Page 57 of The Lover’s Eye

Eight months later

“I think we’ve conjured bad luck.”

Isobel jumped at the warm, masculine voice tickling her ear. Its timbre was coarse and lush, achingly familiar. She generally didn’t like surprises, but Giles sneaking up behind her?

She turned into him with a sigh, nuzzling against his front. One of his arms came around her, and he laid a kiss to her forehead.

“Why do you say that?” she asked, looking out over the sea of warm faces in their dining room. For two people who thrived in solitude, they had outdone themselves with celebrations for the New Year. “They look rather joyful to me.”

Even though Isobel had put herself at a distance, leaning on the door casing to observe the scene, it was done out of appreciation. It was nice to see Cambo House filled with life. Every clinking glass was its own celebration, every plate emptied of roast beef and plum pudding a nod to fellowship.

“It’s not their enjoyment in question, my love. Finch purchased enough strong beer to assure that wouldn’t be an issue.”

Isobel chuckled, her eyes locating the old butler in the corner of the room.

It had been nearly a week since he’d received his Christmas present, and still he toted it around, gleefully showing anyone who cared to listen.

He extended the black and gilt teapot to Abigail now, extolling her with details of the masterful replication.

“What is it, then? Don’t hold me in suspense,” Isobel said with a grin.

“Ah, it’s only superstition. They say a party for the new year shouldn’t be odd in its number.” Giles was never good at keeping the humor from his voice.

“I thought that was only for the number thirteen, dearest. And we certainly have amassed a larger crowd than that.” Everyone had been invited, including the tenant farmers and villagers.

“That’s just it. We’ve amassed an odd crowd.”

Isobel was seized by laughter so sudden, she snorted. Giles’s chest rumbled under her. He wasn’t exactly wrong.

At the table, Pemberton cradled a swaddled bundle against his chest. On one side of him, Lord Ridgeway was hollering something about it being Grandpapa’s turn to hold the babe, and on his other side, Reverend Gouldsmith looked bemused at the colorful verbiage spewing from the old man’s lips.

Marriane grabbed Beatrice up off the floor—for the old viscount refused to travel without his cat—and hollered, “Beatrice, you old woman, meet your granddaughter!” She was promptly clawed.

The ladies from Isobel’s long ago disastrous luncheon huddled by the hearth, petting Smooch and Pepper, their cheeks flushed from too much drink. Someone dropped a glass, and it rolled, spilling dark liquid all over the carpets.

“You know,” Isobel said, tilting up her chin to look at Giles, “I rather like odd.”

Before he could answer, fondness and something rakishly desirous clouding his blue eyes, Marriane was stomping up and tugging Isobel into the hall. “I’ll return her soon enough, Trevelyan. You can manage for a moment without her. It might even serve you well, clingy man.”

Giles smiled broadly, calling after them. “I can manage, but that’s not to say I’ll like it.”

When Marriane finally stopped, loosening her grip on Isobel’s wrist, she was breathless and wore a devilish glint in her eyes. It had scarcely been a month since she’d given birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter, and Isobel had never seen her in finer health or spirits.

Motherhood became Marriane, but it was more than that. She had changed. She was more like her old self, before all the strife that plagued the early part of her and Pemberton’s marriage, but it was more than that, too.

She was stronger. Louder. More afraid of saying nothing, than of saying something that might offend polite society. Just now, though, she was brimming with sisterly mischief. “Have you heard?” she whispered. “About the Sempills?”

Isobel attempted to keep a neutral countenance, but couldn’t prevent her grin. “Yes. But people must be exaggerating—I can’t imagine the caricatures are circulating through all of London.”

“Oh, they are.” She produced a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Isobel. “I believe this one is my favorite yet.”

Isobel was practically salivating to see one of the offensive sketches; she had only heard about them thus far—wild, garish depictions of Elias and his mother, their features exaggerated and their behavior made a mockery for entertainment.

But nothing prepared her to see the artist’s work with her own eyes.

Before Isobel had the paper fully unfolded, she gasped, her laugh sounding more like a shriek. Marriane smacked her arm and shushed her, but they both giggled wildly as they peered at the image. The Sempilltons.

Lady Sempill had been depicted as a prize heifer adorned for a cattle show, a single black feather pluming between her ears. Elias had been allowed to keep his captain’s uniform, but it was fitted around the girth of a very thin jackass with a haughty expression.

Isobel laughed and laughed, until she gripped her side and the world blurred around her. “It’s brilliant! But I still cannot comprehend how the Sempills earned such widespread ill repute.” Her eyes caught on the date at the top of the sheet. Februrary 1815. “Wait—”

“It took a few weeks to catch on, but now everyone makes a mockery of them,” Marriane grinned.

“They hardly remember the origins of why they dislike them, but that isn’t the point.

I have it on good authority that Elias’s marital prospects are ruined.

I hope he never lays a hand on another woman again. ”

Isobel’s grin softened into open-mouthed awe. “Marriane—you did this?”

“Well, not entirely. I hired a caricature artist and anonymously sent the drawings to the gossip rags with the most acclaim.” Meeting her sister’s disbelieving expression, Marriane threw her hands up.

“What? I needed something to entertain me during my confinement. Besides, one can only have so many new draperies.”

Isobel was at a loss for words. A thank you hovered on her lips, but it felt insufficient.

This was more than a gag or joke, it was an attempt to thwart Elias from harming more women who found themselves in his path.

And if talk was to be believed, it was marvelously successful. One small right in a world of wrongs.

“Truthfully, Isobel, I must apologize. You were right, all those months ago, and I’m terribly glad you did not listen to my advice.”

“Oh, you don’t—”

Marriane silenced her protest with a teary glance, and squeezed her arm. “We should not pretend, and we must never settle. I understand that, now more than ever.” She cast a glance into the room, where her daughter rocked in Pemberton’s arms. “And that is what I shall teach her.”

“I’m glad.” Isobel’s voice was barely above a whisper. She wrapped her sister in a hug.

“It all sorted out, didn’t it?” Marriane asked, sniffling through a laugh. “What an awful load of rubbish to get here, but you certainly didn’t settle, my dear.”

Isobel nodded. She met Giles’s gaze from a distance. He was beaming, his arms laden with a basket of gifts they had picked out for their guests, but he stilled when he saw her.

They knew how to voice their feelings to each other, but damn if there wasn’t something electric and primal and soul-scorching about this means of communication. A held glance, yes, but a promise of love and devotion. A desire to close every distance, no matter how short.

Mr. Heppel burst through the front door, shivering from the cold and jarring Isobel free from her stare. “It’s a snowin’. Can you believe it? It ain’t done that since—”

“Last January,” Isobel finished, feeling heat bloom in her cheeks at the memory.

“Are you quite sure?” He scratched the back of his bald head, which was reddened from the dry winter air.

“You would be wise not to question my sister’s observational skills, sir,” Marriane interjected. “I daresay she’s more fit to be magistrate than you.”

Giles joined them in the corridor then, and Mr. Heppel pounced on his chance. “Say, Lord Trevelyan, was that rotten storm not two January’s past?”

Before Giles could answer, Isobel caught his attention, dipping her head in the direction of the door. It’s snowing, she mouthed.

“Pardon me,” Giles said, ignoring Heppel’s question and grabbing Isobel’s hand.

The footmen had left their posts to join the celebrations in the dining room, and Marriane gasped when Giles wrenched open the front door. “Surely the two of you are not going out without your coats,” she cried, already pursuing them with a quick step.

“We’ll keep warm by other means,” Isobel called, giggling as Giles closed the door behind them.

It was the perfect night. Desolate and dark, the sound of falling snow featherlight.

Little white flakes dusted the heads of the gargoyles and landed icy cool on Isobel’s nose before melting.

Ochre light spilled from the windows of Cambo House, curing her of the remote air she usually possessed, and the bold strain of someone’s laughter breached the walls.

Isobel made a little twirl, smiling up at the sky, and then she was drawn against Giles, warm and solid and sweet. She put her hands to his face as he kissed her. Oh, to save this moment. To preserve and revisit and live in it.

“Do you suppose we should turn our guests out?” she asked in a low voice, their faces just a breath apart. “If we’re to get snowed in, I should like it to be just the two of us.” She dragged a fingertip down his throat and began loosening his cravat.

“That sounds delightful, but I’m afraid our snowstorm was rather a once in a lifetime event.” Giles kissed her brow, the high bone of her cheek. “We’re not likely to see anything comparable to it ever again.”

“Mm, so practical of you, Trevelyan,” Isobel teased. She had deftly unknotted his cravat and now tugged at the ends of it, drawing him down for a long kiss. “Unless you mean to say that storm was a divine act. Chance, perhaps? Or fate?”

Giles surprised her by wrapping her in a great, smothering hug. Isobel settled into his chest, inhaling the warm, comforting scents of earth and mint. She looped her arms around his back and sighed, an ache pressing her chest from the inside out.

She experienced this nearly every day—a pang of gratitude. Thankfulness that superseded description. She loved, and was loved. She listened, and was heard. She comforted, and was safe. How many could say the same?

The muffled strains of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ spilled out from inside the house, a chorus of jubilant and asynchronous voices.

“It must be midnight,” Isobel said. She pulled an inch away from Giles, but he caught her back against his chest and she laughed. “What about the toast you prepared?”

“It can wait.” His voice was roughened by tenderness. “Everyone in there knows I possess more good fortune than any man is worthy of—and I know it, too.”