Page 70 of The Lover's Eye
“He’s sure to be devastated all over again.And ’is poor bride … what was he thinkin’?”
The group had scattered, like a wave striking the cliffs and diverging into a thousand droplets.But their voices beat a refrain in Isobel’s mind, as did the hungry glint of excitement she had seen in their eyes.No doubt her name was often upon the well-oiled machinery of their tongues.
Isobel had attempted to reassure Mrs.Taylor, who was kind and seemed truly humiliated by the scene.Having no one to comfort herself, Isobel had concocted her own soothing proposition: go for a walk; avoid everyone.She had been married for all of a day; she refused to go running back to Marriane, already knowing her response would be something akin to ‘trudge onward’.
Experiencing the grounds of Cambo House was something she’d hoped to share with her husband, but he was not home and she was not of a patient mind.
No sooner than Isobel had exited the confinement of the walled garden and started out on the moors, rain began to fall in plump, cool drops.She had been soaked and shivering when she returned to Cambo House, and Giles had still not returned.
She lay limply beneath the bedcovers now, staring up into the darkness.Every cell in her body called her to go to him, while each thought opposed it.She recalled how he had reached to touch her at breakfast and decided against it.
When she heard movement in his bedchamber, Isobel held her breath.She willed the logs to stop popping and the flames to extinguish so that she might listen.Footsteps, undoubtedly, and now the opening of a door.
Is he coming to me?Her body wanted to soar above the quilts in exhilarated glee.
But the door connecting her chambers to his did not open.Instead, the heavy footfalls removed to the corridor, slowly passing her room.
With movements light as a bird’s, Isobel reached the door and strained to listen beyond it.The steps had ceased.
Unable to resist the temptation, she eased her door open and peered into the shadowed corridor.
She caught the barest glimpse of Giles as he entered the next door down from hers.The one he had locked upon her arrival.
She recognized the broad angles of his shoulders, and flushed at the bareness of his legs under his nightshirt.He disappeared into the room, closing the door behind him.
♦
The following day, Isobel checked the corridor to ensure she was alone before going to the ambiguous door.To her surprise, it had been left slightly ajar.Giles’s earlier request that she not enter paled in comparison to her curiosity.
Isobel pushed the door open with her fingertips, her eyes rushed by a shade of blue simultaneously pale and blinding.The windows were without draperies, allowing the fair light to multiply the vibrancy of color.The uncarpeted floors creaked beneath her feet.
There was a bed stripped of its linens, and sheets willowed over the few pieces of furniture in little ripples and swags.Her tour of the rest of the house fresh in her memory, Isobel recognized this was the only room of Cambo House that seemed to be under alteration.Its entrancing blue was at odds with the rest of the house, too—bold and unflinching.
“May I assist you, my lady?”
She jumped.Her fingers had gone to one of the sheet swathed pieces of furniture, as if to unmask it, but now shot up to her throat.Mr.Finch stood in the doorway.
“You gave me a fright,” Isobel said, plastering on a smile as her breathing calmed.The butler’s expression stayed neutral, his hands folded before him.The analogy to a toy soldier seemed more apt than ever.
She moistened her lips, her own expression faltering.“What is this room being prepared for?Giles mentioned it was undergoing renovations.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.I wondered … well, if it might be a nursery.”Embarrassment rushed in as she spoke the thought aloud.“What with the shade of blue and all.”
“The room has not been altered in nearly a year, my lady.”
A thread of sick suspicion pierced her stomach.Had it been a nursery for Giles and Aurelia’s future children?Blue for the male heir he hoped his bride would provide him?She and Giles had not even spoken of children, not even consummated their marriage.
Good heavens, did this prove the rumors from the ball true?
“Oh,” she managed to say.“I see.”
“I came to inform you that a letter has arrived for you,” Finch said.“From Kittwick.”
Isobel latched onto this distraction with all force, leaving the room in long strides to find a sealed letter awaiting her in the entry hall.She would have recognized her father’s loopy scrawl anywhere.
She made for the walled garden, wanting privacy before she dared consume the letter’s contents.Mr.Finch’s implication about the blue room had already incited a nervous stomachache, and she knew her father’s words would be brutal in severity.
