What Isabella Desires (10 page)

And people would wonder what had happened to Lady Willoughby to put such a smile on her face in death. The people in the room not twenty feet away most especially.

Hold a moment.

She was in a hallway. One of Marcus’s hands was wrapped around her breast, the other cupping her rear. Wantonly pressed up against a wall with no less than a dozen people a room away.

She pulled her head back, knocking it against the wall. She panted, echoing his ragged breathing.

His eyes captured hers, dark caramel and glossy. Heated. If she didn’t move she was going to let him have his way with her right here, enjoying every minute and probably ruining her for life.

“Thing! I need to get the thing from the what’ sit.”

She slipped from between Marcus and the wall and turned to back away from him, his eyes still hot as he rested one hand against the abandoned paneling. His molten gaze locked with hers.

A throat cleared. “Lady Willoughby, may I send a footman to retrieve your item?”

Isabella jumped and whirled expecting to see the Roth butler standing at attention, face perfectly blank. Perfectly blank in the way good servants observed their masters before heading down to the kitchens to gossip about them. To gossip about things like seeing their master conquer a wanton woman against a wall. But the starchy man stood discreetly around the corner, only one shiny boot in view.

“Oh, no. It’s breast—I mean best—that I retrieve it.”

Dear. God.

“Wait, Lady Willoughby—”

Isabella stumbled out of the house. If Marcus kissed her senseless every time she lost a game, she’d never have to worry about being disgruntled again, for she wouldn’t be able to string two sentences together anyway.

She hurried down the front steps and stopped abruptly. The carriage wasn’t there.

“Lady Willoughby!” the butler called.

She spun around.

“The carriages were taken to the back. Come use the back door.”

“I’ll just go around the house. Thank you!”

She needed the fresh air. Needed to cool her red face and heated skin. Needed to collect herself before venturing back inside where Marcus and his voyeuristic butler stood.

Her slippered feet were nearly silent as she padded down the drive. It was a pleasant night. With just a hint of a chill, the early summer weather simmering beneath. The moon was high and full, casting silvery shadows on the foliage.

She spotted her carriage parked just beyond the back. Henry, her driver, was most likely down in the servants’ quarters, probably having a tipple or playing cards.

She opened the door and climbed in. She should have taken her bag inside with her earlier, but when they’d pulled into the drive she’d seen Marcus through the open door of the house and rational thought had fled.

Rummaging through her bag, she found the small wooden statue of a castle turret. She stroked it, trying to regain her balance. It was well made, but not terribly expensive, nor eye-catchingly beautiful. It was of obvious quality, though.

She had purchased it in a little shop near the Strand. Marcus had taken to it right away, and over one of their games the large rook had become their winner’s trophy. She had won their last “official” match last month. They had been playing a series of unofficial ballroom matches, one move at a time, in the period since.

Sitting in the silence of the carriage, she inhaled a few deep breaths. What a night—and it wasn’t yet over. She closed her eyes and relaxed. She needed to regain a modicum of her equilibrium and return to the house before they sent someone after her. With her luck, it would be the butler. She stepped out of the carriage, righted her dress, and shut the door.

Something rustled to her right. She peered into the tall bushes surrounding the tiny garden in the back. Shadows shifted and settled. A shiver of unease skimmed over her like hands too light on a piano’s keys.

But no one came forth. No animal made its presence known. She brushed the feeling aside and looked through the corner window. The window provided a full view of the hallway where they had kissed. If anyone had stood out here, they would have gotten as clear a view of her wanton behavior as the butler had.

The darkness contained her mortification.

She stepped forward, and tripped, the rook clattering to the ground. She expelled a surprised breath as she landed squarely on her hands and knees atop a large canvas bag. A lumpy, shifting bag that hadn’t been there previously. The thought unnerved her.

Had a servant come out while she’d been sitting in the carriage and dropped a bag of refuse?

She pushed herself up, one gloved hand fingering the bag. A bag of refuse loosely tied—tied like a burial bag.

She hastily sprung back and grabbed for the rook, which skittered away. She felt for the wooden turret while keeping her eyes on the bag. Her fingers closed around it and she shakily stood. Her eyes stayed on the bag. They had put George in one of those when he was taken away. She swallowed and took a step backward. Perhaps she had been gone longer than five minutes. Perhaps someone would be coming out the back door right now.

The bushes rustled.

She jumped and whirled, trophy held out in front of her, eyes scanning the gardens, the dark entrance to the stables, the shadowed areas between the carriages parked in the drive. Her breathing picked back up to the erratic pace it held before she entered the carriage, but this time from terror instead of passion or mortification.

Her feet slowly moved backward, her slippers quiet, but every sound magnified tenfold as she skirted the bag. It wasn’t far to the house and she was being silly. Just a flight of terrified fancy from too much spent emotion.

She didn’t stop moving. One step, then another, the rook held before her, eyes scanning the bushes and carriages. She had just been in her carriage, but no one could give her enough crowns to go near the dark shadows now.

A clinking footstep. Then another. Sounds that were not hers.

Her feet kept moving backward, picking up speed. Then a large figure moved out of the shadows.

A figure with darkened features and a low-slung cap.

The door opened just as she bolted up the stairs. She threw herself up the last few and into Marcus’s arms.

He let out a grunt as he caught her. “What on earth?”

“Man…bag…after me…”

Marcus thrust her behind him, stepped out of the doorway and peered around the edge.

“Stay here,” he ordered as he grabbed his cane from the hall stand and motioned to his butler.

She mimicked the stance he had previously taken, back to the wall, peering around the edge of the door. Marcus stepped off the porch, and before she could call him back, merged into the dark shadows.

Isabella panicked.

“Come, Lady Willoughby, to the game room with the other guests.”

“What? But Lord Roth just went,” she pointed out the door, “out there!”

Should she follow him? No, that wouldn’t make sense. She had no idea what was going on. She didn’t want to be clubbed by Marcus thinking she was a stranger, or even worse, to club him with the trophy. She was liable to club anyone who startled her at this point.

“Please, Lady Willoughby, follow me. I need to inform—”

He hadn’t gotten the last syllable out before she was running to the game room. James and Stephen, thick as thieves—they would know what was happening.

She saw Stephen first. “Help, Stephen, Marcus—”

“The back door, my lords,” the butler wheezed behind her.

The two men and St. John took off, leaving the rest of the guests in various states of tension and bewilderment.

Calliope approached her, reaching out to soothingly remove the wooden rook from her tight grasp and place it on a side table. “Isabella?”

A bizarre sense of having been in this situation before washed over her. She and Marcus had discovered a dead body at the Pettigrews’ house party the weekend she’d met Calliope.

Perhaps she was doomed to finding a body whenever she made an inroad with Marcus.

Calliope had asked her an implicit question, but something prevented her from saying anything in front of the rest of the guests. Audrey and her sister Faye seemed to understand and started talking loudly.

“I think there’s a dead body in the backyard,” Isabella whispered to Calliope while pulling agitatedly at her dress. How long would it take for them to return? Perhaps she should check…

“Oh, dear.” Calliope clasped her hands together tightly.

Isabella froze. Calliope looked distressed but not surprised. “Do you know something about this?”

“One of their…associates…has gone missing.”

“What?” she hissed, shock overtaking her. “You mean there is a murdered dead body in the backyard?”

“Shh! I don’t know.”

The men returned a minute later, much to everyone’s relief. Isabella couldn’t stop the slight shaking aftereffects, though. Marcus and Stephen concocted a tale about drunken youths in the streets and put on a convincing show, recreating the scene they had witnessed. Isabella smiled weakly when some of the guests turned to her.

“I suppose that explains it. I thought I heard someone breaking into a carriage.”

One of the guests whom she didn’t know well made a noise like a trampled cat and immediately left to make sure his carriage was intact.

The incident put a damper on the night’s events, and Marcus managed to usher the guests out without making it appear that he was kicking them out. Isabella was about to shakily make her way through the door when his hand shot out to prevent her departure.

“Not you. Stubbins will be back in a minute.”

She shook off his hand, unaccountably irritated with the explanation of drunken youths. She supposed it could be true, but they had said nothing about a body or a large bag. “What does Stubbins have to do with me leaving?”

“Stubbins is getting the carriage ready, so he can follow us. I’m accompanying you home.”

Vying emotions coursed through her. “But Henry is here to drive me home.”

“Would you rather I say I’m accompanying Henry?”

A servant signaled to Marcus, and he led her outside. His eyes moved constantly, his hand steady against her back. The last carriages rolled down the drive.

“What happened, Marcus? Was someone really murdered?”

His mouth tightened as he handed her up into the carriage. “Where did you hear such a thing?” He stepped inside and pulled the door closed. “No, no need to ask. Calliope had no right to worry you.”

“So it’s true.” She gripped her hands together.

“No. It’s nothing you need worry about.”

“I tripped over someone’s body! Someone left a body in your backyard while I was in my carriage! What do you mean it’s nothing I need worry about?”

His eyes narrowed. “Did you see anyone?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She wiped a hand across her face. “There was a man, but it could have been one of your servants.”

“Probably was.” His voice was clipped.

She suddenly wasn’t sure she believed him. “How can you be sure?”

“I’m sure. And there’s no need to worry about anything. I’m sorry you were alarmed by this. The body was being delivered to a surgeon who has been experimenting illegally on dead bodies. We know the man responsible. It was a drunken night’s work. We didn’t want to panic any of the guests, though, thus the tale of drunken youths. Some don’t take well to any mention of surgical practices.”

She shivered and the vehicle started moving. Her rented carriage was small and Marcus’s knees brushed against hers. Her house was not far, and the streets were nearly empty. They would be there in no time.

“I saw the rook in the game room,” he said, changing the morbid topic.

“You earned it,” she grimaced, reminded of her earlier spectacular defeat.

He smiled faintly. “I will keep it safe.”

“See that you do, my lord. I plan to win it back soon.”

“Still sore with me, Bella?” He leaned forward and trailed a finger along her knee, the material bunching beneath.

His eyes were warm. Friendly, mischievous, passionate. The first two emotions weren’t unusual in his lighter moods. The third…the third made her head feel light and her breath harder to control.

He wanted her.

He wanted her.

She swallowed, trying to tamp down the desire. “Of course, I’m still sore. I expect you to make it up to me.”

He leaned farther toward her, his lips near to hers, the soft hint of cinnamon swirling between.

“I’ll do what I can.”

The carriage slowed, then pulled to a stop.

Their lips were a hairbreadth apart. He brushed a hand along her cheek. “Good night, Bella.”

Marcus watched her enter her house. Her housekeeper greeted her at the door, and muscles that he hadn’t known were tensed relaxed.

Isabella would kill him if she discovered he had lied through his teeth. But she was the one pure thing in his life. Untainted by politics, or greed, or the seedier side of life. She was a slice of sunshine in the midst of darkness.

When he could no longer enjoy the sunrise, no longer savor the sunset, he would still have her to remember. She would be a beacon when everything eventually went dark.

What if she discovered all his terrible secrets—and that all of her obviously warm delusions of him were wrong?

He wondered for the hundredth time what he was thinking to continue with this mad venture. But what voice was he supposed to listen to? The one urging him forward? Or the one telling him to run as far and fast as he could?

He walked roughly to his carriage. Stubbins’s expression was grim. “To the docks,” Marcus said as he climbed inside.

Fletcher’s body was being seen to. Fletcher’s family had already been cared for. Now they needed to find the person responsible. The threads of the noose tightened. One more body in the ground. One more failure. One more death that he had failed to prevent.

The list of financiers was short. He had actively argued with five of them in as many months. Yet the type of man who was writing the pithy “catch me if you dare” notes was not one who had been planning long-term. That fact narrowed the list down by one. Four men. Three he had encountered the previous day.

He narrowed the list down to two very likely possibilities. They both fit the profile. It was time to increase the noise and flush out the game.