Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
W hen Isabella yawned, Rowan kicked everyone out. The three sitting at the card table stared at him, heads tilted at various angles. Isabella's hand hovered with the wine decanter half tilted over her glass. With her free hand, she rubbed at her ear.
“My hearing must be bad, Rowan,” she said, “because I thought I heard you order everyone to leave, and surely my husband and the owner of this welcoming establishment would not say something so entirely rude.” She’d become much too good at acting the wife in the last week.
And he’d become rather good at acting the husband. He didn’t even have to try at it.
He snapped the decanter from her hands and set it on the table. “I should have been more gracious about it. But you are tired, and you will rest.” He turned to Mr. and Mrs. Barlow who were already standing from the card table. “I hope you do not mind.”
“The game is not yet done,” Mr. Barlow grumbled, slapping his cards down.
“You can finish it later.” Mrs. Barlow linked her arm with his and tugged him toward the door. “It's clear the young ones wish to be alone. I am sorry we have taken up so much of your time. We know when our welcome has expired.”
Isabella waved away the very idea. “No. Not at all”—the last word came out of Isabella’s mouth as a hand-muffled yawn—“expired. I have had such a delightful time this week.”
She must have. She’d smiled and laughed and charmed the Barlows until they were eager pups taking treats from her hand. But she was exhausted. She dragged around the hotel like her bones had taken on greater weight, and she found them more difficult to hold up. She was paler than usual, too, and often slightly out of breath as she appeared out of nowhere just in time for some activity or other.
He'd watched her carefully since the day at the park, considering the conclusion he’d made then, perhaps in haste, driven by lust and something sweeter, softer. Should he take her to wife? His epistle to Aunt Lavinia had been the picture of confidence. But once the letter had been sent and the edge of lust dulled, uncomfortable doubt had become his companion. When Aunt Lavinia’s response had arrived, that companion became loud indeed.
Who is she? You must tell me now.
But how could he answer his aunt’s question when he was fairly certain Crewe was not even Isabella’s real name? He knew she was bold, sprightly, and fearless. She was kind, and she loved her family. She did not shy from his touch when he let his knuckles graze her arm, or he tucked a curl behind her ear, or when their fingers brushed as they passed a cup or paper between them. She’d let him put her gloves on once, and she’d smiled saucily at him the entire time. She always seemed as… as if she enjoyed being with him. Since his father’s death, he’d never felt at perfect ease in anyone’s company. Not even the admiral’s or Aunt Lavinia’s. He always felt as if he owed them for taking him in, even though they had never done a thing to suggest so.
But with Isabella…
Even when she teased him and challenged him and defied him, she never made him feel out of place or alone.
She had to be a factory owner’s daughter or banker’s daughter. The child of a man with enough blunt to afford the fine clothes she wore, the education she’d clearly had. Maybe a widower without time enough or a spinster sister to keep track of his daughter’s movements about Town. She surely possessed enough freedom to disappear frequently.
That freedom… that freedom told him more than anything else. Most likely, she was a young widow whose husband had left her well-off. She had the money and agency to spend her time how she pleased.
And she pleased to use it all to wear herself thin for him, for Hestia. That told him more about her than anything else. Whether she was a wealthy man’s unmarried daughter or an independent widow didn’t matter.
But the bruised skin beneath her eyes did. She was the type of woman who gave of herself too easily, the type who kept her promises, no matter how the consequences made her already light form seem bird-bone hollow and breakable.
Still, he could not answer his aunt’s question with ink and paper until he had a true name.
When the door closed behind the Barlows, he guided Isabella to the sofa and sat next to her. She crumpled into a heap, her head falling onto the back of the sofa. Another yawn, this one opening her small mouth until all her teeth showed. She attempted to raise her hand to hide it. She failed.
“You can't go home like this,” he said. “You're too tired.”
“Just bundle me into a hack. I'll take care of it.”
“Rest a mere moment.”
“No, no.” She popped upright, eyes wide. “There is no resting for me. Only deep sleep. If I doze off, I’ll remain right here until morning, and we cannot have that.”
“You are correct, of course.” They had not spoken of the kiss in Hyde Park, and he’d closed his memory to it when in her presence. He wanted more. But he couldn’t have it. Not until he knew more.
“I simply need to wake myself up first.” She slapped her cheek lightly, shook her head, sending curls flying into a chaotic halo. “I need a book.”
“I’ve something.” He retrieved the copy of Ackermann’s from a drawer in his study and returned to find her sleeping, slumped against the side of the couch, her jaw slack.
His heart squeezed, tight, tight, tight, and he rubbed his chest to relieve the pain. But then she snorted, and the little puff of air parted her lips even more. And his heart became a full moon—large and glowing in a clear sky. No rubbing out that feeling, no dimming it.
“Bloody hell.”
She flinched and blinked awake. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Of course not. Here.” He passed her the Ackermann’s . “There are several pages of furniture design in there. I’ve decided to purchase permanent pieces for my rooms so we—I—can put these back in their proper places throughout the hotel.”
She flipped through the magazine. “That’s reassuring. I keep remembering the emptiness of this room when I first saw it.” She shivered. “I do not like to think of it being so empty after all this is over.”
After all this is over.
That phrase did it, that phrase, the clouds that blocked the moon, the darkness that swallowed its light. That made his sky-bright heart plummet back to earth.
She didn’t notice, not a bit, how still he’d gone beside her. She flipped and flipped, now and then bending a corner of the magazine over to mark a spot. “What is your favorite color?”
“Blue.”
“What shade?”
“Look in a mirror.” He stretched an arm across the back of the sofa. “What color are your eyes?”
“I-I.” Her cheeks flamed red. “You are terrible.”
“Do everything as it pleases you .”
She stood and disappeared into his bedroom. She reappeared almost instantly, shrugging into her spencer and preoccupied with the view out the windows. He rarely closed the curtains these days, no matter how many sneezes the sun squeezed from him.
Her breathing seemed to fill up the room the way the rest of her had. Her gloves lay on a small table near the door, just peeking out from the brim of her discarded bonnet. Bits of paper with her handwriting were scattered across a small writing desk she’d procured for this room. She was everywhere here, and it had become his most favorite room in the entire hotel. Yet, he’d done nothing to put it together. All her .
“Stay tonight,” he said. “It is for the best.”
“You know I cannot.”
He did, and he let her walk out the door alone with nothing but a gruff “good night.” If he followed her downstairs, he might toss her over his shoulder and cart her back to his rooms. He needed wood and lock between them. Now. Or… or he’d…
He’d kiss her, and he’d not stop there.
He couldn’t do that until she promised herself to him forever, and he couldn’t ask her to do so until he knew who she was.