No, it can’t be him, Isabella. Wulf FitzDevelin is on the other side of the Atlantic and he wouldn’t follow you to Herefordshire on a private family visit if he wasn’t. He wouldn’t cross the street to pick you up if you’d been knocked down by a dust cart, she told herself firmly, because her heartbeat was loud in her ears as she watched the powerful male figure hurry after Sophia and wondered if she’d really fainted and this was a nightmare.
His drab greatcoat swirled out behind him in his hurry and even from up here his crow-black locks looked wild, but there was such leashed power and energy in his loping walk, encumbered or not, that she couldn’t escape the reality of him. He was here, now. She remembered the defiant set to his head and shoulders too well and couldn’t fool herself her eyes were deceiving her.
How dare he? He wasn’t on visiting terms with Kate and Edmund and it couldn’t be because he couldn’t stay away from her. He had put vast and empty miles of ocean between them after that night at Haile Carr and now he was back. A silly, moon-led part of her was dancing as if he’d come to claim her now his half-brother wasn’t engaged to marry her any longer. She shook her head to deny the idiot any say and decided she must find out what he wanted before he made his contempt for her clear and Kate put two and two together.
Feeling the force of his impatient personality even from up here, she noted he was even more leanly fit and unforgettable by daylight. Large chunks of his overlong sable hair were being held captive by Master Kenton and she almost winced in sympathy, but he deserved it, didn’t he? She shivered as if she was out there, in spring sunlight, close enough to see him frown as she fought to read the thoughts in that austere, almost handsome dark head of his.
‘He’s the Haile family ghost; Wulf FitzDevelin,’ she muttered, but Kate heard and raised her eyebrows. ‘I can’t imagine what he’s doing here, so don’t ask me,’ she added as coolly as she could with Kate gazing at her as if she thought differently.
‘That’s Lady Carrowe’s Folly? Well, I never, ever did,’ Kate said slowly. ‘If his father was anything like him, I almost understand her fall from grace. If I wasn’t married to the love of my life and Edmund wasn’t such a potent lover, I might be tempted to lure a man like him into my bed and the devil take the consequences.’
‘You only say that because you know it’s never going to happen. Any woman who sends out lures in his direction will reap trouble and heartache. If he has a heart, he’s hidden it so well nobody knows where it is.’
‘Your Magnus is said to be as close to him as if he was a full brother and you think him a good man.’
‘Magnus is a good man and can’t see his half-brother’s dark side because he loves him.’
‘Whatever side you catch him on I’d wager my best bonnet debutantes’ hearts beat nineteen to the dozen when they set eyes on the two of them. Their elder sisters will do more than sigh over a rogue like that and I expect he has to fight them off, if he’s careless enough to venture into Carrowe House at the right time for the Countess to be at home to callers.’
‘If you weren’t such a country wife nowadays, you’d recall not even the most dashing of the young matrons are brave enough to visit her ladyship openly and they’d be idiots to accept a dare like him even if they did,’ Isabella said with a fierce frown at the man’s back as he strode away.
‘Or so besotted they couldn’t help themselves,’ Kate suggested with another overt glance at that powerfully lean masculine figure as his long legs ate up landscaped gardens and a much sneakier sidelong look at Isabella.
The inner voice she was trying to ignore whispered Kate was right: he did improve the scenery even on such a shining spring day. Familiar little demons were whispering in her ear and how dare he wake them up when she’d tried so hard to silence them? The long, sinful nights in his bed her inner fool yearned for wouldn’t be as wonderful as his leanly honed body and moody looks promised. No, of course they wouldn’t; not now he despised her. No point risking her all for an itch she wanted to scratch so badly it still kept her awake at nights.
She tried to divert herself by wondering if his mother had loved his father or simply wanted him. Lady Carrowe never refuted her husband’s assertion Wulf was her by-blow, but had she thought what illicit passion could cost when she lay with her lover long enough to get with child? If he was anything like Wulf, she probably couldn’t see past the blind haze of wanting and so it was a good thing Wulf FitzDevelin disliked and distrusted Isabella Alstone so much, wasn’t it?
‘He’s probably here to lecture me about his brother,’ she told her sister crossly and at least he was oblivious to her fast-beating heart and weak knees as she followed his every move with hungry eyes.
‘Hmmm, well, he looks to have made a firm friend of young Kit. Sophia won’t be so pleased her little brother caught up with his help, or should I call it endurance?’
‘Young Kit is a force of nature,’ Isabella agreed absently.
‘You could call it that,’ Kate replied as they watched man and boy close in on Sophia, ‘but your FitzDevelin is one as well and grown-up with it.’
‘He’s not my FitzDevelin. I wouldn’t give him a ha’penny worth of goodwill if he stooped to beg it from me and he never will.’
‘Why ever not?’ Kate asked so innocently Isabella bit back a groan.
‘We hardly know each other and don’t like what we do know,’ she said flatly.
‘Because he’s the Countess of Carrowe’s by-blow and they whisper dark scandals about him and all the lovers he’s had who ought to know better?’
‘He had no say in the sins his mother and father committed before he was born,’ Isabella said absently as she tried not to think about all those bored society matrons rumour credited him with seducing. Kate was probably right and they lined up to be seduced and that was one more reason not to join in.
‘They say the Earl made sure his wife’s by-blow got an education and would have set him up in a profession if your Wulf hadn’t run away. Kind of him to raise his wife’s bastard, but he didn’t get much thanks, did he?’
‘Kind? Do you really think so?’ Isabella asked absently.
She was busy watching Wulf move so fluidly he might actually be a wolf padding after his prey if he had another pair of lithe legs and a fine pelt to go with those ice-blue eyes. For a hungry moment she wished she was at his side, close enough to admire the ease of sleek muscle over elegant bones and wonder at his total focus as he ruthlessly tracked his quarry. Except he wasn’t a predator and she wasn’t fascinated, so it was as well she wasn’t close enough to fall under his spell.
‘You don’t?’ Kate said, sounding intrigued.
‘The Earl isn’t a kind man, Kate. He would have sued his wife’s lover for criminal conversation and divorced her if he was.’
‘She does seem very inoffensive and quiet now,’ Kate said and Isabella could see her acute mind working on Lady Carrowe’s unfortunate situation.
If the lady had even one more supporter among the haut ton, she might be less oppressed and her daughters more welcome in polite society. Isabella stared down at the empty garden where Wulf and the youngest Kentons had disappeared from view. She half-expected to see a mark in the air, a magic rune perhaps to tell unwary females danger lay ahead.
‘You have given a good deal of thought to Mr FitzDevelin’s shocking birth and stormy upbringing during your engagement to his brother, Izzie,’ Kate said airily.
‘No more than I would about anyone in such a situation,’ she replied and fought not to cross her fingers against another huge lie, because not a single night had gone by since she met him when he didn’t haunt her sleeping and waking.
‘Of