Page 48 of A Night of Forever
Not in a million years. “It wasn’t my place to tell you. It was Evangeline’s choice.”
Hadley’s brother, Augustus, had been blackmailed, and to save him, Hadley needed to marry another woman. Evangeline didn’t want to put Hadley in a position where he would have to choose between her and his brother. So she kept Sealey’s paternity secret. Although Evangeline eventually came up with a way to foil the blackmailer, it was too late. Victoria had killed Augustus before they could clear his name.
“I miss my brother,” Hadley said softly, his eyes dark with remembered pain. When he raised his glass in silent salute to his brave brother, the late Duke of Claymore, Arend joined him.
Together they sipped. Swallowed. Remembered the life Victoria had torn away in her hatred.
Then Hadley sighed and set his jaw. “Enough of the past. What are you going to do about Isobel?”
“Do?”
“By the sound of your experience in the stable, I take it things progressed further than a gentleman should have allowed.”
Arend had no intention of sharing what had passed between himself and Isobel. “I still need to know if she is guilty or not.”
“You are letting the past cloud your judgment,” Hadley said, and when Arend remained silent, he added, “Isobel is a very beautiful woman. You always did have exquisite taste in women. Not all of them have been killers. Trust your instincts, man.”
How many were enough? “I’d be foolish to forget the lessons I’ve learned.”
Hadley nodded, then studied his glass with calculated interest. “Isobel is key to our plan. So don’t upset her. And be aware that if you seduce her and she is not party to Victoria’s crimes, then Maitland will haul you to the altar himself. Are you ready for that?”
Hell no. “Is a man ever ready to be leg-shackled?”
Hadley’s eyes glinted. “When he meets the right woman.”
Something in Arend’s chest ached, then ebbed away. Hadley had found his “right woman.” Now all his friends were settled and content. It was what they deserved. They were good, honorable men. Unlike him. “You’re happy, then?”
“If Victoria were in custody, I’d be the happiest man alive.”
“Amen.” Arend gave a deep sigh that was only slightly exaggerated. “I shall behave where Isobel is concerned.”
“And if you can’t?”
“I’m not an uncouth schoolboy,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster. “I can control my urges.”
Hadley flashed him an amiable grin. “Says the man who was so lost in pleasure that he let someone hit him over the head.”
Arend rose and placed his glass deliberately on the table. “Says the man who, injured or not, is more than capable of tossing you in the horse trough.”
Chapter 12
LONDON, A WEEK LATER
Isobel’s stomach churned and her breakfast wouldn’t settle. In an hour Arend would arrive.
She had returned to London with Lieutenant Colbert, and was staying in safety with His Grace until Victoria was recaptured. Marisa was showering her with affection and was trying to take Isobel’s mind off the fact that her face had been slashed. A scar was nothing compared to what Marisa had lost in this fight with Victoria.
Hairs lifted on the nape of Isobel’s neck. Lieutenant Colbert had been vague about Arend’s rescue and Victoria’s disappearance. He had told her that Arend had been found but was wounded, his knee badly bruised to the point he could barely walk, and he was weak from lack of food.
The thought of his suffering still brought tears to her eyes. She was so grateful her memory hadn’t failed her, and that the map she had drawn was accurate enough for them to have found him.
Marisa was already in the drawing room when Isobel entered. Her friend never believed she’d been involved in Sealey’s kidnapping, especially when Sealey told his mother how Isobel had tried to protect him.
It was nerves that made her fidget with the pocket on her gown as she took a chair near the window so she could watch the street for Arend’s arrival.
How would he greet her?
She flushed at the memory of the last time she’d seen Arend. She’d been a wanton hussy. She’d allowed him to kiss her, touch her—intimately—and she dreamed of it almost every night. The images in her head caused her heart to beat in a frantic tattoo. But that was before her cheek had been split open. Now it was stitched. Would the wound repulse him? Did she care? How should she greet him?
