Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I n an hour’s time, a cleaver would sever Isabella’s life. Before, she’d always lived with her twin, shared almost everything. After, they would not even share the same surname. What Isabella ate to break her fast, Imogen would not know. What gown she chose for the day, Isabella would only discover if she saw her.
She saw her now, though, standing before the cheval glass in their bedchamber and regarding her reflection with cool curiosity.
“You are stunning,” Isabella said from her perch in the window seat.
The corner of Imogen’s lip quirked up. “I always find compliments toward one another amusing.”
“Because they are compliments to ourselves as well. Yes, I know. But today is different.” Imogen was a bride, and Isabella was not. Imogen seemed not simply content but happy to become Viscountess Helston. And Isabella ached with a pain almost sorrowful for a single kiss her suitor denied her. She did not want to think of Rowan. She’d not invited him to the wedding. She’d been waiting for the kiss, and it had never come. “Thurston, I see, pleases you.”
“He is quite dear to me.” Imogen joined her in the window seat and, careless of creases to her gown, pulled her legs up to her belly beneath her skirts, mirroring Isabella’s posture. “We will rub along perfectly. I am eager to experience Italy. He will sketch, and I will read, and if necessary, when we return, we will begin the process of creating an heir.”
“A… friendship, then? But… you have kissed him.”
“Yes, a friendship, and yes, I have. It would not be a perfect arrangement if we repulsed one another on a physical level. I do want to enjoy the making of an heir. But…” Imogen dropped her chin to her knees. “I told Thurston we cannot kiss again.”
She’d used her secret-telling voice, low and serious.
Isabella leaned closer and used her secret-listening ears, all the way open and tuned to the softest whisper. “Why? Was it horrid?”
Imogen shook her head, the tiniest little earthquake. “Quite the opposite. My heart thumped in my chest. It thumped . Is, that’s never happened before. But as long as we do not kiss, it will not happen again.”
Isabella nodded, suppressing her smile. Imogen’s heart had thumped. That’s all Isabella needed. “I’m sure it was an anomaly. The excitement of your first kiss. It was your first… wasn’t it?”
Imogen nodded. “I apologize. For not speaking with you about him. I did not think you would understand. That I do not want love. I do not need it. You’d become worried, and I’d become frustrated and”—she sighed—“we are not the same, you know.”
“I know. I apologize, too. I would have nagged you about Thurston had I known. You’re quite right about that. I would have insisted you wait with me for love, but… I want you to be happy. And if this arrangement brings you joy, then I am filled with joy as well.” Isabella wrapped her arms around her legs and grasped her sister’s hands, squeezed.
“Thank you.” Imogen gently kicked Isabella’s shin. “You are not, though. Happy.”
“Rowan has not kissed me!” She knew the words were a grumble, eating up and spitting out all her frustration.
Imogen laughed, then hid her mouth in her skirts. “You should have invited him today. Perhaps witnessing the wedding would have inspired him. ”
“I was waiting for him to kiss me.” He’d kissed her first before. He’d never before hesitated to show her how he felt. “Perhaps he does not wish to kiss me now. The last fortnight has not been easy for him. He was right. About not receiving a warm welcome. Outside of our circle, he’s received no welcome at all, let alone a warm one.”
“Does he need one?”
“No.”
“He does it for you, then?”
“Yes, but… that is not what I want.” The truth came to her with each new word. What she really wanted sitting large and heavy and bright behind the realization. “Im, I think I will leave right after the wedding. I may not attend the breakfast. Will it upset you?”
“Not at all. If you’re at the Hestia doing something more important.”
Isabella smiled her first real, sun-bright smile in weeks, and she launched herself at Imogen, wrapping her in a heart-tight hug. “Thank you.”
They hugged until it was time to leave, their sisters rapping at the door and gathering them up. Eight pairs of arms wound together, they reached St. George’s like a tight-knit blanket of silk and flowers, smiles and laughing whispers. When they disentangled, Imogen stood alone, proud and sure, and Isabella and the others flooded the pews. Lottie, Annie, and Prudence melted into warm spots beside their husbands, and Felicity, Gertrude, and June crowded next to Samuel. Isabella sat alone in a space big enough for two, a space she should have been brave enough to fill.
The wedding passed quickly, but somehow not quickly enough with Isabella’s feet itching to run to Rowan.
Finally, Imogen, grinning ear to ear, walked down the church aisle, arm in arm with her new husband, who did not grin for once in his life. No, his lips seemed set in a thin line of grim determination. The crowd clapped and cheered, then followed the couple out the door.
And Isabella bolted. She wanted to live, wanted to feel as she’d felt when she’d been pretending beside Rowan. No whispers to worry about, then. She’d simply enjoyed herself at Rowan’s side, learning about him more interesting than learning a bit of trivial gossip here and there. Gathering whispers was about waiting, trying to fend off the worst things that could happen. She could never do that, not entirely. She’d been waiting for a whisper from Rowan, too, his kiss a confirmation he would be happy in whatever life they built together.
No more waiting.
To the Hestia. All the way to the top. She’d walk through the door to his sitting room without knocking. As if she belonged there.
Because she did. More than in crowded ballrooms. More than hiding behind screens, eavesdropping. Isabella, the duke’s sister. Isabella, the gossip.
At the top of the Hestia in the cozy room she’d arranged, with a scowling man at the window, sneezing, she was simply Isabella. No expectation, no grand purpose. But for breaking a scowl into a smile and teasing a kiss from a marble man, softer than he appeared.
She almost reached the church door when she stopped, rocked back several steps by a large shadow blocking the light. She knew that shadow. But the Rowan Trent who sneezed and wiggled his nose before taking tentative steps toward her was not the same as the Rowan Trent she’d first met, hard-faced and fire-limned and lonely.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He cleared his throat and cupped the back of his neck. “I know I was not invited, but—”
She threw herself at him, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him. His arms wrapped around her, welcoming her home, the kiss he gave in return a deep chuckle that made her laugh. And when she broke away to kiss his cheek, his jaw, to look into his beloved face, she let that laughter loose, let it spin sunlight around them.
“You’re always invited,” she said, sinking against his chest. So very warm and hard, the beating of his heart beneath her ear so very frantic. Yet steady, too. She breathed him in. “Wherever I am is where you should be. I was waiting for you to kiss me, you nodcock. But you never did, so I was on my way to the Hestia. To kiss you.”
“I was waiting to kiss you. I thought an invitation would signal your approval and—”
“You always had that. And we don’t need theirs .”
He rested his chin on her head, holding her more tightly. “You’re sure? Because I came today to show you I do not care. Not in the least. I will go wherever you are and kiss you whenever I need it, whenever you need it.”
“I need it always.”
“How fortuitous. So do I.” Another kiss. He cupped the back of her head, holding her steady as the church, London, the world melted away.
“Come back to the house with me. Please?” she breathed.
“I will.”
Those two words seemed an answer to more than one question across more than one year and across an entire lifetime. Yes , he would always say yes .
“It is not too much? You have endured much you hate these last few weeks.”
“A few parties. A few annoying men and pompous ladies.” He drew his hand down and up her back. “I would endure even more to make you happy. But… can I make you happy? Or have you come to realize I am too oddly shaped to fit neatly into your life?”
She lifted her head and inhaled courage. “I do not want you to fit only into my life. I wish to fit into yours as well.”
“Isabella, you shape my life.” He rested his forehead against hers.
“Well then… I think, Mr. Rowan Trent, that we should marry.”
He caught her up and spun her around, his face defined by a wild grin and glowing green eyes. Her laugh echoed off the roof, and when her feet hit the floor, the room still spun.
Until his lips met hers. Then the world steadied, clarified, shrank to two. Isabella. Rowan. A man and woman draped in stained light and kissing as if lips and fingers and teeth could tether souls like needle and thread.
He broke the kiss with a parted mouth, his tongue roving over his top teeth. Then, shaking himself a bit, he linked his arm through hers and drew her out onto the street. “Shall we return here in a month’s time?”
He would give her what she wanted, what she’d thought she’d wanted. A fairytale match with the golden prince celebrated by the entire ton . Odd how living life fully could change what the heart desired. The desires of others, whispered low and in secret, no longer held sway.
“No.” She leaned her head on his arm as they set their steps toward her brother’s house. “I think, perhaps, something more private. An elopement sounds interesting, don’t you think? We could stop by each inn and decide which you wish to procure. On our way to Gretna Green.”
“Enticing, certainly, but what about your family? We could have a small wedding here, then enjoy a tour of the inns of the Great North Road.” He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles.
It sounded perfect. “But if we are married before we travel, then I cannot pretend to be Mrs. Trent. I play that role terribly well, after all.”
“Which is why I want that title to be yours in truth.” He stopped and took her shoulders, looked at her with such sincerity that her legs almost buckled. “It matters not where we marry or how many people witness it. I do not care if I particularly like those people. I want you to be happy. I will dance at Almack’s if they let me in. I will walk in Hyde Park every day. I will suffer any number of family events… if you keep me. If you love me.”
She broke the hold he had on her shoulders slowly, finding the perfect words and the perfect order to put them in. She’d hooked her arm back through his, and they’d walked together several more paces before everything finally clicked into place.
She threaded their fingers together. “I love you, Rowan. In my heart, I am already Mrs. Trent. And I have been for quite some time.”
He kissed her on the street, in the full bright light of day until her legs gave out again. He’d always had a way of making her float. And when he walked with her into the sitting room where her family and closest friends gathered—Imogen radiant at the center of it all—he seemed to fit there, too.
Thurston popped up and pointed at them from across the room. “Im, they’re beaming!”
With a grin, Imogen pulled her new husband back down beside her. “Do you think they have happy news to share?”
Isabella peeked at Rowan. Would he run and hide ?
No. The corner of his mouth popped up with the corresponding eyebrow, and he held himself tall and proud. “You’ll be happy to know that I have courted this lady with the utmost of care.”
“And?” Samuel demanded.
“And I have agreed to marry him.” Isabella barely finished the words before a swarming crowd of arms and cheers cut her off from Rowan. The men smacked his back and shook his hand, and the women hugged Isabella, kissed her cheeks.
When all the rest had fallen away to enjoy cake and champagne and boisterous conversation, Samuel remained, Admiral and Mrs. Garrison beside him.
“I am happy for you,” Samuel said. He took Isabella’s hands. “Can you see it? Your future stretching out before you clearly?”
“Not entirely. There’s no way of knowing what will come. But what I do see clearly is the man who’s by my side.”
Samuel hugged her, squeezed her, whispered in her ear, “Be happy, Sister.”
“You, too, Brother.”
He released her, something bittersweet in the lines of his face as he slipped away. But she had no time to consider it because the admiral and Mrs. Garrison were standing before them. Time to stand up straighter, to smooth skirts, and pay attention. Because that’s what one did with—
“Oh!” Isabella cried. “What is wrong?”
“Are you crying?” Rowan asked.
The admiral sniffled, wiped his eyes. “Naturally I am, boy. What else is a man supposed to do when he sees the son of his heart happy?”
Mrs. Garrison patted his arm. “You can cry all you like later at home. For now, remember your courage, dear.”
The admiral sniffled again, stood up straighter. “Just so, love, just so.” He crushed Rowan in a hug, then embraced Isabella so gingerly she almost could not feel it.
Mrs. Garrison cupped Rowan’s cheek with one hand and Isabella’s with the other. “Well done, you two. Well done.” She took her husband’s hand and left Rowan and Isabella alone.
Alone as he liked it but surrounded on all sides as she adored .
“No backing out now,” she said.
He took her hand and led her to a quiet corner, sat her on a chair, and knelt before her. “The day we traveled to Stevenage together I was waiting for you. I’d made every preparation to go without you.”
“I’d told you quite plainly I would not go.” No one seemed to be paying them a bit of attention, but she kept her voice low. Perhaps because his had lowered into a register best used in a bedchamber, deep and rich and husky. And promising.
“Precisely, and I told myself, quite plainly, I did not need you. Yet… I could not leave. My coachman grew tired waiting for me to leave, but there I was, pacing the alley between Hestia and the mews. There was a heart drawn on the wall with initials in it, and I remember thinking, poor fools, I hope their love lasts longer than this bit of vandalism.”
“How very romantic of you, Rowan.”
He gathered her hands in his. “I wanted you. From the very beginning. I was waiting for you, drenched in sweat because you wouldn’t come, and I wanted you to come. With every inch of my soul. Then you were there, arguing with the footman.”
“Guard.”
“And demanding entrance. To Hestia, to my coach. To my life.”
“You expect me to believe you liked me then?” Surprisingly easy to sound disbelieving when happiness tingled across her skin, beat like music in her heart.
“ Liked . Hm. More accurate to say fascinated. Enchanted.”
“I have tricked you, then? Like that changeling you compare me to?”
“No, a chuisle . The enchantment dropped away long ago, and the reality behind it better than any story. I hope whoever drew on the wall behind Hestia has put their heart up there again. If they have not, I may have to draw one for us.”
She flicked a strand of hair off his forehead. “You’re a secret romantic.”
That pleased grin, those happy eyes, they focused on her lips. He would kiss her. In front of everyone.
And she would let him, but —
She slapped a hand to his chest. “How do you know the original heart is gone?”
He blushed, then scowled. “I had it washed away.”
“Rowan!”
“They had no right to put a mark on my building.”
“I take it back. You’ve nary a romantic bone in your body.”
He kissed her, the shortest peck, the sweetest kind, and it quite stole her words. She looked about to see if anyone else in the loud room had noticed.
Imogen stared at them. Thurston, too. He raised his glass. Imogen winked, and Isabella laughed. Rowan pulled a chair up and sat, their legs touching as everyone about them chatted and chuckled. She could not hear what they said, but she knew they were happy. With Rowan’s voice whispering promises in her ear, she was, too. No matter what gossip or scandal came their way, love—uncontrollable, chaotic, and true—would keep them in the light.