Page 27 of For a Lady's Lust

“I believe I dined in this home with your father when he was a young man, but I do not believe that we ate in this room. Has the dining room been moved, or is my memory deceiving me?” Martha asked.

Louisa turned to her mother, stunned. How on earth had she had dinner with Isaac’s father and not mentioned it to her before this? Why had she been invited here? Why was she bringing this up now?

Isaac chuckled and placed his hands on his lap. “You are most definitely correct, Mrs Pelham. The dining room was once down the hall to the right, but there was an issue with the foundation of the house, and so we had to move the dining hall here for fear that it would crumble in the position that it was before. Might I ask what the occasion was that you attended here with my father? My mother has kept surprisingly quiet about my father’s formative years, and so I am always delighted to hear whatever I can.”

Martha leaned forward and stretched her arm out to Isaac, as though she wanted to hold his hand. However, she simply placed it on the table with her hand in her fist so that she was still reaching out for him but not asking him to meet her halfway.

“Your father was an exceptionally charitable man. I believe he invited myself and Archibald here along with some other members of the community who had fallen on hard times. He discussed our situations with each of us, and then provided us with the bursaries that we required to be able to continue. It was thanks to his generosity that we were able to keep our home and that Archie could accept his position at the bank. We would be nothing today if it weren’t for your father,” Martha said seriously.

This was all brand new information to Louisa, and so she was just as overwhelmed by this revelation as Isaac. Isaac, however, had a far more emotional response to hearing this, as one would when discovering this side of their deceased father, and Louisa noticed that he had to fight to keep his tears at bay. “I so much appreciated hearing that, Mrs Pelham, thank you. I knew that my father was a great man, but to hear it from someone else’s perspective ...”

Isaac trailed off, and in a very uncharacteristic move, he took Martha’s outstretched hand and gave it a quick squeeze before retreating. It looked rather awkward from where Louisa was sitting, but she could clearly see the sentiment that it communicated.

From there on out, the conversation remained in the ‘pleasant small talk’ location for the remainder of the meal. While this would have enraged Louisa in other circumstances, she didn’t mind it one bit right now. She loved how easily Isaac and her mother were getting along, and if this was the style of talk that they enjoyed partaking in with each other, then that was just fine with her.

As the dessert was removed from the table, a comfortable silence fell over the three guests. Louisa allowed her attention to drift from the spot on the tablecloth that she had tried to concentrate on for most of the meal so that she did not admire Isaac too much, and in doing so, caught Isaac’s eye.

When they saw each other, Louisa was transported back to the moment yesterday, when it had certainly seemed as though Isaac was about to kiss her. Just the thought of it was enough to send chills down Louisa’s spine, but the fact that she was also staring into Isaac’s eyes made it all the more tantalizing.

As she looked at him more deeply, however, she felt as though she was looking inside of him. She started noticing details about him that she hadn’t before, like the fact that he had a small scar at the far left corner of his upper lip, or that one of his eyebrows was slightly longer than the other. She also saw something ... more in his face. At that time, she couldn’t place her finger on what that was, exactly, until she realized that it was not something innate in Isaac, but rather a feeling that she was putting on him. And that feeling ... was guilt.

Louisa closed her eyes. She had done so well so far this evening not thinking about her promise to Stephen and the way she was set to destroy Isaac, but the moment she recognized what she was projecting onto Isaac, it all collapsed.

She was overwhelmed with shame, panic, and fear, and she could feel her throat beginning to close up at the thought of all of that. She tried taking in a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart, but it did not help. She knew that she had to get out of that room if she was not going to give herself up.

When she opened her eyes, Isaac was still looking at her, but her mother was completely consumed with dabbing at a spot of something that she’d got on her dress. “So sorry to abandon you two for a moment, I just need to ... I forgot something in my cloak,” Louisa improvised.

Without waiting to hear their responses, Louisa fled from the room and raced down the hall back towards the front entrance.If I can just make it outside and get some fresh air, I know that I won’t faint,Louisa reassured herself. She began running faster and faster towards the door until she saw a set of French doors in a room as she raced past. As those were closer than the front door, Louisa ran into the room and burst through the doors, gasping for air as she did.

As soon as the fresh air hit her lungs, Louisa began to feel far better. She blinked her eyes many times to adjust to the evening light and placed her hand over her heart to make sure that it slowed down. Thankfully, it behaved, and in a few moments, Louisa could breathe normally.

That was until she heard a voice behind her say, “Was it as suffocatingly warm in there for you as it was for me?”

Louisa spun around but was not surprised to see Isaac standing behind her. “Yes,” she replied hastily. “The warmth ...heat, yes, it was very warm in there. It feels much nicer out here.”

Isaac smiled in a way that made her heart flip-flop, as it had many times before around him. “Also, just to be perfectly clear, I did not follow you. Your mother became concerned about you, and so she asked me to check on you. I ... I do believe she knows something that neither you nor I have managed to say out loud as of yet.”

Louisa’s brow furrowed; she could hardly believe what she was hearing. “I’m sorry … I don’t know what you’re getting at,” she responded innocently. Of course, she knew what he was insinuating, but if he felt like saying it right now, he had to be upfront about it.

“I ... well, I mean,” Isaac stammered, running an anxious hand through his hair on the side of his head. “I believe your mother has seen that ... that there is something between us.”

“Between us?” she prompted Isaac. “Does that mean ...”

Now Isaac was looking truly panicked. Louisa did love watching him squirm but decided that she had done enough of that for tonight. She had a feeling that they both knew exactly what he was talking about, so for the time being, it could be left unsaid. And while she could still feel Stephen’s claws slowly closing in on her, she thought that she might as well have some fun with Isaac while she still could.

Louisa allowed Isaac to stew for a moment longer, until she finally said, “I don’t mean to interrupt this, but I do believe I should check on my mother. She tends to wander when she is left alone in a fine house for too long.”

Isaac let out a relieved laugh and said, “Then we should return to her. We would not want her thinking that anything improper was going on, now would we?”

Isaac said the last part of that sentence with a smirk on his face, and Louisa applauded his bravery in her head. To reward him, as she walked past, she allowed her hand to graze him ever so slightly. The game between them had begun, and this was an unplanned part of Stephen’s plot that was going to bring Louisa a great deal of delight.

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