Louise Allen

by Rumors

  *

  Half an hour later Isobel crept out of her room, her feet bare, her warmest wrapper tight around her over her nightgown. At Giles’s door she did not knock, but turned the handle and slipped into the room on chilly, silent feet.

  There was a green-shaded reading lamp set by the bed, but otherwise the room was in darkness, save for the red glow of the banked fire that was enough to show the long line of Giles’s body under the covers. His left arm lay outside, the hand lax, and the sight of the powerful fingers, open and still, brought a catch to her breathing. It was unexpectedly moving to see him like this, so vulnerable.

  On the pillow his head was still, with a bandage around the forehead, down over one cheek and around his neck. It was lighter than the heavy turban he had been swathed in when he arrived—Isobel tried to take comfort from that as she crept closer. The doctor had paid no attention to anything but getting his dressings right, it seemed—Giles’s normally immaculate golden-brown hair stuck out incongruously between the linen strips.

  She felt the need to smooth it, touch it and feel the rough silk, convince herself that he was alive and would soon be well, although he lay so immobile. Even as she thought it Giles moved, caught himself with a sharp breath. His ribs, or perhaps it was just the accumulation of bruised muscles.

  ‘Lie still,’ Isobel murmured and took the last few steps to the bedside. His unbandaged cheek was rough with stubble and unhealthily hot when she laid her palm against it. They had placed him in the centre of the wide bed and she had to lean over to touch him.

  ‘Isobel?’ His eyes opened, dark and wide in the lamplight, the pupils huge. ‘Go ’way.’

  ‘Did the doctor drug you?’ It would account for the wide pupils, the slur in his speech. ‘Are you thirsty?’

  ‘Stubborn woman,’ he managed. ‘Yes, drug. Tasted foul…thirsty.’

  There was a jug on the nightstand. Isobel poured what seemed to be barley water and held it to Giles’s bruised lips. He winced as it touched, but drank deeply.

  ‘Better. Thank you. Now go ’way.’ His eyelids drooped shut.

  ‘Are you warm enough?’ There was no answer. She should go now and let him sleep. There was nothing she could do and yet she could not leave him. He had fought for her honour and for his friend who could not demand satisfaction for his sister. If she had only screamed when those men broke into her room, then none of this would have happened.

  ‘Idiot man,’ she murmured. ‘You try to convince me that you are a rake and then you almost get yourself killed for honour.’

  Giles shifted restlessly. He should not be left like this. There was a chair by the fireside, she could sit there and watch him through the night; she owed him that.

  She eyed the bed. It was wide enough for her to lie beside him without disturbing him. Isobel eased on to the mattress, pulled the edge of the coverlet up and over herself. When Giles did not stir she edged closer, turned on her side so she could watch his shadowed face and let herself savour the warmth of his body.

  It was very wrong to feel like this when he was injured, she knew that. It was not only wanton, it was unbefitting of a gentlewoman. She should be concerned only with nursing a sick man, not with wanting to touch every inch of him, kiss away every bruise and graze, caress him until he forgot how much he hurt.

  She must not do it. But she could lie there, so close that their breath mingled, and send him strength through her presence and her thoughts. Tomorrow she must face the consequences of his defence of her, of the debt she now owed him and her own jumbled emotions, but not tonight.

  *

  ‘Oh, my Gawd!’

  Giles woke with a jerk from a muddled, exhausting dream into pain that caught the breath in his throat and the sound of the valet’s agitated voice. He must look bad to shake that well-trained individual.

  He kept his eyes closed while he took stock. Ribs, back, a twisted shoulder, aching jaw, white-hot needles down the side of his face and a foul headache. Nothing lethal, then, only bruises, cuts and the effects of the good doctor’s enthusiastic stitchery and drugs on top of a thoroughly dirty fist fight. But he had little inclination to move, let alone open his eyes. All that would hurt even more and, damn it, he had earned the right to ignore the world for a few minutes longer.

  ‘My lady!’

  That brought him awake with a vengeance as the bedding next to him was agitated and a figure sat upright.

  ‘Oh, hush, Tompkins! Do you want to rouse the entire household?’

  ‘No, my lady. That’s the last thing I’d be wanting,’ Tompkins said with real feeling. ‘But you can’t be in here, Lady Isobel! What would her ladyship say?’

  ‘I was watching over Mr Harker last night and I fell asleep,’ Isobel said with composure, sitting in the midst of the rumpled bedding in her nightgown and robe. Giles closed his eyes again. This had to be a nightmare. ‘She would say I was very remiss to lie down when I became sleepy and we don’t want to upset her, do we?’

  ‘No, my lady,’ said the valet weakly.

  ‘So you will not mention this, will you, Tompkins?’

  ‘No, my lady.’

  Neither the valet nor the woman in bed with him—in his bed—were paying him the slightest attention. Giles gritted his teeth and pushed himself up on his elbows as the valet went to draw back the curtains. ‘What the devil are you doing here, Isobel?’

  ‘I wanted to make sure you were all right.’ Her voice trailed away as she stared at him in the morning light and the colour ebbed out of her cheeks, leaving her white. ‘Of all the insane things to do, to tackle five men like that!’ She sounded furious.

  ‘Insane? I did not have a great deal of options. I could have run away and left James, I suppose.’ Damn it, he had fought for her and she was calling him an idiot?

  ‘That is not what I meant.’ Isobel slid from the bed and he turned his head away and tried to push himself upright, humiliated to find himself too weak to sit up and argue with her.

  ‘Sir, you shouldn’t try to sit up,’ Tompkins said. By the sound of it he was trying to envelop Isobel in Giles’s robe.

  ‘Pillows,’ Giles snapped, mustering his strength and hauling himself up. ‘And a mirror.’

  ‘Now I don’t think that would be wise, sir.’

  ‘Your opinion is not relevant, Tompkins. A mirror. At once.’

  ‘Sir.’ The valet piled pillows behind him, handed him a mirror and hovered by the bedside, his face miserable.

  ‘Unfasten this bandage.’

  ‘Giles—’

  ‘Sir—’ Giles lifted his hand to try to find the fastening and the man shook his head and leaned over. ‘The doctor will have my guts for garters, sir.’

  The process was unpleasant enough to make him feel queasy. When the dressing was finally unwrapped Giles lifted the glass and stared at the result. His nose had been broken, his mouth was bruised, but down the right side of his face where he had expected to find a single cut on his cheek, perhaps reaching to his cheekbone, were two savage parallel slashes from just above his eyebrow, down his cheek to his jaw.

  ‘The swelling and the stitches made it look worse than it is, sir, I’m sure.’ Tompkins rushed into speech. ‘The doctor’s very good, sir, lots of tiny stitches he took. Lucky it missed your eye, sir. A miracle, the doctor said that was.’

  A miracle. A miracle that had changed his face for ever in seconds. Giles stared back at familiar eyes, a familiar mouth, eyebrows that still slanted slightly upwards. As for the rest… He had always taken his looks for granted. His glass had told him he was handsome. Some women called him beautiful. It was nothing to be proud of: his looks came from his parents and good fortune and had proved enough of a nuisance in the past. He would get used to the changes.

  He had forgotten Isobel until she stammered, ‘No… Giles…’ She fled for the door, wrenched it open and, with the barest glance around to check outside, ran from the room.

  So this new face sent a courageous young woman fleeing from
the room in revulsion, a young woman who was not a lover, but who had called him her friend. That hurt, he discovered, more than the injuries themselves. ‘Put back the bandage, Tompkins,’ he said harshly. ‘Then bring me hot water, coffee, food.’

  ‘But, sir, you should be resting. Her ladyship told Cook to prepare some gruel.’

  ‘Tompkins, I have a job to do and I cannot do it on gruel. His lordship requires my attendance today. Either you bring me proper food or I will go down to the kitchen myself and speak to Cook. And send for the doctor. I cannot go about looking like an Egyptian mummy.’

  The valet left, shaking his head. Giles lay back against the pillows and told himself that it did not matter. He would heal in time and scars and a crooked nose were not the end of the world. But he could not forget the look on Isobel’s face when she had stared at him, appalled. That felt as though something had broken inside him.

  Chapter Eleven

  By breakfast Isobel was no nearer overcoming the guilt. Giles’s beautiful face was scarred for life and it was her fault. He had done it for her. The shock of how injured he was, her own helplessness, had made her angry—with herself as well as, irrationally, with him.

  She should not have shouted at him, she thought penitently as she looked across the table to where James Albright sat, coping efficiently with bacon and eggs after a few moments’ discreet exploration of the table around him with his fingertips. Giles had fought for him, too.

  Cousin Elizabeth pressed Lord James to stay on, but he shook his head. ‘You are very kind, but I will leave after luncheon if that is convenient. I must go and tell my family the truth of this matter.’ He smiled in Isobel’s direction before turning back to his hostess. ‘I am sorry to trouble you for so long, but my groom tells me that one of the horses has cast a shoe and they must send to the village blacksmith. I thank you for your hospitality under such trying circumstances,’ he added.

  ‘Helping an injured man, and one who is a friend of the family now, is no hardship, Lord James. And I know Mr Harker insisted that you bring him, although what on earth he was thinking about, I cannot imagine. Surely he did not think that he would be in any state to work with my husband and his advisers today—’ She broke off and stared at the door. ‘Mr Harker!’

  ‘Good morning. I apologise for my appearance.’ Giles walked into the room with a deliberation that Isobel realised must be the only alternative to limping. She found she was on her feet and sat down again. He did not spare her a glance.

  Giles had discarded the swathes of bandage, although there was a professional-looking dressing across his injured cheek. The swelling around his nose was less, although the bruising was colourful. He sat down next to his friend and touched his hand briefly.

  ‘Mr Harker, you should go back to bed immediately! What can you be thinking of?’

  ‘Lady Hardwicke, I assure you I am quite capable of working with the earl and his advisers.’ He accepted a cup of tea from Anne and reached for the cold meats.

  The countess shook her head at him, but did not argue further, apparently recognising an impossible cause when she saw one. ‘Benson, please tell his lordship that Mr Harker will be joining him and Mr Delapoole after breakfast.’

  Isobel ate in silence, almost unaware of what food passed her lips. Giles not so much ignored her as managed to appear not to notice her presence. When he rose to leave she got to her feet with a murmured excuse to her hostess and followed him out, padding quietly behind him until he reached the Long Gallery.

  ‘Giles! Please wait.’

  He stopped and turned. ‘Lady Isobel?’ The beautiful voice was still slightly slurred.

  ‘Don’t. Don’t be like that.’ She caught up with him and laid her hand on his arm to detain him. ‘Why are you angry with me? Because I have not thanked you for what you did for me? Or because I slept in your room? I am sorry if it was awkward with Tompkins. If you had to give him money, I will—’

  ‘What were you doing in my room? In my bed?’

  ‘I was not in it, I was on it.’ She knew she was blushing and that her guilty conscience was the cause. She desired him. She had lusted after him. ‘I was worried about you. I came to your room to make certain you were all right. You were thirsty so I gave you something to drink. You were drugged and I thought someone should watch over you. The bed was wide. I only expected to doze, not sleep so soundly that anyone would find me in the morning.’

  ‘A pity you did not turn up the lamp and see at once just how repulsive I look now: then you could have fled there and then and not waited until Tompkins and daylight revealed the worst.’ His bloodshot eyes fixed her with chilly disdain as she gaped at him. ‘You have had time to pluck up the courage to look at me. Pretty, isn’t it?’

  ‘You thought I was repulsed? Giles, for goodness’ sake! No, it isn’t pretty, it is a mess. But it will get better when the bruises come out and the swelling subsides. Your nose will be crooked, but surely you are not so vain that will concern you?’

  ‘And the scars?’ he asked harshly.

  ‘Will they be very bad? The stitches will make it look and feel worse at first. My brother had them in his arm last year and they looked frightful. But now all there is to show is a thin white line.’

  ‘Isobel, I am not a sixteen-year-old boy needing reassurance.’ Giles turned away, but she kept her grip on his sleeve.

  ‘No, you are a—what?—twenty-nine-year-old man in need of just that! Physical imperfections are no great matter, especially not when they have been earned in such a way. You will look so much more dashing and rakish that your problems with amorous ladies will become even worse.’

  ‘Then why did you look at me as you did this morning? Why did you flee from my room?’ he demanded.

  ‘Because it was my fault, of course! You had been hurt, you must have been in such pain, and it was all because of me. I know you felt you had to defend your friend’s sister, but if I had not told you my story you would never have known. I was angry with myself, so I shouted at you.’

  ‘Of all the idiotic—’

  ‘I am not being idiotic,’ she snapped, goaded. ‘You could have been killed, or lost an eye.’

  ‘Isobel, I could not let them do that to you and not try to defend you. How could I not fight?’ Giles turned fully and caught her hands in his. The chill had gone from his expression, now there was heat and an intensity that made her forget her anger. But with it, her vehemence ebbed away.

  ‘You hardly know me. We have been friends for such a short time,’ Isobel stammered.

  ‘Friends? Is that really what you think we are?’ She could see the pulse beat in his temple, hard, just as her heart was beating. ‘I saved your life—that makes you mine. I want to be so much more than friends with you, Isobel, did you not realise?’

  ‘You do? But—’

  ‘But it is quite impossible, of course,’ he said with a harsh edge beneath the reasonable tone. ‘You might be mine, but I can never have you. You do not have to say it. I am who I am—you are what you are. You must forgive me for speaking at all,’ he added with a smile that did not reach his eyes. ‘I have embarrassed you now.’

  ‘No. No, you have not.’ What did he really mean? What did he want, feel? She did not know, dared not ask. This was not some smooth attempt at seduction, this was bitter and heartfelt—the words seemed dragged from him against his will.

  ‘I want you as more than a friend. I had hoped that I had hidden it. I knew I should not feel it. But I cannot help it,’ she added despairingly.

  ‘I should never have kissed you.’

  ‘Two kisses are not what makes me feel like this.’ She put her hand to her breast, instinctively laying it across the heart that ached for him.

  ‘You fought very hard against what you feel?’ he asked. His hands had come up to her shoulders. He was holding her so close that her skirts brushed his boots and she had to tip her head back a little to look into his face. The taut lines had relaxed into a wary watchfulness.


  ‘Not as hard as I should have,’ Isobel admitted. ‘But I was afraid you would think me like the women you have to avoid, the ones who pursue you.’

  ‘I doubt any of them would stand here, this close, with me looking like this,’ Giles said with a return to the bitterness.

  ‘I have seen better shaves,’ Isobel admitted, seeing what humour might do. No good was going to come of this, she knew that. How could it? He was, as he said, who he was. But that was for tomorrow. Today she knew only that she was desired by this man. ‘And I could wish your mouth was not so bruised.’

  ‘Just my mouth?’ He raised an eyebrow and winced.

  ‘I would like to kiss you,’ Isobel admitted, beyond shame at saying it. ‘But I do not want to hurt you.’

  ‘Kiss it better,’ he suggested, pulling her closer and bending his head so his words whispered against her lips.

  She slid her hands up to the nape of his neck to steady herself and trembled at the unexpected, vulnerable softness of the skin beneath her fingertips. With infinite care she met his lips with her own: the slightest pressure, the gentlest brush. He sighed and she opened to him and let him control the kiss.

  This was so much more than that passionate exchange in the library, that foolish tumble in the shrubbery. So much more intimate, so much more trusting. Giles made a sound deep in his throat, a rumble of masculine satisfaction, and she met the thrust of his tongue with her own, learning the taste of him, the scent of his skin, the rhythm of his pulse. Their lips hardly moved as the silent mutual exploration went on, but Giles’s hands travelled down her back until he held her by the waist, drew her tighter against his body.

  He was lean and long and fit and Isobel pressed against him out of need and yearning and felt the heat and the hardness of his need for her. She wanted to get closer, to wrap herself around him, but she stopped herself in time, recalling his ribs.

  ‘What is it?’ Giles lifted his head.

  ‘Your ribs. Lord James said you had been kicked.’