by TYNER, LIZ
He leaned over her and brushed a kiss at her hair, hoping she would wake. She didn’t move. Then he brushed a knuckle against her cheek, and her eyelids flickered and she rolled over.
Stepping away he turned, controlling his breathing. She was well. She would remain well.
He should have met Isabel in her chamber. Even after she’d knocked on his door, he could have easily walked her back to her room and then left as she fell asleep.
He was not cad enough that he could ask her to leave his bed, and he didn’t think she had plans to go. If she had, she would have left earlier.
He could not become attached. He could not experience anything deeper than he might feel for any other person. To care enough that you didn’t want to hurt someone was how it should be. But he could not care enough that the person could damage him. If he had learned one thing in his life, that was it.
He didn’t don his trousers or shirt, but slowly began gathering his clothing. Devil take it. His face itched. He touched it again. This would be the second day without shaving and he simply could not stand another moment of it.
But he couldn’t ring for his valet and ask the man to simply ignore the woman in his bed—the wife in his bed.
This was what the vicar had meant about marriage, but William had been too absorbed to see. A wife did differ from a mistress. He’d not expected that since no love was involved.
The simple act of declaration of marriage in front of a few witnesses and it wasn’t just nonsensical words. But he had suspected that all along.
His thoughts had tried to warn him when he’d not been able to think the night before. He’d babbled on to the vicar as if he’d swallowed a crate of ale, but he’d not had any spirits until the one before the wedding, hoping it would steady him. The portent of knowledge, and the sleeplessness, had taken him out at the knees and gutted what was left of his thoughts.
This oddness, at seeing Isabel asleep in his bed, helpless in her slumber, was a reminder of all the conflagration he’d experienced during the past days. Surely, soon this would dissipate. Distance would help.
With his clothing bundled in one hand and his boots in the other, he made it out the door and pulled it closed behind him. In the hallway, he dressed, resting his back against the wall as he tugged on his boots.
Marriage had reduced him to—secreting himself out of a married woman’s bed in the night as if she might have a husband appear at any moment.
He would have to find another place to stay, at least temporarily until he had accepted the routine of someone living in his house. But he could not turn to his friends. He would be the laughingstock. So, Will, wife toss you out on the wedding night? What didn’t you know how to do?
He would go to his sister’s house. He wouldn’t have to explain there. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t stayed there many times before when he’d been playing cards with her husband, or talking with her, and the night had flitted away. The servants always let him in as if he owned the property.
*
Someone knocked at the door and Isabel’s eyes opened wide and she pulled the covers to her neck, feeling the strange slide of bed fabric against bare skin. She was in the middle of a monstrously large bed, she was naked and she was alone.
‘Yes?’ she asked, that being the only word she could think of. William. He didn’t wish to startle her.
‘Pardon.’ A male voice, rising high at the end, as if his foot had been trampled. Not William. ‘Later, sir.’
Oh, that was most likely William’s valet to wake him.
She looked around the room. He was not about, nor were his boots, nor any sign of the clothing, except hers.
Well.
She jumped out of bed, dressed as best as she could and darted to her room. How did one approach the servants and ask where one’s husband had wandered off to? She could not pen this in a note to the butler.
Back in her chamber, she sat on the mussed covers where she had tossed about the night before waiting to see if Mr Husband remembered he had got married. She reflected on what a small bed the room contained. Oh, it fitted her shape perfectly, but didn’t quite measure up to his chamber.
Little embers grew inside her, fanned by every deep breath she inhaled.
She stood, arms crossed, and examined the bed. The room was not nearly as nice as she’d thought it the night before. Oh, it was beautiful and pleasant, all the things a woman could wish for if she had not awoken alone in a much larger tester bed.
No lovely posts raising high in the room to declare the owner worthy of the best.
She tamped her hand over the covers. Lumps under. She was certain.
This was what he had meant about marriage. The tenderness of the night before was like the empty—smaller bed. It had…a rather nice cover, but underneath it was just workable. Nothing alive in it.
Oh, what a fool she was for neglecting to believe the truth told to her.
She whirled around, saw her face in the mirror and picked up her brush and pointed at the reflection. ‘He told you. He didn’t wish to be married. Vows and nonsense. Vows and nonsense.’ She combed her hair and reminded herself that it was not his fault. None of it. He had rescued her.
They had met in a brothel, lest she forget. He was not a saint. He was probably back at Wren’s hoping to…win something.
She put her brush on the table.
It wasn’t as if she cared for him overmuch. Her feelings for him only stemmed from the fact that he had saved her life. He could have turned and left her to Wren. None of the other men there had even noticed her—so she was indeed fortunate he had seen something other than his ale and the lightskirt trying to entice him.
This day would have started very differently if not for William. Very. She didn’t want to contemplate how. She would be in worse shape if she’d returned to her parents. Disgraced. And only disgraced might be an overly hopeful thought.
She looked around the room. He’d married her. Kept her from being a governess. She needed not be so harsh on him. Not that there was a thing wrong with being a governess. She just didn’t wish to be one. Or at the moment, a wife.
She refused to sigh and hissed instead.
Her stomach plagued her. The same way it had hurt the morning after her parents had left her at Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies. They had waved goodbye and said it would not be long before they would be back for her. And she’d really thought they would leave and realise how they could not continue on without their one and only child and return. Even the next morning she had expected them back at any moment and was reprimanded by Madame Dubois for running to the windows.
She had just known they would miss her so badly that they would return. Every day she had expected her mother to rush in, tears streaming down her face, arms outstretched, and pull Isabel close and say she could not bear another moment without her precious daughter.
Finally her parents had returned on the appointed day and the hug had been tight, the smile sincere, and then they had all got into the carriage and Isabel had talked and talked and talked and her mother had not once mentioned the absolute misery of having Isabel away from home. Not once.
Isabel had been the most wonderful daughter ever on holiday from the school, showing her parents all the things she had learned. She had assisted her mother without being asked and had even helped the maid-of-all-work, who had said Isabel was the best child she’d ever seen and that she had missed her terribly and it was so good to have her home again. The maid-of-all-work had hugged her three times when she’d first seen Isabel. Three.
And then when the holiday was over, her parents had taken her back to Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies Who Were Tossed from Their Homes and left her again. Isabel had not spoken on the trip and she didn’t think her parents had even noticed. Again they had waved goodbye and smiled at her.
Then Grace had rushed to Isabel and had hugged her and said she had missed her. Joanna and Rachel had mentioned how much they had missed all thei
r dearest friends.
Still, Isabel had not felt as alone the first day of the school as she did on her first day of marriage. No noise of other students chattering and playing reached her ears. No instructions shouted about. Perhaps she would have liked being a governess more than she realised. Over time she would have sneaked into those children’s hearts and they would have missed her terribly on her half-day off.
Chapter Seven
‘William.’ His sister’s voice.
The door opened a peep. He raised his head from the pillow.
‘William.’
‘Stubble it, Soph. I’m trying to sleep.’
She was halfway into the room. ‘You look hideous.’
‘Thank you. Go away.’ He kept his eyes shut. Feigning sleep never worked, but one could hope.
‘The maid told me you were here,’ Sophia called out rather more cheerily and loudly than necessary.
He tamped the pillow with his hand, still not looking at her. ‘She was right.’
‘I was married a whole week before I showed up on your doorstep and you sent me right back home again.’
He felt the depression of the mattress as she sat.
‘So what did you do?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer.
Then she laughed. ‘Oh, I remember. At the wedding. Oh, that was endearing.’ She mocked a man’s gruffness. ‘I now pronounce you married.’ Then her voice rose and she emitted a very feminine, six-syllable sigh.
He half-opened one eye. ‘I meant nothing. I was pleased to be wed and thankful I had found Isabel. I sighed because it had taken me so long.’
‘Didn’t take her long to toss you out.’
‘She didn’t.’
The mattress shifted as she rose. ‘I’m sure she didn’t.’
‘Send some hot water this way.’
‘I think I shall visit Isabel.’
He opened his eyes and snapped out the words. ‘I forbid it.’
‘Mmm…’ she said at the doorway. ‘Remember what you said to me? That sometimes it was fine for me to pretend to be wrong even when I was right because sometimes men were just too thick-headed to see what a treasure was before them.’
‘I would have said that the sky was made of gooseberries if it would have convinced you to go home.’
‘The sky is made of gooseberries, but you may stay as long as you wish. I will send some water for you, though, because you have a forest growing on your face—’ The last of her words were lost in the closing of the door.
This would not do. He merely suffered from the shock of the wedding and the fact that the country miss had not known the proper rules of marriage. A wife didn’t visit her husband’s bed. And he had simply not been thinking when she appeared or he could have handled it so diplomatically and swept her up into his arms and whisked her down the hallway into her room.
He realised he had to go home. He’d had some rest now and he could see things much more clearly. Once he got the ragged mess of a beard taken care of he would go home. He would explain the way of the ton to her. Bedchambers were sacred by morning light. He could no more stay in her bed and risk the ladies’ maid walking in than she could stay in his bed and be awakened by the—
Oh.
*
Walking inside the doorway to his house, the familiar scent of lemon let William know his housekeeper had been working.
His steps lightened as he moved to his private chambers to drop off his coat and then he would find Isabel.
Inside the room, he stilled. He could see nothing different. Nothing. Yet, he felt he’d stepped into someone else’s room and not his own. Perhaps it was some lingering perfume or just the knowledge that she’d been there that disconcerted him.
But he supposed it was normal. Even his sisters rarely visited his town house and he’d invited no other woman inside, ever. The servants were mostly hidden in their duties. Sylvester sometimes visited, but was never invited. One allowed for Sylvester.
The room was no different. He was no different. And the woman in his home had no ties on him other than the fact that they had married. An arrangement that would suit them both for their futures. The vows were just words. But very loud ones, he admitted. Ones still ringing deep within.
William had escaped the need for courtship. He was as pleased with his wife as if he had chosen her from a fashion-plate magazine. The house was certainly big enough for the two of them, though he wasn’t certain how he would have felt if he’d walked into the bedchamber and she’d been inside.
Well, he smiled, shutting his eyes briefly. He wouldn’t have minded in one regard. His shoulders relaxed.
He examined the room. The bed. The walls. Everything was the same. Except the folded paper on the nightstand. He moved to it, picking up a note.
He stared at the words decorated with swirls and loops. She’d asked for his presence in her bedchamber.
Well, if one were to lose one’s privacy, then it could have a pleasant side.
A night of little sleep with all the events around him—well, two nights of little sleep had disconcerted him. He must not let his imagination take him down some path that only he saw.
If she asked him of his whereabouts in the night, he would tell her. He would reassure her that he would bring no disgrace on her.
He strode the hallway to her bedchamber just as a maid exited the door and his eyes flickered to the servant. She scurried away, but his hand went out, stopping the door before it closed.
Isabel hummed beyond the door, unaware of his presence. The sound flashed into him like a gunshot wrapped in velvet. He could not move. Her voice, even without words, controlled his heartbeats and whispered endearments.
His fingers tightened on the wood and he listened, his body swathed in the sense of song and Isabel.
Oh, he had not planned for this.
The humming stopped suddenly and he blinked, deserted.
He stepped inside. Isabel stood in front of the window. Light haloed her copper hair and emphasised the contours of her clothing.
One blink of the lashes over azure and his words fell to their knees. ‘Good morning.’ He could think of nothing else.
Her smile knotted around him and he had to shake himself internally to step back into his realm.
‘I have a plan.’ She moved as if a wind had lifted her an inch taller. ‘A plan you will like so much.’
Yes. He stopped the word from falling from his lips. He needed to hear her voice. He waited.
‘I will change my name.’ She clasped her hands to her chest. ‘You can tell everyone I am away visiting my family and then, after time has passed—’ She shivered with excitement. Her eyes shone. ‘You can tell everyone I am dead.’ She tilted her head to the side. ‘You cannot marry again, but…’ she shrugged one shoulder ‘…you do not want a wife.’ Then her face brightened. ‘I will tell only my family and my dearest friends I am still alive.’
Dead. Dead? The word flamed inside him, dried his mouth, slapped him back into the world he’d left behind. He didn’t know if he’d spoken or not. And her face, it didn’t shudder in fear at the words passing through her fragile lips, nor did she gasp at the finality of what she said.
‘Yes. I will change my name, alter my hair, use face powder, perhaps spectacles and I will find a reputable place away—far away.’
She might have said more. He could not comprehend. His legs tightened. He turned himself into a wall of stone. ‘No.’
‘Why is that not a grand plan?’ Eyes clear and innocent fluttered at him.
He took everything he felt from his words and his body, and made himself an empty slate. ‘I need an heir.’
She put a hand on her hip and pointed out the window. ‘Tell your cousin to get married. It shouldn’t all fall on your shoulders.’
‘It doesn’t work that way and you know it.’
‘I was not born to be a governess. But I don’t think I was born to be a wife either.’ She indicated the inkstand. ‘I was
just writing to my friend Joanna and I didn’t know what to tell her, so I told her almost nothing but that I was married and would write more later. That is when I realised how confused I was with the events raining about like a tempest. We don’t know each other and yet we are married.’
‘I know you well enough. You are a good wife—these past few hours. I see no reason for that to change.’
She cleared her throat, which if he was not mistaken was a feminine growl. The sound pulled him back into the light.
‘It’s not working out too well,’ she said.
‘I thought you might want to stay in London, if for no other reason than to sing again.’
She shuddered. ‘I do have a good voice, but singing doesn’t appeal any more. I cannot bear the thought of it.’
She stepped back into the light, rubbing under her chin. ‘Some moments I can still feel the knife. Mr Wren had watched me from the audience and I had not suspected it anything but enjoyment of the song. And he had such other plans. I walked about with pride, singing, and I was no different than a hare playing in a field being watched by a hawk.’
William’s mind raced ahead. His mouth dried. The thought of other men viewing Isabel tumbled around inside him. He would certainly make sure she had a strong servant with her when she ventured about and he’d tell the coachman personally to keep close to Isabel when she was outside the house. He didn’t want any harm to come her way. Instantly, he added plans to tell the butler to hire a sturdy servant who could always be spared when Isabel went out.
She waved a hand. ‘I will disguise myself if I leave London. You will not have to fear anything. And if by some chance I am recognised you can merely say some sort of truth. Perhaps that I disappeared and you lied to protect me. That you feared me mad.’ She smiled. ‘A dead, mad wife would surely cause you no censure, but sympathy. If I need to act like Lady Macbeth, I can. I am quite good with theatrics.’ She shivered and let her hands wrangle over each other.
‘You are quite good with the imagination.’ He’d seen the same smugness she wore on each of his sisters’ faces—when they were not listening to a word of reason and had no intention of unlocking their ears.
