“So the story goes,” she repeated, and stood up. She wrapped herself in the sheet and moved toward him. “Does that mean it is untrue?”
He continued to stare out the window in the chamber, his expression blank. “Sometimes it feels like more than a part of me died with her. And yet I am still here. And I get to live with the consequences of what I did.”
She gripped a fist at her side. What he did? That sounded like a confession. One that might prove her uncle right in all his accusations when he railed out his hate and his rage toward this man. Her stomach turned at the idea that Tyndale…Matthew…could truly be a killer.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
He straightened up and slowly faced her. “It is not a topic I wish to discuss with a stranger,” he said softly. “But it is what Robert referred to when he said what he said. I suppose that by coming here, by being with you…I’m getting better in his eyes.”
“And in your own?” she asked, meeting those very eyes now. Trying desperately to see if he was victim or villain in them. Unable to determine anything but that they were dilated with renewed desire as he let them flit over her. Unable to control her own reaction to that longing, despite the unsatisfying answers to her inquiries.
“I feel like I’m alive again when you touch me,” he whispered. “And I want that. Just as I want you.”
He took the hand that held the sheet and tugged it free so that the cover fell away and left her naked. “I suppose we must test how long they allow us to keep this room occupied.”
She smiled and set aside her questions. She just needed to get closer to obtain more information. And closer was exactly what she wanted right now.
“I do have one request,” she said as he moved in and pressed his lips to the curve of her collarbone.
“What’s that?” he asked, his tone muffled as he kissed her skin.
“This time I need you naked,” she said, shocked by how wanton her words were. Her tone.
“I would never deny a lady,” he said as he tugged her back toward the bed. “Not now, not ever.”
Isabel’s hands shook as she rode the last few miles to her uncle’s home. It was late, well after three, and her body ached with all the pleasures she had explored with Matthew that night. As a lover, he was gentle but passionate, demanding but giving. He tended to her pleasure over and over, and when he took his?
Well, his loss of control was a sight to behold. One that made her sex throb once more with need.
How she wished she could just focus on those wanton memories. The very ones she’d been wanting to create when she started going to the Donville Masquerade. The ones that were supposed to keep her warm and satisfied when she was forced to share a cold and perfunctory bed with whatever merchant or lower gentleman her uncle eventually matched her with.
Only the other topic of their night together kept interrupting her pleasant memories. And that topic was Angelica.
Her heart lurched at the reminder that her cousin had once owned this man’s heart. Certainly, she must have also enjoyed his body, as well. How could anyone have him and not want to touch him?
And yet Angelica was dead and Matthew’s answers hadn’t fully satisfied Isabel’s questions on the matter. When he spoke of her, it was with sharpness. But was that because he felt the unfairness of losing her so young? Or frustration that her death was always linked to him, so he could never leave those memories that haunted him behind?
Or was it what her uncle suspected? That a mention of Angelica set Matthew off because of a guilty conscience? A murderer’s hate?
That didn’t seem right. It didn’t settle in with truth in her heart.
She scrubbed a hand over her face. “Bollocks,” she muttered softly since no one could hear her swear.
Angelica. How stunning she had been with that honey hair and those huge blue eyes. She’d been a rare beauty, and Isabel had always felt somewhat plain beside her. Angelica had been made for all her finery, and she wore it all with enviable confidence.
As girls, they’d been close. But as Angelica took her place in Society, as she came out to the attention of dukes and earls and viscounts, Isabel had been less and less involved. Visits had dwindled, letters had gone from once a week to once a month…once in a blue moon. Angelica had found her place and it hadn’t included Isabel, who was by then married to Gregory and settling in to the life of the bride of a solicitor.
A very empty life that had been, while Angelica had captured the attention of…him. Matthew. Now Isabel’s heart pounded and she cursed herself for it. For what she knew she felt, what she’d been feeling over and over.
Jealousy. Strong and ugly.
The hack came to a stop around the back of her uncle’s home, and she paid the driver before she took a deep breath and looked up at the house. This was not her home. She didn’t remember the last place she’d truly felt was her home. With her parents, perhaps, years ago. A lifetime.
She sighed and snuck up the back path to the servants’ entrance that she paid a footman to keep unlocked when she took these little adventures. She slipped into the kitchen and locked the door behind her, shaking off her night and the troubling thoughts and memories it inspired. She was here again, and she had to slip back into her normal life and not show that she was changed by Matthew’s touch. By the questions about him that now haunted her.
By her own reactions to both.
She walked into the hall and toward the back stair that would return her to her bedchamber, but she had not yet turned into it when she heard the sound of a throat being cleared behind her. She froze and slowly turned to find her uncle standing at the entrance to his study, arms folded as he glared at her in silent accusation.
“Uncle Fenton,” she said, her heart leaping to her throat and lodging there so words were nearly impossible to form. “I-I was…that is, I needed…I mean to say—”
“Don’t choke on your lies, girl,” he said, stepping aside to motion her into his study.
She bent her head and trudged toward him. She was caught, there was nothing else to it. Tonight of all nights, too.
“Sit,” he said as he shut the door behind them.
She moved to the settee and perched there, watching as he moved to the sideboard where he poured himself scotch. To her surprise, he also poured a second tumbler, this one of sherry. He handed her the second and took a seat across from hers.
He sipped his drink before he said, “Where have you been?”
She swallowed hard. She’d never been a very good liar. It wasn’t in her nature, despite the sneaking out and scandalous behavior she’d been allowing herself of late. Those activities had been born of desperation, not a point of character. Now she fought to find words that would save her.
Because the truth would most definitely not set her free in this case.
“I suppose my saying I was just in the kitchen getting myself a bite wouldn’t be accepted?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It would not. You were out. I saw you return in a hack, of all things. Where were you?”
She folded her arms. “I was out…seeing Sarah,” she lied. “Her mother is not well and I sometimes go out at night to help her.”
He arched a brow as if he didn’t quite believe that. “And you take a hack to do this, rather than simply requesting one of my carriages?”
She worried her lip. “I did not want to impose upon your hospitality more than I already have,” she said. “Or trouble you and your servants.”
He stared at her a long time, those eyes that were so like her cousin’s boring into her. She shifted beneath the weight of that stare and the lies that caused it.
“Perhaps you just don’t want me to know where you’re going,” he said softly. “Or what you’re doing in truth.”
Her mouth was so dry that it felt almost glued shut. She took a great gulp of her sherry before she whispered, “I assure you not, uncle.”
He shrugged. “Lie if you’d like, but there is no point to it. You have lived here for how long?”
She pressed her lips together. “For a little over a year,” she said. “A boundless hospitality that I feel very grateful for, I assure you.”
“That’s right.” Her uncle suddenly sounded far away. “You moved into my home thirteen days after the second anniversary of her death.”
Isabel flinched. There was Angelica again, always the other person in any room where she entered. The marker of before and after. “Yes,” she whispered.
“And you are out of mourning for that husband your father arranged for you, yes?” Uncle Fenton continued. “The time has officially passed?”
“Er, yes,” Isabel said. “It’s been about eighteen months since his passing.”
“Good.” He got up and paced to the window. “Very good. I think it is time to put you back out on the marriage mart, Isabel.”
She gulped for air. This was something he danced around, of course. The idea of matching her again had been the driving force that sent her to the Donville Masquerade in the first place. But tonight her uncle seemed more…driven by the idea. Like it was a plan, not just a fleeting notion.
“Oh, Uncle Fenton,” she said. “That is very kind of you, of course, to think of my future. But I do not know if I am ready to—”
“Ready?” he repeated, as if he was confused. “What does ready have to do with it? You cannot stay here forever, my melancholy cannot be good for you. It is time to make a new arrangement. Better than the last, certainly. Your father should have come to me then. You could have had a knight or even a minor baron to wed. But he was insistent that my money and name not influence. Well, that is over now. We’ll find you a true gentleman.”
“You wish…you wish to take me out into the ton?”
He blinked. “Of course, where else would I match you? I know little of merchants and the like. It’s time you find a match and that is what we’ll do. Attach a little dowry to you and you’ll be away from whatever trouble you’re finding for yourself before this Season is over.”
Her heart lurched. The very idea of coming out into Society, of being thrown back into the constriction and loneliness that a marriage could create…oh, her whole body hurt at the very idea of it.
“Please,” she whispered. “Could I not just stay a widow? I have very little, I know, but I would not have to stay here. I could find some other arrangement, perhaps even take on a position in a household or—”
He wrinkled his nose. “A position? I will not have it said that I sent my niece to trade. You should be happy, Isabel. Soon you will have a husband, perhaps even one with a little title. Most young women would trip over themselves to take that future. Now, go up to bed. That’s enough of this nonsense.”
He waved her toward the door before he took a place back at his desk. He bent his head, took up a quill and began to write, signaling in no uncertain terms that the conversation was over.
Isabel shivered as she got to her feet and walked from the room. This night had begun and ended with uncertainty. Even the intense passion and pleasure in the middle couldn’t change that fact.
Nor the fact that the control of her life had just been snatched from her hands. And now she was the mercy of a man deep in grieving and revenge. One who would explode if he ever discovered where she had truly been going.
And with whom she had been spending her nights.
Chapter Nine
Matthew sat in his cousin Ewan’s parlor. He was quiet as his cousin, mute since birth, signed and his wife Charlotte translated their secret language. Alongside the couple were Ewan and Matthew’s closest friend from childhood, Baldwin, and his wife of just a year, Helena. Normally Matthew relished these times with them, with all the dukes in their club. And seeing these particular dukes so happy was even better.
But his mind kept returning, time and time again, to his stranger at the Donville Masquerade. His swan. It had been two days since he saw her, touched her, and his nights had been restless with dreams of her. His days just as distracted by the same.
“Don’t you think, Matthew?” Charlotte asked.
He jolted at his name and looked up to see the foursome all looking at him expectantly. Of course he had no idea to what that question referred.
“Er, I…I’m sorry, Charlotte. I admit I was leagues away,” he said with an apologetic tilt of his head. “Forgive me.”
Charlotte had always been kind and her gentle expression now grew worried, as did the faces of the others. They even exchanged looks, and his stomach tightened. Since Angelica’s death, there had been a lot of those kinds of looks between his friends. God, how he hated their pity.
“Charlotte, you were telling me about the nursery,” Helena said with a smile for Baldwin. “I’d love to see what you’ve done.”
Charlotte smiled, but with her pregnancy so far along, she struggled to get up. Ewan moved toward her, helping her to her feet before he settled a hand on her stomach gently. He smiled, but there was tension to his face as she leaned in to kiss his cheek.
“Yes, you gentlemen will excuse us, won’t you?” Charlotte asked.
They were all on their feet by then, and Matthew inclined his head as the two ladies departed, leaving him alone with his two best friends. It should have been so comfortable. Ewan had been raised by Matthew’s father and mother. Because of his inability to speak, his own family had been abominable to him, and Matthew’s late father hadn’t stood for it. In the end, they had been raised as brothers, not just cousins or friends.
And Baldwin was nearly as close. His father had been good friends with Matthew’s. The families had always been linked. Baldwin and his sister Charlotte had been a constant part of their lives. Ewan had even fallen in love with Charlotte when they were just children.
They were a bonded group within the larger group of their friends. And yet there was no ease in being alone with them, because they knew nothing about Matthew’s recent troubles.
Baldwin sighed as he went to the parlor door and shut it. When he looked at them, he shook his head. “I don’t know which of you two to start with. You’re both like ghosts. Is there something horrible going on that I know nothing about?”
“Start with him,” Matthew said, indicating Ewan.
Ewan glared at him but pulled out the small silver notebook he used to communicate. The engraved piece, given to him by his wife, reflected the firelight as he scribbled out a shaky message. “It’s the baby.”
Matthew read the note out loud and his stomach dropped as he jerked his face back up to Ewan’s. “Is something wrong?”
Ewan swallowed and wrote, “Charlotte is healthy and the baby moves and kicks. I would be delighted. I am delighted. But…”
He stopped writing midsentence, set the notebook down and walked away. Both Matthew and Baldwin read the message, and Matthew exchanged a look with their friend.
“Ewan,” he said softly, pushing his own troubles away to focus on Ewan. “Are you still worried this child will inherit your…affliction?”
Ewan didn’t have to answer in writing. The way his neck stiffened, the way his knuckles whitened, was enough.
“It’s why you pushed my sister away for so long,” Baldwin said, his tone just as kind as Matthew’s had been. “Why you nearly didn’t marry her despite the feelings you have for one another.”
Ewan jerked out a nod, and Matthew was shocked to see the tears sparkle in his cousin’s eyes. He moved on him, catching his arm with both his hands. “You know we will all love, protect and spoil this baby no matter what. He or she will never know a lack of acceptance. A lack of family.”
Ewan swallowed hard and patted Matthew’s hand before he walked back to the notebook. “I know. I still worry. Charlotte sees it. She comforts me, too. Sometimes, though, I can’t help but fear for the future.”
“You don’t regret your decision to take this life with my sister, do you?” Ba
ldwin asked, his tone suddenly sharper.
Ewan jolted and he scraped out in all capitals, “NEVER!” He drew a few long breaths as if to calm himself and then he wrote. “The baby comes in a few weeks. Diana will be helping Charlotte with the birth. And then we’ll see.”
Matthew nodded. Diana was their friend Lucas’s wife, and a talented healer. “Yes, we’ll see. In the end, that is all any of us get, you know. Tragedy can strike in an instant to any of us. Don’t go looking for it if you can avoid it.”
“Your mother said as much to me when I was still tangled up over a future with Charlotte.” Ewan smiled.
Matthew returned the expression. “Well, she is, as you know, always correct.”
“Is that why you’re so troubled? Angelica?”
Baldwin arched a brow. “I’ve some thoughts on that subject.”
“Thoughts,” Matthew repeated. “Really?”
Baldwin shot Ewan a look. “I’ve heard he’s been spending time at the Donville Masquerade with Robert.”
Matthew’s eyes went wide. “Who told you that?”
“Hugh said the three of you went there when you all snuck out of James and Emma’s party. But that you’ve kept going back.” Baldwin folded his arms. “Are you denying it?”
“No,” Matthew said. “Why should I?”
To his surprise, Ewan slapped his arm hard. “Good. It’s time to come back to your life, Matthew. We’ve all longed to see you do so.”
“So is it guilt that makes you look so ragged?” Baldwin asked.
Matthew sighed. In truth, he wasn’t opposed to talking to the two of them about his troubles. Though both would be shocked, they cared for him and would not judge. And he needed an opinion on the matter that wasn’t from Robert and his skewed view on life and passion.
“There is a…lady,” he said.
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