Regency Rumours (17 page)

‘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 those 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.’

‘No. It would be wrong to wed you.’

‘I am of age, I can decide who to marry. Love grows. I would take a risk on yours.’

‘Your father would cut you off,’ Giles said. ‘Disown you.’

‘Do you want my money, then?’ she jibed at him, wanting to hurt him as he was so unwillingly hurting her.

‘No—but I do not want to deprive you of it.’

‘As your wife I would hardly starve,’ she pointed out. ‘And I am not at all extravagant. We would not be invited to all the most exclusive events, so that would be a saving in clothes—’

‘Do not jest,’ Giles said, shaking his head at her. But she could see the reluctant curve of his mouth. Misery and pessimism did not come easily to him. ‘A scandal would affect my business and then how could I support you?’

‘You are imagining the worst.’ Isobel shook his arm in exasperation. ‘What if marriage to the daughter of an earl was good for your business? I would keep the other women at bay, I would entertain, I know all the people who might commission you. You say you do not think you will ever fall in love—well then, why not take the nearest thing to it?’

‘Stop it, Isobel.’ Giles put both hands on her shoulders and looked down into her face. ‘You are talking yourself into an emotion you do not feel. I will go back to London. In a week or two you will go home and take part in the Season and you will find an eligible, titled husband and live the life you were born to live.’

‘No. I will not,’ she stated with conviction. ‘I was waiting for a man to fall in love with. One who loved me. One I could confess my secret to and who might accept me despite it. I do love you, I know that now—this could not hurt so badly if it was simply desire. But I cannot believe that after Lucas, and now you, that I will find a third man to love, and one who feels the same. So I am resolved to give up on the Season. I will become a spinster, a country mouse who will dwindle quietly away as a good daughter and sister. One day, no doubt I will be an aunt and much in demand.’

‘You are talking rubbish.’ Giles’s voice was rough. ‘What secret?’

‘That I am not a virgin.’ There was the other thing as well, the thing that tore at her heart, but she could not tell him that, however much she loved and trusted him. ‘Lucas and I were lovers in the weeks before he died, you see. Men seem to place such importance on that, in a bride. I could hope that someone who loved
me would understand, but not a man who was making a marriage for other reasons. I could lie, I suppose, and hope he would not notice. I could pretend to be ignorant and innocent—but that is hardly the way to begin a marriage, by deceiving one’s husband.’

She shrugged, his hands still heavy on her shoulders. The truth, but not the whole truth. But Giles, of all men, would not understand why she had done what she had done, why she had made the dangerous, desperate choice that she had.

He stood there silent and she wondered if she had shocked him. Was he like all the rest, the respectable ones who would condemn her for the sin of loving? ‘I have disappointed you,’ she stated, unable to wait for the condemnation on his tongue, the rejection on his face.