on his windowsill to prove the existence of magic or some sort, he hadn’t lost his mind or his sense of logic and reason. For the moment the orb’s reappearance remained merely unexplained.

  He closed himself inside the small room then carefully placed the orb behind a selection of books on an upper shelf. No one in their right mind would have reason to delve into crop rotations in the Lake District today.

  That done, he turned to find Mist standing on his desk, looking at him. “Not a word from you, either,” he ordered, ruffling the little cat behind the ears as he walked past to open the door again. “I’m shutting this, so you’d best come out unless you want to be trapped in here all day.”

  With a distinct huff the cat joined him in the hallway, only to lie down with her back against the door the moment he closed it. Hmm. He had no objection if Mist wanted to guard his door. Or simply nap there, which seemed more likely. That done, he pulled on his gloves again and went to help level the ground at the back of the house in preparation for its new orangery.

  It was past noon when one of the kitchen staff appeared with glasses of lemonade and sandwiches for him and the two Stephenses. Giving her a grateful smile, Adam found a shady spot of grass beneath an elm tree and well away from the beehive and sat with a groan. The bees seemed to have settled in, but he didn’t feel like getting chased into the lake again on the slight chance he was wrong.

  “I spoke to Mr. Hayward,” a cool, feminine voice said from the far side of the tree. “You ordered two of his box hives.”

  Despite the slight tremor through his chest that Isabel’s voice caused, he had to note that she’d placed herself in such a way that she couldn’t even see him. So now they weren’t even looking at each other, apparently. “I did. I can cancel the order if you’ve changed your mind about Top Drawer Hon—”

  “Thank you,” she interrupted, her skirt rustling as she turned away.

  For a single heartbeat he considered not telling her about the orb, letting her continue her fruitless search of the Hall. In the next second, though, he set aside his luncheon and stood. “If you have a moment, there’s something you should see.”

  As he rounded the tree she stopped, her back to him. This couldn’t continue; another day or two of being so clearly despised and he would simply have to tender his resignation. But for today, he would tolerate it. He bloody well wasn’t apologizing for being honest, and that was for damned certain.

  “I have a moment,” she returned stiffly.

  “My office, then.”

  He followed her inside to find Mist still blocking the closed door. Before he could shoo the cat out of the way Isabel crouched and scooped it into her arms. “There you are, you sneaky thing,” she said, kissing the top of its head. “I haven’t seen you since yesterday.”

  Adam reached around the two of them to open the door, carefully not noting the way the top of Isabel’s head came just to his chin. It didn’t matter, because as good-hearted and lovely as she was, she was also only a petal or two short of being a blooming lunatic. “She followed me into my bedchamber this morning when I returned from the market. Jumped up onto my windowsill. When I—”

  “Cats do like the sun, Mr. Driscoll. You needn’t regale me with her every movement.” She set Mist down, and the cat promptly leaped up onto his desk again, her tail up as she fixed her gaze on his bookshelf. “By the way, I’ll be joining Lord Alton for luncheon at the Two-Headed Dragon on Wednesday. Please arrange to have the curricle and a driver for me.”

  “So Geoffrey flattered you with some speech about the mysteries of Somerset, and Glastonbury Cathedral being the mythological burial spot for Arthur and Guinevere, did he?” he snapped back, then shut his mouth again. Damnation. He hadn’t meant to let Alton beneath his skin. Because of course Geoffrey would push for a second rendezvous. She had something he wanted. The only question as far as Adam was concerned was what that thing was.

  She faced him, her chin lifted and her cheeks red – more from anger than embarrassment, if he had to wager a guess. “Geoffrey,” she enunciated, “grew up here. And yes, he knows a great deal about the area. And he’s not nearly as closed-minded as some people. And as you are not my brother to decide with whom I should or should not spend my time, I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself.”

  That did it.

  “No, I’m not your damned brother,” he growled, crossing to her in two long steps. Adam took her shoulders in his hands, and as she looked up at him, startled, he leaned down and kissed her. Her lips were as soft as he’d imagined, and tasted faintly of some chocolate treat she’d no doubt sampled at the market.

  Knowing he would never be this close to her again, he shifted a hand to one soft cheek, tilting her face up to deepen the embrace of their mouths. Even stubborn and absurd he wanted her, and his body yowled in protest at what his honor wouldn’t allow. This was going too far, and as his mind caught up to his actions he wrenched himself backward, away from her.

  Turning away, stalking for the door so he wouldn’t see the shock and dismay on her face, he wiped a hand across his mouth. “Look behind the Lake District book for what I found this morning,” he said flatly, not wanting her to think he’d been hiding it out of spite or something. Forcing a kiss on her was bad enough. “You’ll have my letter of resignation within the hour. I’ll be gone by sunset.”

  With th
at he left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. He’d destroyed his career, and his future at Nimway Hall, in exchange for a momentary daydream. And as little as he believed in flights of fancy or indulging fictions, he couldn’t say that it hadn’t been worth it.

  9

  Isabel stood, her eyes and her mouth and her hands open, staring at the closed door of Adam Driscoll’s little office. Abruptly she gulped in air, wondering when, exactly, she’d stopped breathing.

  She was half-Italian, raised among free-spirited artists. And she was eighteen years old. Of course she’d been kissed before. But not like that. Those had been…boys, the kisses clumsy and damp. Not heat and pull and desire.

  Blinking, she sat down hard in the chair behind the small, simple desk. What the deuce had just happened? The – He – She should be furious. He hadn’t asked, but suddenly she’d been in his arms, and she’d liked being there. She’d been mad at him for calling her childish, and then... Good heavens.

  Had it been jealousy? She’d just told him – well, flaunted it in front of him, really – that she’d ignored his warnings about Lord Alton and would be joining the viscount for luncheon. But…

  She stood up again. Adam Driscoll needed to be dismissed immediately. She needed to dismiss him. And slap him. But he’d just resigned, hadn’t he? Trying to slow down the swirl of her thoughts, she pushed against all the noise banging at her mind. Yes, he’d said he would write his resignation letter and be gone by sunset. And something about books on the Lake District, though what that had to do with kissing her, she had no idea.

  Taking another deep breath, she walked to the window. Think, she demanded. He’d found something, he’d said. Or Mist had. And he’d put it with the Lake District books. That was it.

  Isabel returned to the bookcase. Books about grain, sheep, watermills, tree growth and health…and crop rotation in the Lake District. With her fingers still not quite steady, she reached up and pulled it down. Something bulky and white lay on the shelf behind it.

  After removing another two books, she carefully reached to the back of the shelf and pulled down the white-wrapped bundle. Seeing the size of it and feeling its weight, she could guess what it might be. What she wanted it to be. Her heart couldn’t pound any harder without it exploding from her chest, and for the second time in five minutes she had to take a seat.

  He’d wrapped it in what looked like a cravat, and for a good minute she sat there, gazing at the bundle in her lap. Mist had moved to sit at the edge of the desk, her green gaze fixed either on the cravat or on what lay concealed inside it.

  “Did you find this?” Isabel asked the cat. “He was telling me what you were up to.” And now she wished she’d let him finish instead of choosing to bait him with her luncheon.

  No, no. She hadn’t been baiting him. That implied that she’d wanted him to react, that she liked when she caught him looking at her and the way he simply assumed her to be smart and competent. But she’d only wanted him to know, of course, that she was a grown woman perfectly capable and willing to make her own decisions. For heaven’s sake, she’d never thought that would lead to him kissing her.

  “Stop it,” she muttered. This bundle in her lap was in all probability the orb – the magical thing that had brought her parents and her grandparents and her great-grandparents together. The thing that would show her who her true love was. And instead of looking at it, she was thinking about that aggravating man.

  She unwrapped the bundle carefully, begrudgingly grateful that Adam – Mr. Driscoll – had taken such care with it. And then there it was, gold talons rising up from the base to clutch the milky stone above it. “Oh, my,” she breathed, setting aside the cravat. This…orb, so old no one could say for certain what it was, belonged to her now. The land was hers, yes, and the responsibility that came with it, but this – this was the center of it all. The magic, the promise, the heart.

  Holding her breath, she gripped it firmly in both hands and lifted it. The moonstone glowed softly, flecks of rainbow iridescence glinting in its depths, a swirl of light that reminded her more of sunlight through deep shade than candle- or firelight.

  The stupid man who didn’t believe in magic should see this. He would only insist it was a trick of sun and mirrors or something, of course. Ha. She stood, walking to the window just to reassure herself that she wasn’t imagining things. The internal light remained unchanged, no matter how she twisted or turned.

  “Show me with whom I’m meant to be,” she urged, studying the depths beneath the well-polished surface.

  As she watched, the glow dimmed into regular sunlight, once more just an unusual, pretty bauble. She didn’t know precisely how it was supposed to work, but she was fairly certain it hadn’t done what it was meant to. Isabel gave it a gentle shake. “Show me Lord Alton,” she insisted, moving away from the window again. “Or say his name. Geoffrey Bell-Spratt.”

  Nothing. Frowning, she set it upright on the desk, shook out her hands, and picked it up again. Now for all the response she got, she might as well have been holding a paperweight.

  Had she broken it? Had its magic faded after so many centuries? Or had it felt Adam Driscoll’s cynicism and wooden-headedness and decided the lot of them unworthy? Oh, he was so blasted aggravating! First to call her little more than a naïve child then five days later to kiss her and find the object with which she’d been obsessed for her entire life… What was she supposed to make of that?

  As she paced the orb slowly warmed in her fingers, the light of its depths mesmerizing. Thank goodness Adam hadn’t broken it with his lack of imagination. As far as she could tell, he was the only one on her property who didn’t believe that the object in her hands held magic. Even the well-educated Lord Alton believed in the possibilities. She very much doubted Geoffrey would doubt what his own eyes saw when she showed him the orb.

  The light faded again. Isabel glanced at the cat. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

  Mist licked one paw and yawned.

  Well, Isabel had seen it. Carefully she wrapped it again. It worked; she just didn’t yet understand how or why. The only thing she knew about it for certain, in fact, was where it had turned up – and not even that made sense.

  She supposed some well-meaning servant might have placed it in Adam’s room after discovering it, but the household all looked on the steward as an outsider. If someone else with matchmaking in mind had discovered it, it seemed far more likely that it would have gone to Lord Alton for him to reveal to her, or directly to her so that Adam wasn’t involved at all.

  Why had the orb revealed itself to him, then? Did he have some part yet to play? Perhaps her mother and father had last been together at Nimway in that room. But Adam had kissed her. Perhaps that show of affection or whatever it was had been prompted by the orb’s appearance – though she hoped it wouldn’t have that affect on everyone. Everyone kissing willy-nilly could be very disconcerting.

  “A simple name would suffice,” she grumbled, deciding the thing would be safest in her bedchamber while she deciphered what its intermittent glowing meant.

  In the meantime, Adam Driscoll was packing his things to leave. His absence, especially after that kiss, would make some things much simpler – he didn’t believe, and she didn’t like having to explain why accepting the possibility of magic made the world so much more…livable. Special.

  On the other hand, he knew Nimway Hall. He knew what needed to be seen to, and how to do it. They were to meet with an architect tomorrow, and while the creative ideas they’d written up had been hers, he’d figured out the foundation and dimensions. Even more to the point, his purpose here wasn’t merely to move bees. He kept the property in good order, kept it functioning. And that, at this moment, made him a better guardian than she knew how to be.

  With Mist on her heels, she hurried to her bedchamber and hid the orb in a stack of pelisses, then made her way to Adam’s room. This was for Nimway, she reminded herself, ignoring the fact that she might have wa
ited for him to appear in the foyer or the front drive. This was important. This was her first step toward being a worthy guardian.

  Isabel knocked. For a silent moment she thought he’d left already; he was very efficient, after all. Then the door wrenched open and he stood there, jaw clenched and his dark-brown hair a bit disheveled, green eyes widening a little as he looked down at her. “I told you I’m leaving,” he said stiffly.

  “I heard you.”

  “I don’t have much here; I assure you, I’ll be well away within the hour.”

  “I have two things to say to you,” she returned. “And I believe you owe me your attention.”

  One eye twitched. “I’m listening.”

  “Firstly, thank you for delivering the orb to me. I know it had to go against your firm belief in the pedestrian.”

  Both eyes narrowed now. “You want to continue to argue? For the devil’s sake, Miss de Rossi, I’m leaving. Live in the fantasy you wish. I won’t be here to poke at it.”

  “Secondly,” she pushed, resisting the urge to tell him what she’d witnessed with the moonstone. He wouldn’t believe it, anyway. “My plan when I arrived here, my idea to serve as a guardian to Nimway Hall, was far more…short-sighted than I’d realized. You overstepped, sir, and yes, you should be sacked for it. However, I propose a way for you to make amends, to erase this blemish.”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Do you, then?”

  Intimidation? Oh no, she didn’t think so. Not after what she’d just witnessed with the orb. “Teach me what I need to know. Show me how to be Nimway’s steward, or at least what to look for when I hire your replacement. I shall continue to pay your current salary for your time. Then leave, with a letter of recommendation from me.”