Wicked, My Love (21 page)

Inside, he knew that he should leave the issue the hell alone. She recognized the situation and wasn't willing to get herself entangled. Rather than being relieved, it only drove his anger higher. She was supposed to say that she loved him against all rationality, that her longing was tearing her heart apart. He desired weepy-eyed pleas to find a way to make their love work in this cruel, unforgiving world. He needed bombastic passion, sobbing fireworks; he wanted her to want him so badly, so desperately that she would give up her heart, her life, her world for him.

But Isabella was too smart for that.

I
don't want you anyway
, she had said.

That's not what you cried last night when your thighs were trembling around my head.

Damn her.

They turned onto the drive of a newly built manor home, a rather pompous creation of towers and massive, arching windows. The white stone gleamed through the gray day. Shaggy shrubs grew up the sides, almost covering the ground-floor windows. Two hounds with large, floppy ears lay on their sides in the tall, unclipped grass of the front lawn. They raised their heads as Isabella and Randall stomped passed. Uninterested in the silent, warring pair, the dogs returned to their afternoon snooze.

Isabella and Randall reached to pull the doorbell at the same time. She bumped him with her hip, trying to shove him out of the way. He only stepped ahead of her, keeping his hold tight on the bell.

“What do you think you are doing?” she cried, as she tried to pry his fingers off the metal.

“I'm pulling the damn doorbell,” he hissed back.

They were caught in this childish exhibition when the door opened. A dour, severe-faced woman, all dressed in black, peered first at them, then the doorbell which they both clutched, with disapproving eyes. Behind her, the house was ablaze with activity. Children sang nursery rhymes, glass shattered, and feet shuffled. A young, exasperated female voice rang out above this cacophony. “No, Uncle Linus, don't try to repair the ceiling by yourself.” Another crash, this time something wooden and splintering. “Uncle Linus!”

Randall released the doorbell and removed his hat. “Pardon me, I'm Mr. Randy and we desire an audience with Mrs. Merckler.”

“That's me,” cried the exasperated female voice.

The dour woman stepped aside to reveal a petite, pretty blond, who looked no more than twenty-two. Yet the intelligent, annoyed green eyes and peevish set to her mouth belonged on a weary forty-year-old. Her hair looked as if it had been pinned up in fifteen seconds and then hit with a blast of wind. Her fingers were slim and the nails bitten down.

“Oh goodness, a
man
!” Mrs. Merckler smoothed her black skirt and forced a dimpled smile, which appeared painfully at odds with the rest of her harried appearance. “Good afternoon,” she said in a sugar
y tone.

Randall clasped Isabella's elbow. She sported that confused, dazed expression she had whenever there was too much activity around her.

“Hello, I'm Mr. Randy,” he said again, bowing. “And this is Miss Izzy May, my…” He turned to his belligerent companion. What incarnation was she this time? A nasty devil pulled up a chair on his shoulder, and he drew Isabella closer. “My dearest, love
ly fiancée.”

“Fiancée!?” both Isabella and Mrs. Merckler echoed.

The widow's eyes rolled heavenward and her smile flattened back to an agitated line. She must be on the prowl for a new husband, he thought, and only a few months after her other one's death.

“We desire to discuss some business concerning Merckler Metalworks.” He smiled through the pain Isabella was inflicting as she dug her fingers into his arm. “We are thinking of investing our future little Izzy's and Randy's education funds into your factory.” He received a sharp jab in the ribs for that one. “We received such a lovely brochure from you.”

Mrs. Merckler flicked her hand. “Well, I'm perfectly horrid with business. And—Uncle Linus, put that ladder away!” she shouted into a room on the left and then turned her attention back to Randall and his silently raging “fiancée.” “I don't understand appreciations, depreciations, capital investments, and whatevers. You should go down to the factory and talk to Mr—”

“Look what we found, Aunt Evie.” A small, towheaded boy in coats tugged Mrs. Merckler's skirt. Behind him were two adorable children, each holding a fat, wiggling black-and-white puppy. “Can we ke
ep them?”

The widow began to tremble.

“No!” Mrs. Merckler wailed an agonizing, soul-strangled cry. “No more cute stray kitties or abandoned snuggly puppies, or birds with broken wings, or huge, hairy spiders that you found in the woods, or orphaned, sad-eyed children or homeless spinster aunts or general relations in any pathetic, needy predicament. No more anything. I'm putting my foot down.”

The faces of the tiny children and the dour woman crumpled as they broke into shoulder-convulsing sobs.

Mrs. Merckler pressed her palm to her forehead. “Oh God,” she whispered. “I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. I love you all. I do. With all my heart.” She knelt down and wrapped her arms about the weeping children. However, the sobbing continued crescendoing until Mrs. Merckler rolled her eyes heavenward and conceded. “All right, all right, keep the puppies.” Great cheers went up. Happiness was restored to everyone except Mrs. Merckler, who was taking quick, shallow breaths as if she might break down on the spot. She turned and looked at Randall and Isabella, who no longer had her fingernails deep in his arm, but gazed upon the scene with her jaw dropped.

“You see, I am truly horrid at business,” the widow explained. “I simply can't help you. I'm so very, very, very sorry. Why don't you take a puppy instead? Everyone wants a puppy.” Beneath the brittle, pleasant words was a tone that implied,
Why
are
you
still
here? Can't you see I'm breaking down?

“We won't take very long,” Randall said in a low, calming voice. “I see you have a great deal of responsibility. We wouldn't want to burden you. Maybe just a relaxing, warming glass of sherry or two?”

“I don't think I should… S-sherry? Did you say sherry?” A soft light broke through Mrs. Merckler's tense features. “Sherry is lovely. Yes, oh, yes. Just a glass, to relax.” She beckoned them toward a room to the right.

Randall and Isabella looked at each other, the last hours of hostility and fear temporarily forgotten. They followed Mrs. Merckler like two nervous comrades headed into the smoke-filled battlefield.

They entered a paneled parlor, the walls crowded with crossed rifles and the heads of various beasts. In the center of the room, two matching brown leather sofas faced each other. In the space between lay a leopard rug, and over it stood a marble table decorated with two ivory tusks and stuffed elephants' feet.

“Do sit down.” Mrs. Merckler closed the double doors, silencing all the noise beyond. She crossed to a table along the side wall that held an array of crystal decanters and tumblers.

“A nicely appointed room,” Randall lied, drawing Isabella onto the sofa beside him. He had been in a hundred such manly chambers in his political career, but today, the dead eyes staring at him heightened his discomfort. Maybe because he felt like the hunted animal now, running, waiting for the gunfire, and then the eternal silence—his short political life snuffed. He sat, drawing his pretend fiancée beside him. He needed her touch to give him strength.

“I hate it too.” Mrs. Merckler poured a glass. She had perceived his true feelings; he had to be careful. Beneath her youthful, beleaguered appearance, he sensed a sharp mind. “It was my husband's,” she explained. “I wasn't allowed in it when he was alive. But Uncle Linus will insist on destroying the ladies' parlor with his repairs.”

She drank down her sherry and gazed at the dead animals decorating the walls. “The poor dears,” she murmured. She poured more spirits into her glass and two other tumblers. After distributing the drinks to her guests, she took her own and eased into the deep cushions of the opposite sofa.

“You are lucky,” she said, studying him and Isabella over the rim of her glass. “You are very much
in love.”

“What!” Isabella cried. “No!” He gave her a tiny nudge with his elbow. “I mean, yes! Yes, we are very, very much in…in…” Her lips and tongue formed the
L
and the
V
, but the vowels came out a gargled slur. “How can you tell?”

“By how he holds you, so tenderly,” the widow answered. “And how neatly you fit next to him. As if you each weren't whole without the other.” She fanned her hand across her face. “And in your eyes. You can always tell when people are in love by their eyes.” She turned silent, her gaze stretching a thousand miles away from this room. “You are lucky,” she whispered again.

“I'm sorry about your loss,” Randall gently said. “You must have loved your husband a—”

“I didn't care for him at all,” the widow replied matter-of-factly. “I probably shouldn't have said that. See how relaxing sherry is?” She gave a rueful laugh. “There are so many words that shouldn't have been said. But it really doesn't matter anymore.”

Isabella lifted her eyes to Randall. He could feel her discomfort and the sympathy that she didn't know how to express.

“But you've come to talk to me about business.” Mrs. Merckler steered the conversation to its proper course. “In the bureau behind me are many ledgers filled with numbers that I don't understand. Mr. Merckler told me not to worry my pretty little head about such matters, and they didn't teach widowhood and running a factory in ladies' seminary. I'm afraid I can't help you.”

“Do you not have a man of business?” he asked.

“The factory manager visits every Tuesday and Thursday. He speaks in odd terms and numbers. When I ask him to clarify, he tells me that, as a woman, I wouldn't understand.” She rested her elbow on the armrest and rubbed her forehead. “I shouldn't tell you this, but you're fine, honest people. Don't invest little Izzy's and Randy's futures into my factory. Something is wrong and I can't figure it out.” She shrugged her shoulders, making a hysterical sound between a laugh and a whimper. “You see, I've resorted to having my uncle repair my home.”

He didn't want to leave Isabella's side, but Mrs. Merckler's distress was written across her lovely face. Had she been stuck in this house for months of mourning, taking care of people with no one to confide in? He crossed to her. “My dear lady, how can we—”

“A metalworks company shouldn't be losing money when the entire country is mad to cover itself in railroad tracks,” Isabella stated. She stared at the bureau, her brows flattened in concentration. He knew her mind was running miles ahead.

A kindred light sparked in the young widow's eyes. She leaned forward and set down her glass. “That's what I thought. I've been reading this book
From
Poor
to
Prosperous.
It's by a lady who understands business. She writes about opportunity and market demand. That's what I keep telling Mr. Quimby. He's the factory manager.”

“
From
Poor
to
Prosperous
is a wonderful, meticulously researched tome on the subject of investing and business,” Randall said with a straight face, not daring to glance at the author. “Miss St. Vincent is a brilliant woman, and passionate about her subject—albeit I've heard she can be excessively violent if you annoy her.”

“I feel like I'm one of her pathetic examples,” Mrs. Merckler quipped. “The widow with seven hungry children and a meager pension…except, in my case, it's five spinster sisters-in-law, two maternal uncles, three widowed aunts, four female stepchildren, seven nieces and nephews, and other destitute people who just showed up one day and claimed they we
re related.”

“You should write Miss St. Vincent.” He gave Isabella the most direct, not-to-be missed glare he could discretely manage while enunciating each word carefully. “I'm sure she would
love
to
help
you.”

Isabella blinked. “M-may I see those ledgers, please?” By God in heaven, could the amazing lady finally read him after all these years? “Perhaps I can help,” she said, coming to her feet. “My late father owned some factories, and I managed them when he was sick, but ultimately he sold them. Oh, don't bother getting up. I can manage.”

“All the ledgers are arranged by years in the shelves,” Mrs. Merckler told her. “This year's has only a few pages filled out before he died.”

Isabella opened the glass cabinet of the bureau. Randall watched her run her fingers along the ledgers' dates, finding the one she wanted. She quickly flipped the pages, but he knew not a single misplaced decimal or comma escaped her notice.

“Come, Mrs. Merckler, my glass is empty,” he said. “Let us have another drink, because I might as well not exist while my fiancée is enraptured by numbers. They are her true love. I'm a mere diversion.” He poured the sherry into her glass and then his own. “You've been through a great deal recently. You're taking care of many people. I can tell that they love you and depend on you. Like my fiancée, you're a remarkable and wonderful lady.” He aimed his words at Isabella, but she was deep in a ledger and didn't hear him. He winked at Mrs. Merckler, sharing the private joke. “Tell me about your husband.”

“There isn't much to say.” She shrugged. “He was twenty-six years older than I. I was an ornament, much like these beasts on the walls.” She adopted a deep voice. “I shot that. I stabbed that. I married that.”