Page 39 of The Lover’s Eye

Giles recognized himself for a lovesick fool when his coach and four drew up to Ridgeway House a few days later.

Before departing, he had placated Finch on many estate matters, Isobel had sent word of their travel plans to the Pembertons, and the newlyweds did not intend to stay above a few days in Cumberland.

Still, Giles was keenly aware he did not want to be there at all. The thick facade of the country house, darkened to the shade of charcoal by dumping rain, stoked fury in the pit of his stomach.

The humiliation of Lord Ridgeway’s rejection had been one thing, but now that Giles knew the old man had been deceiving him? Pretending Isobel was a willing participant in Elias’s courtship, when really, the man had been an imminent threat to her safety?

No, now Giles was disgusted. Vitriol pulsed in his veins, and he longed to throttle the man with his bare hands.

“Thank you, again,” Isobel said, giving Giles’s hand a brief squeeze as the vehicle stopped. “I know you’re only here for me.”

He smiled, struggling in vain to hide his sour feelings. She was worth it. She was why he would go inside and behave himself. No throttling.

In the time it took them to dismount from the coach and rush up the stairs, their outer layers became considerably soaked. A little rapid of water spilled off Giles’s hat as he bent his head to remove it.

“Welcome back, miss,” the footman said, smiling at Isobel as he took her wet pelisse.

Giles glared at the young servant until recognition sobered the boy’s expression.

“His lordship is expecting you in the study, my lady ,” the footman amended.

Isobel looped her hand through her husband’s arm, giving him a pinched smile of encouragement. She had handled her father’s vulgar letter with grace—too much grace to be of her benefit—but Giles could see she was nervous to face him.

The study door was already open. Giles had not known what to expect. Just a scowling old man? A pile of trunks and a ‘good riddance’? At least it was not the barrel of a shotgun. Somehow, he had convinced himself that was a likely option.

What they met with was the same cloying, cluttered room, and a white-haired figure slumped at its opposite end. Isobel cleared her throat to try and wake her father, but he didn’t twitch a muscle.

They advanced toward him, and Giles’s eyebrow lifted in disgust, taking his top lip up along with it.

Lord Ridgeway’s mouth gaped open, a pair of spectacles so low on his nose they pinched his nostrils, and a tabby cat curled in his lap.

She purred loudly, alternately licking her own paw and the much larger, flaky-skinned paw of the viscount.

After successive attempts at verbal cues, all of which failed, Isobel had to reach across the desk and shake her father’s shoulder to wake him.

“What?” Lord Ridgeway bellowed as he awoke. He sat up, his spectacles tripping off his nose, and struggled to make amends with reality. Figuring it would take his sight to do that, Giles bent slowly and retrieved the spectacles.

Lord Ridgeway swallowed as he looked up at Giles. The men’s faces were near enough that there was no question of identity.

“Oh, thank you,” Lord Ridgeway said gruffly, taking the spectacles and outfitting them to his face. “I hadn’t known you’d come, Lord Trevelyan.”

“Isobel was gracious in allowing me to accompany her,” Giles said coldly, “lest she encounter any … trouble, during her travels.”

The old viscount’s mouth twitched, and he pretended to sort a few papers atop his desk. “Ah, good of you. Now that you are safely here, you are assured to meet with no trouble, yes?”

“That is certainly my hope.”

“How have you been, Papa?” Isobel asked, going around the desk to give him a hug. “I feel it’s been an age since I last saw you.”

“An age? Perhaps your folly has made time appear much longer—”

Giles cleared his throat. A deep, gruff sound that stilled the air. Lord Ridgeway’s tone at once leashed into something more palatable. “It is good to see you, my girl,” he said. “I must offer you both my congratulations.”

The evening went remarkably better than Giles had expected. Isobel went to her chambers to freshen up from the day of travel and see to it that her belongings were packed correctly. Giles was obliged to stay below, in the study with Lord Ridgeway.

It was an awkward business at first, and never erred to pleasantness for Giles, but he could see the old man was trying. He did not broach the topic of their hasty marriage and seemed to sense he would be a fool to utter so much as a syllable of criticism against his daughter.

The topics instead focused on the workings of Ridgeway House and the surrounding estate. It seemed old debts and the lack of an heir were age-old stressors for Lord Ridgeway, and Giles managed to ease his mind, looking over ledgers and offering practical solutions to increase yield and revenue.

By the time Isobel rejoined them at dinner, her father was droning on about mutual connections he shared with Giles’s late father. He regaled them with tales of his younger years, laughing until tears dampened his potatoes.

“What happened while I was upstairs?” Isobel asked at the end of the evening, when she and Giles were retreating to their rooms. “You seem to be squarely in Papa’s good graces. I’ve never heard him speak more happily about the future of the estate.”

“I think I proved to him I’m not a dunce, that’s all. Oh, and I snuck his cat some of my scraps, when I was sure he would see.”

Isobel burst into laughter. “You’re a wag! An ingenious wag, however.”

Giles smiled, finding her sweetness positively contagious. “I know how important it is to you that we remain in good standing with your father. I hope I’ve aided in the cause.”

They reached the landing and wavered there, knowing their prepared rooms were on separate ends of the house—a father’s clever design, no doubt.

“You have,” Isobel said, touching his arm. “You’ve made a tremendous effort with him, and I thank you.”

“It is not necessary to thank me.”

He longed to reach out and hold her. He had been resisting every desire to be close to her since their wedding night.

He could not cut loose the memory of her disappointment and reserve, or the feel of her hot, teary cheek beneath his touch.

Isobel had let him know she was willing to give him a chance the first time; he must wait for the second—however damnably difficult it was.

“I suppose this is good night,” she said, backing away from him.

His heart sank with the weight of an anchor. “Goodnight, Isobel.”

As she grew distant down the hall, she called back, “His cat’s name is Beatrice, by the by.”

Giles wondered if Lord Ridgeway had decided what room he should stay in before the pair had discovered their mutual interests. The chamber waiting for him was small and cramped, overfull with furniture of different wood types and contrasting styles, most of it useless to the space.

As he washed the travel dust from his body, he heard a dull scratching sound amid the splash and drip of his warm water. He stilled to listen. Was that a mouse?

As if in answer to his question, a fat grey creature scurried out from under the washstand, fled across the threadbare carpets, and disappeared under the bed. Bloody hell.

“Where’s Beatrice when she’s needed?” Giles mumbled to himself, sighing in relief that the rodent had not included his feet as a stop along its path.

He didn’t need to cause a scene; Isobel was delighted with the fragile goodwill he’d just built with her father. So instead of ringing the bell pull for a servant, Giles begrudgingly climbed into bed.

No sooner than he adjusted himself over the lumpy mattress and shut his eyes, the scratching resumed. An irregular, grating sound, deafening against the quiet. And was that chewing? It sounded like the mouse was directly beneath his pillow.

Giles groaned, covering his face with his hands. An active mouse was an assurance he would get no sleep whatsoever—it came difficult enough when he was in the sweet silence of his own chambers.

Feeling he might be making a grave mistake and overstepping some undefined boundary, he put on his dressing robe and eased the door open. Finding the corridor empty, he made a quiet progression toward Isobel’s room.

He had stared after her long enough to see what door she disappeared through. He paused when he reached it, nearly turning back. He had to force his hand to raise, and squeeze his eyes shut to rap upon it.

Giles had only suffered two gentle knocks when, to his surprise, the door flew open.

Isobel’s eyes were large in question, and her raven locks spilled around her shoulders, wavy and rumpled.

He tried to prevent his eyes from drifting downward to her thin cotton nightdress.

He had never seen her in so much undress, and the sight set him aflame.

“Is something the matter?”

“No,” he said, “I’m sorry to bother you. I shouldn’t have come—”

She backed up a step, widening the door. “No, that’s all right. Would you like to come in?”

He could only nod as he crossed the threshold, his heart starting a heavy thrum when she closed the door behind him.

The room was one of neat practicalities, outfitted in shades of faded pink that did not suit her.

The most notable traces of Isobel lay in the subtleties: books with cracked spines had been arranged by color in a modest case, and an unfinished needlework project sat taut in its frame, depicting a forest and lush flora.

His chest squeezed with fondness, adoring her familiarity.

Isobel was looking at him expectantly, probably wondering why the devil he was here. He cleared his throat. “I think your father has been scheming to torture me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, cracking a smile to match his.