Chapter 21
“So you got your wish. It seems you’re leaving.”
Isabel looked up from the letter she was writing to Padre Ignacio, her pen hovering over the paper. Sitting back, she lifted a shoulder. “I am. It wasn’t much of a struggle to accept.”
“Indeed.” Gabby wandered into the room, sitting on the edge of Isabel’s bed, her mien pale. “When you’re thanked personally by the president of Mexico and invited to serve as an assistant to the First Lady, it’s hard to say no.” Plucking at a loose thread on the counterpane, Gabby considered her. “Is this something you want to do, Isa, or do you feel like you can’t say no to it?”
Tossing her pen onto the desk, Isabel rotated in her chair to face her sister. “No, I’m very happy to have been offered this opportunity to work with Se?ora Maza de Juárez. I’d always hoped I would be able to return to Mexico and help with the war effort, and I’ve been working to do that this whole time.”
Gabby made a face. “What do you mean?”
Isabel bit her lip. Did she want to tell Gabby her secret? Did she trust her sister with such a truth? Looking into her sister’s eyes now, she realized how holding herself back from others had only ever hurt her. And hadn’t Gabby, and Ana María, earned her loyalty?
Squaring her shoulders, Isabel said, “Have you ever wondered why I always escaped during balls and other events?”
“I assumed you just didn’t want to be there.” Gabby snorted. “And I’ve envied you for it. I wish I could run away whenever I wanted.”
She was running away, to a small extent, but Isabel didn’t think that truth was the pressing issue of the moment. “Yes, well, you’re right, but that’s not the only reason I would slip away whenever I had a chance.”
“Well, this sounds interesting,” Gabby murmured, wiggling about.
Her sister’s eyes continued to widen and her mouth eventually slipped open as Isabel explained how Padre Ignacio had connected her with Fernando Ramírez, who then gave her the task of uncovering information the rebel government could use against the French.
“So all those times I thought you were reading, hiding away in the libraries and studies of pompous peers, you were searching through their belongings instead?” Gabby clapped her hands together. “Ay, are you serious?”
Isabel chuckled. “I am. I’ve been searching for anything that could help our people in their fight against the French. Sadly, I’ve not been very successful…until I read that letter in Westhope’s carriage.”
“?Vaya! No me esperaba esto.” Gabby chuckled. “Here I was annoyed with you for fleeing these tedious events I’m made to attend, all to charm these gringos for Mexico, and you’ve been putting yourself in harm’s way in the name of espionage.” Her sister looked at her with starry eyes. “You’re amazing.”
Pressing her lips together, Isabel looked away. “No, I’m not. I’m terrible at this. I hadn’t found one useful bit of information during the years we’ve been here. I have been a horrible failure before now.”
“How could you call yourself a failure? You had no instruction, no tutelage, nothing but rushed directions on the eve of our departure.” Gabby tossed her hands up. “You had to teach yourself not only who was who, and who might possess useful information, but how to get into and out of rooms without being spotted. I repeat, that is amazing.”
Isabel tucked her chin to her chest. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew that was how Lord Tyrell found me in his study.”
Gabby gasped, her hazel eyes owlish. “That’s why you were in his study?”
She nodded, shame sweeping up her face.
Her sister made a rough noise in the back of her throat. “Too bad you didn’t find any of his secrets before he discovered you.”
Frowning, Isabel shook her head. “Y-you’re not upset with me?”
“About the situation with Lord Tyrell?” Gabby scoffed. “No. I don’t have to tell you that the incident in the earl’s study forced Ana María and Gideon together, and look how happy they are now. I could never be upset with how that turned out.”
Isabel’s brow crinkled as she considered that. She’d carried an enormous amount of guilt on her shoulders for how her lack of circumspection had brought such danger into their lives and changed the trajectory of Ana María’s future. Despite knowing how happy her older sister was, the guilt had always been a nagging ache in the back of her mind.
“Isa, no matter the failures you think you experienced, you ultimately found information that saved Presidente Juárez’s life.” Gabby’s hazel eyes swam with unshed tears. “Your quick thinking very well may have saved democracy in Mexico.”
Overcome with emotion, Isabel pressed her lips together and looked away. She certainly didn’t think her efforts deserved such praise…but it consoled her nevertheless.
Gabby said nothing else for a spell, and Isabel was thankful for a quiet minute to reflect on how much she would miss these moments with her sister once Isabel left for Mexico.
“Is there another reason you were so eager to accept Presidente Juárez’s invitation?” Gabby asked into the silence.
She wouldn’t miss her sister’s uncanny ability to knock her off-balance.
Isabel cleared her throat, feigning nonchalance. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do, Isa.” Gabby slid off the bed and approached Isabel’s chair, crouching down to look up at her downturned face, her skirts pooled about her. “I haven’t pushed you, but now that you’re leaving, I have to ask if you’ve been nursing a broken heart over Captain Dawson?”
Isabel flinched before she could contain her reaction. “N-no. I told you there was nothing serious between us. This has nothing to do—”
“I heard you two talking. In your room.” Gabby placed a hand on her knee. “I saw him leave, Isa.”
She thought she had been so careful. Isabel was certain no one had heard them. Had heard the argument between her and Sirius, and later her throat-scouring tears. Neither Gabby nor Lady Yardley had mentioned it. Isabel had allowed herself to mourn the loss of Sirius and what could have been between them in solitude. Yet her sister had known the whole time.
Wrapping her arms about her waist, Isabel choked down the rush of emotions she’d worked so very hard to stifle.
Waiting while her throat worked convulsively, Isabel finally said, “My time with Captain Dawson was a finite thing. It was destined to come to an end.”
It was a truth Isabel repeated to herself over the next week as she prepared for her departure. She packed her books with care, setting aside several novels she thought Gabby would like. When she came across the book of poetry she never returned to Sirius, Isabel shed a few tears, thankful no one was about to question why.
Gideon had secured her a first-class ticket to Altamira, and Tío Arturo had coordinated with emissaries for the president to deliver her to the location where the cabinet had moved ahead of the French. Neither Isabel nor her uncle knew exactly where that was, but Tío Arturo speculated it was somewhere in Nuevo León. Isabel had never been to the northern state, but she looked forward to exploring it…well, as much as she could with her new responsibilities. She also looked forward to seeing her mother again and being enfolded in her firm embrace.
However, Isabel was apprehensive to be reunited with her father. She may have uncovered information that ultimately saved his life, but that didn’t necessarily mean Elías Luna’s opinion of her had changed. She knew Padre Ignacio had lobbied hard on her behalf, and the invitation to assist Se?ora Maza de Juárez was an honor not bestowed lightly. However, her father’s approval was a constantly moving target. Such a realization would have gutted her in the not-too-distant past, but now Isabel allowed it to touch her only with a passing sadness.
Isabel pondered that change of perspective as she watched Lady Yardley’s footmen unload her trunks from the carriage. Gabby stood on her right and Ana María on her left, their arms looped with her own. Neither of them spoke during the carriage ride from Yardley House to the docks, and Isabel was grateful. She had spent the last week with them, whether they dined together for meals, took walks in the park, or simply laughed over their shared memories. Ana María had even stayed in her old room at Yardley House for several nights, claiming she didn’t want to be away from Isabel for a moment. It had been a long goodbye, filled with deep discussions, lighthearted jesting, and heartfelt confessions. Her sisters had become her best—her only—friends, and she was leaving them behind. Isabel was just beginning to understand who she was as a person, and now she would have to be that new Isabel without the two most important people in her life. Her grip on her sisters tightened.
Was she making the right decision? Isabel thought she knew the answer, but now that she stood on the windy docks, the expanse of the Atlantic looming before her, she wasn’t sure.
“I’m so proud of you, Isa, and all you’ve accomplished.” Ana María leaned into her side. “And working with Se?ora Maza de Juárez will give you the opportunity to do so much more than you ever could have done here.”
Isabel swallowed audibly. “I hope I always make you proud, querida.”
“I have no doubt you will,” Ana replied, her dark eyes glassy.
“You were too much for London, Isa. Too intelligent, too brave.” Gabby’s voice broke, and she pressed her cheek to Isabel’s shoulder. “And too brilliant for this gray city.”
“Gabby,” she choked out, all other words strangled by her unshed tears.
“The only consolation I have in your leaving is that you will finally be able to show your worth for all the world to see.” Her younger sister patted her arm. “No hiding, when you were meant to shine.”
Gabby’s words were reminiscent of those someone else had uttered to her once before, and Isabel gritted her teeth against the memory.
Instead, she enfolded both her sisters in her arms and cried.
Isabel wasn’t sure how long they held on to one another, their sniffles and shuddered breaths the only sounds they shared, but eventually Gideon informed them that passengers were boarding the ship. Isabel clung several more moments to her sisters before she finally stepped back, patting her cheeks with a handkerchief.
“This is not goodbye forever, Isa,” Ana said, cupping her face and bussing both of her cheeks. “Once the war is over, we will visit. Perhaps you will be kind enough to introduce us to Presidente Juárez.”
“I’ll think about it,” Isabel replied archly and then chuckled at Gideon’s expression of mock offense.
After saying goodbye to her brother-in-law, and reminding him to care for Ana María, she shared her thanks and well-wishes with Tío Arturo and Lady Yardley. Finally, Isabel turned to Gabby. Her sister was no longer crying, her expression stoic and resolute. Isabel was not used to seeing her so somber. Without hesitation, she wrapped her arms around Gabby’s shoulders and buried her face in her neck.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you there to defend me. From others, but more so from myself,” she sniffed.
“You’ve never needed a defender, Isa. You’ve always been the bravest of us all. But I’ve always needed a big sister”—Gabby held her tighter—“and I will miss you more than I can say.”
Soon Isabel stood on the ship’s deck, away from the other passengers on the rail, who waved to family and friends on the docks below. From her solitary spot, she considered her sisters, who stood side by side with their arms linked. It felt foreign and disconcerting not to be standing with them, and the realization that she didn’t know when she would get to be with them again made Isabel rock on her feet. If she weren’t so desperate for a second chance, would she be leaving now?
That dull ache that had taken residence in her soul pinged anew, and Isabel knew her answer. She yearned to pull a full breath into her lungs and not think of him. So much of London was now haunted by ghosts of what could have been.
And suddenly her gaze snagged on a figure in black standing on the far end of the dock. Even across the distance that separated them, his eyes were the bluest of blues, and Isabel could not look away. Not as the ship pushed from the docks, or as it eased into the sea-lane. Isabel raised her arm in goodbye to her sisters, blowing kisses on the breeze, but then she turned back to Sirius. She didn’t wave or call out a goodbye. Instead, Isabel clutched a hand to her empty chest and hoped that somehow, one day, she’d find a way to fill it again.
It took Sirius a moment to realize the banging he heard was not in his head, but rather a visitor at the door.
Lurching to his feet, he padded to it, grumbling with every step. He’d rented a room at the Grosvenor Hotel, assured it would provide him with the privacy he desired for such a trip to town. And yet somehow there was a visitor, pounding so loudly it would surely wake the dead.
Flipping the lock, Sirius threw open the door. “Who the hell do you—”
“Well, hello to you, too, Dawson.”
The Duke of Whitfield looked him up and down over his spectacles, before pushing past him into the room. Sirius watched his old friend prowl about, picking up the empty bottle of gin Sirius had finished after he’d returned from the docks. After he’d missed Isa—
“Gin? Lord help us,” Whitfield groused, shaking his head in disgust.
“He’s upset you didn’t let us know you arrived in town.”
Sirius whipped his head about, his gaze landing on Gideon Fox lingering on the threshold. His gaze moved over Sirius’s face, but whatever he saw there didn’t change his own expression. Fox was adept at keeping his thoughts concealed.
“I left quite abruptly.” Sirius stepped to the side to allow Fox to enter, and then shut the door. Leaning against the wood, he shrugged. “My only concern was getting here before she departed, but I couldn’t even do that.”
The ship had sailed away, taking Isabel with it, and the only thing Sirius could do was watch helplessly from the docks.
“You could have sent a telegram,” Whitfield snapped. “Given Fox time to delay matters.”
Fox frowned. “I don’t know that I would have been able to. Isabel was one of the last passengers to board as it was.”
Sirius recoiled hearing her name spoken aloud for the first time.
“How did you know about…” He trailed off, unable to say the words. In his current state, filled with cheap gin and bone-crushing despair, Sirius wasn’t certain he wouldn’t sob.
“Gabby told Ana.” Fox shrugged, picking up the copy of Sor Juana’s writings that Sirius had brought with him from the abbey. He studied the cover for a moment before glancing up at Sirius, a sympathetic tilt to his mouth. “She thinks you’re in love with Isabel.”
“I am,” he said candidly. Thumping his head back on the door, Sirius contemplated how much he wanted to tell them. “But I couldn’t ask her to stay. Not when she was so determined, so eager to leave. Now she’s gone, and there’s nothing left for me to do.”
There. He’d confessed the gist of it, and now perhaps Whitfield and Fox would leave him to nurse his battered heart and fractured pride in peace.
“Nothing left for you to do? Are you mad?”
Heat swept up his neck and cheeks, and Sirius glared at the duke. “What the fuck do you want from me, Sebastian? Isabel wanted a life in Mexico. She longed to prove herself, and I wouldn’t dream of stopping her.” Sighing in exhausted frustration, Sirius pushed off the door and plopped into a nearby armchair, burying his head in his hands. “I just wish I hadn’t taken so long…to truly see her. I wasted so much time.”
The duke scowled. “Did you ask her to stay?”
“Why would she ever want to stay here, with me?” Sirius demanded.
“Maybe you should have given her an opportunity to decide for herself.” Whitfield threw his arms wide. “You could have confessed your love for her and expressed how you wanted to build a life with her.” The duke’s eyebrows drew low. “You did tell her you loved her, right?”
Sirius shook his head, not daring to look up. He was more comfortable staring at his bare feet than at his fiery friend. “My love wouldn’t have been enough. It never has been.”
Not for anyone in his life. All he deserved was the casual—
“Goddamn it, Dawson, stop this self-flagellation once and for all.” Whitfield grabbed Sirius by the shoulder and shook him. “That anguish you’ve carried since you were a boy? Release it. Harcourt is a selfish fool who’s jealous of your good looks and charm. A real idiot, that one.”
Fox emitted a low chuckle but quickly covered it with a cough.
Whitfield kept a firm hand on his back. “I can’t pretend to understand what you endured on the peninsula and in the dark times after, but I’ve seen how it’s colored everything you do. If you’re not working to give something to someone, then you seem incapable of allowing anything for yourself.”
Sirius closed his eyes, but he couldn’t drown out his friend’s voice.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting a bit of happiness. Did Miss Luna make you happy?”
He nodded.
“Then go to Mexico and get her,” Whitfield declared. “Christ, you fight for everyone else, and now it’s time to fight for yourself.”
Could he do it? Travel to Mexico and ask Isabel for a second chance? Would she say yes? He had to try.
A new thought occurred to him, and Sirius deflated. “I can’t ask her to give up her home, again, to live with me here. It would be selfish to ask.”
The duke ran a hand along his jaw as he exhaled.
“So move to Mexico yourself.”
Sirius turned with a frown to Fox. “Move to Mexico?”
His friend raised a shoulder. “What responsibilities do you have here in England?”
“The abbey, for one—”
“Your solicitor could set up a trust to oversee it,” Whitfield interjected, the shadow of a smile curving his lips. “I’m sure there are dependable men who can tend to the day-to-day operations, right?”
His steward had cared for the abbey during the long months he spent in London, and Monroe was smart and loyal, and probably loved the land more than Sirius. And O’Brien had quickly learned the workings of the home farm, and would probably welcome more responsibilities. Perhaps the suggestion had merit…
Yet could he really move across the ocean? To a war zone? Where they spoke a language he didn’t know? The uncertainty made his palms wet and throat dry.
Rising to his feet, Sirius took a moment to steady himself, before looking at Fox. “Would your wife and Gabby be upset if I tried to win their sister?”
His friend snorted. “Their main concern will always be Isabel’s happiness, and if you can make her happy in Mexico, they will be delighted for both of you.”
A sunbeam of hope pierced through his sadness. “And would Mr. Valdés help me organize my trip? I don’t know anything about the country.”
Fox chuckled. “I believe he can be persuaded.”
Sirius looked back and forth between his friends, errant thoughts and possible plans churning about in his mind. He could do this. He needed to do this. For himself and for Isabel, because no one would love her, would understand her, quite like he did.
“So have you decided?” Whitfield asked, his tone all suffering.
The heaviness that had clung to him since that night in Isabel’s room lifted a tad, and Sirius nodded. “I believe I’m going to Mexico.”
“As much as I’m happy for you, I’m also slightly perturbed that you will see my wife’s homeland before me.” Fox smiled when Sirius laughed, but his expression turned grim. “One thing I do not envy you for is that you will meet my father-in-law, the infamous Se?or Luna.”
That detail left Sirius off-kilter. The whole situation left him off-kilter. But he would do it for Isabel. For the chance to bask in her bit of sunshine again.