“My love,” she gasped. And then she came apart in his arms.
Isabel awoke with a groan, knowing by the soft purplish color of the sky and her exhaustion that it must be just after dawn. She lay there a moment, her mind groggy, trying to determine what had disturbed her sleep.
Running her hands over her eyes, Isabel sat up and reached for her night rail to cover her nakedness. She glanced at the large-faced clock on the mantel and realized Markham had departed only two hours before. She had hoped to sleep until late afternoon, and still intended to do so, once she dealt with her recalcitrant swain. Whoever he was.
She shivered as she made her way to the window, where tiny pebbles hitting the glass provided the annoying sound. Isabel pushed up the sash and looked down at her rear garden. She sighed. “I suppose if I must be disturbed,” she called out, “it is best that it be for a sight as handsome as you are.”
The Marquess of Grayson grinned up at her, his shiny brown hair disheveled and his deep blue eyes red- rimmed. He was missing his cravat and the neck of his shirt gaped open, revealing a golden throat and a few strands of dark chest hair. He appeared to be lacking a waistcoat as well, and she could not help but smile back at him. Gray reminded her so much of Pelham when she had first met him nine years ago. Those had been happy times, short-lived as they were.
“O Romeo, Romeo!” she recited, taking a seat on the window bench. “Wherefore art thou-”
“Oh, please, Pel,” he groaned, cutting her off with that deep laugh of his. “Let me in, will you? It’s cold out here.”
“Gray.” She shook her head. “If I open my door to you, this incident will be all over London by supper time. Go away, before you are seen.”
He crossed his arms stubbornly, the material of his black jacket straining to contain his brawny arms and broad shoulders. Grayson was so young, his face as yet unlined. Still a boy in so many ways. Pelham had been the same age when he’d swept her off her seventeen-year-old feet.
“I am not leaving, Isabel. So you may as well invite me in, before I make a spectacle of myself.”
She could tell by the stubborn set of his jaw that he was serious. Well, as serious as a man such as him could be.
“Go to the front, then,” she relented. “Someone will be awake to admit you.”
Isabel rose from the window seat, and retrieved her white satin dressing robe. She left her bedroom and walked into her boudoir, where she opened the curtains to let in the now pale pink light. The room was her favorite, decorated in soft shades of ivory and burnished gold, with gilt-edged chairs and chaise, and tasseled drapes. But the soothing color scheme was not what most moved her. That distinction went to the only spot of obtrusive color in the space-the large portrait of Pelham that graced the far wall.
Every day she gazed upon that likeness, and allowed her heartbreak and loathing to rise to the surface. The earl was impervious, of course, his seductively etched mouth curved in the smile that had won her hand in marriage. How she had loved him, and adored him, as only a young girl could. Pelham had been everything to her, until she had sat at Lady Warren’s musicale and heard two women behind her discussing her husband’s carnal prowess.
Her jaw clenched at the memory, all her old resentment rushing to the fore. Nearly five years had passed since Pelham met his reward in a duel over a paramour, but she still smarted from the sting of betrayal and humiliation.
A soft scratching came to the door. Isabel called out and the portal opened, revealing the frowning countenance of her hastily dressed butler.
“My lady, the Marquess of Grayson requests a moment of your time.” He cleared his throat. “From the service door.”
Isabel bit back a smile, her dark mood fleeing at the image she pictured of Grayson standing haughty and arrogant, as only he could be, while semi-dressed and at the delivery entrance. “I am at home.”
A slight twitching of a gray eyebrow was the only indication of surprise.
While the servant went to fetch Gray, she went around the room and lit the tapers. Lord, she was weary. She hoped he would be quick about whatever was so urgent. Thinking of their earlier odd conversation, she wondered if he might not need some help. He could be a bit touched in the head.
Certainly they had been unfailingly friendly with one another, and beyond mere acquaintances, but never more than that. Isabel had always rubbed along well with men. After all, she liked them quite well. But there had been a respectful distance between her and Lord Grayson, because of her ongoing affair with Markham, his closest friend. An affair she had ended just hours ago, when the handsome viscount had asked her to marry him for the third time.
In any case, despite Gray’s ability to arrest her brain processes for a moment with his uncommon beauty, she had no further interest in him. He was Pelham all over again-a man too selfish and self-centered to set aside his own needs for another’s.
The door flew open behind her, startling her, and she spun about, only to be met head-on with over six feet of powerful male. Gray caught her around the waist and spun her about, laughing that rich laugh of his. A laugh that said he’d never once had a care in the world.
“Gray!” she protested, pushing at his shoulders. “Put me down.”
“Dear Pel,” he cried, his eyes alight. “I’ve had the most wondrous news told to me this morn. I’m to be a father!”
Isabel blinked, growing dizzy from lack of sleep and the spinning.
“You are the only person alive I could think of who might be happy for me. Everyone else will be horrified. Please smile, Pel. Congratulate me.”
“I will, if you put me down.”
The marquess set her on her feet and stepped back, waiting.
She laughed at his impatient expectation. “Congratulations, my lord. May I have the name of the fortunate woman who is to become your bride?”
Much of the joy in his blue eyes faded, but his charming smile remained. “Well, that would still be you, Isabel.”
Staring up at him, she tried to discern what he was about, and failed. She gestured to a nearby chair, and then sat herself.
“You really are quite lovely with sex-mussed hair,” Gray mused. “I can see why your lovers would mourn the loss of such a sight.”
“Lord Grayson!” Isabel ran a hand over the tangles in her long tresses. The present fashion was close-cropped curls, but she preferred a longer length, as did her paramours. “Please, I must hasten you to explain the purpose of your visit. It has been a long night and I am tired.”
“It has been a long night for me as well, I have yet to sleep. But-”
“Might I suggest you sleep on this wild idea of yours? Rested, I think you might see things differently.”
“I will not,” he said stubbornly, twisting to drape one arm over the back of the chair, a pose that was sultry in its sheer artlessness. “I’ve thought it through. There are so many reasons why we would be perfect for one another.”
She snorted. “Gray, you have no notion of how wrong you are.”
“Hear me out, Pel. I need a wife.”
“I do not need a husband.”
“Are you certain about that?” he asked, arching a brow at her. “I think you do.”
Isabel crossed her arms, and settled into the back of the chaise. Whether he was insane or not, he
“Think on it. I know you grow rather fond of your paramours, but you have to dismiss them eventually, and not due to boredom. You are not that type of woman. No, you have to release them because they fall in love with you, and then want more. You refuse to take married men to your bed, so all of your lovers are free and they all wish to marry you.” He paused. “But if you were already married…” Gray let his words hang in the air.
She stared at him. And then blinked. “What the devil do you gain out of such a marriage?”
