Now it was Lucas, the Duke of Willowby, who moved forward. He had spent years as a spy for the government, and in that moment it showed on his face, which was suddenly hard. “Warn you?” he repeated.
His lips parted. “She was trying to tell me that her uncle wanted to hurt me. I played it off. You all know how long he’s been railing against me, declaring I should be destroyed for what he thinks I’ve done. But it seems he has made good at last. And this is his first step in some larger plan.”
Lucas’s wife Diana reached out to take her husband’s hand. Her expression was just as troubled as the others, despite her being the newest addition to their group. “You think there is danger.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps. And if Isabel is truly an innocent in Winter’s plans, then that danger might extend to her, as well.”
His stomach tightened. He already knew what it was like to lose someone he cared for. He had experienced the pain of screaming out someone’s name and getting no answer from the limp body in his arms.
He never wanted to repeat that. Never.
“So you will marry this woman,” Charlotte said, resting her hand on the swell of her belly she shook her head sadly. “Oh, Matthew.”
He shrugged. “There is nothing else to do about it. Not after what happened tonight. He has forced my hand, and now it must play out. I’ll arrange for a special license tomorrow and have the wedding as soon as possible.”
James, Duke of Abernathe and long the leader of their group, grabbed for Matthew’s arm. “Don’t rush this, Matthew.”
“I must,” he said, staring into his friend’s eyes. Seeing the pain James felt for him. “For her sake, for my own. At least it will remove Isabel as a pawn in his game.”
“Or put her squarely in position to take everything,” Hugh snapped. “You are a fool if you consider her a pawn and not an all-powerful queen on the board.”
Matthew flinched. It was easy to think of Isabel as a queen, in truth. Just not the kind who would come into his world and destroy it. And he could only hope he was correct in that assessment.
“I appreciate the concern and the pitying stares and all that,” he said to the group at large. “But this is happening now. And the best thing you can do for me is to just support me in it.”
“Or course,” Baldwin said, reaching out to squeeze Hugh’s arm before he offered a hand to Matthew. “Congratulations, my friend.”
There was no denying the mournful tone of Baldwin’s voice, but Matthew took the offering. They shook, Baldwin’s eyes holding his steady and true. He nearly buckled beneath the support. And when the others came up to offer the same, he felt their strength and their love flowing through him, buoying him as it had so many times before.
“It’s the middle of the night,” James said when everyone had taken their turn. “I suggest we all go home and regroup tomorrow.”
“Yes,” James’s wife Emma said as she took his arm. “It will look better in the morning, it always does. Come along, everyone.”
Matthew smiled as the group said their goodbyes and filed from the parlor in a buzzing line. In the end, it was only Charlotte and Ewan left. Charlotte let out her breath in a long sigh.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” Matthew said. “I had no idea Hugh would haul everyone from their beds in an emergency meeting. You need your rest and it was unfair.”
Her brow wrinkled. “You think I do not fully support this impromptu gathering of the 1797 Club?” She shook her head. “You took my mind off my child kicking me all night at any rate. So, I thank you for that.”
She glanced at Ewan, and a world of unspoken communication flowed between them. She signed out a few little movements of her hands, the language of love the two of them had developed over years of friendship and longing and then true and powerful love. Ewan smiled briefly, then leaned in to kiss her cheek.
“I leave my husband to reassure you further,” she said as she took Matthew’s hand. “Goodnight, my dearest friend. As sweet Emma said, it will be better in the morning.”
“Good night,” Matthew murmured as she left the room.
He turned to find Ewan observing him closely. Reading him, as his cousin had always been able to do. Normally he didn’t resent the almost brotherly ability, but tonight he felt raw and he didn’t want Ewan to see that.
He was glad when Ewan broke his stare and pulled out the little notebook from his pocket. He scribbled a message and handed it over.
“Do you feel anything for her at all?”
Matthew tensed. That was the question, wasn’t it? The one he was trying to avoid answering because he didn’t fully know it. But here, with Ewan, he could be honest in that.
“Desire,” he said softly. “In spades. It wasn’t her who started what happened in that parlor tonight. It was me. When I’m near her it is…fire. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
Ewan nodded, as if he understood. Matthew assumed he did. He’d certainly caught glimpses of plenty of passionate kisses and hidden moments between his cousin and Charlotte since their marriage.
But there was still trouble lining Ewan’s expression. “Desire is a start,” he wrote. “But I’m asking how you feel.”
“Conflicted,” Matthew choked out. “How the hell am I supposed to marry Angelica’s cousin? How the hell am I supposed to figure out the truth from all the lies that started out between us? Is she the swan I seduced in a hell? Is she the manipulator Hugh is certain she is? Is she the girl in the bookshop who blushes over gothic novels? Who is she?”
Ewan considered that a moment, then wrote, “She may be all of those things. You are more than your grief, are you not? Or your desire? Or your friendship with our group?”
“This is why I don’t talk to you,” Matthew said with a little smile. “You are so rational.”
“Talk to Robert for irrational,” Ewan wrote. Then he frowned. “Or Hugh, as of late.”
Matthew let out a long breath and bent his head. “This was not the plan, Ewan. This explosion that just went off in my life was not the plan.”
“The best things start that way. Now, is there anything I can do?”
Matthew read the note with a smile and reached out to squeeze his cousin’s shoulder. “Just…be you. Supportive and watching. Kind and so damned logical.” Ewan didn’t smile in return, and Matthew sighed. “He’s got me trapped now. Until we see why, that’s all you can do.”
Chapter Fifteen
Matthew straightened his jacket as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He looked…tired. Wasn’t that what everyone had said to him over and over again during the two days since his surprise engagement? The one that would be completed tomorrow thanks to a special license, hastily received after the exchange of copious amounts of money.
There were benefits to having power. Only he felt powerless.
Powerless to this marriage that was hanging over him. Powerless against the tide of desire he felt for the woman who would be his bride. Powerless against whatever plans Fenton Winter had in store for him.
He shook his head and glanced over his shoulder as his chamber door opened.
“Mama,” he said, turning to face her with the best smile he could muster. It felt as false as it likely looked.
Her smile was just as untrue. “You do look handsome, my love,” she said as she came up to squeeze his hand.
They stood together for a long moment, and then he sighed. “I know you are…troubled. Just as everyone is troubled.”
“I won’t deny that. I think any mother would be, given the circumstances. Winter has hated you for years—no amount of reason could change his mind about what he believes you did. I have never understood it.”
Matthew looked at his reflection again as he considered that statement. “I do.”
She drew back. “You do?”
“When Father died,” he began, feeling her stiffen. Her fingers tightened in his. “You don’t know how I wis
hed I could blame it on someone, something. The pain was so sharp, so strong, I would have loved to place it somewhere else. Focused it into anger or hate. To lose a child…I imagine that would be a thousand times worse.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose that is true. Anger feels like it is more controlled than grief. More purposeful. But still. To go so far…”
He shrugged. “Well, he did go so far. There is no escaping it now. And in the end, it was my own actions that placed me into a moment he could capitalize on, isn’t it? Had I not been so imprudent…”
He waved his hand rather than complete the sentence. Whenever he did, he was yanked back to that moment in the parlor when Isabel had been flush against him and all reason had failed him, replaced by something hot and hungry that took control.
“What is she like?” the duchess asked.
He turned toward her. “Isabel?”
“Your friends seem quite…divided on the subject.”
Yes, his protective friends, half of whom saw Isabel as a co-conspirator, the other half as a victim. He wasn’t sure which camp he fell into.
“She is lovely, of course,” he began. “You could not help but look at her across a room. But the closer one gets, the more…fascinating she becomes. She’s intelligent, which I like.”
“You would be bored to tears if she weren’t, so that makes me happy,” his mother said.
“And she has a sweetness to her. She was poorly matched before, you know. In a loveless marriage.”
She bent her head. “And now you will both be thrust into another. Not what I ever wanted for you, especially after watching your friends and your cousin marry so happily. I always wished you would find a union like—”
She broke off, but he knew where her mind was going. “Like yours with Father,” he said, sighing. “Yes, I hoped for that too. But you know, it isn’t so very terrible. I am drawn to her. There is much to separate us, but there is no reason that one day we could not have a good…a good friendship.”
“Perhaps that will be enough,” she whispered, her voice cracking slightly.
He lifted it to his lips for a brief kiss. “May I ask you a favor?”
“Anything,” she said.
“Lead in the way in how you manage her,” he said. “Please. It will be hard enough for her for a while and I don’t want her to feel she is under attack from all sides.”
“You do care about her well-being,” the duchess breathed, tilting her head to examine his face a bit more closely.
He shifted beneath the interest and nodded. “I do.”
“Then I will do everything in my power to make her feel welcome,” his mother said. “But Matthew?”
“Yes?”
“If she does turn out to be in league with her uncle, I will cut her to her knees.”
Matthew lifted his eyebrows at the sharp, forceful tone. His mother was generally so kind, so gentle. And yet now her eyes flashed with the same protective light that his friends had demonstrated.
“I understand,” he said.
“Your Grace?” They both turned to find Portman standing in the entryway.
“Yes?” Matthew asked, though he already knew what the butler would say. He just needed an extra breath before he faced it.
“Mrs. Hayes has arrived.”
Matthew glanced at his other. “Only Mrs. Hayes? Mr. Winter is not also here?”
Portman shook his head. “No, sir. Mrs. Hayes came alone. She is in the blue parlor, as requested.”
Matthew nodded, and after Portman had gone, he looked at his mother. “Is it very wrong that I’m happy her uncle didn’t join us tonight?”
“No, for I feel it too and I absolve us of all guilt,” she laughed as they left the room together to join Isabel. “Though I do wonder at his behavior.”
Matthew pursed his lips. “As do I. As do I.”
They came down the stairs and up the hallway. The door to the blue parlor was closed as they approached and he made himself take a cleansing breath before he pushed it open and revealed their guest.
Isabel was standing by the window and she pivoted when they entered, her hands clenched before her and her eyes wide. She was beautiful, as she was always beautiful. Tonight she wore a pretty blue silk that made her seem at home in the room. A fall of butterflies adored the skirt of her gown, and the whimsical element made him feel like he was home in Tyndale, lying in the fields like he had done when he was a boy.
When everything was so much simpler.
“Your Graces,” Isabel said, hands fluttering much like those butterfly wings when she stepped forward.
“Mrs. Hayes,” his mother said, breaking from him and holding out her hand when Matthew could not move toward her. “Or may I call you Isabel, since tomorrow we shall be family?”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Isabel said, glancing at him. “I would be honored.”
The duchess cast him a quick look over her shoulder. It was pointed, and he realized he had simply been staring since he entered the room. As she stepped away to pour them each a drink, Matthew came forward at last.
“Good evening, Isabel,” he forced himself to say.
“Matthew,” she whispered, her gaze flitting over his face. “I’m so happy you invited me tonight. I thought you would not wish to see me.”
His heart lurched at the breathlessness in those words and the pain in her gaze. Despite his hesitations about her motives, he still felt a powerful drive to comfort her. To do far more than that. He reached for her hand.
When their fingers intertwined, there was a jolt of awareness that went through him. As always, desire was there. But something else, too. Something he could scarcely put a name to, for he hadn’t felt anything like it for a very long time.
It was a feeling of coming home, which could not be correct. He was overwrought after all the excitement of the past few days.
“We are to marry, Isabel,” he reminded her softly. “I could not avoid you if I wished to. And I don’t wish that.”
She nodded slowly, though his words didn’t seem to help ease her discomfort. In truth, he had no idea how to do so. They were both thrown into a situation out of their control. They were both aware of the barriers and the difficulties.
She cleared her throat as his mother returned. “My uncle sends his, er, regrets that he could not join us. He was distracted by some business.”
From the tightness around her lips, he could see that was not a true statement, and his stomach turned. Was she lying because this was part of some larger plan? And if not, if she were as much a victim as he was, just how bad things were for her at home, with a man so driven by hate that he would sacrifice her for it? Both questions left him ill at ease.
There were voices in the foyer then, and they all turned. “Ah,” the duchess said. “The others are arriving. Shall we greet them?”
She smiled at Isabel and then stepped from the room. Matthew held out his arm and she took it. But before he drew her into the hall, toward his friends and the night ahead, he leaned down closer.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered.
She jerked her gaze up with a gasp. Like she didn’t believe it. Like he couldn’t feel it after everything.
“S-so are you,” she stammered.
He found himself smiling as he guided her from the room. And for the first time in days, his heart actually felt light.
Isabel stood alone on Matthew’s wide terrace, looking down at a shadowy garden below. She could not see much of it in the moonlight, but she could already tell it was massive. Lovely. And after tomorrow, hers.
That thought was shocking every time she stumbled upon it, and she gripped her hands tighter on the metal railing as she gazed into the night.
The past few hours had been…trying. The supper was wonderful, of course. The company fine, for Matthew’s friends and their wives were all good people. Decent men and women.
But she saw the way the
y watched her. Careful. Accusatory in some cases. They were a tightknit group. She had no place there. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
And that stung even though she deserved no less than their censure.
“He is like a brother to me, you know.”
Isabel turned to see Helena Undercross coming across the terrace toward her. The Duchess of Sheffield, Baldwin’s wife. And there was no mistaking the hard edge to the otherwise beautiful woman’s countenance.
“I know he and your husband are very close,” Isabel said carefully.
“They are. All the dukes in their little club are close, but there are pockets of deeper friendships within their ranks. Baldwin, Ewan and Matthew are one of those pockets.” Helena stopped beside her and stared up at the stars for a moment. “That alone would make me protective of him. But there is more to it than that.”
Isabel tilted her head. She wanted so much to know more about the man she would so soon marry. And this woman, with her accusation, was offering her a glimpse of just that.
“What is it?” she asked carefully.
Helena sent her a side glance. “He would have saved me.”
“Saved you?” Isabel repeated, not understanding. It was obvious Baldwin and Helena were deeply in love, just like every other couple in that group of friendship inside. She could not imagine Helena ever would have required saving from Matthew.
“There was a moment when it seemed Baldwin and I would not be able to wed,” she explained, her voice shaking as if the mere words cut her deeply. “And Matthew offered to take my hand to help me escape a bad situation.”
Isabel’s lips parted as she stared at the woman beside her. The very beautiful woman. Alluring and exotic, since she was an American. The idea that Matthew had ever considered marrying her made Isabel’s jealousy flare.
“I see,” she whispered.
“I’m not sure you do,” Helena retorted, facing her suddenly. “And I’m not sure how I feel about you in return. There are things about you that make me want to offer you friendship. But I doubt you, Isabel. And I fear what that doubt means for Matthew.”
The Duke of Hearts Page 14
