Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
R owan dropped into a chair, feeling unaccountably dour and… lonely. He was giving Isabella everything he was, letting her see bits of him he showed no one else. And she remained, still, a mystery.
But he knew the most important parts of her, didn’t he? He’d kissed her forehead innumerable times in the last several days, kissed the back of her hand even more. He knew the innocent taste of her now, knew the temperature of her skin. He’d never known anything better.
And everywhere he looked—reminders of her. Isabella hung about every inch of his home. Her scent in the air, the copy of Ackermann’s marked to her taste, her gloves on the table—
Her gloves.
He crossed the room and tugged the bell.
Poppins appeared quickly with a sardonic brow raised high. “It’s late.”
“Miss Crewe has left her gloves.” He whipped them off the table and waved them at Poppins. “Please get them to her.” If Rowan went after her, he’d drag her back here, and he wouldn’t let her go this time.
“Can’t it wait till tomorrow? ”
“No.”
Poppins grumbled, “I’ll do it. I’ll do it.” He snatched the gloves and slammed the door on his way out.
Isabella should have remained here , gloves or no. She’d been so tired, and he didn’t even know where she lived, how long or how dangerous her journey home would be. He’d been too busy to follow her when she left Hestia, fitting his work into the crumbs of time left after entertaining the Barlows.
At least she’d have her gloves. Her hands would be warm. Not that it was cold…
He retired to his bedchamber, unwound his cravat, shrugged out of his waistcoat, and jumped when a hard knock echoed across his rooms.
Then another, followed by Poppins hissing loudly, “Let me in, damn you.”
Worry prickled across Rowan’s skin, and he opened the sitting-room door, half dressed. “What is it?”
Poppins wasn’t alone in the hallway. He pushed a man into the sitting room at pistol point, and a woman followed, pale and trembling. But not with fear. With rage.
Blonde curls and the slender build of a fairy. Impossibly pretty.
Isabella. Isabella glaring at him with blank, unknowing eyes.
Not Isabella.
“Who are you?” Rowan demanded, though part of him already guessed. He slammed the door shut once they were all in the room.
“I caught your Miss Crewe in the alley behind the Hestia,” Mr. Poppins said, “ kissing this fellow.”
“That’s not Miss Crewe.” Rowan stood right before the woman, and she met him toe-to-toe. Not Isabella, but oh yes, certainly related to her.
“Yes, it is,” Poppins said. “You blind?”
“I assure you, it’s not her.”
Poppins waved at the woman. “Same hair, same face! It’s her, only her lips were connected to his lips”—he stabbed a thumb in the other man’s direction—“and not yours.”
Not Isabella glared at Poppins. “I thank you to take my lips out of your mouth. ”
“Im,” the other man said in a loud whisper, “that didn’t sound quite right.”
She didn’t seem to care. “And take my sister’s lips from your mouth as well. The both of you.” Her glare burned harder on Rowan.
“You’re Isabella’s… twin?” Rowan said.
“Ooooh.” Poppins laughed. “That makes sense now.”
“What is your name?” Rowan asked, stepping to the side and offering her a chair.
The woman’s mouth thinned. She would not speak. And she would not sit in the offered seat.
“You have a twin, don’t you?” Rowan crossed his arms over his chest. “Her name is Isabella.”
The line of her mouth tightened further. Then it exploded. “Did you tell your man to abduct me off the street because you thought to manhandle my sister? What kind of nefarious villain are you?”
“Not nefarious. I am her employer.” Best way to explain it to this woman at this moment. “I merely sought to return her gloves.”
Poppins yanked the gloves out of his pocket and threw them on the table near the door.
“You may retire for the evening, Poppins,” Rowan said.
“Her employer?” The unnamed man blinked at Rowan. “Issy doesn’t have an employer . Don’t trust this man, Im. He’s clearly a bounder who has no idea Issy’s a—”
“Thurston, darling,” the twin said between gritted teeth, “button the lips, please.”
“You button them for me?” A lascivious grin.
“I’ll unbutton them later .”
“You were buttoning them right good in the alley when I caught you.” Poppins chuckled.
“Retire. Now.” Rowan pointed at the door.
All three made for the exit.
“Not you two. Miss Crewe and Miss Crewe’s… paramour. Stay.” Now was the time to gather more information about his fake wife than he’d ever gotten out of her so far. Particularly with Mr. Unbuttoned Lips. That fellow would spill secrets more quickly than a cup of water on an uneven surface .
“I don’t see why we should,” the twin said as Poppins grumbled his way out of the room, slamming the door behind him. “You have no hold over me.”
“I ask as a favor. Stay. You are not held prisoner.”
“That’s good. I was worried,” the other man said. “Resemble a pirate with that scar, you do.”
“Why do you wish us to stay?” the twin asked.
“To speak of your sister. I’ve come to know her well in the last weeks, and I would like to know her family, too. Shall we start with sitting? And exchanging names?”
“I think we should start with you putting some clothes on,” the nameless man said.
Rowan nodded and retrieved his waistcoat, slipped it on, and buttoned it up. “Better?”
The other man grunted. The twin sat.
“I’m Rowan Trent. The owner of Hestia.”
“I’m… Imogen.”
“Only Imogen?” Rowan asked.
She nodded. “And that’s only Thurston.”
“You Crewes are a secretive lot, aren’t you?”
Imogen’s brows knitted together, and Thurston resembled a puzzled puppy as he muttered, “Crewe?”
Rowan hid a smirk. He knew Isabella wasn’t a Crewe. “Tell me, Imogen, where—”
The door to the hallway creaked open, wider, wider, until Isabella stood within its frame. First, her pale brows lowered, descended toward one another like two carriages on a path of collision. Then her lips parted slightly on a silent O, and the roses in her cheeks fled. “I… came for… my… gloves. What are you… Imogen, Thurston, why are you here ?”
“You were gone too long. We came to check on you. He”—Imogen thrust an indignant digit Rowan’s way—“ordered his henchman to drag us up here.”
Isabella’s gaze flew wide, that slightly parted mouth now curling into an expression that did not bode well for him. “You dragged my sister here? ”
Rowan strode forward. “I asked Poppins to return your gloves to you. When he found these two in the alley, he brought them here. Thought she was you. Wanted me to know my… employee was kissing strange men.”
“ He knew right away, though,” Thurston said, admiration bouncing through him, “that Im wasn’t you.”
“Wait.” Isabella’s hand flew to her temple, fingertips pressing into the delicate skin there. “Kissing?”
Rowan almost slumped against the nearest bit of furniture. Thank God, she’d found another target for her ire.
“I can kiss whomever I please.” Imogen pulled herself up tall, lifted her chin. “And we are betrothed.”
“You didn’t tell me you were kissing him,” Isabella hissed. “Just marrying him. I was under the impression the connection was purely a practical one.”
“I see no reason not to make use of it in whatever way I can. As you appear to be doing. He’s your employer ? But I’m certain I heard the other man say his lips have often been attached to yours.”
“Why didn’t I know,” Isabella said almost to herself, then louder, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Thurston took one long, sliding step toward Rowan. Then another. And one more, so they stood side by side. “What’s old Issy do for you, anyway? If you’re her employer.”
“I’m not her employer. Not really.”
“What haven’t you been telling me ?” Imogen demanded. “You’ve left your gloves in his… what is this? His private rooms? What are you doing here with him?”
“I would like to know that, too.” Thurston tugged at this cravat. “I’d hate to have to call out anyone, but I will, you know. She’ll be my sister soon, and—”
“Thurston,” Isabella said. “Take Imogen home, please.”
Imogen stood, her entire body stiff as a perfectly starched cravat. “You will come, too.”
Isabella shook her head. “I will return on my own power and when I am ready. Do you not trust me? ”
One pair of blue eyes stared into another as a clock in the hallway ticked down the time.
Imogen ripped away. “Of course. Of course.” Her last two words were mumbled, muffled by hers and Thurston’s footsteps across the room and then by the click of a closing door.
Isabella dropped onto the small sofa where just half an hour earlier, she’d melted into a brief and happy rest. He braved a step toward her.
She shoved out a hand, keeping him away. “What were you thinking? You cannot grab my sister, my family, from off the street and drag them up to your lair and terrify them!”
“Poppins, not me. He thought it was you.”
“That, Rowan Trent, does not make it better.” The color was rushing back into her cheeks. “I am not your possession to be dragged about as you please. When I am at the Hestia, I am only your pretend wife, and once I leave the Hestia, once I walk beyond its doors, I am nothing to you. Nothing .”
Nothing to him ? Ha.
Rowan closed the curtains, each movement calm, precise, cutting off the gaslamp-lit world beyond the glass. “What about our kisses?”
“Madness. Neither of us can afford to be distracted from our purposes.”
He strode a circle about the room, extinguishing every candle but one on the wall right by the door that led to his bedroom. Then he drifted to her side like a ship into harbor. She stood to meet him, her face pale in the candlelight, anger buzzing through her. She tapped her toe beneath her skirts. No longer a fairy but a banshee, ready to wail him to his death.
“Outside of helping one another achieve our goals, we are nothing to one another.” Her mouth twisted to the side. Preparing to produce a wail? Or because the words she said felt bitter on her tongue?
“You're wrong. When you are not here, I can think of little but you. I wonder where you are and who you are with and what you are wearing and when you will return. I wonder how I can navigate you as soon as you do to the Barlows’ side, so I have the right to touch you, to call you Mrs. Trent. Crewe is not your name. Don’t object. I’m not a fool. And I do not mind you keeping your real name secret. I have replaced it with one that feels… right. Isabella Crewe is a maid who likes to disappear. Mrs. Isabella Trent is the woman who creeps along my veins. The woman I would cut out my heart for.”
“Rowan—”
“You are not Mrs. Trent, but you are . And according to my mind, I have a husband's right over you. In every way.” He wouldn’t touch her, though. She must come to him. Right was a bold word, a show of confidence, an argument even. But he had nothing if she did not give it to him. “When Poppins told me he found you kissing another man, I thought I might be capable of murder. No. I knew I would be capable of murder. And any number of other horrible things. I intended to put a bullet in the other man's heart, to lock you up tight.”
“It’s pretend .”
“Is it?”
Something shattered in the soft lines of her face. Hopefully, her resolve. “It must be. You know nothing of me. Not truly. And you do not need to know anything more of me than you already do. To pretend.”
“I do need. Because you’re needling into my damn heart, Isabella. Tell me something that will make it stop, that will make you less dear to me than you currently are. Because you are driving me mad. I wrote my aunt and told her to stop searching for a wife for me because…” He lifted his arms out to the side, let them drop. “I’d already found her.”
Her mouth dropped open, and her chest stopped rising, and she managed to sputter, “I-I’ll not pretend for her.”
“I’m not pretending. Not anymore. So, tell me something to make me see truth. Tell me anything to make this stop.”
She searched the room for answers, her chin cutting a circle that sliced him in half. “I’m horrid when I’m sick. Grouchy and snotty and—”
“Bloody hell, Isabella, that makes you even more adorable. Try again.”
“I have seven sisters. The one brother. But also three brothers-in-law. All of whom can be as grouchy as me but because the wrong man has looked the wrong way at me.”
“Good. You’re well protected. ”
“Seven sisters are seven female minds to pester you.”
He waved the concern away. “You’re not trying very hard.”
“I read books.”
“Really? You think I’ll run from a bluestocking?”
“Naughty books.”
That gave him pause. Mainly because speaking was rather difficult while his cock jumped to attention. He shrugged. “My aunt reads them, and she’s a paragon. I’m not supposed to know she reads them, but I have found several lying about. She’s horrid at hiding them. Try again.” Though nothing she could say would change this. That was clear now, a truth ringing across his body.
“My brother is—”
“A murderer?”
“No!”
“Cruel to you and your sisters?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Are you murderous or cruel?”
“No.”
“Then there is nothing you can say.” God, it was inconvenient. But only if he let it be. “I’ve never fit anywhere, not since my father’s death. But I fit with you, and you with me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“How can you know how well we fit?” She seemed to be pleading with him now. “There is still so much about one another we do not know.”
“The important bits are clear. You need someone to care for you, and I want to be that someone. I need someone to… tease me now and then, and unaccountably I”—he swallowed hard—“adore being teased by you. You are not scared to kiss a man like me—scarred and ill-tempered, a misanthrope with no friends but for a derisive secretary. I have rarely felt comfortable since the last time I stepped foot off a boat, but with you, I forget that I do not fit into the world. Because I fit with you. What are names or addresses when you make me smile? If you do not feel the same way, tell me now, and I’ll—”
“I do. You… unnerved me at first. There was so little I knew about you, but now I think I see you clearly. Now I know I’d like to see you better. I want to listen as you tell me everything. ”
“Let me listen first. Rest your busy ears and put that lovely mouth to work.” He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. “I know there are worries you must lay to rest, but for tonight, let me do the listening. And most of all… let me kiss you.” He dropped his head so that his forehead almost touched hers. “Not a kiss to pretend. And not one to tease. No damning anger in it. I will listen to what you need and give it to you with every breath I take.”
A point of heat on his knuckle, blazing and lovely jerked his attention toward that appendage. She’d reached out, touched him, dragging the very tip of her finger down the outside of his.
She spoke, then, without looking up. “Yes.”
That was all he needed. Their mouths met, a wild tangle of tongue. His body taut, his control, too. So taut he might snap at any moment. But if he did, she’d snap with him. He’d kissed her only twice before, but already her taste was familiar to him. Tonight, she tasted of his wine, his food, and of herself. That almost undid him entirely. Because those things that were hers and those that were his should always be twined together. The kiss and taste of her tongue familiar but the rest of her unexplored. He would waste no time. His hand at her neck, over her shoulder, down the gentle swell of her bosom to pause at the fastening, puzzle them before undoing them.
She helped him shrug off her spencer, and then he paused to take in the creamy expanse of her bosom above the boundary of her bodice. The hardest thing he'd ever done was to not gobble them up with his gaze all night long. A husband wouldn't have to look in public because he'd have his fill in private. He wasn't truly her husband, and so ripping his gaze away from those creamy visions had been like hell.
He licked his lips as he touched them for the first time, sliding the pad of his thumb along the bodice where it met soft skin. Keeping his need in check, he pulled the shoulder of her gown down so the bodice sagged, slipped, revealed her stays, the thin, fine shift beneath. Too many layers, him too heated to deal with them gently. No matter. Muslin no true barrier. He dipped his hand in and, as if he was lifting the most fragile porcelain teacup, he lifted her breasts free.
The unveiling of her body slowed time to a trickle. Hours seemed to stretch out between the ticks of the clock in the hallway, and in each of those long hours, nothing but the rasping of their breaths.
“So beautiful.” Rosy and pert and peaked. He brushed his thumb over her nipple, and she shivered, a lovely pink blush painting across her skin everywhere the candlelight touched it. His hand seemed much too large on her, much too rough with the sprinkling of dark hair across his knuckles and the popping veins. Her veins ran blue across her pale skin, like God had painted her, the liquid of her life too beautiful to hide inside. He was rough-hewn and too big, and she was so very fine a woman, sculpted in marble by a master.
For years, he’d lived for Hestia.
Now he lived for Isabella.
He pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and her head fell back with a moan, her hands curling into fists where they had been resting against his shoulder and at his hip. He bent down and pulled the nipple into his mouth, circled it with his tongue. The little sounds she made—so perfect, so very Isabella.
Her hand on his shoulder journeyed down his arm to his hand nestled at her waist. She tugged, her pull insistent. Insistence in her lips, too, curving them in happy determination. Trust me , she seemed to be saying without words. He did, and he released control, let her guide his hand up to her other breast. He laughed, a gentle huff of breath between them because she’d proven herself quite trustworthy with that little gesture, trusting him with her body. Hopefully more. Though what the hell he did with a heart, a soul… he’d have to figure it out.
She squeezed his hand, and together they squeezed her breast. “Rowan… Rowan, I want…”
“What do you want?” He parted her thighs with his knee, pressed his thigh against her sex.
“I want—” She whimpered, rolling her hips against his muscle, and then she laughed, a short little bark followed by a sigh. Her eyes cleared of confusion, gave way to the bright blue of confidence. “I am so glad you asked that, Rowan, because I have so many ideas. Quite a library of them. And I would very much like to tell them to you.”