Chapter 21

It wouldn’t be wise. Simply being in this room with her wasn’t wise. And Griffith prided himself on making the right decisions. But right now, his heart was pounding so hard, so fast, that the shrewd part of his brain seemed to be cut off from the part that made the actual decisions. Because even as he told himself that the right thing to do would be to walk away, he found himself sliding a hand around her waist and wrapping his fingers around hers.

And then they were dancing.

The space was small, and in moments his breathing was far harsher than the limited physical exertion called for. Waltzing with Isabella felt nothing like waltzing with his mother or twirling his sisters. He’d never held a woman like this before, with the curve of her waist under his hand and the heat of her body searing his palm.

Her fingers gripped his tighter as he spun her around the chair, trusting his intuition and his memory to move them around the furniture in the darkened room. The pulses of air against his throat told him that she too was affected by their dance.

Was this helping his cause or hurting it?

He stopped dancing, pulling her closer when she stumbled.

“You’re a lovely dancer,” she whispered. “Why did you stop?”

Why had he stopped? It didn’t make sense. If he was trying to ingratiate himself to her, to win her affections, shouldn’t he continue when he knew she was enjoying the dance? But his mind wasn’t driving his actions just then. He wasn’t entirely sure what was. Somehow he was deciding what was right without putting any conscious thought to it at all.

And he knew that this dance wasn’t something he could continue. Not here. It would become too much—he wanted too much.

He cupped a hand around her neck, relishing the way the fine hairs grazed his fingers even as the sensation made him feel things, want things he had no right to. And that was the dangerous part. “Come downstairs. I’ll dance with you all night long.”

“People will see.”

“Let them.”

She stepped forward, her breath still washing over him in steady pulses—a hint of the punch being served in the ballroom combined with the light scent of rosewater on her skin. “And what then?”

Her voice was stronger, and he knew reality was intruding on their dark bubble. “What do you mean?”

“What happens then? Once everyone sees, once the moment has been spoiled for you by all the prying attentions of your peers?” Her slim, gloved hand reached up to cup his cheek. “What happens when we go back to London?”

He wrapped an arm more securely around her waist to keep her as close as she’d ventured on her own. “We dance again. Everywhere. Until no one doubts that you have my full attention and all the other men fade away.”

The stiffness that ran down her back radiated tension into his arm. He’d said the wrong thing. Mentioning the other men had made her pull away, mentally if not physically.

He dropped his arm and stepped back, pain slicing up his now chilled, injured arm and settling in his chest. He’d ignored the pain while he was dancing, but now it more than made itself known as it combined with emotional pain he hadn’t expected. For whatever reason she wouldn’t give up the other men. “That’s why you won’t dance with me, isn’t it?”

“What?” She sounded disoriented, as if the loss of contact had scrambled her thoughts as much as it had his. But one thing was remaining clear in his mind.

“You can’t make me part of your collection. I’d scare away too many suitors.”

He actually heard her swallow. “That’s rather arrogant of you.”

“Nothing was ever gained by denying the truth.”

“No, I don’t suppose it was.” Her fingers curled into fists, tight enough to make her shoulders shake.

Was she angry? What did she have to be angry about? She wasn’t the one being denied a craving so deep it had prompted him to set aside decades of personal rules and convictions. She wasn’t the one being rejected.

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Which is why I must remind you that I’ve already told you this will not, cannot, happen. If we can have nothing else between us, let there be truth. I’m going to walk away now, Griffith, because I have to.”

“Yes. I suppose the masses of lovestruck men are waiting.”

What was he doing? Was he intentionally trying to hurt her? He’d never hurt a woman in his life, had in fact gone out of his way on more than one occasion to be a gentleman. Yet there was no doubting the fact that the words spewing forth without thought were intended to strike her like a dart to a target. And if her sharp intake of breath was any indication, they had struck true.

She turned toward the door but misjudged her steps and stubbed her foot against the leg of the chair, causing her to emit a short, sharp squeal of pain.

Griffith was at her side instantly, scooping her up in his arms and setting her in the chair so he could kneel at her feet. He cupped her injured foot in his hand, ignoring the screaming protest of his arm. “Are you all right?”

“I stubbed my toe, Griffith. It’s not like I fell off a roof.” The humor in her voice was so much more welcome than the anger.

He smiled, even though she wouldn’t be able to see it. Perhaps things could still be salvaged if he put them back on a lighthearted footing. “No need for stitches, then? I daresay whatever spirits I have in the house taste a good bit better than Mrs. Ingham’s.”

Her laughter made his heart break and soar at the same time. “How sad for me, then, that there is no need for me to imbibe.”

His thumb traced the front of her slipper, feeling the ridges of her toes through the stiffened satin.

“It barely hurts anymore,” she whispered.

Kneeling at her feet while she sat in the chair, Griffith was able to easily look into her eyes. The light from the ballroom graced her face while leaving his blanketed in the privacy of darkness, allowing him to drink her in at his leisure without her seeing whatever emotions his features might be betraying. Because he was fairly certain they were there.

As practiced as he was at not revealing what he was thinking, he’d never felt the way he felt now. His arms ached to hold her again, to dance her around the room or lift her from her feet so that she relied upon him to keep her safe. He wanted to lean forward and feel her breath in his face again, to know they were sharing the very air they needed to live.

He wanted to kiss her.

But she wasn’t his to do any of those things with.

He didn’t even have the right to think them.

So he stood.

He offered her his hand and waited.

How many heartbeats went by before she slid her hand into his and allowed him to help her back to her feet. Eight? Ten? Did it even matter?

She walked toward the door, her steps more careful than angry this time. She looked back once. And then she was gone.

Griffith stood at his window and watched the carriage roll down the lane. He’d follow in a few days, returning to London and the busyness of the city. First he needed to do the thinking he’d come to do in the first place.

One finger flicked the edge of a folded piece of paper in his hand. Perhaps he needed to find the answers to some of his questions first.

“You wanted to see me before we left?”

Griffith turned to see Ryland leaning against the doorframe, hat in hand and traveling coat thrown across his shoulders. “Yes.”

When Griffith didn’t say anything more right away, one dark eyebrow lifted as Ryland’s grey eyes narrowed.

Again, Griffith slid a finger along the edge of the paper, fighting with himself over whether what he wanted to do, what he felt like he needed to do, was the right thing to do.

He looked down at the paper, at the clear, efficient strokes indicating a direction in Northumberland. With one last tap of his finger he extended the paper to Ryland. “I need one of your men to look into something for me.”

Ryland took the paper and looked at the direction. “Northumberland?”

“Yes. A delivery to Isabella’s family.”

“Why would she give this to you? Even if her uncle refused to send it for her, her father could pay the postage on a letter to Northumberland every day for a year and not come close to the cost of the necklace she was wearing last night, even if the jewels are fake.”

“She said her uncle refuses to send any letters unless he reads them first.” The more Griffith learned about Lord Pontebrook, the more concerned he became for Isabella’s welfare. Something wasn’t right in a house where a girl couldn’t even send uncensored letters to her family. “She asked if I would be willing to frank it for her.”

“The letter is already franked, so I’m assuming its safe delivery is not what you are trying to secure.” Ryland slid the letter into his pocket, a silent agreement to do whatever Griffith needed, even if he wasn’t done asking questions yet.

Agreeing to send the letter had been the easiest part of granting her request. The number of questions that rose were what threatened his mental peace.

“It’s best if the letter travels by Royal Mail.” Griffith ran his hands over his face, pressing his fingers hard over eyes that hadn’t closed much the night before. “There are too many rumors, Ryland, too many things that don’t add up. Naworth believes her family to be from Yorkshire. Ivonbrook swears she’s connected to foreign royalty. I can’t go down a road that might endanger my family or put me in a position to make a choice that isn’t best for my country. No matter how much I may wish to.”

“Understood.” Ryland crossed back to the door. “It will take a few days for my man to travel there and get what you need. What will you do in the meantime?”

Griffith lifted one large shoulder as he propped the other one on the window frame. “Pray. And perhaps do a bit of research on my own.”

The first time Isabella had ridden into London, excitement and trepidation had filled her. Everything looked so big and exciting, she hadn’t known what to look at next, and she’d ridden through the streets with one hand pressed to the carriage window and her face close enough for her breath to condense on the glass.

Now, rattling through the tollgate as they returned from Hertfordshire, she barely looked up. The noise outside the carriage grew until it could be heard over the rattling wheels and jangling harnesses. Smells of horses and of food from street vendors crept their way into the silent expanse while Uncle Percy dozed and Frederica read.

Isabella had a book open as well, but she hadn’t turned a page in miles, too lost in her own head to even begin to focus on the words.

What was supposed to be a relaxing respite from the tension of London had done nothing but confuse her more. But it had also clarified things. Nothing could be allowed to come between her and saving her family.

It was too easy to forget how bad things had gotten, here in London with plenty of everything. Even if she was essentially Uncle Percy’s prisoner with no funds of her own with which to escape, she wasn’t truly wanting for anything.

What was her family doing now? Was her mother still burning dinner every night?

They’d had to dismiss the household servants soon after Father’s injury, and Mother, Isabella, and her sisters had been forced to learn domestic skills they’d never thought they’d need. Scrubbing burnt food out of pots was one thing Isabella was more than happy to be away from.

They’d had to let go more than half of the farmhands in the past two years as well. And even though Isabella had learned how to sheer a sheep right alongside Hugh and Thomas, they hadn’t been able to get wool to market fast enough this year, and the prices they’d had to sell for weren’t going to see the family through another year.

When Isabella left, Mother had already been talking about selling things. Had they carted off the furniture? The old piano in the drawing room?

What would it do to her father, who had to spend two hours sitting for every hour he tried to walk around? If the things he sat on and among began to disappear, things he’d worked so hard to provide for her mother, would he soon follow?

Having seen and experienced the life Mother left behind in order to marry Father, Isabella could well understand the concerns she’d overheard him voicing one night. Mother had assured him then that she had no intention of leaving him, but what about when food became scarce? When there was no old piano in the corner to play hymns on? When the people in the village began to leave gifts of food on the doorstep and offered to take in the children?

Even at the height of their farm, life hadn’t been anything like Isabella had experienced with Uncle Percy.

But if they could hold on for another few months, Isabella would be able to fix everything.

She’d written them from Riverton. If things were bad, then they needed hope to hold on to, hope that things would get better. Isabella was that hope now, whether anyone wanted to admit it or not. They probably thought she might marry money and at least provide something for her siblings. Sending the letter with Griffith’s frank on it would probably raise their hopes to a level that would be soul-crushing to fall from, but Isabella hadn’t known what else to do. Uncle Percy had given strict instructions about what she could and couldn’t write home about. He didn’t want her mother getting worried and finding a way to come to London.

If she were honest with herself, the decision to ask him to post it for her had also given her a reason to seek him out this morning before they left. His eyes had been so sad when they looked her way, but that had been the only indication that he felt any lingering emotional pain from the night before. Amazing how many things could change in the mere span of a week.

Was time moving as quickly for her family, or was it a phenomenon created by living with the elite of England? Did time simply move faster for them?

What would her family think when they received a letter, franked on her behalf by a duke? Mother would expect that she’d fallen in love. Father would probably worry that he’d done the wrong thing in letting her come to London but would secretly be proud that she’d made such connections. Her sisters would swoon. Her brothers would puff up their chests and ask their father if they should go to London to ensure the man’s intentions.

None of them had any idea what London was really like. Even Mother seemed to have forgotten over the years.

The view of the city beyond the glass became blurry. Blurrier than the haze and speed could account for.

She let a tear roll free, not willing to alert the others in the carriage of her distress with a poorly timed sniffle or a raised hand.

When everything was over, she would explain until her family understood. Until then, whatever dreams gave them hope were good ones.

They just had to hold on a little bit longer. And so did she.