Page 63 of A Night of Forever
“Portia mentioned you have a sister and a brother,” she said with obvious effort.
“My sister, Mosella, the eldest of us, died in childbirth the day I returned from Brazil.”
Pain slashed along his skin as he remembered receiving the news from Hadley. His sister had sacrificed herself for them—for him—and his wealth had come too late to help her.
“My brother, the youngest of us, had entered the Church long before I returned. He is the vicar at the Claymore estate. I asked Hadley to look out for him while I was away, and like the honorable man he is, he was true to his word. Curtis says he’s happy doing God’s work.”
Arend believed in God because he believed in the devil, and if the devil existed, it was only logical that God existed too. But he barely kept in touch with Curtis. He didn’t wish to taint his brother with his hatred of a God who had long ago deserted him. He sent Curtis a stipend every month. He had no idea if his brother used the money or gave it away, but the gesture eased Arend’s bleakness.
“And your mother?”
Another wasted life. “She died of influenza six months after Mosella’s wedding.” Would she still be alive had Mosella been able to stay with her? “If my sister had waited, I would have found a way so she didn’t have to wed a man she barely knew.”
The compassion in her eyes was almost his undoing.
“You must have been a lonely little boy, a foreigner growing up in a strange land.”
No, he was not going to discuss his isolation. “Everyone is alone at some point in their lives. You learn how to manage. You should know. You were alone when your father died.”
“True. As an only child, I’ve been alone most of my life.” She looked at him. “I’m tired of being alone, Arend. When I marry, it will be to a man who is first and foremost a friend, and only then a lover.”
Once he would have scoffed at that idea, but he’d seen it happen. Five times now. His fellow Libertine Scholars had found exactly what she described, and envy of their happiness burned deep inside him.
“Your friends are prime examples, aren’t they?”
“For the moment.” Her raised eyebrows challenged him to go on. “Love is like a drug in the beginning. Euphoric in it’s very nature. Over time, the euphoria dies away and one is left, at best, with ex-lovers who can’t remember what drew them to each other in the first place.” God, it sounded bleak and bitter.
“Which is why it’s important to be friends first,” she said. “There has to be something deeper than lust and desire.”
“Friendship is not something one first thinks of when meeting a beautiful woman.” He couldn’t remember when he’d ever looked past a woman’s physical perfection.
“Perhaps that has been your problem,” she shot back.
He thought of Daniela and Juliette, the two women who had changed the course of his life, and not for the better. If he’d looked past their obvious beauty, would he have recognized the evil lurking beneath? Could he be in the same situation here? What lurked under Isobel’s radiant innocence?
“I know what you are thinking.” Isobel leaned forward slightly, her earnest expression made him nervous. “You’re thinking, how can you be friends with anyone you cannot trust? Tell me: is it only women you expect to betray you?”
The words “only women” threw him. He wanted to say no, but the more he considered her question the more he realized it was partly true. He was more likely to trust a man than a woman.
Isobel must have seen the answer in his eyes. “She must have hurt you badly.”
She? No. They.Isobel wanted to be friends. If he told her about Paris, and Juliette, and his time as Juliette’s plaything, friendship would be impossible. He would disgust her. He disgusted himself.
“I hurt myself.” At her puzzled expression he added, “I didn’t heed the warnings, too dazzled by—” He broke off.
“Lust?” she suggested.
His throat tightened. “Greed.”
“Money.” Isobel sank back into her chair, a look of understanding on her face, and, to his relief, no judgment. “I’ve never experienced poverty, or had to worry about money. I can’t really imagine what it would be like.”
Poor food. No medicine. Ragged clothes. Being the object of scorn and derision. Dependence on others. Powerlessness. “You wouldn’t want to,” he said, and heard the rasp of pain in his own voice.
She sat waiting expectantly, as if for more revelations, but he did not wish to ruin this night with disturbing memories. His nightmares came far too often as it was. It was time Isobel answered some questions of his. “Tell me about your childhood.”
She blinked and turned away slightly to gaze into the fire. “There’s nothing much to tell. Mine was completely normal. My father adored my mother, and when I was really young, our home was filled with love. But there was an undercurrent of tension. As a child I didn’t understand. Now?” She looked away from the fire and down to the hands clasped tightly in her lap. “Apparently my mother almost died giving birth to me, and my father worried for her life should she conceive again. He was right to worry. She died giving birth to a stillborn son when I was six. I don’t think Father ever recovered.”
She ignored her tea and reached over to pick up his snifter of brandy. The smell of the strong liquor made her splutter and her eyes water. Blinking and trying not to cough, she shoved the snifter blindly in his direction.
