Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
T he room would have to do because the Barlows had arrived. From her place at the wide windows of Rowan’s sitting room, Isabella watched them leave their coach and look up at the Hestia with awe in the slack lines of their jaws, and she saw them step inside the hotel as Mr. Trent stepped into the newly furnished sitting room from his study.
And sneezed. One, two, three, four times. After the tiny earthquakes, his hair hung wild around his face. Made him look boyish, a bit peevish, and perhaps even a tiny bit adorable. “Why are the curtains open? Every single damn one!”
Cursing should have stomped adorable beneath a heavy boot.
No such luck.
“Why wouldn’t they be?” she asked, flicking at the velvet of one heavy panel.
“Because I do not like it.” He smoothed his hair back into place. The scar around his eye glowed pale in the sunlight.
“I’m sure the preference makes you quite mysterious, and it’s clear you prefer it that way, but the Barlows will not like such performances.”
“It’s not a performance.” He sneezed again .
“Another cold?” She reached up and straightened his cravat. She should have hesitated. But she didn’t. She should pause to consider that. But she wouldn’t.
“I told you before it’s not a cold.”
She hummed and fussed about his shoulders and with the buttons of his waistcoat, tidying every bit of him she could reach, rather… delighting in the tidying, delighting that he let her. He would have let her do so much more, earlier in his study. The very thought made her mouth dry, her core ache. She would have let him.
Impossible to believe when she still knew so little about him. Should terrify her, peering into the dark, bottomless abyss that was Rowan Trent. And it did. The problem was that the parts she could see clearly fascinated her, called to her, and more disastrously, somehow put her at ease.
“There.” She gently patted his cravat and peeked up at him for a mad moment. He smiled. Barely. But the quarter-there, mostly-not nature of the grin unarmed her more than a brilliant sunny smile would have. She almost fainted, almost made an Isabella puddle right there on the rug she’d had carted up and laid out only a few hours ago.
She stepped away from him, quite out of reach so she did not melt right into disastrous decision making.
“I’m allergic to light.”
She laughed. “Impossible.”
“Has made me sneeze all my life. Not all light. Just now, it was dark in my study, and then I stepped in here where the sun seems to have taken up residence.” He sniffed, rubbed his nose with the back of his gloved hand. “Makes me sneeze. Makes it damn difficult to appear serious and intimidating.”
“A sneeze is not going to undo all the hard work of your craggy countenance.” She fluttered away to fuss with the pillows tossed onto the low sofa and chairs arranged by the fireplace. “You are looking quite respectable. And, despite your sneezes, terribly intimidating. Does that make you feel better?”
“Perhaps.”
She spun in a circle, evaluating every change she’d made in the room. “It is not perfect. It does not align with fashionable tastes in interior decoration, but it looks nice enough, I think. At the very least, it gives the appearance of being lived in, which is impressive considering we threw it together this afternoon.” They’d stolen objects from across the hotel. The pillows with floral designs embroidered on them, the sofa, chairs, and pillar tables, a few oil paintings from one of the guest rooms, a rug from the coffee room. The space between Mr. Trent’s study and his bedchamber no longer echoed, and with dusty sunlight spilling through the windows, it felt much more like a home.
“The room is fine, Isabella. And you as well. You’ve changed out of the maid’s gown.”
She grinned. “I hid the clothes I wore here in the washroom. They’re a bit wrinkled now. And not my best. Had I known the Barlows were arriving, I’d have worn something better. I hate not knowing, not being prepared.” She paced, shaking her hands, trying to flick the irritation away.
Until he stepped in front of her and gathered up her hands, held them steady in the hollow nest of his own. “I’m going to ignore the troubling fact that you have a hiding spot I know nothing about in my hotel.”
“Thank you. It’s perfect, and I do not wish to lose…” When he rubbed his thumb across her knuckles, she quite lost her train of thought. “It.”
He looked down at their connected hands before peering at her once more, his eyes serious and soft. “I hate for my space to be invaded and rearranged. Do you know how many people have been in this room before today?”
“I’m guessing the answer is quite low.”
“Three. Me, my aunt, and Poppins. Now you. And in a short while the Barlows. And all this furniture. And the sunlight. I do not relish feeling… seen. But I have not died yet. And you will not expire from the Barlows’ short notice.” He squeezed her hands. “If you help me withstand all these prying eyes, I’ll help you survive the unknown.” He bent over her. “Yes?”
“Yes.” And already she felt better. The need to shake her hands and pace the boards no longer rocked her. She’d not known the Barlows’ next move, but now she did, and she could prepare. “Yes. You’re right. ”
“And you”—his gaze roamed over her, and each new bit it landed on seemed to soften his features until he almost wore a smile, soft and hesitant but certain—“You look b—”
A knock on the door.
They froze. “Hell,” they whispered.
“Mr. Trent.” Mr. Poppins, his voice muffled, said from the hallway. “Your guests have arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Barlow.”
Rowan cursed thoroughly. “We’re done for.”
“No, no. Do not panic,” Isabella whispered. “I do not accept defeat, and I am astonished you might accept it so easily.”
“What then?”
“Trust me.” She clasped both his hands in hers. “All will be well.”
He held his breath for a moment, searching her face, his green eyes as unreadable as a book in another language. She’d never wanted to learn a different language more. “I trust you.”
She bounced up and placed a kiss on his cheek. Practice. That’s all it was. Practice at being wifely so they would soon better convince the Barlows.
“Breathe, Mr. Trent. Breathe, and all will be well.” She smiled for him, a little measure to boost his confidence, and he smiled back. A shy, unused thing that started in his eyes, brightening them into full, sun-drenched springtime before curling his lips and catching her, keeping her…
She spun on her toes, breaking the hold of that surprising, sweet smile, and opened the door with a flourish.
A dour-faced Mr. Poppins stepped to the side, revealing Mr. Barlow and a woman about his age wearing a pink bonnet above brown eyes and rounded cheeks. “Mr. and Mrs. Barlow from Stevenage.” They bustled inside, and Mr. Poppins filled the door frame, straightening his waistcoat. “I shall have tea brought up. Do you need anything else, Mr. Trent?”
“No,” Mr. Trent said. “Thank you, Poppins.”
“Do come in,” Isabella said, moving them toward the sofa and chairs. “I hope you will not mind our humble accommodations. We had planned on hosting you in one of the grander sitting rooms at the Hestia, but we could not bear to ask our guests to evacuate them. And as we must discuss business, we could not brush privacy to the side so easily.”
“Oh, no. Do not apologize,” Mrs. Barlow said, removing her bonnet as if she felt quite at home and patting her salt and pepper curls. “What a lovely room. So inviting.”
“The entire hotel is marvelous,” Mr. Barlow said.
“I have a townhouse.” Mr. Trent blurted the statement like an off-key trumpet at the symphony, breaking the easy conversation into shattered glass.
They stared at him, waiting for an explanation.
Mr. Trent cleared his throat. “A townhouse. Where Mrs. Trent and I live. Most of the time. These rooms are for our personal use when we need them. When we are… here. Naturally.”
“Naturally,” Mr. Barlow agreed. “You must keep a woman like Mrs. Trent in a stylish manner.”
Mr. Trent nodded.
More awkward, silent shuffling of feet.
Isabella could not take much more of this. “Sit. Please, do sit.”
They did, Mr. Barlow and his wife taking matching chairs, and Isabella sinking onto one end of the sofa. Mr. Trent, however, remained near the edges of the room, watching them as he stalked its perimeter. What would a wife do to bring her moody husband to her side? No idea. She knew what Isabella would do, though.
Ignore the man. Entirely.
She settled her attention entirely on the Barlows. “It is so lovely to see you again, Mr. Barlow and to meet you, Mrs. Barlow. You must both excuse my appearance.” She batted her frizzing and falling hair. “Two of our maids, sisters, have been too sick to work this week, and I have been helping out when necessary. I am afraid I look a mess. It was not my wish to dishonor you with a sloppy appearance, but—”
A hand crept onto her shoulder, stealing her words and her breath. Rowan. She looked up at him. This would be her last performance as his wife, and she wanted to… dive into it, entirely inhabit it.
Mr. Trent squeezed her shoulder, his thumb brushing up and down the length of her neck. “You are not a mess. You are…” He tilted his he ad, and he tugged a curl straight at the nape of her neck, watched it bounce back into a corkscrew. “You are quite pretty. As usual.”
“He's right,” Mr. Barlow cried. “A husband is always right about his wife’s beauty.”
“A lesson I never had to teach you.” Mrs. Barlow folded her hands over her beaded reticule in her lap. “I much admire your approach to managing a hotel, Mrs. Trent. To be so involved. At every level and with everyone who works for you… It shows you care. About the servants. About the place. I roll up my sleeves and get to work every day. And I apologize for not being present when you visited the Blue Sheep. I would have liked to greet you then but was called away.”
“Oh, no.” Mr. Trent’s hand still sat on Isabella’s shoulder, muddling every thought, but she still found the right thing to say. “Do not apologize. You were engaged in a more important endeavor. I hope all went well with your daughter.”
Mrs. Barlow beamed. “We have a healthy grandson. And his mother is healthy, too, thank the Lord.”
“I'm sure you were a great help to her in her time of need,” Isabella said.
“Yes. But I'm afraid she was quite happy to see me leave. It is her first child, and she was rather itching, I think, to be alone with the babe. She’d already tired of me fussing over her.”
“Molly’s always been quite independent.” Mr. Barlow chuckled. “Can’t imagine where she came by that trait.” He tweaked his wife’s ear, and she slapped his hand away with a good-natured grin. Then he turned to Mr. Trent. “ We understand the appeal of independent ladies, do we not?”
Mr. Trent rounded the sofa and finally sat next to Isabella. He propped one ankle over the other knee and rested his hand in the sliver of space between them. If he flinched his fingers, they’d brush against her skirts. “Yes, we do.” Just her skirts. But her thigh on the other side of the muslin could not seem to tell the difference. It prickled and heated with expectation.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am to see the Hestia,” Mr. Barlow said. “It has alleviated some of my worries. There is elegance here, yes, and luxury. But every room I've had the pleasure of viewing at this establishment so far greatly demonstrates your understanding of comfort. You’ve made temporary lodgings feel like a home. Particularly this little sitting room. Charming, indeed.”
Mr. Trent nodded, no smile, no other muscle in his body working. “Thank you.”
Isabella's heart bled a little bit. Mr. Barlow was both right and wrong. Mr. Trent had put all his energies into the public rooms but none into the private. A few hours earlier, he had stood there against the curtained windows and in the shadows, his unvoiced request for help echoing in the emptiness. He knew how to make a home for everyone but himself.
How was that possible? It was much harder to make a home for others because one did not always know what they liked, what sorts of things felt like home to them.
He stroked his fingers down her arm. “Isabella…” He nodded at Mrs. Barlow. She must have missed something.
“My apologies,” Isabella said. “I was woolgathering. Could you repeat that?”
“The Barlows have decided to remain a week or two at Hestia. To enjoy the pleasures London offers.”
“We’ve not been in the capital since our youth,” Mr. Barlow said. “It’s time we took a holiday. And I’m sure by the time we head back home, we’ll be much more comfortable with the idea of you taking over the Blue Sheep.”
“Ah.” All Isabella could say. “Where… where will you seek accommodations?”
“Here, naturally. Free of charge.” Mr. Trent’s hand settled atop her thigh. It seemed so very big there, crafted of sinew and muscle, capable and… virile. “Don’t you agree?”
“Yes.” Had that single syllable sounded a little too much like a moan? She snapped out a shorter one. “Yes, indeed.” Oh good, she’d managed to sound cheery when truly she wanted to sink into the floor. Another fortnight pretending to be this man’s wife? Fourteen days, more or less. Three hundred and some odd hours living a double life.
Without getting caught?
Impossible .
“I… I-I do agree. Yes, wonderful idea. Naturally. I was going to suggest it myself. I do… I mean I don’t know precisely how much I will be able to entertain you, unfortunately.” Mr. Trent had said they owned a townhouse. Oh, what luck. “There is much to do at home and… and I have previous social engagements I cannot break.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Barlow said. “We do not wish to be a bother.”
“Oh, no, no bother at all. I will, of course, do what I can to see you often. I am eager”—she set her hand on top of Mr. Trent’s, which still lingered heavily on her leg—“my husband as well, to reassure you on your decision regarding the Blue Sheep.”
He squeezed her leg.
She’d said the right thing.
He rewarded her with a stroke of his thumb against her thigh— swish, swish , playing with the cotton.
Was it hot in here? Hotter than it had been a moment ago? She was burning up. Her thigh fairly sizzled. And the juncture of her legs, too, tingling and aching. Her breasts felt rather tight in her bodice, which was terribly odd because the bodice was a perfect fit.
Brushing his hand aside, she stood and sought the cool air of the window, but the glass was hot. Not as hot as her, however.
“Please do not worry yourselves with us,” Mr. Barlow said. “Go about your daily lives as if we are not here. We are eager to enjoy the sights of London. Vauxhall, the theaters, Hyde Park. And clearly you two are quite busy running this establishment.”
Yes. But running the establishment required her presence. Here. And she had not lied when she’d said she had obligations. Her sisters hid her absence well, and she always managed to be home at times her brother expected them all to be present—dinners, their weekly Hyde Park walk. She had more free hours than the usual eligible ton lady. Still, she must return home shortly even now to prepare for a ball. She’d be up all night after cleaning and rearranging furniture all day.
Still, the Barlows did not seem to require her presence entirely. She’d spend no more hours at the Hestia than she usually did. All would be well.
Would it? The hours she usually spent here were occupied with searching for her mother’s letter, with being Mr. Haws’s shadow in case he mentioned anything useful. When would she do that if she was pretending to be Mrs. Trent?
She wanted to stamp her foot, but she wrapped her arms tight around her torso, the better to keep her irritation corseted tightly inside her ribs. She tapped her foot instead.
“Are your obligations truly unbreakable, Isabella?” Mr. Trent’s voice rolled through the air on a dark wave of confidence. Deep as the ocean that voice, and his intentions even deeper.
What was he up to? She regarded him over her shoulder. “Quite unbreakable.”
“You must have forgotten you are needed here as hostess this week for several functions.” He turned to the Barlows. “There are a few weekly events we do at the hotel, presiding as host and hostess to cultivate that feeling of being a guest in someone’s home. A dinner, a musical evening, tea. Mrs. Trent and I would be delighted if you would attend them. As our guests of honor.”
Gigantic. Flaming. Lies. All of it. The Hestia had never held any such events, and he certainly never made himself so readily available to the guests. He clung to shadows! But now he spoke as if such events were a matter of course, a fact as true as the blue of the sky. She had just orchestrated an escape from this prolonged farce, and the daft man was ruining it.
Not if she could help it. “I thought the calendar of events was rather empty this week.”
“You’ve clearly forgotten a few things, my dear.” Rowan lifted her hand to kiss the back of it. And heaven above, she would never get used to the feel of his lips on her skin, never understand how he could kiss her so easily, as if the rules and restrictions of polite behavior didn't apply to him, didn't apply to them .
But they did. Of course they did. No matter the pretending. No matter how well they hid themselves from prying eyes and wagging tongues.
And hadn’t she started it? Kissing him on the cheek at the Blue Sheep. And he did not know the woman he kissed was a duke’s sister. Perhaps if she were the type of woman Rowan Trent would marry, those rules that bound her round would not apply so strictly. She would have more freedom. But she was a duke’s sister, so they did. And what freedoms she possessed existed because she took them secretly, risking what most considered her only items of value—her reputation and virtue.
“Come.” Rowan steered her toward the door. “Let us show you to your rooms.”
Us? She could have slipped away, returned home. She'd already been gone all morning. Her sisters knew where she was and what she was about. Mostly. She’d kept her agreement with Rowan a secret. Annie and Lottie and Prudence and the others need not know about him. But they would worry if she did not show up in time to prepare for that night’s ball.
No escaping now, though, not with his arm like a chain around her waist and the Barlows like powder kegs walking through the hallways behind them.
When they had the Barlows comfortably situated in the best available room, Rowan steered her back upstairs to his private sitting room.
Once the door closed behind them, Isabella finally wrenched herself from his hold. “It is time I leave. It’s much too late. I’ve somewhere to be tonight.”
“Where?”
She forced a smile as she searched the room for any belongings she should not leave behind. But she’d brought nothing except for herself this morning. And was leaving without the letter. Again. “Good evening, Mr. Trent.”
“Rowan. Remember to call me Rowan. As a wife might.”
She reached for the door, then changed her mind, and spun to face him. “I shall not be able to attend all these… events you’ve created out of thin air. What were you thinking? As if this farce wasn’t already difficult enough.”
He passed her to lean a shoulder against the door, blocking her exit. “That while the Barlows are in London, we must put on a show. Weren’t you the one to tell me this morning that I must be vigilant during their visit, ever ready to be the husband they want me to be?”
Yes, she had, and he’d shown her how dangerous that charade could be .
She wished she could read his expression, wished he gave anything away in that marble-cut face of his. “That was before I knew they intended an extended stay. We cannot pretend to be married for so long a period of time. And with the Barlows in residence , too. It’s impossible. They will speak to the staff. They will discover you are a bachelor, and I am a pretender.”
“The staff will say what I tell them to. Or I’ll tell the staff we were married in secret because your family disapproved. Or mine. Matters not. Not that it is their business.”
“Absurd.”
“Perhaps, but it is the surest solution.”
She threw her arms out to the side. “Once you kill me off, I’ll never be able to return here.”
“You can pretend to be a ghost. Haunting me for being a horrible husband.”
She growled. “You deserve haunting.” Then she sighed. “We had an excuse for my absence. You created it yourself—a townhouse.”
“I could have one if I wished it.”
“I have no doubt, Mr. Trent”—she ground his name between her teeth—“but that is not the point.”
He straightened off the door. “Rowan, as you’ve called me all afternoon.”
She slapped the name away with a flick of her hand. “It’s called pretending, Mr. Trent .” She ducked around him and made for the door once more. “You invented teas and dinners and other nonsense that I will not have time for. I’ve another life, you know. I cannot attend to you at a moment’s notice. I refuse to be your trained lap dog. A dancing bear at your personal circus.”
He grabbed the door handle before she did and caged her in, his body massive, hard, and hot. “I have given you free rein over this establishment for the last fortnight, and now you refuse to do what you promised to do?” He leaned over her, his breath skating fire across her neck and ear. “You will break your promise? You will force me to rescind my permission?”
She rested her head against the cool wood of the door, blocking out as well as she could the waves of desire his breath blew across her skin. “ The game is over, Mr. Trent. Surely we have done enough to convince them to sell to you.”
No more breath on her neck, a lifeless pause while she wondered what he would do next, what she wanted him to do next.
When he exhaled, it was with a single word. “Please.”
She pressed her back against the door. The hard planes of his face seemed tortured. Perhaps it was the candlelight. Perhaps it was… something else.
“Please,” he said again. “Hestia is everything to me. Extending its welcoming hearths is the only thing that matters. Please. I cannot risk ruining this.”
He wanted the inn like she wanted the letter—with every breath that gave her life. And she wanted, for a mad moment, to comfort him as she wished to be comforted, to run her knuckles down his lean cheeks, brush the hair off his forehead, tell him all would be well.
He needed her, just as her family did. They needed each other.
“Very well. I’ll come as often as I can.” As long as it did not arouse suspicion.
He gave a gravelly inhale, another exhale, and he stepped away from her. “You have my thanks.”
And without another word, she left. Because she’d not wanted to leave at all.
Every time she stood near him, the warm hum of his body seemed to promise… perfection. Enticing and arousing. More dangerous even than that—how he’d calmed her fear, shown her they could work through their difficulties together. She could forget her fear, her ever-clamoring need to know everything when he held her hands. Today should have been the end of the charade, the temptation.
Now she must face more of the same for a fortnight. At least.
And she still must find her mother’s letter.
If leaving Rowan alone in the dark twisted her gut now, how much more difficult would it be after she’d spent weeks in his arms, pretending they were her home?