Page 42 of The Lover’s Eye

He kissed her then, his hands beginning to roam up her arms and down her back before he stopped himself. “I’m afraid I should return to my assigned chamber,” he said mischievously. “At least allow your father the false pretense of success.”

Isobel sighed and stretched up for a final kiss before he slipped into the dark corridor.

The next two days passed in a sort of suspended bliss.

The cords of strain that had affected Giles and Isobel seemed to be cut free, and she made no attempt to hide her ardent desire to be near him and share her bed.

She was delighted to watch their new closeness transform him.

His steps were lighter. He smiled more and his eyes glistened.

She would walk into a room and find him relaxed, easy, at peace. But perhaps she was changed, too.

Isobel felt more comfortable at Ridgeway House than she had since childhood.

Freed from the Sempill’s incessant visits, she was able to enjoy her father’s company.

Just as she had expected, her father’s misgivings faded as he observed their shared happiness, and Giles spent hours looking over the estate’s earnings, suggesting changes to the tenant farmers’ lease agreements that would work to everyone’s benefit.

Each of them was wistful when the time came to part. All of Isobel’s things had been packed into trunks and were being loaded for the journey ahead. She stood in front of Ridgeway House surveying the progress, while Giles remained inside speaking to Lord Ridgeway.

“I’ve made some little cakes and biscuits for you to take on the road, milady.”

Isobel turned to see the cook coming down the steps with a carefully tied parcel of treats. They smelled delectably sweet, and when she took the package in her hands, it was still warm. “Oh, how very kind of you!”

“You are most welcome,” Cook replied. “It has been a pleasure—” Her eyes trailed over Isobel’s shoulder, and all her excitement fell away.

Blood chilled in Isobel’s veins. She knew what awaited her without turning to see.

“I’d like a private audience with Miss Ridgeway,” came an all too familiar voice.

Cook gave a brief bow and rushed back up the stairs and into the house. Isobel managed to turn around, the soles of her boots grating in the gravel.

The sun was bright and hot, partially obscuring the person advancing toward her, but she saw the familiar chaise parked on the drive. They stopped just as their head blocked the sun and cast a shadow over Isobel’s face.

“I heard you’d come home to your poor papa, and I wanted to lay eyes on you myself,” Lady Sempill said. Her eyes traced a lingering, cutting path from Isobel’s scalp to her ankles.

Isobel held the other woman’s gaze. Memories pinched just beneath the surface, paralyzing and painful. Thank God Elias isn’t with her.

“Have you been doing bad things, girl?” Lady Sempill asked, a snarl working at her mouth. “To entrap an earl, you must have been.”

“I did not entrap him,” Isobel said, her voice low but stern.

“Everyone knows you must have done.” Lady Sempill stepped so close that she reached out and flicked Isobel’s earring, setting it to tremble. “For he was too deep in his mourning of Miss Gouldsmith to seek a wife. I don’t have to explain how the haste of your little arrangement looks.”

She spoke the last few words in a sick, singsong voice, smiling until a row of overlapping teeth shone. “You will have to behave exquisitely as hostess to quell the rumors, but you know as well as I that you’ve no experience managing a house.”

“I do not have to behave any way at all if I do not welcome people into our home.”

Lady Sempill laughed. An abrasive, loud soprano that pierced Isobel’s ears with familiar loathing. “I do wonder what Lord Trevelyan thinks of you. His staff, too. You are so thoroughly unlike his true intended .”

“What do you mean?” Isobel hated herself for asking the second she had done so. She did not want to know, to satisfy the self-deprecating curiosity within.

The older woman smiled, close enough that each of her words was accompanied by the wet clicks of her teeth and tongue.

“Why, didn’t you know Miss Gouldsmith was an adored hostess?

She held a bridal luncheon at Cambo House, the likes of which that little village had never seen.

She showed every promise of raising the Trevelyans in society—something you are not even capable of.

You should be mortified she’s gone, ashamed that you took her place. ”

“Stop,” Isobel said, closing her eyes. Her fingernails dug into the tender flesh of her palms.

“You do not belong there, Isobel,” Lady Sempill said in a singsong whisper, and clucked her tongue.

“Isobel,” said a gruff voice. It was Giles coming down the stairs, and though Isobel knew she was relieved by his presence, she could not turn to face him, did not feel any measure of her tension ease as he reached her side and placed a hand on her back.

She could feel him looking at her to assess what damage had been done, but kept her eyes trained forward on Lady Sempill, as if she were watching a cobra that might strike if given the slightest encouragement.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Giles said coldly.

“No, we have not.” Lady Sempill returned to the loud and chipper tone that she deployed in drawing rooms. “It is a shame I could not convince my dear son to accompany me, so that you and he might dispense with more proper introductions, but he is still very wounded, I fear. He could have educated you on a good deal about your bride.”

Isobel’s knees buckled at the insinuation, and Giles’s arm looped around her back in firm support. “And who is your son?”

Lady Sempill frowned, making a little tittering sound before naming Elias’s rank and regiment, as well as her own husband’s endorsements—a task a lady should never bear.

“Lady Sempill, then, I presume?” Giles asked, giving the barest incline in place of a bow. “Pleasure.” He said the word like a curse, and the older woman flinched. “I am glad I now know just where to find your son, should he be fool enough to think of educating anyone on the subject of my wife.”

Lady Sempill spluttered, her face splotching with color, but Giles spun Isobel back toward the house. He guided her straight into the vacant yellow morning room.

“Are you all right?” he asked, lowering himself to look in her eyes and taking her face in his hands.

Isobel managed to nod, forcing a few blinks over her eyes. She felt dazed, as if she were straddling two different realities—the one that existed when she and Giles were alone, and the waking world, where she seemed to pale at every turn.

“She said … Oh, Giles, I don’t know that I can repeat what she’s said.”

“You do not have to, then.” He drew her into him, pressing her cheek into his chest. The buttons of his silken waistcoat were cool against her skin. “I never should have let you go out alone. I should have known one of them would show up.”

“Do not blame yourself,” she said quietly, leaning her weight into him.

“Hell and damnation!” Lord Ridgeway said nearby, his voice echoing off the high ceilings. “What’s that old bitch doing here?”

Giles’s torso rumbled with laughter, and Isobel could not help joining in. Her father’s outburst helped restore a bit of the unification they had all been enjoying up until a few minutes earlier.

Lord Ridgeway stood in front of the window, his hands locked onto his haunches. He leaned back, squinting at Lady Sempill’s advancement up the stairs. “Uck,” he said, staggering backward. Addressing his footman, he added, “Send her away!”

After goodbyes that left Isobel teary, and assurances from Lord Ridgeway that he would soon come visit her and Marriane, the couple climbed into their coach.

It was not long before Isobel’s mind began to wander, drifting aimlessly from mile to mile, coaching inn to coaching inn. The route was becoming familiar to her, leaving her imagination open to easy prey.

Lady Sempill’s words clawed at the back of her brain.

You are so thoroughly unlike his true intended.