What Isabella Desires (23 page)

“If you believe this, then why—”

“Why am I pushing you away?”

“Yes.”

“Because I am intimately acquainted with all of these feelings. Who do you think took care of my father? Who was at my mother’s side during her waning days? Who could not do enough to make his mother want to stay here rather than to give up and join her husband?”

“But—”

“But nothing. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. And you think that I would pull you into my world? Have a child knowing that in ten, fifteen years he or she might have to go through the same?”

“But it might not happen to you. You don’t know that you will have the same illness, the same result.”

“I’ve started experiencing symptoms already.” He said it so nonchalantly that she wanted to scream. “That doesn’t mean I might not live to be a healthy seventy-year-old with scads of children and grandchildren, all healthy. But I am not willing to take the chance, Bella. And that’s the thing that separates us. Call me too prideful, too arrogant, a coward. But I will not take the chance. I will not put someone else in that position. I won’t put myself in the position—of the victim, of the patient.”

“And until that day? You will not live life? You will escape to the country and hide? Throw yourself over a cliff?”

“Nothing quite so dramatic, I’m sure.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Until that day?”

“Can you honestly tell me that if I invited you in, if we set up some semblance of a home, that you would leave me when I asked?”

She swallowed. “Yes, yes I would.”

The right side of his mouth lifted and he wiped the last tear from her cheek. “You are a terrible liar, Bella.”

“What if—What if I’m pregnant now, what then?”

His thumb paused on the edge of her cheekbone.

“You want children, Bella. I see it in your eyes every time you look at Audrey, at Calliope’s two, at the children in the streets. I can see the hope in your eyes right now at the possibility of being pregnant. But any children I have would be tainted with my blood. My pure, rich blood,” he said scathingly.

“And if I am?”

His hand dropped. “And if you are already pregnant? I don’t know.”

“You rejected me because of that. Because of what you deemed a grave mistake on your part.”

“I don’t want to be another mournful flower buried in your garden plot.”

“And you think that I wouldn’t mourn you anyway, relationship or not?”

He said nothing, but his eyes tightened.

“Do you love me at all? Even a little?”

Desperation. She couldn’t help the desperation.

“I think I’ve always loved you, Bella.” He said it so quietly that she had to strain to hear him.

Her mind spun, her emotions veering from irrepressible joy to confusion and terror. “What? Then why?”

“I’ve explained why.”

He turned to go, and she had to leap forward to grab him.

“Marcus, none of this—the revelations, the pain—makes me love you any less.”

“But deep down it will make you resent me more. It will keep you from some of the things that you desire so desperately. And all of that tears a hole deep within my heart.”

Oh, God, he was leaving her. Leaving her when she’d never even known she had him. “I don’t know what the future holds. And neither do you. I could be hit by a carriage next week. I could fall down a flight of stairs. You don’t know.”

His hand knotted beneath hers. “No, but those are accidents. This is something that probably will happen, something that can be prepared for. Something known.”

“I know that I don’t want to be apart from you. To waste time we could have together.”

“Bella—”

“No… no, don’t say it.”

She put her head down, leaned against his shoulder. “If—”

She cleared her suddenly hoarse throat.

“If you change your mind at all—even a little—I will be waiting.”

She pressed her lips to his, memorizing the way they felt. The way he felt against her. Having him this near.

She didn’t know if it would be the last time.

He could blame it on too many long sleepless nights since he’d left Isabella at the Clarence rout. Too many nights of seeing her face and wondering about the future.

He could blame it on love and kittens and all that Byronic sap.

He could blame it on arrogance. Or justice. Or epiphanies. Or fate.

But it was all just a cover for hope. Hope. That thin thread, threatening to break completely free for years, had now started gathering bindings at an alarming rate. Bindings that he had striven to chip away at first. To cleave them. But it was a tenacious thing, hope. And somehow it had rebelled against him and taken control.

A thin butler answered the door and directed him to a small study near the back.

Blakely rested against the back of his chair insolently, but anger shone in his eyes. “Roth, to what do I owe the pleasure? I thought for sure my secretary must be mistaken at your summons to meet.”

Marcus went for blunt force. “Why did you care for your brother Fred more in death than in life?”

“What is this?” Blakely half rose. “You dare come into my house—”

“Sit down, Blakely. I can help you out of your little predicament, but I want some answers in return.”

Blakely’s glare was white hot. “My little predicament? You help me? You have unbelievable nerve. Why someone hasn’t taken you down before, I’ll never know.”

Irritation lashed against its bindings. “I cover my back. I make sure I have other options in place before my arrogance grows too large. I don’t gamble away my fortunes and lands. I don’t lose my betrothed out of stupidity.” He narrowed his eyes. “Now answer the question.”

“I lost Frederick,” Blakely gritted out between clenched teeth. “I never appreciated him while he was living. He followed me around, got in my way. But after he was gone I missed that. Couldn’t stand that he wasn’t there annoying me at every turn. I vowed not to let it happen again—taking someone I cared about for granted.”

He clasped his hands together a bit shakily. “But I was already in over my head by then. There was little I could do to salvage things. I really do love Lady Margaret.” Blakely swallowed heavily—a large gulp of pride. “I don’t want to lose her.”

Marcus balled his fists. No, losing love was not an option. “That’s why I’m going to help you.”

“Because you care so much for lovers torn apart?” Blakely said scathingly.

Marcus looked back more calmly than he felt. “Because I can. And I carry some of the burden for your secrets finding their way to Banner’s ears.” He watched Blakely’s eyes narrow. “Do you want my help?”

In another situation, Blakely’s internal battle with his pride might have been amusing. Here, it was not. “Yes,” he said with no little difficulty.

“I will give you the funds you need. You must show me that you will not use them foully. Not gamble them away.”

“Why?”

Marcus raised a brow. “Because I ask it of you, and because I can give you back your credibility if you comply. I can give you back your betrothed with her father’s blessing. But you have to make the change.”

The hungry light lit Blakely’s eyes on the second statement. Isabella had been right—Blakely truly did care. She had been right, and not just about this.

“What do you get in return?”

Marcus studied him, debating. “I get to sleep at night without seeing that pitiful yearning look in your eyes. But this is a onetime deal, Blakely.”

Blakely took it. Marcus knew he would. He and Blakely were too alike in some respects.

They worked through the afternoon on the documents and funds Blakely would need, sarcastic and barbed comments underlying it all. Marcus left hours later thinking that someday he might even come to like the man.

He felt better. Lighter. Cleansed, if just a bit. Isabella would be pleased with him, if she knew.

And on that note, he had one more thing to do.

Marcus knocked on the door. A bright blond head appeared and looked at him in surprise. “Marcus?”

Who knew that hope could engender such fear?

“Stephen, I need to talk.”

She started to untie her bonnet. “Were there any callers while I was—”

A melody, high and steady, drifted from the back of the house. From the small, intimate room where she kept the upright.

Isabella passed her butler and moved cautiously down the hall, as if she would frighten away whoever was playing if she moved too fast.

She stood in the doorway and leaned a hand heavily against the frame in support. Marcus sat at the piano playing a lively piece of Mozart.

She watched as his fingers nimbly flowed down the keys, his eyes closed in concentration. Their chess trophy sat on the piano lid. Had he just come to return it?

“Are you going to enter, Bella?”

He didn’t open his eyes. She walked over and sat next to him on the short bench, their legs touching. She swallowed. She didn’t dare hope.

“One of your favorites, is it not?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You always liked the more lively, uplifting tunes, while I preferred the dirges.”

“No. I like anything that you play that shows your emotion. And that’s nearly everything you play. It is the only time you let yourself go.”

She thought of how he looked while making love and added, “Almost the only time.”

His fingers stopped their motion and lifted off the keys. He opened his eyes to look at her.

“I have behaved very badly, haven’t I, Bella?” he asked in a low tone, almost a whisper.

“I understand why you have done so.”

“Ah, but understanding does not mean I haven’t behaved badly.”

“No,” she whispered.

“And understanding is different from forgiveness.”

“I forgive you.”

His fingers touched her chin and finished untying her bonnet, lifting it and pulling it from her head.

“What do you forgive me for, Bella?”

“For lying to me.”

“Yes.” He pulled a pin from her hair.

“For hurting me.”

“Yes.” He freed another.

“For making me think you didn’t love me.”

His fingers traced her cheeks, her forehead, her chin. His fingers were soft, gentle, reverent. Her eyes slid shut and she felt him press his lips lightly to the lids.

“You won’t need to forgive me again. I promise you.”

A tear slid down her cheek and he kissed it.

“Don’t cry, Bella.”

She opened her eyes and saw the gentle look in his. His lips touched hers. Tears mingled with a gentle knot of unfolding passion as Marcus’s unspoken declarations moved through her.

He pulled back and framed her face with both hands. “I’m taking the chance that my health will make us both miserable. That my illness will make you resent me and make me resent myself. That any children we have will be cursed with the same—having to watch us suffer, having to suffer themselves.”

He shuddered. “And I am willing to do all within my power to make sure none of those things happen. To make us both happy instead. To love any children as a product of the two of us. I will do anything to make sure that any children we have will not be cursed. That even if something happens to one of us, the other will see that bit, that spark, in a child, so as to not leave them behind.”

“Oh, Marcus. I will never do that to our children.”

“I know you won’t. I know. But the doubts take time to calm, and until then, these things I pledge.”

“And I pledge the same. We will beat this. Together. You know we will.”

He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It is scary the things that I would do to be with you, Bella. To spend one more day with you. So yes, I have to believe we will.”

Tears threatened to pour down her face, so she motioned to the settee in the corner. “I believe you promised to ravish me on the settee once, and never quite followed through.”

He smiled, and for the first time, the shadows softened in his eyes.

“I’ll need to remedy that posthaste.”

His hands were gentle and reverent, and she returned the gestures with all the love she had. And when they finally came together, it was the most wonderful feeling—better than anything before, layered with love and understanding and hope.

And when she fell over the edge with him deliberately pulsing inside her, his eyes claiming her, needing her, she thought she would never feel more whole, more loved.

The completion that she so desperately desired flowed through her and produced another set of convulsions, the euphoria almost too much to bear.

He was looking at her as if she were the only person in the world.

She felt a tear escape.

“Don’t cry, Bella. It seems that I am destined to make you cry.”

“Tears of happiness, Marcus, tears of happiness. Don’t push me away again.”

He kissed her softly. “I won’t. I promise I won’t.”

“I love you, Marcus.”

“I know, Bella. I love you too. I will never stop.”