by Heather Gray
She lifted her eyes in time to see there was no escape from the woman bearing down on her. Not that she wanted to escape, but any hope she'd harbored about remaining unnoticed vanished in the light of Cook's eyes. Isabel stepped forward and met the woman's hug with one of her own.
"You were such a wee chil' the last I saw you. I didn't ken if I'd ever see you again. I hoped, but I never dreamed…"
"It's good to see you, too. When did you start working for the Lorings?"
Cook gave Isabel another squeeze before releasing her. "I hired on here five years ago. They're a good family, and Mrs. Loring…"
As if suddenly remembering her position, Cook stepped back and released Isabel. She cast a keen look to Owen. "Will you be needing a room, then? Or two?"
Owen shook his head. "I need to see my father. Is he up yet?"
"In his study, he is," a footman in liveried uniform volunteered from near the kitchen's doorway.
Owen turned toward the door and began walking. Isabel picked up her skirts and hurried after him. "I'm coming, and don't think you can stop me."
She heard Cook's tongue cluck behind her and peeked over her shoulder. The woman's once-vibrant red hair was fading, but her eyes spoke of kindness and wisdom the same as they always had. What Isabel saw in them now worried her.
Isabel was not going to like what the day had in store for her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Owen had thought to keep Isabel away from the conversation with his father. Day after day, alternating between going through the minister's papers and watching her, had made one thing abundantly clear. He needed to do what was best for Isabel. Wherever the battle line was drawn, he would stand beside her — whichever side she chose to stand on. Too many times in her life, people had put their own self-interests ahead of hers, and she had suffered as a result. Time had come for somebody to put her needs first, and whether she wanted it to be him or not, he would see this through to the end.
With a soul-deep sigh, Owen opened the study door. It moved silently on its hinges, and his father heard nothing. Owen and Isabel stepped several feet into the study, the door closed behind them, before Mr. Loring noticed the movement and glanced up.
"Owen!" He jumped from his seat behind the desk and rushed around to greet his son. "I had no idea you were here. Who do you have…"
Mr. Loring paled.
"Isabel, you are a vision."
Owen, who watched his father closely, couldn't miss the sheen of tears in the man's eyes.
"Father, we came…"
Mr. Loring held up his hand to silence his son. "You suspect the Thorpes were innocent of the crimes for which they died, and you believe me to be complicit in their conviction and execution."
Isabel stepped forward. "You were my father's best friend. Did you believe him capable of treason?"
Mr. Loring ran a shaky hand over his face. "No, dear. I never believed it. What's more, I had proof of his innocence, but by the time I got my hands on it, the sentence had already been carried out. Then you vanished, and I had no way to find you."
Owen took a step forward as his father moved back around his desk and sank into his seat. "Do you still have the proof?"
His father nodded. "You have a puzzle box in your room. Do you remember my giving it to you?"
"It was a gift after I took the job with…" Owen had lied to his parents upon going to work for the War Department. He'd told them he worked for, "…the Bank of London."
One side of his father's mouth tilted up. "Of course. The Bank of London. I knew who you worked for, and I wanted to warn you, but to tell you would put your life at risk. So I put the evidence inside that puzzle box and trusted you would find it someday when the time was right."
"It's been in my old bedroom? All these years?"
Mr. Loring nodded, his eyes on Isabel. "I learned of the minister's death and the dissolution of the War Department and hoped Owen would eventually come looking for answers, even if he didn't know which questions he should ask. It never occurred to me he would bring you with him, but I'm glad you're here. Your parents were good people, and what happened to them should have been stopped. I tried. I give you my word, I tried. But I had to give up. There were threats. Against my family. Against Owen. I… maybe I'm a coward, but I gave up the fight."
Isabel took a seat in a decorative Jacobean chair. "Tell me what happened. I have a right to know."
Owen, who wanted nothing more than to run up to his room and collect the puzzle box, took a seat in another nearby chair, unable to ignore the entreaty in Isabel's voice.
Mr. Loring leaned back. Sadness painted an intricate pattern of shadow in his eyes. The weight he carried tugged at his shoulders until they were stooped. "Thorpe and I ran a small investment firm. We weren't wealthy, but we did well enough. We made sound investments, lived honorable lives, and provided for our families. Then along came a man who wanted us to invest in a shipping venture. The investment was larger than we were used to, but the man was reputable and influential. Working with him would open doors that had until that point remained closed to us. So we agreed."
Owen leaned forward. "And this man was?"
Mr. Loring frowned. "Charles Enderly."
Isabel wasn't as bitter as Owen might have expected. "Minister without portfolio. The man who claimed to want to stay out of the middle of the goings-on at the War Department, and yet somehow managed to maintain an iron grip."
Mr. Loring nodded. "He wasn't a minister yet, and he had no involvement in the War Department, either. At least not then."
"The investment was bad?" Tension crackled in the air around Owen.
His father swiped a kerchief across his brow. "The paperwork we received for the investment made everything look legitimate. The papers turned out to be fabricated. We were investing in a war, and England wasn't meant to be the victor."
Isabel gasped. "Trafalgar? The docks?"
The older man bowed his head. "I vow we had no idea. More than a year later, Thorpe began to suspect. He sent off letters requesting additional information and shared his concerns with me. Before we had a chance to take action, documents showed up." Mr. Loring spat the next words. "The minister, as he was known by then, gave testimony that both of your parents were complicit in those plots."
Owen hurt for Isabel. Her heart was visible in her eyes, and he watched as it broke all over again. She had to be reliving the deaths of her parents. He stood, the motion abrupt and stiff-legged, and began pacing the study. Shooting the arrow-sharp words with the speed of a longbow, he asked his father, "What did you do?"
"I visited Thorpe in prison. He believed the letters he'd sent out had been intercepted. We had no proof. Your father urged me to save myself and asked me to take care of you. I did the best I could to fulfill his wishes." Mr. Loring held out a hand to Isabel across his desk. "You stayed with us. Do you remember?"
She shook her head. "Those months are a blur."
"You lived with us during your parents' imprisonment and trial. Owen," he said with a flick of his eyes at his son, "was away at school. Once your parents were gone, the minister came and took you away. He said he'd found relatives to take you in. I tried to keep track of you, but the family he named, though distantly related to your father, had no knowledge of you."
"The minister took her, and you let him?" Owen's bellow filled the room.
His father stood. "I was a weak man, afraid for my family. Then I got a letter, a long overdue reply to one Thorpe had sent out. It contained proof of the minister's involvement and Thorpe's innocence. It was too late for them, but I could at least try to save their child. Or so I thought. I went to the minister and demanded he return Isabel to my care. He refused."
Isabel's voice was small. "And you let him keep me?"
Mr. Loring fell back into his chair. "Yes, I let him."
"Because of me." Owen's whisper fell into the silence with the explosive force of a cannonball into a ship's hull.
Chapter Twenty
-Four
Isabel's eyes widened, while his father’s face took on a waxy patina.
"You went to the minister with your evidence." The weight lifted from Owen's chest. "You tried to get Isabel back." His father nodded. "He refused."
The senior Loring nodded again.
"And he threatened me. What did he say to make you back off?"
Owen's father aged before his eyes. "He was a minister working with the War Department. Maybe he was trying to subvert it from within. For all I knew, the whole department was in on it with him." Mr. Loring shook his head slowly, defeat reflected in his eyes. "The minister knew you had an interest in serving your country, and he told me… Nay, he promised me he would recruit you for government security work and that you would be dead within your first week."
His pacing came to a stop, and Owen rested his hand on Isabel's shoulder. "So you kept quiet, and he rejected me when I first approached him about working for the War Department."
"I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't let him hurt you. You're my son." Mr. Loring's voice broke on the last word. "I told him if he laid a hand on you, I'd kill him, and I meant every word, but I'm not sure I'd have known how to follow through. I am nothing but a small businessman ill-equipped for confrontation."
Isabel reached up and squeezed Owen's hand before addressing his father. "You did what you needed to do. I bear you no ill will for that."
Mr. Loring swiped at his face with the kerchief again. Then he rose from his seat behind the desk and came around to where Isabel sat. He held out his hands to her, and she placed hers in his. She stood and allowed him to pull her into an embrace. "I am so sorry for the loss of your parents and for the lost years since. I wish I had known how to do more."
Owen watched a moment as Isabel returned the embrace. Then he slipped out the study door and climbed the grand staircase two steps at a time. Without a sound, he collected the puzzle box from his former room and returned down the stairs. He paused outside the study door, which he'd left open.
"I can see he has feelings for you."
His father's voice gave him pause. Did he want to eavesdrop on Isabel's response?
Owen stepped through the door in time to catch Isabel's blush before it faded. Her face told him as much as her words would have if he'd stayed outside the door and allowed her to comment on his father's observation.
"Here, Father." Owen held out the box. "I never learned how to open it. Since you put the documents in the box, you must know how."
Mr. Loring picked up the wooden contraption carved to look like a small treasure chest, and with a handful of swift movements, he triggered the latch that opened a panel to a hidden compartment within the base. He slid the whole thing toward Owen, who lifted the fat packet of papers from within.
He weighed it in his hand, his mind spinning off in too many directions, before turning to Isabel. "We leave immediately."
"Won't you say hello to your mother before you go?" Mr. Loring held out a hand, imploring.
Owen took care to tuck the folded pages into an inner pocket in his waistcoat.
Meanwhile, Isabel stood and offered Mr. Loring a gracious smile. "I'm afraid Parliament wants Owen's head. And perhaps some other parts, too. We need to return with the evidence so he can prove to them he hasn't been erroneously fleeing their custody."
Mr. Loring's face lost its color again.
Owen tipped an imaginary hat to Isabel. "Go collect our bags. I'll meet you at the stable."
She gave him a grand curtsy. "Your wish is my command, sir." Then she giggled as she stood. Isabel gave Mr. Loring another quick hug and a kiss on his cheek with a whispered, "Don't worry. I'll take care of him," before she scurried toward the door. Throwing the words over her shoulder, she reproofed Owen. "Don't you dare leave me waiting."
"Wouldn't dream of it, m'lady."
Once Isabel was gone, Owen stared at his father, swallowing hard. "I owe you an apology."
"I can't blame you for suspecting me. I loathed myself for many a year because I was not strong enough to stand up to him."
Owen pulled his father into a tight hug. "No blame. No recrimination. I need to go take care of this mess and see to something on the western coast. After that, I expect to have a nice long sabbatical. I'll come visit you and Mum then. Maybe… maybe I'll be able to make it for Christmas this year."
The senior Mr. Loring squeezed his arms around his son. "I never wanted you in this line of work, but I am ever so proud of you for being the sort of man who wants to do right by his country."
Owen stepped back and pulled in a long draught of air. He nodded to his father before leaving the study and his childhood home behind. His step was lighter than it had been in days, possibly weeks.
So, if Father was not responsible for Isabel's parents' deaths… He grinned at his own ridiculous thoughts. How does one go about asking to court a woman such as Isabel? Pardon me, but since my father didn't cause your father's death, might you consider taking a turn around the dance floor with me?
Owen shook his head. It might serve me well to leave off all mention of our parents.
"Is everything all right?"
He glanced over to see Isabel eyeing him from where she stood with Buttercup. He'd been paying so little attention, he'd not even realized he'd made it to the stables. "Everything's fine."
"You've got an odd look on your face. You're not going to be ill, are you?"
Owen stepped around Despiadado and put his hands on Isabel's upper arms. Her eyes widened before he leaned in. He held her loosely so she could break away at any time if she wished. She didn't pull back, though, and he felt the soft warmth of her lips beneath his own.
After that first touch, he couldn't help himself. Owen brought one hand up to feel her hair, but that proved not to be enough for him. He wanted the silken strands to run through his fingers, and before he could stop himself, he'd dug his hand into her hair and sent pins flying in every direction. Rather than break off the kiss, he deepened it, pulling her so close he could feel the racing beat of her heart against his chest.
He at last found the will to pull back from the kiss but still didn't step away. Owen looked into Isabel's blue eyes. They were darker than he'd ever seen. Her cheeks were flushed, and her lips were ripe with color. She looked like a woman who had been good and thoroughly kissed.
"We'd best be on our way." His words came out slow. He'd meant to make her laugh, but he didn't seem to have complete control of his faculties. He was confounded with having kissed her.
Isabel slipped away from Owen's arms and used the mounting block to gain Buttercup's back. Once she was seated, she gave Owen a single nod. "Do that again without my permission, and I'll flog you myself."
"Well, then. Shall I ask in advance? If you give me permission now, I'll already be set for the next time."
She gave him a severe frown for all of two seconds before the smile behind it broke through. She shook her head. "You're insufferable."
"You're beautiful."
"Hmph. You are taxing," was her rejoinder.
"And you are breathtaking."
Isabel rolled her eyes before signaling Buttercup. Together they were off, and Owen was left standing next to his horse, facing the slack-jawed expressions of the stable hands unlucky enough to have witnessed the whole scene. He mounted Despiadado, gave the boys a broad smile, and said, "She wasn't jesting about the flogging, either."
Then he wheeled Despiadado around and took off after the woman in question. His mind wasn't fully on the ride. He couldn't stop thinking about that kiss.
Isabel tasted like forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The members of Parliament did not appreciate being kept waiting. In retribution, they made Owen wait for his opportunity to speak to them. The delay put them early into the second week of December, but the closed meeting had at last been convened, and Owen had been called in to defend his actions. He'd been warned that some members of Parliament wanted him in th
e Tower of London for his subversive actions.
"Have faith," Rupert had told him. "Most of these men don't comprehend what you do. Explain and help them understand the importance of being allowed freedom to do your job."
No pressure.
He was led into a meeting room where fifteen dour-faced, prey-hungry men scrutinized him. Though he'd not met any of them before, he recognized several. The group had segregated itself into two components — those from the House of Commons and those, of which there was a slightly higher number, from the House of Lords. Some of the men had rheumy eyes and skin sagging after decades of use. Others speared him with keen gazes. This was not going to be an easy meeting. All in all, Owen would have rather been on safari in Africa facing a wild lion. At least he'd know what such a beast wanted with him.
"Mr. Loring, thank you for condescending to appear before us today." Owen didn't know the man's name, but he easily recognized the sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"I apologize for my delay. The necessity was unavoidable."
A man with a florid face and bulbous nose spoke next. "Several charges have been brought against you, but due to the sensitive nature of these accusations, a private meeting was in order. You are not under arrest at this time, but we do need you to speak for your actions over the last several weeks."
Owen nodded. "Of course, my lord. Where do you wish me to begin?"
Florid Face seemed to be the one in charge. "Tell us what took you so long to meet with us. One would think being called before members of Parliament would be adequate motivation to rearrange one's schedule."
Owen took a deep breath and reached into his coat pocket. "Charles Enderly, one of your ministers without portfolio, now deceased, was involved in treasonous acts against the Crown."
Gasps echoed around the room, and anger flared to life until it crackled like a live thing running rampant. Florid Face's voice was harsh. "You will explain yourself at once, young man."
"These documents show, going back at least twenty years, Enderly offered financial support to a conspiracy against England. He helped to fund the French at Trafalgar, and he financed a foiled attack on the London Docks. In addition, as soon as Mr. Ian Thorpe discovered the nature of Enderly's business, Enderly fabricated evidence against him. This led to the execution of Ian and Henrietta Thorpe for crimes they never would have dreamed of committing."
