Louise Allen

by Rumors

  ‘I would prefer to warm myself by exploring the house a little and for you to see what can be done with my walking dress. I fear it must be ruined, but I suppose it might be salvageable.’

  There was a moment when Isobel thought Dorothy was going to argue, then she bobbed a curtsy and retreated to the dressing room with pursed lips, emanating disapproval.

  Isobel’s footsteps were muffled as she crossed the landing. Somehow that made the nerves knotting her stomach worse, as though she was creeping about on some clandestine mission. But she had to thank Mr Harker for saving her life and she had to do that face-to-face or she would be uncomfortable around him for her entire stay at Wimpole. It did not mean that she forgave him for that kiss, or for his assumptions about her.

  It occurred to Isobel as she lifted her hand to knock on the door of the central suite that this visit might reinforce those assumptions, but she was not turning back now.

  She rapped briskly. A voice within, somewhat smothered, called ‘Come!’ Isobel rapped again. The door opened with a impatient jerk and Mr Harker stood on the threshold, a towel in his hand, his damp-darkened hair standing on end. He was in his shirt sleeves, without his neckcloth. Like this he seemed inches bigger in both height and breadth.

  ‘Isobel?’

  ‘Do not call me—’ She took a breath, inhaled the scent of sandalwood and soap and moderated her tone. She was here to make peace, she reminded herself, not to lash out to prove to herself just how indifferent she was to him. ‘I have a message from the countess and something I wish to say on my own account. Lady Hardwicke wants very much to thank you herself, but she feels she must be with Lizzie today and she hopes you will understand if she does not speak with you until tomorrow. I think you may imagine her emotions and will therefore forgive her sending a message.’

  He tossed the towel away towards the corner of the room without taking his eyes from her face. ‘I do not need thanking and certainly do not expect her to leave the child in order to do so. How is Lady Lizzie?’

  ‘Much better than one might expect, after that experience. She will be perfectly all right, I believe.’ She could turn tail and go now. Isobel took a deep breath instead. ‘And I, too, must thank you, Mr Harker, on my own account. I owe you my life.’

  ‘I was in the right place to hear you, that is all. Anyone would have done the same.’ He frowned at her. ‘You should not be here.’

  For him to be preaching the proprieties was intolerable! ‘Please, do not be afraid I have come with any improper purpose, Mr Harker. Surely even your elevated sense of self-esteem would not delude you into thinking that after this morning’s experiences I have either the desire or the energy to attempt to seduce you.’

  The acid in her tone made him blink and the sweep of those thick dark lashes did nothing to moderate her irritation with him. ‘Rest assured,’ she added rather desperately, ‘I have no intention of crossing the threshold. Your…virtue is perfectly safe.’

  He studied her in silence for a moment. Isobel pressed her lips together to control the other things she would very much like to say on the subject of men who made assumptions about ladies with no evidence and then discussed them with their friends and then ravished them in wet shrubberies and made them feel…made them…

  ‘What a relief,’ he said finally. ‘I was about to scream for help.’ She glared at him. ‘However, I believe I have an apology to make.’

  ‘Oh? So you are sorry for that outrage in the shrubbery, are you?’ It was very hard to hang on to a sense of gratitude when the wretch stood there, the gleam in his eyes giving the lie to any hint of penitence in his voice.

  ‘I am sorry for coming to an incorrect conclusion about your intentions. I cannot be sorry for the kiss, for I enjoyed it too much.’

  ‘If that is intended to flatter, Mr Harker, it failed. I imagine you enjoy virtually any kisses you can snatch.’ She should turn on her heel and walk away, but it was impossible to leave him before she had made her indifference to him clear beyond any possible doubt. It was very strange—the last time she had felt this stubborn and light-headed had been after an incautious second glass of champagne on an empty stomach.

  ‘I do not find you in the slightest bit attractive and, even if I did, my upbringing and my personal standards would prevent me acting in any way that might hint at such foolishness,’ she stated, crossing her fingers tightly in the folds of her skirt. ‘If your delusions about your personal charms have suffered a correction, I can only be glad of it for the sake of other females you may encounter.’ It must be the effect of expressing her irritation so freely, but she was feeling positively feverish. Isobel shivered.

  Instead of taking offence at her lecture, or even laughing at her, Harker took a step closer, his face serious. ‘Why are you not in your bed, Isobel?’

  ‘Because I do not need to mollycoddle myself. And grateful as I am to you for rescuing me, I did not give you the use of my name.’

  ‘If you desire to thank me for getting wet on your behalf, I wish you will let me use it. My name is Giles and I make you free of that,’ he said as he lifted one hand and laid the back of it against her cheek. ‘You are barely warm enough, Isobel. I am sorry for this morning, and last night. I have become…defensive about single ladies. I was wrong to include you with the flirts and, worse, upon no more evidence than a very frank stare and a willingness to stand up to me.’

  Somehow his hand was still against her cheek, warm and strangely comforting, for all the quiver of awareness it sent through her. If her limbs felt so leaden that she could not move, or brush away his hand, then at least she could speak up for herself. ‘Surely you are not so vain as to believe that good looks make you somehow superior and irresistible to women? That every lady who studies your profile or the width of your shoulders desires you?’ Oh, why had she mentioned his shoulders? Now he knew she had been looking.

  He did not take her up on that revealing slip. ‘Unfortunately there are many who confuse the outer form, over which I have no control, and for which I can claim no credit, for the inner character. And, it seems, there are many ladies who would welcome a certain amount of…adventure in their lives.’ He shrugged. ‘Men are just as foolish over a pretty face, uncaring whether it hides a vacuous mind or fine intelligence. You must have observed it. But the pretty young ladies are chaperoned,’ he added with a rueful smile.

  ‘And no one protects the handsome men?’ Isobel enquired. She had managed to lift her hand to his, but it stayed there instead of obeying her and pushing his fingers away. She felt very strange now, not quite in her own body. There was a singing in her ears. She forced herself to focus. ‘You are telling me that you are the victim here?’

  ‘We men have to look after ourselves. I am vulnerable, certainly. If I acquire a reputation for flirting, or worse, with the unmarried daughters of the houses where I work, I will not secure good commissions at profitable country estates.’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘Repelling single young ladies has become second nature and a certain cynicism about the motives of those who show an interest is, under the circumstances, inevitable.’

  ‘What circumstances?’

  Giles had caught her left hand in his, his fingers long and strong as they enveloped it. ‘You do not know? Never mind.’ Isobel thought about persisting, then restrained herself—probably this was something that would reveal her as painfully naive. Giles drew her closer and slid his hand round to tip up her chin. ‘You are exhausted and probably in a state of shock. Why will you not rest?’

  ‘I do not want to dream,’ Isobel confessed. ‘I have night…’ The man must be a mesmerist, drawing confessions out of her as she stood there, handfast with him. She should go at once, stop talking to him about such personal matters. If only her body would obey her, because she wanted to go. She really wanted…

  ‘You suffer from nightmares?’

  ‘When I have a lot on my mind.’ Her voice sounded as though it was coming from a long way away. She stared at Giles Harker,
who was moving. Or perhaps the room behind him was. It began to dawn on her that she was going to faint.

  ‘You are in no fit state—’ Harker caught her as her knees gave way and gathered her against his chest. He ought to put her down because this was improper. She should tell him… But he was warm and strong and felt safe. Her muddled brain questioned that—Giles Harker was not safe, was he?

  There was the sound of footsteps on the great staircase below them, muted voices carrying upwards. Giles stepped back into his room, pulling her with him, and closed the door. ‘Damn it, I do not want us found by a brace of footmen with you draped around my neck and me half dressed.’ His voice was very distant now.

  ‘Put me down, then,’ Isobel managed as she was lifted and carried into another room, deposited on something. A bed?

  ‘Stay there.’

  ‘I do not think I could do anything else…’ It was an effort to speak, so she lay still until he came back and spread something warm and soft over her.

  ‘Go to sleep, Isobel. If any nightmares come, I will chase them away.’

  He will, promised the voice in her head. It was telling her to just let go, so she did, and slid into a darkness as profound as the blackness of the lake water.

  Chapter Six

  Giles locked the door from his dressing room on to the landing and studied the sleeping woman stretched out on the chaise. Isobel must be utterly drained to have fainted like that. He supposed he should have done something, anything, rather than carry her into his room, but it was a trifle late to worry about that now and they were probably safe enough. The family would be too concerned about Lizzie to wonder where their guest had got to and his borrowed valet believed him to be resting and would not disturb him.

  He sat down in a chair, put his elbows on his knees and raked his fingers through his damp hair. Nothing had changed, so why the devil was he ignoring the self-imposed rules that had served him so well all his adult life? Isobel was a single young lady of good family and one, it would appear, that he had misjudged. The wild sensuality he had sensed in her must have either been his own imagination or she was unaware of it in her innocence.

  He shot a glance through the door into the dressing room, but she seemed deeply asleep. He was discovering that he liked her, despite her sharp tongue and unflattering view of him. He admired her courage and her spirit, enjoyed the sensation of her in his arms. But all of that meant nothing. She should be, literally, untouchable and they both knew it.

  Why, then, did she make him feel so restless? He wanted something, something more than the physical release that his body was nagging about. There was a quality, a mood, about Isobel that he simply could not put his finger on. Giles closed his eyes, sat back, while he chased the elusive emotions.

  *

  ‘Mr Harker. Giles! Wake up, you are having a nightmare.’

  Giles clawed his way up out of a welter of naked limbs, buttocks, breasts, reaching hands and avid mouths. ‘Where the hell am I?’

  ‘In your bedchamber at Wimpole Hall.’ He blinked his eyes into focus and found Isobel Jervis kneeling in front of him, her hands on the arms of the chair. His body reacted with a wave of desire that had him dropping his hands down to shield the evidence of it from her as she asked, ‘What on earth were you dreaming about? It sounded very…strange.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he lied. ‘How long have we been asleep?’ Long enough for her to have lost the pallor of shock and chill. Her body, bracketed by his thighs, was warm. Hell. ‘You should not be here.’ And certainly not kneeling between his legs, as though in wanton invitation to him to pull her forwards and do the outrageous things his imagination was conjuring up.

  ‘I am well aware of that, Mr Harker! It is four o’clock. I heard the clocks strike about five minutes ago when I woke. Are you all right? You were arguing about something in your sleep.’

  ‘I am fine,’ Giles assured her. Already his head was clearing. It was the familiar frustrating dream about trying to break up a party at the Dower House, the one that had got completely out of hand. It was after that fiasco that he began to lay down the law to his mother—and to his surprise, she had listened and wept and things had become marginally better. But that night, when he had to cope with a fire in the library, a goat in the salon—part of a drunken attempt at a satanic mass—and the resignation of every one of his mother’s long-suffering staff, had burned itself into his memory.

  ‘I was supposed to be making sure you did not dream,’ he apologised. ‘And you had to rescue me instead.’

  ‘I had no nightmares,’ she assured him. ‘But it was a good thing that your voice woke me.’ Her hair had dried completely and the loose arrangement was beginning to come down in natural waves that made him want to stroke it as he might a cat’s soft coat. Isobel shook it back from her shoulders and a faint scent of rosemary touched his nostrils, sweet and astringent at one and the same time, like the woman before him.

  ‘You must go before anyone starts looking for you.’ He kept his hands lightly clasped, away from temptation.

  Isobel nodded and sat back on her heels and the simple gown shifted and flowed over breast and thighs. Giles closed his eyes for a moment and bit back a groan.

  ‘I will go out of your dressing room and across the inner landing to my sitting room. Provided no one sees me leaving your chamber, there are any number of ways I could have reached my own door.’

  ‘You have an aptitude for this kind of intrigue,’ Giles said in jest. Isobel got to her feet in one jerky movement and turned towards the door in a swirl of skirts. He saw the blush on her cheek and sprang up to catch her arm. ‘I am sorry, I did not mean that as it sounded. You think clearly through a problem, that is all.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She kept her head averted, but the tension in her body, the colour in her cheek, betrayed acute mortification. ‘I have a very clear head for problems.’ The unconcern with which she had knelt before him had gone—now she was uncomfortably aware of him as a man.

  ‘Isobel.’

  She turned, her eyes dark and her mouth tight. He no longer thought it made her look like a disapproving governess. This close, he could read shame behind the censorious expression.

  ‘I am sorry.’ How she came to be in his arms, he was not certain. Had she moved? Had he drawn her close—or was it both? But with her there, warm and slender, those wide, hurt grey eyes fixed questioningly on his face, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss her.

  Isobel must have sensed his intent, although once his arms had encircled her she did not move for a long moment. Then, ‘No!’ She jerked back against his hold, as fiercely as if he had been manhandling her with brutal intent. ‘Let me go.’

  Giles opened his hands, stepped back. ‘Of course.’ There had been real fear in her eyes, just for a moment. Surely she did not think he would try to force her? Perhaps she had recovered enough to realise just how compromising it was to be in a man’s bedchamber.

  Or was this all a tease, a way of punishing him for his kiss that morning? But then she would have to be a consummate actress. Puzzled, uneasy, he knew this was not the time to explore the mystery that was Isobel Jervis. In fact, now was the time to stop this completely before his curiosity about her got the better of him.

  He opened the door and looked out. ‘It is safe to leave.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Isobel murmured and brushed past him without meeting his eyes.

  That was, of course, the best possible outcome. All he had to do now was to maintain a civil distance. He could only hope he was imagining the expression in her eyes and that he could ignore the nagging instinct that he should be protecting her from whatever it was that caused it.

  *

  ‘You’re not having anything to do with that man, are you, my lady?’ Dorothy set the breakfast tray across Isobel’s lap with unnecessary firmness. ‘You go vanishing goodness knows where yesterday when you should have been resting and I worry you were with him. He’s too good looking for any
woman to be around—it shouldn’t be allowed. You can’t trust any of them—men—he knows you’re grateful for him saving you and the next thing you know he’ll be—’

  ‘I told you, I had a nap in one of the other rooms, Dorothy.’ Isobel made rather a business of wriggling up against the pillows and setting the tray straight on her knees. ‘Will you please stop nagging about it?’

  ‘What your sainted mama would say if she knew, I do not know.’

  ‘And how could you?’ Isobel said between gritted teeth. ‘There is nothing to know.’

  ‘He’s no good, that one. He’s not a gentleman, despite all those fine clothes and that voice,’ Dorothy pronounced as she bustled about, tidying the dressing table. ‘They don’t say much in front of me in the servants’ hall, me being from outside, but I can tell that there’s something fishy about him.’

  ‘Dorothy, if Lady Hardwicke trusts Mr Harker sufficiently to entertain him in her own home, with her daughters here, I really do not feel it is your place to question her judgement.’

  ‘No, my lady.’

  ‘And one more sniff of disapproval out of you and you can go straight back to London.’

  Silenced, the maid flounced out, then stopped to bob a curtsy in the doorway.

  ‘May I come in?’ Cousin Elizabeth looked round the door and smiled when she saw Isobel was eating. ‘It seems everyone is much recovered this morning, although I have forbidden Lizzie to leave her room today.’

  ‘How is she?’ Isobel’s sleep had been disturbed by vivid dreams of loss, of empty arms and empty heart. She felt her arms move instinctively as though to cradle a child and fussed with the covers instead.

  ‘She is fine, although a trifle overexcited. What would you like to do, my dear? Stay in bed? I can bring you some books and journals.’

  The sun was pouring through the window with a clarity that promised little warmth, but exhilarating views. ‘I thought I might take another walk, Cousin Elizabeth. If you do not require me to assist you with anything, that is. Perhaps Anne or Philip might join me?’