Promise Me Tonight (24 page)

The moment she had met him, a piece of her soul she hadn’t known was missing had clicked back into place. When she was around James she felt centered and stable; the thought of him was a steady port in the midst of turbulent seas. He was simply a part of her; even when they were separated, the knowledge that he was there, in the world, was simply . . . enough.

All her life, Izzie had believed that James would protect her from any and all bad things. She had always assumed he would keep his promises. She had been wrong, and now she was lost, her moorings gone, adrift in the current. Despair threatened to overtake her, and then she felt it—a tiny quivering sensation in her abdomen. Her babe moved again, as if a delicate butterfly fluttering within her. Her child would be her anchor.

“Perhaps I should be going,” she heard Mr. Marbly say to her aunt. “If Lady Dunston wishes to send something to her husband, she need only—”

Isabella raised her head. “I have nothing further to say to him,” she told the solicitor in arctic tones.

“But, the child . . . ,” he protested.

She rose to her feet, her stance proud and just a touch defiant. “Mr. Marbly, before we were wed, my husband made his feelings perfectly clear on the subject of children. I cannot imagine he has changed his mind. Were I to inform him of his impending fatherhood, he would only run farther away and act in a manner more reckless and rash. I will not chase him, nor will I beg for scraps of his affection, either for myself or for our child.”

The solicitor sent her a sad, understanding smile. “Forgive my impertinence, Lady Dunston, but your husband is a fool. Sadly, I fear he will not realize it until it is too late.”

“Thank you, sir,” Isabella said, an answering sad smile upon her own lips. She waited until her aunt had shown the man from the room before she added, “But it is already too late.”

Chapter 15

I have news of a rather delicate, yet most miraculous, nature to impart. You are going to be a grandmother! As there cannot be a great deal of confusion over when the babe was conceived, this happy event should take place in November. Aunt Kate assures me that the midwife who delivered Charlotte will be on hand, but I should like above all things for you to be present as well. I do not wish an accoucheur from Edinburgh to attend, for I wish as few people as possible to know. Please do not tell anyone aside from my father and Henry, and let each of them know, for reasons I shall explain later, that I do not wish James to find out about the child. Bridges have been burned, and I must focus on moving forward.

From the correspondence of Isabella, Lady Dunston,

age twenty

Letter to her mother, Mary, Viscountess Weston, informing

the recipient that the sender has been, as those vulgar

Americans say, “knocked up”—May 1798

HMS Theseus Somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea

July 1798

H
e wasn’t breaking his promise, James told himself as he stared out at the endless expanse of water. In the seven or so months that he had been at sea, the words had become something of a litany. But, he reminded himself, he had promised Isabella that he wouldn’t enlist in the army, and he hadn’t. The Royal Navy was an entirely different entity—something he had learned rather quickly. For one thing, there weren’t commissions available for purchase as there were in the army; a man rose or fell on his own merits.

And it wasn’t as if he had known he would end up in the navy when he made his promise. He had arrived in London without the faintest notion of what he was going to do—other than get roaring drunk, that was, because it was his wedding night. It was his bloody wedding night and he wasn’t going to be spending it in bed. Not with his wife, because he couldn’t, and not with any other woman, because he wouldn’t. Even though theirs would never again be a marriage in anything but name, the thought of going to another woman on his wedding night was repulsive. For one thing, it would destroy Isabella if she ever found out about it, but more important, the truth was that he didn’t want another woman. He wanted Isabella.

His wife was the one woman he couldn’t have, and the little minx had ruined him for anyone else. It would be laughable if it weren’t so damned depressing. So he had headed to White’s, and as he was no longer in danger of being left penniless, he had proceeded to order the most expensive bottle of brandy the club’s cellars could offer up. It was nowhere near adequate compensation for what he was missing, as his traitorous body recalled all too well, but a man in his situation had to take what consolation he could get.

Then, when he was halfway through the bottle, just beginning to relax, a hand clamped down on his shoulder as a voice from out of the past said, “Well, as I live and breathe, I’ll be damned if it isn’t James Sheffield.”

James glanced up to see Ethan Howe, the second son of Earl Howe, and the first friend—other than Henry—he had made at Eton. Ethan had joined the Royal Navy straight out of Eton, which meant he was rarely home, but time and distance didn’t matter in a friendship of such long standing.

And James was in dire need of a friendly face; in fact, he didn’t think he had ever been so happy to see someone in his entire life. The amount of brandy left in the bottle had dwindled to almost nothing by the time James had told his old friend a carefully edited and mostly fictional version of all the recent goings-on.

“Sho you shee,” James said, gazing mournfully at the empty bottle, “my life ish a living hell. Ish what I deserve for marrying my besh friend’s sishter.”

“You had no choice,” Ethan reassured him. “You were found in a compromising position. You did the right thing.”

James struggled to remember what he had told his friend. That was the problem with lies. They were so damnably hard to keep track of.

A companionable silence settled over the two men, and then—

“Good God, man, it’s your wedding night!” Ethan burst out.

As if he needed reminding. “I can’t bed her,” James said, his tone full of regret and resignation.

“Because you see her as a sister?”

“Er . . . yesh. Exactly. A sishter.” Since he wasn’t about to reveal the truth, James figured it was as good an explanation as any.

Ethan pursed his lips. “Can’t you just close your eyes and pretend it’s someone else?”

Close his eyes and pretend it was someone else?
James raked a hand through his hair. “No,” he said, fighting the hysteria bubbling up in his chest. “No, I don’t think that will work. I don’t think anything will work, really. I wanted to join the army—end it in an honorable fashion, you know, but I promished my wife I wouldn’t enlisht in the army. But enough about me. What are you doing in London? Aren’t you a captain? Shouldn’t you be at shea, shaving the Empire from the damned Frogs?”

“Shaving the Empire?” Ethan laughed.

James scowled. “You need more brandy. Makes shense with brandy.”

“I think more brandy is the last thing we need. Actually, I am no longer a lieutenant. After the Battle of Cape St. Vincent last year, I was elevated to the rank of master and commander. You see before you the captain of the
Theseus
.”

“Didn’t that ushe to be Nelson’s ship? Congratulations,” James said, sincerely pleased for his friend. At least one of them was happy. Damn, he was starting to feel sorry for himself again; the brandy must be wearing off.

“Promotions do tend to fall into one’s lap when one’s father was formerly First Lord of the Admiralty.” He shrugged in self-deprecation. “In any case, I am in town for my brother’s wedding—you remember John?”

“Only that he liked mathematics.”

“Isn’t much else to him. Dullest dog I’ve ever known, but for all that he is my brother. As the Fates would have it, he found a girl as bloody boring as he is, and they tied the knot at St. Paul’s yesterday. With my familial obligations thus taken care of, I will be on my way to Portsmouth tomorrow. From there, I will be on the next ship bound for Gibraltar and the
Theseus
.”

“God, what I wouldn’t give to be going with you.” James sighed.

“So why don’t you?”

“I promised my wife I wouldn’t enlist.”

“You said you promised her you wouldn’t enlist in the
army
.”

James bolted straight up in his chair. “By God, you’re right,” he exclaimed. “I’ll do it.”

The other man grinned, and for a moment James felt as if he were back at Eton, about to pull some sort of prank, all full of nervous anticipation.

“Mind,” Ethan pointed out, “life at sea isn’t easy. It’s blasted uncomfortable at times. You can go for months without a woman, and you won’t be ranked higher than a midshipman. The Admiralty has strict rules about that.”

“I don’t care,” James said quickly.

His friend nodded approvingly. “In that case, I would be glad to have you aboard. There will be action before long, mark my words. My father tells me the French fleet is gathered in Toulon. Pitt thinks that damned little Corsican upstart is planning to invade the Mediterranean, but we’ll soon put a stop to that.”

“Soon,” James thought, as the ship’s deck pitched beneath his feet, had turned out to be a rather relative term. Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson had arrived in Gibraltar to command operations against General Bonaparte in the Mediterranean, but the French fleet was proving elusive. A month ago, they had learned from a passing ship that Napoleon had captured the island of Malta. Nelson believed that Malta was only a stopping point on Bonaparte’s quest to invade Egypt in order to establish a French route to India.

The prospect of the French military in southern India had the British government and the investors in the British East India Company quaking in their boots. Thus, the entire fleet had set sail for Egypt, but they had encountered no sign of the French ships.
Soon
, he reminded himself, his lips quirking into a half smile.

“Woolgathering?”

James turned from the rail and found Ethan regarding him with amusement. The smile faded from his mouth as he replied, “I was thinking about Isabella.”

“Again?”

James shrugged, turning back to stare out at the waves. “I can’t seem to help it. I don’t know why, but no matter what I happen to be doing, my thoughts stray to her.”

“Could it be that you miss her?”

The softly uttered question instantly transported James back to the night of Isabella’s ball. . . .

“
D-did you miss me?”

“
I didn’t want to.”

“
B-but you did?”

He
did
miss her. He missed her even more than he missed Henry, his best friend for more than a decade. He missed her more than he could have ever imagined. He absentmindedly rubbed at his chest, at the ever-present ache that hovered there. “I feel as if I left part of myself behind,” he admitted in a choked whisper.

Ethan placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I think, mayhap, that was your heart. I also think that perhaps you failed to tell me the truth all those months ago in London, hmmm?”

James nodded, not really hearing him. “I can’t stop wondering if she is all right. I would have heard by now if she was with child, don’t you think?”

“W-with
child
?” Ethan spluttered. “Just how compromising was this position you were found in? And,” he demanded, jabbing a finger into James’s chest, “how did you come to be in such a position with a girl you see as a sister?”

James smiled weakly. “Did I say that?”

“You most certainly did.”

“I might have left out a few small details.”

“
A few small
. . . You didn’t say you were bedding the chit.”

“First of all, the
chit
is my
wife
. Second, I wasn’t bedding her,” James said tightly. “I slept with her once—
one time
—and—”

“You got caught,” his friend finished.

“Er . . . not quite.”

Ethan frowned. “She told someone?”

“No.”

“Then
you
told someone.”

James paused for a moment. “You know, I suppose I did,” he said with a rueful grin.

“Whom, exactly, did you tell?”

James took a deep breath and braced himself for his friend’s reaction. “Her parents,” he admitted with a heavy sigh.

Ethan whooped with laughter. “Her parents? You told her
parents
? You didn’t get caught in the parson’s mouse-trap, my friend. You held out your leg and begged to have the shackles put on.”

“Rubbish. Besides, you are mixing your metaphors.”

“And you are deliberately avoiding the truth. You wanted to marry this girl.”

“Trust me, I did not. Once I took her innocence, though, I didn’t seem to have a lot of choice in the matter.”

“Come now, if you had kept your trap shut, no one would have been the wiser. She certainly wouldn’t be the first girl to enter her wedding bed having cracked her pitcher, nor would she be the last.”

“But, even then, she could have been carrying my child,” James pointed out.

“Bah. You could have easily waited a month or so to see if that was the case. No, I think that deep down, you wanted to marry her. Don’t forget, I know you. I have known you since those early days at Eton, when we were both wet behind the ears. There is not a soul alive who could force you into doing something you really didn’t want to do.”