The Sweetest Revenge (18 page)

“Is this a new ploy, Leo? Like the one you attempted on Mistress Jane earlier today? It will not work with me.”

“Ploy?” He rose to his feet. “You think this is a ploy? I do not know your complaint against me, Lady M. But I have an inkling of Mistress Jane’s, and I know Belle’s. What can I do to make things right? Nothing. That is the truth. But what do you want from me for it? To spend my life in this cellar?”

“Isn’t that the life you relegated them to when you debauched them?”

She was close. Just a few feet away. If only his hands were free, he could grab her.

She continued. “Innocent young women, taken in by a scoundrel, an uncaring rogue. You confined them in a metaphorical cellar, Leo.
You
did that to them. Why should I let you go? Don’t you belong here?”

She was right, damn her to hell. He raised his chin. “Be that as it may, I surmise that you do not intend to keep me here for the remainder of my days. Tell me what I must do, Lady M. Shall I consign a monetary allowance on both of them? Will that allay the pain I have caused?”

She made a scoffing noise. “Hardly. Men always think their money will solve every problem. Stupidly, I might add. What of a woman’s day-to-day existence, her loneliness, her desperation? What of her losses in family, in reputation? How can you repay that?”

He shrugged, tried to appear defiant. But of course, she had him, and he knew it. She was right. Everything she said was right. Shame hardened to a stone in his chest, so heavy and hard he thought it might drag him beneath the cellar floor.

“I cannot repay it.” He stilled his face into an implacable mask. God, what a fraud he was. Inside, around the rock of shame, he was one shredded, raw, aching wound. What he had done to Anna Newton, what he had done to Belle…

He squared his shoulders so she would not see him falter. “Let me go, Lady M. There is nothing I can do.”

“No.”

“No?” He lurched forward, heard her footsteps as she retreated. “What then? Will you flay me, skin me alive? What will happen next?”

“Oh, Leo,” she said softly. “You have come far, but not far enough. Recognizing your sins is only the first step. But you still do not understand. We have not yet had our revenge.”

Revenge?
How in God’s name could they make this worse?

“And how do you plan to go about taking your revenge, Lady M?” he sneered, stepping closer to her. This time, she held her ground.

“Not only must you recognize what you have done, but we must feel certain that you would never do it again.”

“I won’t do it again.” There, he’d said it. And he meant it this time. “Now let me go.”

“I do not believe you.”

“I speak the truth.”

“No, Leo.”

She was a scolding mother, telling her child he would go to bed without his dinner for yet another night.

He hated her.

“I’m warning you, Lady M…”

“Your threats do not scare me. They become redundant. They only make me lose the drop of respect I’d maintained for you.”

“Just bring Belle to me.”

“I don’t know—”

“Damn you! You
do
know her. Bring her to me, Lady M.”

“No.”

“I want Belle.”

“No.”

She was retreating, leaving him. Hinges creaked as the door swung open.

“Bring her to me, Lady M!”

“I’m sorry, Leo.”

“I need her. Bring her to me.
Bring Belle to me!
”

But the door slammed shut. She was gone.

***

Susan’s garden was a tiny affair but quite pretty this time of year, with blooming flowers in dark autumn tones. After breakfast the following morning, Isabelle sat on a lone garden chair reading a copy of the newest illicit book Susan had acquired,
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
. Her French not being nearly as good nor as practiced as Susan’s, Isabelle found it a struggle, and she had hardly labored through five pages when Susan came outside to join her. She rose to greet her friend.

“No, no. Don’t get up,” Susan said, waving a handful of papers at her. “I’ve brought letters for you.”

Letters? Her life had changed so much since she’d met Susan and Anna. Now, not only was she receiving gifts, she was receiving letters. She looked up inquiringly at Susan, who held them out to her.

The first one was a note from her great-aunt:

Isabelle, Lass,

I have heard from miscellaneous sources that you went to the theater. Come visit me tomorrow afternoon, for I fear I have some explaining to do.

Believe me, Your Great-Aunt Mary.

Isabelle read it silently once, then aloud to Susan. “What does it mean, do you think?”

“Heavens, who knows? One could only assume you’ll learn the answer once you go.”

Still shaking her head, Isabelle opened the second note.

Dearest Miss Frasier,

Please allow me to visit you this afternoon. Eagerly awaiting your (hopefully) positive response,

Philip Sutherland

Shaking her head, Isabelle silently handed Susan the slip of monogrammed stationery.

Why did this man seem so infatuated with her? Where did he come from? He was so different from all the men she had ever known since her summer with Leo.

There was no reason for Mr. Sutherland to be smitten with her. None whatsoever.

Susan peered at Isabelle over the top of the note. “You will return a positive answer, I hope? We wouldn’t want the poor man to drown in his own besotted misery, would we?”

“Why is he doing this, Susan? He wants more from me than friendship, I think.”

“Oh yes, you’re right on that score, Isabelle. He wants more, and it seems he’s willing to go along with the friendship pretense in hopes of eventually getting what he wants.”

“But why? What have I done to encourage the attentions of such a man?”

Susan shrugged. “You are not unattractive, Isabelle.”

Isabelle smiled wryly. “That’s hardly an endorsement of my allure.” She gazed at her hands, her short, bitten nails. “Mr. Sutherland is rich and handsome. He could have half of London, ladies and Cyprians alike, on their knees, begging for the attention he’s been giving me. Of all those beautiful, knowledgeable women, why me? In the end, I am naught but a shy country spinster, imperfect in looks, full of social blunders, whose bottom is too round, hips too padded. It makes no sense, Susan. No sense whatsoever.”

Susan snorted. “You are hardly fat. And you’ve lost at least half a stone since you’ve been here. In fact, I begin to think you dislike LaForche’s creations. Should I hire someone else to do the cooking for the remainder of your visit?”

Isabelle rose from the garden seat, clasping her arms around her frame. “You know that’s not it. I’m…I’m overwrought. It’s difficult to eat in such a state.”

“Nonsense. Anna and I are managing it just fine. Anna, especially. I begin to think she has gained what you’ve lost. In any case, you are a lovely woman, and you appear much younger than your five and twenty years. I am astonished that more suitors aren’t hovering at my doorstep, although that could probably be explained by your lack of exposure. If we were to attend the theater without Mr. Sutherland hovering solicitously over you, I assure you they’d flock to you in droves.” Susan smiled graciously and held out her hand. “Come inside with me, Iz. I believe it is going to rain.”

Isabelle gathered her book and the letters and clasped Susan’s hand. Sure enough, as they walked toward the house, two big drops fell on Isabelle’s upturned face. Susan tugged her inside and shut the door behind them, turning to peer through the windowpane as thunder rumbled in the distance and the scattered drops massed into an angry downpour.

“Oh, I do love the rain, don’t you? As children, Thomas and I used to sneak outside barefoot to wiggle our toes in the mud, much to the dismay of the governess.” She gazed outside, smiling with her reminiscence. “She said we’d catch our deaths. Thomas’s father beat him more than once for it, but I played the innocent girl and escaped relatively unscathed, my mischievous ways still intact. Poor boy. I led him into more birchings than he deserved.”

Isabelle watched Susan in fascination as she turned from the window.

“Come, let’s go upstairs.”

Isabelle followed her upstairs and finally into her bedchamber suite. “Did you spend the whole of your childhood with Lord Archer, Susan?”

Isabelle diligently kept her gaze averted from the curtained bed she’d heard creaking the night before.

“I did. You see, my parents died young, so I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle. We were of an age, and the villagers used to say we were linked at the hip. But when he went off to school, things changed.” She sighed heavily and sank down before her escritoire.

“Time, I suppose, can change everything,” Isabelle murmured.

“It does,” Susan agreed.

Sometimes, Isabelle had tended to live in the past in order to avoid the desperation of the present, and yet the rest of the world continued on, changing, growing. Nothing stayed the same.

“Some parts of us will always retain the closeness we once had,” Susan said, “but now most of our lives have been spent apart, and we have had such different experiences. He purchased his commission in the army and was on the Continent for many years. I married young, had a child young, was widowed young. I became hardened by the life of an English widow; he became hardened by a life on the battlefield. Two very different educations, two very different results.”

“Do you really no longer trust him?” Isabelle asked. “Why do you warn Anna off him so strongly?”

“No, I don’t trust him completely. His years on the battlefield did little to educate him about women. He wants Anna in his bed; he is infatuated with her. These things I know. But I do not know when he will tire of her, and when he does tire of her, what he will do, or how Anna will respond.” Susan inhaled deeply. “But she is happy now, happier than I have ever seen her, and I would not take that away from her.”

Isabelle wondered if there were cracks in the composed mask Susan wore. Susan certainly kept her emotions under tight rein. Isabelle wanted to ask if she was happy with her own lover. Did Pierre make her happy? As happy as Lord Archer seemed to make Anna?

“Susan, may I ask you something? Something private? It is quite all right if you say no.”

Susan drew a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “Of course. I keep no secrets from you, Isabelle.”

“Well, I’ve been wondering something since I came to stay here.” Isabelle drew in a breath, suddenly unsure. Susan gazed at her expectantly. She resolutely pressed on. “Are you and Pierre, that is, do you, er…?” She paused, flustered.

Susan’s brow furrowed. “How did you know?”

Oh dear.
Caught.
“Well, I suspected. I noticed a certain lingering look occasionally between the two of you. And then, well, I apologize, when I went to Leo the night before last, I heard him…er…
here
when I was making my way back to my room.”

“I see.” Susan’s tone was clipped, and Isabelle’s heart sank.

“I’m very sorry. I did not mean to eavesdrop—” But she had, and she had stood there, eavesdropping, for several minutes.

Susan raised her hand. “It is quite all right, Isabelle. My walls are too thin, I daresay. In any case, Pierre was vexed with me that night. You probably heard some of his angry rumblings.”

Isabelle nodded, but she couldn’t meet Susan’s eyes. “Yes, I suppose I did, but I didn’t know what any of it was about.”

Susan shrugged. “He was merely being a typical example of his sex. He believes what we are doing with Leo is too dangerous, that we ought to release him. He thinks we’ve all lost our capacity to reason, that we are weak females using our wiles on poor Leo. But in the end, Leo, being of the stronger sex, given a gift of superior brains as well as brawn by the Almighty, will prevail.” She exhaled a theatrical sigh. “The more I try to educate the man, the more stubborn he becomes. Fortunately, he makes up for his obstinacy in other ways. That is why I deign to suffer through his tempers.”

Isabelle mulled this over. “He is your lover, then?”

“He is.”

“Nothing more? You do not wish to marry him?”

“No.” She scoffed softly. “I do not plan to ever marry again, to become someone’s slave, but to marry a servant and become his slave? Never.”

“But,” Isabelle’s voice dropped to a whisper, “you called him ‘my love.’”

“Did I?” Susan laughed. “Well, I suppose he is my love. At night, at any rate. Oh, don’t give me that shocked look, Isabelle. He knows where he stands in my regard. We have a mutual understanding. We each give what the other needs, and no more.”

“Will you take another lover, then?”

“Certainly. When I tire of this one.”

“And that will happen?”

“Absolutely. When, I cannot be sure. Perhaps I will tire of his grumbling soon. Perhaps someone more intriguing will come along.”

Isabelle gazed down at the sumptuous Persian carpet. She didn’t understand Susan’s coldness, her calculation. Had whatever Leo done to her made her give up on the dream of companionship, on the ideal of love? How could she so easily take a lover and then discard him like a possession? No, more like a liqueur. She drank it, and once she had her fill, tossed away the empty bottle.

***

Late that afternoon, the cheerful crackling of the fire made the only sound in Susan’s drawing room. Isabelle sat in one of the silk-covered armchairs, embroidering a shawl for her great-aunt. Susan read one of her verboten books, this one about an infamous Venetian rake.

Anna sewed in fits and starts and paced the room in between, seemingly not able to concentrate on any task for long. Her excuse, of course, was her upcoming evening with Lord Archer.