Page 47 of Engaging Sir Isaac

“I will do my best.” She did not know what prompted her to add the next sentence. “But I am afraid I cannot avoid him.”

“Why ever not? The man is a rake.” Sir Isaac snorted, then he offered her his arm. She took it, as naturally as she ever had. “Stay in the corner opposite him the rest of the house party. I can inform him if he comes within six feet of you again—”

“Do not trouble yourself.” Millie smiled despite the seriousness of her thoughts. “You would quite ruin my luck if you did that. You see, I have to spend time in his company. Not just because of the house party.”

“Then why?” he asked, halting their progress at the corner of the building, where they were once again within sight of the road. “He is not worth a moment of your notice.”

Millie wanted to tell him. But when Isaac learned of what she had agreed to do, he would think her too low a creature for even Mr. Weston’s attentions.

Chapter 16

When Millie did not answer him, Isaac’s thoughts rehearsed every conversation they’d had since their first meeting. Reputation. That is what it came down to for Millie. Reputation and her family’s place in Society. Somehow, Mr. Weston factored into her calculations to regain both of those things.

“Let us return to the castle and the carriages. I will tuck you into mine with your Sarah—” She started when he spoke the maid’s name. “—and return both of you to the house. I will make your excuses—tell everyone you are ill.”

Millie appeared tired. Whatever strength and fire he saw in her before had drained away. “Very well. Perhaps that is for the best.”

She said nothing more on their walk, or as he put her into his carriage. Her silence, the paleness of her cheeks, would inform any who saw her that she wasn’t in the pink of health.

It took hardly any time to find the maid, make the appropriate excuses to the correct people, and then join both Millie and her maid in the carriage. They began the journey back in silence.

Millie kept her eyes closed and her head tilted against the corner of the carriage. Sarah had taken the rear-facing seat, and rather than risk the maid’s discomfort he sat next to Millie. They said nothing as they bumped along on the road leaving Orford. Nothing for a quarter of an hour.

Finally, the maid closed her eyes and leaned into her own corner, giving way to sleep.

Isaac had nearly decided to do the same when Millie turned toward him, her eyes open and full of a sadness no one should bear alone.

“Tell me,” he whispered, barely hearing his own voice above the noise of the carriage.

Her expression did not change. But she spoke. So quietly he had to lean closer to hear. “I am not a good person, Isaac.” She had dropped his title. Why did that make his heart leap? “I have an arrangement with Lady Olivia and two of her friends.”

“Does someone like Lady Olivia even have friends?” he quipped, a tiny smile his only reward. “What do you mean? What arrangement?”

“My family is desperate,” she said slowly, seriously. “My parents need to find their footing in Society again. For financial stability. For their future. For mine.”

She lowered her gaze to the seat between them, and he looked too, seeing that their hands nearly touched. He lifted one gloved finger and placed it upon the back of her hand, tracing across her knuckles.

“I understand desperation, Millie.” Did she mind when he used the short form of her given name? It was so much better than what her parents had put upon her. “But what does that have to do with Lady Olivia? With Weston?”

“Lady Olivia and her friends promised to reintroduce me, my whole family, into Society if I performed a task set by each of them. I completed the first task in London. The second task is to find something about Mr. Weston that is a vulnerability, a mark against him Society will not forgive, and share that information with Mrs. Vanderby. The third task…” She turned her hand over, inviting him to slide his fingers between hers. “The third task is you.”

“Me?” He tightened his grip on her fingers and bent until he could see beneath the brim of her bonnet. He had to fold nearly in half, given how low her head hung. “What do I have to do with anything?”

“Lady Olivia wishes me to find a way to wound you. Not physically, of course. But she means for you to hurt.” Though the pronouncement ought to have chilled him, Isaac found he wished to comfort the confessing woman.

“All of that, just to put in a good word for you?” he asked quietly.

Her head came up at last, her eyes blazing. “I told her I would not do it. The day I told you I feared I must leave, I told her the agreement must end. I promise. As I came to know you, I felt how wrong it was. But I cannot—she made certain I must do as she says, or my whole family will face worse than we already have.” Her voice broke on the last word, and she tried to disentangle her fingers from his.

Isaac looked to where the maid sat, then decided he did not care what she thought. He released Millie’s hand, only to put his arm about her shoulder and guide her into his embrace. She laid her cheek against his chest without protest.

The tearful explanation that followed was partly muffled. “The man once engaged to my sister, he is at the house party. The Viscount of Carning. He is here. He is a dreadful, awful, wicked, powerful villain. He has agreed to enforce Lady Olivia’s agreement. If I do not do as she wishes, every tiny piece of respectability my family still holds will be gone. He can ruin us. Take away everything except the land my father inherited from his father. My mother will be heartbroken. And they even know where Emmeline is—though I have never heard from her since she left our home.” Her shoulders trembled beneath the weight they held, the weight of an entire family’s future.

His heart ached for her, for the trouble she faced. Brought upon herself, in a way. But he had seen many a desperate person in his time as a soldier. He had been desperate himself, since the war.

“When we see no way out, we do what we have to do to survive,” he said quietly, noting that the maid had opened her eyes and appeared not the least bit as though she had slept. When she saw him looking at her, the young woman’s expression turned pleading, as it had at the castle.

Sarah the maid thought he could save her mistress.