“We marry tomorrow,” she whispered. “I can hardly believe it.”
He nodded. This would be the perfect time to pull away from her embrace, but he didn’t. He continued to hold her as he said, “It’s happened very fast.”
“And what will happen…a-after?” she asked.
His jaw tightened at the question. It was one he had been pondering himself. That vast blankness of what their relationship would be as husband and wife was troubling to say the least. And now she had asked him to put voice to it.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know what will happen, but I know what I want when you’re near me like you are right now. Despite everything.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Despite,” she repeated, and there was no mistaking the faint hurt in her tone. He wished he didn’t cause it, but didn’t see a way not to. Not right now, at least.
“Despite is all I have, Isabel. You cannot fault me for that, can you? After all the lies and manipulations that brought us here.”
It was she who pulled away, taking a step back from him as she stared at her hands clenched in front of her. “No, I cannot fault you. If I were to believe you were a villain bound to trap me, perhaps all I would have is despite, as well.”
He frowned. She acted as though she felt something deeper for him. Worse, the idea that she did was not the anathema it should have been. He didn’t want her heart, of course. That was not something he had ever expected to desire again from a lady.
But if he held it…that was certainly a gift.
“Tomorrow will come soon enough, Isabel,” he choked out. “Why don’t we just see what it brings rather than wrapping ourselves in knots wondering about it?”
Her lips pressed once more and then she nodded. “That’s a fair suggestion, Matthew. I can’t say otherwise.”
“Good.” He held out his elbow. “Why don’t you let me take you back to your carriage then?”
She stared at the outstretched arm for a beat, then slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. He found himself drawing a breath of relief as she did so. He led her from the terrace, back into the house and toward the foyer where he was certain his mother was waiting to say goodbye to Isabel. His fiancée.
Tomorrow, his wife.
And once that happened, everything would change.
Despite a long drive across the darkness of a London night, Isabel’s head was still spinning as she arrived at her uncle’s home half an hour later. She stared through the carriage window at the house, just another in a row of the same houses, and sighed.
Inside was a man she loved. Still loved, despite his wild accusations and even wilder actions. And he was bound and determined to hurt Matthew. Despite what her fiancé thought, she still believed Fenton had deeper plans than a mere scandal and a forced wedding.
And she was terrified of them. Determined to do anything she could to protect Matthew. Because…
Well, she wasn’t going to say the because. Not to herself and certainly not out loud. Her feelings for the man had increased since that first shocking moment he had appeared out of the crowd at the Donville Masquerade and stepped between her and her attacker.
It seemed she was destined to break her heart over him. And sooner rather than later.
The footman opened the door and she climbed out into the cool night air, drawing a cleansing breath before she walked up to the house and into the foyer. Hicks asked about her night as he took her things and she smiled through it, ready to just go up to her room and go to sleep. If she could with the knowledge that in a few short hours she would be Matthew’s wife.
“Goodnight, Hicks,” she said with a smile for the butler as she moved toward the stairs. She had not yet reached them when she heard her uncle from across the foyer.
“How was it?”
She froze, hand hovering above the banister. She did not wish to discuss her night with him. Her anger and resentment toward him was growing exponentially and she had no interest in engaging in a row with him.
“Answer me, Isabel,” he said, his tone sharpening.
She spun toward him, and the anger she’d been trying to keep in check now bubbled to the surface. “If you’re going for humiliation, you have hit your mark. Everyone is talking.”
Her uncle’s face lit up in triumph and she took a long step toward him.
“That makes you happy, does it? Well, it shouldn’t. No one is talking about him. They’re talking aboutme.” She folded her arms. “From strangers in the shop to his own friends and mother. They all look at me like I’m a snake who slithered into their flowerbed. And the reason? Because I am. Because of you. And he—”
She cut herself off, for the last thing she wanted was to debate the topic ofhimwith her uncle. Not when her feelings for Matthew were so tangled and powerful and painful.
