CHAPTER TWO #2
The thought still creates a strange pressure in my chest. It is not fear; I have never doubted that I want to marry her. Perhaps it is possessiveness, though the word does not explain the calm that comes from knowing Isabella will be in that house when I return.
Peace, if I were the sort of man who used ridiculous words.
“Speaking of Isabella,” Richard says, “I saw her on Thursday.”
I look up. “Where?”
His hesitation is brief, but long enough to catch my attention.
“At the Beaumont.”
The Beaumont is a Mayfair hotel frequented by diplomats, foreign businessmen, and people willing to pay generously for discretion.
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Richard offers the word too quickly.
“Then why mention it?”
“You know how it is. She was probably working.”
“What was probably work?”
He sighs, as though I am forcing him to continue a conversation he began against his will. “She was with a man.”
I study my uncle and feel no jealousy. Not yet.
Isabella works with men. She meets clients in hotels, restaurants, and offices depending on what is convenient for the account. There is nothing unusual about that, and Richard knows it.
“Isabella was in a city of nearly nine million people and one of them happened to be male. Alarming.”
“I’m not implying anything.”
“Then you’re doing a remarkably poor job of it.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“We agree on something.”
Richard closes his mouth. Edmund gives me a look that clearly means ignore him, and I intend to. I know Isabella. I trust her, and I will not allow a vague remark to turn a work meeting into something it was not.
Then Richard adds, “It simply looked intimate.”
I turn back to him. “Intimacy is difficult to determine from the other side of a hotel lobby.”
“Alexander, I only—”
“Enough,” Edmund says.
The word is quiet, but the conversation ends immediately. My grandfather can still control a room without raising his voice.
Richard inclines his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
I do not believe Richard does anything without intention, but I will not give him the satisfaction of asking for details. If there is something about Thursday that I need to know, I will hear it from Isabella.
I rise and straighten my jacket. “If we’re finished, I have a fiancée to find.”
Edmund smiles. “Tell her she can still change her mind.”
“She’s already heard that today.”
“And what did she say?”
“She demonstrated her usual terrible judgment.”
My grandfather laughs, and the sound turns into a cough he tries to conceal behind his fist. For a moment, the man behind the desk actually looks eighty-four.
I consider saying something, then decide against it because Edmund would hate the concern. I simply hold his gaze until he catches his breath.
“Bring Isabella tomorrow,” he orders.
“I will.”
I leave the study and make it halfway down the corridor before I hear footsteps behind me.
“Alexander.”
I recognize Richard’s voice but keep walking.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says.
I stop and turn. “Do what?”
“Pretend what I said didn’t bother you.”
“I’m not pretending. It didn’t.”
“All right.”
His agreement is too mild, carefully neutral.
“Do you want it to bother me?”
He manages to look offended by exactly the right amount, as though even his indignation had been rehearsed in front of a mirror.
“Of course not. I simply don’t want you blindsided.”
“Why?”
Richard waits a moment before answering. “Because I’ve seen men lose everything by trusting the wrong person.”
I look at my uncle. Perhaps he is talking about the collapse of his own marriage or one of the countless scandals that have swept through our family over the years. Even so, there is something calculated about the way he chooses his words.
“Then choose better people.”
I leave him in the corridor before he has time to respond.
In the back of the car, I loosen my tie and watch London pass beyond the window.
The sky is grey, and the pavements still hold the sheen of the rain that fell earlier that morning.
My driver heads toward the house while I answer two messages from the board and delete an email that can wait until Monday.
My phone vibrates in my hand.
Isabella: Are you coming back for lunch?
I reply immediately.
Me: Yes.
The three dots indicating that she is typing appear, vanish, and return.
Isabella: I brought dessert.
Me: Is this a bribe?
Isabella: Maybe I did something.
I frown.
Me: What did you do?
Her answer takes longer than it should.
Isabella: Nothing. Forget it. Just come home.
I call before she can escape the conversation. Isabella answers on the third ring.
“Are you physically incapable of respecting suspense?”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Isabella.”
“Can you stop saying my name as though it’s a threat?”
“No.”
She laughs, and the sound removes the last trace of my conversation with Richard. I rest my head against the seat and picture her face, the brown eyes narrowing and her mouth curving into the smile that always appears when she is pretending to be annoyed with me.
“I’m coming home,” I say.
“Good.”
There is something different in her voice, a faint tension perhaps no one else would notice.
“Are you all right?”
The silence lasts less than a second, but it is there.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“Funny. I was about to say the same thing.”
I think about the Beaumont but do not ask, not over the phone and not because Richard decided to plant suspicion without offering anything more substantial than an impression.
“Alexander?” she says.
“I’m here.”
“Then why did you go quiet?”
“My grandfather was being particularly unbearable today.”
The change of subject is deliberate. Isabella notices, but she lets me have it.
“Does that mean he’s feeling better?”
“It means he tried to bribe the nurse into giving his brandy back.”
“So he’s feeling better.”
“That was my conclusion.”
She falls silent again, and I hear the faint sound of packaging being moved.
“What dessert did you buy?” I ask.
“I’m not telling you. You’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“I can send someone to find out.”
“If you turn my lunch into an intelligence operation, I’m eating all of it before you get home.”
“That would be a declaration of war.”
“I’m willing to take the risk.”
I smile. “In twenty-three days, you become my legally permanent problem.”
“Twenty-two,” she corrects. “You said so yourself.”
“I was testing whether you were paying attention.”
“Of course you were.”
“I knew you’d learn.”
“Just come home, Alexander.”
This time, the softness in her voice erases whatever sarcastic response I might have made.
“I’m already on my way.”
I end the call but keep the phone in my hands.
Outside the window, London passes in shades of grey, steel, and glass. I do not think about Richard or the Beaumont, nor do I imagine men walking into hotels beside my fiancée, because an insinuation has no power to change what I know.
I trust Isabella, and I love her. Love without trust would be only another kind of contract, and there are already enough contracts in my life.
Isabella told me that during an argument months ago, after her phone died and I demanded to know why she had not told me where she was.
She became furious with my questions and said that if I treated every silence as evidence of guilt, our love would never survive the first thing one of us failed to explain.
I remember the words because they irritated me, but I also remember them because she was right. I would never be the man who condemned Isabella because of a suspicion or allowed fear to weigh more heavily than everything I knew about her.
And I certainly would not need to learn that lesson the hard way.