“Only if you promise not to run away,” he said.
“I promise,” she said, one finger touching her own lips and then his. “On my word of honour, I will not run away.”
It was not much of an inn, just a low-built cottage with stables and a few rooms built on at the back, but it had a parlour and the innkeeper’s wife promised them a meal within the hour. It was too early for dinner, but neither of them had the energy to argue about it. A bottle of indifferent wine was found, and with a goblet in her hand, Izzy felt a great deal more normal, almost as if this strange interlude had never happened.
Yet it had. Her husband had been so desperate to keep her that he had abducted her and planned to keep her a prisoner until she agreed to be his wife again. It was astonishing, but gratifying, too. Helovedher, that was the amazing part of it all. For a while she walked back and forth, sipping her wine and treasuring the warm glow inside — he loved her.‘The shining light of his existence’,no less. How wonderful he was!
He made no effort to talk, simply watching her, a little smile on his face.
“Do you know why I married you?” she said, after a while.
“For the title and six thousand a year,” he said at once.
“Yes,” she said, laughing. “Dreadful, mercenary creature that I was.”
“No, it was a rational decision, completely dispassionate. I understood that. The title was always my best hope, for I could never compete with the rest of them in any other way. You made the sensible choice, not for love but because I was steady anddependable. You could look at me and know exactly what you were getting.”
“Oh yes, and look how the others turned out. Marsden is a skinflint, Davenport became drearily practical and even Robert—” She stopped, eyeing him sideways.
“It is all right, Izzy. You can talk about it. I know very well you were in love with him, for you have told me often enough. Perhaps you still are.”
“No,” she said slowly, settling on a worn sofa. “No, I do not believe so. When he sent me that note — that was your doing, of course. You engaged him to draw me out so that you could abduct me.” She giggled. “How delicious! Howromantic, and I never knew you had that in you. I thought I knew you so well! It is an odd thing, but everywhere I went on my travels reminded me of you. I went away with the intention of putting you aside for a while, but instead I kept remembering all your good qualities, and the happy times we have had. Then Robert’s note arrived, and I realised that I was not in love with him any longer. Perhaps I never was, for if I had been, surely I would have married him when he offered? But you are right — you were the only one of the four of you who was completely honest. You never put on airs or pretended to be what you were not. You never stooped to subterfuge to win me. You simply laid all your cards on the table and waited for me to decide. Whereas the others—”
She looked at him as he sat across the room, twirling the pewter goblet that was all the inn offered, not drinking his wine, just watching her, smiling. How she had missed him watching her! And now she knew why he did that.
Leaning forward, she went on, “That year was magical, Ian. I had spent my whole life, it seemed, preparing to be launched into society, learning how to be a lady that a man would want to marry, how to dance, how to perform in public. When Josie went off for her first season, I was wild with jealousy. London! TheMetropolis! That was life, to me, not my miserable existence in Yorkshire. Corland is soremote, and I was desperate to escape it. Josie came back still unwed, and quite unmoved by all the excitements of the season. I determined that I would marry before her, and oh, Ian, you cannot imagine how wonderful it was, that season. For three months, I was a queen, fêted and fawned over, surrounded by suitors, far more than Josie, but then she never cared about that. She was bored, I think, whereas I… I felt alive for the very first time. And then…”
“Then you married me and discovered how dull married life is,” he said.
She smiled. “No! Not at first, no. There was the excitement of the wedding and all my new clothes, the congratulatory calls and gifts, the dinners and balls held in my honour, and oh, the joy of being a viscountess! So shallow of me, but I loved every moment of it.”
“And Josie still had not married,” he put in.
“Very true. I felt so sorry for her. Then you allowed me a free hand with redecoration, which was the most amazing fun, even if I made a few mistakes.” He raised an eyebrow. “Very well, a lot of mistakes. And Helena came along, then Aurelia, and you were sweet about them being girls.”
“I care nothing about an heir. I married you for your extraordinary self, not for your breeding potential. You can have twenty girls for all I care. I have a vast supply of male cousins to inherit, and I have a plan to provide for a widow and numerous daughters if I should die without an heir and Henry throws you all out of Stonywell.”
“Of course you have,” she said, with a quick laugh. “It had never occurred to me, but naturally it occurred to you and you have made provision for such an event. For me, it was the horrible feeling that I had failed in my primary duty. Onedaughter… that was permissible. But two! I was very low after Aurelia, and then Robert—”
Again she stopped, but he went on evenly, “Robert unexpectedly inherited, and you must have wondered whether you had made the right choice.”
“Yes. Oh, not because ofyou. I had no complaint whatsoever about you.”
“Except that I am too dull for words.”
That made her laugh. “Not dull, no. You were, and are still, reliable and steady. No, it was Aurelia. If she had been a boy, I would have been more sure of myself, but two girls! It was as if God were mocking me for choosing with my head instead of throwing caution to the winds.”
“God does not mock.”
“No, no! I know that, but… somehow I began to wonder what my life might have been if… if I had chosen a different path. So when I found myself free… do you understand, Ian?”
He nodded, but his face, his expression that she had once thought so inscrutable was all too readable now. The pain she saw there twisted her heart agonisingly.
“Will you not come and sit beside me?” she said gently.
He shook his head. “I dare not. To be so close to you… so enticing… I want only to touch you… to hold you…”
“To ravish me?”
