Page 4 of The Lover’s Eye

Giles woke early, his eyes assailed by the brightness of the palatial windows in his bedchamber. He threw a wool banyan over his shoulders and crossed the room to look out. The sky was still overcast, but an early sun threatened to break through the haze.

The icy mix had continued to fall overnight, and though it had ceased now, left a considerable cover over the sloping hills. The trees were etched with hoarfrost, a shade of white so delicate and brilliant it was painful to stare at.

“We’re terribly unlucky, aren’t we, Smooch?” Giles asked the yawning spaniel who strode up to share his view.

He had not seen this amount of wintry weather dumped so close to the coast since he was a boy, and he was nine and twenty now. He wished there was someone to aim his resentment at. Why did these travelers have to be passing Cambo House when they finally got stuck?

Giles thought they must be damned fools to travel in such conditions at dark. That, however, wouldn’t stop him from enticing his guests to go at it again by the light of day and leave him in peace. A knock sounded at the door, and his valet entered.

“Sleep well, my lord?” he asked, smiling hesitantly. The man always approached Giles thus in the mornings, when he was usually at his most sleep deprived and agitated.

“Tell me, what breed of chit awaits me downstairs?” he asked as he dressed, adjusting the folds of his white cravat. “An overtired one, I hope. I would like an hour to myself before I’m obliged to start entertaining .”

He spoke the last word with disgust. Perhaps the unwarranted arrival of a young lady was his proper punishment for turning down so many invitations and snubbing the whole of polite society in the process.

He had been unable to bear them, and really, why should he have? All anyone ever spoke of was Aurelia.

The few that possessed the good scruples not to mention her by name were forever looking at him with glossy eyes and tiny pouts, finding opportunities to speak kind words of vague reassurance.

No, until society could quit handling him in such a way, Giles Trevelyan would not be returning to it.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you much, sir,” said the valet, reaching for a navy morning coat.

Giles shrugged into it, the closely tailored fabric stretching over his broad back. “Tell me all you can. I’d prefer not to be so ill prepared.”

“Well …” The valet struggled for words. Apparently, the new arrival hadn’t supplied the servants with much to talk about. “She was mighty thankful for your opening the house to her, and had not a cross word to say. Her lady’s maid says she is a sister to Lady Pemberton.”

Giles’s dark eyebrows lifted. “Finch said she was Pemberton’s acquaintance, but a sister?”

“I believe that’s right, sir.”

Giles grimaced as he made his way down to the library.

The task laid upon him had just grown in complexity.

Lord Pemberton was his oldest friend and neighbor—and about the only person he still shared company with.

The man had innumerable connections, so Giles had thought little of it when he first heard Pemberton’s name mentioned the previous night.

He’d assumed one of those loose acquaintances had scrambled to mention the marquess, hoping to assure their bed for the night.

But a sister? Not just any grouchy countenance would suit where his friend’s family was concerned. And what did it say about said relation, that in all of Giles’s visits to Shoremoss Hall, this woman had never been mentioned?

His curiosity and dread grew in tandem. At least he had time to set his mind to rights before meeting her at breakfast.

Giles set one foot in the library before he saw her.

She was leaning against a window casing with her back to him, observing the wintry prospect. Brilliant light limned her figure, revealing long, elegant limbs and drawing shimmers from her raven hair. She turned her head ever so slightly and—

My God .

Her beauty stunned him, set his pulse into motion. Her features were striking amidst a smooth olive complexion, but Giles found her eyes the most arresting of all. Large and open, they dominated her face even in profile. Grey — or perhaps a weak blue .

It didn’t matter. It was their keen perception he noticed, their almost translucent quality. They gave the impression of being ever watchful, sensitive to detail in the extreme, and yet … unmoved by everything they saw.

He knew it was impolite to stare as he did, that she could turn her head but a centimeter and see him at once—and yet he did not stop.

God knows how long he stared before the floor creaked beneath his boot. He felt the strength of her gaze before it landed on him, and it did so in the work of an instant. She spun to face him, her posture stiffening.

“Oh, forgive me,” she began, the color heightening in her cheeks. “I’ve inconvenienced your entire household and now your morning, as well.”

The blinding white window revealed her every feature in sharp detail, a momentarily immobilizing distraction. Grey, it is.

“No, you certainly have not.” Giles strode into the room, stopping several paces short of her. She was interrupting his routine. Why was he so quick to refute that?

They stared at each other, unblinking. Giles’s thoughts worked in an incoherent frenzy, until finally, he thought to introduce himself. “Giles. Giles Trevelyan.” He executed a weak bow.

“Isobel Ridgeway,” she said quietly. Her hands began to fidget, but she tucked them against her sides and curtseyed.

“You are Lord Pemberton’s sister, if I understand?”

“Yes. Well, I am Marriane’s—er, Lady Pemberton’s.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Ridgeway.”

She smiled at him, a transformative, sweet expression, as though he had offered her an olive branch rather than a common courtesy.

Her gaze drifted higher than his eyes, and Giles suddenly wished he had a damned hat.

He seldom felt self-conscious anymore; his hair had started greying when he was scarce out of boyhood, but for some unaccountable reason he hated to think what this stranger might make of it.

“The pleasure is mine, Lord Trevelyan,” she said, her expression betraying nothing. “Have you seen my sister recently, by chance?”

“I visited Pemberton, oh, probably a fortnight ago. Is something the matter?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. I received word that she’s taken ill. That is why I deigned to travel in such a mess, you see.” Isobel swept an arm in the direction of the frost nipped window and gave a short laugh. “You must have thought me mad.”

“No,” Giles began, but seeing the light reprimand in those large grey eyes and hearing himself for the reassuring fool he was, he laughed. “Well, I did think it most odd. Though I must say, it makes a great deal more sense hearing of Lady Pemberton’s illness. I regret I cannot be of more help.”

“Oh, you have been exceedingly generous already. I don’t know how to thank you for your kindness, sir.”

A silence passed between their two still bodies, a tension playing about the air that separated them. Giles was still searching for words, grasping at the threads of a conversation he wasn’t ready to end, when she spoke again.

“I will excuse myself, Lord Trevelyan, and let you make use of your library.”

Before he could object, she had given a polite bow and was sweeping past him in a swish of skirts.

?

“What’s the matter, miss?” Betsey asked upon entering Isobel’s bedchamber. She was leaning so close to the gilt-framed looking glass that if she got any nearer, she was sure to bash her head.

“Oh, nothing,” Isobel hastened to say, straightening herself. Her complexion did not often lend itself to coloring up, but her cheeks were awash with color. The twitch at Betsey’s mouth only provoked more of it.

“I say ,” the pert lady’s maid exclaimed, breaking into a full smile. “You’ve met the earl, haven’t you?”

Isobel turned away and began fidgeting with the items on the dresser.

“I’m afraid I made myself quite the fool, Betsey.

I could scarcely rest all night, and so I went back to the library—for that’s the only room I’m acquainted with, you see—and he walked in to find me acting quite at home.

” She buried her face in her hands. “What an incurable minx he must think me.”

“It don’t sound that bad to me,” Betsey said. “But he must be terribly handsome to work you up into such a fuss.”

The salt and pepper curls and inscrutable blue eyes recalled themselves to Isobel. “That has naught to do with it,” she lied.

From across the room, she had perceived him to be an older man, for the soft sweep of his curls were a harmonious distribution of black and silver. But when he stood before her, his face was smooth and bright, undeniably youthful.

And handsome. Irrefutably handsome.

Before Betsey could unleash a flurry of questions, a footman rapped on the door. “Pardon the interruption, miss. Lord Trevelyan is sending a man to Shoremoss Hall, to inquire after Lady Pemberton and inform her of your safety.”

Isobel’s mouth gaped. “Oh, how kind.”

“His lordship thought perhaps you might wish to include a message of your own.”

Isobel rushed into action, thankful for the task. A sheet of quarto, a quill, and an inkwell were supplied for her, and she jotted down a few sentences. She was still anxious to see Marriane in the flesh, but a return letter written in her sister’s own hand would be a reassurance in and of itself.

Isobel’s bedchamber window faced eastward, and she watched as the groom set off a few minutes later, his mount’s hooves leaving oval disruptions on the white hills. It was a kindness wholly unexpected, for Lord Trevelyan to send one of his staff the seven miles to Shoremoss Hall.

“If only they would permit me to go alongside him,” Isobel said, sighing. “I could be at Marriane’s side within the hour.”

“Now that would never suit, and well you know it,” Betsey said, reaching into an open trunk and unpacking more of Isobel’s dresses. “You’ll go only when it’s safe to do so by coach.”

Betsey had been with the Ridgeways for many years, and though she was only a few years her lady’s senior, she often behaved more like a mother figure. It seemed many women in Isobel’s life were anxious to fill that long empty maternal role, however unwelcome their interference.

As Isobel waited for the groom’s return in tense anticipation, she had but one diversion: breakfast with Giles Trevelyan.

The man who had first captured her interest in name only, but now was taking shape before her. Handsome, thoughtful, and damn him , evidently a reader of books. Isobel’s knees gelatinized.