They stopped talking at once, exchanging looks with each other, pity and worry, fear and regret. He hated it all. He remembered it too well from all those years ago when these same men had rallied around him after Angelica’s passing. It was both a comfort and a vice around his heart.
“It is true that Winter arranged for a dramatic moment tonight, where Isabel and I would be caught,” he said softly. “But what was happening in that room when the door opened was no one’s fault but my own.”
He flashed back to those moments, of Isabel’s mouth on his, her body pressed between him and the wall. Her soft moans of pleasure as he treated her with an animal lack of control. That was not him. It never had been. But the moment he touched her it became…feral.
“My apologies to the ladies in the room,” Robert said, stepping forward. “But isn’t it possible this woman manipulated the scenario? To…trap you?”
Matthew bent his head. Just as it had always been from the first moment he realized who Isabel really was, his thoughts on her were complicated. Of course it was possible that she was in on the betrayals of her uncle. He knew that—he was no fool. After all, she would benefit greatly from a marriage to a duke. Many a lady had attempted the same thing in many a closed parlor.
And if she still suspected the same thing her uncle did, despite the hesitations she had expressed to Matthew in the past, she might even be willing to sacrifice her reputation to avenge the cousin she’d clearly loved.
The idea that nothing between them had ever been real turned his stomach. And yet, it wasn’t the only feeling he had. He remembered the look on her face when they’d been interrupted. The wavering shock in her voice when she confronted her uncle. The way she had thrown herself in front of Matthew and denied that she was being accosted.
“I don’t want to believe that. I want to believe that she is just as innocent a party as I am. After all, she asked me to come to the parlor to warn me.”
Now it was Lucas, the Duke of Willowby, who moved forward. He had spent years as a spy for the government, and in that moment it showed on his face, which was suddenly hard. “Warn you?” he repeated.
His lips parted. “She was trying to tell me that her uncle wanted to hurt me. I played it off. You all know how long he’s been railing against me, declaring I should be destroyed for what he thinks I’ve done. But it seems he has made good at last. And this is his first step in some larger plan.”
Lucas’s wife Diana reached out to take her husband’s hand. Her expression was just as troubled as the others, despite her being the newest addition to their group. “You think there is danger.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps. And if Isabel is truly an innocent in Winter’s plans, then that danger might extend to her, as well.”
His stomach tightened. He already knew what it was like to lose someone he cared for. He had experienced the pain of screaming out someone’s name and getting no answer from the limp body in his arms.
He never wanted to repeat that. Never.
“So you will marry this woman,” Charlotte said, resting her hand on the swell of her belly she shook her head sadly. “Oh, Matthew.”
He shrugged. “There is nothing else to do about it. Not after what happened tonight. He has forced my hand, and now it must play out. I’ll arrange for a special license tomorrow and have the wedding as soon as possible.”
James, Duke of Abernathe and long the leader of their group, grabbed for Matthew’s arm. “Don’t rush this, Matthew.”
“I must,” he said, staring into his friend’s eyes. Seeing the pain James felt for him. “For her sake, for my own. At least it will remove Isabel as a pawn in his game.”
“Or put her squarely in position to take everything,” Hugh snapped. “You are a fool if you consider her a pawn and not an all-powerful queen on the board.”
Matthew flinched. It was easy to think of Isabel as a queen, in truth. Just not the kind who would come into his world and destroy it. And he could only hope he was correct in that assessment.
“I appreciate the concern and the pitying stares and all that,” he said to the group at large. “But this is happening now. And the best thing you can do for me is to just support me in it.”
“Or course,” Baldwin said, reaching out to squeeze Hugh’s arm before he offered a hand to Matthew. “Congratulations, my friend.”
There was no denying the mournful tone of Baldwin’s voice, but Matthew took the offering. They shook, Baldwin’s eyes holding his steady and true. He nearly buckled beneath the support. And when the others came up to offer the same, he felt their strength and their love flowing through him, buoying him as it had so many times before.
“It’s the middle of the night,” James said when everyone had taken their turn. “I suggest we all go home and regroup tomorrow.”
“Yes,” James’s wife Emma said as she took his arm. “It will look better in the morning, it always does. Come along, everyone.”
Matthew smiled as the group said their goodbyes and filed from the parlor in a buzzing line. In the end, it was only Charlotte and Ewan left. Charlotte let out her breath in a long sigh.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” Matthew said. “I had no idea Hugh would haul everyone from their beds in an emergency meeting. You need your rest and it was unfair.”
Her brow wrinkled. “You think I do not fully support this impromptu gathering of the 1797 Club?” She shook her head. “You took my mind off my child kicking me all night at any rate. So, I thank you for that.”
She glanced at Ewan, and a world of unspoken communication flowed between them. She signed out a few little movements of her hands, the language of love the two of them had developed over years of friendship and longing and then true and powerful love. Ewan smiled briefly, then leaned in to kiss her cheek.
“I leave my husband to reassure you further,” she said as she took Matthew’s hand. “Goodnight, my dearest friend. As sweet Emma said, it will be better in the morning.”
