The Charmer (62 page)

For a fleeting moment, she
considered using her powers to move the jars, but she forced the instinct from
her mind.  She hadn’t used her witchcraft since that fateful day six years ago
and she wasn’t about to start now.

With a sigh, she descended the
ladder, resting the jar on her hip like a baby.  The front door to the shop
opened and she was about to call out to the customer that she would be only a
moment, when he spoke first.

"Let me take that for
you."

That voice...

She looked down into the face
she hadn’t seen for six long years.  And dropped the jar.

He caught it, although she
suspected it was unwittingly done because someone who looked as shocked as he
did couldn’t consciously work their body with such quick finesse.  She should
know.  Her legs felt as stable as water and she gripped the ladder tighter to
stop herself from falling.  She certainly wouldn’t attempt the next rung yet.
Making an ungainly descent in front of the man she hadn’t been able to banish
from her dreams would be too horrible.

"Isabel?"

"Nick."  She was sure
she said it out loud but she couldn’t hear it so she said it again.
"Nick."  His name felt strange on her tongue.

"It is you," he
whispered, his dark gaze lifted up to her.  As if his legs had grown weary, he
sat down heavily on the stool provided for customers near the workbench.
"Oh my God," he said.  "It is you."

Taking very careful steps, she
slowly descended the ladder.  When her foot touched the second last rung, a
loud crack shattered the thick silence.  Isabel fell to the floor in an
undignified heap just as her husband, Nicholas Merritt, rushed to her side.

"Isabel, are you all
right?"  He knelt and touched her shoulder.

For a brief moment the
connection recalled shared memories—of affection, passion and finally of pain.
It was this last that made her shake him off.  That and her embarrassment. 

"I’m well."  She got
to her feet unaided and smoothed down her woolen gown wishing she could smooth
away her erratic heartbeat as easily.

"Are you sure you’re not
hurt?" he asked.  "You landed rather awkwardly."

"I’m fine!"  Good
Lord, this was not the way their reunion was supposed to happen.  It was
supposed to involve her being perfectly serene and looking her prettiest, and
Nick groveling.

He didn’t grovel.  He didn’t say
anything.  He was so close she only had to reach out to touch his hair.  The
power of his presence, something she’d always found enthralling, sucked her in.
She gripped the bench at her back to stop from flinging her arms around him and
doing the groveling instead.

"Isabel."  He spoke so
quietly she had to strain to hear him.  "Christ!" he said with sudden
vehemence.  He dragged a hand through his hair but said nothing else.

She turned away because seeing
the shock on his face made her feel more insecure than she had in a long time.

"Am I so awful that you
cannot even look at me?" he demanded.

Her breath escaped in a whoosh
and tears stung the back of her eyes.  She must look at him.  If she wanted to
put him from her mind once and for all, she must first face him.  She waited
until her vision cleared, then slowly turned around. 

He looked the same, and yet so
different.  He still had the boyish face she held so dear in her memory, and
although he was yet to laugh, the twinkle in his eyes and the dimples in his
cheeks were only a smile away. 

But the boy had become a man
since she’d last seen him.  It was as if a sculptor had chiseled a little of
the youthfulness away to reveal a harder, leaner and even more handsome face.
A small furrow at the bridge of his straight nose and a few lines around his
eyes and mouth only enhanced his new masculinity.  There was power and
intensity in his features and stance where before there had been only carefree
frivolity.

She wondered if her appearance
had altered as dramatically in the last six years.  His expression gave no
indication as he studied her.  Under the scrutiny, Isabel resisted the urge to
straighten her skirts and check that her cap hadn’t slipped in the fall. 

"No," she said at last
when she felt certain her voice wouldn’t falter.  "Not awful at
all."  Far from it.

She marveled that he was still
so tall, something she had not expected.  She had thought he would not seem so
big since she had grown up so much since leaving him.  She had been wrong.  He
towered over her like a solid, impenetrable wall as he had always done.

They stood like two strangers,
warily watching each other, until Isabel could stand it no longer.

"How did you know where to
find me?" she asked.

He frowned at her.  "I
didn’t.  I wasn’t looking for you.  I just walked in...and here you are."
He sounded like a man awed by a wondrous magic trick.

Magic.  The reminder of the vile
thing behind their separation sliced through her like a knife. 

Then his words sank in.  He
hadn’t been looking for her.  The fact that his admission hurt meant time had
healed nothing, and she had not changed as much as she thought.

"Yes," she said.
"Here I am." 

"They said you had gone to
Cambridge," he said.  "I tore that city apart looking for you."
His voice rose from a flat monotone to a pitch that grated her raw nerves.
"If I’d known you were in London..."  He shook his head, still staring
at her.

He had been searching for her.
The ache in her heart lessened.  "You wouldn’t have found me.  I’m not
Isabel Merritt here."

"Camm?" he asked,
referring to her maiden name.

She nodded.

"My God," he said.
"It’s really you."  His laugh was more of a maniacal bark. 

Maybe he’d gone mad.  Perhaps
the scheme he’d become involved in after their marriage, the cause of his long
absences, had affected his mind.  She edged away from him. 

"No!"  He caught her
face in his hands with a delicacy at odds with his tone.  "Don’t move."
His skin felt rough on her cheeks but then he caressed her with his thumbs and
she thought she had never felt anything so soft in her life.

"Isabel," he
murmured. 

His gaze held hers and before
she could sever the connection, he captured her mouth in a fierce kiss.  Some
distant part of her wanted to struggle but the rest of her wanted to drown in
his soft lips and his warmth.  It wasn't like the kisses of old.  They had
always been passionate but never so powerful.  It was as if every emotion he had
experienced in the intervening years had surged to the surface and clashed in
this single searing kiss.

His hand pressed against the
back of her head, holding her in place, but he needn’t have bothered because
she didn’t want to go anywhere.  She had dreamed of this kiss for six years and
she wasn’t going to end it yet.  Not when it sent a rush of heat through her,
nourishing her starved body, filling a hole she hadn’t known existed.

But after only a few short
moments, he pulled away.  "I’m sorry," he said, breathing hard.
"I shouldn’t have done that."  He ran a hand through his hair and
turned away.  "I wish I hadn’t."  Regret echoed through his hollow
voice.

She hugged her arms over her
chest to try and contain her shaking.  That kiss had been a mistake.  It had
ignited something she had thought mastered.  Something deep within her, a
primal, timeless need.

"But I couldn’t help
it," he continued.  "I mean, look at you!  You’re here, you’re real,
you’re not dead and I’ve been living in the same city as you this whole
time!"

He had thought her dead?
"Yes." 

His eyes narrowed.  "Yes?
Is that all you have to say to me after six years?"

His acrimony stung.
"Yes," she said again, because it truly was all she could think of
saying.  Her thoughts tumbled about and she couldn’t possibly form a coherent
sentence from them.

He scoffed and strode to the
door but didn’t open it.  Instead, he stormed back, half turned, shook a finger
at her then grunted and strode away again.  With his back to her, he placed a
hand against the wall and looked down at the floor.  "Well, Wife, do I get
an explanation?  Are you going to tell me to my face this time that you have a
lover?"  His head turned to one side as if he couldn’t face what was on
the other.  "I suppose you have children—"

"No!"  She took a step
towards him but stopped.  "There are no children and no lover.  There
never has been."  And never will be.

"Don’t lie to me, Isabel.
You did enough of that in our first two years of marriage."

"I have never lied to
you!"  She crossed the room and stood where he could see her.  "Not
once, Nick.  Whereas you lied to me every time you went away.  Every time you
told me you had business in London, every time you wrote telling me you would
be home soon and forever.  So do not accuse me of lying because your conscience
is hardly clear on that score."

Nicholas had never seen Isabel
look so angry, or so beautiful.  It was quite a formidable combination and
stirred something inside him.  Her face may be flushed from her anger and the heat
of the fire, and her hair had fallen out from the cap to brush against her
cheek, but she was the most amazing woman he had ever set eyes on.  Even more
beautiful than he remembered, something he had not thought possible.  Her
upturned nose was still the same, the honey color of her hair unchanged and the
slimness of her figure, but there was something about the way she had walked
towards him just then and spoken her mind.  The girl he had married wouldn’t
have said it quite that way, used that tone, or moved with such determination.
Nor would she have thrust out her chin, such an adorable chin too, or held his
gaze.

As he looked away, too ashamed
because she was right and he had lied to her over and over, he had to admit
that the girl he married had changed.  She had become a woman. 

He turned back to her again, her
words ringing in his ears.  "No lover?  But the Forster lad..."  He
remembered the name because he had searched Canterbury for her under Merritt,
Camm and Forster thinking she might have taken her lover’s name.

"Forster?  Your mean Jacob
Forster?  He was a nice boy, but hardly someone I would take to my bed."

"How would I know what sort
of man you’d take to your bed?"

"If you were around more
you would."

Nicholas had the sickening
feeling that he was to blame for Isabel’s leaving all along.  Even so, he had
to persevere.  Had to know, even if it meant heartache deeper than anything
he'd ever experienced.

"They told me you and the
Forster boy had run away to Canterbury together," he said dully.

"Then they were
wrong."

"So it would seem."
He felt almost weak with relief.  She had no lover.

"I suspect Jacob Forster
and I had the unhappy coincidence of leaving Newport at the same time.  I’m
sorry you thought I left you for another man.  I didn’t."  She thrust out
her chin again, not sounding sorry at all.

Nicholas straightened.
"Then why did you leave?"

She turned away and busied
herself with the herbs laid out on the bench.  Being an apothecary’s daughter,
she had always been interested in medicines and herbal remedies, but he had
never thought to find her working as a shop girl.  Not the wife of Nicholas
Merritt.  Sir Nicholas now.

"There are too many reasons
to go into here and now," she said.

"Then when and where?  I
have a right to know what...what I did wrong.  Was it my absences?"

She sprinkled some dried leaves
into a mortar and crushed them with a pestle using far more force than
necessary.  No doubt the leaves gave off a powerful odor but he couldn’t
distinguish it amidst the jumble of other pleasing scents emanating from the
cauldron bubbling over the fire.

He was about to press her for an
answer when the door at the rear of the shop opened and a man entered. 

"Isabel, I—"  The
gentleman spotted Nicholas and stopped.  "Forgive me, Sir, I’m sorry for
interrupting."  He bowed and turned to Isabel, frowning at the tension in
her face.  "Are you all right?"

He must be someone of
considerable wealth to have a pearl earring and velvet cloak, but what
concerned Nicholas more was that he called his wife—his wife—by her first
name.  Not Mistress Camm or whatever, but Isabel.  By rights, the only man
alive who should be calling her that was himself.

"Perfectly fine," she
said, although anyone who knew her would detect the sharp edge to her voice and
know that everything was far from fine. 

"Is this man bothering
you?"  The gentleman drew himself up to his full height, still several
inches shorter than Nicholas, and gave him a glare meant to convey
superiority. 

Nicholas had to applaud her
friend for trying.  With his soft hands and slight stature, he was clearly not
used to being cast in the role of protector.  He looked out of his depth trying
to intimidate.  But, more importantly, the dandy was prepared to do it.  For
Isabel.  Nicholas knew what that compulsion felt like.  He was prepared to do
anything for her too.  If only he knew what she wanted.

"He...  I...," she
stuttered, her face slowly reddening.  It seemed she wasn’t prepared to tell
the newcomer that her husband had found her, or indeed that she had a husband.
"We were just..." 

"We were just discussing my
terrible case of..."  Nicholas searched for a suitable ailment.

"Flaccid erectus," she
said.

His eyes widened as he glared at
her.  She responded with a sly smile.  "Not exactly flaccid," he
said, "more...crooked."