“No.” He crossed his arms. “I want to know what’s changed your mind. Two minutes ago you were gasping my name and letting me make love to you and now you want nothing to do with me. Why?”
“First, I was not letting you make love to me—”
“No? I seem to remember you lying underneath me naked with your breast in my mouth and my hand—”
“That’s enough,” she burst out in a tone that bordered on hysteria.
“I don’t think it is,” he countered. “Why are you so upset? I’d have thought you’d be relieved to know you were about to give your virtue to your own husband.”
“You conceited, arrogant man!”
“I’ll admit, I’m at least one of those, but not both,” he said, presumably in an attempt to defuse the tension.
It did not.
“Get out!”
“No, I want to know why you are suddenly having an attack of morals.”
“I’m not suddenly having an attack of morals,” she fired back.
“I suppose you’re right. You did seem far more willing to share your bed with me before you knew I was your husband.”
Isabelle gasped at his cold words and sharp tone. “I did no such thing! I would have stopped.”
“When? Just as I put my—”
“Need you be so filthy?” Scorching flames of embarrassment licked her face.
He shrugged. “I didn’t say anything that isn’t true. You might not like to hear the words, but that doesn’t make them any less true.”
No, it didn’t. The truth was, what had started out as a quest to get him to kiss her had turned into far more. “Sebastian, I didn’t intend to let things go so far.”
“Then what did you intend to have happen when you greeted me in a seductive nightrail and rubbed your body against mine?”
She swallowed. Hard. She couldn’t deny it, as much as she might want to. “To kiss.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want, but you’re the one who’s the proven liar around here.”
Fire flashed in his brown eyes. “And you’re not? I seem to remember it being your lie that started this whole disaster between us.”
She nearly flinched at his word choice. But the truth was, he was right. Everything between them had turned into one disaster after another. “You won’t mind signing the annulment papers, then.”
“The devil I will. I don’t want an annulment any more than you do.”
“What makes you think I don’t?” She’d willingly brave the scandal that was likely to form when all of this came to light rather than be chained to Lord Deceitful for the rest of her life.
“Because your other marital choices are the philanderer Lord Kenton or the awkward Mr. Appleton.”
A new round of tears stung the back of her eyes. “Those are not my only choices. I could marry Sir Michael or Giles. I understand he’s in want of a wife.”
“You can’t marry any of them. You’re still my wife.” The triumphant gleam in his eyes made her heart fill with dread. What if he didn’t give her an annulment?
“Fine, I won’t marry any of them. I’ll just take a lover. Would you prefer that? Then when all of this breaks, it can be known that not only did I fraudulently trap you into marriage, but I cuckolded you, too.”
A hard, impassive look came over his face. “How do I know that you haven’t already? You seemed quite the seductress tonight.”
“You’d be the one to know.”
He crossed his arms. “What’s that to mean?”
She scoffed. “You’re the one offering lessons on how to get a man’s attention. Surely you don’t expect me to believe you are some sort of mastermind who just naturally knows of such things.”
“I’ve enjoyed the flirtations of a number of women while on the continent, yes,” he said, pursing his lips. “But that’s where it ended. They could drag their foot all over my body for all I cared. It changed nothing. I was married and despite what anyone else might believe of me, I might not have made my vows in good faith, but I did keep them.”
She stared at him through her watery eyes. “You—you didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t,” he snapped as if taking her meaning. “When I make promises, I don’t break them easily. Even if it’s a promise I never meant to make.” He twisted his lips in displeasure, whether at her or himself, she’d never know. “I suppose I cannot hold you to the same standard since you didn’t know we were married all this time.”
She forced a smile and a stiff, lopsided shrug. “You’ll never really know, will you?”
Something fierce lit his eyes then suddenly it was gone.
***
Sebastian didn’t believe for one second she’d already lost her virtue. Not only had she admitted to him that she hadn’t actually shared a bed with Lord Kenton, she was too inept at the art of flirtations to catch the attention of someone as lovesick as Simon.
Even so, he couldn’t understand why the devil she was so upset. He wasn’t some lecher out to steal her virtue, he was her husband and he loved her, damn it all. He froze. Love?
His heart squeezed. Yes, love. He didn’t know when or how or even why, but he was undeniably in love with his own wife! What a tangle.
“Belle, can we talk about this please?”
“We already did, and now it’s time for you to leave.” The hurt in her voice hit him like a punch to the stomach.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I said some very cruel things and I didn’t mean them. Can we please start again?”
Belle let out a shaky laugh. “That’s what you said when you came to my townhouse a few weeks ago. You wanted for us to be friends and start over, then you…” She trailed off and swallowed convulsively.
“Then I?”
“Then you encouraged me to act a fool!” she burst out unevenly; those once unshed tears that filled her eyes, flowed out of her eyes in rivulets.
“Belle, I didn’t mean to make you look a fool.”
“Yes, you did,” she said on a sob.
“How?” He had a feeling he already knew the answer.
“With Simon,” she said through her tears. “You—you made me flirt with him and encourage his suit all the while knowing that I couldn’t marry him.”
“I think that’d be a relief considering his interest in you seems to be trumped by Giles.” He felt guilt for his blunt words as soon as he’d said them, but it didn’t make them any less true.
She swiped at the tears coursing down her cheeks with the back of her delicate hands and Sebastian clenched his fists. That was his job as her husband. He was the one who was supposed to dry her tears, not make them form. “I understand his interest in me is fleeting and temperamental, but the fact is, you encouraged me to humiliate myself by throwing myself at him and all along you knew I wouldn’t marry him.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t plan for things to work out this way. I intended to sign the papers when I knew you’d make a good match.” Not to mention he never would have imagined Simon would have acted so disinterested.
“But until I found a match you just thought to keep lying to me?”
Her question brought him up short. “Is that what this is all about?”
“Yes, ‘this’, as you so casually refer to it is because you’re a liar.”
He pursed his lips to keep himself from once again reminding her of her own lie in all of this. “Would you have preferred then that it was your former husband you were about to share intimacies with? Would that have been better?”
“I wasn’t about to share intimacies with you,” she said through gritted teeth. “I would have stopped.”
He resisted his urge to laugh. “Oh, really? I had no intention of stopping. Is that your way, then, to tease a man until it’s almost too late?”
She blinked her glistening eyes. “No. I already admitted that things went further than they should have, but the fact remains that you lied to me.”
�
��I don’t see why this is a problem, Belle,” he said in frustration.
“You wouldn’t. Everything was just fine for you. You knew all the pieces to the mystery. Why don’t you try thinking about it from my position, Sebastian? I woke up from my accident without a friend in the world, then I spent the next five years trying to start over with a modest life in the country when suddenly a windfall comes my way and changes everything.” Her voice wavered and tears gushed from her eyes. “Only the fortune really wasn’t mine, and neither was the opportunity to marry.”
“You don’t need to marry one of them, Belle.” He reached for her hand. “You already have me.”
She pulled her hand away. “And what a pity that is. I made a simple mistake of not revealing my identity to a stranger who entered my bedchamber when I was sixteen and I ended up with a man who despises me enough to abandon me after my accident, then lies to me and encourages me to make a fool of myself in front of the whole ton.”
“Are you finished recounting my sins?”
“I don’t know if I am or not. I’m sure you have more that I don’t know about…just like our marriage.”
“That’s the only thing I lied to you about.”
She didn’t look like she believed him, but there wasn’t anything else he could say. She was right. He was a liar. His reasons for not annulling their marriage might have seemed honorable at the time, but his lack of explanation wasn’t.
He forced himself to stand and right his clothing. “Belle, can I ask you something?” He took her sniffle as an affirmative and took a deep breath. “Had we not been married this whole time, would you have considered my proposal had I made one?”
She closed her eyes and rested her head on her drawn up knees for a moment, then lifted her head and met his eyes with her bloodshot pair and said, “I don’t know.”
He’d take that. It wasn’t the ‘yes’ he was hoping for, but it wasn’t a ‘no’, either. With one last, long look in her direction, he took his leave.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Isabelle wasn’t sure when the last time she’d cried herself to sleep had been—naked no less.
She rubbed her fingers over her swollen eyes and wanted nothing more than to go right back to sleep. But she couldn’t. Now that Sebastian had made his announcement that they were still married, she had no choice but to end things with Simon. Not that she minded so much. Sebastian was right, his interest in her wasn’t very strong if Giles just being in the same vicinity could distract him so much. But it still didn’t make it any easier. Especially if Simon decided to start asking questions.
With a grimace she got out of bed, threw on her chemise, rang for her maid and stared at that offending blue nightrail until Tilde came to help her dress. She never wanted to see that scrap of fabric again and would have tossed it straight into the fire if she were sure it’d burn to ashes before Tilde arrived.
An hour and a half later she was dressed in a pink morning gown that had white lace around the cuffs and hem and she was gliding down the stairs, choking down her growing discomfort with each step.
“There you are, dear,” Mrs. Finch greeted, sailing out of the breakfast room. Her face fell. “Isabelle, is something wrong?”
Isabelle wanted to say no, but she couldn’t. Instead, she tried to force a wobbly smile. Unfortunately it didn’t stay.
“Come, let’s go talk.”
That was the last thing Isabelle wanted to do, but it looked like she might not have much choice.
“Isabelle,” Edmund called from down the hall—both relieving her and setting her on edge.
Beside her, Mrs. Finch went rigid. “We were just on our way to have a chat. Privately.”
Edmund came toward them. “I’d like to talk to Isabelle, it won’t take but a moment.”
Isabelle didn’t know if this was a good thing or not, and the hard expression on Mrs. Finch’s face only made her more unsure. What did they already know?
“Please,” Edmund said quietly.
“All right,” Mrs. Finch allowed. “Shall we go to the small library?”
Edmund nodded and opened the door on the opposite side of the hall.
Isabelle tamped down her irritation that neither had actually addressed her specifically about wanting to hear what Edmund had to say and walked into the room. She blinked. Had she not been told this was the library she’d have never known it. There were shelves that lined the walls of course, but not a single book on any of them. Instead, there was a whole array of unusual trinkets and baubles. Vases of different sizes and mediums. A small collection of miniatures that were in lopsided stacks or fallen piles. Stray or broken items here and there: an ivory chess queen, an embroidery hoop, a broken hand mirror, a two-string violin, a ripped painter’s canvass with a brush that appeared to be stuck to the front, a partially shredded notebook, an earscoop, a torn playing card, a horribly neglected and trampled wig, an iron, a few loose matches and keys, a bent spoon, a slipper… The items were endless.
“This must be Lord and Lady Cosgrove’s collective,” Edmund remarked. He bent down and picked up a half smoked cigar. “This could still be used.” He sniffed it then suddenly stopped when he locked gazes with Isabelle. He tossed the cigar down and ran his hands along the fabric of his breeches. “Isabelle, can we talk a moment?”
Did she have a choice? “I suppose.”
“I’ll just be over here…looking at things,” Mrs. Finch said, giving Edmund a hard look.
He nodded to her once, then smiled at Isabelle. “How about we sit over here on these chairs?”
Isabelle threw a glance behind her to the chairs he’d indicated. They were threadbare in places and literally ripping at the seams in other places. Under each of the feet were the books that should have been on the shelves of the library—all of which were of a different thickness.
“I think I’ll stand.”
Edmund waved her off and went over to the closest chair. He gripped the back and gave it a little shake. “It’s sturdy.”
Just then, a small rodent scampered out from the hole in the side of the chair! Isabelle would have shrieked had she not been stunned into silence.
“Was that?” she asked breathlessly, her toes curled up inside her slippers almost to the point of pain.
“A baby mouse,” Edmund confirmed. “Best we not sit.”
“Perhaps we should go to another room,” Isabelle suggested.
“No, I think he’s gone now.” Edmund rubbed his hands together. “I suppose the mystery surrounding the identity of Giles Goddard has been solved,” he said quietly.
“Yes, it has.” Was it just her or was there a palpable tension in the air? Why? She’d spent a considerable amount of time in Edmund’s company over the past few years. Why did it seem so awkward just now? A memory from the other day when he’d tried to flirt with her under the table came to her mind and she shuddered.
“Isabelle, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Yes, I’d surmised as much when you said you wanted to talk.” She sent up a silent prayer he’d find her statement slightly rude and decide not to propose they marry again. She knew without any uncertainty now she couldn’t marry him.
Edmund smiled. “That’s the Isabelle I know.” He sighed. “My aunt reminded me again this morning at breakfast that I haven’t been as honest with you as perhaps I should have been.”
She almost choked on her own laughter. “That makes two of us.” She shook her head. It wasn’t her fault she’d been dishonest, it was his. Sebastian’s, to be clear.
“I don’t consider your flirtation with Simon Appleton to be dishonest, Isabelle,” he said softly. He flashed her a quick smile. “Nor your feelings for Lord Belgrave.”
She felt her eyes widen and her chest squeeze. He knew?
Edmund raked a hand through his hair. “I think he’s the better match for you.”
“You mean instead of Simon?” she asked.
He nodded. “And instead of me.”
>
Not that Isabelle had been entertaining such a thought, she felt the need to try to offer him at least a little compassion to make him feel better. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of what to say.
“As it would happen,” he continued a moment later. “My heart belongs to another.” A light blush stole over his cheeks. “And while I cannot marry her, I also cannot not continue to see her.”
“Cannot not continue to see her?” Isabelle repeated slowly, trying to make sense of his unusual statement. She reached forward with intent to pat his arm to assure him it was all right, but before she could, she retracted her arm and offered him a weak smile. “I’m not asking you to.”
“You’re not?” His voice held an edge of excitement, then his face fell and he shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn a blind eye to me and Lady Vessey.”
Isabelle blinked. What was he talking about this time? Only a blind person could have missed the flirtation between the two over these past few days. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Edmund. I have no intention of turning a blind eye to anything so obvious.”
“But you have no interest in joining?”
“Joining?”
He flushed. “I assumed by your lack of response to my flirtations while playing Whist that you weren’t interested in a relationship with the both of us.”
“The both of you?” she asked, aghast.
He nodded. “I can’t give her up, Isabelle. It’d just be easier if you embraced what I’m suggesting. Then I won’t have to choose.”
She absolutely would not! Besides that it was indecent, she had no such feelings for either Edmund or Lady Vessey. “Edmund, you’re not talking any sense.” Then again, he’d talked a little out of her range of comprehension on many occasions.
He sighed. “Don’t you understand, Isabelle? I cannot marry her. I need an heir and she is too old. But I cannot give her up.”
“And you don’t have to,” Isabelle said pointedly. “I know you’ve offered marriage to me before, but I’m not holding you to it.”
“Then who will you marry?” His tone dripped with disbelief.
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