Shame flared in Isabelle’s cheeks. She had once been so secure in his love. How many women had he made feel that way? She wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. “Yes. That was what made it so difficult to bear, in the end.”
She glanced at Susan, who toyed with the sugar tongs on the tea tray.
Anna asked what Isabelle was too timid to ask. “What about you, Susie? Did you think he loved you?”
Susan bit her lower lip, staring at the tongs as if fascinated by them. “I do not know about love, per se, but I did… Yes, he did lead me to believe he had strong feelings.” She dropped the tongs and looked up. Her eyes shimmered. “He lied.”
Isabelle stared at her friend. She had never seen Susan look distraught before. She was always so composed. What on earth had he done to her?
“I know.” Anna sighed. “He is a cruel liar. And I hate him.” She flopped onto her back at Isabelle’s feet, clasping her hands behind her head.
Susan stirred Isabelle’s tea absently. “I always thought he would understand how he’d wronged all three of us by the end. What I failed to consider was that he might find other ways to identify us besides the sounds of our voices. I thought he’d had so many women he couldn’t possibly remember the details about every one.”
Isabelle clasped her hands in her lap. “Maybe…maybe he remembered me simply because I was...I was his first. His first conquest.” Tears stung the backs of her eyes. “I knew him before he earned his reputation.”
Susan’s eyebrows drew together. She set the spoon aside. “That is true. The scandal with you gave birth to his reputation, so you were special to him. Of course he would remember you.”
“Exactly.” Isabelle doused the glimmer of hope that there had been something more behind his recognition. There was nothing more. In the end, he was the son of an earl and she the daughter of a sheep farmer. In all likelihood, he simply believed her too low for him. She was worth a summer of quick tumbles, but her value did not extend beyond that.
“If that’s true, then certainly Susie and I are safe from his recognition,” Anna said.
“But we must be vigilant,” Susan added, looking up from the tea tray.
“I agree,” Isabelle said. “But I do think you ought to continue. He already seems…calmer. More thoughtful, somehow.”
“But what will we do about you?” Anna asked.
“Deny her identity.” Susan rose from the chair and began to pace the little room, her heels clicking on the wood plank floor. “He has no proof that you are who he thinks you are. We will offer him nothing, give him no further indication that you might actually be Isabelle Frasier. If, when we free him, he decides to pursue you, you shall use me as your alibi. Society considers me a most upstanding widow. It is his word against mine. Nobody will believe him. But honestly, I doubt he will try. He’s intelligent enough to know that it would destroy his reputation if word got out that a twenty-five-year-old spinster locked him in a cellar.”
Perhaps she was right. But Lord Leothaid was a rich earl with allies in the highest places. And he was a man. He had the ability to seek his vengeance without making it public. Isabelle pressed her lips together, suppressing a shudder.
Anna patted Isabelle’s foot over the rose-embroidered bedspread. “That is a good idea. Don’t worry, Isabelle. I will threaten him terribly. When we free him, he will be too terrified to consider pursuing you.”
Susan paused at the fireplace. “And you will be hidden far away, in Scotland where no one can find you.”
Isabelle’s heart clenched. Yes, Scotland. Her aunt and uncle expected her to return to the Highlands in a few weeks. Isabelle’s parents were long gone, and she’d never had siblings. She’d lost all her friends along with her reputation long ago. Her existence in Scotland was a quiet, lonely one, with nobody for her to talk to besides her uncle’s flock of sheep, whose only response consisted of blank, wide-eyed stares and the occasional mournful bleat.
“How will you threaten him, Anna?” she asked.
Anna rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “Hmm…maybe I will take one of the butcher’s knives from the kitchen.”
Susan spun to face her. “Anna!”
“Yes. I could hold it to his jugular vein and prick the skin, just a little, to let him know that I am not playing a game, and warn him that if he tries to hurt my bosom bow, I will cheerfully carve him open.” She made a theatrical slicing motion through the air with her hand.
“Goodness gracious.” Isabelle didn’t know whether to laugh or be scandalized.
“Oh! Oh! Even better”—Anna dropped her voice to a whisper— “I could hold the knife to his ballocks and threaten to geld him.”
Isabelle gasped. “An-na!”
“Now that would surely scare him out of his wits. It would be brilliant, don’t you think?”
“I don’t believe it’s necessary to take it that far!”
“Why not?” Anna clasped her hands behind her head once again. “I would not hurt him, not really. Just frighten him into compliance.”
Isabelle gazed at her friend in shock. Anna’s changeable eyes, now as tawny as a cat’s, met hers. “Never worry,” Anna said. “These are just a few items on the long list of little tortures I plan for him.”
Susan strode to the fireplace, tapping her fingers over the white satin of her skirt. “We cannot risk him becoming confident that it is you, Isabelle. It will be best for you to stay away from the cellar.”
Isabelle looked from one of them to the other, blinking against her smarting eyes. Susan was right, but still…she had wanted to confront him.
Nay. She would not delude herself. She wouldn’t have confronted him. She simply wanted to see him again. Being close to him made her feel alive. Both times she had entered the cellar her blood had quickened and torn through her body, and her skin prickled, aching to touch him all over.
Of course it would be foolish for her to go back into the cellar now.
She stifled a groan. Why had she opened that perfume?
“I will take charge of your vengeance for you,” Anna declared, rising up on her elbow. “Tell me what you want me to do to him, Isabelle.”
“That won’t be necessary, Anna. You two go about it as you had planned.” She cracked her lips into what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “Perhaps I ought to return to my great-aunt’s…”
“Oh no, you must not leave us!” Anna scrambled up onto her knees. “I know you are afraid, but have faith—”
Susan reached out and clasped her hand. “We are in this together. It simply wouldn’t feel right if you left us. Please don’t go.”
“Thank you.” Relieved, she smiled and squeezed Susan’s hand. She didn’t want to go. She loathed the idea of leaving her friends—and Leo—behind. Furthermore, she wanted to know how this would end. It was a simple, selfish curiosity.
“You will stay, then?” Anna asked.
“Aye.”
Anna clapped her hands. “Good! We will come to you each time after we visit him to inform you of his progress.”
Isabelle nodded.
“But first you must tell me what you want from him.”
“What I want? I don’t—”
“Of course you do. We are all here because we want something from him. Tell me what it is you want, Isabelle, and I will try to obtain it.”
“I want”—she wanted to touch him. Nay! She banished that treacherous thought and took an unsteady breath—“to understand.”
“You want to understand why he seduced you?”
“Aye.” Though she wasn’t entirely sure he was the one who had done the seducing. He must have been, though. Before she met him, she knew hardly anything about how men and women joined flesh. He had taught her all she knew. All she would ever know.
They had taught each other.
“Why he pretended to love you?”
“Aye.”
“Why he left you?”
“I did know why he left—he was
compelled to go to England for his schooling. But”—she blinked against the sudden sting in her eyes—“he’d vowed to return and never did. I’d like to understand why.”
“Very well.” Anna grinned and slid off the side of the bed. “You may count on me, dear Isabelle. I will wrench the truth from his stubborn lips.”
With kisses or claws? Isabelle wanted to ask. But she simply smiled.
Susan cleared her throat. “By the by, since we are all here, I ought to tell both of you. My cousin, Lord Archer, has accepted my invitation to dine with us tomorrow evening.”
Anna slapped her hand over her mouth and staggered backward. “No!” she exclaimed, her voice muffled through her hand. She dropped onto her back on the bed, then covered her eyes with her forearm in a dramatic motion.
“It will be fine, dearest. It has been nearly a year.”
“No. I will not see him! I cannot!”
“Anna. Thomas never judged you.”
Still covering her eyes, Anna turned away from Susan’s reaching hand. “He saw me at my worst, Susie. My very worst.”
“But look at you now. Don’t you want him to see your true colors? Don’t you want him to see that you are, indeed, a lady?”
“I cannot face him. I will wither away with mortification. I will die of humiliation. I will—”
“Nonsense. He wants to see you, to ensure that you are all right, I am certain he does. And I want to talk to him. Don’t you want to know why he decided to bring you to me? How he knew of our common link through Leo?”
Anna moaned. “Yes, of course I do. But must I be there?”
“Yes.”
Anna turned to Isabelle, her eyes shining. Isabelle scooted toward the bottom of her bed, where Anna lay half strewn, her legs dangling over the edge. “Susan has told me about how Lord Archer rescued you from a deplorable situation and brought you to her.”
“You cannot know just how deplorable it was.”
Isabelle nodded. “Aye, that is true. But wouldn’t you like the gallant lord who rescued you to bear witness to how you have prevailed?”
Anna pressed the back of her hand against her forehead and closed her eyes. “Not you, too, Isabelle.”
“Oh, come now, Anna. It is not so bad. I daresay you will render him mute with admiration,” Susan said.
“No doubt of it,” Isabelle added. “Your bonny face will captivate him.”
A scowl played about Anna’s pretty mouth. “You flatter me. Both of you.”
Susan laughed. “We do. But you are deserving of our flattery, my dear. We both know you will charm Thomas. Look at how easily you charmed Leo, after all.”
Anna’s eyes snapped open. “But I hate Leo! I don’t hate Lord Archer. I—” She stopped speaking suddenly, as if something had sucked her voice away.
For a long moment, nobody moved nor spoke. Isabelle was fairly certain she knew what words had been about to issue forth from Anna’s lips: I love him.
Susan finally broke the silence. “It is settled, then,” she said brusquely. “Dinner tomorrow. Together we will discover what he knows about our histories with Leo.” Her eyes slid to Isabelle. “All three of us.”
Anna submitted, and Susan took her hand and helped her from the bed. “We should leave you now, Isabelle,” Susan said. “You have experienced quite a shock. Shall I have someone bring you some laudanum to help you rest?”
“Nay. Thank you, Susan.” She didn’t feel tired at all, but she needed to be clearheaded, to put some thought into what she had done, what she continued to risk, and the meaning behind the riot of feelings Leo evoked in her.
“Very well, then. Good night, Isabelle.”
“Good night.”
After kissing Isabelle’s cheek, they left her alone.
Isabelle climbed out of bed, padded to the window, pulled aside the silk drapery, and leaned against the wooden sill.
A new mixture of anxiety and fear competed with her resident emotions of sorrow and loneliness. Most disturbingly, she recognized in herself a recklessness threading through it all.
She hadn’t been reckless for seven years, and now, here it was again, this sense of wild excitement she’d squashed for so long. Brought back to life by the presence of the Earl of Leothaid.
She gazed outside. There was no moon, but the wind had whisked away all the clouds, allowing the stars to puncture bright holes in the dark fabric of the night. She could see the shadowy structure of the stables beyond the house, and the now-dark wing of the kitchens.
Leo was there, beneath the kitchen. Was he sleeping? Or was he awake, thinking of her?
She recalled the tension in his body as he’d said “Belle,” the way it had emerged from his lips, as if saying her name mesmerized him. As if she mesmerized him.
Her heart rose in her chest and tightened her throat. The urge to go to him was overwhelming.
But what would she say to him if she did go down to the cellar? Would she embarrass herself by throwing herself at him? Would she demand an explanation of his actions seven years ago?
She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her forehead to the windowsill. The truth was, if she went down to the cellar, she would probably freeze. Her shyness, her awkwardness, would overtake her, as it had with every man she’d encountered for the past seven years. He would see her for the fool she really was. He’d probably laugh at her.
She couldn’t go to him.
Isabelle sighed deeply. If she’d known other men, she would not be having these wicked feelings. It was easy for Susan and Anna to focus on their cold strategy of revenge, for they’d both had other men. Isabelle, on the other hand, hadn’t come near to touching a man for seven years. Her first contact with a man had been yesterday morning, when she had tickled Leo’s foot.
Her lack of experience was not for lack of wanting it. But her disgrace combined with her shy and unassuming nature had conspired to make her unnoticeable to men for a very long time.
But now that she’d touched Leo, his foot, his face when she’d shaved him…Lord help her, but her body craved more.
***
Leo paced in his tight semicircle, dragging his chain along the floor, almost relishing the clank and scrape as he yanked it along, back and forth, from the chaise to the wall.
They had lied to him. Leo’s brothers, God rot their souls, had lied to him.
She was alive.
After two weeks at Cambridge, he’d received an angry missive from his eldest brother, John, who’d found a letter Leo had written and left for Belle. John took the letter to James, and they’d both gone straight to Isabelle’s father.
They hadn’t consulted Leo first, of course. He was the youngest brother and only a half brother, to boot, and they had always felt it their duty to control every aspect of his life.
John and James were the issue of the earl and his first wife, Leo of the earl and his second wife, ten years after James was born and twelve years after John. Leo’s mother had died in childbirth.
The missive John sent was meant to be a condemnation of Leo’s affair with Isabelle, but as soon as Leo read it, he feared for her. He’d left Cambridge immediately—to hell with the place; he hadn’t wanted to attend university anyhow. He had rushed back to Scotland, intending to defend Isabelle’s honor and to ask for her hand in marriage. When he arrived at Leothaid Castle, John and James had met him with dour expressions on their faces.
He told them why he’d rushed home—he intended to marry Isabelle to save her reputation. He knew they wouldn’t approve, because while her family was wealthy in land and livestock, they were not of the aristocracy. Leo knew that John had his eye on several titled English ladies for him.
James had huffed out an exasperated breath, but before he could say anything, John had cut in.
“Sorry, brother. She’s dead.”
“She’s...what?”
“Dead. Sorry. I sent a message, but obviously you left Cambridge before it arrived.”
Leo blinked at him, dis
oriented. “What?”
John released a long sigh and clapped his hand over Leo’s shoulder. “Her da didn’t want the lass in his sights, so he sent her away, to England,” he said quietly. “You know how bad this autumn has been, what with the rains. Her carriage overturned near the English border. She didn’t survive the accident.”
Silence. Leo stared at him.
“I’m sorry, lad,” John had said softly.
John had lied, and then had somehow convinced everyone to corroborate the story. Not that that had been difficult. In a haze of grief, Leo had returned to Cambridge. He hadn’t traveled back to Scotland for over a year—hadn’t been able to bear the thought of being there without Isabelle.
But Belle had not died in a carriage accident. She was here, alive, somewhere in Lady M’s house.
His brothers had played him for a fool. And Leo, naïve idiot that he was, had believed their story. Leo’s mind roiled when he considered the lengths they had gone to keep him from the woman he loved. Just so they could marry him to some aristocratic debutante he would have never wanted.
He hated them. They were lucky to be already dead; otherwise, Leo would kill both of them himself.
Leo’s brothers died of fevers within a fortnight of each other eighteen months after Belle’s “death.” They’d died without issue, leaving Leo as their only heir to the earldom of Leothaid. Leo had secretly promised to himself that his father’s direct line would end with him. He would never leg-shackle himself to some Englishwoman he didn’t love, would never beget an heir.
Leo cast an ironic glance at his shackles, then dropped onto his back on the chaise and stared at the curved brick ceiling, thinking on how quickly Lady M and Mistress Jane had hustled Belle out of the cellar after he’d said her name.
He’d give his fortune to see her, to actually see her, without the blindfold.
Something scraped overhead, and he heard murmuring voices. The first time he had heard noises above him yesterday, he’d shouted until his voice was hoarse and his throat raw, to no avail. He imagined a storeroom overhead or perhaps the scullery. The kitchen must be close by, for the smell of food, of baking bread, roasting meat, herbs, and spices, constantly wafted through the cracks in the cellar door.
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