A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress Read online

  ‘Isabella can’t be out here,’ she heard Magnus Haile’s voice say in the vast, close distance between his world and the one she and the stranger and the moon inhabited.

  Now just a few yards away his voice sounded pacifying with forced casualness. She stiffened and felt her fellow moon-led simpleton do the same. Magnus must be with his father for him to sound like that. The Earl of Carrowe was a despot with his family, but so sleekly charming in the polite world the stark difference between public and private man still took Isabella’s breath away.

  ‘Where is she, then? Get your engagement puffed off so I don’t end up in the sponging house or have duns to breakfast. You have shilly-shallied for far too long, so you find her before her upstart brother-in-law withdraws his consent or I’ll spill your secrets.’

  ‘She’s of age and so am I. We need no consent,’ the Honourable Magnus Haile asserted uncomfortably, as if he was trying to remind himself that he and Isabella were two free and unencumbered adults.

  Even as she stood in another man’s arms and felt him go rigid before he let her go as if she’d suddenly grown horns and a tail, Isabella frowned at the flatness in Magnus’s usually pleasant tenor voice. He had spent last Season courting her so half-heartedly it took her until the end of it to notice. Then he had asked his fateful question and it shocked her even now to recall she had agreed. They were friends, she reassured herself. They would run in harness well together and she had never met anyone who made her heart race or her inner wanton melt with greed and heady desire. Until tonight. When it was too late.

  Isabella stepped cautiously away from her stranger; stiff as he was now reason had rushed back in. A sluggish breeze stirred the sticky heat and fluttered her pale gown as space opened up between them.

  The Earl of Carrowe pushed his protesting second son aside and stepped away from the pool of candlelight. Still as a statue now, Isabella froze and held her breath. This familiar stranger standing so stiffly next to her felt remote and withdrawn as an iron statue. She desperately hoped the night was deep enough for the Earl not to see them standing here like guilty lovers. Who would have thought a man she never laid eyes on until tonight could show her Isabella the Undone? All in the space between the ballroom and here and now.

  ‘You don’t need consent, you need a pitchfork up your...’ the Earl said in the coarse manner he saved for his family. Or at least those who depended on him for a leaky roof over their heads. Here at Haile Carr he had to hide his true self or risk the fury of his wealthy daughter-in-law and her even wealthier father.

  ‘You’ll keep a still tongue in your head about my future wife if you want me to go through with this marriage.’ Magnus sounded as austere as a monk and halted his father’s trail of obscenities in their tracks.

  Isabella stifled a hum of sympathy as she felt the weight of real life settling back on her shoulders. It felt even more of a burden now than when she had first decided to share Magnus’s responsibilities. They weren’t in love, but she never wanted to be in love anyway. Love was a trap and an illusion, nothing like the fairy-tale emotion three-decker romances portrayed. Isabella had agreed to Magnus’s proposal for one reason—to get him and his sisters out from under the Earl’s thumb—to give her best male friend outside her family a chance to be free of the monster she had heard bully and even beat his children. She had had no idea until a visit to the Haile ladies showed her the insults and foul language of the real man under the Earl of Carrowe’s urbane outer shell. The Countess had hidden Isabella’s presence and even took her out down the backstairs so the Earl wouldn’t know she had been there. From that moment on she was filled with a passionate desire to help the Earl’s daughters and Magnus had given her a chance to do it, so she took it and him and told herself all would be well because she didn’t want to be in love with her husband anyway.

  Except it felt as if they had missed something vital out. Isabella had been restless and hot and uncomfortable in her own skin in the ballroom and bolted outside to get away from what she’d done with her eyes wide open. And look where that had got her; she’d taken light in the arms of a stranger and now had to live with the memory of it on her conscience while she pretended to be Magnus’s glowingly happy bride-to-be.

  ‘Renege on our deal and I’ll tell the world what you did last year and who you did it with,’ the Earl threatened Magnus as if he couldn’t bear to be bested by another son after his heir married a rich woman and got control of his own purse strings. The atmosphere in the ballroom had felt oppressive with Viscount Haile and his wife holding court while family tensions simmered just below the surface. Or maybe she was making excuses for her own bad behaviour.

  But what did Magnus do last summer? A couple of times since she arrived here Isabella had sensed something was deeply wrong with Magnus. It felt as if she knew only half of what was going on. Their engagement was supposed to be a surprise that would make this annual party even happier, but it didn’t feel very joyous to Isabella. Her money and family power were pitted against the Earl’s extravagant self-indulgence and his cruel grip on his family. He’d traded control of his unwed daughters for part of her fortune; Magnus would save his sisters and Isabella could start the family she longed for. But then she arrived here and the reality of marrying the man who’d been her friend since she made her debut finally hit home. To make those babies they would be intimate together and it felt like a giant factor she left out of her calculations about marrying for sense and companionship. Much as she liked Magnus she wasn’t sure she wanted to couple with him. She was a country girl at heart and three and twenty; she knew enough about the mechanics of marriage to shiver at the very idea of the one she’d committed herself to while she stood so close to a man who had nearly taught her a lot more than she needed to know about how a man and a woman were together when they wanted each other so urgently they couldn’t even wait for a bed.

  ‘You need money too much to risk Isabella jilting me,’ Magnus was arguing now and she felt the man at her side wince.

  Not for her sake, she sensed, or for the Earl’s. So he must be on Magnus’s side. She could feel fury arcing across the few bare inches of late summer air between them. The shame of her own betrayal was bad enough—the wrong she’d done Magnus with this stranger. So what about him? He was furious with her, but fairness whispered he hadn’t deserved to kiss another man’s affianced bride as if she was free as air, then find out how wrong he was before their lips were cool from kissing. Even more guilt twisted in her belly and finally saw off the wanton Isabella who still longed for more from a lover and never mind who he was and who he wasn’t.

  ‘No, damn you, I need all that gelt to keep the duns at bay,’ the Earl was saying now. ‘You find the wench so we can announce the engagement before all the local clodhoppers go home.’

  ‘I’ll see if Isabella is mending a flounce or visiting the ladies’ withdrawing room, because she’s clearly not out here. You shouldn’t judge her by your low standards. Not everyone has your genius for sin.’

  ‘Speaking of sinners, where’s your mother?’

  ‘Maybe she’s with her prospective daughter-in-law, avoiding you.’

  The string of obscenities that greeted that provocation faded as father and son turned to go back inside. Isabella wasted a few moments wondering how quickly the Earl could put on the mask of genial host after his unpleasant tirade. No doubt it would be plausible as ever by the time he was back in the crowded ballroom that she now dreaded so deeply she would almost prefer to stay out here with a furious male of a very different kind than re-enter it and face the future.

  ‘I presume you know your fiancé’s mother, Miss Alstone?’ he asked coldly.

  She shivered despite the sticky heat that hit her again now the magic of the moonlit night had flown. ‘How do you know my...?’ she began, then her voice trailed off when he turned to face her.

  ‘Who else but you would skulk on the terrace
at Haile Carr, trying to avoid her fiancé in the arms of a stranger? Who else did I come here to see and maybe even steel myself to meet?’

  ‘I don’t know, but why are you here?’

  He grasped her arms as if she was the last person he really wanted to touch and walked her towards the pool of golden light on the still-warm stones. Her gaze ran over his hawkish features and heat and excitement flashed through her once again, but there was such fury in his uncannily light blue eyes it suffocated.

  ‘Can you see it now?’ he demanded roughly, shaking her a little when she stayed silent. ‘The mark of Cain you have put on me tonight,’ he bit out and the rage and guilt beneath his bitter words felt formidable.

  For another cowardly moment she let her gaze linger on features that seemed uniquely his. Eyes clear and pale and steely blue, yet so alive and passionate even the fury in them seemed better than the cold aloofness he was striving for. Eyebrows and wild curls so dark above his icy gaze that looked so hard now. His features were so strongly marked and masculine she couldn’t sort them from a softer, more blurred version that nagged at her memory.

  ‘The Countess, you’re Lady Carrowe’s...’ Yet again she let her voice tail off as if she was an incoherent and bedazzled debutante. Even the thought of being so silly and unguarded made her stiffen her spine and meet his eyes as if it didn’t cost such an effort. She felt sweat bead her brow. ‘Youngest son,’ she ended, because she knew who he was and still refused to name-call over one thing that certainly wasn’t his fault.

  ‘Say it, Miss Alstone,’ he ordered with weary impatience. ‘I’m my mother’s publicly denounced shame since the day I had the bad taste to be born alive. I’m the cuckoo in the Earl of Carrowe’s nest; Lady Carrowe’s disgrace; destroyer of innocent ladies’ reputations and all the names they call me if I’m stupid enough to enter a room full of your kind. And what about you, Miss Alstone? You’re Magnus Haile’s affianced wife and far more of a disgrace than my mother ever was in private. She married a monster and you’re about to wed his very opposite; you have no excuse for luring in a lover before you even marry my big brother.’

  ‘That’s between us and none of your business,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Tell him about this and I’ll tell the whole world what you did tonight. Dare whisper a word to hurt him and I’ll make sure the world finds out what we’ve done.’

  ‘You can’t ruin me,’ she defied him and knew it was cheap to invite him to throw mud at the Earl of Carnwood’s youngest sister-in-law if he dared.

  ‘Wulf FitzDevelin may not get past generations of rank and privilege and be-damned-to-the-rest-of-you, but Dev can do it with a few flicks of his pen and a lampoon from a scurrilous friend who owes him a favour.’

  ‘You’re him; a famous writer? That Dev?’ she said, incredulous he was the scourge of liars and hypocrites and fools she’d found so irresistibly funny when he wasn’t directing his fury at her.

  His more usual style of showing the folly and misfortune of his fellow man took his writing beyond satire. She admired his compassion and delight in ordinary and extraordinary people of great cities and small places alike. In his mind she probably qualified as liar, hypocrite and fool. That idea added a layer of sadness to her guilt she didn’t want to think about right now.

  ‘Luckily for me there’s no law to stop a bastard being a writer or vice versa. And I thought I was so cynical nothing could shock me, but you proved me wrong tonight, Miss Alstone; I hope you’re proud.’

  ‘Not really,’ she made herself say as if she was thinking about something more important than a trifling sin she could take to church with her on Sunday and come away with a feeling of absolution.

  ‘Mention this aberration to my brother and I’ll not only deny every word and ruin you, I’ll take your family and friends down with you.’

  ‘Don’t threaten me,’ she flared back at him, even as fear for those she loved and wanted to protect flared fiercely in her heart and hurt more bitterly because he was the one trying to put it there. ‘Nobody will rule me or mine with fear or beatings or nasty little lies ever again,’ an Isabella even she hadn’t known was so furious about her childhood spat like a cornered tigress. ‘Stay away from me and mine and your brother as well,’ she went on in a forceful whisper for fear of being overheard. ‘I’ll do what I can for your half-sisters, Mr Wulf, as long as you’re not glowering at me from the sidelines as if I’m the She-Wolf of France and Lucrezia Borgia rolled up together.’

  ‘Your namesake the Queen Isabella, so-called She-Wolf of France?’ he taunted her.

  ‘A poor choice of words doesn’t change facts.’

  ‘I doubt you worry very much about them at the best of times, miss. Luckily for you I haven’t the stomach to stay here and watch you promise to wed my brother as if you’re worthy of even a single hair on his head.’

  ‘You love him, don’t you? All those stories about you being heartless and impervious to love and affection are more of Lord Carrowe’s lies,’ she said, so shaken by the fact the notorious Wulf FitzDevelin had turned out to be nothing like the man he’d been painted she forgot she was the one doing battle with him right now.

  ‘I feel very cold and resistant to you, and if you don’t hurry back inside, your undeserved reputation as a cool and lovely lady of fortune will be blasted for good. I’d be the first to dance on her grave, but Magnus wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘I certainly won’t risk notoriety for the sake of someone who thinks he can threaten all I hold dear because I was stupid.’

  ‘Stupid? A little more than that, Miss Alstone,’ he said with such revulsion in his voice she decided to let him have the last word, since he liked them so much.

  She gave him one last challenging look to dare him to do his worst, then turned her back. He was a mirage—a wonder that turned out nothing of the kind. Magnus and his sisters and her own loving family were real; they mattered. She used her memory of the ballroom’s layout and decorations to sneak back inside unnoticed. She would get her breath back and confess to nodding off in a quiet corner from exhaustion and nerves. Yes, she could put Isabella Alstone back together and even look glowingly happy when her engagement to a good man was announced. Just a few more moments away from the stares and speculation of the cream of local society and she’d be able to playact with the best of them.

  Chapter Two

  Six months later Isabella wished she couldn’t remember that night of rebellion as if it was only moments ago. She watched her very pregnant middle sister walk towards her like a ship in full sail and did her best to swap prickly memories for here and now.

  ‘Are you hiding up here because you think it’s the last place anyone will look, Izzie?’

  ‘If I was, it clearly hasn’t worked and, no, I’m not hiding,’ she lied concisely when Kate reached her. The need to find peace felt urgent after all these weeks and months of turmoil, so here she was on the top floor of the newest part of Viscount Shuttleworth’s grand and sprawling mansion, watching the spring landscape below and trying not to think.

  ‘That’s your story,’ Kate said sceptically. ‘I never believed them when you were the baby of the family and a sweet smile and tall tale got what you wanted nine times out of ten, and I don’t believe you now.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a baby anymore, so stop thwarting me for the good of my soul and trust me to know my own mind.’

  ‘You’re my little sister, Izzie, and trying to pretend all’s well with your world when it obviously isn’t won’t work. I can tell how sad and confused you are about whatever has happened between you and Magnus these last few months while I’ve been stuck in the country like a cow out at pasture. Don’t shut me out, love; I’m on your side whether you want me there or not.’

  ‘You wouldn’t leave me alone even if I wanted you to, so it’s as well I don’t,’ Isabella joked, then sobered when she saw genuine hurt in her sister’s
eyes. ‘I know how lucky I am to have a lionhearted older sister like you, Kate. When we were little and Miranda eloped, then Jack died, you protected me like a lioness. You must have been so sad and lost yourself, but you somehow forced our aunt and cousin to stop beating and bullying me until I was as silent and cowed as Magnus’s poor little sister Theodora. I’m sorry it cost you so much to keep me safe, but you have a family of your own to spoil and protect now, my Lady Shuttleworth, and I can take care of myself. I’m sad about the end of my betrothal to Magnus, but I expect I’ll get over it soon enough.’

  ‘I don’t think you will,’ Kate argued as if wistfulness and guilt were written all over Isabella’s face and she really hoped they weren’t. ‘And you were quite right to put an end to it if you didn’t love him.’

  ‘Although you’re the worst-tempered and most infuriating sister I have, Katie darling, you’re loyal to a fault,’ Isabella tried to joke; because she had a sore heart and conscience she didn’t want Kate to know about. And she did love Magnus, just not in the way a wife should love her husband.

  ‘You only have two sisters.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Hmmm, I know when I’m being led away from a subject, so trying to make me angry won’t work. I’m not as gentle as Miranda is most of the time, but I can control my temper when you’re not around to goad it. And you should humour me, since I’m in a very interesting condition,’ Kate said with a rueful rub of her swollen belly.

  ‘You’d hate it if I did.’

  ‘True, but I might secretly be flattered you wanted to cosset me so badly you held that clever tongue of yours for once in your life.’

  ‘You don’t need flattering. You and Edmund have a lovely little daughter and a new baby on the way. No doubt all three of you will spoil him or her to the edge of reason the moment they are born and what does anyone else’s opinion matter when you’re the centre of their world?’

  ‘I love them so much I pinch myself to make sure this is really happening at times, but you’re my little sister, Izzie. I couldn’t not care about you while there’s breath in my body, and, come to think of it, even if I was dead, I doubt I’d be able to stop loving you.’