The dowager gave a faint smile. "Yes, indeed, child. You have such lovely hair. I would have adored having a daughter so lovely as you. Having a daughter-in-law will be the next best thing."
"I do hope you will have one soon," Isolde said politely. "The Earl is a most remarkable man, and will certainly not lack for appropriate candidates."
"Indeed," she said with a smile. "But not everyone can tame him, and he has a very deep sadness which a good woman would need to work hard to help lift from him."
Randall felt himself blushing again. He could hardly believe he had done it twice in one night, he who had thought him to be impervious to more delicate feelings. "Now, Mother, you don't want to overtax your strength."
"Actually, I was going to ask this lovely girl to sit with me for a time, and if I could have some beef broth, dear? Or perhaps some bread and cheese?"
Isolde looked up at Randall. He nodded with alacrity, delighted that for once his mother did not have to be begged to take sustenance.
"You shall have both without delay."
He spoke in a low tone to the little maid who had been sitting with her, giving the order for the food to be brought.
"Now, what is your name? Tell me all about your family."
"Isolde Drake, Viscount Linley's daughter," she said with some trepidation, recalling Randall's reaction when he had heard the name.
But his mother simply smiled and said, "A most excellent man, soundly principled, even if we did not always agreed with his zeal. I take it you share his ideals?"
"Yes, Madam, I'm afraid we're all Radicals in our family."
Randall managed to keep his face expressionless. After all, Michael had been one too...
"Tell me about your family, my dear, those remaining to you, I mean, after your grievous loss."
Isolde looked over at Randall for permission.
He shrugged one shoulder, curious himself.
Isolde took a deep breath, and said, "I am the eldest at nearly twenty. Then there is my brother, Jeremy, and my two young sisters Rebecca and Susan. They are sixteen, twelve and nine respectively. We lost Father about three months ago, and things have been cucumberish with us ever since."
"Why, exactly?" Randall interjected in clipped tones.
She dared to meet his gaze and said, "We can't find any of his papers pertaining to the estate, and so cannot touch any part of it or his portfolio. We are now forced to leave our home until matters can be settled satisfactorily. We've managed to rent the house and have been given a small cottage on the estate of a kind distant relation.
"That will be enough for them to live on quietly, but certainly in much more straitened circumstances that we have been accustomed to," she added with a blush.
"In order to not be a burden on that small sum, I hope to secure a post with a stipend. I've been trained as a nurse by my cousin Dr. Herriot over at the women's clinic in Bethnal Green, so I thought I might suit for the post here."
He stared. "Bethnal Green? I know it. I subscribe. A friend of mine founded it, Blake Sanderson, one of the so-called Rakehells. Haven't seen him for years, not since before the war."
She nodded, though she could see now that any hopes of her slipping quietly away and never seeing him again were fading fast. "Yes, that is the very clinic."
He looked at her more carefully now. "You TRAINED there, you say? But you're a gentlewoman, the daughter of a viscount." He leaned against the mirrored wardrobe, finally starting to relax now that everything was beginning to make more sense.
She lifted her chin proudly. "I know, but position and privilege come with responsibilities. The last thing we want is revolution in this country because those of us who are titled treat persons less fortunate than ourselves as chattel."
"Very true, but still, it was most, er, tolerant and progressive of your parents to permit it."
She shrugged one shoulder. "Father tried to live by his principles. I started as a volunteer a couple of years ago, during what should have been my first Season, save for the fact that I was already engaged, so was certainly not expected to make my rounds of the Marriage Mart.
"I've been there ever since, until we had to rent the London house to cover the funeral expenses and other debts after Father died. We'll soon be leaving our country seat in Surrey to head west to the new cottage."
"And why the clinic, of all places," the dowager asked.
"I had the gift of healing, they all said, and I enjoyed the work. They can't afford to hire anyone else full time at the moment, not until they get more subscriptions. Even if they could, the remuneration would be quite small. Alas, it will be too small if I'm to help my family."
"So you came ahead of the appointments tomorrow to, er, what, exactly? Win me over with your charms?" he drawled, sweeping her body intimately with his lapis gaze.
"Well, yes and no," she admitted, blushing red as a peony. "I hoped I might speak with you, find out if I could indeed help, but also if you and the position suited me. I'm not so naive as to believe that every employer is going to be a congenial one, and did not want to end up out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the phrase goes."
"Well, we could not be more delighted that you're here, could we, Randall?" the older woman said with a wan smile.
"No, indeed, Mother," he said with a long look which she could not fail to interpret. "I can safely say that I've never been more delighted in my life."
She felt the tears springing to her eyes uncontrollably. Her last vestige of dignity was spared her as the maid arrived with the beef broth and a plate of bread and cheese.
"Would you help me, Isolde?" Lady Hazelmere asked. "I fear my hands are not quite as steady as they used to be."
"Yes, of course," she said with a smile.
She looked up at Randall's composed features again. Once more he gave her permission to proceed.
She fed her the soup and chatted about books and music as she did so, airing her likes openly so she would not be accused of attempting to curry further favour. But the truth was their tastes were all remarkably similar, and Randall saw his mother acting coherent and even animated with the lovely young woman for the first time since his father had died.
She ate all the soup, some bread and cheese, and asked for her pillow slips to be changed. She also requested that her temples be bathed with rosewater to help soothe her to sleep.
"If the maid can get my valise from downstairs, I have a few medicaments which would be efficacious. I believe you are suffering from fearsome headaches which make you nauseous and almost unable to bear light?" Isolde inquired.
"That's right. She has been," Randall said, nodding, surprised.
"And how much opiates have the doctors been forcing down her?"
"Too much, to my way of thinking," he admitted with another appreciative glance at her perceptiveness.
"Will you trust me with my concoction of wild lettuce and valerian?"
"I don't see why not, if it's not addictive," Randall agreed, his eyes never once leaving her lovely face, impressed despite his unease over the daughter of his father's worst enemy being in his house and offering help of all things.
She shook her head. "No, it's not addictive, I assure you."
"Very well, tell us where the valise is, and the maid shall bring it."
Isolde did so, and busied herself with changing the sweat-dampened pillow slips until the girl returned.
When the valise arrived, Randall looked at it almost as though she had brought a snake into the house. She placed it on the table in the centre of the room, and began to take everything out of it to show that she had nothing to hide.
"And here's the advertisement, with Mr. Howell's written suggestion that this would be a good situation for me. Here is your reply, inviting me to come at four o'clock tomorrow," she itemized, taking the papers out of the satchel one by one. "Some changes of linen, and my medicines and two of my books."
He looked through the books with interest whilst she tended to
his mother, but he also observed Isolde closely. She really was a lovely thing, looking as regal as a queen in his burgundy velvet dressing gown, which trailed along behind her at least a foot.
With the neck open in a vee he could see her ample cleavage, and as she moved, the gentle sway of her lean but shapely hips. He longed to take down her hair once more and have it flow down her back almost pass her buttocks in glorious disarray....
She resembled a Renaissance Madonna with her pale, ethereal beauty, with hints of roses in her lips and cheeks. A rose without thorns, he decided.
But no. Isolde was by no means perfect. No female was. And it would not do to make her out to be some paragon of virtue, meek and timid, when it was clear she was a spirited woman.
She had most certainly stood up to that bastard Howell when he come barging into his room. How on earth was this lovely sprite engaged to a man so debauched? And what on earth was Randall going to do about it now?
Chapter Eight
Once Isolde had given the Dowager Lady Hazelmere some of her herbal remedies, his mother finally settled down for the night, looking a great deal more contented than she had since his father had died.
"I'll sleep now, dear boy. You two go to bed. I'll see you in the morning," his mother said.
"Very good. Sleep well." He kissed her hand and then her brow.
She stroked his cheek as she had done as a child, and kissed him back. He stiffened for a moment before leaning into the kiss.
Isolde could see the movement, and once again got a swirl of images as powerful as a body blow. She tried to push them to the back of her mind. She reminded herself that she was not here to redeem the son, but help the mother.
On the other hand, to restore his mother to him, and bring her healing gifts into the house might actually be a way to help him as well....
She doubted he would even want to go near her, though, after everything that had happened. What on earth had she been thinking? He might well be the most handsome man this side of Christendom, but she had been there to secure a job as a nurse, not a trollop.
One touch, one kiss, had been more than enough to cast all caution aside. She had had the chance to escape. More than enough chances. He did not look like a violent man, one who would have pressed on even had she said no. She had allowed things to follow to their natural conclusion.
And what a conclusion it had been, she thought, still feeling the imprint of him deeply within her body. There was a curious heaviness in her limbs. She could still feel herself more than aroused, her nipples, the sensitive skin of her belly all quivering every time she felt his remarkable eyes upon her. She wanted him so badly she could almost taste him.
She knew she must look a fright-between being tumbled and being tired and emotionally overwrought after the events with Howell, she felt as though she would simply drop where she stood.
She needed to get dressed and go. The sooner the better. She estimated she had just enough money for a room at one of the coaching inns if she did not have anything to eat tonight or on the morrow. She would head home to Surrey in the morning, and there would be an end to it.
She looked over and saw Randall's mother was now sound asleep. Randall wordlessly helped Isolde re-gather her things into her valise.
A warm hand on her elbow caused her to start. She glanced up at the huge man towering over her with whom an hour or so ago she had been entwined in bed.
This vast man in a silk dressing gown was even more alluring than the one in evening garb, for every movement of the fabric as he now walked her out into the corridor and down the hall revealed his incredible tumescence under the silk, and tantalising peeps of his warm golden flesh. Desire streaked through her again just looking at him.
He led her back to his room gently. She grabbed the bundle of clothes off the bed and clutched them to her bosom. "I'll just use your bathing chamber for a moment, if I may, and be out of your way in an instant."
"Nay, Isolde, you're not going anywhere until we've talked. We cannot talk until you're a bit more composed and rested," he said softly, taking the bundle from her and draping the things over the back of the chair so they would not get any more crumpled.
"I'm going to run a bath for you, and change these sheets. And I'm going to order you some food and a hot drink."
"Oh, no, really, I can't put you to so much trouble-"
He laughed derisively. "Trouble? After everything that's happened this evening, you can say that to me?"
She turned her face away so he would not see her tears.
But he grasped her chin in his elegant, hard fingers and forced her to look at him.
One tear trickled down her cheek. He bent his head and kissed it away. He wondered at his own gentleness even as he did so.
"Come, sweetest, don't cry. Bath and food and bed. Things will look much better in the morning, when we're both thinking more clearly and a course of action can be decided upon sensibly. I'm not going to cast you out on the street if that's what you fear. I'm most grateful for all you did for my mother. I've done my best, God knows, but perhaps I just lack the feminine touch."
"Or perhaps you're too close to her illness," she said, trying to dry her tears with the back of one hand. "You love her very much. It can cloud a person's judgment to see them so ill."
She leaned into his strong and oh so masculine body, though she told herself she ought to keep her distance. But then, they already knew each other in the Biblical sense. What was the harm in learning more about him as a human being?
"Just so," he said. "But come, bath first. I shall run it for you. Soak as long as you like. I shall see if I can't find a few little luxuries to pamper you."
"Oh, I don't need..."
He caressed her petal soft cheeks with both his thumbs. "After what has happened to you tonight, you deserve every consideration. I'm not such a brute as you think that I can ignore the treasure I took from you."
She blew out a shaky breath. "Aye, but you most certainly bestowed one upon me as well. Thank you."
He stared at her, completely at a loss. No hysterics, shame, embarrassment? "Come, the bath awaits," he said gruffly, not sure of how to deal with the tenderness he felt welling up so powerfully inside him.
She showed no shame as she removed the robe in front of him. Well, there was no point, now was there? He had seen every part of her already, tasted it too, she recalled with a blush, and it was foolish to be missish, not when she was a fallen woman.
She pushed that thought to the back of her mind. She winced a bit as she sat carelessly on the hard porcelain of the tub. On the whole she had no cause for complaint. He had been huge, but it had got easier once she had got over her trepidation, and relaxed into his rhythm as he had suggested. Then things had just soared...
She lay back and closed her eyes, feeling surrounded by Randall even though he never laid a finger on her.
Once Randall had Isolde safely in the filling tub he went to his mother's room and found some fine lavender soap and some epsom salts to soothe soreness.
Returning to the bathroom, he gave them to Isolde, and then rang for the servant for wine and hot food for them both.
While he waited, he removed the blood-stained sheets from the bed, and fetched a new set from the linen cupboard down the hall. He had learned how to make a bed and perform a hundred other little chores since his mother had fallen ill. He shuddered to think how selfish he had been before, taking all of his comforts for granted, before he had been forced to deal with real life like an adult at last.
When he had remade the bed and folded away the blood-flecked sheet into the bottom drawer, he gazed at it in confused awe, curiously at a loss as to what to do with it, he returned to the bathroom. It had not been a game after all. She really had been a virgin, and he had treated her like a woman of the world.
Guilt gnawed inside him like a rat with a week old crust of bread. "Feeling better?"
"Mmm, very sleepy now."
"The food will be here
in a moment. Here, I'll scrub your back while you're there," he offered, picking up a sponge.
"Lovely. My sisters do it for me when they're around, but they do splash and make a mess."
"You're very fortunate. They sound like a pleasant family," he said almost wistfully.
"They are," she said with a warm smile. "My brother is going through the boasting and swaggering phase at the minute. You know, he wants to be a man, especially with Papa gone, but is still such a little boy in many ways. But then we're all capable of childlike joy no matter what our age." She gave him a small smile which had his heart turning somersaults in his chest.
"Do you really think so?" he asked quietly.
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection #4 Page 9
