Regardless of what he wanted to say to her, she knew in her heart that it was best for him if she left. Though George had made great strides in reestablishing his title and securing his properties, he could never completely erase the damage their father had done. Edward should not have to deal with the added burden of her notoriety, for surely it would never be completely forgotten. Especially after her duplicity had been revealed in front of the entire house party last night. They had probably already decried her for being as reprehensible as her father. Her resolve was set. It would be best for him and his wonderful family if she stayed away.
When she reached the bottom of the staircase, she stopped as if there were an invisible barrier. It hurt to even look at him. Her battered heart would never completely heal. Despite her resolution to resist him, there was a part of her that fervently hoped that she was with child. It would take the decision out of her hands, because she would not deny him his child.
“Courage, Isa,” George whispered from behind her. “We’ve weathered far worse than this.”
She nodded and strode into the parlor with her head held high, but faltered when she spotted the duke. Her shame burned inside her stomach. How foolish she had been to ever think she could be accepted into Edward’s family after she lied about her identity and agreed to the pretend engagement.
“Your Grace.” She curtsied to the duke, then nodded at Edward and waited for him to speak.
He simply stood there studying her until the duke not-so-subtly cleared his throat.
“Lady Isabella, we’ve arranged another expedition to search for the tiara, and I’ve come to ask you to please join us.”
“My lord, I thank you for the invitation, but we’ve already made arrangements to begin our journey home.”
He glanced out the window, then turned back to her. Then he clasped and unclasped his hands before saying, “Will you please come? You solved most of the clues and, well, I want you to be there when we find it. You deserve to be there.”
He shifted his weight again. He was nervous. She had seen nearly every other mood from him over the past weeks, from excitement to anger, but this was the first time he had ever appeared unsure of himself. Her heart contracted, and it was all she could do to keep from touching him. She couldn’t spend the day with him. She could barely keep from throwing her resolve to the wind and begging him to take her back now, so there was no chance that she could resist him for an entire day.
“Oh, I don’t think—”
George exchanged a glance with Edward, then moved to her and squeezed her hand. “I think we can delay our departure for one more day.”
Isa barely refrained from stomping on George’s foot. It seemed that they were all against her.
“We are in agreement, then,” the duke said and held out his arm to her. “Shall we?”
She could hardly refuse him, and of course she wanted to find the tiara, but she wasn’t at all sure she could maintain her resolve if she had to spend the day with Edward.
Isa was careful not to look at Edward as they made their way toward the entrance to the maze.
“Do you think our markers are still in place after all that rain?” Lord Thornbrook asked.
“I certainly hope so.” Edward and Thornbrook led their rather large party back to the well. Isa rode with Louisa just behind them, and an array of grooms followed with what seemed to be enough provisions to supply an army.
Edward stopped his horse when they reached the marker for the entrance to the maze. “We’ll have to carry everything we need from here, and two of you need to stay and take care of the horses. I’ll leave it to you, James, to sort out who does what.”
He came to Isa to help her dismount, carefully lowering her while holding her at a distance from him. It was very different than the last time, when he had deliberately held her as close as possible so every bit of her slid over him. Her body craved his touch.
Louisa narrowed her eyes at Edward, took Isa’s hand, and pulled her toward the first marker. They walked for several minutes in silence. It seemed that everyone could feel the tension between Edward and her, though perhaps they were just anticipating finally finding the tiara.
“So far so good,” said Thornbrook, who was guiding their procession through the boxwood. He followed their markers until they reached the series of openings that led to the well.
They strode up to it, and Edward said, “This is it, James. You’re going to lower me down in here, and you’ll have to support my weight until I find what I’m looking for.”
Isa broke out in a cold sweat. “No! That is much too dangerous. You cannot risk falling into the well.” They would have no way to get him out. If he survived.
Everyone turned to her. She clasped her hands to hide their trembling. So much for not showing she still had feelings for Edward. She elbowed Louisa.
“Edward, Isa is correct. You are the heir. Father will kill you if you fall. Someone else should go.”
“No.” His steely voice left no room for argument. “This is my quest, and I will see it through. Besides, it wouldn’t be right to ask one of the grooms to do it.”
“Thornbrook could do it,” Louisa said.
“I could, but I don’t want to.”
Edward shook his head. “No. It has to be me.”
James glanced down into the brick well. “Are you certain you’re going to fit in there, my lord?”
“Yes, because I am confident that you can make it happen. Let’s go.”
While they made their preparations, Edward removed the lantern from his satchel and lit it.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Thornbrook asked.
Edward glanced down into the dark well, as did Isa and Thornbrook. It seemed narrower now than it had before.
Edward nodded, and Isa’s stomach contracted. “Edward, please. The tiara isn’t worth your life.”
He touched his gloved hand to her cheek and looked into her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
She nodded stupidly, too afraid to touch him, and he walked away.
James strapped Edward into the harness and attached the carriage traces, then he climbed onto the edge of the well. “Everybody ready?”
They all nodded, but every face showed worry. For heaven’s sake, there were seven men anchoring the harness. Surely that was enough to keep him safe. She hoped.
He climbed down into the well, but kept his hands on the rim.
“Edward?”
“Yes, Thornbrook?”
“I’ll do my best not to drop you.”
“Excellent.” He removed his right hand from the side of the well and grabbed the lantern, then removed his other hand from the edge of the well. Isa held her breath, but the harness appeared to be strong enough to support his weight.
“Oh,” he squeaked. “The harness is a little tight.” Thornbrook laughed, and Louisa rolled her eyes.
“You can start lowering me now.”
Edward held the lantern up and slowly swung it around so they could see all the way around the inside of the well.
He called up to them. “So far, there’s nothing but bricks to see.” They continued to lower him, but he remained silent. He was more than halfway down, and they were nearing the limit of their makeshift harness straps when he finally spoke. “Stop. There’s a large cut out in the brick over here. It looks like it’s been closed off with wood.
“Oh, well, go ahead and take your time studying it. It’s not as if you’re heavy or anything,” Thornbrook called down.
“Hold tight. I’m going to have to swing myself to get closer to the opposite wall.”
Isa moved even closer to the well, her heart thumping unevenly.
Edward stuck his legs out in front of him and pushed off from the right side of the wall. “I think there’s a small crate shoved into a space in the wall. Is there any way you can brace the harness against the left side of the well? My left side,” he added.
“Sure.” The traces slowly slid to the left
and Edward reached for the box, but he wasn’t quite close enough. He pushed off the wall again to swing back, and the harness slipped. Isa gasped. Thornbrook braced his feet against the outside of the well and grunted as he tried to stop Edward’s rapid descent.
The sound of Edward thumping into the wall was followed by a curse.
“I guess he’s all right,” Louisa said.
“Edward?” Isa yelled down into the well.
“I’m fine, but you’re going to have to pull me back up so I can fetch the box.”
“You should have listened to me,” Isa snapped, terrified that he was hurt.
“I’ve got you,” Thornbrook said, “but we’re all getting tired up here.”
“Oh, well, it’s a veritable picnic down here.”
“Let’s get his lordship out of there,” Thornbrook said to the other men. “Pull on my count. One, two, three.”
Isa watched anxiously as Edward moved slowly toward them. “Stop,” he yelled. “I think I can reach the box from here.”
Edward pushed off from the opposite side again, then grabbed the edge of a brick and held himself to the wall long enough to grab the box.
Isa breathed an immense sigh of relief. “He has it. Hurry, pull him up now.”
“Oh joy.” Thornbrook said. “Remind me never to accept another of your invitations to a house party,” he called down to Edward.
“Duly noted.”
It seemed to take forever, but they finally lifted him up to the top of the well, and soon enough he was able to hand the box to Thornbrook and climb the rest of the way out. He dropped over the edge of the well and landed on his backside. Everyone else who had been holding him up took his cue and dropped to the ground. Once he caught his breath, he said, “You’re all acting as if you just completed a difficult task. I’m the one who had to go down in there.”
Apparently, they were too tired to respond to him. Isa was exhausted, and all she had done was watch. And worry. She ached to touch him, to make sure he was unhurt, but it was no longer her place to do so.
“All right, everybody gets the rest of the day off. Once we return to the stables, that is.”
“How are you planning to thank me?” Thornbrook asked.
“Every day is a day off for you.”
“Exactly. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Perhaps Louisa will kiss you to thank you for not killing her brother.”
“No,” Louisa said immediately. “I don’t like you that much, Edward.”
Edward laughed, but for a split second, Thornbrook looked crushed. Then he rallied. “You are an ungrateful lot. Perhaps Miss…Lady Isabella will reward me.”
Edward popped up to a sitting position and glared at him. “What?”
Thornbrook grinned and held up his hands in surrender. “Never mind.”
Isa glanced between them. For a moment, hope expanded in her chest, but surely Edward was not jealous over Thornbrook’s teasing.
After one more glare at Thornbrook, Edward turned to James. “Are you done resting yet?”
He wiped his face with a handkerchief. “It’s not so much the physical labor that wore us out. It was more the stress of knowing that His Grace would kill us if we dropped you.”
Edward took the groom’s hand to pull him up, then shook it. “Thank you, James. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s in that box anyway, my lord?”
Edward glanced at the scrapes on his fingers. “I hope it is my great-great-grandmother’s tiara. If not, it better be full of pirate treasure after everything we’ve gone through to find it.”
“Well then, let’s get you home so we can find out.”
“Yes, we certainly can’t open it here. Mother will kill us if we open it without her.”
Edward’s gaze met hers, and a flash of excitement shot through Isa. She couldn’t help herself. She returned his grin. Now that Edward was safe, she couldn’t wait for him to open that box. Finding the tiara was the best ending to her stay at Walsley Manor she could hope for.
Chapter Nineteen
When they returned to the house, Edward, for the second time that day, cleaned the scrapes and bruises on his hands as well as he could before making his way to the library.
His parents sat together on the settee, but the one person he needed to be there was absent.
“Where is Isa?”
His father smiled. “Don’t worry. She’ll be here shortly, along with Thornbrook and Louisa. Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Absolutely.” He turned to his mother. “Are you certain?”
She nodded. “Darling, what did you do to your hands?” Mother grabbed his left hand and studied the cuts and scrapes.
He shrugged. “Nothing that won’t heal.”
James was hovering outside the door, holding the box they had retrieved from the well. Finally, footsteps sounded in the corridor and Isa, his sister, and Thornbrook appeared and sat opposite his parents.
Edward stood. “James, you can come in now.” He nodded his thanks when James handed him the box, then waved him toward a chair. “With the help of Lord Thornbrook, James, and five other grooms, today we retrieved this box from inside the well that we found within an old, overgrown maze. It is my hope that great-great-grandmother’s tiara is in here.”
“How did you find the box?” Father asked.
Edward kept his eyes focused on the box. “We lowered a lantern into the well.”
“Yes, you mentioned that before.” He leveled his gaze at Edward. “But how did you retrieve it from the well?”
Louisa bounced in her seat. “For heaven’s sake. Can we please just open the box? Edward had the grooms lower him into the well. You can yell at him later.”
Father’s face turned crimson, but Mother grabbed his arm to prevent him from erupting. “Edward, what were you thinking?” she asked, then shook her head. “We will discuss this later. Now open the blasted box.”
Edward’s stomach tightened. He lifted a hammer from the table and began prying off the lid. This was it. He wasn’t sure they would ever recover from the disappointment if this turned out not to be the tiara, and despite the concern she expressed over his going into the well, he was even more worried that he would never be able to win Isa back without it.
The last nail gave, and Edward removed the lid. A polished mahogany box sat within. He removed it and set it on the table in front of his mother.
“Will you do the honors, please?”
She bit her lip and took a deep breath, then turned the latch and lifted out something wrapped in oilcloth. Mother unfolded the cloth and withdrew a velvet bag. And then she removed the tiara from the bag.
“Oh, my. It’s even more beautiful than in the painting. Look at how the light plays over the diamonds,” Isa said.
Edward studied Isa instead of the tiara. She had her lower lip trapped between her teeth, and he had to restrain himself from applying soothing kisses.
Louisa leaned closer. “It’s magnificent.”
“Well, thank goodness,” Thornbrook said. “Imagine if, after all this time and effort, it turned out to be a rusty piece of junk.”
Edward shook his head at Thornbrook, and Louisa elbowed him in the ribs.
Mother held the tiara out in front of her. She didn’t say a word until Father leaned in and kissed her on the lips. “Oh, Edward. I can’t believe you finally found it. After all these years.”
Edward kneeled in front of her and studied the tiara. “It doesn’t appear to have suffered any damage from being in the well for so long.”
“I believe the metal work is solid gold,” Mother said. “It’s difficult to harm diamonds or gold.”
Father strode to the door and wrenched it open. “Phillips,” he bellowed. Moments later, the butler appeared at the door. He still moved quickly for a man his age.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“We need champagne in here. Lots of champagne.”
“Right away, Your Grace.”
Phillips returned with the champagne, and once everyone had a flute, Father proposed a toast. “To Edward, for finding the tiara.”
They all downed their champagne, then poured more. “To my beautiful wife, for never giving up on her dream of finding it.”
They drank again, then refilled the glasses one more time.
Edward raised his glass for the last toast. “To Lady Isabella. We never would have found the tiara if it hadn’t been for you.”
Everyone cheered and emptied their glasses. Edward had never been more nervous in his life, but her worry for his safety while he was in the well gave him the courage to continue with the plan he and his father had orchestrated.
Edward lifted the tiara and carried it over to Isa. His hands trembled as he gently placed it on her head.
“Wh…what are you doing?”
“The tiara is yours.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I cannot accept it. It belongs to Her Grace.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” his mother said, “but we all agreed that you should have it.”
She met Edward’s eyes. “I thank you for the honor, my lord, but it belongs in your family.”
Edward knelt before her, his heart racing. “I had hoped it might still stay in the family.” He took her hands and rubbed the pads of his thumbs across her knuckles. “Isa, I know I behaved horribly to you last night, but I love you, and if you will agree to be my wife, I promise to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
The room was completely silent, as if everyone had agreed to hold their breath until she responded.
She nodded, and Edward wasted no time kissing her. A cheer went up from the others in the room, and he remembered himself and reluctantly pulled away from her.
She raised a brow. “Did you give me the tiara just so I would feel obligated to marry you?”
“I might have if I had thought it would work, but no. I wanted you to have it no matter what.” He swallowed, stalling before he asked her the most important question of all. “Is that why you said yes?”
She shook her head. “I would have said yes no matter what. Because I love you.”
How to Bewitch an Earl Page 16
