He silently counted to ten and waited for his anger to cool, his fists to relax, his toes to uncurl.
She is not really yours, and can never be.
Unless she was party to Victoria’s crimes, he would be forced to marry her if he continued his dalliance—and matrimony was out of the question.
Therefore, it was unfair of him to allow this infatuation to continue. From now on he must keep his distance, both emotionally and sexually. They would work together in a platonic relationship, and when Victoria and Dufort were captured, he would leave her life entirely. Leave her to marry a man who deserved her.
Even the thought of it hurt like hell.
Like that injury of hers must have. Must still. “External scars fade over time,” he offered.
“Are you implying internal scars take longer?” Her lips trembled briefly. “I hope not. I still have nightmares about Sealey’s kidnapping, and when they took him away from me”—a tear slid down her cheek—“I thought she was going to kill him.”
He could not help himself. Before he realized what he was doing, he leaned over and wiped the tear away with the pad of his thumb. “We will catch her,” he said, gently. “And Dufort. They will pay. I swear it.”
She blinked and drew away from his touch. “Will that ‘we’ include me? I believe I deserve the right”—she gestured to her cheek—“to be involved in their capture. Unless, of course,” she added, meeting his eyes without flinching or any kind of evasion, “you still think I’m part of her conspiracy, her evil stepdaughter.”
Her scorn was evident, and the way she looked at him down her pretty, aristocratic nose dared him to contradict her. “I’m not going to apologize for being careful,” he said, although even as he said the word he realized that he could at least have been kind. “Being careful has kept me alive.”
One of her brows lifted in a haughty gesture that made him feel like a heel. “Seducing me in the stable was your idea of being careful?”
Hell no, it had been about passion, desire, want, and need. He’d indulged his driving need for her, and look where his lack of self-control had taken them.
The headache that had never really disappeared since his kidnapping throbbed once. Hard. He only just restrained himself from rubbing the back of his skull.
“I wanted you.” There was no reason not to be truthful. They needed her cooperation. It still didn’t mean he had to trust her.
Her mouth dropped open.
Her incredulity annoyed him. “Why is that so difficult to believe?” he snapped. “You’re a very desirable woman. Don’t expect me to apologize for finding you so.”
He thought she would snap back at him. She did not.
“I do expect you to apologize,” she said, and her voice was soft and full of hurt. “You used me.”
Her accusation and its delivery stabbed him to the heart, and in that moment he hated himself. “The fact I wanted you has nothing to do with whether or not I think you’re the enemy. A man wants what a man wants.”
She said something under her breath, and he stiffened in incredulous shock. She couldn’t have just said what he thought she had. She was a gently bred young lady, not a stable hand.
“I beg your pardon,” he managed, amazed that he was more intrigued than scandalized.
“And so you should,” she said, coldly polite. “But you will not, because you do not believe you could possibly be wrong.” She was more composed than a princess at a state occasion. “You thought me an innocent fool, a tool you could use. Did you think I’d fall in love with you and turn on Victoria?” Her tight smile told him his face had betrayed him. “That would have only worked had I been in league with her in the first place,” she went on. “I hope by now you understand I am not. You’d still be in that mine in Durham, if not for me.”
He almost applauded. Challenging and courageous, Isobel fascinated him—had done so since the day he’d rescued her from the carriage wreck that could so easily have killed both her and Marisa. She’d refused to be bullied by him then too. But why had she sent the men to Durham? Was it to buy Victoria time to escape?
Eyes troubled, she leaned back a little in her chair, her coolness wavering. “I can see you still don’t believe me.”
Arend steeled himself. “Let me be frank.”
“Oh, yes.” She waved a hand. “Please. Be frank.”
“Then put yourself in my position. Marisa is kidnapped. You are in the carriage used to kidnap her. You say you don’t know why—”
“That,” she said, “is no longer true.”
At her interruption, Arend stopped, expecting her to continue. They both waited, neither of them willing to break first.
“Well?” he said finally. “Are you going to tell me?”
She rounded her eyes in mock shock. “Good gracious, my lord. Are you asking something, instead of guessing or inferring or assuming?”
Saucy wench. He gritted his teeth to stop a growl from escaping. “I will try to keep an open mind.”
“Then,” she said with cool hauteur, “I suppose I only have a small window of opportunity before it closes.” She ignored the growl he couldn’t control this time and went on. “When Sealey and I were captured, Victoria told me. She wanted you and me to meet and become betrothed.”
Not for love, that was certain. “Why?”
“She intended—” Her attempt to maintain a cool demeanor turned into a shiver that shook her whole body. “She intended to kill me, and frame you for my murder.”
Kill Isobel. Even the thought was like a knife in the belly. Frame him. That part was clever, and finally something that made perfect sense.
“She really is an evil mastermind, is she not?” He pulled his mind away from the vision of Isobel hurt, Isobel dying, Isobel dead, gone forever. “What I cannot understand is why I was left in the mine. I wasn’t placed that far in. They must have known I could make my way out.”
He watched her face as she lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Perhaps she knew I had the map. If she knew that, she’d have known I’d come to find you in Durham. And then they could enact their dastardly plan.”
No artifice there. “But I wasn’t left in a mine in Durham,” he said. “I was taken to a mine near Warrick.”
Real horror mixed with genuine confusion on her face. “I don’t understand,” she said blankly. “Lieutenant Colbert told me you’d been rescued.”
Arend nodded. “I was, but not by his men. And not in Durham.”
Her face went deathly pale and her hands curled into fists. “You all lied to me.”
He wasn’t sure to whom the “all” referred, but he assumed that neither Lieutenant Colbert nor any of the ladies—including Marisa—had told her the full story of his rescue. “Nobody lied. You knew I was safe.”
“And that was enough.” A tear trickled down her cheek, and it almost unmanned him. “Was.” She swiped angrily at the tear. “It isn’t any longer. No one trusts me. What can I do to prove my innocence? I’ve done nothing to earn anyone’s distrust. I thought Marisa was a friend, but even she—” She broke off and stiffened her spine. “Fine. At least I know where I stand. I am here under His Grace’s protection but not to protect me. It’s to keep me prisoner to ensure I can’t betray or hurt any of you.”
Pain. Uncertainty. Mortification. Anger. They were all there in her words, her tone, her stance. But he could discern no deceit.
“It’s true,” he said. “You’ve done nothing—that we know of—to earn our distrust. However, you’ve done nothing to earn our trust either. You came into our lives as a party to Marisa’s kidnapping. An innocent party, perhaps. But can you not see why we all have to be careful? Currently we neither trust nor distrust you. We simply are trying to puzzle the situation out.”
“Should I let Victoria kill me?” she said, sounding tired now. “Or would that too be part of my nefarious plot?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He squashed any inclination to comfort her. What would be the point? �
�Do not take it so personally. I trust no one except my fellow Libertine Scholars. I trust them with my life.”
To his surprise, she didn’t seem to take offense at his bluntness. “Marisa explained some of your experience in Brazil, and I understand it’s hard for you to trust. It is not easy for me either. You are a formidable man with a formidable reputation. I was petrified to approach you about my father’s death, to trust you to help me. Yet I found the courage. Can you not do the same?”
Arend stared down at the Persian rug, indecision eating at his soul. Trust had nothing to do with courage and everything to do with past experience. The war between his past experience and his present reality was tearing him in two.
Isobel had directed Lieutenant Colbert to Durham, many miles from the mine in which he was actually prisoner. She could not dispute the truth. Nor did she try. If Victoria had wanted to kill Isobel and blame him, why would she have given Isobel a map to the Durham mine?
None of this made sense.
“Perhaps,” Isobel said, her brow creased as she thought, “Dufort and Victoria had no idea I had the Durham map. There were a great many papers in that trunk. It’s possible it was more prudent to drop you in a closer mine.”
He nodded. “It is possible.”
How ironic. He could not deny that his heart prayed Isobel was innocent. The idea that she might have betrayed him left Arend feeling bleak and furious. In the past he’d conveniently ignored honor when necessity had dictated, but the idea of watching Isobel hang turned his stomach. What would he do to protect her if she was, in fact, guilty?
Maybe she had been waiting for an apology for his distrust, because after a silence that she allowed to last a little too long, she sighed. “Perhaps you and I should end our betrothal now. I’m sure Lieutenant Colbert would help me find evidence that Victoria killed my father.”
Damn Lieutenant Colbert. Arend would wager his finest stallion that Colbert wanted her to be innocent because he too had fallen under her spell. But from all accounts he had heard of the man, Colbert was not the sort to allow a pretty woman to lead him by the nose.
For the first time since his return from Brazil, Arend felt a spark of hope light within him. He might be a fool for anticipating the possibility that his life might hold something more than aching, ravenous darkness. But what if Colbert was right and he was wrong? What if Isobel was the one woman in whose arms and heart he’d find solace and salvation?
What if? What if? Arend shoved a hand through his hair, frustrated enough to want to pull it out.
“My lord?”
He blinked, realizing that he had again allowed himself to become distracted by his need for her. “I beg your pardon. I was thinking.”
“I would appreciate an answer. Will you trust me, or shall I go to Colbert?”
Maitland had given him a way to find out whether Isobel was indeed a conniving, deceiving bitch like Victoria.
“There is a way,” he said, “for you to prove you are not working with Victoria.”
“Anything.”
Her immediate response, the light of hope in her face as she leaned eagerly forward, made his pulse rise.
“You’re aware that Victoria is fleeing England. It’s logical that she will need money to take passage across the Channel, and plenty of money to hide in France. We wish to learn more about her financial situation.”
All her eager hope faded. “I have no idea about her money.”
Arend had not expected her to be privy to details. “But you know whom your father banked with.”
“Yes.” Her smile flashed like sunlight off water, and it lifted his heart. “I do. Thomas Coutts and Company at fifty-nine, the Strand.”
“Then will you allow Maitland and me to accompany you to the bank?” He watched her reaction carefully. Puzzlement, but not concern. “We thought we’d inform them that she’s missing—possibly kidnapped—and we are searching for her at your request. If they get demands for money in her name, they are to contact us. Victoria will have to have funds delivered to her somehow, or moved elsewhere. Setting this plan in place means the bank will not act without contacting either Maitland or myself, as your fiancé, first.”
Isobel had been nodding her understanding as he spoke. “She may have already requested money.”
“True. However, it’s unlikely that she’ll move all her funds at once, as it would arouse suspicion. She’ll need more.”
“But…” She hesitated. “What if she has left England already?”
“Then I’ll follow her.” There was no question about it. He would not, could not rest until he’d found and destroyed her. “I’ll dedicate my life to finding her, if it means my friends and their families are safe.”
She reached out and rested her hand on top of his as he continued to rub his knee.
“Suddenly you do not seem so formidable,” she said. “You love your friends deeply. I cannot fear a man who has the capacity to be that selfless.”
Her praise did not sit easy on his shoulders. Money allowed him the luxury to be a better man, but he doubted it would make up for his past sins.
“I don’t want anyone to fear me, but neither do I need anyone to admire me simply because I wish to help my friends.”
“If you’re willing to put your life on hold, even risk your life for them, then I believe you are both selfless and noble.”
She did not understand that he had no life without them. That he was unworthy of her admiration or those of his friends. He didn’t wish to drag past memories into his head, so instead he focused on the present. “Will you help us?”
She did not hesitate. “Of course.”
“Thank you.” He rose. “The bank won’t open until Monday. In the meantime, we must face the scandal caused by the kidnapping in Richmond Park. Everyone believes I raced off to the rescue. Now I must be seen to stand by you. I shall accompany you and Their Graces to Lady Fraser’s ball tonight.”
“I have invited Lieutenant Colbert too.”
“Colbert?” Arend’s fists clenched at his side. “Are you courting gossip?”
She shook her head. “Society thinks Colbert a hero because they believe he rescued me. Marisa has started to circulate the story that I was kidnapped by an impoverished Scottish chieftain who intended to wed me for my money. It is believable enough.”
And what red-blooded man would believe her to still be a virgin after such an escapade? “Then we shall stay engaged until the scandal dies down, and I will do everything possible to restore your honor. It would therefore not be wise to encourage Colbert.”
Her chin came up. “I have no intention of encouraging the lieutenant. He is a friend, and, quite frankly, I’m in desperate need of a friend who doesn’t see me as a pawn or a liar.”
“I’m merely concerned for your reputation.” It sounded weak, even to him.
She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “I’m ruined anyway, but we all know money restores many reputations and covers many defects.”
Her offhand response to her predicament made him want to punch something, preferably Dufort. “You shouldn’t have to pay for Victoria’s evil deeds. You deserve to marry a man you want and admire. A good man,” he added under his breath.
“Arend.” Her eyes filled with compassion, and that compassion hurt like a blow. “You are a good man. Every one of the Libertine Scholars knows your goodness for a fact. If you were not a good man, you would not be their friend.”
You are a good man.
Little did any of them know.
An image of a man’s hand gliding down his bare torso pounded behind Arend’s eyes. He tried to block the nightmare vision, but Isobel’s words had triggered past memories, ones he had tried to forget but knew he never would.
He was not a good man. He was tainted. Dirty. He was a dead man fighting to hide the ugly soul rotting inside him.
Why did she not see it?
Chapter 13
Humiliating memories hit before Arend had a chance to
block them.
A man’s hand glided down his bare back as he writhed away, frantically trying to push through the bed, through the mattress, through the floor—anything to escape from Angelo’s disgusting questing fingers. But the bindings held him securely in place. There was no escape.
Fear flooded his nostrils, his pores, his being.
Angelo had warned him that Juliette played twisted games, but the lure of her contacts had made him throw caution to the wind.
Now, here he was, hers for whatever amusements she desired. Flesh, bought and paid for.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of movement, and a moment later Juliette approached the bed. When his brain made sense of what he saw, what she carried, his heart slammed into his throat and he wrenched at his bindings with desperate fury, cursing Angelo, cursing her. Cursing them both.
She stopped by the bed. Held the tongs with their glowing metal circle up to his face. “This,” she whispered, savage exaltation in her voice, “is so you will always remember you belong to me. I will follow you all your life. You will never escape.”
For a heart-stopping breath he thought she was going to brand his cheek. Then, with a mad, triumphant cackle she whirled away. His screams of agony as she slammed the red glowing metal onto his left buttock and held it there, made her howl with laughter.
And there, in the middle of agony and humiliation, with her gloating triumph ringing in his ears, and the smell of his own seared flesh turning his stomach, he made himself a promise. If he survived that night, he would make her pay.
“Are you well, Arend?”
Isobel’s concerned question pulled him back to the present.
Anger soared up in him at her enquiry. He knew the color had drained from his face at the memory. He’d shown weakness. And to Isobel, of all people.
He ignored her query, tried to ignore the last few mortifying moments, and tried to remember what they were talking about before the past had risen up and punched him in the face.
She had called him a good man. She was wrong. He knew who and what he was. A man not worthy of redemption. How could he expect any woman to love him when he couldn’t love himself?
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