Emma Jensen - Entwined (12 page)

If she was to be objective, Isobel had to concede that the village had no way of knowing the truth about her presence in Lord Oriel's home. That, in itself, was a blessing of sorts. Everyone knew Jamie MacLeod to be habitually both a drunk and a fool. Matters would be far worse if it was also known that he was a thief.

Nor did anyone know of the marquess's blindness—or the fact that he treated her as he would any employee during the day, polite and distant, only to repeat his outrageous proposal each night.

Aye, if she was to be objective, she might forgive the villagers' cruelty.

But the town knew her, knew her morals and pride. And at least a handful of Oriel's tenants knew something noteworthy of him, too. In reading the journals, Isobel had found something consistent, and so surprising that she had at first doubted the ink before her eyes.

Lord Oriel was—or at least had been—a man whose generosity should stand as an example to all. His tenants' rents had not been raised in years and had even been reduced on a scattering of occasions. In one case, a tenant did not pay at all. Maude Kendall had not paid rent on either her cottage or land in five years. She had an invalid husband and six young children. The marquess, it seemed, had known that.

This was the man about whom the village now whispered. The fact that he had become a recluse since returning from the war apparently gave ignorant minds leave to fear him. These people knew
nothing,
nothing but the glee of flapping tongues, now lashing at Isobel as well.

Weak-kneed, she sank onto one of the stone benches set against the garden wall. It was a sunny spot, away from the trellises and statues, with the warmth she needed. A tendril, bare but for thorns, snagged at her skirts, and she brushed it away. The rosebushes to each side of the bench had gone so long without care that their canes reached to curve over the stone.

Above on the wall, tendrils had crossed and twined about each other.

Without blossoms, it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. The plants would not bloom for at least another month, but Isobel had a very good idea how they would appear when they did. She knew roses, and these were recognizable, even in their bareness.

She closed her eyes tightly, fighting the tears her pride had held back thus far, and tried to imagine the red and ivory blossoms that would come with summer.

Nathan found her there some time later. He had wandered through the house, book of poetry in hand, growing increasingly frustrated with each empty room he entered. He had given Isobel the morning to herself and had been impatient in his own company from the moment she stepped out the door. Odd, he thought, how quickly solitude grew undesirable.

He knew she was mystified by his cool, businesslike demeanor during the days and his single repeated proposal each night. In truth, he was doing no more than what prudence dictated. Gerard would wait; London would wait. Nathan's patience was stretched to the point of shattering, but he too would wait. No matter what it took.

Being close to Isobel, leaning in to hear every word she spoke, whether estate details or stammered rejection, was proving harder than expected.

He'd had her reading Burns aloud the day before. Listening to her soft burr flowing over poetry was torture even as it was incomparably sweet.

Something more instinctive than logical had him quitting the house to navigate the uneven steps and overgrown paths of the gardens. It seemed right, somehow, that he would find Isobel waiting for him in his ruined Eden.

He found her in what had been his mother's quiet haven and his grandmother's before. He could just make out her bright curls as she rose to her feet and could not help wishing he'd been quieter in his approach. But when not in the familiar confines of the house, he moved with all the stealth of a drunken bull.

"M-my lord. I meant to have returned to the house before now. Did you have need of me?"

Her voice, with its velvety roughness, was shaky. Nathan, already attuned to his own dour mood and familiar enough with Isobel in a nervous state, knew this was something different. "You are unwell." It was not a question. He was certain of her distress, and equally certain she would deny it.

"Nay, I am fine."

He wanted to snap at her, to tell her how futile it was for her to try to lie.

Instead, he pressed, "Your family is well?"

"My family is... fine. Truly, my lord, I am but drowsy from my time in the sun. Forgive me."

Nathan fought off the childish urge to glower at her. She was hardly likely to spill her woes simply to make him more comfortable. "Sit down, then. I don't want you drowsily falling off your feet."

She complied. Wishing he could sit and remove his weight from his cursed leg, Nathan tried to remember how long the bench was. Not long enough for him to share in comfort with this particular woman. He moved instead to the right of it, thinking to lean against the wall.

"How was the service?"

There was a distinct pause before she replied. "Illuminating."

Now there was hurt in her voice. Nathan had, in a sudden flash of bitter insight, a very good idea of what had put it there. He cursed himself for not thinking to warn her. "A village of fools," he muttered. "Damn them!"

"For what?"

"For subjecting you to whatever cruelty you experienced today."

"I do not know what you mean."

"Oh, for God's sake, Isobel! Don't bother. I am neither deaf nor stupid. I can hear the hurt and shame in your voice."

She gasped at that. "There's no shame, my lord! No one can shame me but myself."

His own temper drained away. "True. It was a poor choice of words."

He fumbled with his cane as he tried to prop it against the wall. As expected, she was there in an instant to help. "Thank you. You are afraid your family will suffer."

This time, she let out her breath in an exasperated huff. " 'Tis a sorry thing when I cannot keep my business even from a blind man!"

"I have made it my business as well."

"Aye, and unasked. My life is my own to manage."

He felt his mouth curving wryly. "Damnation one way, hell the other."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Ignorant minds and vicious tongues will condemn you if you choose to leave matters as they are," he said. "Your alternative is marriage to a creature of darkness."

It was the first time he had mentioned the matter in daylight, and he cursed his loose tongue. It had seemed to make so much sense that if he asked her in her own darkness as well as his, she might someday accept.

" 'Tisn't so simple, my lord, nor so bleak."

"No? Are you a woman of epiphanies, Isobel?"

It seemed her temper had waned, too, for she gave a strained laugh.

"Nothing so dramatic. But I have been thinking. You have offered six times, my lord. 'Tis time, I believe, to—oh!"

Nathan had tried to be smooth, first in dealing with the cane and now in leaning his arm against the wall. He had forgotten the roses.

A palmful of thorns caused him to draw his hand back and lose balance.

Furious, resigned, he threw out one arm, and it came to land, hard, over Isobel's shoulder. She must have sprung from her seat to help him, for she was now supporting his weight, chest to chest.
Dear God
was his only coherent thought as her arms closed around him.

The sensation of Oriel's body against hers struck Isobel with the force of a summer storm. It had been instinctive, the leap to arrest his forward fall.

He was still standing, or rather he was leaning against her. And she could feel every connected inch humming like a plucked bow.

Her hands trembled as she held him, and she was almost certain there was a tremor in the hand he had tight at her waist. She felt his breath at her temple, was certain she could feel his heartbeat through the warm silk of his waistcoat. Breathless, her heart pounding in her ears, she waited, with no idea what she was waiting for.

It seemed an eternity before he spoke, and when he did, his voice resonated through her. "What did you say?"

"What? I said nothing, my lord." Her wits scattered, she tried to pull away. His arm only tightened. "C-can you stand on your own now?"

"Probably. You did say something, Isobel. That you have been thinking."

"Only that I do not... that I..." It was no use. She had to sit. So she slid downward from his embrace before he could tighten it further. "What I said was that I've been thinking on your proposal."

"And?"

He seemed steady enough. As a mountain, really. Isobel gazed up at him, past the unyielding jaw and aristocratic nose to the sharp, gold eyes that did not see. "Will you truly keep asking if I keep refusing?"

"I will."

"Why?"

"We've been through this, haven't we? Would it help if I was to spin a romantic tale for you?"

"Nay, of course not. But to keep at it..."

Her first impulse was to jerk away when he slowly lowered himself to sit beside her on the small bench. Something stronger than will, however, held her still, had her arm settling as if by its own volition next to his.

"No one has refused me before."

The words were spoken without arrogance. Isobel tilted her head, wondering if it really could have been resignation she had heard. "You've done this before, then?"

"Oh, yes." The laugh stuck in Nathan's throat. He had hoped, desperately hoped, her words would take a different path. "Twice."

"You've been married?"

"No. Neither betrothal made it that far." He did not want to explain but could not seem to stop the words. "I went off to the Peninsula with a fiancee. I sent home assurances of my survival from the field hospital. The return message was that she had changed her mind. She married another man a month later." Familiar bitterness swelled in his chest, but it was nothing compared to the sadness that swiftly engulfed it. "Before that was..." The pain had dimmed with the years, but still struck with enough force to make him close his eyes. "Anne. She died."

Isobel's hand slipped over his. He doubted she was even aware of the gesture. "Oh, I am sorry," she said.

"It was nearly ten years ago."

"We lose loved ones, my lord, not the love."

How simple it seemed, her quiet assertion. Yes, he had lost loved ones.

Too many of them.

"The past does not concern me."
Liar.
"And I cannot seem to see into my future." He steeled himself, tried not to hope again. "What can you tell me of it, Isobel MacLeod?"

Her sigh settled like the breeze. "Tell me of the roses first."

"The roses?"

"Aye, the pair behind us. What do you know of them?" He frowned.

"My grandmother planted them, I believe. One red, one white."

"Why did she plant them here, away from the rest?"

"I have no idea."

"Mmm.
Can you tell me more?"

"No, I'm afraid I can't."

Restless, Isobel stood and stepped away from the bench. It did not matter that he could not see her. She needed to speak her piece without looking into those disturbing eyes. "Nay, don't get up," she urged when he started to rise. "I'll tell you, about the roses. The red is a Gallica, the other an Alba."

"Alba, as in Scottish?"

She tilted her head back, felt the sun on her face. "As in 'white,' most likely, as it came with the Romans. But they named Scotland Alba, so perhaps 'tis one and the same."

She envisioned the tendrils behind her. "You might not know, my lord, but they've reached out to each other, entwined. The Gallica is larger. Tis older, perhaps, or had a better start. But the Alba is stronger. I can already see where it will flare green. 'Twould be a sorry thing to separate them,"

she said softly, "when they balance each other so well."

"What are you saying, Isobel?"

She felt it again, that stirring, though he was far enough from her that even if he stretched out his arm, he could not touch her. " 'Tis a wondrous, mystical thing, the rose, each color and small part of it with meaning. A red rose is for sorrow—martyrdom if you follow the Church."

"I would have thought it for love."

"Aye. There is that, but 'tisn't the true province of the red."

"And the white?'

"Innocence," she answered, her voice softer still, "and silence." She turned then, her own gaze clear and direct as she stared into the ravaged, starkly captivating face. "There's my answer, then. Aye."

Something poignant and unfamiliar briefly sparked in his eyes, then was gone. "You are saying you will marry me."

"Aye."

"Be my support and my silence."

"Aye. That, too."

He nodded slowly. "Thank you." Then, after a moment, he asked, "Does it bother you a great deal, the idea of being tied to a blind man?"

"Well, that's an odd question, isn't it? I've just accepted a proposal from one."

"You didn't answer me." He paused, then frowned slightly when she said nothing. "Tell me, then, would you have accepted had I not been blind?"

Isobel was slowly becoming used to his strange twists of thought, but this one made no sense whatsoever. "Had you sight, my lord, you would never have asked."

"If I had?"

She rolled her eyes, knowing he could not see the gesture, and decided nonsense was best answered in kind. "Of course I would have refused you.

I would have no use for you with sight, and you'd have none for me."

"Ah. Perhaps not."

Isobel glanced down at her hands and saw they were trembling. "Are we... done with this, then?"

"Yes, we're done." As if to prove he was, in fact, finished with the matter, he gestured toward where the Gallica and Alba entwined. "Tell me, Isobel, is there a rose in this garden for hope?"

Relieved to have a question she could answer, Isobel glanced around at the wild tangle. "Hope is in the leaves, my lord. We've but to wait to see what comes with the blooms."

CHAPTER 8

Either Nathan's vision was improving, or the Reverend Mr. Clarke was in danger of expiring on the spot. Nathan was fully convinced it was the latter, and while the bombastic old coot's demise would hardly be cause for sorrow, he would have preferred the former. But no, he could still see only wavering shapes and colors, so his certainty that the reverend's face was a dramatic shade of purple must have been nothing more than imagination.