“Oh, my lord, thank you for bringing her,” Isabella said with bright eyes. “Yesterday was the most vexing day of my life, I think, with learning of Craythorne’s death, and reading your letter, and the twins, and then...” She removed a glove to show her mother’s wedding ring. “Thank you for sending Mum’s ring. I shall keep it safe always.”
David dared a glance at the ring and noticed the worn glove and the frayed edge of her sleeve. “Didn’t you get the money I sent for new clothes?” he asked in concern.
Isabella gave a start and then realized to what he referred. “I did. I did use it for clothes. Your cousin, Constance, introduced me to a modiste in Boxgrove. She made me this riding habit and two others. But... I wear them far too much. So—”
“So he’s just going to have to see to it you have new ones,” Clarinda interrupted.
Isabella turned her attention to her cousin. “It’s not really his responsibility—”
“Of course it is,” Clarinda interrupted, an arched brow aimed in David’s direction.
The earl blinked, realizing she had given him the perfect opening to tell Isabella he was her father. And he was just about to do so when Octavius suddenly appeared outside the bedchamber.
“There you are,” he said with a grin. He gave a bow when Clarinda turned and afforded him a deep curtsy. “Peters said you’d arrived. I was about to go to the parlor, but I heard voices.”
“Your Grace. Thank you for the invitation. You have such a beautiful home,” Clarinda commented.
“Made so because of your cousin,” he replied with a nod, waving in Isabella’s direction.
David gave the duke a quelling glance, a look the duke immediately understood.
“Perhaps you’ll do the honor of joining me in the parlor, Lady Norwick. I’m anxious to learn the news from Lord Heath.”
Clarinda dared a glance in her cousin’s direction. “Come join us when you’re ready,” she said in a quiet voice.
Isabella frowned and was about to follow, but David cleared his throat. “It actually is my responsibility, Isabella,” he murmured in response to her earlier comment.
Turning her attention back to the earl, Isabella stared at him. “I hardly see how being my cousin’s husband should make me your responsibility,” she replied.
“No, but being your father does.”
Isabella blinked. She swallowed. And for a moment, David was quite sure she was about to faint. “Please don’t faint,” he murmured as he placed a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her so she was forced to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Oh!” Isabella managed just then. She dared a glance up at him. “You are ‘D’,” she said in a whisper, remembering the letter she had found in her mother’s vanity drawer. The letter that was signed with a ‘D’.
David grimaced, realizing just then she had to have read at least one of the two letters he had written to Arabella after her marriage to Craythorne. He dared not send any more. “I am,” he stated with a nod.
“Oh, it all makes so much sense now,” Isabella added with sigh. “It’s no wonder I look so much more like Constance than my own mother.” She took several breaths, as if she were fighting tears. “You must have thought me a fool not to have known back when I first found you. Not to have sorted it for myself.”
Frowning, David sat down next to her, his head shaking from the side to side. “I thought no such thing. Arabella and I agreed a long time ago you couldn’t know. She feared what Craythorne might do should he ever discover the truth, and, then, when she died, I was sure he had discovered the truth about you. It’s part of why I thought we had to hide you from him. To protect you, but also keep you where I could have someone I trust befriend you.”
Isabella swallowed, her brows furrowed. “Your cousin, Constance,” she murmured. “She knew?”
David realized his daughter would have been incensed if she learned Constance had kept the truth from her, so he was relieved when he could could reply with, “No. At least, not until last week. I knew I could trust her to keep the secret as long as necessary, though.”
Allowing a sigh, Isabella wondered if she had more family. “Do have you siblings?” she asked.
“My twin, Daniel,” he replied, managing to avoid a wince as he mentioned the man. “He lives over at Norwick Park. But he doesn’t know about you.” Despite invitations to return to London for more than the occasional business trip, Daniel remained steadfast in his goal to remain as far from his brother and Clarinda as possible.
Continuing to frown, Isabella dared a glance up at him. “But Craythorne didn’t know, did he?”
David shook his head. “I could have told him. Just before he died. But I did not. He was already... quite bereft,” he whispered. “I did tell him you were alive, though. I owed him that much, I suppose.”
Isabella regarded him for a time before she finally allowed a nod. “Thank you for not telling him.” They sat in silence for a moment before she realized one last reality. “And the duke? He’s known all along, too, hasn’t he?” she asked as a tear suddenly dripped from one eye.
David wrapped an arm around her shoulders, his manner tentative as he pulled her so her head rested against his shoulder. “I told him that day you arrived at The Elegant Courtesan. I had to... because he kept insisting I should marry you, and I had to explain why I couldn’t.”
Isabella gave a start in his arms, her reaction a combination of shock and amusement. “I can imagine the frown he must have bestowed on you.”
Resisting the urge to allow a bark of laughter at the reminder of just how the duke had reacted to his admission, David nodded. “Indeed. Until I told Constance and Clarinda, he was the only other person alive who knew my secret.”
Isabella struggled to catch a breath as she fought back tears. “I cannot believe he didn’t tell me,” she whispered, tears now flowing freely.
David held a handkerchief for her as he kissed her forehead. “I would not allow it because I... because I couldn’t bring myself to tell Clarinda,” he admitted quietly.
Leaning away from him, Isabella gave a shake of her head. “Why ever not?” she countered, her manner rather indignant despite the tears.
“Because I fell in love with her.” At Isabella’s look of confusion, he added, “I didn’t want her to hate me. Telling her you were my daughter meant telling her I had an affaire with your mother. Her aunt, if you’ll recall. Now Clare is your stepmother as well as your cousin.”
Isabella blinked and wiped the tears away with the handkerchief. “Coward,” she finally replied, a hiccup interrupting the word.
David nodded as he bobbed his head from side to side. “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately,” he murmured. He continued to hold her for a time, rather relieved she didn’t attempt to flee or rail against him, continue to cry or beat him with her fists. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her before he’d had a chance to be her father. “I know you’re of an age where you can marry without my permission, but it will be a few years before you’ve reached your majority,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen to a dowry for you—”
“You have?” Isabella interrupted, straightening so she was suddenly staring at him. “Is it enough for me to buy land and build my own stables, do you suppose?”
Rather stunned at her question, David shook his head. “I expect your husband will see to all that,” he countered. “You’ll need some horses, too, of course.”
Isabella blinked. “You expect a husband would grant me such a wish?”
The earl gave a shrug. “You wouldn’t marry him if he didn’t promise to fulfill your dream. Would you?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow.
A grin slowly forming, Isabella rolled her eyes and settled her head back on the top of his shoulder. “And if no man should ask for my hand? What then?”
Knowing there was a man intending to ask for her hand, and he was just down the hall, David gave a shrug. “When you reach your majority, you can have your dowry and do it yoursel
f.”
Isabella kissed him on the cheek and afforded him a brilliant smile. “Thank you, my lord,” she whispered, tears once again filling her eyes.
“One caveat,” the earl said as he held up a finger. “Call me ‘Father’, won’t you? At least, when we’re alone?”
Grinning, Isabella nodded. “It’s the least I can do for the man who’s going to help make my dream come true.” She sighed and sat up straight. “Father.”
David allowed a sigh of relief. “Now, for your immediate future—”
“Hunt has said I can continue to live here at Huntinghurst. To see to his horses. Make them ready for the races.”
Not particularly surprised to hear the duke’s proposition, David regarded her for a moment. “Is that what you wish to do?”
Isabella nodded, a grin forming as she remembered their conversation at the folly. “Oh, yes. Very much.”
He suddenly winced. “I’m going to have stiff competition at the track, aren’t I?”
She nodded again, biting back a grin. “You are.”
Allowing a nod of agreement, David stood up from the bed and offered his arm. “Then I suppose we should join His Grace and Clarinda in the parlor. God knows we’ve left them alone far too long. He’s probably telling her all of my secrets—”
“And she’s telling him all of mine!” Isabella interrupted, her eyes wide with mock fright.
The two raced off for the parlor, giggling and chuckling as they made their way.
Epilogue
March 1816 in the mistress suite at Huntinghurst
The smell of smoke awakened Octavius from his drowsy stupor. His heart racing, he quickly glanced about and then relaxed when he realized it was merely a guttering candle. The dim light left from the one candle lamp still burning shed a soft, golden glow over the woman on whose body he rested.
One of her hands made its way to the back of his head and she gently pulled him back down to her shoulder. “Just a moment more, Octavius,” she whispered.
The duke heard the plea in Isabella’s voice. He secretly thrilled at how she seemed so genuinely disappointed when he pulled himself from her body. “Be careful what you wish for, my sweeting, or I shall end up falling asleep completely and crushing you into the mattress.”
Isabella smiled despite her own post-coital drowsiness. “I will not mind if you do,” she whispered.
The quiet of Isabella’s bedchamber—the mistress bedchamber at one time intended for Jane—was occasionally interrupted by the rather loud snores of Nelson, but Octavius could think of no other place he would rather be on this night—or any other. His visits to her bedchamber at Huntinghurst had become something of a nightly occurrence, his visits to his country estate much longer than the two days a month he had paid calls on her those first two years she lived at his country estate in Sussex.
Back then, he hadn’t visited her with the intent of bedding her. Of making love to her. Of making her his duchess.
Of getting a child on her.
He could hardly fathom that at one time, he wanted to be rid of her.
What was I thinking?
In his drowsy stupor, he struggled to remember how he had first been introduced to his new duchess and gave a wince.
The Elegant Courtesan.
How different she had looked that morning, her curly hair in knots and her riding habit covered in mud splatters.
That had been nearly three years ago.
Her move to Huntinghurst had become a necessity once David Fitzwilliam, Earl of Norwick, informed Octavius he could no longer keep her sequestered at the brothel.
Octavius had been engaged in an especially lucrative game of hazard when Norwick approached the table and simply stood there and stared at him. A few more throws of the dice and unable to concentrate with the earl standing so near, Octavius had finally collected his chips.
“I can no longer provide protection for her,” David stated in a hoarse whisper, his manner most sober despite the number of drinks he had consumed that night at Brooks’s. The number of drinks he had consumed that entire week. “I can hide her no longer, Hunt.”
Octavius had merely nodded, understanding the man’s meaning. A witness to a murder by a man who could not be prosecuted required a hiding place, a new life—at least until the murderer was no longer a threat.
Until he, too, was dead.
“She can stay at Huntinghurst in Sussex. Small staff of servants. Discreet and… safe,” he remembered saying. “We’ll move her out under cover of darkness.”
And they had done just that.
Isabella was never consulted, of course. Since that fateful day when she had paid witness to what she thought was a murder, she had simply done what she was told—after she managed to get herself to London and appeared at the brothel, exhausted and in a near catatonic state.
That she should end up in the arms of a duke was a testament to her real father.
Octavius had thought she might live under his protection for a few months, but the few months became two years and would now be for the rest of their lives.
What a fool I was not to marry her then, he thought, his memories still a bit fuzzy. At least he could have promised her marriage. Saved them both years of loneliness. Months of uncertainty. Days of despair.
But back then, at his age, marrying a nineteen-year-old was out of the question. Back then, the death of his first wife had been too recent, the pain from her passing too acute to consider another to be his duchess.
I promised Jane I wouldn’t give my heart to another.
Well, he had broken that promise.
Not that he could have kept it.
The heart wanted what the heart wanted, after all.
How had Norwick known to have sent for me that fateful morning? he wondered. Why not the Earl of Torrington? Or the Marquess of Morganfield? Or Devonville, even? Any of those peers would have known how to discover the truth about what had happened. But David Fitzwilliam, Earl of Norwick, had sent word to him over anyone else. Sent word that there had apparently been a murder.
Accusing an earl of murder was unseemly. Even if they had been able to prove Craythorne was guilty of Arabella’s death, the man would have escaped punishment. Would have probably escaped censure.
But Norwick had known that, too. Known that despite how sure he was that Craythorne had killed his wife, and despite his promises that he would exact revenge by killing Craythorne, he couldn’t take matters into his own hands to see that justice was done.
Certainly not after he finally learned the truth of the matter.
He paid witness to Craythorne’s deathbed recitation of the events of that fateful afternoon. Although he admitted to having planned to kill his fellow earl, Norwick found he couldn’t when Craythorne explained how much he truly loved Arabella Brotherton. How he wanted to die for the accident that led to her death and the loss of his daughter.
Well, Norwick’s daughter.
David Fitzwilliam still wasn’t sure if Craythorne ever knew he hadn’t fathered the girl. But to see how broken the man had become as a result of that afternoon’s accident, David realized it truly didn’t matter. Better to allow the man to keep his memories.
Arabella had simply slipped on the buttons of her gown and hit her head on the footboard of a bed.
Craythorne admitted he had been the one to tear the buttons from her gown. It was all my fault, he murmured the day Norwick had finally found where he was hiding in a cottage in Southampton and paid him a visit. In my haste to make love to my wife, I caused her death and probably that of my daughter’s.
At least Norwick had been able to assure him Isabella was still alive, although to see the myriad of emotions the older earl displayed whilst considering the news, David wondered if he should have kept mum. No father wanted to learn their daughter thought them a monster. No father wanted their child to fear them.
Octavius closed his eyes in an attempt to push away the memories of that day he had relayed the new
s to Isabella. He had expected the tears, of course. The disbelief in learning the truth. What he hadn’t expected was what she intended to discuss with him at the folly.
And he certainly hadn’t expected she would kiss him so thoroughly when her fingers were suddenly at the back of his neck and her entire body was pressed against the front of his.
He had managed to avoid having to propose for all that time she had lived as his ward—despite the number of times he had kissed her—and in the end, he still hadn’t proposed.
Because she had done so.
Once she had finally ended the kiss and allowed her fingers to grip his shoulders, she had been the one to finally allow a sigh of frustration. “Will you marry me, Octavius? You don’t have to make me your duchess, and it can be a very small ceremony, but I very much wish for you to be my husband. For you to be the one who helps me make my dream come true, and for us to live at Huntinghurst for the rest of our days.”
Octavius remembered blinking several times, if only because he didn’t know of a way for her to not be his duchess should they marry. “It doesn’t really work like that,” he whispered, his forehead dropping to hers. “But if I agree to be your husband, you do realize you will have to come with me to London on occasion? We cannot stay at Huntinghurst all the time.”
This seemed to have her perplexed for a moment before she finally nodded. “Most of the time?” she countered.
He screwed up his face. “Whenever Parliament isn’t in session, I can be here,” he countered.
She kissed him again before saying, “I accept your terms.”
With half a mind to claim he needed more time to think about her terms, Octavius instead allowed a grin that soon turned into a smile. For the first time in years, he felt young.
And apparently, he looked it, for he caught Isabella regarding him with a most bemused expression. “What is it?” he wondered.
“You’re not going back to London this afternoon,” she replied with a shake of her head.
“I’m not? I was going to pay a visit to Ludgate Hill in search of a ring for you,” he countered.
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