Pen got to her feet. "Yes, that was the most extraordinary thing. Of course he had had that odd letter at breakfast, and he dashed off straight away, but he never came back! I had gone to see you," she added reproachfully. "We were supposed to be attending the exhibition at the Royal Academy."
"So we were," Isabella said, trying to sort her sister's jumbled information into order. Not for the first time, she reflected that very clever people could sometimes be extremely hard to follow. "What odd letter was this, Pen?"
"A letter about his gambling debts, apparently." Pen yawned. "I beg your pardon, Bella. I am so tired. I know this is making little sense." She rubbed her eyes. "He received the letter at breakfast and hurried out immediately. He never came back—he merely sent me some cock-and-bull message about going to Salterton. And he left without any luggage."
"He has some now," Isabella said slowly. "I saw it in the hall."
Pen frowned. "Now that is passing strange, for where could he have got it from?"
"He could have bought some essentials on the journey, I suppose," Isabella said.
Pen spread her hands. "But he has no money!"
"Gambling debts," Isabella said quietly. She thought of their father and his weakness for deep play and the anguish squeezed her heart. Please, God, Freddie had not got himself embroiled with some hideous moneylender who would bleed him dry.
"I do not suppose that Freddie told you whom the letter was from," she said without much hope.
"No," Pen said, "he did not tell me but I knew where it came from because I opened it by mistake. It was from an address in
Wigmore
Street and it was signed with the name Warwick."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I
sabella had been waiting
for what seemed like a very long time. She had heard Mrs. Lawton escort Freddie to his room and the footmen lurching up the stairs with various items of luggage. Eventually there was the sound of voices in the corridor outside. Marcus and Alistair were parting with a quiet word. Isabella heard the door of Marcus's chamber close softly. Still she waited. After a while, the valet came out and the house was quiet. Isabella waited a little longer. Then, with a quick, nervous gesture, she scooped up her dressing robe and slipped out of the door onto the landing. She would have used the connecting door but at this inopportune moment she realized that she did not have a key to it and it seemed faintly ridiculous to knock on the door until Marcus answered.
Freddie. Freddie and Edward Warwick. She felt sick at heart to think of it but she could not put it from her mind. She was not entirely sure what she was going to do. Marcus had seemed implacable in his pursuit of Warwick and she did not want Freddie hounded and browbeaten and humiliated. Like Pen, she had a deep if exasperated affection for her hapless brother. It would be better to confront him herself rather than to implicate him to Marcus in Warwick's plots. But that also felt disloyal. She should tell Marcus what she knew. She was deeply torn.
She paused for a moment on the landing, knocked briefly on Marcus's door and went in. Marcus looked up with unqualified surprise to see her. He was sitting up in bed, a sheaf of papers scattered across the covers and a pencil in hand. Isabella realized that he had been sketching. The book on theoretical naval architecture lay on the nightstand beside him.
She also guessed that he was naked. Certainly his chest was bare and the sheets were slung low across his hips. Isabella found her attention veering away from Freddie somewhat abruptly. She had to remind herself to breathe.
"Work," Marcus said, gathering the papers together with an apologetic grin. "I find that it helps to distract my mind from certain problems. What may I do for you, Isabella? I did not expect to see you again tonight. Is all well?"
Isabella hesitated. She sat down on the edge of the bed, making sure that she kept a decent distance from him. This felt odd and very personal. She fiddled with the edge of the bedspread.
"It is Freddie," she said jerkily. "I think. . .that is, Pen said. . .that he is involved with Edward Warwick."
Marcus's eyes narrowed. He gave her a straight look. "Did Pen tell you this tonight?"
"Yes, of course." Isabella felt relief and guilt in equal measure. She looked up. There was something strange and speculative in Marcus's eyes. "Freddie is in debt and—" She stopped and looked at him accusingly. "Marcus! You knew this already!"
Marcus grimaced. "Please keep your voice down, Bella." He dropped his own so that Isabella was obliged to strain closer to hear him. "It is true that Alistair and I suspected Freddie of being involved in some way, but we did not know."
"That is why Mr. Cantrell is here," Isabella said. She felt cold. "That is why
Freddie
is here." She shivered convulsively. "What is going on, Marcus?"
"I do not know." Marcus threw back the covers and drew her unresistingly into the warmth. She huddled closer to him for
comfort, his arm about her and her cheek against his chest
"
I think Warwick is here in Salterton. But as yet I know nothing for certain. Your brother's arrival is an interesting development"
"You will not
hurt
Freddie, will you?" Isabella asked in a small voice, tilting her chin up to look at him.
She felt Marcus laugh. "Good God, Bella, do you think me medieval? I swear I shall not hurt my own brother-in-law." The amusement left his voice. "I imagine that whatever Freddie has got himself involved with, it cannot be so very bad. He is scarcely a hardened criminal."
"No," Isabella said. She moved her cheek absentmindedly against Marcus's, feeling the roughness of his stubble against her softness. "I think. . . I think he has become involved in something he cannot get out of. Gambling and debts. . ."
"And the provision of information,'' Marcus said, his voice hardening slightly. He turned his head and kissed her cheek where it rested against the curve of his shoulder. "Do you feel a little better now, Bella?"
"Yes," Isabella said. "I am glad that I told you."
Marcus gathered her closer and eased a line of soft kisses along her cheek.
"I am glad, too," he murmured. "I think you must have started to trust me a little."
His lips claimed hers and Isabella turned to him in desperation, seeking comfort wanting to blot out the coldness in her soul. She sought his kisses with eagerness, pressing closer to him, wanting to banish the darkness. Yet all the time, it crept back into her mind and she could not make it go. Freddie and India and Ernest. . . They flitted like ghosts through her mind, distracting her from Marcus's caresses so that she could feel nothing.
Fifteen minutes later, Isabella felt as though she was suffocating with embarrassment and humiliation as she lay beneath Marcus in the wide double bed. The house was silent and dark and she could hear nothing but his breathing and the
relentless creak of the mattress. Still she felt nothing. Nothing but panic, at any rate. She could not believe it. Earlier in the evening she had wanted Marcus so much. Now she was hot and sticky and her mind was dark and tormented with old images arid secrets. She shifted painfully. She wanted to tell Marcus to stop but she could not and she was utterly mortified. She could not make love successfully with her husband even when she wanted to. How hopeless she was.
"Bella?" Marcus had stopped. He reached across and struck a light.
"I am sorry," Isabella said. "I was thinking too much."
"Of what?" Marcus's tone was unreadable. He pulled away from her and she could feel him slipping from her emotionally, and it sent a chill along her spine. Was it always to be like this—the ghosts of the past ruining everything between them? She did not think she could bear it.
She put her hands over her face. "About the past," she said. "I am sorry, Marcus. I thought I could do this. I wanted to do it. I wanted to seduce you."
The words fell into a rather sad silence and Isabella felt her heart shrivel with renewed mortification. Then she heard Marcus sigh.
"Bella." His voice had gentled. "Tell me what you were thinking about. Otherwise we shall never get past all of this."
"Marcus—" Isabella shuddered. The last thing that she wanted to do was to rehearse old love affairs.
"Tell me, Bella." Marcus's tone was low but insistent. "I need to understand." Then, as she still paused, he added harshly, "Did he hurt you?"
"Ernest?" Isabella said. She sat up, drawing her knees to her chin and making sure that the covers wrapped her completely about. She did not wish Marcus to see her naked. Not now, when she already felt exposed enough.
"No, he did not hurt me," she said. "Not in the sense that you mean." She looked up and met Marcus's eyes very directly. "I made it clear to him early on in our marriage that
I
would not join in his sexual games. After that he troubled me very little."
'There is more than one way of hurting someone," Marcus said.
Their gazes locked. In the candlelight, Marcus's eyes were very dark. Isabella swallowed hard as she looked on his face. She loved him so much already that the thought of losing him again was like a knife in the heart. This was not how it was meant to be. She had meant to protect herself but once again she had made herself vulnerable.
"That is true," she said. "In other ways he hurt me every day, with his cruelty and his indifference and his spite."
"You took other lovers," Marcus said. His face was expressionless.
"
Tell me."
Isabella took a shuddering breath. She locked her arms about her knees, holding on tightly.
"I turned to Heinrich Von Trier after Emma's death," she said. "I was desperate for affection and I tumbled hopelessly in love with him. But for him the chase was everything." She pressed her fingers against her temples. Her passion for Heinrich Von Trier had burned out years before and she had soon recognized it as a pale imitation of love, but at the time his had seemed a double betrayal, coming so soon after Emma.
"Once he had what he wanted and could boast of it, he was no longer interested," she said. "A quick fumble on the backstairs was about the sum of it." She raised her hand to her cheek. "It was as sordid as it sounds."
Marcus took her hand in his and drew it down to the bedcovers, holding it firmly between both of his. She tried to withdraw it but he held on firmly. She could sense the conflict in him, as though he were angry with her and yet trying to conquer his feelings. It made her shake inside.
"Do not say that, Bella." He sounded fierce. "Do not demean yourself."
"I need not," Isabella said bitterly, "when there are so many others able to do it for me."
Marcus shook his head slightly. His expression was ferocious. His grip tightened on hers so much she winced.
"Damn the man." He spoke dispassionately and his coldness was far more frightening to Isabella than hot anger would have been. "Damn him to hell and back. I could kill him for betraying you."
Isabella's throat ached. "You need not spare him another thought. The French have saved you the trouble of
despatching
him."
Marcus's expression lightened slightly. "That is something, I suppose." He looked at her. "You say that you loved him?"
Isabella clung to his hand. It seemed a terrible betrayal to speak of her love for Von Trier to this man who had always been the true love of her life. Yet she could not offer Marcus anything but honesty.
"I thought that I did," she said. "I was very unhappy. I needed some comfort." She broke off before she slipped into excuses. "Marcus, I am sorry."
"Don't say that!" Marcus sounded so furious now that Isabella shrank back against the tumbled pillows. He turned to her suddenly and the fierce light blazed in his eyes. "Oh, I am angry, Bella," he said. "I cannot deny it. Angry and jealous. I cannot help myself. But I can still understand. You were desperately unhappy. You say that you loved him and I believe you."
There was an aching silence. Isabella did not know what else she could say. Marcus sighed.
"What of the rest?" he said, and his voice was tired.
For a moment Isabella did not understand, then she made a slight gesture. "There were no others. Is that not enough?"
Marcus looked at her, incredulity in his eyes. "But. . . there must have been! I heard. . ." He trailed off, staring at her.
Isabella almost laughed. First she had failed to satisfy her husband sexually, then she had discussed her old lovers with him and now he was finding it hard to believe that she was not the female rakehell that he had been led to believe. She doubted that it was possible for the situation to get any worse.
"You heard gossip, Marcus," she said. "That is all."
Marcus sat back slightly, scanning her face. "Von Trier? He was the only one? But. . ."
"I flirted." Isabella traced a pattern on the bedcover with her fingertips. "It passed the time."
"Then why—" Marcus's tone was warming into a white-hot anger now. "Why do you let them say such things about you, Bella?" His hands bit into her shoulders, shaking her. "Good God, it beggars belief! The lovers and the scandal and the outright perversions. . . is there anything that is not said of you?"
"I am not certain," Isabella said. "I try not to listen."
Marcus's eyes were almost black with fury. "Do not joke about this! Why did you encourage all the gossip by allowing your husband's mistress to attend his funeral, giving support to the scandal that you were engaged in some complaisant ménage a
trois
?"
Isabella suddenly felt a great deal older and wiser than he. "Dear, Marcus," she said ruefully, "my life with Ernest was so miserable that I would have done more than that for some peace. Madame de
Coulanges
made Ernest happy." She gave him a wry look. "She kept him out of my way and that was worth a very great deal. For that I thought she deserved the right to take a proper farewell of him."