Was it a surprise? Had he touched on a possibility?
“I feel very comfortable. It’s when I’m around lots of people that I become anxious, and the walls seem to close in on me . . .” Her voice trailed off as she looked toward the entrance.
He may have ventured too far. He surely didn’t want to end their outing with her feeling he had pried into her business with no right. But he wanted to know. He needed to push a little more. Michael reached over and covered a gloved hand with his own. “Would you mind if I asked you a question? Of course, if you did not wish to answer, I would understand.”
“I’d prefer to hear the question first,” she said, cautiously.
Michael addedwiseto her list of attributes. “At dinner, you mentioned your aversion to crowds, yet in our interactions, you don’t seem reticent.” Softening his tone, he asked, “Has this fear of crowds always existed, or was there something in your past that could have happened around the time you first recall being averse to crowds?” He gave her hand an affectionate squeeze. “I wonder what causes it. There is nothing I would ever want to do to cause you pain, including making you my duchess.”
Isabelle startled. This man continued to surprise her with his sensitivity. She started to reply that nothing had happened and opened her mouth to say as much, but closed it as a childhood memory flashed in front of her.Marcus’s abduction.It was something she never discussed. Reminders of that day usually made her physically sick, and Isabelle did her best to push it from her mind. Instead of the usual nausea, she felt an unusual sense of calm and a need to talk. She swallowed, hesitant to allow the memory to mar the day she was having, and shakily took another sip of her tea, aware he was watching her.
Unaccountably, having kissed him, she relaxed. Even his jarring question had not supplanted her sense of comfort. Reminding herself of what her governess had taught her many years ago, she took a deep breath and inhaled the aroma of the tea before taking another sip, allowing the tea to soothe her nerves and calm her. She could feel it working. Usually, she would think of something else and move away from the topic, but he had asked a question. She swallowed. “I lost my twin brother. One minute he was picking some flowers for Mama, then people were everywhere, and he was gone.” A tear escaped and rolled down her cheek before she swiped at it.
“My parents spoke of it often, for a period. Then, they stopped speaking of it once it became hopeless,” Michael said. His voice was gentle. “Your brother seemed to disappear into thin air with no trace of his whereabouts.”
Isabelle felt a nervous tightening in her throat and swallowed past a lump that formed whenever she thought of her twin. Marcus never left her thoughts, but no one spoke of him, mostly because her parents no longer mentioned him. It was as if he had never existed. Only her brother, Garrett, would mention her twin to her. He had adored his little brother. “Marcus and I had gone to Hyde Park with our nanny. We had been picking flowers for Mama and saw some by the river on the other side of the road. Marcus ran to get them. I tried to follow, but horses and some carriages whisked past on the road, and I had to wait. I ran to Marcus and helped him pick the flowers he found. Then, a man yelled something about a dog being in the water, and my brother took off towards where people were gathered looking at the dog.” She pulled her free hand from the table and shoved it protectively in her pocket, fisting and flexing it as she thought about her brother. “I saw a man with black hair hold Marcus by the shoulders, with a hand around his mouth. Someone passed in front of him, and he was gone.” The words grazed her throat. She remembered dropping her flowers and running after her brother, screaming his name. No one stopped to help. They were all looking at the water.
“Who was gone? The man or your brother?” Michael asked.
“Both. No one could find them. The dog . . . wasn’t a dog. It was just a log in the water,” she murmured. “My parents hired everyone to hunt for Marcus, but nothing. I found the flowers he had picked, but they were all that was left.” She winced as a reminder of the pain of that day pierced her heart. The day had been cold, much like this one. And she recalled the feeling from that day long ago when she couldn’t breathe. Her neck ached as if someone was choking her. Marcus. The twins had always had a sense of the other. He was in trouble, and she knew it. Only he was gone. Forever gone.
“Are you alright?” he asked, as he stared into her eyes. “I would not have asked a question that could evoke such obvious pain.”
“Yes . . . I think so,” she breathed, her eyes on his. She wanted to talk about Marcus—needed to. She missed him terribly.
“I recall my father getting involved. They looked throughout London for your brother, and nothing,” Michael said, his voice suddenly gloomy.
“They believe he’s gone—my parents believe it, that is. But I don’t feel that way and never have. My brother is alive, somewhere.” Isabelle looked up at Michael, as she touched her heart. “I feel it here. Maybe it is a twin thing. As children, we always seemed to know what the other was thinking, and we did everything together. Even today, it feels like I’m only one half of who I’m supposed to be.”
“What about the nanny? Where was she in this?” Michael asked.
“I remember seeing her speaking to a man before Marcus vanished,” Isabelle said. “Miss. Johns told Father she was asking about Marcus. But I remember telling her Marcus was gone before she started looking.” She stopped talking for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve recounted this day in what seems like a lifetime. I told my parents as much as I could remember, but I wonder if I told them that.”
“I assume your father dismissed her,” Michael said, squeezing her hand.
She felt herself relax and withdrew her hand from her skirt, placing it back on the table. “He did. I do not know where she might be. She always preferred Marcus to me, and I remember being angry that she had let Marcus get lost,” Isabelle said, smiling a little. “It seems ridiculous to even say. Of course, she couldn’t know, but the little girl in me saw it differently.”
“That’s interesting. I doubt anyone in the ton would have hired her after so famously losing a child she was supposed to be watching. She must have left town,” Michael said.
She exhaled, as if having held her breath the entire time, and gazed up at him. “I cannot believe I could have this conversation about my brother without dissolving into a pool of tears. Do you think there could be some connection to my aversion to crowds?” She had not forgotten the question that had prodded her to open herself to him. “I’ve been thinking about Marcus a lot lately. I’m not sure why.”
“Perhaps talking about him today was needed,” Michael said, leaning slightly up from the table and cupping her face gently in his hands. “I had not intended to open such a wound.” Glancing toward the partition behind her, where she could hear Martha’s voice firmly engaged in conversation with the others at her table, Michael gave her lips a gentle kiss. “Do you feel up to walking about the ruins with me? A turn in the fresh air might be good.”
“That would be lovely, as long as you promise another cup of hot tea before we return.”
“I do,” he said, standing and helping her up. He walked to where their coats were laying and held her pelisse for her before putting on his own. As he spoke with the servants, a familiar barking sound drew her to the opening of the tent, and she peeked through just as a small, muddied dog ran up to her and jumped on her skirts.
“Chase, what in the world are you doing here? You’re so dirty. Did you run through the mud?” she asked soothingly, as she bent over to pick him up. He licked her face and squirmed to get down, running a few feet and then coming back to her. “What do you want to show me?”
“Is that your dog?” Michael asked, coming up behind her. “I can ask the footman to clean him . . .”
“No, I’m used to it. He gets into things, and I’m constantly bathing him. Although he has never followed me like this. We are a formidable distance from my house. How in the world would he have kept up?”
“Spaniels have excellent tracking abilities. Have you been tracking something today, little fellow?” Michael stooped down and petted him on the forehead, but Chase ran to Isabelle and tugged on her dress with his teeth. “He wants to show us something. Should we ride our horses and see where he wants to take us?” Michael asked. “I’ll tell the footman our plans have changed and ask Peter to follow at a distance, just in case—with a blanket,” he added at the last minute, signaling to his footman. “It would be frigid out here for a small wet puppy like him.”
He spoke with the servants and returned a moment later. “Chase, show us what you want us to see.”
ChapterFive
