Page 55 of The Lover’s Eye

“To be truthful, I did not think Aurelia would agree to it. She was a very free sort of person; I couldn’t imagine her wanting to be shackled to someone of my habits.

But Pemberton only asked that I agree to offer for her.

To give her and the child a chance to avoid being ostracized by society.

” Giles paused to rub his eyes. “He reminded me of all I owed him, years of his protection throughout our time at university. And so I agreed, not sure anything would come of it, under two conditions.”

Isobel lifted to her elbows, all alertness.

“I told him he must leave it up to Aurelia to decide what the child believed about their parentage, and that their relations cease immediately.

I told him if I discovered him keeping a mistress again, I would not be keeping it to myself.

It might have been the singular decent thing I did in the whole business.

“After that, things spun out of control for me. I … I was surprised, really, when Aurelia agreed to the whole of it. I suspect Pemberton exercised his influence over her, too. When she called at Cambo House, she’d decided we must be seen together, make people believe us very in love so that the sudden betrothal and child would seem natural.

” Giles gave a low, humorless laugh. “Clearly, as you have discovered, people did believe.”

“I believed, too. I’m sorry, Giles. It wasn’t fair of me to fixate so on the past.”

He turned toward her, brushing her cheek with his palm. “It wasn’t fair of me to give you such doubt. By God, Isobel, I pushed you to a point where you risked your life to hear some answers. I—”

“That isn’t why I went.” She smiled faintly, her eyes reflecting moonlight. “I went to free you. To free us.”

Understanding gripped him. She had been willing to sacrifice everything for him.

For love. He remembered her note and blinked, his chest swelling with emotion.

When he reached for her, Isobel slipped into his arms and spoke quietly.

“But now I must free Marriane, too. You understand that, don’t you? ”

“I do.” Hiding his knowledge of Pemberton’s infidelity was just another layer of Giles’s grief.

“Why did you not trust me?” Isobel’s voice was small and quavery, the largest of her hurts distilled down to a few words.

Giles lay still, his fingertips tracing a feathery pattern over Isobel’s back.

He took several seconds to answer. “It’s not been just one thing, I’m afraid.

At first, I wanted to hide myself. To avoid any mentions of Aurelia and try to rid myself of the rumors and my own suspicions about what happened after she left me that night. And then when you showed up …”

Isobel twisted in his arms to look at him.

Her eyes were wide and searching, hungry for understanding.

Giles couldn’t resist brushing a kiss to her forehead.

“My plan wasn’t going very well to begin with.

But when you showed up, it all became more complicated.

I wanted to know you, but I felt I could never show you all of myself.

I’ve been complicit in Pemberton’s unfaithfulness against your sister, for God’s sake.

I got wrapped up in his scheme with little concern for the consequences, and Aurelia died because of that. ”

“I know your heart, Giles.” Isobel brushed the backs of her fingers over his brows and eyes, as though she could sense the fiery burn of tears that threatened. “I don’t believe you intended to harm anyone. I think Aurelia knew that, too, even if the last time you spoke was in anger.”

“It’s the damnedest thing, Isobel. What if—what if I was what people said?” Giles shifted a little to his side to face her. “What if I was the type of man to have willfully harmed her?”

Isobel’s eyes glistened with the sheen of tears.

“No one would do a thing. Not a damned thing.”

This aspect had bothered him before, populating his mind in those small, restless hours, but enduring the inquest had made it far worse.

Those men had bowed their heads, thinking they understood.

They imagined that Giles had acted in some form of righteous anger, and they didn’t question what actions resulted.

They might think him a murderer, but because he was a man of title, a man whose surname was synonymous with wealth and esteem, they didn’t care.

They didn’t bloody care what had happened to Aurelia.

“I know,” Isobel whispered. “I know. It’s horrid.”

They lay like that for a long time, the fire at their backs and their bodies pressed together.

Warmth seeped in from the outside, slow and quiet and patient, loosening knots and settling in all the tender places of pain.

The past couldn’t be changed, but wounds could mend into scars.

Regret could percolate into virtues, lessons, teachings.

“Giles?”

“Mm?”

“There’s one thing I still don’t understand. How did Pemberton learn of Aurelia’s plans?”

He exhaled, drawing her closer against him.

“That’s the one answer I cannot provide you with.

I’d been to the village that last day I saw her, and no sooner than I returned home, she called.

She was outraged. She kept saying she didn’t trust me.

She believed I took issue with her spending and spoke to Pemberton about it.

How she supposed that conversation resulted in his wanting to have her examined by a physician … I’ve no idea.

“I knew nothing of what was happening between them, but she didn’t believe me.

She broke off our engagement and vowed she’d find a means of escape.

” Giles squeezed his eyes closed. The memory was a painful, blistering wound.

“I-I shouldn’t have let her go. At the time, I only saw her anger.

But in the months since, when I think of it …

She was frightened, Isobel. She needed someone to help her. I should have tried harder.”

Isobel rested her head on his chest. “She deserved much better than Pemberton. And so does Marriane.”

A long moment passed, both of them limp and gazing skyward. The clouds were breaking and thinning, and in their weak points, bright stars winked.

“You know I’m going to tell her, right?”

“I know. But it won’t be pretty, Isobel. Pemberton will do anything to refute the claim. Even with me, he pretends nothing happened. He’s refused to speak of it since the day she disappeared. You’ll need proof.”

Isobel sat up, her brow furrowing. “Proof? How am I supposed to find that?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

Unless—

Giles rose and took long strides toward the cottage, lighting another candle once inside.

Black smoke rose to his nose and he coughed it away, rummaging through cluttered tangles of netting and rope.

He hadn’t the faintest idea where Pemberton would have stashed the lover’s eye.

It was a brief transaction of few words, but just maybe—

“What are you doing?” Isobel asked from the door, waving a hand to dismiss the dust.

“I’m looking for that damned eye necklace Pemberton gave her. I returned it to him.”

Aha. A dusty writing desk crammed into the corner. Giles wrenched the drawer open and shoved his hand inside. Relief washed over him when cold metal met his fingertips. He smiled, turning to dangle the necklace in front of Isobel’s confused gaze.

“Found your proof, my love.”

To his great surprise, Isobel rushed to him and pressed her lips to his. Giles had to struggle to remember where he was, that he was holding a lighted candle and that she was ill and barefoot in the cold. Now was not a time to be giving into passions, no matter how great—

“I love you.”

He dropped the candle and the necklace in riotous clamor. Isobel burst into laughter as his expression transformed into a very different type of surprise, and he spun in all directions looking for something to extinguish the flame with.

Isobel could hardly speak for giggling. “Just step on it, you buffoon!” she finally choked out.

The crisis quickly averted, Giles swept her into his arms, the force of her laughter still shuddering her ribcage and echoing in his ears. “I love you,” he breathed, squeezing her.

Her amusement waned, settling into shining eyes and a smile that she pressed against his lips. She kissed him with hungry fervor again and again, until he had given up trying to speak and equaled her energy.

He had always adored kissing her, relished the sweet, electrifying promise of attraction. But now, it was different. Devastatingly sweet and all consuming, bolstered by something that overpowered allure and compatibility and all the rest—

Love. The insatiable desire to have one and all of each other, grasping ceaselessly for more, already knowing there would never be enough.

Giles rested his forehead against hers and struggled in vain to regulate his breathing. “Can I take you home, now?”

“No,” Isobel said, running a finger over his lips, “but you can take me back outside.”

The temptation was unfathomable, the brush of her finger alone pushing hot blood out through his limbs. “Darling, are you sure? You’re not injured?”

He reached out to inspect her arms and legs, but she jumped up, coiling herself around him. Her breath was hot against his cheek, her tone laced with passion. “I have never been more sure in the whole of my life,” she whispered, ducking her chin to kiss him and slipping her hands beneath his shirt.

Disordered steps saw them back to the quilts, which had grown cold in their absence.

Isobel pulled at the collar of Giles’s shirt so roughly, seams popped as it came over his head.

He started to laugh, but the sound was drowned in her mouth, silenced by her hands, already deftly at the placket of his trousers.

“Isobel,” he breathed, hanging over her.

“Yes?” She smiled up at him, wicked and girlish, the now-clear sky washing her skin in cool light, painting the grey of her eyes with a little blue. Giles’s heart convulsed. He did not deserve her, and yet he would fight to his dying breath to keep her. Them, like this, always.

His delay gave Isobel time to finish stripping him of his trousers—a task made more difficult given that he was already fully aroused—and with a giggle and a righteous tug, she pulled him between her legs.

Giles gripped the quilts in his fists, struggling to draw breath as their bodies joined.

Her smile altered into open-mouthed satisfaction, and then eased to delight.

“Isobel,” he said between kisses, moving his hips slowly. Pleasure seeped in from all angles, flooding his veins. “Did you finish the book I gave you? Of”—her fingers were tracing his shoulder blades, scratching lightly—“of Plato’s Epigrams?”

She raised a brow, putting one of her knees against his chest to still him. “Giles, as you would put it, I do not give a tinker’s damn about Plato just now. We’ve a whole lifetime to discuss poetry.”

He chuckled, pressing his forehead to hers.

“Yes, love, I know. But this is sort of a dream of mine.” He stared into her eyes, committing the patterns to memory, brushing his thumbs over her lashes and brows.

“‘ You are looking at the stars, my star. Would that I could become the sky, so that with many eyes I could look upon you. ’”

Isobel searched his face, a smile slipping over her features. “That’s lovely.”

“I discovered it months ago, and I always wanted to share it with you. You were all I could think of, even then.”

“And now you have me.”

He slipped a hand to the nape of her neck. “And now you have me.”