Louise Allen Read online

  ‘Me, a blue-stocking? Oh, no. And I was not thinking of freedom from men so much as from expectations.’ Anne looked blank. ‘Oh, do not take any notice of me, I am wool-gathering.’

  ‘I think everyone is behaving most strangely,’ Anne said and tossed the petticoat onto the rag pile. ‘There is the fight Mr Harker was involved in—and Lord James. I do not believe for a moment that it was simply bad luck with footpads, do you? Then you are daydreaming all the time and Mama is lecturing and there are peculiar conversations that seem to be about one thing, but I don’t think are, not really. Like you and Mr Harker talking about the census and honesty.’

  ‘Well, you know why I am here,’ Isobel said. ‘I have a lot on my mind, so I suppose that makes me seem absent-minded. And men are always getting into fights. It was probably over a game of cards or something. And I expect Cousin Elizabeth has a great deal to worry about with your father’s new post, so that makes her a little short. And as for peculiar conversations, I cannot imagine what you mean.’

  Anne looked unconvinced, but went back to sorting shirts while the countess tried to persuade the vicar’s wife that she could take over judging the tenants’ gardens for a prize, as Lady Hardwicke did every year.

  Isobel picked up some scissors and began to unpick the seams of a bodice, letting Mrs Bastable’s protestations that she knew nothing about vegetable marrows and even less about roses wash over her head.

  Was she falling in love with Giles? Had Lord James, with whatever refined intuition his blindness had developed in him, sensed it when she could only deny it? Had Lord James really been serious when he had told her to take the initiative? Now Giles was no longer in shock, half-drugged and in so much pain, he would not take the first step—whatever his feelings, his defences were up.

  I don’t want to fall in love with him! That can’t be what I feel. She had not felt like this over Lucas, so torn, so frightened and yet so excited. But then, Lucas had been completely eligible, there had been no obstacles, no secrets. No reasons to fight against it. Or was she simply in lust with the man and finding excuses for her desires?

  *

  ‘Cousin Elizabeth, I would like to speak to Mr Harker alone after dinner, if you will permit. He will not let me thank him properly for what he did—perhaps if I can corner him somewhere I can say what I need to.’

  The countess put down her hairbrush and regarded Isobel with a frown. ‘That will be all, Merrill.’ Her dresser bobbed a curtsy and went out, leaving the two women alone in the countess’s bedchamber.

  ‘He has certainly put you in his debt and a lady should thank a gentleman for such an action, I agree,’ Lady Hardwicke said, a crease between her brows. ‘But a tête-à-tête is a trifle irregular.’

  ‘I have been alone with him before,’ Isobel pointed out.

  But the countess was obviously uneasy. Perhaps she suspected, just as Lord James did, that there was something more between Isobel and Giles. ‘A walk or a ride in the open are one thing, but in the house… Oh, dear. Perhaps one of the downstairs reception rooms would not be so bad—if you can persuade him to stand there long enough to be thanked! But for a man determined on escape there is a way out of all of them into another room. Unless you speak to him in the antechapel—there is no way out of that except into the gallery of the chapel and no one could object to a short conversation in such a setting.’

  ‘Thank you, Cousin Elizabeth. Now all I have to do is lure him in there.’

  Isobel left the countess shaking her head, but she did not forbid the meeting.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Giles schooled his face into an expressionless mask when Isobel, assisting the countess at the after-dinner tea tray, brought him a cup. He wanted to look at her, simply luxuriate in watching her, not have to guard every word in case he made things even worse.

  He braced himself for murmured reproaches, or even hostility. ‘Have you formed an opinion on the crack in the antechapel wall?’ she asked without preamble. ‘It sounds quite worrying, but perhaps the earl is refining too much upon it.’

  ‘What crack?’ It was the last thing he expected to hear from her lips. Giles put the cup down on a side table and the tea slopped into the saucer.

  ‘Oh, he was saying something about it before dinner. I understood that he had asked you to look at it.’ Isobel sat down beside him in a distracting flurry of pale pink gauze and a waft of some delicate scent. Now he did not want to look at all: he wanted to hold her, touch her. Did she not realise what she was doing to him? Was she trying to pretend nothing had happened in the Long Gallery?

  ‘I was not aware of it,’ he said, forcing his brain to deal with structural problems.

  ‘Perhaps he did mention it and the blow to your head has made you forget it,’ she suggested.

  That was a disturbing thought. His memory was excellent, but then, he had believed his self-control to be so also and that episode with Isobel had proved him very wrong on that score.

  ‘Or perhaps he meant to ask you, then decided it was not right while you feel so unwell,’ she said with an air of bright helpfulness that made him feel like an invalid being patronised.

  ‘I will go and look at it now.’ Giles got to his feet and went into the hall. He took a branch of candles from the side table and opened the door into the chamber that led to the family gallery overlooking the chapel.

  Once the room had been the State Bedchamber, but the great bed had long been dismantled and was somewhere up in the attics. Giles touched flame to the candles in the room and began to prowl round, trying to find cracks in the plaster, not think about Isobel’s soft mouth, which seemed to be all he could focus on.

  There in the left-hand corner was, indeed, a jagged crack. It would bear closer investigation in daylight, he decided, poking it with one finger and watching the plaster flake.

  ‘Is it serious?’

  ‘Isobel, you should not be in here.’ In response she closed the door behind her, turned the key in the lock and slipped it into her bodice. ‘What the devil are you doing?’ Behind him was the double door into the gallery pew. Short of jumping fifteen feet to the chapel’s marble floor, he was trapped, as she no doubt knew full well.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’ She was very pale in the candlelight and the composure she had shown over the tea cups had quite vanished. Giles saw with a pang that her hands were trembling a little. She followed his gaze and clasped them together tightly. ‘About this morning.’

  ‘I am sorry— I allowed my desires to run away with me. I had no right to kiss you, to hold you like that. It will not happen again.’

  ‘That is a pity,’ she said steadily. ‘I would very much like you to do it again. I think I am in love with you, Giles. I am very sorry if it embarrasses you, but I cannot lie to you, I find. Not even to salve my pride.’

  He stared at her, every bone in his body aching to go to her, to hold her, every instinct shouting at him to tell her… What? That he loved her? Damn James for even suggesting it. Of course he was not in love—he simply could not afford the luxury of hopeless emotion. But he did not want to hurt Isobel. ‘I am very sorry, too,’ he said, staying where he was. ‘I never wanted to wound you.’

  ‘I might be wrong, of course. I might not be. I thought perhaps…you…’ Saying it brought the colour up under the delicate skin of her cheeks, soft pink to match her gown. He thought he had never seen her look lovelier or more courageous.

  ‘No,’ he said and kept his voice steady and regretful. He did not know what he felt, but surely it was only desire and friendship and liking. The emotion was stronger than any he had ever felt for a woman, but that was simply because he had never saved the life of one before, never fought for her honour, never met a woman like Isobel.

  Isobel valued honesty above her own pride, but he could protect her from herself. ‘No, I do not love you, Isobel. And that is a mercy, is it not? We could not possibly marry.’

  ‘If you had not cleared my name and restored my reputation,
and we did love each other, then perhaps we might have done.’

  Hell, she’s been talking to James, the interfering romantic idiot that he is.

  ‘But not if I do not love you,’ he pointed out. It felt like turning a knife in his chest, the pain of denying her, the knowledge that he was hurting her. ‘And I do not think you love me, either. You feel desire, as I do, and it is easier for a woman to accept if you dress it up as love.’

  ‘Do not patronise me! If I desire you I am not such a hypocrite as to pretend it is something else,’ she flashed back at him. Her eyes were very bright, although if it was because they were full of tears, she did not shed them and he dared go no closer to see, in case she should read in his face how much he cared and took that for love. ‘But you want me.’

  ‘Oh, yes, and you know that too well for me to attempt to deny it. I want you so much it keeps me awake at night. So much that I ache and I cannot concentrate. But, Isobel, I might be many things, but I do not seduce virgins.’

  ‘No,’ she said, and smiled wryly. ‘I am sure that you do not.’

  ‘You will forget me soon enough,’ he offered, flinching inwardly at the banality of the words.

  ‘You think so? I thought we could talk this through with honesty, but it seems I misjudged you. Goodnight, Giles.’

  She removed the key from her bodice, unlocked the door and walked away, leaving him, for once in his life, unable to think of a word to say.

  *

  Giles did not come back to the saloon afterwards. Isobel smiled and nodded to Cousin Elizabeth to reassure her that her mission to thank him had been successful, stayed to drink one cup of tea and then made her excuses and went up to bed.

  He said he did not love her, but then he would say that whatever he felt, it was the honourable course of action in his position. And he said he wanted her—although he was quite correct and she hardly needed him to tell her that. If they made love, it would be hard for him to hide his true feelings, she was certain. She could try to seduce him, and if he made love to her then he would be trapped between a rock and a hard place—to marry her would be, in his eyes, dishonourable, but then not to marry her after sleeping with her would be equally bad.

  And to put Giles in that position would be very wrong of her whether he loved her or not. Isobel wrestled with her conscience while Dorothy brushed out her hair and helped her into her nightgown. ‘I cannot do it.’

  ‘What, my lady?’

  ‘Never mind. Something I had been wondering about.’

  ‘You look sad, my lady. Aren’t you pleased that Lord James knows the truth? It will be all over town in a twinkling, then you can go back and do the Season, just like all the other young ladies.’

  ‘I do not want to, Dorothy.’ It was the first time she had said it out loud, but it sounded so right. She had tried hard to please her parents, but the thought of entering the Marriage Mart again with this aching in her heart was agony. How could she even contemplate marriage to another man? She had thought she would never get over Lucas’s death. Now that she had and had found Giles, it was impossible to believe she would recover from it. It must be love, she thought drearily. But love should make you happy, not confused and angry and scared.

  ‘Now, my lady, that is foolishness indeed!’ Dorothy bustled about tidying up until Isobel thought she would scream. ‘All young ladies want to get married and have children.’ An ivory hairpin snapped between Isobel’s fingers. ‘You had a nasty time at that horrid house party and then you almost drowned and then there’s the shock of poor Mr Harker coming back with his face all ruined. No wonder you are feeling out of sorts, my lady. You’ll find a nice titled gentleman with a big estate and live happily ever after with lots of babies.’

  ‘I don’t want lots of babies. I just want my—’ Isobel caught herself in time. ‘His face is not ruined,’ she snapped. ‘The bruises and swelling will go down, the scar will knit and fade in time.’

  ‘Yes, but he was so handsome. Perfect, like a Greek god.’ The maid sighed gustily. ‘Terrible blow to his pride, that will be.’

  ‘He has more sense than to let such a thing affect him,’ Isobel said, hoping it was true. Then a thought struck her. Surely Giles did not think she was saying she thought she loved him because she felt guilty that he had been wounded defending her good name? No, that was clutching at straws and she would go mad if she kept trying to guess at his motives. All she had was the bone-deep conviction that he did care for her and no idea how she could ever get him to admit it.

  ‘I will go to bed and read awhile. Thank you, Dorothy, I will not need you again tonight.’

  The maid took herself off, still talking about the joys of the London Season. Isobel stuffed another pillow behind her back and tried to read. It might as well be in Chinese for all the sense it is making, she thought, staring at the page and wondering why she had selected such a very gloomy novel in the first place.

  *

  The sound woke her from a light sleep that could only have lasted an hour at the most, for the candles were still burning. What was it? A log collapsing into fragments in the fire? No, there it was again, a scratch at the door panels. Isobel scrambled out of bed and went to open the door, half expecting Lizzie, intent on a midnight feast.

  Giles stood on the threshold in the brown-and-gold brocade robe open over pantaloons and shirt, his feet in leather slippers. In the dim light his eyes sparked green from the flame of the candle he held.

  ‘What on earth is wrong? Does Lady Hardwicke need me?’

  ‘No. May I come in?’ The clock on the landing struck one.

  ‘Quickly. Before someone sees you.’ Isobel pulled him inside and closed the door before the thought struck her that he was even more compromising on this side of the threshold. ‘Giles, you should not be here.’ How could he be so reckless? He spoke about her reputation and then he came to her room in the small hours. Isobel let her temper rise: it was safer than any of the other emotions Giles’s presence aroused.

  ‘I am aware of that.’ He put down the candle and went to stand in front of the fire. ‘I could not sleep because of you.’

  ‘A cold bath is the usual remedy for what ails you, is it not?’ she demanded.

  He gave a short, humourless bark of laughter. ‘Guilt, I find, trumps lust for creating insomnia.’

  ‘What are you feeling guilty about and why, if I may be frank, should I care?’ Isobel pulled on a warm robe and curled up in the armchair, her chilly feet tucked under her. There stood Giles, close enough to touch, and there was her bed, rumpled and warm, and if that was not temptation, she had no idea what was.

  He stooped to throw a log on the fire and stirred it into flame with the poker. The firelight flickered across his bruised, grim face and made him look like something from a medieval painting of hell, a tormented sinner. ‘You might care. I lied to you. I care for you very much, Isobel.’

  It seemed she had been waiting to hear those words from him for days, but now all that filled her was a blank, hurt misery. Isobel blinked back the welling tears. ‘I had not thought you so cruel as to mock me.’ The heavy silk of the chair wing was rough against her cheek as she turned her head away from him.

  ‘Isobel—no! I am not mocking you.’ The poker landed in the hearth with a clatter as Giles took one long stride across to the chair to kneel in front of her.

  ‘Then you are cynically attempting to make love to me.’ She still would not look at him. If he had come to her room with a heartfelt declaration of love then he would not have looked so grim.

  ‘That would make me no better than those three, tricking my way into your room.’ His hands, strong and cold, closed over hers and she shivered and looked down at the battered knuckles. ‘Isobel, my Isobel, look at me.’

  With a sigh she lifted her eyes to meet his. ‘Whatever your feelings, Giles, they do not seem to make you very happy.’

  ‘That is true,’ he agreed. ‘And it is true that I care for you, and like you and want you, all tho
se things. And it shakes me to my core that you might love me.’

  ‘Then why deny it? Why hurt me, play with my feelings like this?’

  He released her hands, rocked back on his heels and stood up to pace back to the fire. ‘Because what I feel for you is not love and I dare not let either of us believe that it is. Because even if it was, I can see no way to find any happiness in this, however we twist and turn. I do not want to play with your feelings, I would never hurt you if I could help it. But we can do nothing about it. I believed it for the best if you thought I did not care—you might forget about me. Then I realised how much that wounded you and I could not bear not to tell you that I do care, that I want you, that in some way I do not understand, you are mine.’

  The hard knot of misery inside her was untwisting, painfully, as hope warred with apprehension. I am his, he wants me, he likes me, but he does not believe he loves me? ‘And what you feel for me is not love?’ she asked.

  ‘I do not think I know how to fall in love,’ Giles said flatly. ‘I have been with more women than I care to admit to you, Isobel. And I have never felt more than desire and a passing concern for them, pleasure in their company.’

  How carefully he guards his heart, she realised with a flash of insight. He knows he is ineligible for any of the women he meets socially, so he does not allow himself the pain of dreaming.

  ‘You think it is hopeless, then? My love for you, your…feelings for me?’ Yes, she thought as she said it. Yes, I do love him.

  ‘Of course it is hopeless. Even if I was a perfectly respectable second son, say, earning my own living as an architect, your father would consider it a poor match. As it is, he would never permit you to ally yourself to me. And you deserve a man who loves you. We can be strong about this, Isobel. Avoid each other, learn to live our separate lives.’

  ‘Will you not even try to find some way we can be together?’ Isobel scrambled out of the chair and went to stand in front of him. The heat of the fire lapped at her legs, but every other part of her was cold and shivery. ‘If we talk about it, perhaps we can see some way through.’