Why Dukes Say I Do

by Manda Collins

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said with a frown, her blue eyes narrowed. Isabella felt a flush creep into her own cheeks. “Where were you?” Belinda repeated.

  Before Trevor could evade his sister’s question again, Isabella jumped in. “We were admiring the stars,” she said easily. “One doesn’t get to see them nearly as well in London. I was afraid I’d be set upon by wandering cattle, so I had your brother accompany me. For protection of course.”

  Isabella felt both Carey siblings stare at her. “Are there cows or sheep loose on the moors?” Belinda asked with a frown. “I’d heard that one of Mr. Palmer’s tenants had a cow get out, but I think the farthest she got was Mr. Davies’ pasture.”

  Trevor’s lips twitched. “No, I don’t think it’s a big problem for us at Nettlefield,” he said. “But one can never be too cautious.”

  He and Belinda exchanged a look that Isabella read to mean “look how foolish the lady from London is.” She was more than happy to sacrifice her pride for the sake of Belinda’s innocence. Good lord, what if the child had come out to the summerhouse? They wouldn’t have been able to explain that away.

  “I had never thought that you might be as frightened at being in the country as Eleanor and I might be in the city,” Belinda said kindly. It was obvious, though, that she thought Isabella’s fears of wild cattle were bordering on insanity.

  “Hadn’t you better get back to bed, Bel?” Trevor said briskly. “If you’ve found a book for yourself, that is.”

  “Oh yes,” his sister responded, clasping a book to her chest. “Just a novel that Eleanor discarded ages ago. Will you walk up with me, Lady Isabella?”

  Isabella risked a glance at Trevor, who shrugged behind his sister’s back. With a sigh of disappointment, she followed Belinda up the stairs to the family wing, and they paused outside the girl’s bedroom door.

  Trevor, who had come up after them, said good night as he walked down the hall toward his own bedchamber. Isabella watched him go, and then turning to say her good nights to the girl, she found Belinda watching her curiously.

  “What?” she asked, feeling the blush rise in her cheeks again. The child had the most intense way of pinning one down with her gaze. She would make a remarkable parent one day, Isabella mused. She already had the scolding look down pat.

  Belinda was silent for a beat but then shrugged and shook her head. “Nothing, I suppose. I just got the oddest feeling that you and Trevor were up to something. You had the same look about you that Ellie and I have when we’re trying to get away with some mischief.” Isabella was trying to decide how best to respond when the girl laughed. “But that’s silly, isn’t it? Grown people like you and Trevor don’t get up to mischief, do they?”

  If she only knew, thought Isabella as she bid Belinda good night and shut her bedchamber door behind her.

  If she only knew.

  * * *

  The next morning, the day of the Palmer ball, Isabella woke with a start to find Belinda sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Finally,” the girl said, shaking her head in exasperation. “I thought you’d never awaken. Do you always sleep this late?”

  Isabella was unaccustomed to children as a general rule, but she was even more unaccustomed to them waking her at dawn. Still, she gave a yawn and sat up. Just in time for her maid to come bustling in.

  “I’m sorry, Lady Wharton,” Sanders said. She didn’t specify what she was sorry about, but Isabella could guess. “I’ll just got get your hot water.”

  Coward, Isabella thought, turning back to Belinda. Isabella was suddenly grateful that Trevor hadn’t slipped back into her bedroom as she’d hoped he would last night. It would be quite difficult to explain his presence to his all-too-knowing little sister.

  “What brings you here, Belinda? We did not have plans to go look at kittens or examine baby birds in their nests or some such animal adventure, did we? Besides, you were up quite late. Did you not feel the slightest bit of a need to linger in your bed this morning?”

  “I never sleep in. There is always too much to see and do.” Belinda’s blue eyes, so like her brother’s, rolled in that particular way that only children and teens could manage. As if she found Isabella’s human frailty a bore. “It’s the day of the Palmers’ ball and we must prepare for it. There is so much to be done. So wake up and come help me.”

  Since Belinda was too young to even attend the ball, Isabella was somewhat perplexed. “What is there to do?” she asked, not bothering to stifle a yawn. “You aren’t even going to the ball, if you don’t mind my saying so. What on earth have you to do for it?”

  “It’s Eleanor,” the girl said with vehemence. “It is her first ball and I mean to ensure that she is the most popular young lady there.”

  Somewhat bewildered by the girl’s demands, Isabella asked carefully, “And what is it we are meant to be doing to help her?”

  “First of all,” Belinda explained in a manner that might better be employed in explaining the rules of cribbage to a toddler, “we must help her choose a gown. I know that Mrs. Renfrew was meant to send her one, but we need to see that it fits properly and if it doesn’t we need to find an alternative.

  “Then we must ensure that her hair is styled perfectly,” she continued. “Then we should help her choose which reticule to bring. And so on and so forth.”

  “But it is”—Isabella consulted the clock on the mantle across her bedchamber—“only nine fifteen in the morning. Surely, we should wait and do those things later in the day, when we are closer to leaving for the ball.”

  “Oh, I know,” Belinda said with a shrug. “I just wanted to be sure that you knew we’d be needing your assistance later in the day.”

  Biting back a sigh, Isabella simply nodded. On the one hand, the girl’s enthusiasm for her sister was endearing. On the other hand, Isabella had been up quite late and, since she hadn’t spent it being thoroughly ravished by the girl’s elder brother, she’d hoped to at least sleep a bit later than usual.

  It was, however, not to be.

  Her mission completed, Belinda got up from the bed. “I will just leave you to dress for the day.” Her eyes turned serious. “You won’t forget about Eleanor tonight, will you?”

  Suddenly reminded that both girls had lost their mother and were desperately in need of guidance from a woman, Isabella nodded. Impulsively she hugged the girl. Isabella was not, as a general rule, a demonstrative person, but some situations simply cried out for a show of affection. And to her pleasure, Belinda hugged her back. “I won’t forget her,” Isabella told her.

  Stepping back, Belinda smiled brightly. “I knew you wouldn’t let us down.”

  As the girl left the bedchamber, Isabella wondered what would happen to the girls when she left to go back to London. She had genuinely grown fond of them and didn’t like to imagine them here in the country without any guidance from a woman of their own social standing. What would happen when Eleanor began attending more social functions? What if one of the neighborhood boys attempted to persuade her into more than just a few kisses? Who would she go to with questions? Trevor was a conscientious brother, but a girl could hardly confide the details of her personal life to her brother.

  Still ruminating on the situation, Isabella flung off the bedclothes. If she was awake, she might as well go down to breakfast.

  Her ablutions made, she donned a pretty blue morning gown and allowed her maid to dress her hair.

  “Mr. Templeton asked me to tell you that the paintings you did with the young ladies the other day are dry now,” Sanders said as she patted one last curl into place. Isabella surveyed herself in the mirror and reflected once again just how lucky she was to have found the woman so soon after her previous maid had left to return to her family in the country. Sanders might not have the most entertaining personality, but she was a wonder with hair. “He’s put them in the blue salon if you wish to see them.”

  “Excellent,” she said, rising from her dressing table. “
I’ll just go have a look at them before breakfast.”

  Slipping from the room, she went down to the first floor and hummed a waltz as she made her way to the blue salon. Now that she was awake, she may as well make the most of it.

  The paintings were set up on the easels that they’d used that day when they’d painted. Eleanor’s and Belinda’s were facing the door while Isabella’s faced out the window. Smiling, she stepped closer to see both girls’ work side by side. The paintings themselves were expressions of their artists. Belinda’s painting was marked by her large and expressive brushstrokes, while Eleanor’s reflected the young lady’s contained attention to detail.

  Wanting to see her own work as well, Isabella walked around to the other side to see it. As she turned the corner, however, the flash of red on the canvas told her something was wrong. None of them had needed to use the vermillion pigment at all. Yet someone had.

  The careful work she’d put into the painting was obliterated by red paint dripping down the canvas like blood.

  I know what you did, BITCH!

  Her scream was unintentional but heartfelt.

  * * *

  Trevor tried and failed to keep his mind on the estate books in front of him. But all he could think of was Isabella.

  It had taken all of his willpower to stop himself from slipping into her bedchamber in the night. He’d even had his hand on the doorknob to do just that when his conscience got the better of him. What sort of example did it set for his sisters if he took advantage of a houseguest while they were in the house as well? Not that they would know about it, of course, but he would know it. And something about it just didn’t sit right with his conscience. A gentleman did not take advantage of a lady in distress. And she must be upset after her encounter with Thistleback the night before.

  No, it was for the best that he hadn’t succumbed to passion last night. Or so he tried to tell his aching body, which he was not sure would ever forgive him. Trevor was not in the habit of keeping a mistress, though he did, on occasion, conduct a discreet liaison from time to time. But he could not recall a time in recent memory when he’d burned with passion for someone like he burned for Isabella. It was inconvenient as hell that she happened to be his houseguest—no matter how unwelcome she’d been at first—and his sisters’ friend. He liked to think that she was his friend now as well, though the complications of such a friendship had not gone unnoticed by him. But so long as she remained under his roof, and in danger to boot, he would simply have to keep his trousers fastened.

  He was in the middle of calculating a column of numbers when he heard what sounded like a shriek from down the hall. Mindful of Thistleback’s threats the night before, Trevor raced down the hallway to the blue salon, where he found a pale Isabella lifting a canvas down from its perch against an easel.

  “What is it?” he demanded, hurrying to her side to take the heavy painting from her. “What’s the—”

  Trevor stopped in mid-sentence when he caught sight of the red paint marring her landscape scene. “Who did this?” he asked, wrenching the canvas from her hands, fighting the urge to throw it bodily across the room. Instead he set it down near the fireplace, facing the wall so that Isabella couldn’t see its foul message. “Was it Thistleback?”

  Collapsing onto a nearby chair, Isabella shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He has no way of knowing about—” She paused, and Trevor was angered to see tears well in her eyes.

  He went to her. He didn’t care if she was as strong as hell and wanted her space. He knelt beside her chair and handed her his handkerchief. “What does he have no way of knowing about?” Trevor asked, trying to keep his voice gentle.

  Thanking him for the handkerchief, she dabbed at her eyes and swallowed. There was obviously something she wanted to hide from him. He could see it in her troubled eyes.

  “Tell me, Isabella,” he demanded, taking her hand in his. “Tell me what he’s talking about. He says he knows what you did. What did you do?”

  She gave a strangled laugh. “Nothing. That’s just it. I did nothing and he’s punishing me for it.”

  “Does this have something to do with your husband?” Trevor asked, clenching his jaw at the thought. “Talk to me, Isabella.”

  “No, nothing like that,” she said, visibly composing herself and taking a deep breath. “I actually can’t think that this has anything to do with Thistleback. It has to be someone else.”

  Rising, Trevor began to pace, stopping before the mantle to turn the painting out again to see the hateful words again. “What does this person think you did?” Trevor asked after a minute of studying the red paint.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be content to simply forget this happened?”

  Had the woman not spent the past week in his company? “Not remotely.”

  She sighed. “I thought not.” Rising from her chair, she went to peer out the window. He was unsure whether she was looking for something in particular or just trying to collect her thoughts.

  Finally, she turned and stepped over to the bellpull and tugged. “I, for one, would like to have some tea before I begin my story.”

  Twelve

  Once the tea tray had been brought and Isabella was alone again with Trevor, she busied herself with pouring for them both, the ritual of the tea table giving her some solace while her mind raced.

  To his credit, Trevor did not press her to speak before she was ready. Though she could see well enough that he was chomping at the bit for an explanation. That patience was one of the things that she most admired about him. He would sooner gnaw off his own arm than make her talk before she was ready.

  Finally, realizing that she must say something or risk their tentative friendship, she said, “I do not think that this threat came from Thistleback. Though I would just as soon ascribe it to him if it meant that I was only being terrorized by one person instead of two.”

  “So you have received other threats?” Trevor asked, settling his teacup into its saucer.

  Isabella nodded. “I had hoped that the other notes I received were from Thistleback, but it occurred to me this morning that he has no way of knowing what happened the night that Gervase died.”

  “And that was?”

  In an expressionless voice, Isabella told Trevor about what had happened that night at Ormonde House. How Gervase had put his knife to Perdita’s throat and how he’d ended up with both a gunshot and a knife wound. When Isabella was finished, the room was quiet, except for the sound of her heartbeat, which she knew Trevor must be able to hear as well.

  “And you think that someone knows the truth about what happened and is using it to punish you?” Trevor leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees.

  “I can think of no other reason for the notes and the carriage accident—you yourself said that the carriage must have been tampered with. And there is no possible way for Thistleback to know of any of this. He was not there that night, and if I recall correctly he wasn’t even in London on the night Gervase died. Unless he has a spy in Ormonde House there is no way for him to know of it, or my presence there that night.”

  “It does seem unlikely,” Trevor agreed. “But what are the chances that you could have attracted not one but two blackmailers?”

  “Three if you count the dowager,” Isabella muttered, knowing it sounded ridiculous even as she spoke the words. “I am not such an unpleasant person,” she said. “Am I? Do I truly deserve to be so persecuted?”

  “Of course you don’t,” he said. “And the dowager doesn’t count because she is a bane to everyone. Not just you. As for Thistleback, the blame for him may be laid firmly at your late husband’s door.”

  “But who is it?” she asked, frustrated beyond all care.

  “Someone with entry into this house,” Trevor said with a frown. “I will instruct Templeton to make sure that the doors and windows are all locked. In fact, I’ll have him see to it this afternoon.”

  The notion that someone ha
d simply walked into the house and defaced Isabella’s painting had not occurred to her. Because she had only been thinking of what the bloodred paint had made her feel. But now, knowing that someone had been in the same house as Eleanor and Belinda and Trevor, Isabella felt a tremor run through her body.

  “Oh god,” she whispered. “What if he tried to come to my bedchamber while Belinda was there this morning? What if she were harmed because of my presence here? I have to leave at once. Go back to London.”

  Returning to London would ruin Perdita’s chances of a happy match with Lord Coniston, but Isabella would have to do what she could to ensure that the dowager’s campaign against her did not work. She knew that Perdita would agree with her that the safety of her young cousins would matter more.

  “You will do no such thing,” Trevor said, standing and taking her hands in his. “Whoever this is wants you to give up and to leave. And I for one have no intention of giving him what he wants.”

  “Why aren’t you jumping for joy?” Isabella demanded. “From the moment I first arrived you’ve dreamed of nothing but putting me on the first stage back to London. Now that I finally declare myself willing to do just that, you’re against the notion?”

  Twin flags of color appeared on Trevor’s cheeks. “If you haven’t noticed, I have not said anything of the sort for at least three days now.”

  “Oh yes,” she said wryly. “And what has wrought this change in your wishes, Your Grace?”

  He said nothing, but the single raised brow he directed at her spoke volumes.

  Isabella felt her own blush rising. “Well, I suppose there is that,” she said, not willing to make eye contact.

  “There is also the fact that my sisters adore you,” he replied, pulling her toward him. “And that if I were to send you back to London before you are able to witness Eleanor’s success tonight at the Palmer ball, I would find myself drummed out of my own home.”