Scandalous Love (29 page)

"Me! You are always
with Claire and the boys."

"Since your
marriage I have invited you repeatedly to join us in London or in the
country—and you have always refused. Yet I know you and Francis go separate
ways. I assumed you have such a busy and important social schedule that you
have no time for your father."

Shocked, Isobel realized
he was hurt. She went into his arms. "I thought you were too busy for
me," she murmured. "It appears we have misunderstood one
another."

After that, she began
accepting his invitations, and soon found that she adored her half-brothers.
Claire wasn't really so bad, in fact, she went out of her way to befriend
Isobel. And her father always managed to find time so that the two of them
could be alone. Isobel realized that she had been a foolish young girl to turn
away from him all those years ago. It was obvious that he was content with
Claire and that he worshipped his boys. She was happy for him.

Six months later the
first of Francis' debtors came knocking upon her door. He was exceedingly
nervous and apologetic, but he had a note that was four months overdue—for
twenty thousand pounds. Isobel was shocked, and when she told Francis, having
put the man off, he told her to mind her own business. In the following month
several more debtors appeared. Isobel did not pay anyone, telling them they
must speak with her husband, who was very adept at avoiding them. The
astounding amount Francis seemed to owe was a hundred thousand pounds.

He finally told her that
he did not have the money.

The debtors kept
hounding her. Francis merely laughed, shrugging off the entire affair. Finally
one of the debtors threatened to take Francis to court. Isobel hated Francis,
but she could not allow that to happen. She pawned her family jewels.

Unnerved by what had
happened, Isobel was determined to appraise for herself the family's state of
affairs. She took it upon herself to go through his desk. To her shock, she
found a great many bills unpaid, all of which were owed by the estates. Several
managers of Clayborough's different holdings had come to her requesting funds
recently, and she had put them off, too. Now Isobel sought out the manager of
their ancestral home and questioned him closely. She learned that while there
were managers for the various Clayborough holdings and estates, they had always
been in charge of day-to-day operations while the purse strings and general
supervision had been left up to the Duke. Jonathan had been dead for nine
months now, yet Francis had not taken up his responsibilities. Isobel was
appalled.

She knew what she wanted
to do. She thought that Francis might be displeased. Yet she had long since
stopped caring about what he thought.

She traveled from one
holding to the next, inspecting every inch of Clayborough property, poring over
the books and holding meetings with the managers. When she had a firm grasp on
the situation, she went to their bank and had a bank draft drawn up. She then
presented it to Francis.

"There are many
bills which have not been paid, Francis," she told her husband one morning
when he returned home disheveled and unshaven from the night of revelry before.
"I have gone over all of the accounts thoroughly and I need access to
eighty thousand pounds to pay our debts. Our banker has drawn up this check.
Would you kindly sign it?"

He grabbed the draft. He
saw that it was payable to his wife. He tore it up. "If we had eighty
thousand pounds in the bank, do you think I would let you spend it?"

"But Mr. Pierce was
only too glad to draw up the cheque."

"You fool! He would
gladly lend us the sum—with interest!" Francis stormed out.

Isobel thought for a
long time. Then she met with the Clayborough solicitors. She went back to Mr.
Pierce. Her father went with her. A loan was arranged—in her name only. All of
the estate's bills were paid off and they began running smoothly again, under
Isobel's close supervision.

She was now running the
vast ducal estates with all their affairs. Although she was a novice, she was
clever, and she had the solicitors and her father to aid her. When the first
small profits came in from her farmlands in the south and from timber sales in
the north, Isobel felt a tremendous sense of satisfaction as she signed a draft
and sent it to Mr. Pierce. It would be a long time before Clayborough would be
on an even footing again, but with prudent management, she intended to make it
happen.

And the more successful
she was, the more Francis taunted and mocked her—the more he hated her.

In the fall of 1867
Isobel took her first voyage to America. It had been three years since Jonathan
died, and the Clayborough estates were holding their own despite the bad
economic times. Isobel had made some investments that she hoped were wise,
including one in a mining company. She had leased them vast tracts of land as
well as undertaking a partnership with them. In the future she hoped to see
sizeable profits—she was gambling on it when she did not have the means to
gamble at all.

With the end of the War
Between the States, she, as well as many others, saw the possibilities for gain
that would come with the rebuilding of the South. Isobel was on her way to
Virginia to invest in land that was now burned out and dirt cheap, but that
would one day be worth a fortune. Of course she did not have the funds to buy,
but Mr. Pierce had been only to glad to give her what was now her third loan.

It was no secret that
she was running the Clayborough estates, and that she had undertaken several
business ventures. The peerage had been shocked, even scandalized.
That she,
a woman, a duchess, had gone into business,
was beyond their belief. The
peerage disdained business as a matter of course, and could not believe a lady—
a duchess
—had actually and actively immersed herself in such a pursuit.
They still disapproved. Yet as the Duchess of Clayborough, Isobel was too
powerful to be shunned; no one would ever refuse one of her highly coveted
invitations, no one would ever leave her off of their guest list. Indeed,
hostesses prayed she would attend their affairs. No one dared even look askance
at her. Isobel knew she was the height of gossip and she found it amusing.
Francis did not shock anyone (except for her) with his new found penchant for
young men but she shocked everyone with her obvious intelligence and
resolution.

Francis was not amused.
Not by the gossip, and not by her. He had never thanked her for rescuing him or
his home, and he never forgave her. He also never failed to mock her as a
barren, sexless bitch of a woman.

Isobel did not care as
long as he left her alone. She supposed he was right, that she was barren, for
they still had no children. Yet he had not come to her bed in over a year, as
if he had given up, too. Isobel knew that he was too involved with his current
paramour to find time for her. And while Isobel was relieved, she couldn't help
but also be sad. She was intelligent enough to know that to want a child was
foolish, not with Francis for a father, but she did. It was not, she realized,
going to happen. She was only twenty-three, but she felt as if she were fifty
and well past her child-bearing years.

The Sea Dragon was sleek
and white-masted, one of the fastest clippers on the ocean. She normally did
not carry passengers, but once Isobel decided to make this business trip, she
wanted to get to America as quickly as possible. Knowing his employer, her
secretary arranged her transportation on the Sea Dragon by paying an exceptional
fee.

Isobel saw him before
she even boarded. She stood on the wharf with her maid and a single trunk,
unable to move. Her heart was lodged in her throat.

She could not even see
him clearly. The sun was behind him, obscuring her vision. She only saw an impossibly
tall, powerful figure of a man, in high boots and breeches and a carelessly
worn linen shirt. She heard him shouting orders. Her blood raced. Her body
quivered. He was impossibly male. What was wrong with her?

He stepped out of the
blinding sun, then froze, turning his head slowly toward her. His chestnut
hair, tarnished with gold, carelessly brushed his shoulders. It framed a
strong, compelling, fascinating face. With sharp eyes he searched the dock
until he found her.

Isobel could not look
away. He stared at her for what seemed to be an eternity, an eternity she had
waited for her entire life, and then he smiled. The smile was direct and
intimate. It was meant for her and her alone. Isobel blushed.

"Go," she
urged her maid, Bessie. "Go find someone to carry on my trunk." There
was relief in focusing her
attention elsewhere, but she knew he was still
staring. Just as she knew with every fiber of her being that she should not
board this ship—his ship. She didn't have to be told to know it was his. Just
as she also knew she would not—could not—turn back.

"Who are you?"

"Isobel."

It was sunset. They had
been sailing all day. It was the first word he had spoken to her. He had come
up behind her silently, but she was not startled. She had been standing alone
at the rail for some time, expecting him. Waiting for him.

"Isobel."

She turned to face him
fully.

The impact he had on her
was just as powerful as before. He left her breathless, senseless.

"My name is
Hadrian," he said softly, his gaze sweeping her face. Studying it,
memorizing it. "Hadrian Stone."

"I know. I
asked."

They stared at each
other. Isobel's heart was pounding wildly, almost in fright. But it was not
fright. And she knew she should be frightened. For it was desire. Desire which
she had never ever in her life experienced before, not even in the slightest
degree. Wild hot tormenting desire, desire that pooled between her thighs.

He wasn't quite
handsome. His face was hard, his jaw too strong, his nose a touch too large.
His eyes were amber, a blaze of gold. He had stubble on his face, and his hair
was too shaggy, too long. He towered over her by a half a foot at least. He was
big, he was powerful. She thought if he touched her, she would die.

He inhaled long and
slow. "God damn it," he said. "You are the most beautiful woman
I have ever seen—and all day today I kept telling myself you were a dream—that
you couldn't possibly be real. But you are real—aren't you?"

"I'm real,"
she whispered, wanting desperately to touch him.

He lifted his hand. Isobel
waited, suspended in agony. His fingers brushed the high curve of her
cheekbone. She closed her eyes, praying that he would take her in his arms. She
did not care who would see.

Abruptly he stepped back
from her, cursing. Her eyes flew open and she saw that he was angry. She could
not guess why. He turned on his boot heels and strode away without another
word.

After a moment, Isobel
followed him.

"Stop," he
said in the corridor below decks. A muscle in his neck bulged. "Stop right
there."

She knew without being
told that his cabin was behind the door he guarded with his back. She wet her
lips. She was nervous, as if she were sixteen again. "I can't," she
whispered.

His face hardened.
"You're a lady," he said. "And from the look of that ring, a
married one."

"Yes, I am,"
she said sadly.

"Is this so damn
easy for you? Do you do this all the time?"

She was aghast at what
he thought. "No! Never, never have I been unfaithful to my husband in the
seven years we've been wed. Until now."

He gripped her arms,
practically dragging her up against him. "Are you telling me the
truth?"

The truth was in her
eyes. "Yes."

His grip tightened. It
hurt. Isobel didn't care. "Don't you see?" He was almost shouting.
"I don't want one night from you. I would rather not have you at
all."

It was too much, Isobel
sobbed. She clutched his soft white shirt and found her fists pressed against
his rock-hard abdomen. "Hadrian! I don't want one night either!"

He crushed her body with
his, down into the hard mattress of his spartan bed. Isobel still wept, with
need. He understood, sweeping her skirts and petticoats away, ripping apart her
drawers, touching her hot, slick flesh.

She cried out wildly,
attaining her first climax instantly in huge, unbearable waves. He held her as
she rode it out.

"God, Isobel,"
he gasped, ripping open her bodice.

The tears of joy shone
in her eyes. "That was the first time," she whispered, and then she
started to cry in earnest.

He didn't understand,
but he sensed the change in her. He swept her up into his arms and held her
hard in his embrace while she wept. She wept for herself for the first time in
her adult life. She wept for all the hurt she had suffered in Francis' hands,
for lost innocence and shattered illusions. She wept for meeting Hadrian when
it was too late. And she wept because, for the first time in too many years, it
was safe—for at long last she had found her haven.

"You must think me
mad," she said finally. A long, long time had passed. Later Hadrian would
tell her that she had cried out her grief for hours.

He still held her, she
in her torn clothes, half naked and snug against his side. "I have never
seen a woman with such heartbreak," he said softly. He stroked her hair,
loosening it. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Isobel smiled, sadness and
joy intertwined. "No. Not now. Maybe never. The heartbreak is gone. You
chased it away."

He smiled, kissing her
forehead gently. "I am glad."

If only Isobel had
realized how wrong she was. The heartbreak wasn't gone. It was only just
beginning.

She watched him disrobe.
Her breasts were heaving from the many caresses she had endured. She lay amidst
her torn clothes on the single blanket he slept with. That now-familiar heat
was already burning between her thighs. She stared with mouth-watering longing
at his massive, naked chest.

He stared back, a fierce
wanting in his eyes. "I am proud you look at me like that," he said.

"You are so
beautiful," Isobel returned.

He laughed, the sound
raw, shaky. He shed his pants. Isobel moaned at the sight of his long, hard
powerful legs. Then she saw his huge straining phallus. "I may explode
just watching you," she whispered.

He made an inarticulate
sound, instantly coming down on top of her. She reached for him wildly. Their
mouths fused. He was already settling between her spread thighs; she was
already locking her legs around his waist. He thrust into her. They both cried
out.

"Dear God," he
said. "Isobel, Isobel—is it possible I am already in love with you?"

She clutched at him
fiercely as he rocked her with his strength and his power and his love. "I
hope so. How I hope so!"

She never told him about
Francis. He asked, but when she made it clear that it was not important, not to
them, he respected her wishes and withdrew. Isobel knew he loved her as much as
she loved him. She did not want Francis to intrude upon their happiness. Nor
did she wish to think about the future.

But as they approached
the shores of America, he would not let it be. "When are you going to tell
me that you are the Duchess of Clayborough?"

Isobel lay naked in his
arms in his small, bare cabin. She gasped. "You know! You've known all
along!"

"Yes, I know. Did
you really think I wouldn't make inquiries the moment I saw you standing on the
wharf?"

Isobel was angry—and
relieved. "You could have told me that you knew."

"You could have
told me who you are."

She was silent, sitting
up; he was silent. They gazed at each other. "Not now," she finally
said. She touched him, stroking his chest. "Not now, Hadrian."

He sat up, gripping her
hand and stopping her from deferring their discussion. "Yes, now. I know
you don't love him. I know you love me."

"I will always love
you."

He smiled, satisfied.

She did not smile.

He grew uneasy.
"Isobel, I've never wanted to marry before. Until you. I want you, not
just here in my bed. I want you as my wife. I want to give you children—little
sons and daughters." He was intense.

"Maybe you have.
Given me one, at least." She could not smile either. A sense of panic
enveloped her.

"You're not going
back to him." It wasn't quite a statement, it wasn't quite a question.

Isobel whimpered.
"How can I run away?"

He was shocked.
"You love me! That bastard—and I don't know what he did to you—but I know
he's broken your heart! You can't go back to him!"

"But run
away?" She was shocked with the very idea, an idea she had avoided at all
costs.

"Was this a game,
then?" he shouted, furious and on his feet.

"No! It was never a
game! I love you! But Hadrian, I am a de Warenne."

"You mean that
being a goddamned duchess means more to you than I do, is that it?"

"No! It means that
de Warennes do their duty—as painful as it may be. A de Warenne does not run
away from her husband and her life. She does not."

"Oh my God,"
he said, when he realized that she believed what she was saying with all of her
heart. "You are serious? You are serious?"

Isobel closed her eyes.
She was a de Warenne. She had always been a de Warenne. And now she was a part
of Clayborough. It wasn't that she loved Clayborough— although she did. It was
that she believed in loyalty, duty and honor. If she did not, then she was not
Isobel de Warenne Braxton-Lowell. If she did not, then she was nobody.

He left the room
abruptly, his face white with the realization of what he would never have. What
they would never have.

Isobel stayed in Virginia
for three months with Hadrian Stone. It was bittersweet. They both tried not to
think about their parting, they tried desperately to only live in the present.
Never had Isobel loved more. And the day she had to finally leave America, she
had never hurt more.

By now he knew her as
only a man can who truly loves a woman. He did not bring up her leaving Francis
again. He knew how much she hurt. He took her to the dock.

Isobel was resolved not
to cry, because if she started, she knew there would be no holding back the
storm of her emotions. She refused to entertain her doubts, too. It would be so
easy to stay with him, to turn her back on who and what she was, if she even
dared to contemplate doing so. At all costs, she had to close her mind down to
the option which did not—could not— exist.

His hands closed over
her shoulders. Beyond them, another clipper, not the Sea Dragon but an insipid
imitation, bobbed at her moorings. Above them the sky was flawlessly blue.
Spring was in the air everywhere, except in their hearts.

"I love you and I
respect you," he said finally, staring into her eyes. "That's why I'm
letting you make the most important decision of your life. If this is what you
feel you must do, then I support you."

She could no longer
contain the tears. They flooded forth copiously.