completely overwhelmed her, sweet gestures such as paying her abigail to deliver notes to her.
Those single lines written in a bold masculine scrawl had been devastating.
After they wed he fucked her abigail, but at the time Isabel had taken the girl’s adoration of the dashing peer as a sign that he was the right choice for a husband.
The week before her coming-out ball, he climbed the elm outside her bedroom balcony, and snuck boldly into her room. She was sure only pure love could goad him to take such a risk. Pelham had whispered to her in the darkness, his voice raw with lust as he stripped away her night rail, and loved her with his mouth and hands.
A sennight of midnight liaisons and decadent pleasure had garnered her total supplication. The consummation on the seventh night had guaranteed she was his. She had entered her first Season completely off the market, and while her father would have preferred a peer of higher station, he did not gainsay her choice.
Only enough time for the reading of the banns was allowed before they married, and then they’d fled the city for a blissful honeymoon in the countryside. There she had been overjoyed to lie in bed with Pelham for days on end, rising only to bathe and eat, wallowing in carnal delights as Gray wished to do now. The similarities between the two men could not be ignored. Not when the thought of both men made her heart race and her palms damp.
“What the devil are you doing, Bella?”
Isabel blinked, quickly regaining her awareness of her surroundings. She stood at the top of the staircase, her hand on the rail, lost in thought. Her mind was sluggish from lack of sleep, and her body was sore and tired. Shaking her head, she stared down into the foyer and met the scowling countenance of her older brother, Rhys, Marquess of Trenton.
“Is it your intention to hang about up there all day? If so, I consider my obligation to you met, and I will be off to find more pleasant adventures.”
“Obligation?” She descended to him.
He smiled. “If you have forgotten, do not look to me to remind you. It’s not as if I wish to go.”
Rhys’ hair was a dark mahogany, an absolutely glorious color that set off his tan skin and hazel eyes. The ladies went a bit batty around him, but occupied with his own pleasures, he scarcely paid them any mind. Unless he found them sexually attractive. The simple fact was, he was very much like their mother when it came to the opposite sex. A woman to him was a physical convenience, and when she was no longer convenient, she was easily discarded.
Isabel knew that neither her mother nor brother had any malicious intent. They simply could not see why any of their lovers would fall in love with an individual who did not return the sentiment.
“Lady Marley’s breakfast,” she said, as she remembered. “What is the time?”
“Nearly two.” His jaded gaze raked her from head to toe. “And you are just rolling out of bed.” His mouth curved knowingly. “Apparently, the rumors of your reconciliation with Grayson are true.”
“Do you believe everything you hear?” Reaching the marble foyer, she tilted her head back to look up at her brother.
“I believe everything I see. Reddened eyes, bruised mouth, clothing you chose without thinking clearly.”
Isabel glanced down at her somewhat simple muslin day gown. It was not what she would have selected had she remembered her schedule for the day. Of course, thinking back on it now, Mary had questioned the garment, but Isabel had been so anxious to leave the room before Gray accosted her again that she had waved off the soft query.
“I will not discuss my marriage with you, Rhys.”
“Thank God for that,” he said with a shudder. “Deuced annoying when women start discussing their feelings.”
Rolling her eyes, she requested her pelisse from the nearby servant. “I do not have feelings for Grayson.”
“Quite sensible.”
“We are just friends.”
“Obviously.”
As she secured her hat with a hat pin, she shot him a sidelong glance. “What did I promise you again, in return for your escort? Whatever it is, it is worth more than your company.”
Rhys laughed, and Isabel silently acknowledged his appeal. There was something about men who could not be tamed. Thankfully she had grown out of the fascination for such hopeless sport long ago.
“You are introducing me to the lovely Lady Eddly.”
“Ah, yes. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t agree to such a blatantly obvious pairing, but in this case I think you two are perfect for one another.”
“I definitely agree.”
“I am having a dinner party…eventually. You and Lady Eddly are both invited as of this moment.” Having Rhys there would help to calm her nerves. And she would need all the assistance in that regard as she could muster. The mere thought of surviving a dinner with Gray and a bevy of his former paramours made her stomach roil.
Sighing at her predicament, Isabel shook her head. “Horribly uncouth of you to use your sister in this manner.”
“Ha,” Rhys scoffed, collecting her pelisse from the returning maid and holding it out for her. “Dreadful of you to drag me along to a breakfast, and at the Marley residence no less. Lady Marley always smells of camphor.”
“It is not as if I wish to go either, so cease your whining.”
“You wound me, Bella. Men do not whine.” With his hand on her shoulder, he spun her to face him. “Why are we attending if you doubt your enjoyment of the event?”
“You know why.”
He snorted gently. “I wish you would disregard what others thought about you. I personally find you the least annoying woman I know. Straightforward, pleasant to look upon, and capable of witty discourse.”
“I suppose your opinion is the only one that matters.”
“Is it not?”
“I wish I could ignore the gossip,” she grumbled, “but the Dowager Lady Grayson feels the need to bring it to my attention as often as possible. Those horrid notes she sends infuriate me. I wish she would just spit her venom out, rather than attempt to hide it beneath a thin layer of civility.” Isabel stared into her brother’s resigned features. “I have no notion how Grayson grew up sane with that harridan as a mother.”
“You do realize that women who look as you do often have trouble with other females? Catty creatures that you are. You cannot bear it when one woman attracts excessive masculine attention. Not that you have ever experienced that particular kind of jealousy,” he finished dryly. “You are always the woman attracting the regard.”
She had experienced other kinds of jealousy though, such as the kind a wife experiences when the bed her husband ruts in is not her own.
“Which is why I associate with men more so than women, though that has its pitfalls, too.” Isabel was aware that other women found her appearance off-putting, but there was nothing she could do about that. “Let’s be off then.”
Both of Rhys’ brows rose into his hairline. “I must pay my respects to Grayson. I cannot simply abscond with his wife. The last time I did that, he gave me a brutal pummeling in the pugilist rings at Remington’s. The man is much younger than I, take pity on me.”
“Write him a note,” she said curtly, shivering at the image of her husband with his hair still damp. Just thinking of it reminded her of the night before and the way he had taken her.
“Don’t have feelings for Grayson, indeed.” Rhys’ hazel gaze was blatantly skeptical.
“Wait until you marry, Rhys. The need to escape occasionally will become all too clear.” With that in mind, she gestured impatiently toward the door.
