“Lovers and spouses are two very different things, would you not agree? She will become attached to you if you continue on your present course. And women can be positively demonic when their affections are rebuffed.”
“Attached to me?” Gerard asked softly as wonder filled him. If this morning’s playful affection was any indication of what Pel was like when attached, he wanted more of it. All of it. Today was the best day of his life. What if all of his days could be like this one? “I’ve no intention of rebuffing her. I want her, Trenton. I intend to keep her happy.”
“To the exclusion of all others? Nothing less will content her. For some unknown reason, she has odd delusions of love and fidelity in marriage. She certainly did not learn that in our family. From faery tales, perhaps, but not from a firm grounding in reality.”
“No others,” Gerard said, distracted. He looked ahead, wishing he could see his wife from this vantage. As if she felt his silent demand for the sight of her, she appeared and waved, causing him to take an involuntary step toward her.
“You are champing at the bit,” Trenton observed.
“How should I win her heart?” Gerard asked. “With wine and roses? What do women consider romantic?”
Wildflowers picked as afterthoughts and off-the-top-of-his-head poems had lured Em, but his goals were different now, more important. He could not leave this to chance. Everything for Isabel had to be perfect.
“You are asking
Gerard frowned. Pel would know and he longed to ask her, just as he had always turned to her for advice and her opinions. But in this instance, he was quite definitely on his own. “I will puzzle it out.”
“I am glad you appreciate her, Grayson. I often wondered what Pelham was looking for outside of wedlock when he had Isabel so smitten within it. He was a god to her in the beginning.”
“He was an idiot. I am no god to Pel. She is well aware of all my shortcomings. If she can see past them, it will be a miracle.” He began walking and Trenton fell into step beside him.
“I would think that to love a person in spite of their faults, rather than because you cannot see those faults, would be the deeper of the two attachments.”
Considering that thought a moment, Gerard broke out in a grin. Which faded as they rounded a large tree and he saw Hargreaves speaking with Isabel. She laughed at something said to her, and the earl’s returning look was both open and fond. They stood together with an obvious familiarity.
Inside him, something twisted and churned. His fists clenched. Then she saw him, and excused herself, moving toward him swiftly.
“What delayed you?” she asked, taking his arm with blatant ownership.
The writhing thing inside him quieted and he exhaled audibly. He wished he were alone with her, talking with her as they had last night when they’d returned to their rooms. Lying in bed with Pel curled to his side and their fingers linked over his chest, he had told her about Emily. Told her about what he had discovered about himself, and listened to her assurances and voice of reason.
“You are not a bad man,” she had said. “Merely one who was young and in need of adoration after living with a mother who could do nothing but chastise you.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“You are complicated, Gerard, but that does not mean it is not something simple that goads you.”
“Such as?”
“Such as saying farewell to Emily.”
Puzzled, he asked, “How am I to do that?”
She rose to hover above him, her eyes glowing with the reflection of the firelight. “In your heart. In person. In any way at all.”
He shook his head.
“You should. Perhaps during a long walk. Or you could write her a letter.”
“Visit her grave?”
“Yes.” Her smile took his breath away. “Whatever you need to do to say good-bye and set aside your guilt.”
“Will you go with me?”
“If you wish me to, of course I will.”
In the space of an hour, she changed his self-loathing to self-awareness and acceptance. She made everything seem right, made every challenge bearable, made the completion of difficult tasks seem possible. He longed to provide the same for her, to be as valuable a partner to her as she was to him.
“And you?” he asked. “Will you allow me to help you make peace with Pelham?”
She lowered her cheek to his chest, her hair spilling over his shoulder and arm. “Anger at his memory has strengthened me for so long,” she said softly.
“Strengthened
Her sigh blew hot across his skin. “Why do you pry at me?”
“You said this was enough, but it isn’t. I want all of you. I am not inclined to share parts of you with any man- dead or living.”
Her breathing stilled until he almost shook her in alarm. Then she gasped and clung to him, her legs tightening around his, her hands clutching his shoulders. He embraced her just as fiercely in return.
“You can hurt me,” she whispered. “Do you understand that?”
“But I will not,” he vowed, his lips to her hair. “Eventually, you will come to believe that.”
After a time, they drifted into sleep, the deepest slumber Gerard had known in many years, because he was no longer trudging through his day waiting for it to end. He had something to look forward to upon waking.
“Isabel,” he said now, leading her a short distance away from the other guests. Ways to win her deeper affections sifted through his brain. “I should like very much to take you to my estate tomorrow.”
She glanced aside at him from beneath her hat, the jaunty angle revealing the curve of her lips and not much more. “Gerard, you may take me anywhere.”
The double entendre was not lost on him. It was a beautiful day, his marriage was on the mend, he had romance on his mind and in his heart. Nothing could steal his contentment. He was about to reply, his heart light at Pel’s teasing banter…
The crossly voiced intrusion could not have come at a worse time.
Heaving out a disappointed breath, he turned reluctantly to face his mother. “Yes?”
“You cannot continue to avoid the other guests. You must attend this afternoon’s treasure hunt.”
“Certainly.”
“And supper this evening.”
“Of course.”
“And the ride scheduled for tomorrow.”
“My apologies, madam, but I cannot oblige you there,” he said smoothly, finding her overbearing tendencies lacking their usual irritating effect. Even his mother could not ruin his day. “I have the time reserved for Lady Grayson.”
“Have you no shame?” the dowager snapped.
“Scarcely any, no. I thought you knew that.”
Isabel bit off a laugh and looked away quickly. He somehow managed to keep his face impassive.
“What is so important that you would abandon your hosts again?”
“We travel to Waverly Court tomorrow.”
“Oh.” His mother frowned at him a moment, an expression so common to her countenance that lines permanently etched its passing. “I should like to go. I’ve not been there in many years.”
Gerard was silent a moment, remembering suddenly that his parents had spent some time in residence there. “You are welcome to join us.”
The smile she bestowed on him startled, the transformation of her features was so unnerving. But it disappeared as quickly as it came. “Now come join the rest of the party, Grayson, and behave yourself as is appropriate to your station.”
Watching his mother walk away, he shook his head. “I hope you can disregard her gloom.”
