“Remember, Isabel,” Montfort continued, “your dear Papa’s life. Eva and her sweet, little Ariel’s lives, depend on your actions tomorrow. Do not fail them now.”
Montfort exited the room first. Isabel stood still, her feet mired in quicksand. It wasn’t only the weight of what she would do tomorrow that had her legs refusing to budge, but, more, the reminder of Papa’s parting words to her, his true ones.
Do not let Montfort use me as a weapon to manipulate you into doing his bidding. Promise me, cariña.
She’d nodded her promise through tears, but she hadn’t obeyed. How could she? How could she abandon Papa to rot in a prison in Madrid? How could she abandon the future she and Eva were building with their shop in London? And Ariel? What of his future if she failed?
She must see this one, awful thing through.
Tomorrow.So soon.Too soon.
At last, she picked up her feet and made her numb way to the main assembly room. Once there, she feltit, a frisson of specific energy pulsating through the air, of the sort but one man held the power to spark.
Percy had returned.
It was as if the man had the power to alter the very chemistry of oxygen into an element more vibrant.
Across the room, he stood, the long, lean line of his body suggesting ease, a looseness, as he made light conversation with the Duchess, the mayor, and the mayor’s wife. But one would be wrong to accept that surface appraisal. His dark eyes were scanning the room. He was searching for her, Isabel knew it. A shudder of excitement raced through her. Then his gaze found her and slowly raked up her body until, at last, he locked onto her eyes, and her heart gave the flutterypitter-patof a girl experiencing love for the first time.
Oh.
Another flutter.
Was she, in fact, that girl,now?
He broke the contact to answer a question, and Isabel noticed his daughter at his side, her arm linked through his, her bright gaze taking him in without a hint of her customary resentment. A shift had occurred between father and daughter, possibly a reconciliation. Isabel’s heart found this one flicker of light through the darkness.
“Ah, Lady Percival,” the Duchess called out, her thoroughly bejeweled hand—Isabel counted no fewer than ten diamonds of varying shapes and sizes twinkling in the light—waving Isabel over. “Do join our discussion of the benefits of a morning ice bath upon one’s constitution.” The woman’s singular focus returned to the mayor and his wife who appeared as-yet unconvinced. “I haven’t been feeling quite the thing of late as it’s middle of summer, and there is no ice to be had in this charming hamlet of yours.” One could see she wasn’t charmed in the least.
Unable to resist, Isabel cut Percy a quick glance, certain they would share in a private amusement. The Duchess could be too much at times. Even so, one couldn’t help but delight in her. That was what they would exchange with a single look.
What she found in his eyes, however, sent her blood running cold.
Flinty and hard was the way he stared down at her. Quite the opposite of the man who, as recently as half an hour ago, had been sending her looks that could light a furnace and keep it ablaze through winter. His expression now was the stuff of a January snow storm.
A chilling shard stabbed through her. What had changed in the last half hour?
A jolly chuckle erupted from the mayor. “A jump into icy water? That sounds exactly the sort of business a young Lord Percival Bretagne would get up to. Seem to remember a tale about a January dip in the sea on a dare. The boy was the scourge of the county in his day.”
A sheepish smile played about Percy’s mouth, even as the Duchess remained undeterred. “I’ve no interest in saltwater and seaweed, I can assure you, Squire Noble.”
A determined Miss Bretagne cut in, “What’s thisscourgebusiness?”
The mayor barked another merry laugh. “The boy was—if you don’t mind me saying all these years later—the sort of young buck who had a bit of wildness to him.” The mayor’s wife nodded her emphatic agreement. Miss Bretagne’s smile broadened. “Much in the habit of riding breakneck across the countryside and flying down the lanes at speeds too precipitate for our environs, which tend toward the dozy and content. Discomposed more than one of our venerable citizens.”
Eyes wide and serious, Mrs. Noble inserted. “Old Charlie Martin claimed it drove him to drink.”
The squire waved the notion away with a dismissive flick of the wrist. “Eh, twaddle. Charlie Martin was draining ten cups a day to the dregs before Lord Percival was in leading strings.”
Miss Bretagne shot her father an admiring glance. Percy returned it with an indulgent smile, one that said she was getting no more from him on the matter of his uncivilized youth. Their reconciliation would have warmed Isabel were it not for Percy’s altered manner toward herself. The freeze of his cold shoulder hurt.
“Speaking of horses,” Squire Noble began, “it has been a long while since we’ve seen Gardencourt’s stable run. Word has it you still have the stock?”
“I’m thinking of trying it on at Newmarket in about two years’ time. Princess Polly just foaled a contender, I believe.”
“Princess Polly?” the mayor asked. “The Barb from Paragon’s line?”
“The very one.”
