The Maiden At Midnight (21 page)

‘And her fortune has not done her any harm
either,’ Elise Fortnum observed bluntly. ‘I am expecting some very
decent offers of the next few weeks.’

This was interesting news. ‘Oh? Is there
anyone that she seems to favor?’

‘It doesn’t matter if she
does. Alora is a sweet, biddable thing. She will make the right
decision when the time comes.’ Miss Fortnum sounded completely
confident about that and Isabella frowned inwardly.
Oh would she now?
She was
prepared to swear that Alora’s inclinations did not go in the same
direction as her aunt’s. But would the girl cave to
pressure?

‘The Earl of Stornley seems very eager to
secure her interests.’ Isabella decided to go straight to the heart
of the matter, hoping that her forthrightness would not spoil her
chances of discovering what she wanted.

Fortunately, Miss Fortnum
was either unaware that Miss Hathaway and his lordship had struck
up a friendship or she did not care for she gave a soft grunt of
disgust. ‘A man like that would be
most
unsuitable for my niece. I
cannot approve of such a connection.’

‘Oh? Why is that?’

‘He is a fortune hunter like the rest of
them. Besides,’ the woman took up her fork an speared a slice of
roast beef, scowling down at it, ‘his family is unacceptable. I
knew his uncle. A most unpleasant man.’

Isabella was dismayed to
hear this. Miss Fortnum had known Joss’s family? She certainly
seemed to know that he was in financial difficulties but perhaps
that was common knowledge. She looked at the woman’s round, soft
face doubtfully. There certainly did not seem to be a great deal
she would be able to say to change her mind. If Alora and Joss were
to be together, it would
not
be with Elise Fortnum’s blessing. An impediment,
certainly, but not insurmountable. It was as Harry Carstairs had
said; if Alora wanted Joss she would simply have to say so and
stand by her decision. Isabella hadn’t realized that she would be
agreeing with the man quite so soon and wondered again why he had
suddenly grown so irritable earlier. He was such a mercurial man at
times. There was no saying what went on in his head. More than
ever, she was convinced that he disliked the idea of his long time
companion settling into the relative humdrum existence of marriage,
thereby foregoing their nocturnal pursuits. It was a mark in his
favor, she supposed, that he was assisting in the scheme she and
his lordship had hatched at all.

Realizing that she would be given short
shrift trying to persuade Miss Fortnum that the earl was a worthy
supplicant for Alora’s hand, Isabella wanted to end the
conversation. She sat through her companion’s prodigious appetite –
at least the first course for she went back to the buffet for more
– for the sake of politeness then excused herself and went in
search of Alora to do some necessary shoring up of the girl’s
determination. Isabella was fairly sure the seed of romance had
been sown but she wished to fertilize the ground and ensure it was
well watered. Pointing out the earl’s finer qualities could
certainly do no harm at this juncture.

She spied her friend still in conversation
with Mama and Audrey, the three of them gossiping together quite
happily with Stornley standing with them, joining in with easy
familiarity. Isabella paused and smiled at the sight of them. It
was good to see her mother and sister laugh. Laughter had not
featured large in any of their lives lately and Mama always looked
so lovely when she was happy. And Audrey… like Millie, she would
never completely shake free of the disasters that had befallen them
but they would move on with their lives and, with any luck, enjoy
what lay ahead. Not immediately, of course. One could not simply
shake free of so much pain. But they would build their happiness
again and this time, with any luck, life would be kinder to them
all.

Glancing behind her, she wondered where
Harry Carstairs had gone. Not very far, as it happened for he was
standing not ten feet away. Their eyes met and locked and Isabella
felt something extraordinary jolt through her, so elemental it felt
almost raw. Fire seared her blood, a wave of infernal heat that
left her flushed and breathless. There was something in those green
eyes, a wicked glimmer of awareness that she should not understand
but did, instinctively. Deny it as she might, but she knew she was
deeply attracted to Harry Carstairs and that he felt the same way
about her. Looking back on their brief relationship, she realized
it had been there almost from the moment she had met him, that
attraction. Not that it meant anything. Attraction could happen
between the most unsuitable people, everybody knew that. And Harry
Carstairs was most unsuitable.

Wasn’t he?

The thought brought her to
an abrupt mental standstill.
Harry
Carstairs as potential husband material?
The very thought made her feel… peculiar. The idea of marrying
Mr. Carstairs, of retiring to the marital bed with Mr. Carstairs
and doing all the things that novels and half understood servant’s
talk more hinted at than expressed with Mr. Carstairs... Her
expression must have been very odd because the man in question
lifted an interrogative eyebrow and Isabella turned away abruptly,
intending to retreat to the safety of her family.

But then, the inevitable happened.

‘Isabella!’

How familiar her name
sounded on his lips. Of course it should; he had said it so many
times in the past seventeen years. She fixed a smile on her lips
and dropped a curtsey.
She
, at least, had been prepared for
this moment. Willett looked as if he had been struck a resounding
blow to the skull. ‘Good evening, Lord Proctor.’

‘I… I did not expect to see you here.’

He had not expected to
see
her
?
‘Indeed?’

‘I mean,’ Willett continued on
uncomfortably, ‘I had heard that you had left Wiltshire but I had
not realized you had come to London.’

Where on earth did he think they’d gone, she
wondered. Not that he would have kept abreast with the affairs of
the remaining Hathaways. He would feel far too uncomfortable for
that. After Barnstable had been sold he would have likely pretended
that they had never existed at all. ‘Well as you see… we are
here.’

‘All of you? Audrey and Millie and…
and…’

‘Mama. Yes. All of us.’

There was a small,
uncomfortable silence as he stared down at her, blue eyes troubled.
That was the thing with Willett. He did not
mean
to be so priggish, so influenced
by the opinions of others, so utterly without a spine. He had just
been born that way. ‘You are looking very well,
Isabella.’

‘Why thank you. I am
feeling very well.’ She could make this easy for him, of course.
Make conversation, chat about the inconsequential things that
people talked of, to ease any conversational awkwardness. But she
found she did not want to. Why
should
she make it easy for him,
after all?

‘There you are,’ another familiar voice,
this one a deep, lazy drawl. She should have known Harry Carstairs
would not leave her to the wolf without intervening. He could not
know that Willett was more of a lamb. ‘You are such an elusive
creature. I’ll have to keep a better eye on you.’

The note in his voice – possessive, intimate
– made her shiver. It also made Lord Willett Proctor stiffen
instinctively. Deliberately, she turned and smiled. ‘Not that
elusive. You always seem to find me.’

‘I do, don’t I? I wonder what that might
mean.’ Harry turned and eyed Willett, eyebrow slightly arched.
Isabella had not realized he could appear so imperious for really,
he was not a man to stand on ceremony but his attitude was one of
supercilious enquiry. ‘And who do we have here?’

‘Lord Proctor, may I present Mr. Harry
Carstairs?’

The two men bowed to each other but it was a
mere token for neither of their hearts was really in it.

‘Lord Proctor.’

‘Mr. Carstairs.’

‘You will excuse us? I have pressing
business with Miss Hathaway that I fear will not wait.’

‘I… well yes, I suppose so.’

Isabella had never seen Willett so
disconcerted but he had not time to regroup for Harry put a hand on
her arm and suddenly, they were moving away.

‘Good heavens. That was rather obvious!’

‘Good.’

‘You practically dragged me away.’

‘Needs must, Miss Hathaway. I do not like
your ex-fiancé.’

‘A sudden decision, as you have not actually
met him. He was very surprised to see me.’

‘So I should hope. If he had come
deliberately, knowing you were here, he would have been even more
of a scoundrel than he is.’

‘He’s not
really
a scoundrel,’
Isabella protested, ‘just weak. He cares so very much for what
people think, you see.’

‘He abandoned you,’ Harry said, voice flat.
‘It was a cowardly thing to do.’

And there she had it. Harry Carstairs, she
knew instinctively, would never abandon someone in such a way. She
had to say that she liked him the better for it.

There was no getting around it; a man such
as Mr. Carstairs would make any girl a marvelous husband.

She
had
to stop this line of thinking.
While it might be becoming increasingly hard for her to ignore the
fact that he had a disconcerting effect on her body, to consider
that effect to be anything more than an aberration was ridiculous.
Why, she did not even
like
the man. The only reason they associated together
was that he happened to be friends with Joss and was willing to
indulge the earl’s madcap ideas. But to think that Harry Carstairs
could be anything else to her but an associate was… Actually, the
idea was quite disturbing and not just because gently brought up
girls were not meant to think of gentlemen in those terms.
Truthfully, the thought of Harry kissing her left her strangely
restless.

Isabella glanced up at him and met his eyes.
It gave her such a jolt that she looked away again immediately,
feeling breathless all over again.

Harry Carstairs made her breathless!

No
, she told herself firmly.
The two of
us could never made a match of it. The last thing I want in a
husband is an opinionated, irritating, exasperating know-it-all. I
want a relationship that is based on honest respect and gentle
understanding. Or at the very least, a great deal of mutual
tolerance. Besides, he finds me entirely irksome. It could never
work out.

Yes
, another voice whispered wickedly,
but what makes you think the gentleman is interested in
marriage?

For there was no reason in the world to
think that Mr. Harry Carstairs was ready to settle into matrimonial
bliss. On the contrary, while nobody could possibly accuse him of
being a rake, he certainly had his share of amorous adventures to
his credit. Or so she had heard, from passing conversation. He was
considered quite the catch, actually and while she had taken great
pains not to ask any questions, the sickly uncle was a well-known
fact. One day, in the not too distant future, Mr. Harry Carstairs
would come in to a fortune. Not that she cared. Not a whit. But
money aside, there was something dreadfully attractive about the
man that was impossible to ignore, no matter how much she tried,
despite the fact he was clearly unsuitable. She needed a husband,
not a lover.

Although she suspected he would make love to
a woman with singular expertise.

‘
Miss Hathaway?’

‘What?’

‘Are you all right?’

Was she all
right
? It took her a
moment to understand what he was talking about. Naturally, he was
asking about her encounter with Willett.

‘Of course. You didn’t need to rescue
me.’

‘Didn’t I?’ The quizzical note was
unmistakable.

‘No. I was managing perfectly well. Not that
I am not grateful. I am. It was very kind of you.’

‘You did appear to be managing him very
well,’ he admitted with a sudden grin. ‘A little longer and he
would have been sniveling on the ground. But I could not leave you
to your own devices.’

The idea of Willett sniveling on the ground
was so entertaining that Isabella found herself smiling back at
him. She had managed the whole encounter rather better than she
thought she would. The meeting had stung but she was not in the
least bit overset.

‘Now then… as a gesture of good will after
your trying encounter, I intend to help you.’

Help her? How could he possibly help her
more than he already had? A sudden image of her kissing the man
flashed through her head and she stuttered out, ‘I-in what
way?’

‘I thought you might enjoy meeting Mr.
Huntingdon. I could engineer a subtle meeting for you, if you’d
care to have a conversation with him. Help you to discover if he is
suitable.’

The offer was enough to helped banish the
disconcerting direction of her thoughts. So much so that Isabella
eyed him suspiciously. He’d seemed singularly scathing earlier,
when the subject of Mr. Huntingdon’s suitability had come up and
now he was offering to introduce them? ‘Really?’

He gave a wry smile. ‘No need to look at me
like that. I behaved badly earlier and then you had to deal with
Proctor. I am feeling guilty.’

‘I’m sure it is an unfamiliar
sensation.’

‘Cat. You should be grateful for my change
of heart.’