Isabel pushed to her feet and paced the room. “Because…my future is already laid out. My father ensured it. Now my uncle intends to do the same. Neither one is worried about my heart, my body…just my financial security. It is the way of our world, but it is so…”
Sarah sighed. “Depressing. To think that there would never be…love or passion.”
Isabel turned and found Sarah’s head bent. She moved to her and caught her hands. “How bad is it?”
Sarah pursed her lips. “You want to change the subject and we shall, but not yet. I understand why, I do. And so do you. But what will you do?”
“I don’t know,” Isabel said with a shudder. “What can I do after…this? I don’t want to believe that Tyndale is a killer. Not after last night. Honestly, not even before. But now I’ve…I’ve given myself to him and that was never in the plan to begin with. So whatdoI do?”
“Does he know who you are?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t think so. My mask remained on, somehow. And even if it had come off, we never met.”
“You didn’t?” Sarah seemed surprised.
“You and I are from different worlds.” Isabel shrugged. “I wasn’t raised to go to Society parties like you were. Perhaps I could have done thanks to my mother’s connection to Uncle Fenton, but my father was against it. A lower-class snob, my uncle called him.”
“But still, you were family. Close enough for your uncle to take you in once your husband died and your mother and father were gone.”
The look on Sarah’s face told Isabel that she was thinking of her own mother, so sick in a bedroom above. Isabel clenched her friend’s hands tighter in support.
“No, never met. If they had married, I would have. I was invited to the wedding. But of course Angelica died before it could happen. I just know him due to portraits and my uncle pointing him out if we passed him in a carriage or a park.”
“Isn’t it possible he saw a portrait of you?” Sarah suggested.
“I suppose it is. But it’s doubtful. Angelica didn’t carry miniatures of me around, I assure you. If he saw one of me in my uncle’s home, it would have been one done when I was a little girl. There would be no way for him to recognize me.”
Sarah seemed to ponder that a moment. Then she gave Isabel a look. “Could you…could you use the opportunity to investigate him?”
Isabel drew back. She’d been so wrapped up in abject terror and confusion and heated memories of being in the man’s bed, she hadn’t thought of that as a possibility. “How do you mean?” she asked.
“He wanted you,” Sarah said. “Enough that he gave you a wonderful and erotic night in his arms.”
Isabel shuddered slightly. “You forgot terrifying. If you’re going to throw my words back at me, throw them all.”
“But it was terrifying because you, the planner, did not control or expect what happened, yes?” Sarah pressed.
Isabel sighed. “Yes. It was the shock of it, and of discovering his identity, that made me say terrifying.”
“Well, then your running away likely only increased his desire.”
Isabel wrinkled her brow. “Is that true?”
Sarah stared off toward the window for a moment, her expression pinched. “When ladies run, gentlemen follow.”
Isabel’s lips parted. The bitterness in her friend’s tone reminded her that Sarah was more involved in the world of Matthew and his friends than she was. And it had ended badly.
“Are you thinking of the Duke and Duchess of Crestwood?” she asked. “That situation two summers ago?”
Sarah glanced at her. Isabel knew there were few people she had told that story to. That her friend had thought for a moment that Crestwood might be interested, but his passion for Meg had been too powerful, despite her engagement to his friend. The entire situation had exploded, and in a moment in her cups, Sarah had said something to Meg and been taken to task on it.
Now Sarah’s cheeks were dark with embarrassed color. “They’re well matched,” she admitted at last. “It’s obvious they deeply love each other. I just…I’ve lost so much since then. I think I regret the opportunity, the last one I had, rather than the man.”
“I wish I could help you.”
“You can’t,” Sarah said. “I am in the position I am in. There is nothing that can be done about it. But you are in adifferentposition. You’ll be taken care of, no matter what happens. So you can do things so youdon’tregret the opportunity or the man.”
“Are you talking about the opportunity to, as you say, investigate Tyndale, or to have an excuse to see him again?” Isabel asked.
