The Sweetest Revenge (22 page)

He did understand. He inhaled sharply, and something resembling a groan resonated in his throat. “Is that true?”

“Aye.”

Susan had told her it heightened a man’s desire to know he was the only one who’d had a certain woman. Yet admitting it to him… Well, it was painful. It felt akin to admitting a great weakness.

“I have not been so loyal,” he said gruffly.

She was quiet.

“And you loathe me for it.” His voice was hollow.

Aye
.

“Nay.”

His expression sharpened, as if he could see through the blindfold, and she recoiled, fearing he might somehow discern the lie.

“I wouldn’t have expected to be so easily forgiven.”

Here was where the script became more difficult.

“There are some ways in which the male flesh is weaker than the female’s,” she said. “I can’t blame you for actions you haven’t any control over.”

He pursed his lips, then opened his mouth as if to argue, then stopped himself and said something she suspected was entirely different from what he had originally planned to say. “But your friends would not concede that point, I’m afraid.”

“I doubt they would,” she agreed.

“So now that you are here, now that we have spoken, what are your intentions?”

“I wished to see you.”

“Is that all?”

“Aye.”

He spoke softly. “I would like to see you, too.”

“Nay.”

He released a breath. “Will you stay, then? Talk with me?”

“I will stay for a short time.” She went to the chair across from him and lowered herself into it.

In a nervous gesture she had never seen from him, he ran his teeth over his lips. “Tell me what happened. It’s all such a mystery to me.”

“Do you mean…after?”

“Yes. After I went down to Cambridge.”

“Your brother—the earl—he found a letter you’d written to me. You’d left it in our secret spot.”

“By the standing stone,” he said.

“Aye. I never read the letter. No one ever showed it to me. I assume it…must have been…ah…rather explicit…”

“It was.” His lips tightened to a flat line, and he didn’t volunteer any more.

“My da was…furious, to put it mildly. He didn’t want to lay eyes on me after he read that letter. I was too much of an embarrassment to him. He sent me away to England. Northumberland. My aunt agreed to take me in.”

“I tried to find you. John said you’d died in a carriage accident.”

“My da told me…he said…that you didn’t want me.”

 “That wasn’t true,” he said, his voice low but harsh with contained anger. “My brother lied to me. He was so convinced I must marry into the English aristocracy, he fabricated that tale of your demise.”

“But it doesn’t matter, does it?” Isabelle closed her eyes. If he’d truly loved her, he would have found the truth for himself. He wouldn’t have become what he had.

“It does matter,” he said, and she opened her eyes to see his shoulders squared and his jaw tensed.

There was no point in arguing. Neither of them could take back all the years. Leo could not take back all he had done.

“I’m sorry, Belle,” he said softly. “If I’d known you were alive, everything would have been different.”

“Would it?” she asked. “Or would it have been worse? Would you have made me fall harder, only to leave me later on?”

He shook his head sharply.

“That is what you’ve done with others,” she reminded him. “Mistress Jane and Lady M.”

“They weren’t you,” he said.

“There is nothing special about me, Leo.”

“That’s not true,” he growled. “You cannot believe that. You were always shy, Belle. But shyness doesn’t equate to ordinariness.”

She knew that. But her ordinariness had been proved to her in other ways.

“You were so beautiful…so guileless. I never met anyone like you, before or since.”

She sighed.

“It’s the truth,” he said.

“I’m not the same woman you left, though.”

He didn’t answer, just pressed his lips together.

“I’m older. Wiser. Less liable to act on impulse.” And far more insecure in her own skin.

He nodded. “I believe that. But I also believe you’re still essentially Belle. The same Belle I once knew.”

She shook her head, then, realizing he couldn’t see her, whispered, “Nay.”

“You know how I have spent the last seven years,” he said. “But I have no idea how you spent yours. Will you tell me?”

“Aye.” And she did tell him, about how she’d moved between her two aunts in England, depending wholly upon their charity, until her father had died. At that point, she’d returned to Scotland, to her old house, which had been inherited by her father’s younger brother, Ewan.

She told him about how she no longer felt at home in Scotland, how she had spent her time essentially adrift between Uncle Ewan and Aunt Una in the Highlands, Great-Aunt Mary in London, and Aunt Flora in Northumberland.

“The best times,” she told Leo, “were when I went to the village at home. The villagers have forgotten my disgrace—or they choose to ignore it. I knit stockings for the villagers every year for the winter. I wrap them up in little packages and give them to the bairns for Hogmanay.”

He smiled. “Leave it to you to keep my tenants’ feet warm.” Then his smile faded. “I certainly haven’t.”

They sat for a moment in uncomfortable silence. Then, she asked, “What of you?”

“What about me?”

“Tell me how you have spent your time.”

“You know, Belle.”

“Only the bad parts.”

He shrugged. “That’s all there has been.”

“That can’t be true.”

“It is,” he said quietly. “I spend my life in an attempt to avoid living.” His lips twisted cynically. “The past several days, down here in this cellar, have been the most alive I have been in seven years.”

Her eyes smarted at that. “Have there been no joyful moments?”

“None that I remember.”

His words rang with honesty, and her heart clenched in sympathy. She knew what it was to live a life in which joy was an elusive thing, difficult to catch and impossible to hold on to.

“Why?” she asked, but deep inside, she already knew.

“Because the one thing I lived for died,” he said in a voice so low she had to strain to hear. “I thought you were gone forever, and you’d taken the part of me that was capable of goodness, capable of love, with you.”

“I didn’t,” she whispered.

“But you did, Belle. I…” His voice cracked, and he tried again. “I…
loved
…you.”

She closed her eyes. She’d loved him, too. So much.

“To lose such an essential part of oneself…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t recover from it.”

She gazed at him. She wanted to remove the blindfold, to search his eyes and somehow glean the level of honesty in his words.

But she couldn’t.

Still, something in his words lit a spark of anger within her. He was, essentially, blaming his behavior for the past seven years on her “death.” He wasn’t taking responsibility for actions and choices that were clearly his own.

She shook her head. “So, because you felt your life was ruined, you thought it acceptable to ruin the lives of others?”

He froze, as if in surprise. “God, no…”

She studied the top of his russet head, the slump in his shoulders. “Then what?”

“I wasn’t thinking. I know what I have done is unacceptable. Unforgiveable.”

“Aye,” she agreed.

“I am attempting to offer you some insight…and yet there is no insight. The truth of it is that I am a bastard.” His lips twisted. “Perhaps that’s all there is to it. Your ‘death’ brought out my true despicable nature. And now that I know you never died…” He shook his head. “I see things more clearly.”

“Do you see them more clearly because you know I am alive, or because you have been given so much time to think about your actions while you’ve been here, unable to…to…cavort?”

She’d strayed far away from the script Susan had practiced with her. But talking to Leo—somehow she didn’t feel tongue-tied or as unable to communicate as she did with most people. She didn’t know why, but she’d always found it easy to converse with him.

He hesitated, seemingly considering his response. Then, he said, “Both, I think.” There was a hint of wonder in his voice.

“I don’t want you to hurt anyone else, Leo,” she said softly.

“I told you before, and I was being honest. I never meant to hurt others. Only…only myself.”

“Do you regret it?” she asked softly.

“Hurting others? God, yes.”

“But you were ignorant of hurting them?”

“I was.”

“Because you were too selfish.”

“Yes.”

“I want to believe you,” she whispered, squeezing the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

“But…?”

“But how can I believe anything you say? Your past actions don’t encourage trust.”

“I know.”

Yet, she still wanted him. Now even more than when she’d first walked into the room. She’d been sitting here, watching him, his compelling eyes covered, which turned the focus to his full, expressive lips. She remembered how those lips had felt on her.

Her skin stretched taut over her body, sensitive and warm. Her heart beat frantically in her chest. Warm tingles flushed deep within her womb. She knew that if she touched herself between her legs, she’d find herself slick with arousal.

Her body didn’t care one whit what he had done in the past seven years. It wanted him. Desperately.

She gazed at him, at that well-formed mouth that had touched her body in so many wicked places.

It was time to return to the script. She rose and stepped over to him. Her palm cupped his upturned face. Pierre must have shaved him this morning. Her fingers stroked over his cheekbone, his strong jaw. His skin was different from hers. So firm and so masculine.

“I want to see you.” His voice was a low rasp.

“Nay,” she whispered shakily. She trembled all over, little flutters expanding from her womb outward. She’d thought she’d never see him again. Never touch him again, never kiss him again.

She bent and pressed her mouth to his. His lips parted on a sigh, and she stroked her own lips over his, back and forth. The trembles in her body grew more powerful as she explored his mouth, taking in his taste, his softness. It was a slow, erotic glide, filling her with pleasure, with an aching, intrinsic need.

She wanted to take his blindfold off. She wanted to remove his bonds and ask him to hold her, to kiss her more, to rule her body like he once had.

She pulled away.

“I…I should go,” she said shakily.

“No!”

“I must.”

He struggled against the bonds that tied him to the chair, trying to rise. “Don’t leave. Don’t go. Please, Belle.”

 “I cannot stay,” she managed, taking a step backward. The compulsion to go to him was so strong…

“Belle…”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I must go.”

“Please. Don’t.”

It pounded deep holes into all her defenses. The sight of Lord Leothaid, the most dashing, careless, dissolute rake in London, tied to a chair. The sound of him begging.

“I must go.” She swiveled around, and, like an automaton, she forced herself to walk out of the cellar.

The last thing she heard before she pulled the door shut was his whispering, broken voice.

“Belle…”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Isabelle lay on her bed, pondering how she had changed since she’d arrived in London.

She’d gone to the theater. She’d acquired a rich gentleman suitor.

She’d made an earl beg.

The question was, did she like her new self?

She felt like more of a person now, less of a shadow. The people who surrounded her now listened to her, respected her, admired her. She felt human, not like an object of disgust, or even a mere annoyance. She was happier. Not happy. No, happiness would require…something else. But compared to the past seven years, the past two months had been relative bliss.

If that made her a selfish, wanton creature, then so be it. She did not, could not, care anymore. God would forgive her, if He was an understanding sort of deity. And despite her family’s catechisms, she still couldn’t help but imagine He was. Ultimately, she had two beings to answer to: God and herself. Since she was the only person asking the questions at the moment, she could not help but believe she wasn’t so very wicked after all.

What a relief. After he’d read the letter Leo had written to her, Isabelle’s father had said the sight of her immoral countenance made him ill. Now, her uncle tolerated her but with about the same amount of regard he gave one of his sheep. She had spent years believing that she was an awful person, that she did not deserve happiness.

Isabelle covered her face with her hands. She wished Leo hadn’t become what he had. She wished she didn’t have to return to Scotland so soon.

Someone knocked softly on the door, and she heard Anna’s voice. “May we come in, Iz?”

She took a deep breath. She had gathered herself since leaving Leo and was fairly certain she could hold a reasonable conversation now. “Of course. Come in.”

Anna opened the door and rushed to the bedside, Susan trailing just behind. “Whatever happened? Why didn’t you meet with us in the drawing room?”

“I’m sorry. I was…well, overwrought, I suppose. Again. But I have recovered.” She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and tried to straighten her crumpled skirts.

“What happened?” Susan asked.

Isabelle forced a smile but feared they wouldn’t believe her so let it slide from her face. “It went just as planned.”

They gazed at her expectantly.

“Well…I kissed him and then left.”

Anna beamed and clapped her hands together at her breast. “Good!”

Isabelle sighed.

Susan lowered herself onto Isabelle’s vanity chair, plucked her shagreen perfume case from the table, and turned it over in her hands. “Was it so difficult?”

Isabelle met Susan’s gaze. “Not difficult—excruciating.”

Anna spoke softly. “Oh my. Isabelle’s turning into quite the lustful chit, isn’t she, Susan? Who will she conquer next? However will we stop her?”