LXII
“Good God! Good God!” The voice belonged to her father and Isabella looked around to find him red-faced and puffing as he skidded to a walk not ten feet away. Behind him, running as Isabella had never thought to see either of them run, came Sarah and the Marquise de la Ros, both cloakless and unprecedentedly dishevelled. Behind those two a motley assortment of guests loped toward the scene.
“Isabella! Isabella, good God, gel, we were in the garden and heard you scream—gad, we saw the whole thing! Oh, dear Jesus, look at her! I wouldn’t have believed it of him if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!”
Alec lowered the pistol and thrust it in his belt as the white-haired duke gained Isabella’s side and dropped to his knees, staring from his daughter’s battered face to the precipice over which his son-in-law had vanished. The ladies fluttered up, bent over Isabella as well, their faces pale and their eyes wide with horror as they surveyed the damage done her. Isabella scarcely looked at any of the expanding group that clustered, exclaiming, around her. Her eyes were all for the tawny-haired man who stood a little back from her now, watching the scene with narrowed eyes.
“Al-ec.” His name was not much clearer than before, but he heard. Mouth twisting, he walked toward her, knelt, and shouldering aside her father and the others, gathered her up in his arms.
“Who the hell …” her father blustered, looking affronted as Alec, ignoring him and the rest of them, started to walk toward the chateau with Isabella held protectively against his chest.
“He saved her life, Charles. Didn’t you see?” Sarah put her hand on her husband’s arm.
“I saw. I saw. Damn, I wouldn’t have believed it of Bernard. The gel was telling the truth all along! I can scarcely credit it even now. But who is he?”
The majority of the guests fell into step behind Alec, leaving the marquise to stand alone at the precipice, staring down at the water far below. If her eyes held tears for Bernard, they were the only ones that did.
“Alec.” Isabella could not manage to say more than that, but it was enough. Alec’s face twisted at the sight of the slender body draped so bonelessly in his arms.
“Don’t fash yourself, love; you’re going to be all right. They’ll take good care of you, and you’ll be as lovely as ever before you know it.”
“Bernard …?”
“He’s dead. You don’t have to fear. He’ll never bother you again, I swear.”
“Thank you.” Held securely in his arms, she rested her head against his chest, and her eyes closed. Darkness threatened to claim her, and she let it. It was safe to do so now that Alec was there.
When she regained consciousness, she was lying on the bed in the bedroom she had occupied since coming to the chateau, and a strange man, whom she gathered from the efficient way he was wrapping a bandage around her head was a doctor, was leaning over her.
“Alec,” she said fretfully.
“Do not try to talk, Madame la Comtesse. You have been sadly injured, but with luck, there should be no permanent damage. But you need to lie quietly, and rest.”
“Alec,” she repeated stubbornly. Suddenly Sarah materialized behind the doctor’s shoulder.
“He’s outside, in the hall. Indeed, he’s been there for the past two hours, refusing to even go downstairs until he’s been assured by Monsieur le docteur that you’re going to survive. It was all I could do to chase him out of the bedroom.”
The doctor turned away from the bedside to dispose of some bloodstained cotton with which he had staunched the wound in her forehead, and Sarah leaned closer, whispering.
“My goodness, Isabella, he’s a gorgeous man! I can quite see … But your father is scandalized! Only think, Mr. Tyron tells us that he has been having you watched for months, just in case Bernard should … well, do what he did. He even had what he calls one of his men infiltrate the house staff here when we came to stay, and had another man actually living in the woods. It’s positively romantic, and I don’t care what your father says, I don’t blame you a bit!”
“Your pardon, madame, but Madame la Comtesse needs quiet, not gossip,” the doctor said sternly, returning to Isabella’s bedside.
“Please, Sarah, get Alec,” Isabella pleaded, forcing the words out through a mouth so swollen that it was, perhaps fortunately, numb. Her head throbbed, she was nauseous and dizzy, and her face felt huge and shapeless, as if the skin would split if she opened her mouth or eyes too wide. She knew she must look dreadful, but she didn’t care. She had to see Alec.
“I’ll do my best, dear, but your father is outside too, and they’re glaring at each other like two dogs.” Sarah patted Isabella’s shoulder, then crossed to the door while the doctor gathered his things together.
From the hail Isabella could hear her father bellow, “Damn it, Sarah, you can’t wish me to let him go into her bedchamber alone! God, think of the scandal already! And you know perfectly well he’s …”
Whatever else her father had to say, Isabella missed entirely, because the bedroom door opened and Alec walked in. The doctor took one look at him and left. Alec closed the door, and walked toward the bed. Isabella tried a welcoming smile. It hurt, and she winced.
“You saved my life.” Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
“Think nothing of it. ’Tis getting to be quite a habit with me.” He was looking down at her, his handsome face harsh as he surveyed her injuries. Instinctively seeking to give comfort, Isabella groped for his hand. His fingers curled around hers, and she took solace from the warm strength of his grip.
“You didn’t go away after all.” It hurt to talk, but she was afraid to stop. There was so much she had to say, so much he needed to hear. She didn’t have the strength for it, but from somewhere she would find it.
He grimaced. “Did you think I would leave you to the tender mercies of that bastard of a husband of yours? I’ve had a man watching you since the day after you decided to stay with him rather than go with me. ’Twas only bad luck that we didn’t get to you sooner today. I had a man in the woods with me, but when you started toward the castle, we pulled back to blow a cloud. We never even saw you with that whoreson until you screamed.” His hand tightened over hers, and his lips clenched. “God, you gave me the fright of my life. I didn’t know if I could get to you in time.”
“There won’t be any trouble? For you, over Bernard?”
Alec shook his head. “There’ll be an inquest, of course, but with you in the state you’re in and the fact that half a dozen witnesses saw him jump toward me, I doubt there’ll be any kind of charge. Obliging of him, really. I’d have killed the son of a bitch even if he hadn’t made another threatening move, for what he did to you.”
The bedroom door opened without ceremony, and the duke entered, scowling at Alec as he approached the bed. “Here now, you’ve had enough time. There’ll be gossip aplenty without more to add to it. Gad, none of us will ever live this down as long as we live!”
“I’m sorry about the scandal, Papa,” Isabella offered in a small voice.
The duke looked down at her, and his brow contracted. He reached out to pat her arm, then scowled at Alec anew as he saw that Alec held his daughter’s hand.
“ ’Tis I who should apologize to you, daughter. I should’ve known no chit of mine could be an adulteress. Although who this … fellow … is, I admit I don’t quite understand.”
He looked Alec up and down with obvious dislike. Alec looked back at him with a nearly identical expression.
“Alec saved my life. Today, and when Bernard tried before.”
“I understand that. What I don’t understand is—”
“Isabella’s in no state to be making explanations to you or to anyone else. Look at her, for Christ’s sake! That bloody husband you forced her to take came within a hair’s breadth of beating her to death today!”
“Now, listen here, sirra, I’ll not be spoken to in such a way by the likes of you! And who gave you permission to be so free with m
y daughter’s name, and her hand, I’d like to know? You’re overstepping your bounds, and—”
“Pardon, Monsieur le Due, but Madame la Comtesse must be left to rest or I cannot be answerable for the consequences.” The doctor glided up to Isabella’s bedside and regarded the two combatants reprovingly. Her father broke off in mid-tirade to stand glaring at Alec. Disregarding that basilisk stare, Alec carried Isabella’s hand to his mouth and softly kissed the back of it. Watching, the duke made a sound much like a hiss.
“I’ll leave you to rest, then.” Alec placed her hand with gentle care back atop the coverlet, and turned to go.
“Alec!” Panic filled her. She had not said near what she had meant to.…
“You must rest, madame,” the doctor insisted, and pressed her back into the pillows when she would have tried to sit up.
Isabella watched anxiously as Alec, followed by her father, left the room.
There would be time later to talk to him, she comforted herself as the doctor forced her to take a sleeping draught. But even as she drank it, and sank almost immediately into unconsciousness, the fear remained that there was no time left.…
Her fear proved well-founded. When she awoke again, near thirty-six hours later, and asked for Alec, she was brought instead a small package that he had left for her.
The package contained an exquisite necklace of large, circular amethysts set in filigreed silver, and a matching pair of earrings. Sarah, watching as Isabella unwrapped it, exclaimed over the contents with wonder. It was a magnificent gift, and one Isabella knew from the color of the stones Alec must have purchased specifically for her.
Only after she opened the package did she see the crumpled screw of paper that accompanied it. Isabella read the terse note, then sat looking from the jewelry on her lap to the paper in her hand as if she had been suddenly dealt a stunning blow. As Sarah watched helplessly, tears filled Isabella’s eyes and began to roll unchecked down her face. The doctor finally had to be summoned to administer a sleeping draught to quiet her. But not even drugged oblivion could take away her pain.
Alec never intended to see her again.
“I’ve set you free, so be happy,” was what the note said.
LXIII
Two months later Isabella was largely recovered from her injuries. A puckered, pinkish scar still marred the skin of her forehead, but with her hair cut in a fashionable fringe, it was hidden from view. Her speedy recovery had been motivated by a steely determination to find Alec.
And once she did, she would box his ears soundly for the torment he had put her through by his noble renunciation of her, and beg him to love her again. As Sarah had pointed out, a man did not have a woman watched for three months, and traipse around a freezing cold wood himself for days on end, unless he loved said woman madly.
Isabella only hoped that Sarah was right.
Her father had been dead set against her returning to England. He tried everything, from threats to bribes, to persuade her to remain in France, but for the first time in her life, Isabella was obdurate. When she was well enough, she was returning to England—and Alec. Nothing her father could say could persuade her otherwise.
Whenever Alec’s name came up, the duke denounced him long and vigorously. The kindest thing he had to say about the man his daughter loved was that he was not a gentleman.
Isabella didn’t care a fig for that, and told her father so. She also told him that whether Alec was a gentleman or not, she—yes, she, the daughter of a duke—meant to wed her gutter-born criminal if he’d have her. And there was absolutely nothing on earth her father could do to stop her. Sarah whispered later that Isabella’s unaccustomed defiance had nearly sent the duke off in an apoplexy.
But as a widow, and with a comfortable jointure (at the time of his death Bernard had not had time to spend much of the settlement Isabella’s father had made on him, so those funds were now hers), she was no longer subject to her father’s will. And she told him that, too.
For the first time in her life, she was free to do as she pleased.
She had arrived in London only that afternoon, and gone straight to the St. Just townhouse, which, as Bernard’s widow, she now owned. She had walked up the steps as bold as brass, been admitted by the butler, who introduced himself as Kirkland, and been treated with obsequious courtesy by all the staff. Of course, she was their employer now.
Common sense dictated that she should wait until the morrow before setting out in search of Alec, but Isabella was too impatient to put her future to the touch to pay much heed to common sense. She did take a nap, and awoke refreshed shortly before six o’clock. After a light dinner which she ate alone at the vast dining table, she had the upstairs maid, whose name was Marta, prepare her bath, and help her dress.
Deciding what to wear was easy. Alec had always fancied her in lavender.
The dress she chose was beautiful. Isabella had purchased it in the Rue de la Paix before she left Paris. Of a silk so fine that it shimmered in the light, it was simply cut to make the most of her slender figure, with a straight skirt and tiny bodice caught up beneath her breasts by a ribbon of deep purple satin. Her hair was brushed until it shone and piled high atop her head, where it was tied up with purple ribbons that exactly matched the ribbon on the dress. Her fringe served the dual purpose of hiding the scar on her forehead, and at the same time bringing out the size and shape of her eyes.
Around her neck she wore the amethyst necklace Alec had left with her. The matching earbobs dangled from her ears.
“If I may so say, you look a real beauty, my lady,” Marta said shyly. Isabella thanked her with a smile as she draped a cobwebby shawl about her shoulders. Then, her toilette complete, Isabella left the room and went down the stairs, where the imposing carriage with the St. Just crest—hers now—awaited.
If the coachman—York, he said his name was—was appalled at the address she gave him, why, he worked for her and her alone, and did as he was bid. Being a widow had much to commend it, Isabella decided, although she hoped she would not enjoy the state for very much longer. Smiling at that thought, she settled back in her seat.
It was not long before the coach pulled up before the deceptively respectable façade of the Golden Carousel. If Alec was not within, Pearl would know where to find him, although Isabella was uncertain of the kind of reception she could expect from Pearl.
“Shall I wait, my lady?” York asked, looking nervously around at the darkened, deserted street as he helped her to alight. It was just past dusk, and a lamplighter was touching his taper to the torch at the corner.
“Yes, please,” Isabella said, and then walked up to knock on the heavy oak door.
In response to her second summons, the small panel through which visitors were viewed before being admitted slid back.
Isabella smiled serenely at the pale blue eye that blinked at her.
“Pray let me in, Sharp; I’ve business with Miss Pearl,” she directed, and with a sound like a gasp, the butler closed the spy-hole and opened the door.
“Miss—miss, ma’am, uh …” Sharp stuttered unhappily as Isabella walked in and looked about. From the appearance of things, the evening’s guests had not yet started to arrive. Footmen moved about straightening table covers and lighting candles, and packs of cards lay uncut and ready on the tables inside the parlors.
“Is something the matter, Sharp?” Isabella asked, as the butler looked desperately over his shoulder toward the left front parlor. Sharp was spared having to reply by the rustling of skirts behind Isabella. His expression became one of obvious relief, and Isabella turned to behold Pearl.
For a moment the two women stared at each other without speaking. Pearl was as breathtaking as Isabella remembered, dressed for an evening’s work in a gown of scarlet satin trimmed with black lace. As usual, more of her magnificent bosom was on display than was covered, and the front of her skirt was slit to the knees to reveal a filmy black petticoat.
Isabella was obliged to con
cede defeat. She could never compete with Pearl’s spectacular beauty. But she could compete with her for Alec.
“Hello, Pearl,” Isabella said quietly, breaking the silence.
Pearl’s lower lip quivered, and then she rushed forward, to catch Isabella by the upper arms and press her cheek to Isabella’s in a hug designed to spare both maquillage and gown, but that was no less sincere for all that.
“Oh, angel, will you ever forgive me?” Pearl said, stepping back. Isabella saw to her amazement that there were real tears in Pearl’s midnight blue eyes. “I was out of my mind jealous, to do what I did. I never meant you to get ’urt, never. Paddy and Alec, they tore a rare strip off me for that. But I’d be sorry, even if they ’adn’t. I truly would.”
Such disarming candor made it hard for Isabella to hold a grudge. Indeed, unless Pearl had succeeded in appropriating Alec during the last two months, Isabella bore her no ill will at all.
“Of course I forgive you,” she said readily. Then, a small smile breaking forth, “That is, unless you tell me that you have Alec cozily tucked up in your suite.”
Pearl grinned, relieved. “Paddy’d ’ave a thing or two to say about that, I guess! No, as beautiful as Alec is, I’ve ’ad to give ’im up. ’E ’asn’t been worth much since ’e met you, anyway, so I don’t regret it.”
“You’d better not,” a voice growled from the doorway to her left, and Isabella looked around to see Paddy, his huge form incongruously clad in elegant evening finery. Sharp let out an audible sigh of relief upon seeing him, and returned to his duties beside the door. Isabella smiled at Paddy, genuinely glad to see him. He’d been a true friend to Alec, and any friend of Alec’s was a friend of hers.
“It’s about time you came to put Alec out of his misery. He swore it was over between you two, but I didn’t believe it for a minute. You don’t look the fickle kind to me. Not like my wench, here.” Paddy gave Pearl a lopsided grin as he slid a proprietary arm around her waist. She pinched his wrist in retaliation for his teasing, but then rested contentedly against his side. Looking at the pair of them, Isabella realized that she didn’t have to compete with Pearl anymore.
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