Chapter Fourteen
Where a love-struck man takes flight.
The missive arrived after dinner, a strained affair made worse by Isabella’s plea of a megrim and her decision to remain in her bedchamber. That left two happily married couples attempting to engage a man at odds with his intended.
The news from London wasn’t good.
The note shoved into his waistcoat pocket, Ever left the men to their billiards and brandy, the ladies to their parlor talk, and retired to his bedchamber to pack his valise.
MacLeod tried to talk him out of leaving, listing the reasons Isabella Anstruther-Colbrook was the wee lassie for him—beautiful, spirited, courageous enough to tame him.
Perfectly suited to Langley Park, taking the time to stop and speak to everyone, from scullery maid to duke alike.
She’d even been keen on the idea of raising goats.
Ever didn’t argue. In fact, he agreed with every word. Isabella would make the finest countess imaginable.
Only, his trusted valet and the woman he was falling for didn’t understand the ruthless world he had entered when he accepted a commission to work for the Crown.
There were dangers of the heart—and then there was simply danger.
Thankfully, Ever’s instinct proved correct.
He went in search of Weston Whitaker and found him in the study, hunched over the desk, his coat discarded, drafting tools spread in careful disorder around him.
A single lamp cast a muted, amber pool of light, catching on the sharp angle of his concentration as Weston worked a pencil down the page.
Ever could have gone to Mercer. Instead, he chose Weston—brash, young, only a few years older than Isabella, and far easier to speak to. Less rank, less ceremony, more listening than weighing duty against action.
Likewise, Weston despised society almost as much as Ever did, meaning there would be no arguments slanted in that direction.
Weston glanced up when the door clicked shut, light skating over his spectacle lenses. He glanced to the bag in Ever’s hand, then shook his head and sighed. “Why do I feel like this conversation’s going to sour my evening? You Brits have a remarkable talent for despair.”
Ever tunneled his hand into his trouser pocket and touched Isabella’s handkerchief. “I’m afraid I’m only here to uphold that reputation.”
Weston gestured to the room, kindly inviting Ever into his own study. “I can tell this calls for a drink.”
Ever fell into the armchair, dropping his valise at his feet, his overcoat and hat atop it. By the time he dragged a hand over his face and looked up again, Weston was back, setting the brandy within reach.
Weston took a measured sip, studying Ever over the tumbler’s beveled rim.
“Fleeing like a coward in the night, eh? I wouldn’t have expected this of the besotted fellow I watched fawn over Isabella this afternoon.
Mercer and I were debating who ought to break it up before you kissed her in full view of the children, though there was the disagreement at the end, and her absence from dinner. Tricky business, love.”
Ever slumped low, balancing his glass on his belly. His heart had begun to pound at the thought of actually leaving her. “She won’t be surprised to wake and find I’m gone, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Weston laughed, leaving Ever to ask what in the hell he could find amusing about this situation. “At least you’re not covered in paint.”
Ever frowned. “Have you been drinking all night?”
Rumor held the man was brilliant—a self-taught engineer invited to speak before the Royal Society, which, for an American, was practically a miracle. But this was not genius speaking.
Bracing his elbows on the desk, Weston leaned closer, lowering his voice almost conspiratorially.
“My wife is a skilled artist, as you may know. I blundered the courtship—dropped the ball, I’d say, if I were back in Philadelphia and not worried about pretty language.
She wasn’t pleased and tossed wet brushes at my head near the end.
Of the misery, that is. I’m happy to tell you we married soon after. ”
Ever grunted, circling the glass on his knee. “My female concern embroiders. Am I to hope for a needle jabbed in a delicate spot to wake me up from my stupor?”
Weston shrugged, as unconcerned as a man in the midst of newly wedded bliss could be. “The two hours it took to scrub paint from my skin did give me time to think.”
Ever stared into his glass. Say it. He tipped it back, finished the last swallow, then set it on the desk with care. “You need to talk her out of considering me. Point her in another direction, aside from the Marquess of Ireton, who is no longer a candidate.”
“Interesting.” Weston let out a short, humorless laugh. “Why would I do this? You’re the first man she’s shown any interest in, the only man, and your blasted Seasons exist to put hundreds in her path. Moreover, Penny likes you, and my wife is frighteningly hard to please.”
Ever composed a list in his mind of what he could say and what he could not. The truth was, the rules made protecting her impossible—rules he’d never broken by admitting his profession, unless it was part of an assignment. Aside from telling her.
“Cough it up,” Weston said in his blunt American manner.
Ever shoved to his feet and strode to the sideboard.
The next drink, more generous than the first, settled his nerves a bit.
“I’m engaged in a rather hazardous profession, though I’d much prefer everyone continue to assume it’s nothing more than managing a declining earldom whilst pickling my liver. ”
Weston cursed sharply, soon joining Ever at the sideboard. “This courtship business is a nightmare. Marshalling my children through England’s social channels is going to kill me. I actually believed we were close to an announcement with you.”
I thought so, too, Ever echoed morosely, and downed his brandy.
“We know about your financial situation,” Weston said, dinking his glass against Ever’s.
“Mercer had his imperial bevy of solicitors look into you days ago. No one cares. Least of all Isa. So that better not be it. Our steam enterprise will make you richer than any duke if you give me a year or two.”
“I’m an intelligence officer, and earlier this evening I received a communication informing me that Isabella’s name is being bandied about in the lower criminal circles, shall we say, as someone of interest to me.
” He glanced up then. The stunned surprise on Weston Whitaker’s face offered marginal relief, even as his heart broke—the bloody thing he’d been trying to avoid from the start.
Everyone, absolutely everyone, believed that Tipsy Trentham rubbish.
“You see, she’s the only woman I’ve ever shown genuine interest in,” he added, the admission loosening memories inside him.
Isabella’s lips parting in ecstasy. The feel of her closing around him.
The crooked smile that told him she loved him back.
“Someone with a grievance against my work has taken note. I must return to the city to rectify this mess.”
A solution likely involving blackmail, with a strong likelihood of violence.
“So,” Weston said, “your answer is to flee in the middle of the night without telling her you love her? At least I faced Penny, even with a weapon in her hand.”
Ever rolled his shoulders. “No, I—”
He couldn’t say he didn’t love her.
He couldn’t say he wasn’t bolting.
But he couldn’t promise she’d be safe.
Weston waited him out, a keen skill in mental combat.
At last, he perched his hip against the sideboard and said, “Mercer has associates from his military days, rough blokes who work in security. Better than any you’re likely to find among your colleagues, because they won’t have anyone to answer to but you.
Until time passes and you mean little in that world, you can make sure she’s safeguarded. We can, as a family.”
Family.
Ever let out a breath, brandy swimming in his head, the word settling like a weight on his chest. He hadn’t known family in so long it felt like a distant dream.
Isabella could not be told the truth, or she’d come to him; no one who knew her would doubt it. She would be angry, hurt, perhaps beyond mending.
It was a gamble with the highest stakes of his life.
“She must keep her distance, long enough for me to settle this. Attention follows attachment. So does talk. And if you tell her the truth, she’ll find me.
” Ever placed his glass on the table with a measured click.
He set aside the part of himself that wanted her and relied instead on the one that made him lethal at his work.
“The solution is silencing the threat, and I can. I have before. But she needs to step back while I do it.”
Weston studied him for a long moment, his gaze sharp, then shook his head. “I’m the last person to delve into a man’s personal life, but the way she looks at you, the way you look at her…” He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “You can’t fake that. Trust me, I know. And you can’t disappear.”
“I wasn’t planning to. I’m finishing this, so the rest can start.”
Weston pushed off the sideboard, his expression grim. “Go, I’ll handle it. Get her back to the city, make sure she’s safe. But you might want to prepare the utmost apology known to man while you’re at it.”
Ever’s laugh was short, raw. “That straightforward, is it?”
“Nothing is easy with this girl. One week. That’s how long I’ll make excuses for your idiotic behavior,” Weston said.
“Believe it or not, I’m good at tense negotiations.
Turns out not sounding like an aristocratic nob makes me more likable.
” He tipped his glass, the brandy catching the light as he took a measured sip.
“Harrington is hosting one of his outdoor affairs next Tuesday—another horror of a high-society event. Meet her there. Grovel like your very existence depends upon it. Make this real, Trentham. Do whatever brutal, underhanded nonsense you need to in the meantime, then come to her like a man who isn’t afraid of his own life. ”
Ever didn’t debate the tight deadline—any longer and he might lose his nerve. And he didn’t dispute that he looked at Isabella like a man struck with love.
That was how he knew he’d lost this argument, but won the fight.
Striding to the armchair, he reached into his overcoat, fingers brushing paper softened by too much handling. “I wrote her a note.”
Weston grunted and finished his brandy. “Couldn’t slip it under her door? Damnit, man, I’m doing all the work here.”
“If I got that close—” Ever set the folded vellum on the desk. “She won’t let me leave, and you know I won’t be able to.” He gave the scripted plea a last glance, half his heart going with it. He wished he’d been able to say more. “For her eyes only, please.”
Crossing to the desk, Weston slid the note into his pocket. “I’ll see that she gets it. The bearer of dreadful tidings, thank you very much. Every woman in my family is going to detest me until you straighten this tangle out. I’ll likely be sleeping alone.”
Not trusting himself to say more than a murmured thank you, Ever shrugged into his coat and hat, grabbed his valise, and turned for the door. Before doubt could find purchase—before the memory of Isabella whispering his name as she crested could pull him apart.
Behind him, Weston repeated his directive. “Seven days, Trentham.” The protective older brother, something Ever was thankful for.
“Keep her safe for me,” Ever whispered as a rain-laden gust raced across the lawn and slid down his collar. He would miss her and this place, things he cherished to the depths of his soul.
And he was determined to have them both.
Then he was gone, leaving Langley—and Isabella Anstruther-Colbrook—in better hands than his own.
For now.