Emily’s stomach dropped.
She hadn’t really believed Marlbury would have taken Isabella all the way down here without also taking her to bed, but to see such blatant proof—neither Emily nor Isabella owned such garments—made her feel as though she had swallowed ice.
“Let her go without a fight, and this doesn’t have to be hard,” Oliver was saying to Marlbury.
“She has no wish to go with you,” Marlbury said, that sneer still in his voice. “She thinks you abandoned her, Beaumont, and I can’t say she was wrong. I never thought you’d be the type to choose the ugly sister, but I misjudged you.”
“Enough.”
Emily held out her hand to Isabella. No matter what Isabella had done, all she could feel at the sight of her sister’s pale, resentful face was pity. This was a cruel fate for someone so young, and she probably hadn’t realised quite how dire things had become.
“Listen to me, Bella,” she said. “I know he has promised you marriage, but he won’t ever go through with it. He lied to you so you would be quiet and compliant, and I know he was convincing. Believe me.” She took a single step up the stairs, and when Isabella didn’t flee, another. “But if you stay here with him, you won’t have a future.”
Isabella’s scared eyes flicked from Emily’s face to one side. Marlbury leaned in over Emily’s shoulder, his breath stinking of brandy. “Do you recall how convincing I am, Emily? It’s been such a long time; I thought for sure you had forgotten me.”
The next second, his head was wrenched back, and Oliver stood between them, his face alive with fury. “Don’t touch her!”
“Lord Marlbury,” Emily said, gathering herself, her fingers aching on the pistol handle. “Tell my sister, if you please, what you truly intend with her.”
Marlbury grinned lazily up at Isabella, not seeming to mind that Oliver stood primed to hit him. He must be further gonethan Emily had imagined, the brandy dulling his reactions. “I have lots of things planned for us, love,” he called up the stairs. “Come down now and tell them that you would rather stay with me.”
“No man who intends to marry a lady would bring her to St James’s Street,” Emily said.
Isabella ventured a little further down the stairs, her nightgown clinging to thighs. “Victor,” she said, a plaintive note in her voice. “Stop playing around and tell them the truth.”
“The truth is that he will not marry anyone like us,” Emily said, shrugging out of her cloak and hurrying up the stairs. “I know it must be hard to accept, dearest, but you must. I won’t allow him to ruin everything.”
But Isabella was now staring wide-eyed down at Emily’s hand. “What isthat?” she demanded tremulously.
“A pistol,” Marlbury said with apparent indifference. “She means to take you from me by force, love. Are you going to let her?”
“Don’t call my sisterlove!” Emily snapped. “You don’t care the slightest bit for her or you wouldn’t have ruined her.”
Isabella shook her head, blonde hair swinging around her head. “You don’t understand. He wants me.”
“That’s right,” Marlbury called, swaying a little. “Tell them.”
Oliver grabbed Marlbury’s loose cravat with his good hand. “Shut up,” he hissed.
“Lust is not a reason for a gentleman like Lord Marlbury to choose marriage.” Emily brushed the hair back from Isabella’s face tenderly. “You foolish girl. I know you wanted your revenge on me, but this was not the way to take it.”
“Bring her downstairs, Emily,” Oliver said, shoving Marlbury back to clear a space at the bottom of the stairs. “Let’s leave before things get ugly.”
Marlbury smiled, and it was as though a stone dropped into the very pit of Emily’s stomach. Unnamed dread, a sense of the pained inevitable. “Oh,” he said, raising his glass as though to toast them all, “things are already about to get ugly.”
Then he smashed the glass against the side of Oliver’s head.
Chapter Thirty-One
PainexplodedacrossOliver’shead. In a distant way, he knew shards of glass had sliced into his skin. His head rang, and his vision blurred. Someone screamed—Isabella.
Abang.
Shaking the dizziness away, Oliver moved, grabbing Marlbury with his good arm and hurling him at the ground. A vase crashed against the floor.
Blood dripped down the side of Oliver’s face.
To his right, he could see a hole through the wallpaper where Emily’s shot had hit.
