by Liz Carlyle
Anne lifted the pot and tipped out a graceful stream. “Has my cousin ever told you, Isabella,” she said nonchalantly, “why he and I never married?”
“I’m sure it is none of my concern,” said Isabella.
Anne laughed and put down Isabella’s coffee. “Well done!” she said. “But has he told you?”
“He told me you fell in love with Sir Philip,” Isabella prevaricated.
“And—?” Anne settled a little ponderously back into her chair, then smoothed her loose skirts over her belly. “Pray do not tell me he blamed the whole debacle on me and suggested I was inconstant?”
“No.” Isabella let her gaze drop to the tablecloth. “No, he said that he was. And he told me about Diana. And the . . . terrible things that happened. I shan’t ever repeat it, of course.”
Anne gave a dismissive toss of her hand. “I don’t give a farthing if you do,” she said. “Diana is dead, God rest her soul, and Aunt Hepplewood has gone on to her great reward.”
“You did not like her,” Isabella blurted. “Diana, I mean. I’m sorry; that did not come out well.”
“No, I suppose I did not like Diana,” said Anne musingly. “Aunt Hepplewood was just a product of her generation and class, I suppose. But Diana was always . . . conniving. I despise sly people. I should far rather a person be outright venal, and in my face with it.”
Isabella was shocked by Anne’s vehemence. “I beg your pardon,” she murmured. “I was of the impression she was . . . shattered, really.”
“Well, she was mad as a hatter, if that’s what you mean,” said Anne with asperity. “But that does not preclude being sly, does it?”
“Well, no,” Isabella admitted.
“As to Tony’s view, he always did have a blind spot where Diana was concerned—and she played to it, my dear. That wheedling girl nearly ruined his life, and he can feel nothing but guilt and sorrow.”
“But it does sound as if her life was hard,” said Isabella.
“Yes, well, whose is not, at some point?” Anne had warmed to her topic. “Look at yourself, for example.”
“At . . . me?”
“Yes, you,” said Anne, tossing a hand in Isabella’s direction. “You had a difficult marriage and were left an impoverished widow. You were turned out of your own home and burdened with two children to raise. You have learnt to work for a living, when you were brought up to live an entirely different sort of life. Did you consider murdering anyone over it?”
“Well, yes,” Isabella admitted, forcing a smile. “My cousin Everett.”
Anne laughed. “Oh, Isabella, you haven’t got it in you,” she said. “And you certainly have not tried to trick someone who did not love you into marrying you.”
Again, Isabella’s gaze dropped, and she could feel her face warming. “Is that what Diana did?”
“Yes, and she—”
But Anne’s words were cut off by boots thundering back down the main staircase. An instant later, Hepplewood appeared in the doorway, filling it with his height and his shoulders.
“I beg your pardon,” he said in some haste. “Isabella, I fear urgent business calls me back to London. And I think . . . yes, I think that you had better go, too.”
Isabella pushed back her chair a little awkwardly. Hepplewood looked more than a little distracted. A few moments earlier, he had not wished to let her go. Now, it seemed, he could not wait to be shed of her.
“Well, certainly I shall go,” she said, rising. “Thank you for having us. Do we leave at once, then?”
“No, no, in the morning,” he said, waving her back into her chair. “And I do apologize for pressing you. I know ladies require time to—”
“I do not,” Isabella calmly interjected. “I came here on no notice, and I’m quite capable of leaving the same way.”
He turned his gaze on his cousin. “Anne?” he said. “You are welcome to stay, of course.”
“What, with the life of the party leaving?” Anne pushed back her chair. “And taking my new bosom beau with him? Thank you, no. My work here is done.”
“You’re a good sport, cuz.” Then he cut them a little bow. “Well, until dinner then, ladies. I must get a message to Jervis.”
And then he was gone, the hems of his elegant frock coat almost flying out behind him.
Anne and Isabella exchanged uneasy glances.
“Well, that bodes ill,” said Anne, heaving herself up again. “I supposed we’d better get packing.”
CHAPTER 19
Isabella’s evening passed no less restlessly than her day had done, and even before going up to bed, she knew she was destined to rise on the occasion of her final day at Greenwood Farm with a heavy heart.
As much as she had hoped he might, Hepplewood said nothing of coming to her bed one last time. Indeed, he scarcely spoke throughout dinner and retired to his study immediately thereafter, pleading letters that needed to be written.
Anne waved him off, and together she and Isabella spent the evening flipping through magazines. It was as if Hepplewood’s inexplicable haste to be gone had cast a pall over the ordinarily exuberant crowd, and in the end, Isabella and Anne both went up to bed early.
After tucking the unhappy girls in, and barely forestalling an outright temper tantrum from Lissie over their upcoming departure, Isabella went straight to her room to simply stare at the empty bed and its wicked little night tables. The memories of the previous evening flooded back, making her blush despite the fact there was no one there to see.
She forced the heated memories away, drew on her plainest nightdress and wrapper, then poured herself a glass of wine from the decanter Mrs. Yardley kept filled on the dressing table. Cradling it low, she went to the deep window and stared out into a night so brilliantly moonlit she could see all the way to the wood that spanned the back of the stable yard.
Something Anne had said at breakfast kept nagging at her.
There must be money involved.
And Anne might be right. Perhaps Isabella had needed some distance from Everett in order to question it. Pretty little girls were tuppence a dozen in London, and pretty little tweeny maids could be virtually imprisoned beneath a man’s roof for not much more than that.
Why would Everett go to such lengths over Georgie and Jemma? And why would Lady Meredith keep pressing her to marry him? It had to be more than pride and ruffled feathers.
No, Anne was right, somehow. Isabella’s fear of Everett’s vices had made her panic and jump to conclusions. She had missed the forest for the trees.
Hepplewood would aid her in thwarting Everett and his mother, she’d come to trust, insofar as he was able. But the law was the law, and she had been chasing the matter around in her head for some time now, always returning to the same terrible conclusion.
If Everett followed through with his threat of Chancery, Isabella could see but two choices left to her. Marry Everett in order to stay with the girls. Or sell what was left of her mother’s things and book the first passages to the United States she could get.
Not Ontario, she had decided; the long arm of the British judiciary could too easily reach her there. But the western territories, she’d read, were a lawless wasteland, direly in need of teachers.
It was a sickening thought, leaving England.
Leaving Anthony.
On impulse, she downed the rest of her wine and, after listening to be sure the household had settled, went down to see if a light still shone beneath his study door. She was not entirely certain what she meant to say, but she needed desperately to see him alone one last time.
At her light knock, he bade her enter, and she went in to find him at his desk.
He was dressed for the ease of his office, without a coat or neck cloth. His shirt was open at the throat, his burgundy silk waistcoat snug and elegant. Crisply starched shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow, revealing the corded muscles of his arms, lightly dusted with dark hair.
Before him, in a pool of lamplight, lay a pair of
large, rather ominous-looking sidearms, one of them in pieces. The tang of solvent was sharp in the air.
He had risen at once. “My carriage pistols,” he said in response to her widening eyes. “I’m just cleaning them.”
“Heavens,” she said, circling around to better study the impressive weapons. “Expecting those highwaymen after all?”
His smile was muted. “I just didn’t think you and the girls would have much use for them tomorrow.”
“No. No, I should hope not.”
“Isabella?” She lifted her gaze to see him looking quite intently at her. “Was there something you wanted?”
Yes, you, she nearly blurted.
But the sight of the large pistols had thrown her—indeed, Hepplewood’s swift change of plans had thrown her, along with his oddly focused mood. And suddenly, she felt hesitant to question his choices.
After all, it was precisely what she’d asked him to do; to take her home to London.
She lifted her eyes to his. “Anthony, may I ask you something?”
“Certainly.”
“This haste to return to Town,” she said, “has it anything to do with Everett?”
He hesitated. “Yes, in a way,” he said. “I’ve had Jervis poking about. He thinks he may have learnt something—I’m not sure what, or precisely what will come of it.”
“But it isn’t about the girls, really, is it?” she said pensively. “Anne got me thinking this morning after you left us at breakfast. She’s less naive, I think, than I.”
He gave a dark laugh. “Anne works with politicians,” he said. “Nothing crushes naiveté more thoroughly, my dear. But what did she say to trouble you?”
“She remarked that Everett’s behavior must have something to do with money,” said Isabella. “Does it?”
He hesitated, a frown tugging at his mouth. “I cannot yet be certain, my dear,” he said. “May we leave it at that for now? Can you trust me to uncover the truth? Isabella, do you trust me to deal with Tafford?”
“Yes,” she said, the word coming swift and certain. “You cannot alter the laws of England, of course, but to the extent it is humanly possible—”
“Humanly possible, Isabella, suggests something is impossible,” he interjected, his voice lethally soft, “when almost nothing is. It’s the sort of thing spineless men say when they don’t want to exert enough effort or spend enough money or suffer enough pain to see a thing through.”
His certainty made her breath catch. “What are you saying?”
“That I will do what I must,” he answered, “to keep your family safe and to keep you happy. Never doubt it.”
He’d said similar things before, but for the first time Isabella realized Hepplewood was not just serious but deadly serious. His words were not platitudes or slick reassurances meant merely to land her in his bed. Besides, she’d already been there—and she’d gone easily, too.
She pressed her shoulders back and found a calmer voice. “You are quite right,” she said, “and I thank you. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve such devotion, but—”
“You are mine,” he interjected, setting the gun down with a heavy thunk. “You are mine, Isabella, and those girls, by extension, are mine, too. Just as Lissie is yours. And we look after what is ours.”
“Yes, but—”
“But just think how fast you ran to her when she fell off that wall last week,” he said, gently cutting her off. “How quickly you snatched her up. Then think, Isabella, what you would have done had she fallen the other way—into the path of some carriage barreling round the drive, for example. You’d have flung yourself over, too, I don’t doubt, trying to save her. That’s what we do when something is ours to protect.”
Isabella could only stare at him and marvel that she had ever thought him shallow. Marveled he could think himself selfish in any way at all. He would shoot Everett dead in a dark alley, she suddenly understood, were that, God forbid, what had to be done.
It might even be the reason he was cleaning his pistols. It was at once a chilling and a comforting thought. “Anthony, you are a blessing to me,” she said, slowly returning her gaze to his.
“A strange choice of words, love.”
“But true.” She smiled. “By the way, you asked me something this morning,” she quietly continued. “Something important. You asked if Diana changed anything between us.”
“I did.” After a moment’s hesitation, he went on. “Well, Isabella? Does it?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t know, exactly, what there is between us, Anthony, or what will become of it. But I know my feelings will not change. Not ever. And I just . . . I just needed to tell you that. In case it was not obvious.”
“Thank you,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft.
Then he pulled her into his embrace and kissed her in that deep, soul-encompassing way of his. She loved his touch. Loved the way he banded her against him with arms like iron. The way his fingers speared into her hair to still her to his kiss.
As if she needed stilling.
As if she needed any encouragement whatever.
She was, in fact, kissing him back just as carnally, thrusting her tongue over his teeth to stroke and twine with his. She felt him shudder, then he sat down, pulling her into his lap.
Still kissing him, Isabella straddled him on her knees.
“My love,” he said, kissing his way down her throat. He paused to pull free the little tie at her throat, his tongue playing over the V of her collarbone.
She pulled away, bracketing his face between her hands. “I was so afraid,” she whispered, brushing her lips over his forehead, “that you would not come to me tonight.”
He kissed her again more deeply, his hand fisting in the hem of her nightgown. He gave it a hard jerk, ripping a stitch. Isabella’s fingers went to the buttons of his trousers, working furiously.
After pushing a little madly at the layers of his clothing, her breath already rough and a little too fast, Isabella rose up onto her knees. Her need for him was like an instant flame when it flared to life, yet it burned tonight slow and steady.
“Anthony,” she softly pleaded.
He entered her gently at first, and then all the way on his second stroke, suppressing his triumphant grunt against the turn of her neck.
They loved one another at a leisurely pace, neither speaking, but instead merely looking deep into one another’s eyes, the back of the chair faintly creaking with their rhythm. Isabella stroked his face, dragged her fingers through the thick tangle of his curls, then bent her head to brush her lips round the shell of his ear.
She loved him; loved the way he smelled. The way he felt inside her. The way he measured his every stroke, judging her need and her pleasure.
She loved him.
And when they came together quietly, with no more fanfare than a joyous, bone-deep shudder, Isabella buried her face against the bristle of his neck and told him so.
THEY MADE FOR quite an entourage the following morning, preparing to return to London more or less as they had come, this time with Hepplewood strapping a pair of large, bulging saddlebags onto his beast of a horse, and the boys shoving their now stubble-haired dog into their mother’s carriage.
This time, Hepplewood had procured a wagon for the baggage, and his elegant traveling coach stood in the carriageway near Anne’s, its black paint and gold crest gleaming, the doors thrown open to reveal the velvet banquettes. The crowning glory, however, was the massive dollhouse carried up from Mr. Yardley’s shop in the breaking dawn, strapped carefully atop it.
Yardley tied the last rope, truing the bundle up tight. “There, Miss Georgina!” he said, clambering down via the coachman’s box. “That’ll hold her ’til you get home to London.”
In the carriage drive, Isabella bent to whisper in Georgie’s ear. “You must thank Mr. Yardley for his hard work,” she said, “and Lord Hepplewood for his great kindness.”
Eyes still wid
e with awe, the child shook Mr. Yardley’s large paw when he extended it down to her. “Thank you, sir,” she whispered. “It’s wonderful.”
“Ho, what’s this?” said Hepplewood, turning from the saddlebags and Colossus. “I won’t be content, Georgie, with a mere handshake for my part in that fine piece of architecture.”
He had already knelt down, one knee bent to the ground. Georgina rushed to throw her arms about his neck. “It is the best thing ever on earth!” she whispered shyly. “And just like Lissie’s! Thank you, sir.”
It was, perhaps, the most words the child had ever spoken to an adult outside her family. Lissie was hanging out of the carriage, looking on with impatience but not, thank heaven, any apparent jealousy.
“Hurry, Georgie,” she scolded. “Climb up with me and Pickles. I’ve brought checkers.”
Hepplewood let the child go, looking up into Isabella’s face with some intense yet inscrutable emotion in his eyes. Then slowly he rose and adjusted the hat Georgie had knocked askew.
“Make ready, Marsh,” he said to the elderly coachman, who climbed slowly onto the box. “I don’t mean us to stop until we see the outskirts of London, God willing.”
“Yes, m’lord,” said the coachman cheerfully.
On the other side of the drive, Anne was helping Nanny Seawell situate the twins inside the other carriage. Isabella moved to go up the steps, but suddenly Hepplewood caught her arm and drew her toward the back of the carriage, beyond the line of sight.
“Isabella,” he rasped, his hands tight on her upper arms, “tell me you don’t regret this. Coming here. Any of this. Tell me you meant what you said last night.”
She slowly nodded. “I meant it all.”
He kissed her then, swift and hard, releasing her just as swiftly.
“Nothing has changed, Isabella,” he said, his voice quiet but grim. “Nothing has changed for me, either. It never will. No matter what happens after today, you are still mine. Do you understand me?”
Her heart wrenching in her chest, Isabella managed to nod again.
Then he strode back around to the still-open door, pausing just long enough to hand her up inside. The carriage jerked into motion, harnesses jingling, and set off at a slow roll.
