Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
B etween the unhidden sun above and the exhaustion of a week spent in constant movement, Isabella feared she might drop. Right in the middle of Hyde Park for her sisters, brother, and all the ton to see.
She wouldn’t, though. She clung to Samuel’s arm more tightly and clutched at her certainty. If she could survive over a week of pretending to be Rowan’s wife, searching the Haws’s apartments, and pretending with Samuel that she wasn’t doing either of those things, she could remain upright for a mile or two more. No matter how hot the blasted sun.
Felicity, Gertrude, and June walked ahead of them on the park’s path, chatting and running, laughing and making faces. A crowd approached, their attention drawn to Samuel as if a fully blazing chandelier hung above his head.
Imogen, walking on their brother’s other arm, patted his hand. “Do not worry. No one shall get through to you.”
“You can both release me and go whatever direction you please,” he said. “As you always do. I’m not dying. I’m marrying for practical reasons. Aren’t you doing the same, Imogen? And do not lie to me and tell me you are in love with Thurston. ”
“Thurston and I have become quite good friends over the past few years, and we have decided that our lives will suit very well running alongside each other.”
“Your sisters married for love.”
“I am not them. Mother said only that we may choose our own husbands without interference, not that we had to marry for reasons of the heart.”
He glanced at Isabella. “Do you approve of this?”
Not truly. But it had delayed any announcement of Samuel’s engagement. Mr. Haws approved of having one fewer sister for his daughter to have to manage and of having one more peer related to him through marital bonds. “I want Imogen to do what makes her happy. And if Thurston does that, then yes, I approve.”
An unhappy sound grated in Samuel’s throat.
The twins shared a look. “We’re sorry,” they said together.
“You’ve already said that.”
“We mean it,” Isabella insisted.
“Any regret you may harbor changes nothing. It is done, and I will protect you.”
They’d begged him not to marry Miss Haws too many times. It seemed useless to ask him again. He pulled out of their hold and caught up with their younger sisters.
Imogen glided closer to Isabella’s side. “What if we lock him in a carriage with guards and send him to Gretna Green?”
“With whom as his companion and, ostensibly, future wife?”
“I was hoping you would have some idea. Who does he like better than Miss Haws?” Imogen gasped. “Speak of the devil and she will appear. See? Ahead on the right side of the path.”
The Haws, grinning and bowing, and thank goodness, they hadn’t seen Samuel yet. Mr. Haws had accepted the Duke of Clearford’s demands that his sister be married first and without the interference of another betrothal. It hadn’t taken much to convince the man that his daughter’s light would shine brighter without a shared engagement period, and her life would be easier if one of the sisters were married off first. After Imogen’s wedding, Miss Haws would only have to worry about two charges more senior than her in years .
And Imogen had suggested, after all, that a quick marriage might be necessary. And after Samuel had roared for a bit, he’d sunk back down into his now-habitual fog of defeat.
Not defeat. Isabella refused to accept it. Simply… a delay. She should be at the Hestia now, searching the Haws’s clearly empty rooms.
“I must go,” she said. “If they are here , they are not there .”
“Yes. Never let an opportunity fall through your fingers. But… what if he’s left the letter with a solicitor? You’ve searched the rooms before.”
“The Haws occupy several apartments and possess locked trunks. I’ve only searched a fraction of the space they occupy at the Hestia. A portion of my time is spent eavesdropping on them, praying they’ll let something slip. And I’ve only managed to pick the lock of one of the trunks. It’s much more difficult to do than Alex lets on.” Andromeda’s brother-in-law, the young Earl of Avelford had taught them how.
“It must be in one of the trunks. If I were Mr. Haws, I would not let that letter far from my person. A solicitor might misplace it. Or poke his nose into it and discover information only Mr. Haws wishes to be privy to. I must return to Hestia now.” She stepped backward, then changed her mind, grabbed Imogen’s arm. “You must talk with them. Keep them here as long as possible and see if you can discover anything of importance. Please. I must search every inch visible and invisible. Please, Im.”
Imogen nodded. “But search quickly. And find the cursed letter so we can be done with this.” She stomped off to the Haws with a broad, fake smile stretching her face wide.
And Isabella fought off a wave of guilt. Imogen only knew Isabella had not yet found the letter, not why it was taking her so long to look. Rowan was the first secret she’d kept from her sister, and it sat in her gut like a rock, impossible to move aside.
“Imogen!” A man ran down the path, darting between horses and those on foot, gathering glares as he passed. Thurston, waving wildly, his chocolate-brown hair flying back. “Im, why is your mouth contorted like that? You resemble a gargoyle.”
Isabella groaned, and Imogen ran to intercept Thurston. She whispered something into his ear that seemed to tame him, and then she dragged him off to converse with the Haws.
“Imogen, you are a wonder,” Isabella whispered. She backed down the path, watching them awhile longer, then turned and—
“Mrs. Trent? Mrs. Trent, is that you?”
Isabella froze. She could not see the woman calling her fake name, but she knew the voice quite well. The crowd parted, and there, beaming as usual—Mrs. Barlow. And Mr. Barlow.
And Rowan.
Oh.
Blast.
Isabella ducked her head, tugged her bonnet low, and waited for the destruction of the known universe to peel across the skies. Stars falling, the moon crumbling, the earth dissipating like mist in the morning.
Her family.
The Haws.
The Barlows.
And her pretend husband.
All in the same place at the same time. Why hadn’t he told her their plans for the day? If she’d known, she could have avoided this. She hated not knowing.
Rowan strode toward her like a shadow growing long and large as the sun climbs the sky. She’d seen him in small places, walled in and low lighted, and he’d always seemed to soak up the space and air and light. A large park should have shrunk him down to man size.
It did not. He seemed even bigger, as if he’d grown to fit the space, a dark demi-god in black clothes, his dark hat pulled low despite the heat of the day. Surely he was burning up. She was. She ran the back of her hand down the side of her neck, and it came away damp from her own sweat. Thank God for the clouds covering the sun.
Rowan stopped right in front of her. “Isabella.” His voice flattened every tree in its path; it rumbled so heavily across the terrain. “What a surprise.”
“Surprise,” she said to his jacket buttons, “is one word for it.” Tragedy another. Perhaps a more accurate one .
He hooked his arm through hers and stepped to her side, revealing two smiling Barlows behind him. She waved. They waved. The end of the world was, apparently, brimming with social niceties.
“Your husband,” Mrs. Barlow said, “has been treating us to ices at Gunter’s. We decided to walk through Hyde Park afterward. Mr. Trent said you were busy with family today.”
“Yes. Well, I was. And then, I wasn’t.” Isabella laughed—a tepid little thing, convincing no one—as she strained her eyeballs not to look every direction all at once. She must keep an eye out for the others. They couldn’t see her on this man’s arm. Samuel couldn’t see. Her sisters would lock their lips tight and demand answers later. But Samuel… There would be the ranting, then the demanding, then the inevitable foggy desolation.
Rowan patted her hand where it lay limp on his forearm. “I am pleased you decided to join us. You can walk with us back to Hestia.”
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Barlow said, “You must. Mrs. Barlow has been missing female companionship, someone to gawk at all the finery with.”
“I…” Caught. Like a mouse in a trap. “I do not think—”
Rowan’s arm tightened, became a vice, trapping her to his side. She couldn’t groan, so she smiled harder. She likely looked like Imogen had earlier. Imogen stood just down the path, so close, her profile to them, wearing that too-wide awkward smile.
“Isabella?” Rowan said, his rough voice a caress. “Is something amiss? You seem distracted.” He glanced in the direction Isabella gawked. Right at Imogen.
Isabella fainted. Tried to. Her body went limp, and his arm banded impossibly tighter around hers, and she sort of… hung there, off his arm, everyone staring at her. She pressed a hand to her forehead and whimpered just a bit.
Rowan knelt and pulled her into his arms. “Good God, are you ill?” He leaned over her, pretending to check her breathing but hissing in her ear, “What is this spectacle about?”
“I have grown too hot.” She spoke softly, each word measured as if shaping them were much too difficult in such oppressive heat. “Shade.” She drooped in Rowan’s embrace .
Mrs. Barlow squealed, and Mr. Barlow made little concerned tutting noises.
“A doctor, Mr. Barlow, we must find a doctor!”
“No!” Isabella half recovered from her swoon. “No. Do not go to the trouble. I simply need my husband to help me to some shade, and I will soon recover.”
Rowan lifted her to standing and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Return to the hotel. She’s quite delicate. Faints often. I know what to do to set her to rights.”
The Barlows complied with frantically bobbing heads, and Isabella felt a thrill of victory. Two down. How many more to go? Too many to count, but soon Rowan would be neutralized.
“Those woods,” she said, pointing to a line of thick trees running the length of the Serpentine. Before they made it to the cover of the low branches, the clouds shifted, and the sun beamed hard and hot, sizzling the air. A trickle of sweat ran down Isabella's temple. Rowan sneezed, shook his head, and wrinkled his nose. Then, so casually it made her forget for a buzzing moment that he was not her husband in truth, he wiped away the bead of sweat on her forehead with his thumb. That touch hotter than the blazing orb above.
No, not Rowan making her sweat. Certainly not now. More dangerous by far the fact that she was surrounded, poised teetering on the crumbling edge of this dangerous game she played. She must focus. But focus on what? She seemed to be floating, all the way to the trees and beneath, and then he was releasing her, and she fell back down to earth beneath the midnight pitch of his hard stare.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “You’re not going to faint again, are you?”
That popped the soap bubble she’d been floating on. “I did not faint to begin with, as I’m sure you’ve deduced.”
“Are you trying to hide me?”
“No!” Yes, a little bit. “It is simply I did not expect to see you here, and to be perfectly truthful, your presence puts me in a bit of an awkward situation.”
He reached up and snapped a twig with a leaf from the branch above, twirled it between his fingers. “What brings you to Hyde Park, Isabella?”
“Family.” That much true.
As he twirled the leaf between his fingers, it flashed green and yellow in the dappled sunlight. “Your family does not know what you are doing. With me.”
The pressing need to keep her secrets locked up tight quite… blew away. She felt hollow, fragile, tired of running. “Of course not. An unmarried woman spending time with an unmarried man. Often alone. Pretending to be wed to one another. If anyone knew, you and I would no longer be pretending. Surely I need not tell you that.”
“No.” He gave his head a tiny shake. “Of course not.”
“I cannot imagine your family knows you are pretending to have a wife.”
“I’m a little terrified of them finding out.”
She gasped. “The indomitable Rowan Trent, master of Hotel Hestia—terrified? Never.”
He shivered but grinned, seeming rather shy.
Made her feel shy, too. Picking at her skirt, she said, “I know your mother and father are… no longer with us. Who is the family you are scared of?”
He settled a shoulder against a tree trunk. “The man and his wife who took me in after my father died.”
She settled on the other side of the tree, shoulder to bark, bonnet nestled in the low-hanging leaves that offered shade, that cooled the heat, that hid them. She could relax for a breath, safe from the chaos beyond their little oasis. She’d found herself relaxing more around him than not, of late, as if she could trust him to keep the world running smoothly with no effort on her part. She’d been scurrying so long to keep everything from falling apart, to know everything so nothing could surprise her… the rare moments during which she trusted him, stopped scurrying, seemed jewels of untold value. She needed to get to the Hestia as quickly as she could. But… surely she could take a moment to rest her wings with a man who felt a bit like a nest made just for her.
“You admire them, don't you, the couple who adopted you,” she said with a sigh. “Perhaps you even love them. I can see it in your face. It softened.”
“They have better hearts than anyone I know.”
“Tell me something about them.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “I will. If you tell me something about your family.”
“Agreed. I'll go first. Don’t trick me and cry off after I’ve had my say.”
He put a palm to his heart. “Never.”
She settled back against the tree, peering through its branches to the crowded path in the distance. “I have seven sisters and a brother and until my oldest three sisters married, we all lived together, taking care of one another.”
“Sounds chaotic.”
“Yes. Chaotic and”—she sighed—“lovely.” As long as it lasted. As long as no unsuspected cannon blasted them apart. “Now you.”
The crunch of leaves in the conversational silence, then, “The man who adopted me adores his wife. He is the strongest man I know, and he bows like a birch tree in the wind when she commands it. He does not think that makes him weak. When I was a child, he felt very strongly that I should go to school. Have the sort of education boys like me never receive.”
Keeping her shoulder against the tree, she made a little half step around it, so she could see him better. “What do you mean?”
“A sailor’s son does not attend Rugby. But he insisted I was intelligent. I deserved the best education. His wife agreed with him until I came home one holiday with this.” He traced the curved scar around his eye.
She had imagined it must have happened on the deck of some ship, a ten-year-old Rowan surprised by some pirate hoisting himself over the side of it. Or perhaps some incident at the hotel. But at a school? She knew from eavesdropping on Samuel and the brothers-in-law that school was quite a nasty place for young boys. She’d not thought it nasty enough to leave a mark like that.
“It wasn't healed yet. Quite new and raw. Stitched clumsily. A grisly sight, I assure you. His wife wept openly, and then when she had spent all her tears, she hugged me tight and stepped into a carriage, and I did not see her for almost a week. When she returned, she was followed by tutors, hired to give me the best education from the safety of home.” He seemed unable to look away from the leaf he held loosely between his thumb and forefinger. It spun light around them, green and golden. “I did not wish to return, anyway.”
She took another step around the tree toward him. They almost faced one another now, but her closeness didn’t seem to bother him. He barely seemed to notice.
“Why did they…” She reached up and traced the scar, not quite touching it.
“Because I was not supposed to be there. Because no matter who my uncle was, my father and mother were no one. A sailor. A seamstress. But they were everything to me, and I do not need to pretend they were grander than they were to love them. I love them as they were. Smallest in the world. But larger than gods in my heart. I am them. To know them is to know myself and my place. Attending Rugby would not have made me any more than I am. A sailor’s son. And proud of it.”
Usually steel was met with steel, but she could not help but give him softness instead. “Just so.”
He blinked, the anger he clearly wore about him like a familiar cloak flickering. “I want nothing to do with that class of man who rules the world and looks down on all others. I do not seek to join it. I know my place.”
“At the Hestia.” In a barren set of rooms. Alone.
She lived in merry mayhem all day long, siblings to spare. But somehow the world… empty. Soon—alone. No amount of snooping about and gathering information would save her from that fate.
His voice filled the now small space between them. “I’ve never said a word about any of that to anyone. Why you?”
“I’m easy to talk to. I listen.”
“And then spread what you hear all over the place, no doubt.” He was trying to put distance between them again, to protect the soft parts of him he’d revealed .
“I won’t repeat a word. That was a gift, and I will never give it away or treat it carelessly.”
“It was the past, nothing significant.”
“It is one of the events that changed the course of your life. We all have them.” This time when she traced his scar, she pressed her finger gently into his skin, let the warmth of Rowan Trent sink swiftly through the lace of her glove. “You did not return to school. You lost any friendships you might have made.”
“I lost a tormentor, nothing more, and I did not grieve it.”
“You lost the chance to carve a place out for yourself there, to show that little villain you fit perfectly well there. Where would you be now had you been given the chance to do that?”
“There existed no real chance. Attempting to fit into society would be like trying to sew a rough, worn, burlap patch onto a silk gown. I do not regret where I am now.”
“Nor should you.” Him burlap and society silk? What a paltry, false comparison. “You are… magnificent.”
His body swayed closer as if her words were the wind that rocked him. He seemed riveted by her, by her lips, and she could not help but remember that day in his study when she’d begun to rearrange his life, and he’d lifted her onto his desk and said naughty things into her ear to scare her.
Had it been to scare her?
Or perhaps…
“Do you wish to kiss me?” she asked.