Deceiver

by Nicola Cornick

  Marcus had come forward to help her remove her cloak, cutting out the butler whose expression became, if anything, even more wooden. Isabella felt Marcus's hands on her shoulders, slipping the garment from her. It felt extraordinarily intimate and she moved from under his touch as quickly as she could.

  "Brandy, if you please," Marcus said.

  "Certainly, my lord," Belton said starchily and withdrew.

  The footman threw open the doors of the study and closed them softly behind them, leaving the pair in silence.

  Isabella crossed to the window and pulled back the long curtains, welcoming the cool draft on her hot face. She felt tense and edgy. Neither of them seemed anxious to be the first to speak.

  Marcus was standing with his back to the fire, hands in pockets, looking both relaxed and fully in command of himself and the situation, and suddenly Isabella was tired. Tired of the pretence and the struggle and the sheer misery of estrangement. She turned to Marcus and held his gaze very directly.

  "You are trying to break me, Stockhaven," she said, "but you will not succeed."

  Marcus came across to her and took her by the shoulders. He stared down into her defiant eyes.

  "No," he said, and a slight smile curled the corner of his mouth. "I do not believe that I shall."

  "Then. . ." Isabella made a slight gesture. "What do you want from me?"

  "I want to come to terms," Marcus said again. "I want an explanation. I want a reckoning, and I want a wedding night. What do you want?"

  Isabella took a deep breath. "I want you to let me go."

  Marcus's gaze flared. "Then it is a bargain. If you give me what I want, I shall fulfill my side of the agreement."

  Isabella stared at him, frozen. The room was shadowed and warm, a place for intimacies and confidences. Except that she did not feel like confiding in Marcus Stockhaven. She felt cold and betrayed and unhappy. Before she had understood the extent of his mistrust of her she might have given him the ex­planation that he craved. Now it felt like a hopeless waste of time. She would lay the past bare and still face his scorn and she was not sure that she could stand that.

  As for the wedding night . . .

  The thought made her whole body tremble. A part of her wanted it passionately, desperately, but she knew she could not give herself to a man who hated her. She was hopelessly drawn to Marcus. She always had been. A stubborn part of her told her that it was not too late, they could be lovers again. But cold reality made it impossible.

  Marcus came across to her and took her arm in a light grip that nevertheless held her still. The icy cold was seeping through her whole body.

  "I do not pay my debts in that way," Isabella said. She lifted her chin and looked at him in the eye. "Make no mistake of it, Stockhaven. I do not want to have to explain myself to you. That is bad enough. I cannot see what good it will do now, after all this time, and I believe I owe you nothing. But—" she gave a tiny shrug "—if you insist, then talking to you is the lesser of two evils, is it not?"

  Marcus stared down into her eyes for a long moment and she was afraid that he would see everything that she was keeping so tightly locked within—all the misery and the long-held secrets and the love and the fear. After a moment his grip on her arm loosened and he stepped back, but his face did not soften.

  "It is all or nothing."

  All or nothing. The reckoning. The wedding night. And in return, freedom. . .

  The future seemed to spread before Isabella like a tanta­lizing web. The peace and freedom to live as she wanted, not as someone else dictated. She had waited such a long time for that opportunity. Her father had denied it to her by forcing her to marry Ernest. Ernest had denied it to her by dictating her every royal move and Marcus, unbearably, had also sought to make her live as he wanted.

  She ached to be free. Liberty was so close and yet so tantalizingly beyond her grasp.

  "I want Salterton," she said.

  "It will be yours."

  "And the means to keep it."

  "Of course."

  "I want . . ."

  An annulment would be out of the question if the marriage were consummated. Isabella took a deep breath, willing herself not to think about that, not yet.

  "I want a legal separation."

  She thought for a moment that Marcus was going to refuse. A muscle tightened in his jaw.

  "Very well," he said. His tone was rough.

  "I do not trust you," Isabella whispered.

  Marcus shrugged. "I am not a man who breaks his word. And if I did break it, you could swallow that pride of yours and go to the Belsyres and tell them whatever you liked about me. You know you could ruin my ambitions for the future ten times over if you chose."

  There was an ache of tears in Isabella's throat. "I do not want it to be like this."

  "This is how it is." Marcus's face was as hard as stone.

  There was not a great deal of choice. Isabella knew she could either live this half life, an estranged wife in love with her husband and with no hope for the future, or she could buy her freedom and escape an intolerable situation.

  Marcus was watching her.

  "Very well." She cleared her throat. "I agree."

  "Oh dear, oh dear," Penelope Standish said unhappily. She was sitting with Alistair Cantrell in the Lime Street Coffee House. It was scarcely appropriate for a spinster to be taking coffee late at night with a gentleman alone, but Pen was not concerned that she was in any danger from Alistair Cantrell. She had seldom felt safer with anyone. They had met in the doorway of the offices of the editor of the Gentlemen's Athenian Mercury. Pen had been mortified. She had spent the evening working on a scandalous piece about Isabella that drew on old gossip as well as current speculation and, once it was written, she had hurried to deliver it to the newspaper, as though getting it off her hands quickly would somehow lessen her guilt. Morrow, the editor, had been delighted with it. Pen's blood money, a sovereign, was even now weighing down her reticule. She had already started to think of all the things she would spend the money on. And then she had collided with Alistair in the doorway and he had looked at her in the perceptive way of his and the wretched coin felt as though it was bursting into flames in her bag, a sign of her treachery. She had stuttered some greeting—goodness knows what—and tried to scuttle past, and then Alistair had put his hand on her arm, obliging her to stop.

  "Miss Standish, might I have a word?"

  And Pen had known that she was lost.

  They sat in a quiet corner of the coffeehouse while the raffish nightlife of the city spun unnoticed around them.

  "Miss Standish," Alistair Cantrell repeated. "You may tell me to mind my own business, of course, but I do wonder what you can be doing at the offices of the most scurrilous news­paper in Town."

  "Oh dear," Pen said again. In her agitation she put another spoonful of sugar in her coffee and stirred it with quick, spiky gestures.

  Alistair looked at her very directly. "You seem very fond of your sister," he said. "It makes me curious as to why you would then sell stories about her to the press."

  Pen's shoulders slumped. She could lie, of course, but somehow the necessity of lying to Alistair seemed impossible.

  "How did you know?" she asked in a very small voice.

  Alistair smiled. "By logical deduction. The person selling the information had the kind of knowledge of Princess Isabel­la's life that only a confidante would know. It had to be someone very close to her. And then I met you coming out of the editor's office—" He shrugged. "Well, it seemed fairly conclusive."

  "Yes," Pen said. "Yes, it was me. I feel very ashamed."

  There was a pause.

  "Forgive me, Miss Standish, but you do care for Princess Isabella, don't you?"

  Pen's face twisted. "Yes. Oh, yes of course! Bella is the dearest creature and I love her very much." She sat forward. Would it be possible to make Alistair understand? He seemed a very loyal man and not one to condone this sort of decep­tion. Pen foun
d that she wanted his good opinion.

  "You see, Mr. Cantrell—" she gave him an appealing look "—I have absolutely no money and I have to do something in order to survive." She hesitated, anticipating his next question. "The reason why is not important. But when I thought about it, selling scandal about Bella was the only thing that I could do. At least," she amended as she caught sight of a painted courtesan leaving the coffeeshop on the arm of a gentleman, "it was the only thing I wanted to sell."

  Alistair's lips twitched as he followed her gaze. "I under­stand you, Miss Standish. It is a melancholy thing for a lady to be in such reduced circumstances and be obliged to look about her for other means of support, but even so. . ."

  "I know," Pen said. "You cannot despise me any more than I do myself, Mr. Cantrell. I kept telling myself that I would stop, but I could not. It was too tempting. And Bella did not seem to mind very much when she read the reports—" She broke off. "I know it is no excuse."

  Alistair touched her hand briefly. Pen was shocked and more than a little intrigued.

  "I worry about Bella," she said, to cover her surprised reaction. "I know that may sound absurd under the circum­stances, but I do care for her."

  Alistair nodded. "I understand."

  Pen found the urge to confess further was all too strong.

  "Despite the fact that Bella is my elder sister and so. . ." She groped for words. "So experienced—oh no, I do not mean in that way, more that she has seen a great deal of the work!—" her blue eyes met Alistair's hazel ones briefly "—despite all that, I sometimes have the most disturbing feeling that she does not entirely know what she is doing."

  Alistair did not speak. He covered her hand again in a most comforting gesture, and this time he did not let her go imme­diately.

  "Bella only married Ernest Di Cassilis in the first place because our father faced financial ruin," Pen continued, "and she was unhappy for all those years, and when she came back it was to find that Ernest had left her bankrupt, but as to why she married cousin Marcus—" She broke off as she ran out of breath. Alistair was still holding her hand and it felt warm and very pleasant.

  "I know that they were once very fond of each other," Pen finished. "I was barely more than a child at the time, but children notice things, don't they? I am almost certain that they were madly in love. It was going to be the perfect wedding. But something went awry and Bella married Ernest and Marcus married India, and now—" She shook her head.

  Alistair's grip tightened. She felt comforted but she freed her hand to take a sip of her coffee—and almost choked on the cloying sweetness.

  "Oh!" Her eyes were streaming but through them she could see that Alistair was laughing at her.

  "Another cup, as you appear to have ruined that one?"

  "I do not think so," Pen said, "but a dish of chocolate would be very pleasant, thank you."

  The drink arrived. Pen had noticed that Alistair was most adept at organizing things with a minimum of fuss. She started to feel a little more relaxed. Alistair was watching her across the table. His hazel eyes were very shrewd.

  "Miss Standish, will you promise not to sell any further stories to the press?"

  Pen slumped a little more. She knew she could never do it again, but she was terrified at the thought of having no money.

  "Of course. I could not. . ." Her voice wavered. "Oh dear. . ."

  "It is your brother, I suppose," Alistair said. A shade of steel had come into his voice.

  Pen looked defensive. "Please, I cannot discuss it. Freddie does his best, but he has never been very good with money."

  Pen knew Alistair wanted to say something else, something scathing, and only his courtesy held him silent. After a moment he said, "If you are in urgent financial need then I am sure we could come to an agreement."

  "Mr. Cantrell!" Pen was so startled that she upset the dregs of her chocolate.

  "I meant," Alistair said, his eyes twinkling, "a loan. Natu­rally."

  "Oh, naturally." Pen wrenched her gaze away from a couple seated in the bow window who were entwined in each other's arms, oblivious of the crowd about them. No doubt it was the louche air of the place and the unusual excitement en­gendered by being out at night with a gentleman that was leading her thoughts astray.

  "That is very kind of you," she added.

  Alistair got to his feet. "I think that I should escort you home now, Miss Standish," he said. "I will procure us a hack. The streets are becoming a little rough but I assure you, you will be perfectly safe with me."

  "I imagine so," Pen said with a sigh.

  She watched as Alistair paid the bill, went to the doorway and summoned a hackney carriage with his customary orderly precision. She watched the line of his shoulders and the turn of his head and the way that his body moved beneath his neat and unostentatious garb. She had always been more struck by the written word than the visual image but now she felt hot and immodest and astounded at herself. How very frustrating. Here was Mr. Cantrell offering her his protection in the most innocent way imaginable and here she was, suddenly realizing that security was the last thing that she wanted from him.

  "Shall we go?" Alistair offered her his arm.

  "Thank you," Pen said, casting her gaze down like the demure spinster she no longer resembled, "you are all that is gentlemanly, Mr. Cantrell."

  "At your service, Miss Standish." There was nothing but sincerity in Alistair's tone.

  Pen sighed. She knew she was pretty and she knew Alistair Cantrell thought her so and she also knew that he would do nothing about it whatsoever. She could travel in a closed carriage with him from London to Canterbury and he would likely do no more than point out places of interest along the way and order refreshments up ahead. He would not pounce on her or try to ravish her or even press a chaste kiss on her hand. She felt ridiculously safe, entirely dissatisfied and utterly frustrated in a way she had never felt before, a way her mother had told her no lady ever should.

  How absolutely frustrating. Alistair Cantrell stood outside the small house in Pimlico and looked up at the lit window on the first floor where he was certain Miss Penelope Standish was even now unfastening her dress, loosening her golden hair from its pins and unlacing her chemise in preparation for going to bed. He could not see any of these intriguing probabilities, for the curtains were tightly drawn and of thick material, but he did not need to see in order to imagine. He could visualize Penel­ope's thick, tumbling fair hair, her small but perfectly formed breasts and the slenderness of her body beneath the enticing transparent shroud of her chemise. Of course, for all he knew he could be staring at the window where Freddie Standish was no doubt snoring with a bottle of brandy clasped in his arms, but really it made no difference. Pen was in the house and he wanted her and he was so close but in truth ineffably far.

  She trusted him. She was a lady in need and she had confided in him and he should be honored to have that trust rather than thinking of breaking it in the most shocking way imaginable. He could not—could not—encourage her to rely upon him and then use that closeness to lead her astray. But oh, he wanted to. He ached to. He was exploding to do so.

  He knew Miss Standish had a reputation as a bluestocking with a tongue like a dose of vinegar. He was certain she would not hold back from administering a setdown to anyone whom she regarded as a fool, and there were plenty who would fit that description. Yet he had seen her softness and vulnerabil­ity, the way she cared for her sister and the guilt that riddled her when she thought of betraying Isabella's trust. He knew how difficult it was for a gentleman in dire financial straits to make his own way, so he could imagine the frightening prospects that faced a woman in such a predicament. And he was pledged to help her, not seduce her.

  Under the circumstances, it was fortunate that it had started to rain. It dampened his ardor slightly and his clothing a great deal. If he did not wish to contract the ague, he knew he should return home and cease staring up at Penelope's window like a lovestruck youth. Nev
ertheless a part of him wished there was a balcony and a sturdy climbing rose, while another mocked him with the thought that if there were, he would fall off it and require medical assistance. Should Miss Standish require practical help—the summoning of a hackney carriage, the procurement of a cup of chocolate—then he was the very man for the job, but should he be called upon to perform some romantic endeavor then he would only fall flat on his face.

  Even so, he continued to stare at the bright square of window until the light was doused.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "Where should I start?" Isabella asked politely.

  "The beginning is always a good place," Marcus said. "Why did you jilt me?"

  Isabella huddled deeper within the leather embrace of the armchair. She wanted its capacious interior to swallow her up. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to feel safe. Instead she had to talk and try to make Marcus understand. Her heart quaked at the prospect.

  "You left me standing at the altar," Marcus said. His tone was very controlled. "You refused to see me when I tried to find you. You did not even write. You never told me what hap­pened." His voice kindled into feeling. "The first I knew of what was happening was reading the report of your marriage in the papers and then you sent back my ring—" He broke off. Isabella saw the shutters come down in his face. Once again the fire was banked down.

  "Explain," he said now, expressionless. It was not an invi­tation.

  "There is not much to tell," Isabella said. She kept her gaze fixed on the embers of the fire so that she did not have to look at him. That hurt too much.

  "It was for my family, Stockhaven. Or perhaps it was for money. You will decide for yourself, I am sure."

  She looked up briefly. Marcus's face was very still, but there was about him a controlled intensity, an anger that she suspected burned very deep. Now that the moment of truth had come, she merely wanted it all to be over and Marcus to leave her alone. She would make this as quick as possible.