Page 51 of A Night of Forever
One of her brows lifted in a haughty gesture that made him feel like a heel. “Seducing me in the stable was your idea of being careful?”
Hell no, it had been about passion, desire, want, and need. He’d indulged his driving need for her, and look where his lack of self-control had taken them.
The headache that had never really disappeared since his kidnapping throbbed once. Hard. He only just restrained himself from rubbing the back of his skull.
“I wanted you.” There was no reason not to be truthful. They needed her cooperation. It still didn’t mean he had to trust her.
Her mouth dropped open.
Her incredulity annoyed him. “Why is that so difficult to believe?” he snapped. “You’re a very desirable woman. Don’t expect me to apologize for finding you so.”
He thought she would snap back at him. She did not.
“Idoexpect you to apologize,” she said, and her voice was soft and full of hurt. “You used me.”
Her accusation and its delivery stabbed him to the heart, and in that moment he hated himself. “The fact I wanted you has nothing to do with whether or not I think you’re the enemy. A man wants what a man wants.”
She said something under her breath, and he stiffened in incredulous shock. Shecouldn’thave just said what he thought she had. She was a gently bred young lady, not a stable hand.
“I beg your pardon,” he managed, amazed that he was more intrigued than scandalized.
“And so you should,” she said, coldly polite. “But you will not, because you do not believe you could possibly be wrong.” She was more composed than a princess at a state occasion. “You thought me an innocent fool, a tool you could use. Did you think I’d fall in love with you and turn on Victoria?” Her tight smile told him his face had betrayed him. “That would have only worked had I been in league with her in the first place,” she went on. “I hope by now you understand I am not. You’d still be in that mine in Durham, if not for me.”
He almost applauded. Challenging and courageous, Isobel fascinated him—had done so since the day he’d rescued her from the carriage wreck that could so easily have killed both her and Marisa. She’d refused to be bullied by him then too. But why had she sent the men to Durham? Was it to buy Victoria time to escape?
Eyes troubled, she leaned back a little in her chair, her coolness wavering. “I can see you still don’t believe me.”
Arend steeled himself. “Let me be frank.”
“Oh, yes.” She waved a hand. “Please. Be frank.”
“Then put yourself in my position. Marisa is kidnapped. You are in the carriage used to kidnap her. You say you don’t know why—”
“That,” she said, “is no longer true.”
At her interruption, Arend stopped, expecting her to continue. They both waited, neither of them willing to break first.
“Well?” he said finally. “Are you going to tell me?”
She rounded her eyes in mock shock. “Good gracious, my lord. Are you asking something, instead of guessing or inferring or assuming?”
Saucy wench. He gritted his teeth to stop a growl from escaping. “I will try to keep an open mind.”
“Then,” she said with cool hauteur, “I suppose I only have a small window of opportunity before it closes.” She ignored the growl he couldn’t control this time and went on. “When Sealey and I were captured, Victoria told me. She wanted you and me to meet and become betrothed.”
Not for love, that was certain. “Why?”
“She intended—” Her attempt to maintain a cool demeanor turned into a shiver that shook her whole body. “She intended to kill me, and frame you for my murder.”
Kill Isobel.Even the thought was like a knife in the belly.Frame him.That part was clever, and finally something that made perfect sense.
“She really is an evil mastermind, is she not?” He pulled his mind away from the vision of Isobel hurt, Isobel dying, Isobel dead, gone forever. “What I cannot understand is why I was left in the mine. I wasn’t placed that far in. They must have known I could make my way out.”
He watched her face as she lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Perhaps she knew I had the map. If she knew that, she’d have known I’d come to find you in Durham. And then they could enact their dastardly plan.”
No artifice there. “But I wasn’t left in a mine in Durham,” he said. “I was taken to a mine near Warrick.”
Real horror mixed with genuine confusion on her face. “I don’t understand,” she said blankly. “Lieutenant Colbert told me you’d been rescued.”
