‘Don’t expect me to argue with you, my love, but I think you need to sit down and take a sip of your coffee,’ Charlotte said as if she was afraid Isabella might break if she didn’t. ‘There’s no point being ill for the sake of a man who used his own son as a weapon to beat his wife with.’
‘Aye, breathe in, Isabella,’ Ben ordered sharply.
At least the urgency in his deep voice broke through the watery unreality she had almost got lost in and Isabella gasped as if he’d slapped her. Air rushed into her lungs and she swayed as the reality of this cheerful, intimate family room reformed. She was back from the edge of fainting for the first time in her life and the world she’d come back to was a different place.
‘I’ll be perfectly fine in a moment,’ she said and took a few sips of coffee to prove it.
‘Good, you gave us quite a shock by reacting as if the old viper has taken a potshot at you instead of his wife and son. I’m sorry not to have seen how serious it was when I first lit upon it,’ Charlotte said with a bewildered flick of the hand at the sheet of newsprint lying on the floor where she’d dropped it when she started to her feet to catch Isabella if she really lost her senses.
‘As well I was with you when I heard this instead of getting it from a chance-met acquaintance eager to spread the latest delicious morsel of scandal.’
‘Since you reacted as if he took a shot at you instead of his son I have to agree,’ Ben said.
‘My feelings are my problem,’ Isabella challenged his giant stature and fierce protectiveness. ‘The last thing I want is you standing over Wulf glowering at him or dashing off to make Kit to do it instead. I know my own mind, so until Wulf Fitz-whoever-he-is-now makes up his mind how he feels about me and the world, I expect you to respect my judgement and leave him be.’
‘You do like a challenge, don’t you?’ Charlotte put in mildly enough and Wulf was right, her friend did seem to have strong suspicions about their feelings for one another, whatever he actually felt.
‘The tittle-tattlers will be nigh breathless with self-importance when they hurry out to spread this folly abroad,’ Ben warned. She could see he wasn’t happy about her choices, but he’d sat back in his chair to brood about them, so she supposed he must have listened.
‘Never mind about them; the Countess and her daughters are my friends and I want to help if I can,’ Isabella said.
‘Best get them somewhere quiet where nobody knows who they are and make certain it remains that way,’ Ben replied.
‘No, they must stay where they are and pretend they knew all along. That way it might seem like a wearisome matter they all got tired of long ago. They need to shrug it off as if they’re surprised the world took Lord Carrowe’s word against his wife in the first place and it’s always been obvious he was lying,’ Charlotte argued.
‘So there’s nothing we can do?’ Isabella asked, feeling useless.
‘We could invite the girls to stay with us for a few days, Izzie, but I don’t know if they will agree to come. They seem devoted to their brother and will probably want to stay at Carrowe House to show the world they were never ashamed of him in the first place, so why would they run away now?’
‘I’m sure it would help him to know his sisters have at least the offer of a safe place to get away if they choose to,’ Ben said gently.
It didn’t feel like enough and even the thought of Wulf’s shock, bitterness and betrayal when he read his father’s chilling statement made Isabella clench her fists. She desperately wanted to be there for him, not his sisters. She cared about them, but she would be able to offer Wulf comfort when nobody else could. The man who sired him had only owned up to him because he thought the precious Haile succession might be in danger one day. There was no love in it; not even a single word of remorse or acknowledgement the old Earl was a sinner and a monster in life and intended to carry on being one after death with this hurtful, self-justifying piece of bluster. And of course it was true. Her heart sank even further than when he left her standing like an idiot on the terrace at Haile Carr, feeling as if she’d been struck by a natural wonder and the world would never look the same again. The feeling she had about him the instant their eyes met had sat uneasily on an Alstone sister who swore never to want a man as urgently as she wanted Wulf FitzDevelin. She didn’t take the time to look deeper into his dark looks and the silver-blue eyes he inherited from his mother sharpened and edited by wary cynicism so they were uniquely his back then.
He was the man she tried so hard to wish she’d never met—bastard Wulf who defied her to think him less than his brothers because he was born in the wrong bed. A man who stood proud and challenging after that moment of true shock when Magnus spoke and he realised exactly who he’d kissed under the hot August stars; a man who dared her to suddenly find him unworthy of her heat and desire because he was her fiancé’s half-brother. That last part of it blinded her with shame, but she should have looked harder, should have known there was nothing simple about him or his family. He carried his mother’s stamp so distinctively his father must have seen it at his birth and realised he could take revenge on his wife in the cruellest way possible. That wicked old man knew his lies wouldn’t be challenged by a Haile nose or their dark brown eyes. Even now she was finding excuses for her refusal to see past an accident of birth by arguing the Countess should have fought for her son. Nature gave her husband the perfect cover for his ill intent, but she could have challenged him. And how could the bitter, jealous monster the late Earl had become disown his own son simply to punish Lady Carrowe for daring to love a better man? Knowing Wulf’s mother, her lover would have been a better man; she wouldn’t have loved him if he wasn’t.
Isabella tried hard to see past her hatred of the old Earl. Maybe there was the faint shadow of a better man under his misplaced pride and selfishness once upon a time. At least that would account for the Countess marrying him in the first place. Their children had so much talent and character it would be a freak of nature if every scrap came from their mother. Most did, of course, but the man who wrote this terrible admission of what he’d done to his son also sired at least five good and clever people. She couldn’t claim to know the new Earl, or Lady Carrowe’s elder daughter—they were older than the Hailes she knew and rather aloof. Yet all the Hailes she did know had a deep integrity and humanity that made their father’s folly seem even worse. Perhaps they showed the world what their father might have been before he wasted his promise so terribly it was all gone by the time he denounced his third son as a bastard.
‘If the Earl had proof his wife’s lover was dead a year before his son came into the world, she could have used it to defend herself and her baby against his wicked lies,’ she said at last.
Ben nodded his agreement; ‘Common justice argues she was wrong not to, but who knows what he did to keep her quiet?’
‘It’s not about justice, it’s about control,’ Charlotte said with a shudder and Isabella remembered her friend knew all about that from the wrong side. ‘The great and noble can say what they like,’ Charlotte went on, ‘because the world listens to those with a title. The rest of us endure their arrogance and pretend it doesn’t hurt us.’
‘But it still does. I’d never ignore or slight you, my Amazon Queen, whoever told me I ought to,’ Ben said and met his tall and vital wife’s eyes with love and passion and a fierce protectiveness in his own.
‘Sometimes you two make me realise how lucky I am in my family,’ Isabella said because there wasn’t much point pretending she wasn’t here.
‘Then sometimes we should be quiet. We’re more than fortunate in the one we’ve made together, as well as in the love of Ben’s natural father, his stepmama and his two little half-brothers.’
‘It was a shame my first half-brother didn’t turn out so well, but Charlotte is right, Izzie, we are blessed.’
‘And at least none of us had to own up to a father
like Lord Carrowe,’ Isabella said and almost managed to make it a joke. Yet the bite of that self-serving announcement still hurt her on Wulf’s behalf. She had to blink back tears of fury and the sort of pity he’d hate.
Wulf was the man she loved, if only he loved her back. There was a slender chance he might have let himself to begin with, but now he’d think he was cursed tenfold. At war with himself for being his father’s son, he’d step back from any woman who might want him as the third son of an earl now. Wulf was so much his own man she mentally raged at him before he could even say it. As if his birth made the slightest difference to her. She loved him and would go on doing so when he didn’t offer for her now he was legitimate and a suitably noble match for the late Earl of Carnwood’s youngest granddaughter. He was a stubborn idiot who thought he knew what was best for her and somehow that made her love him even more, so she was clearly a hopeless case.
‘I must find Heloise,’ she said numbly, ‘My new gowns are ready to be fitted, so I might as well go to the dressmakers’ while they’re quiet. The polite world will soon flock to London and the seamstresses will be so busy they might rush the alterations.’ It was the best excuse she could come up with on the spur of the moment, but luckily Charlotte didn’t have time to sit about waiting for seamstresses to hem a gown or alter a sleeve and she didn’t suggest coming along.
‘Are you sure you’re well enough to stand still for hours while they tweak your new gowns until they’re perfect, Izzie?’ she said.
‘I might as well be busy and at least Heloise will be happy in the temples of fashion.’
‘To make up for all the hours she’s spent sitting waiting for you at Carrowe House of late?’ Charlotte said as if warning Isabella even the most discreet lady’s maid might not keep those hours to herself much longer.
Chapter Fourteen
Sending Heloise to the workrooms of the most exclusive Bond Street dressmaker with a minute map of measurements and a list of required alterations wasn’t devious, it was necessary, Isabella told herself. She ghosted down the side roads and alleys that would get her and the taciturn footman Miranda and Kit had left in London round to the back of Carrowe House without being seen. Yet again there would be clusters of interested idlers outside the front, watching liveried footmen hammer on the vast doors with calling cards while their masters and mistresses watched from carriages and expected the Hailes to naively let them in.
She knew this visit was ill-timed and probably wrong, but she still needed to see Wulf. The late Earl’s appalling announcement cut to the very foundations of who he was and she cared about the man Wulf made himself and never mind the Earl’s nasty little games. He could call himself what he liked, he was Wulf and that was all that mattered to her. He wouldn’t want to hear her say so right now and might not believe a word she said, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have to say it.
‘Ah, I thought Jem or his mother must be back earlier than expected,’ Magnus told her when he cracked open the kitchen door, then reluctantly held it wide enough for Isabella and her stern protector to slip in before he closed and barred it against invaders again. ‘They went out marketing for us, since the girls can’t show their faces for fear of being mobbed by the curious.’
Isabella knew Jem was the name of Wulf’s manservant, or friend or whatever the lad and his mother were. She suspected they could have met when Wulf was a wild boy alone on the streets, since he treated them more like family than servants. Even hardened by the Earl’s mistreatment Wulf must have been an innocent in that underworld. She was glad he’d found at least two friends, although Jem must have been little more than a baby back then. Isabella thought it unlikely an eager tabby or sneaky recorder of other people’s misery would get a word out of them about Wulf or his family or indeed anything much at all.
‘Gregory is large and strong and very close-mouthed, aren’t you, Gregory?’ Isabella said and her companion nodded to prove it. ‘He will hold this door against all comers for as long as you need him to, but you’d best give him a good description of both the Caudles, Mr Haile, or he won’t let them in either.’
‘I suppose I would be better employed elsewhere,’ Magnus said as if even today he didn’t have the strength to argue and she obviously wasn’t going to leave. He knew her well enough not to accuse her of idle curiosity and she desperately hoped Wulf agreed with him.
‘Then I shall accompany you upstairs,’ she said and waited as patiently as she could while Magnus gave Gregory a detailed account of Jem and his mother. They left Gregory glaring at the closed door with the suspicious determination of a medieval retainer relishing the prospect of seeing off an invading army.
‘He doesn’t get out much,’ she said when they were out of earshot, ‘and I had to see Wulf.
‘He’s not feeling sociable,’ he warned and led her through the labyrinth of kitchens and storerooms and up to once-grand reception rooms.
‘I expect you’re right, but I still need to see him.’
‘It’s been a heavy blow; he’s not quite himself.’
‘That’s not his fault, though, is it? You have to tell him what your father did last summer, Magnus. He won’t feel he can trust anyone if he has to find out from someone else.’
‘He’s got enough to cope with right now.’
‘Honestly, you Hailes are stubborn as mules. I should have known you were full brothers the moment I met him.’
‘We’re like the old Earl?’ he said, looking revolted.
‘No, you’re both good men and very like each other under the skin.’
‘Wulf is definitely a good man, but I’m not so sure about me,’ he said with something like his old rueful and charming smile.
‘Weren’t you supposed to make sure nobody got in to gawp at us, Gus?’
The fury in Wulf’s voice said he was already in a fine temper after reading his father’s iniquitous notice and now he was jealous as well. ‘Wulf,’ she greeted him flatly.
‘Miss Alstone, how delightfully unexpected,’ he replied with mocking politeness and an exaggeratedly elegant bow.
‘I suspect you are castaway, Mr FitzDevelin, so I shall come back when you’re sober enough to know a hawk from a handsaw.’
‘I’m not sure it’s polite to call my brother a handsaw and please don’t trouble yourself. Mr FitzDevelin will not be at home. He never was at home here and he certainly isn’t now.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ she said impatiently.
‘If I waited for you to do it, I’d die of old age,’ he grumbled half-heartedly.
‘You don’t need any help with that,’ she argued and maybe he needed a nice refreshing argument to make him drag his head out of the nearest brandy bottle.
‘I’m drunk,’ he informed her grumpily.
‘And that excuses you from being anything else, does it? When did they write that into the rules for gentlemen, Mr Haile?’
‘Don’t ask Magnus how I should be; he doesn’t know how I feel.’
‘I wasn’t asking him.’
‘Oh, the devil. I’m him, aren’t I?’
‘The devil? Not quite yet...’ Isabella hesitated to call him that by his true name again and compromised on ‘...sir.’
‘Give me a few more hours and another bottle and I’ll be halfway to hell, so I’ll be sure to give him your regards,’ Wulf said and Isabella almost wished she’d left him to escape into a bottle for a few more hours.
‘You are Mr Haile, though, Wulf,’ Magnus pointed out helpfully.
‘Thank you, I’ve just found out that mad old fool was my father after all and you’re expecting me to be happy about it?’
‘He was my father all my life, why should you get off so lightly?’
‘Oh, Gus,’ Wulf said and lurched a little as he strode down the remaining stairs to hug his brother so fiercely Magnus nearly toppl
ed over in his weakened state. ‘How the hell have you lived with knowing it all this time? He’s put the devils that ran him into me as well now with that cursed announcement of his.’
‘You live with it by not letting him do it, Little Brother Wulf. By trying everything you can think of to make yourself a better man,’ Magnus said steadily.
There was the truly kind, honourable and determined man Magnus was before life and love and his father tried so hard to break him. ‘Your brother is right,’ Isabella intervened when Wulf opened his mouth to argue.
‘And if you think he’s so wonderful, why didn’t you marry him?’ he growled and glared at them both.
‘Mind your own business,’ she told him loftily.
‘You are my business,’ he said fiercely, ‘and he’s my brother.’
‘He’s got a point, Isabella. Best not to repeat ourselves, but we could always try again,’ Magnus said so lightly she wondered if he knew he was tugging a tiger by the tail. ‘We could elope.’
For a moment Isabella was horrified by the idea he might be serious. ‘I think you’re forgetting the last six months and the fact we both have interests elsewhere,’ she said carefully, because this probably wasn’t the right moment for the confession she’d urged on Magnus earlier.
‘Ah, yes, they’re quite difficult to ignore, aren’t they?’ Magnus said sadly and she almost wished she’d held her tongue.
‘What interests?’ Wulf barked.
‘You really are a very stupid man,’ she told him haughtily, so frustrated he didn’t realise what he was to her she almost wished she hadn’t come.
‘Not stupid enough to be interesting because I’m the third son of a lord,’ he sneered.
A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress Page 17
