Layers to Peel

by Tilly Wallace

  She nearly dashed from the study. Alick's attempts to reach for her attacked her resolve to carry through the plan. Once the doors closed behind her, Isabel concentrated on her breathing and took slow, measured steps as she walked the hallways to her room. No one could see her cry. No one could suspect how her heart broke on leaving behind the man she loved.

  Only in the safety of her old room could she let the tears flow. She sobbed for what had to be done and silently begged Alick to understand and interpret her clues. She would make it up to him. Perhaps with a new ball or by learning a few tricks of her own. Then she dashed cold water over her face and erased any trace of her distress.

  Funny how her room was prepared for her with water in the bowl, travelling clothes laid on the bed, a pretty new reticule, and a book to amuse her during the forthcoming journey. Her father had thought ahead. Like having his shadow man Smith ready to fight the last duel. But she would surprise her father yet, and he would find himself caught in a carefully laid trap.

  She walked to her window and placed a hand on the thick glass. Below her, Alick emerged and climbed into the curricle. She waited for him to turn and seek out her window. Perhaps she could give him a message of reassurance, that she would always be his? She breathed on the window and then drew a heart in the mist. With every beat of her heart she willed him to turn and see her signal.

  But he didn't. His gaze stayed fixed down the drive as he cracked the reins and the chestnut trotted away. As he disappeared around the bend her impromptu declaration faded away and the glass cleared.

  A knock at the door made her draw in a sigh and stand a little straighter. It wouldn't do to be seen crying after her retreating husband. With the heels of her palms, she checked for tears and gave her cheeks a pinch to make some colour appear.

  "Enter."

  The maid pushed open the door and bobbed a curtsey. "Can I help you change, my lady? His grace wants to be away soon."

  "Of course." Mustn't stand in the way of her father's urgent business.

  Isabel was soon stripped of her plain clothes and dressed in a soft cotton outfit and sturdy wool redingote for travelling. Gathering up her purse and book, she headed downstairs and out the front door. A footman handed her up into the grand travelling coach. Her father had already taken the forward facing seat and left Isabel the rear facing one.

  Her heart ached and she was unable to meet his gaze. Fortunately, he mistook her despair for quiet acquiescence.

  "The change in you is quite remarkable." He grinned and then rapped on the roof with his cane. The driver's whip sounded and the horses trotted off down the drive.

  Each stride of the horses took her farther from Alick and deeper into uncertainty. Isabel clutched the novel in her hand. It was some popular romance that her father no doubt thought would distract her. Questions swirled in her brain and she struggled to bring them under control. She had a dual role to play: one as the dutiful daughter, the other as a spy gathering evidence against a traitor.

  Submission and deferring to her father’s opinions didn't come naturally and she would have to bite her tongue lest she give the game away too soon. A subdued woman didn't bombard her father with questions about his loyalties, shadow men, and plots. She would have to approach the issue from a different angle.

  "Might I enquire, Father, why the Earl of Linwood? I confess I know very little about him personally. I do not believe I have ever had the pleasure of his acquaintance." She kept her tone light and conversational. Let him think she simply wanted to know more about her groom.

  The duke picked up a newspaper and merely glanced across at her, before opening it out. "Linwood has a great political future ahead of him. He will be a most excellent and malleable prime minister for the right king."

  Isabel mulled those words over for a moment. She knew a little of Linwood's leanings, and they certainly weren't in favour of either King George or the Regent. Nor did she think the Tory party would ever put him forward as prime minister and he didn't have any Whig leanings. "I did not think he was a great supporter of our monarchy."

  She walked a fine line, asking questions to satisfy her own burning curiosity while maintaining the charade of the perfect, dutiful, and unquestioning daughter. Frankly, it was exhausting, and she had no idea how she would last the entire journey back to London. Hopefully her father would fall asleep and she could lose herself in her own daydreams. One that involved Alick and how he would punish her for running away without sharing her plan first. Hopefully he would bind her hands and then spank her.

  The duke's gaze narrowed and then he huffed and turned back to his paper. "There are many things in life not set in stone. Kings come and kings go."

  Ideas lit up in her mind. Did he intend Linwood to be prime minister for a very different king, like himself, perhaps? She couldn't determine why her father would risk everything in support of Napoleon. He had so much already—what prize could Bonaparte dangle that would make the duke abandon his ties of loyalty to England? Or did the French emperor hold something over her father to force his compliance?

  "I'm afraid I know so little about being a politician's wife. I would hate to fail and disappoint either you or my intended." She murmured the words and dropped her gaze to the book. This demure act was frightfully difficult and she thought she might choke on the words. But she would endure for a few hours if it meant she would be forever free of the shackles of her old life. She would embrace the new with Alick, and a world of exploration beckoned.

  She dared not look up; she could feel her father's cold gaze sweeping over her, evaluating her value before he spoke. "Damn fine job that brute did. Worth every guinea. Linwood can take over the reins and continue your education now. He will instruct you in what is expected of a politician's wife."

  Isabel bit her lower lip. Linwood would find a blade jutting from his ribs if he tried to educate her in the things Alick had revealed to her. There was only one man who could command her. Only one man was strong enough to hold her and throw her to the heavens.

  Thankfully the duke dozed off while reading the newspaper and Isabel breathed a sigh of relief. She was still trapped in the carriage, but the silence gave her time to consider how to sneak into the study. More vexing, she needed to figure out how to abscond from the confines of Mayfair once she completed her task. It was far easier to break into a prison than it was to escape.

  It was full dark and approaching midnight by the time they travelled the sixty miles from Oxford to London. Normally they would have broken the journey with an overnight stop, but the duke was in quite a rush and had arranged changes of horses rather than stopping. What urgent business had arisen, she wondered?

  Isabel's body ached with the bumps of the road, even through the plush cushions in the carriage, and her muscles protested sitting for so long. She was sure her bottom had gone numb. She didn't know as she could no longer feel her posterior.

  As she climbed into bed she was too tired to think about anything, except how much she longed to feel Alick's large body wrapped around her.

  25

  Alick

  * * *

  If it hadn't been for Ianthe's horse and curricle waiting in the driveway, Alick would have torn off his clothes, changed form, and disappeared into the forest never to be seen again. The wolf howled in anguish as its mate was ripped from its side and walked away. He fought himself, trying to hold onto some sliver of control as the beast inside him went mad at losing Isabel.

  Alick had no conscious memory of turning the curricle back to the lodge or directing the horse. His vision misted and swam before him and he only had one thought uppermost in his mind: finding enough alcohol to drink himself senseless until the pain ebbed. If that were even possible. Then he planned to disappear into the Highlands to become another wild lycanthrope to terrify children when the moon rose high in a cloudless sky.

  Quinn was in the yard and took the reins from Alick's numb fingers. The younger man glanced up and then shouted for Ianthe a
s Alick climbed down.

  Ianthe appeared, followed by the others. The courtesan put a hand on Alick's arm and frowned. "Where's Isabel?"

  The name was like a hot knife through his gut. He dropped his gaze to the dirt. That was where he belonged, in the dirt at Lady Isabel's feet. What a fool, to believe a noblewoman like her would have dallied overlong with him. If he dropped to his knees, would he shatter and spread over the earth, returning to the dirt from whence he came?

  He couldn't meet Ianthe's gaze, his own fixated on a pebble. Would the pain ever end or would he need to carve his own dead heart out to finish the job she started? "The duke crooked his finger and Isabel has run to obey. She has decided to return to her previous life."

  "What?" Hamish appeared and the yard suddenly seemed full of nosy friends and family. Numerous questions were thrust upon Alick at once. He pushed everyone out of the way and headed inside. Dimly he heard their footsteps behind him. He needed a drink—no, a bottle. Several of them, all lined up and ready to try and fill the aching void in his chest.

  In the kitchen he flung open the pantry door and grabbed the bottle from the top shelf. He didn't bother with a glass; what was the point? He was no fine noble—may as well embrace the brute he was and drink straight from the bottle. He uncorked the bottle and tipped back his head, pouring it straight into his open mouth. The liquor burned down his gullet. The only shame was it didn't put fire to his body and end his misery in a pyre.

  A third of a bottle of whisky disappeared into his stomach before he turned. Everyone had filed in and stood, waiting for an explanation. Blast them. He was in no mood to talk, but knowing these women they would hound him even once he dropped into a drunken stupor. He may as well give them ghoulish delight while he waited for the alcohol to wipe away his loss.

  He took the next bottle from the shelf and set it down on the table. Ewan slid him a glass. It seemed such a waste of effort, pouring the liquor into a tumbler to then drink it. Why add an extra step when he could wrap his lips around the open neck of glass?

  To reinforce his civilising point, the lieutenant poured the amber liquid into the tumbler and then edged the bottle to the middle of the table. Alick heaved a sigh, leaned his elbows on the table, and swallowed the contents of the glass in one swig.

  "More. Or I don't say a word." He pointed from glass to bottle to senior officer.

  "What do you mean Isabel has returned to her previous life?" Aster asked.

  "Her father offered her old life back and she leapt at the chance." Alick emptied the next glass and tapped the side.

  Ianthe snorted. "I may not have known her for long, but I would never have called her fickle. I can't see her running back to her gilded existence."

  That's exactly what Alick had thought. Wrongly, as it turned out. Perhaps the taste of life with him had proven too repugnant and she longed to return to luxury, ease, and fripperies. Life with him would always be a hard road, although he would have shared whatever he possessed with her.

  Aster sat down next to him and reached out for his hand. "What exactly did Isabel say to you?"

  Alick knew exactly what she had said. The words had been branded in his mind as each syllable tore his heart from his chest. "She said, ‘given the current circumstances, I think it is the better course of action if I return with Father.’"

  Aster squeezed his hand and then let his go to clasp her own on the table top. "Did the duke leave you two alone to talk at any point, before Isabel made her decision?"

  Alick snorted into his glass. "No. He didn't even want me there, seemed rather put out that I accompanied my wife."

  Aster took the glass from his limp fingers and set it down. "So the only conversation you had with Isabel, your mate, was in front of her father?"

  "Aye." He needed alcohol, not pointless talk. She didn't need to rub it in that he found his mate only for her to reject him and walk away. Why wouldn't Aster leave him alone to drown in the bottom of an amber ocean?

  Aster made a noise and then rose from the table.

  "She's your mate?" Hamish asked from across the pine table.

  "Was. She isn't any more. That's if it even counts when only one of you feels the bond." Now that Aster wasn't looking he reclaimed the tumbler and filled it from the rapidly emptying bottle. "My wolf claimed her but she ripped out my heart and threw it at me."

  Hamish's brows drew together, but before he could answer, Aster reappeared with a sheet of paper, quill, and a little cut glass bottle of ink. She sat down next to Alick and dipped the quill in the ink. He lost interest in what she was doing since she was no longer bombarding him with questions about how his mate could so easily turn her back on him and fly back to her gilded cage. Good. They could all bugger off and leave him alone.

  Aster drew a line across the page and then one down the middle. "We're going to play a game of word association."

  "Sod off. I'm not in a game-playing mood." While he knew deep in the shattered remnants of his heart the woman was trying to help, the assistance he needed rested in the bottle in his hands, not in some silly word game.

  Hamish growled a low warning. "Manners, Alick. Give Aster a chance."

  Aster continued, "I will say a word and I want you to tell me if that word matches Isabel, or is most certainly not Isabel."

  He blew out a sigh. He wanted to crawl into the dog kennels and huddle far away from their concerned gazes, not have salt rubbed into his wounds by discussing Izzy-Cat's qualities.

  "Make a start, Aster. We will play even if the drunken oaf won't," Ewan said.

  Aster held her quill poised over the paper and called out the first word: "Spirited."

  "Isabel." Her name flew from his lips, propelled by his tongue that had to wrap around the syllables one more time. It was cruel of Aster, to remind him of how his Izzy-Cat overflowed with fiery spirit. The next word came while he was still remembering just how spirited she could be. Particularly when naked.

  "Demure."

  "Not!" Ianthe called out as laughter broke out around the table.

  If Isabel ever played demure it would only be to get close enough to drive her blade into your gut. While a fog tried to descend over his brain, he was mildly curious as to what long game Aster was playing. She wrote the words under one column or the other. Whatever was she up to? Making sure nothing of his heart remained? It felt like torture to be reminded of all he had lost.

  "Quick-witted," Aster called out the third word.

  Alick was most certainly not feeling quick-witted.

  It was Quinn who shouted, "Isabel."

  Aster wrote the word directly underneath spirited. Then she announced another. "Obedient."

  "Not." Alick nearly choked on that one. Never would Isabel be obedient. He flexed his strength to control the woman, and even that was with her permission. Even tied to the bedhead, she still tried to dictate events.

  "Resourceful."

  Another word, another reflection on an aspect of the woman he had loved and lost. His oh-so-clever wife who could break into houses and use a blade and bow. "Isabel."

  "Dutiful." Another loud burst of laughter came in answer, and Aster added that word to the NOT column.

  "Planning something," Aster said.

  "Isabel," Alick answered by rote. There always seemed to be something ticking away in Isabel's mind. Then his brain paused, the wolf pricked its ears, and he had to ask himself to repeat the question.

  "What?" He turned to stare at Aster, his gaze dropping to the neatly inscribed words.

  "Planning something," Aster repeated, a gleam in her dark violet gaze. "Do you think Isabel is up to something?"

  The woman sitting beside him was far more intelligent than any man he knew, and that included his cousin, Hamish. Though Alick's fuddled mind couldn't follow her lead, the niggle told him she was on a trail he couldn't detect. "Don't be daft. What could Isabel possibly be plotting?"

  Aster smiled and laid down the quill. She reached out for Alick's hand and took i
t in hers. "Isabel is your mate and, having witnessed you exchange your vows last night, I believe she would never simply turn her back and walk away from you. Is it at all possible that the quick-witted and resourceful Isabel saw an opportunity to return to London to search her father's study for certain letters, without attracting undue attention?"

  Alick's mind stopped working. He stared at Aster as the meaning to her words slowly filtered through the haze. Could it be true or was this another cruel trick? Perhaps the fates played with him and put the boot in while he grovelled in the dirt?

  He swallowed and looked at his family, ringed around him. Lord, how he wanted to hope they were right—but did his desperation just confirm he was an idiot? Could his very clever mate have seized on an opportunity, but didn't have time to communicate the particulars to him? "You think she is up to something?"

  Hamish waved a hand in the air and drew his attention. "Did we not discuss how the duke might have moved the letters Isabel once saw? We even proposed searching the Mayfair house, but we decided it was too risky as neither of you had a valid reason to be there."

  "Aye. That we did." He mulled over their words and compared it to the little he had learned of the woman who possessed his heart. He swallowed and dared to meet Aster's midnight gaze.

  "Don't be cruel, Aster. I am dying inside without her. Do you truly think there is a chance she did not want to leave me?" He had to say the words, no matter how pathetic the others thought it made him. He loved the woman. If there was a chance she never intended to leave him, he would grasp hold of it, however tenuous.

  Ianthe moved to behind him and draped her arms over his shoulders and brushed her cheek next to his, whispering words that blew on the dead ember in his gut. "That woman loves you. If she spurned you in front of her father, I would wager it was a performance to fool the duke. He wanted her submissive—what better way to prove it than returning quietly to her cage when commanded?"