Page 12

“B lessed saints!” Dolores stopped stock-still at the entrance to the dining hall. She turned and said to Alejandra, “He is as beautiful as an angel.”

Alejandra was staring over Dolores’s shoulder. “Madonna, yes! A beautiful fallen angel. That mouth, those eyes, those cheekbones. So stern looking and yet somehow… wicked.” She sighed.

Immediately there was a faint scuffle as the other girls pushed forward, trying to see Isabella’s very real husband.

“Girls!” Sister Ignazia said, and when they did not immediately respond, she said in a warning voice, “Young ladies ! Do I assume from this unseemly behavior that you have no wish to dine this evening?”

“No, Sister.” They hurried into the dining hall in relative silence, darting avid glances at Isabella’s husband.

“Do you think he would be stern in the bedchamber?” Alejandra whispered.

“Who cares?” Luisa giggled.

“Ooh, I do like a masterful man,” Dolores said with a dramatic shiver.

Isabella clenched her fists. He was her husband, even if he didn’t want her.

Lieuten— No, Lord Ripton stood behind his chair at Reverend Mother’s table, in formal garb and looking handsomer than ever.

The only man in a room full of women, he was the center of attention.

Bad enough the other girls were flutteringand whispering and giggling as they eyed him across the room, but even nuns were straightening their wimples and smiling at him.

And he, Isabella thought darkly, was perfectly comfortable with the fuss. This was to be her future. The man of her dreams, adored by every woman who saw him. And kindwith it, so she couldn’t even hate him.

“Look, even Sister Gertruda is making up to him,” hissed Luisa. “I thought she hated men.”

Isabella watched as Sister Gertruda, normally a thin-lipped, humorless martinet, stood beside Lord Ripton, chatting animatedly.

He listened with grave attention, nodding and making short responses, but his gaze wandered across the room to the knot of girls, his dark eyes sifting through them one by one.

Sister Josefina had decreed that their normal convent garb would be worn, no fancy dresses or hairstyles, no frills, perfume, or paint—on pain of punishment—so from a distance and at first glance, the girls would be hard to tell apart.

Isabella felt it the moment he first saw her—a faint prickle of awareness rippling over her skin. Reverend Mother noticed her arrival, and gestured to Isabella to join herself and Lord Ripton at table.

“Bring him over and introduce us after dinner,” Alejandra ordered as Isabella left. “I want to meet him.”

“Oh yes.” Paloma sighed and fluttered her lashes. “I want to meet a fallen angel.”

“Mmmm, I want to hear him speak, even if it is inEnglish.”

“How long is it since any of us talked to a man who isn’t a priest?”

“I’ll try,” Isabella snapped, and she marched across to join her husband. Everyone had gone silly. He’d turned all their heads.

His dark eyes seemed to take in everything, but he said nothing, only murmuring a quiet greeting. His deep voice shivered down her spine.

The room fell silent while they all waited behind their chairs, then Reverend Mother gave the signal, and with a loud scraping of chairs everyone sat down.

Reverend Mother then said grace. It was a long grace and in Latin, and Isabella was so keyed up she couldn’t concentrate.

She’d never been much interested in Latin anyway, so much of it was just mumble.

She glanced at Lord Ripton and to her shock found he was watching her, his gaze dark and intense.

She immediately squeezed her eyes shut. Was he a godless heathen like Papa that he didn’t close his eyes at grace?

Reverend Mother finished grace; then, just as everyone was about to reach for their food, she said, “We welcome Lord Ripton who joins us at table this evening.”

They put down their cutlery and waited. “As you all no doubt have heard, he has come to collect his wife Isabella who has been with us these last eight years.” She smiled at Isabella. “A most eventful eight years, may I say.” A ripple of amusement passed around the room.

Isabella stared at a knot in the grain of the wooden table, silently willing Reverend Mother to say no more about her time at the convent. He didn’t need to know any of that. And besides, the food was getting cold. Not that she was hungry; her stomach was in knots.

Why did he keep staring at her? She passed her hands over her hair, smoothing it down. Her hands were shaking. Stupid. It’s not as if anything could change. She was fated to this man. He was fated to her.

A life of solid contentment.

Reverend Mother went on, “Lord Ripton tells me he plans to leave first thing in the morning, so this will be Isabella’s last night with us before embarking on her new married life in England.

We wish her well.” Everyone raised a beaker or glass—most drinking water, but Reverend Mother, Lord Ripton, and some of the older nuns drinking wine—and drank to Isabella and Lord Ripton.

Isabella forced her lips into what she hoped looked like a happy smile, then drank. All those faces beaming at her and Lord Ripton. All that joyful goodwill. Her mouth tasted of bile. It was all a charade, a farce. He didn’t want her. It was nothing but a horrid mistake.

She sat wedged between Reverend Mother and Lord Ripton, pushing her food around her plate. It was a sin to waste food—and God knew there were enough times during the war when they’d been desperate for it—but she couldn’t bring herself to swallow a mouthful of stew.

She broke off a small piece of bread and tried to chew. It wedged in a hard lump halfway down her throat. She drank from her beaker and managed to choke it down.

Luke forced himself to drag his gaze off her. He couldn’t believe the difference in her appearance. The clothes were dreadful, of course—drab, concealing, and coarse—but their plainness suited her better than all those frills. And now he could really see her.

Not a little ugly duckling in a flock of swans, but something entirely different.

Her skin was palest ivory, and smooth, with a delicate flush that had been concealed by the garish rouge she’d worn before.

She’d abandoned the fussy, elaborate hairstyle. Her hair was now plaited in a simple coronet around her head, the thick plaits silken and glossy. She must have just washed it, for it seemed damp. Tiny curls clustered around her temple and nape.

The unfussy hairstyle revealed the elegant line of her head and neck and framed her face perfectly.

She was not conventionally pretty—not pretty in the least, actually.

With high cheekbones, a pointed chin, a commanding little nose bequeathed to her by some Roman ancestor, and golden eyes that met his with a mixture of shyness and defiance, she was something far more interesting than pretty. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

He was married to this slender, stunning creature in the dreadful clothes.

He wanted to touch her, to see if that ivory skin was as soft and silky as it seemed. Her cheekbones gave her a faintly haughty look, and her nose was bold and commanding.

But her mouth—oh Lord, what a mouth… He hadn’t noticed it before, when it had been painted in a small cupid’s bow. Now he could barely drag his gaze from it. Au naturel, her lips were like rich, ripe berries with the bloom still on. Plump, luscious, edible.

He must have moaned, for Reverend Mother turned to him with a look of faint inquiry. He managed to clear his throat and regarded her solemnly.

“So tomorrow you two will leave us,” Reverend Mother said. “Where do you plan to go, Lord Ripton?”

Isabella turned her head to look at her aunt, and Luke noticed a tiny, velvet mole, just below the delicate whorls of her left ear. His mouth dried.

“Lord Ripton?”

He glanced at Reverend Mother. “Go?”

“On your honeymoon.”

Honeymoon? He hadn’t even thought about a honeymoon. This was to have been a duty. “We’ll make immediately for England, to my home there.”

Reverend Mother glanced at the silent girl between them. “I’m sure Isabella is looking forward to seeing her new home, aren’t you Isabella?”

Isabella made some sort of sound that might indicate assent, and the nun went on, “And I’m sure she’ll enjoy being out in the fresh air. She is very fond of fresh air.”

“Indeed?” Luke glanced at Isabella, noticed her mouth and immediately forgot what he’d been going to say.

“You have hired horses, I presume?”

Luke blinked and, with an effort, brought his attention back to the conversation.

“Yes, I hope Isabella won’t find the journey too wearying.

” It was easier to conduct a conversation with the nun than with his wife.

She was seemingly the quiet type—he had no complaint there; it was restful—and it was easier to maintain a civilized conversation without being… distracted. It was most disconcerting.

“It will be a long time since she last rode a horse. No doubt she’ll be very stiff at first.”

“Oh, but—” Reverend Mother began.

“A horse?” Isabella looked up. “What kind of horse?”

He glanced down at her, surprised. “Just a hired horse; nothing very special. It took me some time to find a suitable mount. Reverend Mother, you were saying?”

“Suitable?” Isabella frowned.

“Quite suitable,” he assured her. He turned back to the nun. “Reverend Mother?”

But Reverend Mother had either forgotten what she was going to say or had thought better of it.

“You don’t plan to spend any time in Spain?” she asked. “Isabella mentioned your late uncle owned several Spanish estates in Andalusia. I presume they now belong to you.”

“Yes, however—”

“Excellent. You will wish to visit them, since you are in Spain now.”

Luke said nothing. He did not wish to visit them in the least. He addressed himself to his stew.

Reverend Mother frowned slightly. “You will want to see how they fared during the war, surely?”

Luke drank some of the thin, slightly acid mountain wine.