Chapter Eight #2
Alistair sat beside her on the fountain’s rim.
‘We might be going about this the wrong way. If what you think is true, and they’re expecting us to rebel against the match, we should do the opposite.
Instead of being unsuited, let us be entirely suited to one another.
Let’s lean into who we are. Let’s be together, let’s be outrageous.
Wear your trousers, go back to your study groups, pick up your work, and I will champion it.
I will say I encourage your interest in volcanology.
I will say I champion a wife who speaks her mind.
I will be my reckless London self. I’ll make wagers on horses destined to lose races—I hear Lord Danton has a race arranged the day before the engagement party.
Meanwhile, I’ll bet too much at the card tables, and you will cheer me on, goad me to fly high.
You will be the kerosene to my match, and I will be yours.
Your parents think a marriage between us will tame us.
Let’s show them that the opposite will happen, that we will drive each other to recklessness. ’
‘It will be our greatest prank.’ A little smile teased her lips, the panic receding.
‘There are a few considerations, however. We’d have to spend a lot of time together, which we are currently not allowed.
We’d have to convince my parents we have accepted the match.
I’m not sure how to make such a volte-face believable. ’
‘I do.’ Alistair grinned mischievously. ‘You will have to trust me when the moment comes.’
‘Surprisingly enough, I do.’ She laughed. ‘I’m still not used to being on the same side of anything with you.’
‘I know. It was not that long ago that you nearly shot me.’
‘I did not. I knew precisely what I was aiming for.’ Then she sobered. ‘Your plan is not without auxiliary damage. We might survive it, but our reputations won’t. There will be talk, and we will be hurting people we care about.’
She was serious and so was he. ‘I know, Ismay.’ He paused, gathering his words and courage.
‘The night you asked me how I had reached the age of thirty-two without being married already, I didn’t answer you, not really.
I should answer you now. It’s because I am reckless, at least in my father’s eyes.
He thinks I don’t apply myself to anything, that I am wasting my talents.
And, if I may be so bold as to say it, I think your parents believe the same about you.
Our plan will live up to all of their fears for us.
’ And it would have to be done publicly.
Social gossip would become a tool of pressure to leverage against her parents.
‘Will you go to Florence, then, when this is over?’ she asked quietly.
‘I can stay with Hayes for a while. He can use the help. I enjoyed the vineyard work, being outdoors and seeing the literal fruits of my labours. My father would not be displeased with that decision.’ It might help to mitigate the sting of the broken pact, although his father would not be pleased that his Neapolitan gambit had failed to produce the desired results.
‘What about you? Leaving isn’t an option for you.
’ He’d not thought about that when he’d concocted this idea a half hour ago.
‘I will stay and ride out the scandal. It will be easier for me. I’m not the one who will be making outlandish wagers.
I will simply have been going about being myself as I have always done.
Perhaps I will plead a broken heart in the end.
After all, my parents have broken off the engagement to a man I loved,’ she added dramatically, a hand pressed to her breast. Alistair laughed.
She gave a wry smile. ‘It will fit my narrative. It won’t be the first time I’ve lost in love or had an engagement gone sour at the eleventh hour. ’
Alistair winced. There it was again, that reference to having lost at love, this time more specifically.
There had been a prior engagement. When this one failed, she’d be twice jilted.
That would not improve her odds of marrying.
Ever. ‘I didn’t know there’d been something previous.
Perhaps we ought to think of something different, something less harmful to you. ’
‘No, it’s fine. I don’t wish to marry at all, if you remember,’ she assured him. He did remember. She’d told him, sitting at the foot of her bed in her nightgown and robe.
‘Still, being jilted must have hurt, even if it was the right choice in the end.’ They were talking quietly now, their words underscored by the burble of the fountain.
‘Will you tell me about it?’ Alistair ventured.
The conversation had moved in a different direction, a personal direction.
They weren’t talking about the plan or the pact anymore.
This was a continuation of the conversation they’d started in her bedroom.
‘It was a long time ago, when I first came out in Naples Society. You recall, I mentioned I fell in love at eighteen? He was a viscount’s second son at the end of his Grand Tour.
He was quite taken with Naples and with me, at least I thought he was.
He professed to be taken enough to stay, to make a life here.
It seemed like a fairy tale until rumours started about him being a fortune-hunter.
In order to protect my funds, my father had very stringent settlements drawn up just in case the rumours were true.
A man in love would not have minded, but Edward Ashford minded a great deal.
The rumours were true. To save face, he told me he couldn’t possibly marry a woman who was so outspoken.
He made the broken engagement my fault instead of his. ’
She sighed. ‘He wasn’t wrong, though. I was outspoken. I am still outspoken, and I don’t intend to change, even though I know it’s not what any man wants. I simply don’t see a reason why I should give up my voice or my thoughts for a man.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’ There was a certain tragedy to her words.
They touched him unexpectedly and deeply.
He didn’t know Edward Ashford, but he felt a powerful urge to track him down and pummel him for wanting to stifle another individual, to use them for his own financial gain.
His need to protect was most definitely roused.
Not just a generic need to defend, but the need specifically to protect her, to protect Ismay Rose, a woman who would likely not thank him for the sentiment.
But sometimes it was the strong who needed protecting the most.
Footsteps sounded on the gravel path, and a voice called, ‘Ismay, are you out here?’
‘My father!’ Ismay whispered in recognition.
‘Do you trust me?’ Alistair leaned close, his words feathering against her lips. This was the moment to seize if they were to make their new ruse compelling.
‘What are you doing?’ Her eyes flared wide, her breath caught, hitching in her throat, because she knew very well what he was doing and it excited her, which was another matter altogether because, in truth, it excited him, too.
‘Shh,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘We are about to convince your father we’ve accepted the match.’