She took him in from head to toe. “No. You are tall and strong.”
He swallowed, wishing he’d had that last shot of whiskey after all. “I appreciate your concern, Izzy. I’ll be fine. Go to bed.”
Crystalline tears trembled in her eyes. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Because I’d die if anything happened to you.” She wrapped her dainty white hands around his neck and pressed her lips to his. His mind went numb. Isabel Aubrey had a temptress’s lips—soft, pink, full, and enticingly sweet—and for a fleeting moment his mouth responded.
He gripped her shoulders and tore his mouth away. “Oh, God.” His head wilted; his heart thundered in his chest. Bloody hell. He forced himself to meet her gaze. Isabel’s wide eyes mirrored his shock. He opened his mouth to apologize, but she got up and dashed into the house.
That night, cursing himself for being every kind of villain, he rode straight to Ashby Park, with Hector sleeping in the basket across his lap, and asked Olivia to be his wife. She said yes.
Seven Dover Street, Present Time
Isabel was exhausted when she returned home from Iris’s fundraising soiree. She scarcely uttered a word the whole evening, let alone helped her friends solicit donations for their charity, though she didn’t think an active participation on her part would have literally tipped the scales in their favor. The English aristocracy didn’t care about poor war widows and starving babes; they only cared about their little amusements. Nevertheless, Isabel fully expected Iris and Sophie to demand an explanation for her odd behavior tonight. But deuce take it, what could she tell them? That she was devastated? That the only man she ever cared for had tossed her out of his sight and mind that morning, never to return again?
She never told them about her girlish infatuation with the earl. When they embraced her as a friend during her first season, Ashby was considered a legend among his peers: an established womanizer, a celebrated cavalry commander, thirteen years her senior, socially ten times her better, and where she was concerned—wholly unattainable. He had also been away in the Peninsula at that time, a fact which spared her the humiliation of having to face the man who had scorned her kiss.
It had taken her a long time to get over the shame—and the heartache. And it had taken her two years to muster the courage to go see him after his return from the Continent.
Go home, Isabel, and don’t come back here ever again. The idea of never seeing him again shredded her soul. Inevitably her thoughts drifted to happier days in which Ashby and Will rode in unexpectedly, bringing the sun with them. They were polar opposites—Will, the carefree wit; Ashby, the intense lord—and yet they complemented each other perfectly, creating a synergy that was almost enviable.
She recalled the first time she had laid eyes on him as if it were yesterday: She was twelve-years-old; Ashby was more than twice her age. Will ushered Ashby into the parlor, where she sat on the floor playing with her twin sisters while her mother leafed through the Society pages. She remembered scrambling to her feet and bobbing politely, and Ashby taking her hand and bowing over it. “You never told me you had a beautiful little doll for a sister, Will,” Ashby remarked. When she looked up at him, she met the kindest, most expressive, loneliest sea-colored eyes.
Those eyes cut right through her and captured her heart for good. Without Ashby and Will, what remained in the place where her heart once beat was a great, suffocating void she found unbearable. Ashby had closed the door in her face, and there was no going back.
Lucy jumped to her feet when Isabel entered her bedchamber; the poor maid’s eyes were red and bleary. “This arrived half an hour after you’d left, miss.” Lucy gestured at the exquisitely carved mahogany box sitting on Isabel’s bed. It was tied with a sky blue ribbon and adorned with a daisy. “Old Norris wanted to give it to Lady Aubrey, but I happened to be nearby when the footboy arrived, and when I saw his livery and heard him say the box was for you, I snatched it.”
A strange thrill meandered along Isabel’s spine. “Well done, Lucy. What was special about the footboy’s livery?”
“It was black and gold, ma’am.”
Isabel’s pulse sped up. A box from Ashby? She had offended him. Why would he send her a gift? She spun around, presenting her maid with her back. “Lucy, quick. Unlace me, please.”
As Lucy undid her back, Isabel met her maid’s eyes in the dressing mirror. “I, eh, hope you remembered to forget our little sojourn this morning?”
“Forget what?” With an impish smile Lucy helped her out of her gown and silk shift and removed her hair clips. “Good night, miss.”
“Thank you, Lucy. Good night.” Isabel quickly donned her nightshift, shook out her thick mane of curls, and climbed on the bed. Her heart racing, she stared at the box. All of her dull, unimaginative beaux sent her bouquets of red roses, but a single yellow daisy seemed a message in itself. Only she had no idea what it meant. “You’re a sentimental twit,” she chastised herself. Yet, her hands were shaking. Carefully she pulled the blue ribbon loose, ruining the beautiful bow, and retied it around the sunny daisy’s stalk. She ran her fingertips over the mahogany lid. A lion and a lioness, surrounded by their little cubs, were etched in the wood—a pride of lions. She opened the box. “Banknotes?” Then it dawned on her—a donation. She counted the money: One hundred, two, three…a thousand, two thousand…five thousand pounds! “Goodness gracious!”
Slack-jawed, Isabel gaped at the heap of bills scattered on her bed coverlet. “Five thousand pounds…” They could accomplish anything with such an obscene sum. They could finally pay their solicitor, Mr. Flowers, lease office space for their charity, hire runners to extend their list of bereaved families in need. Countless ideas whirled in her feverish mind. Iris and Sophie would be ecstatic! She couldn’t wait to tell them, but first…
A small envelope lay on the bottom of the box. The mark of a lion was stamped in the cold wax—the lion etched in Ashby’s signet ring. She lifted the envelope and nearly dropped it; her hands quivered like an old woman’s. She drew the small card out. In a bold, foreign hand was written, “I beg your forgiveness and wish you success in all of your endeavors. Yours, PNL.”
“PNL.” With every fiber of her being she knew the L stood for Lancaster, but the P and the N were a mystery. She didn’t know his Christian name. Nor his middle one. She knew so little about him. She lay back and pressed the note to her lips, shutting her eyes. Ashby.
She would not give up on him. Not now. Not ever. Isabel smiled. He may not wish to see her, but she needed Ashby to be a part of her life again, as he had once been a part of her family, and his donation provided her with the best pretext for paying him another visit. Somehow, she would persuade the Gargoyle to come out for a caress.
Chapter Three
“I’m sorry, ladies.” Mr. Flowers closed the book he’d been perusing and scuttled to another crowded bookshelf. “I’ve nothing new to present to you. You’ll have to come back next week.”
“That’s what you said last week,” Isabel muttered. Cramped together with Iris and Sophie on a threadbare settee, she surveyed the dusty, cobwebbed office and fought a violent urge to get up and open a window. She had a physical dislike of closed spaces, and the stale air was making her nauseous in addition to giving her a headache.
Yet despite the pitiful condition of his office, Mr. Flowers was a brilliant legal mind, who, due to an illness that caused his hands to shake, had had to leave a successful career as a public prosecutor. If anyone could draw up a winning bill proposal, it was this man.
“Mr. Flowers,” Iris began, “we have provided you with all the information you’d asked for. I see no reason why this should take so long. I’m not in the habit of speaking unkindly, but you, sir, are dragging your heels on this, and we are losing our patience.”
“Ugh, you two!”