Chapter Ten
Where an intrepid woman argues her case.
Eighteen hours passed before Isabella had the chance to corner him.
A fire broke out in the home of one of his tenants, and he, Weston, and Mercer left just after dawn to see to it.
Worried, she tried to distract herself with her embroidery, only to jab her finger more than once, until Penny confiscated the needle.
It was a pointless project anyway, a silly handkerchief; she couldn’t very well work on profitable endeavors like garters in the presence of her family.
No one knew the earl had been recently injured and had not yet regained his full strength. So when Weston and Mercer returned without their host, Isabella asked a few pointed questions, learned where he was, and set off after him.
The afternoon was lovely, sunny and mild, a faint breeze tugging at her skirt as she crossed Ever’s unkempt lawn.
Even with a faint tinge of smoke in the air, it felt crisp, stripped of London’s weight, and she drew a full, unrestrained breath—no corset laced tight beneath her gown, the stays abandoned in her bedchamber.
She didn’t want to admit how much she’d enjoyed the carriage ride from London, the way Derbyshire rose and folded back on itself, limestone dales giving way to rougher ground, the air sharpening as the land climbed toward the edges of the Peak District.
Or how compelling she found Langley Park: the manor crouched partway up the rise, built long rather than tall, its gray stone pulled straight from the surrounding hills, as if the land itself had chosen its place.
Ivy had claimed one corner while another stood bare, mullioned windows mismatched where repairs had been made piecemeal, the drive rutted but well used, suggesting a house inhabited rather than curated.
It had charmed her at once. She’d never desired perfection.
Everard Trentham must not guess how well it suited her. How well he suited her.
Not yet, lest she scare him away.
She’d seen how unsettled he’d been at dinner, gazing at her family as though he’d never been part of one himself. There had been something almost wary in him, as if belonging were not to be trusted. It made her heart ache.
And then his declaration—
With a giddy laugh, Isabella halted on the gravel path leading to the stables at the western edge of the property, her hand rising to her chest. He’d defended her as no man beyond her family ever had, his tone lethal, brooking no argument.
And it had come from him so swiftly, without calculation or design, that she knew it was true.
Everything about her that vexed the rest of the world did not vex him.
Isabella found him in an alarming state in the stable’s main room, seated on the straw-strewn floor beside the hanging tack and harnesses, his back braced against the wall, long legs stretched before him.
His eyes were closed, ash streaking his cheeks and jaw.
His sleeve hung in tatters from his broad shoulder, dark hair—nearly as black as the soot on his face—wild about his head, faint threads of gray stark against the disarray.
His jaw was shadowed with stubble and exhaustion.
Before she could steady the spike of panic, he opened his eyes—those gorgeous green eyes—and flashed a crooked grin. “From my dreams, then. Come here, Madam Mischief.”
Drawn to him, she fairly floated across the room.
“Number two,” he whispered when she reached him, his arm circling her waist to draw her into his lap. Then he slanted his head and covered her mouth with his, guiding her into the kiss.
Ever’s desperation poured into her, an ardent ember racing from head to toe, blistering her skin.
Little stood between them, certainly no restraint.
The damp linen of his shirt, the silk of her gown, warm flesh beneath seeking hands—irrefutable need.
He groaned against her lips when he cupped her breast and found her unbound by useless undergarments.
No whalebone stays to bar his touch. His arousal pressed hard against her, and instead of stopping her when she moved against him, he caught her knee and shifted her until she sat astride him, her legs bracketing his hips, their bodies locked tight.
There were no words, no avowals, no denials.
The creak of the aging structure, the distant neigh from a stall, branches striking in the wind outside.
His harsh sighs at her throat, his pleasure spilling into her ear.
Her soft groans as he drew her toward that brink again, mindless, blinding release.
The scents of hay and horse, of man and fire, rose and layered the ruin.
In the dim light of the stable, breathless with want, mere steps from surrender, fingers knotted in linen and silk, the intimacy surged through her.
She framed his face and reclaimed his mouth, rocking against him with unapologetic need, driving the connection deeper until sparks burst behind her closed eyes.
He was hers.
She only had to make him realize it.
Her hand was at his hip, then his thigh, when he broke the kiss.
“Fuck,” he rasped, dropping his head back against the wall. “Not here, Isa.” They could be discovered at any moment, though his modest means ensured a thinner staff than most estates.
Pulling away, Isabella resurfaced in gradual increments. The press of their bodies, her breasts flattened against the sleek planes of his chest, his hard shaft, tucked nicely, neatly, between her thighs.
When she shifted to move away, his hands closed around her waist and held her fast.
His eyes held hers, the darkest green she had ever seen them. Desire shadowed his face, but so did strain. “I’m finding it impossible to deny you. My desire for you is, I should say, I care for you and if you mean to do this…”
Because she could, her hand resting on his thigh, Isabella traced her thumb along his length, her breath catching at the unyielding heat and hardness. No illicit French volume had prepared her for this. “I mean to do this.”
Placing her gently beside him in the straw, he raked a hand through his hair, his gaze fixed everywhere but her, though he caught her fingers at the last and threaded them with his.
“I nearly lost a tenant today. Someone I’ve known since I was a boy, a farmer who manages the hay fields along the northern edge of the estate.
I used to go there when things were terrible here, which makes him very dear to me.
His cottage, like the rest, has been neglected.
The chimney, years of soot, cracked brickwork.
A stray spark caught the roof timbers and up it went.
I didn’t realize quite how badly things had been left by my brother. ”
She turned toward him. Exhaustion hollowed his features. “Is he going to be all right?”
“Yes, he’s with the doctor in town. I’ll see he has the best of care, London, if necessary.
But if your family hadn’t been here to help me—” He shrugged, the gesture drained of hope.
“And then there you were, the last of the light catching in your hair, a golden glow I needed, wanted. Though I think you should return to London before we unearth things best left buried.”
Isabella shook her head, not understanding him.
“This is more than mere kisses, Isabella.”
Her grandmother had once advised that some truths were easier spoken without locked eyes. So she turned to rest beside him, her back to the wall, and kept hold of his hand. “Why not unearth it here? What better place could there be for discovery?”
“You would be that fearless,” he whispered, his voice rough with admiration and unease.
“So are you,” she said, leaning until her shoulder brushed his. She had never wanted to protect anyone before. She’d never imagined Everard Trentham would need her.
This was more than kisses.
Ever caught up his flask with his free hand, thumbed off the cap, and took a long pull. “I should tell you, I’m not a heavy drinker. But there are flames in my throat—you must have tasted them. I can’t seem to shake them.”
The scent of charred wood lay in his clothing and his hair, but his lips had tasted like ambrosia. “Maybe it’s a memory, not a flavor.”
He turned the flask in his hand, the dented silver catching a flash of dying sunlight spilling through the window.
“My profession has taught me to limit my exposure. Part of the training for the job means you’re instructed not to share private bits with those just passing through, even if they’re fighting on the same side as you.
You can’t get those honesties back, they weaken you.
And sometimes they’re a danger, leaving you stripped bare emotionally.
I’m not used to leaving parts of myself with anyone. ”
Ah. Isabella allowed seconds to roll past while she debated. He had more walls up than anyone she’d ever known, quite a feat. It wasn’t the best time to conclude, without a doubt, that she’d fallen in love with him—this incredibly brilliant, sensitive, complicated man—but there it was.
So she began the unveiling for him.
She knocked her slipper against his muddy boot.
“My mother was lovely, though she died when I was very young, leaving me with this glow in my heart and vague shadows in my mind. A concept of someone, if you will. Almost like a character from a novel. Penny remembers her so well—a fact that sometimes makes me jealous, then sad. My father was never the same after her death, ignoring us, which left my sister as guardian and me with a vacancy I’ve filled with rebellion.
There are no positions of employment, or academia even, for females to hide within or behind.
There’s only marriage, or scandal, and not much in between.
I’ve made a scramble of it, trying to decide which is for me. ”
“My mother was lovely as well. Gentle, generous of heart, weak of heart as it turned out,” he surprised her by admitting.
Laughing softly, he drew his leg up and curled his arm around his knee.
She tried not to record the play of muscle, nor recall his fingers kneading her breast, his moan hot against her throat.
“She used to gather wildflowers from a field halfway to the village and place them all over the house in, I don’t know, jars and cans and the like.
Nothing befitting a countess, according to my father.
She brought light into any room she entered, much like you do.
When he sucked the light, the air, out.”
Ever caught her gaze. His eyes had faded to a cool emerald, still dazzling, his dark lashes longer than hers by a mile.
“They married for her dowry, a way to uphold this place, love never a concern. Misery for the both of them. I won’t fall into that trap—not for me, not for her.
I’ll strip Langley to the studs, build it back myself, stone by stone, first.”
Isabella shifted in the straw, dry stems whispering beneath her skirts. A tangle of thoughts swirled through her mind. “You want a love match,” she breathed, the buzzing in her ears bright with disbelief.
Ever gave the half-shrug she was coming to understand meant he’d said too much. With a sigh—giving in, perhaps—he laid his cheek on his knee and turned sad eyes to her. The frightened boy in him remained, and it broke her. “Doesn’t everyone, truly?”
She started to argue—it doesn’t work that way—but those were examples she’d vowed, much like Ever, not to live by.
Society arrangements, business agreements for the most part.
The unions in her family, her sister’s with Weston and the Duke of Mercer with his duchess, Camille, were rooted in a love so complete it left no room for doubt.
He smiled as she vacillated, his cheek dimpling, quite the most attractive man in all of England. “You think men don’t pursue love, they’re ambushed by it,” he said, laughing. “Very judgmental. One expects broader thinking from an anarchist.”
Her lips parted, but no words came. He was making fun of her.
The low smolder slid from between her thighs straight to her brain.
Ever Trentham had the singular ability to leave her torn between kissing him and cuffing him upside the head.
Grabbing the flask from his hand, she took a choking gulp, then dragged her wrist across her mouth, only growing angrier as his smile widened, a one-sided kick of his lips.
“You fascinate me, sprite,” he murmured, amusement threading his voice.
Emotion and reason collided.
He wanted love. What if he found it with someone else? Heartache. Heat. Want.
The pieces of it—of them—struck all at once, scattering faster than she could gather them, and she was on her feet before a minute had passed.
He caught her by the wrist in the doorway and pressed her back against the jamb, more astonished than forceful, as though the moment had outrun him as well. Delight still lingered in his expression, unsettled now, edged with uncertainty and something like disbelief.
A declaration lodged behind her teeth, but he didn’t give her the chance to voice it.
“I’m pouring out my heart at your request, sprite. What more can I do?”
Rough and starved, Isabella rose on her toes and kissed him in reply, her teeth catching his bottom lip as if to pull him fully into it.
Which worked. His arms locked around her, fast and hard, hauling her close as the embrace turned reckless, all pressure and breath and the dizzy sense they’d crossed into something neither could retreat from.
He was going to say yes.
When she lowered her hand to touch him this time, he let her.
Groaning, Ever rasped against her lips, “I ask again, you mean to do this?”
Isabella stroked him through his broadcloth trousers as his brow fell to her shoulder. The caress was clumsy, their bodies tangled in a tight press against the door, knees weak (at least hers), breaths broken.
There was no strategy, no skill. Just hunger.
“West wing, second floor. I’m alone in the annex. I’ll leave my bedchamber door unlocked,” he whispered before sending her into the blue of night.