Chapter 7
“Lady Isla,” he said, voice quiet, breath even, “you are lost.”
She swallowed. “Completely.”
From around a corner of the corridor came the sound of footsteps.
“Come in, then,” Edward said, “that will be one of the chamber maids. Best that she not see you loitering at my bedroom door.”
He took up the robe and shrugged into it with a practiced economy that did nothing to erase the impression already burned into her. Isla stepped back and Edward stopped her with a raised eyebrow.
“If you step backward any further,” he added, “you will meet a suit of armor and the clamor will no doubt draw further scandal.”
Dismayed at her choices even as thrills ran through her in waves, Isla obeyed. The door clicked shut behind her, turning their absurd tableau into a room that happened to contain both of them.
“I came …” She stopped. “I came looking for air.”
“You found the one room in Ravenscroft where there is none.”
He tied the sash of the robe and picked up his discarded cravat, occupying his hands with neatness while he decided what to do with her.
“Sit,” he said at last, and gestured to the chair near the fire. “Before that dress murders you.”
“It is attempting it,” she admitted..
“Your house is a maze,” she managed to make it sound accusatory.
“It has learned to be. People are easier to avoid when walls assist.”
“Is that why you avoided me this evening?” The question leapt, untrained.
He has been avoiding me. But surely that is a good thing. The least amount of time I am forced to spend with him the better.
His mouth curved without amusement. “I do nothing by halves, Lady Isla. If I avoid it, I do it with real effort.”
“Then I am honored to be so efficiently neglected.”
“You were not neglected.”
He leaned one hip against the table and studied her, not as the ton had done, but as a navigator looks at a sky and recognizes more than stars.
I was not neglected? Does that mean he was watching me?
“I saw your eyes more than once. You were not just glancing in my direction?”
She felt breathless with anticipation and hated the weakness the emotion brought.
The eyebrow was raised again. Isla could see Edward’s naked chest through a V-shaped gap in the robe.
There was a furring of hair and an expanse of flat, taut muscle.
Once aware of it her eyes wanted to explore but she kept them leashed to his face.
“I observed,” he said.
Damn you! Give me more than two words at a time. Is this a game?
“Your mother spoke to me,” she said, tearing her eyes from him to look around the room.
“I know.”
“You know what she said?” Isla looked back, her tone hard.
“I know how she uses words.”
That did not answer my question.
Isla lifted her chin. “She called my people barbarians.”
“I imagined as much.”
He sat with a sigh, crossing his legs. Isla felt that she was standing before a foreign prince, a potentate who expected his subjects to stand before him while he lounged. It brought heat to her cheeks.
“I did ask you to sit,” Edward said wryly as though reading her mind.
“Am I that obvious?” she asked, walking to a chair beside the fire and turning it to face him.
It left a comfortable gap between them, a Persian rug of red and gold separating them.
“I’m afraid so. Your cheeks go red when you are angry,” Edward said. “So do your ears.”
“You’ve been observing me closely. One might say spying.”
His gaze sharpened. “No.”
Heat skittered along her skin that had nothing to do with the fire.
“Not spying. Is that such an insult?” Isla asked, sensing an opening in Edward’s infuriating self possession.
“To a man of honor and a man of the Service. Yes,” Edward snapped before exhaling sharply through his nose and rising.
He moved with efficient grace, across the room to a half-full decanter and poured some into a glass. Isla caught a whiff of whiskey. Her nose twitched.
“Scotch?” she asked.
Edward sipped and nodded. “Don’t tell me you know about whisky as well as horses?”
Isla crossed her legs demurely, straightened her skirts and folded her hands primly on her knees. The agony from the restrictive dress of such a posture was acute but she smiled prettily and batted her eyelashes.
“I learned whisky from the farmers on my father’s land. I learned working horses from them and racing from my father’s stable manager. Do English ladies not drink whisky?” she said with a smile too innocent to be plausible.
Edward laughed, a short, appreciative bark and Isla found herself grinning in return.
“This is an acquired taste,” he said, holding up the tumbler of dark liquid.
“May I?” Isla put out her hand.
Edward looked at her for a long moment, then crossed the room to her and handed her the tumbler.
This close she became aware of his scent, a combination of spice, leather, tobacco and the smoky tang of the whisky.
It was intolerably male, winding fingers through her hair, teasing the feminine heart of her.
She wafted the tumbler under her nose and then sipped.
“I should say an Islay malt. Bowmore but … it is not quite. Close though.”
“It is called Laphroaig,” Edward said, “a new distillery. But you are right, it is located on the Isle of Islay. Impressive.”
He took the glass, his fingers resting briefly on hers. It sent a charge through her, a heat that defied the peaty whisky carving a path of fire down her throat. At the touch their eyes met also. Woodland green met ice blue.
“Would you like a glass of your own?” he asked, the contact broken after a second that felt like an hour.
“Yes, I very much would,” Isla said.
She wanted to ask about the scars she had seen on his back but didn’t want to admit to watching him undress. It would send the wrong message.
And sitting in his bedroom with a wee dram sends the right message?
He poured her a small measure and brought it over to her, taking a seat on the other side of the fireplace. He gazed into the fire for a moment, cradling his glass in his hands.
“Why does your mother hate me so?” Isla asked after an appreciative sip.
Edward frowned. “My grand-father was killed on his estates near Carlisle by reavers. They had been plundering the livestock of the local farmers. She blames all Scots for their actions.”
“And you?”
“I have fought against the French, the Americans and pirates of many nations. If I held a grudge against every nation that had wronged me or mine I would hate the entirety of mankind,” Edward said.
“It seems unlikely I will persuade her to think differently of me,” Isla said.
“Probably. She is obstinate. If she has not changed her views in the years since my grand-father was killed I cannot see it happening now.”
“And you will not answer it?” Isla asked, sipping her drink.
She had barely touched her dinner, stomach clenched by her dress and her anxiety.
Now the strong drink flowed to her head and her feet.
Edward watched her intently, as though waiting for signs of inebriation.
Isla was determined to show none. But her awareness of how dangerous their situation was, unchaperoned and with Edward half naked, was becoming muted.
“I will answer it in my fashion,” he said, “which is not upon a terrace in full view of every curious jackanape."
“I am glad to see we agree on the nature of your friends,” Isla quipped.
“Ah, but they are not my friends,” Edward replied.
A log settled in the grate with a soft collapse. Somewhere a clock rang the quarter. The quiet between them had changed. There was a weight to it that made the air feel heavy. Charged. They finished their drinks, Isla with slow sips. Edward with longer gulps.
“You should not be here,” he said, finally. “I think the chamber maids have gone. You should be safe to return to your rooms.”
“I know,” Isla said, “that I should not be here. It was not deliberate.”
“And yet you are here. How curious,” Edward said, rolling the now empty tumbler between his hands.
I do believe that is an accusation. Of what?
Isla looked him in the eye as she drained her glass and held it out.
“An excellent dram. I would like another.”
Edward rose without a word, collecting her glass and this time pouring her the same measure that he gave himself.
“I am often where I should not be,” Isla said. “I believe it is the bane of Alistair’s life.”
Her head was becoming fuzzy. Edward was relaxing, sitting back in his seat, the robe loosening slightly without his notice. Isla noticed, finding herself breathless at the sight of his pectorals.
“Except this time you ended up precisely where you needed to be, didn’t you?” Edward said.
Isla arched an eyebrow, sitting forward as she sensed a challenge.
“Meaning?”
“I think you know what I mean,” Edward retorted. “You wander out of a ball, the most anticipated of the season, at just the moment I am tending to my horses. Adroit timing.”
“So, you think I bashed my own head just to trap you?”
“I think you came into the stable to trap me and then panicked, tripped and brained yourself,” Edward said, rising suddenly and throwing back the remainder of his drink. Isla matched him, also rising though she felt slightly dizzy.
“I did go into the stable deliberately but I didn’t know you were there. I didn’t even know who you were! I wanted to see the horses!”
They were both at the sideboard now. Edward was pouring himself another drink and then replaced the crystal stopper in the neck of the decanter. Isla snatched it out again and matched his measure.
“You wanted to see horses?” Edward said, scoffing. “And you didn’t recognize the master of the house whose stables you were in? Did not recognize the Duke of Wexford? Really?”
Isla did not like the implication that she was lying. She thudded her glass down with too much force and too little sober control. The drink sloshed over her hand, causing her to snatch it away. Something caught her finger as she did though she barely noticed.
“I am not in the habit of lying. About anything. I don’t know what you’re accusing me of …”
“Of trying to ensnare a wealthy husband!” Edward roared.
Isla had not realized how close their argument had brought them.
She stood inches from him. They were shouting in each other’s faces.
She glared up at him, stomach roiling from too much whisky too quickly and too tight of a dress.
It felt like it was forcing every drop of blood to her head and refusing any to her feet. She did the unthinkable.
She slapped him. Fury was tearing through her like a fire through dry bracken.
Edward’s eyes bulged, his mouth fell open.
Isla wanted to laugh, his expression of astonished anger was comical.
Then she saw the smear of blood across his cheek.
She looked at her hand and saw the dark pulsing line that marred her right index finger, trickling down across the palm of her hand to her wrist.
Edward’s eyes tracked down to her hand, and saw the blood. Then they both looked at the glass, from which a pool of whisky was spreading.
“I seem to have cut myself,” Isla said, faintly.
Her head spun. She swayed, fought to steady herself. Failed. Then her face was pressed against Edward’s chest, his arms about her waist, supporting her. She responded but only to refuse to allow him to bear her weight.
Her hands behaved instinctively, grabbing at the nearest support which was Edward’s slim waist. For a moment she clung to him and he to her. She breathed him in, feeling her head calming and the fire within her change from anger to … something else.
She pushed against him as soon as she realized how much she wanted to stand there in his arms. To be held.
She wanted the house to disappear. The guests to evaporate.
Time to cease. She wanted the burden that had weighed on her since the fateful night that she had knocked herself out in the stables downstairs to go. To be borne by Edward.
Her hands found his bare chest, palms pushing against him, fingers feeling his physique.
It made her push harder which pushed her off balance.
Edward tried to catch her, she caught the lapel of his dressing gown which fell open completely.
The backs of Isla’s legs caught a chair and she sat down heavily, pulling the gown with her.
Edward stumbled forward, hands catching him on the arm of the chair.
He loomed over her, face inches from hers, Lips inches from hers. Their eyes were locked. Time stretched. A knock at the door broke the moment.
“Edward, are you in there?” came a soft, feminine voice.
Isla recognized it. She had heard it at the dinner table. Edward’s head whipped around.
The woman he was meant for comes to see if his betrothal to me might not be a huge mistake. Perhaps I should go and let her in?
Edward put a finger to her lips, turning back to her with fierce eyes. She bit the finger, pressing down hard. He did not make a sound. They heard footsteps receding.
“She is gone. You can let go,” Edward said, a slight tightness of voice the only sound of pain.
She did and Edward stepped back. “There is water in the bath to wash that cut. And linen to staunch the bleeding. A single drop will ruin that dress.”
Isla rose, keeping her hand carefully away from the dress. She went behind the screen with Edward and after bathing the cut he patted it with a folded piece of linen before tenderly pressing it against the cut.
“I am sorry for the glass,” Isla said.
“I have many.”
“And for drinking so much of your whisky.”
“That is harder to replace.”
There was the ghost of a smile on his lips but it melted away as swiftly as spring snow in the morning sun. He looked at her seriously and she looked back.
“I knew nothing about you until I woke up in one of your guest rooms,” Isla said.
Edward did not answer.