When he reached a bench at the side of the arbor he sat down, pulled her onto his lap, and wrapped her in his arms. When she gasped and tried to free herself, he said, “You’re cold. I’m simply trying to keep you warm.”
—
Warm? Isobel thought her cheeks were hot enough to glow like banked embers in the darkness. Another moment and she might combust. The sensation of Arend’s strength around her, the masculine hardness of his chest against her back, his muscled thighs beneath her bottom…how could she focus on anything but the power of the man holding her so gently in his arms?
“I want to ask you a question.” He spoke softly, and in such a serious tone that she knew, whatever the question was, her answer would change her life. “I should have asked you when we met, although I would probably not have trusted in your answer.”
The thumping of her heart grew faster as one warm hand settled on her wrist. She knew he must feel every beat, every stutter. “You can ask me anything.”
He took her chin in his other hand, and with gentle fingers turned her face so he could look in her eyes. “Are you in league with your stepmother?”
That was such an easy question for her to answer that Isobel’s heart slowed and she relaxed.
“No.” She held his gaze as she answered truthfully. “I am not. Not now. Not ever. I want her caught as much as you do.”
He sat silently, watching her, as if assessing the truth. And she let him see that she had given him an honest answer. That she hid nothing from him. That she spoke only the truth.
Finally he sighed and pulled her close, pressing a gentle kiss beside the scar marring her face. “I believe you.”
She sucked in a breath, but instead of joy, anger leaped up to speed her pulse. Now he believed her? “Why now? What has changed?”
“I know you loved your father. If you are not party to his death, it’s unlikely you’re party to Victoria’s other villainy.”
Although she understood his reasoning, the fact that he needed more than her word hurt. “So my word is still not good enough.”
He flinched. “It hasn’t been. It is now. If you vow to always tell me the truth, then I shall try my hardest to believe you. However, you must understand that my natural inclination is to distrust. I can’t change who I am overnight. Will you give me time?”
She wanted to hug him in the same way she’d hug Sealey—protectively and lovingly. “Why do you need me to give you time? Soon this will be over. Are we not going our separate ways?”
It was only then that she noticed the pressure of his thumb stroking her palm through her glove.
“I know I’ve been difficult,” he said at last. “My behavior toward you since the day we met has not always been pleasant or polite. But…” He hesitated and swallowed hard. “But I would like to make this engagement real, and—”
At her sharp intake of breath he stopped speaking. Then, before she could ask him what was wrong, he gave a harsh laugh and surged to his feet with her in his arms. A moment later she stood alone on the garden path, all his comforting warmth gone from around her.
“Forgive me.” His voice held the bleakness of a winter landscape. “Of course it’s impossible. How could you marry a man like me?”
How could she?
He started to turn away, but she lunged after him and seized him by the jacket.
“Please,” she said, terrified that he would shake her off and walk away. “Don’t leave. You merely took me by surprise.”
Sufficient surprise that she now had no idea what to do next.
She was desperate to help him, to show him in a way that would silence any doubt in his distrustful mind and wounded soul that she would never betray him, no matter what dark secrets his past held. All she cared about was the man he was now.
If he let her, she could love him with all her heart. All he had to do was open his own heart—even a crack. But for him to open to her, she had to open to him. God, was she brave enough to share all of herself with a man who hid everything about himself from her?
Yes. She was. She would be. She was fighting for her happiness. For both of them.
And he was still standing there. He hadn’t left. She still had a chance.
“Please, Arend.” She gestured to the bench. “Sit down again.”
He hesitated, then did so.
She waited only until he appeared to be settled on the bench, and then she clambered back onto his lap. His surprise at her actions showed in the way he stiffened and tried to draw back. But she refused to let him get away so easily. Pretending she noticed nothing wrong, she snuggled into him as she had before. A few moments later his arms slid around her and drew her close.
Her heart lifted. Sang.
She could do this.
“Do you know what my goal was,” she said, keeping her tone relaxed, almost dreamy, “when I came to London at the start of the season?”
His arms tightened around her. Slackened. “To find a husband like any other debutante.”
She nodded. “True. But what kind of husband do you think I was after?”
“Kind?” He sounded amused. “There is a kind?”
Amused was good. “Well, I assume you like a woman with particular attributes.”
Now he laughed. “Yes. Her most particular attribute should be that she wants only one night with me.”
She’d been thinking about height, form, hair, and eye color, so his words startled her. “At least you’re honest,” she said, admitting to herself that she was jealous. If it were possible, she’d tear the hair off the head of every woman who had seized that opportunity. She took a moment to fight down her possessiveness, then went on. “My type of man was anyone who would marry me by the end of the season so I could escape Victoria.” How could she have even considered such a thing? “I didn’t care if he was young or old, fat or thin, rich or poor. I have money. What I didn’t have was a way of escape.”
“And that’s why you would take a risk and marry me? I’ll do as a way of escape?” He sounded so vulnerable.
“You didn’t let me finish.” This would have to be done delicately. She squeezed his hand and took a deep breath. “Since I made friends with Marisa, then met Evangeline and the wives of the other Libertine Scholars, my priorities have changed. So has my life. I am staying with His Grace. I’m free of Victoria. I’m also financially independent and have no need of marriage.”
She felt his broad shoulders sag. “I said I have no need.” She squeezed his hand again. “I do, however, have a desire. I desire a man I can share my life with, the way your friends and their wives do. If that is the type of marriage you envision, then I’m willing to continue as we are and see if this relationship can develop into more.”
She looked up into his face as she spoke. Even in the dimness of the garden she caught the expressions that flowed across his handsome face. Apprehension. Resignation. Defeat.
“What if I cannot offer you what Maitland, Sebastian, Grayson, Christian, and Hadley offer their wives?”
“They love each other. That’s why their marriages are so successful. Can you not offer me love? Don’t be angry, but Marisa shared details of your time in Brazil. After your experience I can understand why you’re hesitant, but Arend, there is no need to fear it.”
“Fear.” His laugh had that same bitter edge as before. “Don’t all sensible men fear love in the beginning?”
What strange creatures men were. “But love is the best thing we have. The best thing we can do.” How could anyone be afraid of that? Love made life worthwhile.
The muscles in the arms holding her were suddenly rigid. “You have no understanding of who I am, Isobel. Or who I was.”
“And you don’t understand me either. I don’t care about your past.” Except for a strong desire to do something unladylike and improper to all the women who had shared his bed. “I care about the man you are now, and the man you could become.”
She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. Li
ght. Tender. “If we can trust each other and be open, then maybe we can accept each other, faults and all. No one is perfect, Arend.”
He let out a breath, hugging her tightly. “Trust is difficult enough. Revealing my past?” He shook his head. “I may never be able to do that.”
It was hard for most people to open up to someone else. No one wanted to be vulnerable.
“Then you have to make a decision. Is it possible that I am the one person with whom you’d be comfortable sharing the most personal details of your life? I will not settle for only part of my husband. I want to know all of him.”
A tremor ran through his body. “No, you don’t want to know all of me. Trust me on that.”
He tried to pry her arms from around his neck, but she refused to let go. “A relationship without trust is like a carriage without horses,” she said. “You can sit in it all you want, but it will not go anywhere. I want to go on the journey of life with you, Arend. And that means moving forward—together.”
“Then there is no need to look back.”
If only that were always true. “There is, if it’s the past that stops us from falling in love. It’s hard to love a man who keeps himself a mystery.”
He sighed. “Men are not made like women. We are not designed to be vulnerable.”
She remained silent, thinking. Perhaps what he said was true. Even she expected men—especially a man like Arend—to be invincible. Someone who could and would protect her, no matter what danger they faced. It seemed unfair of her to expect him to show himself impervious to pressure one moment, and then later—on the instant she demanded it—expose himself to her, naked and unmasked.
Perhaps the face a man showed the world was so he could be what society expected of him—the protector.
She could compromise if he would. “I don’t necessarily expect you to trust me immediately, or with everything. Choose what you think I need to know about your past in order for me to get to know you. However, I do expect honesty. Love without trust is impossible, and marriage without love I will not accept.”
There. She’d thrown down the gauntlet.
Would he pick it up?
“Come.” He rose and put her back on her feet for a second time. “We should return to the ballroom.”
His lack of response hurt her, but she’d made her case. There was nothing more to do. When he slipped her arm through his and began a slow walk back toward the ballroom through the garden, she didn’t resist.
But she hadn’t expected him to continue their conversation either.
“I became a very rich man in Brazil,” he said. “And yet I have not spent any of my wealth on either my family estate or my London residence. My townhouse looks tired and worn. I’m ashamed to show it to you.”
Her heart leaped in her chest. He was opening up. He wanted to try.
“You will think it strange that I have spent so little of my wealth,” he went on as they strolled across the dew-covered grass. “But I still feel that the money is not mine. Half of it belongs to Jonathan. And yet he is dead and I am not.”
Isobel’s slippers were getting wet, but she would not interrupt him for the world. This was “opening up” with a vengeance.
“Jonathan is dead,” Arend said, “because I believed I was in love, and I am alive because my attacker believed he would fight a soft, pampered nobleman. We were both wrong.”
Soft? Pampered? Isobel could not imagine Arend as ever being either. He must have been different in Brazil. Even so, how had his enemy not seen his iron core? There was an entire story in those few words.
Don’t rush. Let him take his time.
But she couldn’t wait for some things. “Take me to see your townhouse, Arend. Tonight. I’d love to see it before you change anything so I can understand what your childhood was like.”
He hesitated in his walk, then moved on. “You’ll be the first woman to set foot inside the house since my mother died.”
“But will you take me?”
She wished he could share what he was thinking and feeling, but he remained silent.
As they approached the terrace, Isobel halted.
“Do you really want to go back into that stuffy ballroom with people who watch us just so they can gossip?” she said. “I hate how they stare at us. At my face.”
“Your face is still beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
She drew her arm free and turned him to face her, stepping into him and widening her eyes. “Show me your home, Arend.”
“Isobel.” The planes and angles of his face seemed to sharpen in the shadow. “The first thing you must learn about me is I’m a nobleman, not a gentleman. It’s not safe for me to take you home—”
He broke off as she pressed closer. The fabric of his jacket grazed her nipples through the thin material of her gown, and he growled something in French that did not sound at all polite. But he didn’t move.
“I dream of that night in the stable,” she whispered. “Your lips, your hands. I wake up in the night and wish you were with me. You say I would not be safe. Don’t you understand? Even unsafe with you, I’m safer than I’ve ever been. I am addicted to un-safety.”
His beautiful mouth softened into a wide smile. “There is no such word. You have no idea how tempting you are, ma cherie.”
“When I see the way you look at me, I do.” Her voice was becoming breathless as her body reacted to the flare of desire in his eyes. “I believe that looking over the house by night is an excellent idea.”
“Soft candlelight will hide a multitude of sins.” Soft candlelight could also open the door to a multitude of sins—if she was lucky, she thought. She pressed on. “Tonight I feel like we have turned a corner in our relationship. I want to continue on this journey of new beginnings.”
When he pulled her into his arms she forgot the presence of the cream of society behind the drapes and windows above them. When he brought them both to a halt behind a tall rhododendron, when his lips crushed hers, she forgot everything in the blaze of heat in her belly and the roar of blood in her ears.
This wasn’t the kiss a gentleman gave a lady. It was the kiss of a man desperate for his woman.
His lips devoured her as if he were starving. Her body grew warm, and yet she shivered and couldn’t stop. She needed him. Needed to be closer. Her heart pounded behind breasts that felt heavy and full, aching for his touch. Tingling waves of heat fluttered and curled low in her belly, and lower still, between her thighs.
When his large palm caressed her breast she could not hold back her moan.
As the sound hummed in the cold night air, Arend broke the kiss with a guttural curse. “Mon Dieu. This is madness.” His breathing sounded as if he’d been running for his life. “Do you still want to see my house?”
No. She wanted him to kiss her, to hold her, to make her his entirely. “I might not yet trust you with my heart, but I trust you with my body.”
His laugh held both amusement and pain. “Words you should never say to a rake, ma cherie. It gives him wicked ideas.” And with that, he all but spun her about and pulled her around the side of the house and toward the carriages.
She could not help the thrill that rippled through her and made her want to giggle like a naughty child. “Should we not return to the ballroom and let the others know we are leaving?”
“No.” Arend sounded very definite. “Because if I see Colbert smile at you, I might not be able to leave without giving him a fist in the face. I’ll send a servant with a message to His Grace.”
A shudder of wanton need ran through her at this evidence of his blatant possessiveness and jealousy. But even in her exhilaration she was sensible enough to understand that neither of those emotions were the same as love.
—
Arend made the carriage ride to his London residence in silence. Not because he had nothing to say, but because he had too much. Too many words. Too many feelings.
He sat opposite Isobel, his hands gripping the seat, be
cause if he let go he’d pull her into his arms. He wanted her with an intensity that was frightening. It was as if he wanted to take her, to mark her so she could only ever be his.
His body heated, became hard, his desire flaming to fever pitch. Part of him realized he was being driven by a fear that she would slip away from him. If he made love to her, he would gain the power to make her stay. Her reputation would belong to him.
He chased those dishonorable thoughts away. He didn’t want her to marry him because she had to. He wanted her to want him as much as he needed her.
And he needed her. He needed to bury himself so deeply in her sweet warmth that everything else faded away. Perhaps her innocence could cleanse his soul. Then, maybe, he would be worthy of her.
He grew more nervous the closer they got to his family’s townhouse. He wanted to tell her things about his home. Home. He almost laughed at the word. But it wasn’t funny. He’d never considered the townhouse more than a place to sleep and eat. He’d certainly never viewed it as a home, or something that he would one day want the woman he cared for to approve and admire.
“Don’t look so nervous,” she said gently. “I don’t care what your house looks like. I’m just so happy you are sharing it with me.”
He was nervous, and the fact annoyed him.
It was only after they arrived at the house and he had handed her down from the carriage that he realized how truly scandalous their situation was. What was he thinking, to take her into his home this late at night without a chaperone? To take her into his home at all?
He quickly slipped her arm through his and together they ascended the steps.
The door opened before they were halfway up, to reveal his butler standing in the doorway.
“Welcome home, my lord.”
“Thank you, Jeeves.” His butler sounded perfectly neutral, but Arend knew he was not particularly welcome, and certainly not when accompanied by a female guest.
His chest tightened as Jeeves ushered them into the dilapidated-looking entrance hall.
A Night of Forever Page 17
