“I mean it.” He drew her hand up to his lips, holding it so close his lips brushed her knuckles as he spoke. “You are witty and wise, kind, forgiving, and you see past my weaknesses while making me wish to be stronger, better. Marry me. I will spend the rest of my life protecting you and working for your happiness.”
She stared up at him, wishing to say yes, longing to accept his hand and give him her heart. But then the reality of her situation broke upon her. “I cannot,” she whispered. “Isaac. Say no more. Please. Go—go away.” Millie withdrew her hand and stumbled back, grasping the handle of the door.
The pain in his eyes was sharp and drove a dagger into her heart.
“Why?” The single word was not plaintive but demanding. “Do you have no feelings for me? Could you never come to care—?”
“Isaac.” She stopped him, closing her eyes and leaning back against the door. What could she say? It would ruin him, ruin her, break her mother’s heart, devastate her father, disappoint his family. “I care for you. But I cannot marry you.”
Silence hung between them, with him standing stubbornly before her, fist clenched and eyes storming. Millie’s eyes stung with tears. “I wish I could say yes. But it is not possible. Not now. Lord Carning would tear my family apart. Lady Olivia would find another way to hurt us both.”
“You think I care what that group of fools thinks?” he asked, jerking his chin to the door. “Millie, I have stood before the armies of our nation’s enemies and led men into battle. I have been shot at, stabbed, and blown apart.” He shuddered and closed his eyes, the memories too much for him, perhaps. “I nearly died in a canvas tent, feet away from a massive grave of my fellow soldiers. And Lady Olivia and the silk-swathed ton are supposed to frighten me?”
“They frighten me,” she shouted back at him, then covered her mouth. She continued in a whisper. “Losing what is left of my family frightens me. The contempt of Society hanging over my head for the rest of my life stifles my very breath. And what of you? You say you do not care, but will you, when gentlemen turn their backs upon you? What about our children, when they cannot find friends, or support, to move forward in their chosen paths because of a choice I made?”
“We would manage. There are many who give no heed to what the likes of Carning and Alderton have to say.”
Millie shook her head again. She had lived under the frowns of Society, she had been given the cut direct the first time she attended a Social event and had heard her mother weeping over the betrayal of old friends. Six years had been a long time for her family to stand at the edge of the world they had once belonged to, and Millie would not do that to Isaac.
There was no way to make Isaac see as she did. She drew herself up, she narrowed her eyes at him. “You think you are in love with me?”
“I know I am.” His conviction would make what she said next hurt all the more.
Forcing her voice to remain even, to keep her tone cool as ice, Millie protected him the only way she could think of; she wounded him. “Then I have fulfilled my obligation to Lady Olivia, for I can think of nothing as humiliating as declaring your love to one who will not have you.” She tipped her nose in the air. “Now there is only Mr. Weston to deal with. Good bye, Sir Isaac.”
He stared at her with such shock that she knew she could escape at last, if she moved quickly enough. So she did. She slipped out the door and fled, not caring if anyone saw, all the way to her room.
A sob broke free of her throat, and Millie searched her room frantically for her trunk. Once she found it, she started shoving her clothing inside. Sarah did not find her until the room had been torn apart, and Millie sat on the ground beside her bed, sobbing into her hands.
Sarah gathered Millie up and rocked her back and forth, not saying a word.
“We leave in the morning,” Millie said at last between shuddering breaths.
“Yes, miss.”
“I want my things left for Lord Neil to see to. He will send them home for me.”
Sarah released Millie and sat back on her heels, raising her eyebrows. “Where do you intend to go, miss, if not home with your trunk?”
Millie shuddered and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You and I will travel by post to see Emmeline.” She forced a smile, though it likely appeared rather grim. “I need to speak to my sister. Will you keep packing? I have letters to write.”
Chapter 25
After calling himself every type of fool he could think of, Isaac walked home in the darkness. He knew the lands about his estate well enough that it was easily accomplished. But no matter how he growled and snapped at the bushes in his path like an angry dog, his heart continued to crumble. When he walked through his front door, startling the footman tasked with waiting for him to arrive home, the whole of his emotions finally fell to pieces.
Isaac went directly for his study where he knew he had a bottle of brandy. He had never hurt so terribly in his life, excepting when his arm had been removed from his body. And he meant to drown the pain in the burning alcohol. Forgetting everything. Forgetting Millie.
She loved him. He knew she must. She lied when she said it had all been for nothing, all to appease Lady Olivia’s twisted sense of revenge. Every moment the two of them shared, excepting that first dinner when she had attempted to flirt with him, had been real.
He took up the bottle of brandy and a glass from a cupboard and went to sit behind his desk. He put both items down on the table, then froze when he realized he had no way of opening the bottle without help, or risking breaking it. He glared at the alcohol as it promised hours of relief, of forgetting.
Then he opened and closed his hand, the useless, single hand.
Yet it had saved him. Had he started drinking, Isaac knew he might never have stopped. Not until every drop of liquor in the house had gone, as it had after his mother died.
Esther had found him, inebriated, collapsed on the floor of the library. He had promised her to never dull his pain in that way again.
What was he to do? The raw ache in his heart pulled him apart from the inside. There was no place to go.
Isaac stormed out of his study again and back into the night. He went to the stables, and a groom saddled Prophet for him. It did not matter that he still wore his evening finery. He did not care if it smelled of horse, or if riding pulled every seam out of place.
He went to Jacob.
With Grace’s time drawing near, Jacob did not leave her alone most nights. He hadn’t appeared at Alderton. He had to be home. And a man might confess to his priest without breaking any vows.
The moon waned, nearly gone, but the horse and Isaac knew the way. When he arrived at the house, Isaac knocked loudly. Only one light could be seen, and when Jacob himself answered the door, Isaac met his friend’s startled gaze.
Jacob hadn’t been the vicar long, but the nighttime visit must have been one of dozens he had welcomed. He took one look at Isaac and opened the door wider. They went into the study, and when Isaac sat in a chair beside his friend, he cried at last.
It was not the desperate sobs of a broken man. But the slow, steady tears of a creature too long in pain. Millie’s rejection, her claim of betrayal, had undone him. Where he thought he had grown stronger, for her sake, he realized he had only created a hole in the wall around his heart and given everything he kept inside a way out at last.
Jacob listened. He listened as Isaac told him of the war, of firing into a line of men to watch them fall. Wondering if his had been the shot to take a life amidst the chaos of smoke and blood. He made no comment when Isaac spoke of watching his men die from wounds inflicted in battle. Isaac spoke of grown men weeping like boys, of cowards failing to act and costing lives, of generals who moved them about like pieces on a board rather than men with beating hearts.
Then Jacob asked questions. Gentle questions, probing Isaac to reveal still more of what he had kept hidden. His failure as a friend and brother in regard to Esther. His reluctance to return to
Society.
His brokenness, that was so much more than the lack of an arm.
The hour grew later, and Isaac gulped in air. “I am like a man caught at the bottom of a well,” he said at last, into the quiet room and Jacob’s attentive ears. “I must tread water or drown. But I cannot climb out and save myself. So I struggle to keep my head above water, hoping rescue will come, but it never does.”
When Jacob answered him, Isaac saw tears in his friend’s eyes. “I have worried for you. Prayed for you. I knew you were not as healed and whole as you pretended, but I did not know you needed me. I am sorry I let you do this alone for so long, Isaac.”
Though his friend’s words touched him, Isaac shrugged. “I did not want your help. Or anyone’s. But I cannot do this anymore.”
“No one can face what you have and remain whole,” Jacob said quietly. “You are not the first soldier I have spoken to, you will likely not be the last. Isaac, you are not alone. Healing will come with time, with faith, and with love.”
“Love.” Isaac groaned and folded himself in half where he sat. “That is what brought me here at last. But not God’s love, as I suspect you meant.”
Jacob’s lips twitched, though his eyes remained heavy. “Of course I mean God’s love. And your family’s, and your friends’. But who is it that drove you here? Miss Wedgewood?”
“You heard about the time we spent in each other’s company?”
“No.” Jacob’s smile turned sympathetic. “Seeing you both together that night at dinner, when you were oblivious to her, and then again the night of the bonfire when you could not keep your eyes from her—it was such a contrast. For a woman to gain your interest with such speed, I knew she must be unique. Special to you.”
“Yet I am nothing to her. What I say to you tonight, it is in confidence?”
Jacob nodded once, a solemnity about him that soothed what remained of Isaac’s concerns.
Isaac kept talking, explaining everything to Jacob. Everything. Even kissing her. His friend did not offer censure, nor jest, but listened with his full attention. When Isaac came to the end of the disaster, to Millie’s parting words, his voice faded away to nothing.
The clock on the mantel marked the passage of time. It was two o’clock in the morning. Isaac was nearly hoarse with talking, his eyes dry and burning. He rubbed at his eyes, yet the ache remained both there and in his chest. He met Jacob’s gaze and waited, hoping for wisdom, for guidance.
Jacob’s smile returned, the shadow of one he had often worn in their youth. Goading. “What will you do now?”
Isaac’s thoughts halted. “What?”
Jacob repeated himself, slowly. “What will you do now, Isaac?”
“Are you not supposed to tell me?” Isaac asked, sitting back and gripping the arm of the chair.
His friend relaxed, his shoulders dropping and his smile growing. “I am a vicar, not a prophet. I have listened to all you have said. I offer you my support, my prayers, and a listening ear. Your struggles are real, and they are all in your heart. I cannot tell you what to do, but I can encourage you in your next steps. That is why I ask you, my friend, what will you do?”
Isaac opened and closed his mouth multiple times, then stood and paced away from the chair, hearth, Jacob, and to the window. He stared out into the darkness, the light behind him only reflecting the shadowed room to him in the glass.
“What will I do.” He pulled in a deep breath, then let it out in a laugh. “Take each day as I have, I suppose. One moment at a time.”
“And?” Jacob prompted quietly.
Isaac turned, slowly, and saw the hopeful expression upon his friend’s face. “And come to you when I struggle.”
“I imagine Esther would be of help, too. And Silas. All of us you count as friends. You are as a brother to all of us.” Jacob rose from his chair. “Will you do that, Isaac?”
Hours of talk had loosened the hold Isaac’s fear, his guilt, had upon him. He was not yet entirely free. But his soul felt lighter than it had since his return from war. “I will. But you may have to remind me, from time to time.” The admission humbled him, and he had to swallow back another display of emotion.
“What of Miss Wedgewood?” Jacob raised his eyebrows and folded his arms over his chest.
“I don’t know.” Isaac shoved a hand through his hair, examining his heart. “I love her. Esther would have me believe—she would say to fight for what I love.”
“I suggest, instead of barreling straight into the thick of it as you did, you give the matter some thought.” Jacob’s smile turned amused. “Those of us who know you best know that you are prone to charge into a fray rather than consider a better strategy.”
A laugh coming from his own throat surprised Isaac, but it dispelled the fog around his heart. “You are right, of course.”
“Of course. I am a vicar.” Jacob grinned. “And your friend. Never forget that.”
“Never,” Isaac promised.
He left without all the answers he sought, but at least felt himself prepared to find them. Prepared to form a plan and to wait, if necessary, until he knew how to approach Millie again.
Because he would go to her again. He would declare his love. New as it was, Isaac was too stubborn to give up on his heart and on her.
Chapter 26
The early morning light did little to settle Isaac’s mind on the matter of Millie. Despite finding a measure of peace in speaking to Jacob the night before, Isaac’s heart still ached. He stayed in bed later than usual, merely thinking.
His heart belonged to her. It did not matter, how little time they had spent together. Nor did it matter that she had trespassed upon his land that first time in order to spy upon him. He knew her and recognized the beauty of her soul, the fiery spirit she possessed, the kind heart she kept guarded.
Jacob had advised him to strategize. Strategize, then, Isaac would.
After he had dressed and eaten enough of a breakfast to stave off hunger pains, Isaac went to his study and started writing out lists. The only practical purpose his work served was to help focus his thoughts. First, a list of things he knew about Millie. Her family, where they lived, how old she had been when her sister eloped, all her little comments about people she knew or wished to know in Society.
Then he made a list of all the reasons he had given his heart to her, and another of all the ways he might help her and her family from their predicament.
Silas would have to be involved, but Isaac would give up his solitary life for her, too.
He stopped. What did that mean, to give up solitude?
Isaac started another list of everything he might do in Society, everything he wished to do, and it was dismally short. He hated crowded ballrooms and parties. Theater boxes would not be so bad, he thought, though the noise of the audience might prove difficult.
His hand started shaking as he imagined it, pictured himself in a box above a hoard of men and women laughing, whispering behind fans. The scents of perfumes, powders, and bodies all stuffed together in one room.
He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes.
“What a joke.” He spoke to the empty room, to himself. “I cannot even pretend to be in that place without falling to pieces.” Sweat had broken out along his brow.
The familiar building pressure in his chest warned him of an attack. Not an attack of French soldiers, but of the enemy within. His own fear. Esther had described her own dark moods as melancholia. But this was not the same. His sister fell into bouts of sorrow, from time to time. But Isaac was not sorrowful.
He was not fearful, either. Merely aware of every little detail in his life that could send him spiraling out of control, into headaches, into a panic.
What the deuce was wrong with him? He need never face war again. Britain would rout Napoleon.
He looked down at his lists. Meaningless drivel, most of it, except what he had written down about Millie. He could not take her into Society. Not as
he was.
Isaac went to the largest window in his study and threw it open, hoping the fresh air would take away the smothering thoughts in his head.
Were other soldiers returned from war as plagued as he? Was anyone helping them?
Isaac grew still as the questions settled in his heart.
Esther accused him of attempting to save everyone. Play the part of the rescuer. But what if he felt that way, acted that way, for a reason? What if he was meant to be a rescuer? He had the ear of the Earl of Inglewood, and others of Silas’s circle of political allies. He had the time, too, to do something for his brothers in arms who returned from war and felt as lost as he had.
A knock interrupted the productive line of thinking.
At Isaac’s command, the butler strode inside and bowed. “Sir Isaac, Lord Neil Duncan is here to see you. I have shown him into the front parlor, sir.”
“Lord Neil?” Isaac did not bother to hide the skepticism in his tone. “Thank you. I will go to him directly.”
They avoided each other, except when it was absolutely necessary to converse. Showing up at Isaac’s house was strange. Isaac did not waste time thinking the oddity over, however, and went to see what the man wanted.
Lord Neil stood in the middle of the parlor, admiring a painting hanging over the mantel. It was one of Esther’s, of course, of Woodsbridge itself, bathed in cheerful sunlight. The lordling looked over his shoulder when Isaac entered the room, his sideways smile appearing.
“Your sister has a great talent. This is one of hers, is it not?”
“My sister will never be a topic of conversation between us, Lord Neil.” Isaac did not bother to bow since the other man had already ignored common politeness. “What are you doing here?”
Lord Neil turned to fully face Isaac, and that was when Isaac saw the box in his neighbor’s hands. A box he had glimpsed before, a time or two, while Millie worked upon it.
Engaging Sir Isaac: A Regency Romance (Inglewood Book 4) Page 24
