Chapter Fifteen
Matthew straightened his jacket as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He looked…tired. Wasn’t that what everyone had said to him over and over again during the two days since his surprise engagement? The one that would be completed tomorrow thanks to a special license, hastily received after the exchange of copious amounts of money.
There were benefits to having power. Only he felt powerless.
Powerless to this marriage that was hanging over him. Powerless against the tide of desire he felt for the woman who would be his bride. Powerless against whatever plans Fenton Winter had in store for him.
He shook his head and glanced over his shoulder as his chamber door opened.
“Mama,” he said, turning to face her with the best smile he could muster. It felt as false as it likely looked.
Her smile was just as untrue. “You do look handsome, my love,” she said as she came up to squeeze his hand.
They stood together for a long moment, and then he sighed. “I know you are…troubled. Just as everyone is troubled.”
“I won’t deny that. I think any mother would be, given the circumstances. Winter has hated you for years—no amount of reason could change his mind about what he believes you did. I have never understood it.”
Matthew looked at his reflection again as he considered that statement. “I do.”
She drew back. “You do?”
“When Father died,” he began, feeling her stiffen. Her fingers tightened in his. “You don’t know how I wished I could blame it on someone, something. The pain was so sharp, so strong, I would have loved to place it somewhere else. Focused it into anger or hate. To lose a child…I imagine that would be a thousand times worse.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose that is true. Anger feels like it is more controlled than grief. More purposeful. But still. To go so far…”
He shrugged. “Well, he did go so far. There is no escaping it now. And in the end, it was my own actions that placed me into a moment he could capitalize on, isn’t it? Had I not been so imprudent…”
He waved his hand rather than complete the sentence. Whenever he did, he was yanked back to that moment in the parlor when Isabel had been flush against him and all reason had failed him, replaced by something hot and hungry that took control.
“What is she like?” the duchess asked.
He turned toward her. “Isabel?”
“Your friends seem quite…divided on the subject.”
Yes, his protective friends, half of whom saw Isabel as a co-conspirator, the other half as a victim. He wasn’t sure which camp he fell into.
“She is lovely, of course,” he began. “You could not help but look at her across a room. But the closer one gets, the more…fascinating she becomes. She’s intelligent, which I like.”
“You would be bored to tears if she weren’t, so that makes me happy,” his mother said.
“And she has a sweetness to her. She was poorly matched before, you know. In a loveless marriage.”
She bent her head. “And now you will both be thrust into another. Not what I ever wanted for you, especially after watching your friends and your cousin marry so happily. I always wished you would find a union like—”
She broke off, but he knew where her mind was going. “Like yours with Father,” he said, sighing. “Yes, I hoped for that too. But you know, it isn’t so very terrible. I am drawn to her. There is much to separate us, but there is no reason that one day we could not have a good…a good friendship.”
“Perhaps that will be enough,” she whispered, her voice cracking slightly.
He lifted it to his lips for a brief kiss. “May I ask you a favor?”
“Anything,” she said.
“Lead in the way in how you manage her,” he said. “Please. It will be hard enough for her for a while and I don’t want her to feel she is under attack from all sides.”
“You do care about her well-being,” the duchess breathed, tilting her head to examine his face a bit more closely.
He shifted beneath the interest and nodded. “I do.”
“Then I will do everything in my power to make her feel welcome,” his mother said. “But Matthew?”
“Yes?”
“If she does turn out to be in league with her uncle, I will cut her to her knees.”
Matthew lifted his eyebrows at the sharp, forceful tone. His mother was generally so kind, so gentle. And yet now her eyes flashed with the same protective light that his friends had demonstrated.
“I understand,” he said.
“Your Grace?” They both turned to find Portman standing in the entryway.
“Yes?” Matthew asked, though he already knew what the butler would say. He just needed an extra breath before he faced it.
“Mrs. Hayes has arrived.”
Matthew glanced at his other. “Only Mrs. Hayes? Mr. Winter is not also here?”
Portman shook his head. “No, sir. Mrs. Hayes came alone. She is in the blue parlor, as requested.”
Matthew nodded, and after Portman had gone, he looked at his mother. “Is it very wrong that I’m happy her uncle didn’t join us tonight?”
“No, for I feel it too and I absolve us of all guilt,” she laughed as they left the room together to join Isabel. “Though I do wonder at his behavior.”
Matthew pursed his lips. “As do I. As do I.”
They came down the stairs and up the hallway. The door to the blue parlor was closed as they approached and he made himself take a cleansing breath before he pushed it open and revealed their guest.
Isabel was standing by the window and she pivoted when they entered, her hands clenched before her and her eyes wide. She was beautiful, as she was always beautiful. Tonight she wore a pretty blue silk that made her seem at home in the room. A fall of butterflies adored the skirt of her gown, and the whimsical element made him feel like he was home in Tyndale, lying in the fields like he had done when he was a boy.
When everything was so much simpler.
“Your Graces,” Isabel said, hands fluttering much like those butterfly wings when she stepped forward.
“Mrs. Hayes,” his mother said, breaking from him and holding out her hand when Matthew could not move toward her. “Or may I call you Isabel, since tomorrow we shall be family?”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Isabel said, glancing at him. “I would be honored.”
The duchess cast him a quick look over her shoulder. It was pointed, and he realized he had simply been staring since he entered the room. As she stepped away to pour them each a drink, Matthew came forward at last.
“Good evening, Isabel,” he forced himself to say.
“Matthew,” she whispered, her gaze flitting over his face. “I’m so happy you invited me tonight. I thought you would not wish to see me.”
His heart lurched at the breathlessness in those words and the pain in her gaze. Despite his hesitations about her motives, he still felt a powerful drive to comfort her. To do far more than that. He reached for her hand.
When their fingers intertwined, there was a jolt of awareness that went through him. As always, desire was there. But something else, too. Something he could scarcely put a name to, for he hadn’t felt anything like it for a very long time.
It was a feeling of coming home, which could not be correct. He was overwrought after all the excitement of the past few days.
“We are to marry, Isabel,” he reminded her softly. “I could not avoid you if I wished to. And I don’t wish that.”
She nodded slowly, though his words didn’t seem to help ease her discomfort. In truth, he had no idea how to do so. They were both thrown into a situation out of their control. They were both aware of the barriers and the difficulties.
She cleared her throat as his mother returned. “My uncle sends his, er, regrets that he could not join us. He was distracted by some business.”
From the tightness around her lips, he could see that was not a true statement, and his stomach turned. Was she lying because this was part of some larger plan? And if not, if she were as much a victim as he was, just how bad things were for her at home, with a man so driven by hate that he would sacrifice her for it? Both questions left him ill at ease.
There were voices in the foyer then, and they all turned. “Ah,” the duchess said. “The others are arriving. Shall we greet them?”
She smiled at Isabel and then stepped from the room. Matthew held out his arm and she took it. But before he drew her into the hall, toward his friends and the night ahead, he leaned down closer.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered.
She jerked her gaze up with a gasp. Like she didn’t believe it. Like he couldn’t feel it after everything.
“S-so are you,” she stammered.
He found himself smiling as he guided her from the room. And for the first time in days, his heart actually felt light.
Isabel stood alone on Matthew’s wide terrace, looking down at a shadowy garden below. She could not see much of it in the moonlight, but she could already tell it was massive. Lovely. And after tomorrow, hers.
That thought was shocking every time she stumbled upon it, and she gripped her hands tighter on the metal railing as she gazed into the night.
The past few hours had been…trying. The supper was wonderful, of course. The company fine, for Matthew’s friends and their wives were all good people. Decent men and women.
But she saw the way they watched her. Careful. Accusatory in some cases. They were a tightknit group. She had no place there. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
And that stung even though she deserved no less than their censure.
“He is like a brother to me, you know.”
Isabel turned to see Helena Undercross coming across the terrace toward her. The Duchess of Sheffield, Baldwin’s wife. And there was no mistaking the hard edge to the otherwise beautiful woman’s countenance.
“I know he and your husband are very close,” Isabel said carefully.
“They are. All the dukes in their little club are close, but there are pockets of deeper friendships within their ranks. Baldwin, Ewan and Matthew are one of those pockets.” Helena stopped beside her and stared up at the stars for a moment. “That alone would make me protective of him. But there is more to it than that.”
Isabel tilted her head. She wanted so much to know more about the man she would so soon marry. And this woman, with her accusation, was offering her a glimpse of just that.
“What is it?” she asked carefully.
Helena sent her a side glance. “He would have saved me.”
“Saved you?” Isabel repeated, not understanding. It was obvious Baldwin and Helena were deeply in love, just like every other couple in that group of friendship inside. She could not imagine Helena ever would have required saving from Matthew.
“There was a moment when it seemed Baldwin and I would not be able to wed,” she explained, her voice shaking as if the mere words cut her deeply. “And Matthew offered to take my hand to help me escape a bad situation.”
Isabel’s lips parted as she stared at the woman beside her. The very beautiful woman. Alluring and exotic, since she was an American. The idea that Matthew had ever considered marrying her made Isabel’s jealousy flare.
“I see,” she whispered.
“I’m not sure you do,” Helena retorted, facing her suddenly. “And I’m not sure how I feel about you in return. There are things about you that make me want to offer you friendship. But I doubt you, Isabel. And I fear what that doubt means for Matthew.”
Isabel swallowed. Thus far no one had been so direct about their hesitations. She found she almost appreciated it, though the confrontation was not a pleasant experience. At least it was straightforward.
“I understand your hesitation,” she said. “And I know my words will mean little if I do not match them to action as time goes by. But I will tell you that I do not want to hurt Matthew. Right now you may not believe that, but in time I hope you will.”
Helena tilted her head, and some of the hardness went out of her face. She let out her breath slowly. “So do I, Isabel. So do I.”
Matthew stepped onto the terrace and came to a stop. Isabel was there, starlight falling over her like she had been conjured from some fairy story. Or a gothic tale like the ones they had discussed together at Mattigan’s.
But with her was Helena. And by the way the two women were looking at each other, there conversation was very intense, indeed.
“Ladies,” he drawled.
Helena backed away a step and turned to him with a smile. “Matthew.”
“The others have left and I believe Baldwin was just saying farewell to my mother.”
Helena nodded. “Then I should join him.” She faced Isabel again. “Thank you for your candor. Good night.”
“Good night,” Isabel whispered, her voice barely carrying.
Helena walked away, toward him. She caught his hand as she passed by and squeezed it gently. “Good night.”
He kept his eyes on Isabel as Helena went inside and shut the door behind herself. At last they were alone. Alone for the first time since that night when their future had been sealed.
He should have wanted to pepper her with a thousand questions and accusations. But that wasn’t what came to his mind at all. No, watching her standing at his terrace wall, her hands shaking, her eyes not meeting his, what he wanted was to fold her into his arms. Comfort her. Touch her.
He shook his head. “You survived the night,” he said.
She jerked her face to his. “There were times I wasn’t certain I would,” she admitted. “There are half a dozen friends of yours ready to place a knife between my ribs if I dare to ever hurt you.”
He pursed his lips. “They are protective. I’m sorry.”
She looked back over his garden. “You ought not to be. It’s nice to have friends with such loyalty.”
“You do,” he said. “Sarah Carlton seems to be such a friend to you.”
There was a shadow of a smile that crossed her lips. “Yes. And I suppose one benefit of our union is that I would be able to help her.”
“Help her?” Matthew repeated, fascinated by the moonlight dancing off her dark hair.
She faced him. “Yes. She’s in a dire state. Once her mother is gone, she will likely be forced to go into service. And perhaps with the influence of your title, I can help her a little as she transitions.”
Matthew wrinkled his brow. His friends had their own ideas about this woman’s ulterior motives when it came to their marriage. But here was one, and it was something he could not fault. He had the same instinct to help his friends at all costs. To use what influence he had to improve the lives of those he loved.
Another thing they had in common.
“I think we could be of help when that time comes,” he said. “I hope you’ll turn to me for assistance.”
Her expression softened a bit. “If you would be willing, I would greatly appreciate the help.”
He reached out, for he could no longer resist it, and touched her cheek with his bare fingers. She sucked her breath in through her teeth and leaned into his hand as her eyes fluttered shut.
“Isabel,” he whispered, just to hear her name out loud.
“Matthew,” she murmured back.
He leaned in and kissed her. Her hands trembled as she lifted them to cup his cheeks and draw him even closer. Her lips parted beneath his and he took what she silently offered. The kiss deepened, grew more heated. He knew where it was headed.
He couldn’t allow it. Yet. Not yet. Not here, not with his mother just through a door.
He pulled away reluctantly and she sighed out a tiny sound of displeasure.
“You and Helena had a talk?” he asked, searching for a topic that would distract him from the very hard cock rubbing the front of his trousers at present.
She nodded. “She is certainly protective,” she murmured. “But I suppose she would be. She—she told me you once offered to marry her to save her from a bad position.”
Matthew jolted. He had not expected Helena to share that particular tidbit. It had been a year before, a moment that felt worlds away now. “Not because I cared for her. At least not beyond friendship,” he said, feeling he should explain himself. Not certain why.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “We are to marry. Tomorrow. So I think I do. Baldwin was in a bad situation. So was Helena. They believed they couldn’t be together and so I offered to marry her myself, to save her. I mostly did it to make Baldwin wake up to what he truly wanted. He did, they married and all is right between them.”
She pressed her lips together. “Indeed, it is. All your friends are remarkable in that way. Those that are married appear deeply in love. Powerfully.”
He turned his face, for this felt like a dangerous topic. Very dangerous, indeed, considering how many of those same friends had struggled just as he was struggling. Many of them had experienced a reluctant courtship, driven by desire. A blossoming of feelings that not a one of them expected. And then…the magic of the lives they now shared.
That was not his path, but he found he increasingly envied it, especially as he looked at the beautiful woman before him.
“I will have to prove myself with them,” Isabel said. “To prove I am not in league with my uncle. I suppose I’ll have to prove that to you, as well.”
Matthew shifted at that particularly unpleasant thought. The one that had been haunting him for days. He cocked his head. “Speaking of your uncle…”
“You want to know why he did not come tonight?” she asked. Her cheeks darkened. “He made a show of getting ready, rubbing his hands together, talking about making scenes. And then, just as suddenly, he said he would not come. That he did not want to step foot into your home until it was absolutely necessary.”
She let out a long sigh, and in that moment he saw how exhausted she was by this exercise. By her uncle’s swinging pendulum of moods and what it had wrought on her life. He also saw her fear, the same one she had expressed to him the night they had been caught together. What he didn’t see was any kind of deception. Perhaps he couldn’t fully trust himself, but he didn’t think that Isabel was lying to him.
“If he could have come here and caused trouble, but didn’t, that must give you some modicum of relief,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “It doesn’t.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “His eyes are still so wild, Matthew. I feel him plotting with every turn, muttering beneath his breath about having you close enough to hurt. Why don’t you take it seriously?”
He reached out and caught her hand. They both looked down at their intertwined fingers. Watched as he lifted her hand and pressed it to his chest. Her fingers tightened there, like she was trying to hold his heart. For a wild moment, he wished she could.
“You’ve lived with him a year, yes?” he asked. “Well, I’ve endured this behavior from him three times that long. He blusters, but he does not act. Right now he’s reveling in how he created a scandal surrounding my name. Perhaps that will finally be enough for him.”
She didn’t look certain, so he leaned forward, sliding his fingers along her jaw once more. Whatever words she’d been going to say fell away as her breath caught and her eyes fluttered shut.
He brushed his lips to hers, gentle this time despite the animal instinct that rose up in him once more. He drew her closer, against his chest, folding his arms around her. She shivered as she settled there and in that moment he felt something entirely new. Entirely unexpected.
He felt peace.
She pulled away and looked up at him, expression bleary and almost confused. Like she, too, had felt that shift and it took her off center just as it did him.
“We marry tomorrow,” she whispered. “I can hardly believe it.”
He nodded. This would be the perfect time to pull away from her embrace, but he didn’t. He continued to hold her as he said, “It’s happened very fast.”
“And what will happen…a-after?” she asked.
His jaw tightened at the question. It was one he had been pondering himself. That vast blankness of what their relationship would be as husband and wife was troubling to say the least. And now she had asked him to put voice to it.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know what will happen, but I know what I want when you’re near me like you are right now. Despite everything.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Despite,” she repeated, and there was no mistaking the faint hurt in her tone. He wished he didn’t cause it, but didn’t see a way not to. Not right now, at least.
“Despite is all I have, Isabel. You cannot fault me for that, can you? After all the lies and manipulations that brought us here.”
It was she who pulled away, taking a step back from him as she stared at her hands clenched in front of her. “No, I cannot fault you. If I were to believe you were a villain bound to trap me, perhaps all I would have is despite, as well.”
He frowned. She acted as though she felt something deeper for him. Worse, the idea that she did was not the anathema it should have been. He didn’t want her heart, of course. That was not something he had ever expected to desire again from a lady.
But if he held it…that was certainly a gift.
“Tomorrow will come soon enough, Isabel,” he choked out. “Why don’t we just see what it brings rather than wrapping ourselves in knots wondering about it?”
Her lips pressed once more and then she nodded. “That’s a fair suggestion, Matthew. I can’t say otherwise.”
“Good.” He held out his elbow. “Why don’t you let me take you back to your carriage then?”
She stared at the outstretched arm for a beat, then slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. He found himself drawing a breath of relief as she did so. He led her from the terrace, back into the house and toward the foyer where he was certain his mother was waiting to say goodbye to Isabel. His fiancée.
Tomorrow, his wife.
And once that happened, everything would change.
Despite a long drive across the darkness of a London night, Isabel’s head was still spinning as she arrived at her uncle’s home half an hour later. She stared through the carriage window at the house, just another in a row of the same houses, and sighed.
Inside was a man she loved. Still loved, despite his wild accusations and even wilder actions. And he was bound and determined to hurt Matthew. Despite what her fiancé thought, she still believed Fenton had deeper plans than a mere scandal and a forced wedding.
And she was terrified of them. Determined to do anything she could to protect Matthew. Because…
Well, she wasn’t going to say the because. Not to herself and certainly not out loud. Her feelings for the man had increased since that first shocking moment he had appeared out of the crowd at the Donville Masquerade and stepped between her and her attacker.
It seemed she was destined to break her heart over him. And sooner rather than later.
The footman opened the door and she climbed out into the cool night air, drawing a cleansing breath before she walked up to the house and into the foyer. Hicks asked about her night as he took her things and she smiled through it, ready to just go up to her room and go to sleep. If she could with the knowledge that in a few short hours she would be Matthew’s wife.
“Goodnight, Hicks,” she said with a smile for the butler as she moved toward the stairs. She had not yet reached them when she heard her uncle from across the foyer.
“How was it?”
She froze, hand hovering above the banister. She did not wish to discuss her night with him. Her anger and resentment toward him was growing exponentially and she had no interest in engaging in a row with him.
“Answer me, Isabel,” he said, his tone sharpening.
She spun toward him, and the anger she’d been trying to keep in check now bubbled to the surface. “If you’re going for humiliation, you have hit your mark. Everyone is talking.”
Her uncle’s face lit up in triumph and she took a long step toward him.
“That makes you happy, does it? Well, it shouldn’t. No one is talking about him. They’re talking about me.” She folded her arms. “From strangers in the shop to his own friends and mother. They all look at me like I’m a snake who slithered into their flowerbed. And the reason? Because I am. Because of you. And he—”
She cut herself off, for the last thing she wanted was to debate the topic of him with her uncle. Not when her feelings for Matthew were so tangled and powerful and painful.
“He?” Uncle Fenton encouraged.
She shook her head. “Do you want me to say he’s miserable? That he’s broken?”
“Is he?”
“He isn’t exactly dancing in the streets over our union,” she said, thinking of Matthew’s offer that he could want her despite. Despite. Fenton’s lip curled up in a sneer, and she shook her head. “You are happy about this.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? He’s created enough misery, why should he not feel even a fraction of the same?”
“Good, then you’ve succeeded,” she said, moving forward to catch his hands. “Celebrate as you’ve always wanted to do. It’s time to let this go.”
His face twisted. In that moment she saw all his grief, all his deep and abiding pain, all the loss that had piled up on his shoulders and weighed him down. Changed and warped him into the person who stood before her today. And though she feared that person…she also pitied him. And longed to help him see that revenge and rage were not the answer.
“You never lost a child,” he spit, his voice shaking as he yanked his hands from hers. “You have no idea what it feels like. So you have no quarter to talk to me about what I should let go or not let go.”
He pivoted and walked away, back down the hall. She heard the door to his study slam, loud enough that the pictures hanging in the hallway shook with the force.
She bent her head as tears gathered in her eyes. And this was how she would marry. As a tool for one man’s revenge. A tool for another’s desire.
And there was nothing she could do to stop either of them.