After the Kiss (24 page)

“Don’t say his name,” Phillip grunted. “You’ll only make it worse.”

“Worse than what? I’m not even certain she’s breathing.”

Phillip squatted in front of her. “Tibby, get up. Don’t be difficult.”

“That’s not very nice.”

She wasn’t being difficult. Not on purpose. It was only that she didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to be anywhere, really. But she didn’t want to worry them, either. “Yes, let’s go have breakfast,” she said aloud.

Her brothers exchanged glances, then each one took an arm and lifted her to her feet. She felt stiff; evidently she
had
been sitting for quite a while. They guided her to the door, and then they were abruptly in the breakfast room. That seemed odd. When had they descended the stairs? She couldn’t remember doing so.

Someone pulled out a chair for her, and she sat again. Had she dressed for breakfast? Oh, well. She supposed if she were naked, someone would have said something. Or she’d be cold.

“I told you boys to leave her be,” her father said from somewhere off to her right.

“But she was just sitting there. I was ready to poke her to see if she would do anything,” Douglas returned, setting a plate full of strawberries and toast in front of her.

“And where’s Penny? She’s still in her evening clothes, for Lucifer’s sake.” Phillip placed a cup of what looked like tea beside the plate.

Warm arms wrapped around her from behind. “Never you mind what she’s wearing,” her mother’s voice came. “We’ll see to it after she eats something.”

Douglas’s face came into view beside hers. “She’s not eating.”

Yes, eating. That was why she’d come downstairs. So they wouldn’t worry about her. “I’ll change clothes after I eat,” she said, and picked up a strawberry.

“Put it in your mouth,” Douglas instructed.

“Douglas, leave her be.”

“She’s been holding that bloody thing for five min—”

“Language!”

“Apologies, Father. But it’s been a very long time.”

Isabel blinked. “It has not been five minutes.”

“Yes, it has,” Douglas countered. “You need to eat, Tibby.”

There was that blasted time again. It hurried here, and stopped there. The next time she blinked, Sullivan would probably be dead. “What time is it?” she asked, fright tightening her chest. That much time couldn’t have passed.

“It’s nearly noon,” her mother said in a soothing voice.

“On what day?” Isabel pushed to her feet. “We have to do something.”

“First you eat. Then we’ll talk.”

Oh, she needed to get out of her head. Nothing in there made sense. But it would hurt outside. Then again, Sullivan was outside, and there had to be something she could do. Something to save him. “They’re going to hang Sullivan.”

“I think she’s coming back to life,” Douglas observed.

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” she snapped. “Papa, do you know the people he took the paintings from?”

“Some of them, yes. But—”

“We—you—should go talk to them. If you can convince them not to press charges, then the magistrate will have to let Sullivan go free.”

“That’s our Isabel. She’s back.”

“Douglas, stop it! Don’t you understand? Sullivan’s been arrested for multiple thefts of property belonging to the aristocracy. They will hang him if we don’t do something.” Her voice shook. Everything seemed to be shaking, and she didn’t protest when Phillip helped her back into her chair.

“The thing is,” her older brother said evenly, “we’ve been at this since dawn.”

She looked at him. “You’ve…” She finally looked around the room. Really looked. He, and everyone else who’d taken seats at the breakfast table, looked tired and worried, though she knew it had to be more about her than about Sullivan. But he was part of her, however hard he tried to push her away.

“I don’t condone his actions,” her father said after a moment. “But I do understand them. And I have to say that Dunston and Tilden both deserve a sound thrashing.”

“I don’t care about them.”

“I know. The problem is, no one else knows the details, and a trial these days takes place as much among the gossips as it does in the courts.”

“So we tell everyone.”

“The problem, Tibby,” Phillip took up, “is that we—and you, especially—aren’t going to be believed. You’ve sided with a commoner.”

“Sullivan is not—”

“Please, let’s not argue amongst ourselves,” her mother interrupted. “We can’t indulge in flights of fancy. We must deal in facts.”

“And the fact is,” Isabel said, nodding, “I’m ruined. I knew it would happen, and I went on anyway. I’m sorry about that. I should have told you everything so much sooner.
I didn’t even want to like him, you know. I only hired him so I could get evidence and expose him as the thief.”

“If I weren’t so tired,” the marquis growled, “I would be very angry. If he’d been less of a…a gentleman, you might have been killed.”

Her father considered Sullivan to be a gentleman. For a moment she let that sink into her tired, wounded soul. Small compensation for his current predicament, but it was still something. And the only thing she had to grasp at today. “So you haven’t found a solution, then,” she finally said. Her eyes felt tired and dry; she didn’t seem to have any tears left at all. Otherwise she would have been weeping yet again.

“Not yet. According to today’s
London Times
, he’s being held but no evidence has yet been recovered.”

Of course it hadn’t been. Lord Bram had hidden it somewhere. And thank goodness for that, and for the Duke of Levonzy’s younger son. She’d never expected to be grateful to Bramwell Lowry Johns for anything except not choosing her for one of his notorious flirtations.

“Even if they never find anything, it will still be Sullivan’s word against Oliver’s. And if the thefts have stopped, that will speak against Sullivan, as well.”

The knocker on the front door distantly clanged. A moment later Alders appeared in the breakfast room doorway. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but Lady Barbara Stanley is here, and urgently wishes to speak with Lady Isabel.”

“I don’t want to see anyone today,” Isabel said. It wasn’t quite true that the snubs and cuts of last night hadn’t bothered her; if everyone had simply ignored her presence it would have been bearable. It was the snide sideways glances and the half-audible mutterings that had her wanting to scream and pull out her hair.

The butler bowed. “I shall inform her.”

A minute later feet pounded down the hallway, and Barbara half stumbled into the room. “Apologies, everyone,” she said breathlessly, batting at Alders as the butler rumbled up behind her and tried to block her advance, “but you must hear this.”

Phillip stood. “What is it, Barbara?”

“There’s been”—she took a breath—“another theft.”

“What?
”

Evidently sensing that Isabel was about to suffer an apoplexy, Barbara rushed around the butler and helped her back—again—into her blasted chair. “I was walking in the park with my sister Julia, and everyone was talking about it.”

Phillip moved out from his chair and gestured for Barbara to take his place. “Please tell us what you know.”

With a nod, Barbara seated herself. “The first thing we heard was that Lord and Lady McGowan’s estate in York had been burgled. But then someone told us it was their home on Curzon Street.”

“Prentiss House,” Phillip supplied.

“Yes.”

Isabel clutched her friend’s hand. Her very good friend, she was fast realizing. At any other time she would have
been happy to see Phillip’s growing esteem for Barbara. Today, though, her friend had brought a candle into a very dark cave, and she couldn’t think of anything else. “Is it just rumors?” she asked, hoping fervently that it wasn’t. For heaven’s sake, what a change a few weeks had made. Now she was hoping—praying, even—for news of robberies. Of course, it eased her conscience a little that Lily Prentiss had been one of the first to begin snubbing her.

“No,” Barbara returned. “It’s not just rumor. We actually ran across Lily with her cousins in their barouche. They awoke this morning to find a half dozen paintings gone from their walls, including one by Francesca W. Perris.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Isabel breathed, feeling faint.

On her other side Douglas waved a napkin, fanning her. “This family has gone mad,” he muttered, “because I’m ready to cheer, myself.”

“You should have heard all the talk, Tibby,” Barbara continued, grinning. “Everyone—or practically everyone on horseback, anyway—was saying what a fool Lord Tilden had made of himself yesterday, accusing Mr. Waring of being the Mayfair Marauder. They’re saying it was because Mr. Waring refused to sell him a horse. Your horse, Lord Chalsey.”

“Ulysses? I’ll be damned.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, bless me.”

“Whoever the thief is, he certainly did Mr. Waring a favor,” Isabel’s father said distinctly.

She’d nearly forgotten that Barbara didn’t know who the culprit was. “Will they release Sullivan now?” she asked, hope biting at her, almost painful after the cacophony of emotions wrung through her since yesterday.

“I would assume so,” her father answered. “Unless they can prove that he is the thief and has an accomplice.”

The problem with that was that if they looked hard enough, they would discover it to be the truth. She needed to know he was safe. If he’d been set free, then at least he could flee before they decided to arrest him again.
They
could flee. If he wanted her to go with him, she would. But did he? He’d certainly made a large noise about getting her away from him last night.

“I want to go to the Old Bailey and see what’s happened,” she stated.

“Absolutely not.”

This time her father’s expression showed no sympathy at all. Last night she’d pushed harder than she ever had before, and her family had given in. If she attempted it again, she’d likely be risking losing their support. And this morning their support and love had been…vital to the continued beating of her heart. “I need to know,” she said more evenly.

“Phillip, perhaps you might take a ride in that direction,” the marquis suggested.

“Of course.” Her brother started out, then paused. “Lady Barbara, are you here alone?”

“No. My maid is with me.”

“Then perhaps I could persuade you to take a curricle ride with me.”

Barbara blushed. “That would certainly raise less suspicion. Yes. I would be pleased to go driving with you.” With a swift kiss on Isabel’s cheek, her friend rose and hurried over to take Phillip’s arm.

Isabel watched them out of the room. She disliked being removed from the equation. Sullivan was…he was
hers
, after all, and now she wasn’t supposed to go see that he wouldn’t be hanged? Over the past day, though, she’d learned something important: Her parents, whom she’d always known loved her, were also willing to risk their own
reputations on her behalf. As were her brothers. She had an obligation to them as much as to herself.

“We were thinking, Tibby,” her father said into the silence, “that we might return to Burling before the end of the Season.”

“Because I’m ruined. I apolo—”

“We know you apologize. You were reckless, my dear, but believe it or not, there are worse things than being ruined.”

“I—”

“It might have been you put under arrest alongside Mr. Waring,” her mother took up. “And your actions reflect on all of us.”

“He may behave in a gentlemanly manner,” her father continued, before she could slide a single word in, “but he’s a horse breeder. And a man without a father in the eyes of the law. There is no reason for you even to have conversed with him, much less for…whatever happened between the two of you.”

She’d never outright said that she and Sullivan had been intimate, but she’d already known that at least her mother suspected—especially after her own behavior last night. “Am I being selfish to care for him?” she asked, not certain she’d even spoken aloud.

“You’re being unwise,” her mother returned.

She pushed to her feet, hopefully for the last time that morning. “Then I am still unwise. Douglas, I would like to go riding with you.” She sent another glance at her parents. “In the park only. I won’t make things any worse.”

“You’ll very likely be given the cut direct again, as you were last night,” the marchioness pointed out.

“I suppose I should get accustomed to it, then.” Isabel took a breath. “I shall have to learn not to follow my heart. I’m not certain I still have one beating in my chest after last night, anyway. Perhaps it’ll be a simple thing to do.”

“Isabel.”

“I’m not being dramatic,” she returned, heading for the door. “It terrified me to think that he might hang. But now I’m realizing that I’ve lost him, live or die. Either him or you. And I can’t stand the thought of that.”

As she left the room, her parents sat in silence. “This isn’t over with, is it?” Lady Darshear asked after a moment.

“It took her eleven years to ride a horse,” the marquis observed, “but she still managed it. No, I don’t think she’s given up. And frankly, I’m not certain what to do about it.”

“We take her away to Burling before Sullivan Waring manages to set eyes on her again. If he’s to be released from gaol at all.”

“Yes, you’re correct, of course. It’s just that…as a man, I admire Waring. Last night, his concern was for Isabel and her reputation. I can’t accuse Lord Tilden of having the same concerns. It’s his actions that have hurt Tibby this time. Not Waring’s.”

“But you know that she and he must have…must have…been together,” his wife stuttered, blushing.

“Yes. And the part of me that’s a father wants to castrate Waring for touching my daughter. If he merely meant to ruin her, though, he could have accomplished it easily. That wasn’t his goal.”

The marchioness stood. “Well, while we’re deciphering his motives, I’m going to summon the servants and begin packing.”

Her husband pushed away from the table as well. “I’ll help.”

Sullivan shaded his eyes as he walked down the front steps of the Old Bailey. Even overcast, the sky seemed bright after a day in the dim, smelly cellar. He took a deep breath.

“You look thinner,” Bram drawled from the far side of the street where he sat on horseback, Paris’s reins tied off to his saddle. “I think gaol has disagreed with you.”

“Very amusing,” he returned, accepting the reins as Bram tossed them to him and then swinging up on his gelding. “I suppose I have you to thank for me tasting daylight again?” he went on in a lower voice.

“Have no idea what you’re talking about. You know I never help anyone.”

“I stand corrected, then. I owe you nothing.”

“Wait, I’ve changed my mind. I do like taking credit. It was me. And I recovered another painting for you, by the by.”

Sullivan eyed him. So that was how he’d done it. “Then I offer my thanks again.”

They rode in silence for a moment. “It’s a bit addictive, isn’t it?”

“What?” Sullivan asked. Every muscle in his body wanted to turn toward Bruton Street and ride up the drive to Chalsey House.

“Theft.”

“I didn’t look at it that way.”

Bram eyed him. “No, you wouldn’t. At any rate, you’re a free man. Shall we to Jezebel’s for a drink and a whore? Two whores. I don’t share, either.”

“No. Home, I think.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“There’s not somewhere else you’d rather go?”

Sullivan pulled Paris up. “Is there some information you’d care to impart?”

“Not a thing. Except I received word that you’d been arrested from some hay-covered fellow named Phipps, and
then by the time I arrived with wagons at your cottage I found it already being ransacked by Lady Isabel and Lord Douglas Chalsey.”

His hunch had been correct. She’d gone herself to attempt to rescue him. Even more telling, she’d sent Phipps for help and ridden home on her own. Seeing Bram still looking at him, he cleared his throat. “She came to see me last night.”

This was one of the few times since he’d met Bram that he looked surprised. Shocked, even. “Beg pardon?”

“I told her to go home before she made things worse for herself. I told her to stay away from me.” He forced a laugh. “She seemed practically ready to be transported to Australia with me.”

“Hm. Silly chit. All this because of that one kiss. She sounds dim and desperate.”

Now Bram wasn’t even bothering to be subtle with his baiting. “She’s neither, and you know it.”

“Well, you certainly did nothing to encourage her attentions. We both know that you’d never entangle yourself with a proper young thing.”

“A proper young thing of superior birth and bloodline,” Sullivan added. He drew a slow breath. He trusted Bram with his life, but hearts were another matter. His friend had long been rumored to have sold his in a game of cards. “I’m a fellow who sees something, makes a decision, and takes action.”

“I know you are.”

“I’m at a loss, Bram,” he finally offered, starting Paris off at a walk toward home again. “I sat in that damned cell last night, and all I could think was that I’d made her cry. Not that they were going to hang me.”

“Don’t do anything, then,” his friend returned, urging his own mount, Titan, to fall in beside Paris. “Oliver’s being
ridiculed at this very moment for jealousy over you not selling him a horse, and—”

“More of your doing?”

Bram shrugged. “Who can say? I’m a genius. Anyway, Lady Isabel’s got enough friends that eventually the stigma of being
your
friend will go away.”

“So what do I do, sell her another horse and train it? How many can she purchase before people become suspicious again?”

“Don’t let anyone know that you’re keeping company with her.”

“God, you don’t have any morals, do you?” Sullivan retorted, ignoring the fact that he’d already been contemplating exactly that.

“None whatsoever.”

“So I suppose I encourage her to marry some old baron or other to keep anyone from suspecting our affair, and I keep climbing in through her window at night?”

“That’s how you did it, then,” Bram murmured, lifting an eyebrow when Sullivan glared at him. “Yes. Everyone gets to have what they want.”

“What if I want more than that?”

“Well, in an ideal world she would be independently wealthy and could avoid marriage while hiring you to run her stables. But—”

“I want to marry her.”

Bram stopped again. “You can’t,” he exclaimed, his usual jaded drawl missing.

Sullivan drew Paris in a short circle around the duke’s son. “I know that. I can’t help that I want it, though.”

“Christ, Sullivan. She’s not carrying your child, is she?”

“No. I would not father a bastard. Ever.”

“Then what—”

“I love her, dammit all. I love her.”

For a flash he saw it in Bram’s eyes—the aristocratic dismay. There were some lines even Bram wouldn’t cross, and condoning a marriage between an aristocrat and the natural son of a painter was one of them. Then the usual smooth cynicism covered it over. “Your options are limited, my boy,” was all he said aloud.

“My options are nonexistent,” Sullivan retorted. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Sulli—”

“Thank you again for your help. I have some appointments—if I still have clients. Good day.”

He left Bram in the street. The situation wasn’t his friend’s fault, and neither were the obstacles, but a lie or two would have been appreciated. A faux-offer of support. Anything but that look of affronted horror.

So he’d been proven innocent—even though he was guilty. Oliver looked foolish—even though his accusations had been correct. Isabel had been snubbed just for giving him a hug of gratitude and continuing to employ him afterward—not for the sin they’d actually committed together.

If he’d ever needed a reminder that he was a heathen and didn’t belong among the exalted, yesterday had provided it. And he couldn’t go on as he had been with Isabel. It wasn’t fair to either of them. What, then, was he going to do? Go back to his business as if they’d never met? Read the gossip pages to see who and when she would marry?

It had been easier being a soldier and then a thief. At least he knew what he risked, and what the rewards and consequences could be. In this game, there didn’t seem to be any rules—and the only prize he’d earned thus far had been a night in prison and the frustration of realizing that nothing he could do could ever make him good enough to deserve her.

Cursing low and long, he reached his cottage. He half expected the door to be flung open and the stable burned to the ground, but from the outside everything looked the same as it ever did. Riding up to the stable, he dismounted and pulled Paris’s reins over the gelding’s head.

“Mr. Waring! Thank God!” Samuel strode out of the building and grabbed him bodily around the shoulders. “I knew them magistrates would come to their senses and set you free!”

“Samuel,” Sullivan returned, shrugging out of the man’s grip as swiftly as he could. As his other employees emerged, all of them looking relieved, he put Paris between them and himself and went to work unsaddling the gelding. “I’m here and, I hope, finished with that idiocy,” he said tightly. Of course they were pleased to see him; without him, they would be out looking for other employment. “There’s likely been some damage to my reputation, so let’s pull every horse from the auction, and—”