The Maiden At Midnight (27 page)

Gallows Jack met Harry’s
eyes for a moment. ‘And is she
your
fiancée?’

‘No she is not. She should not be here at
all.’

Isabella’s dark blue eyes
kindled with anger. ‘I am here with my friend to lend support. Mr.
Carstairs has made it perfectly clear that he has no need for a
wife.
Perfectly
clear.’

Harry frowned. ‘I don’t think I actually
said that.’

‘You did. You spoke quite plainly. I was
left in no doubt as to your feelings.’

She was angry and it wasn’t
just at the situation she found herself in, Harry realized with
some surprise. She was angry at
him
. He arched an eyebrow. ‘Miss
Hathaway?’

‘Mr. Carstairs. Does your ear hurt?’

‘A little. A mere trifle, however.’

‘You must have a very hard head.’

‘Why thank you.’

‘Now wait just a minute,’ Gallows Jack held
up a hand. He obviously was not happy at having his evening plans
derailed. ‘You,’ he stabbed a finger at Alora, ‘tell your lad there
to pay me what he owes or I might just break something.’

‘Don’t you dare threaten Miss Piedmont!’
Joss snapped, face flushing with anger.

‘I wasn’t going to break
something of
hers
.
I was more thinking of one of your fingers.’

‘Leave him alone,’ Alora
glared up at Jack, ‘of course I will pay you your wretched money.
Only loose him and let us be. You have
quite
ruined my night.’

Despite himself, Harry’s lips twitched as
did a tic that had suddenly made itself known beneath Gallows
Jack’s left eye. ‘Well if you lot don’t want to be disturbed, maybe
you’d better learn to pay up on time. How long before the two of
you are tied together?’

‘Six weeks. But what that has to do with
anything is beyond me. Come around to my place tomorrow and I shall
have the money waiting for you.’

Jack stared at her. So did Joss and Harry.
‘Tomorrow? Hang on a minute, you don’t know how much he owes, now
do ya?’

Alora shrugged. ‘I do not but I hardly think
it matters.’

‘Oh really? Well, princess, let me tell you,
your lordship here owes me six hundred and fifty pounds,’ Jack
glanced at Joss. ‘You’ve accrued some serious interest,
squire.’

‘Would two o’clock suit you?’ Miss Piedmont
demanded coldly.

This caused everybody in the room to stare
at her. Typically, it was Isabella who recovered first, looking at
her friend quizzically. ‘You can lay hands on that amount of
money?’

‘I will instruct my man of business in the
morning.’

‘But…’ Harry was struggling to keep up.
‘Don’t you have to wait to get married?’

‘Why? My fortune is at my disposal now. I do
not need to marry to broach it.’

‘How lovely!’ Isabella said approvingly. ‘So
very civilized.’

‘Blimey!’ Gallows Jack muttered, shaking his
head. ‘Seems to me that society is topsy turvey when the female
gets to hold the purse strings.’

‘They are not my fiancé’s finances,’ Alora
retorted. She glanced at Joss and, once again, her face softened.
‘Not yet, anyway. But the Earl of Stornley is more than welcome to
whatever I have at any time.’

‘Oh you may keep your money, my love,’ Joss
murmured, ‘I daresay you’d do a better job of keeping us afloat
than me anyway.’

Gallows Jack rolled his eyes and for once,
Harry could hardly blame him. ‘Well how luv-er-ly for you both. So
you’re tellin’ me that I can come and collect my ready tomorrow at
two?’

‘I am telling you that, yes. Now kindly
untie his lordship.’

The moneylender stared at her for a long
moment, then nodded to the large fellow that had been planted
behind Joss’s chair. This mobile mountain bent to untie Joss’s
bonds. The moment he was free, his lordship lurched to his feet and
took Alora into his arms.

‘If you does me wrong,’ Jack warned,
‘there’ll be the devil to pay.’

‘You will be paid tomorrow,’ Miss Piedmont
said, her voice a little muffled by the fact that she was now
wrapped in her fiancé’s arms.

‘And me, if you please?’
Harry demanded. He was feeling a new wave of unease but this was
more to do with the fact that Isabella was still eyeing him with
considerable disfavor. He wanted to take
her
into his arms. After his
revelation in the park, he had intended to accompany Joss to the
Martingale dance and convince Isabella that he had been every kind
of fool but then, his man had answered the door to some unwelcome
visitors and the night had gone sadly awry.

The large creature who had smacked him
across the ear bent do untie him but paused when Isabella said
sharply, ‘Wait!’

Everybody looked at her in surprise.

‘What now?’ Jack demanded impatiently.

‘I think I would like him tied to that chair
for a little longer, if you please.’

Harry looked into those smoldering blue
eyes. ‘Isabella,’ he murmured, ‘really?’

‘You have been avoiding me for days.’

‘I have, yes.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘The simple answer is that I am a fool.’

‘I will concede that. Who was that creature
you were with in the park today?’

‘Mrs. Gantry?’

‘That would be the creature in question,
yes.’

‘My cousin. I am very fond of her.’

Isabella blinked. ‘Your cousin? Truly?’

‘Truly. May I be released now?’

‘In a moment. I have one more question for
you.’

Harry looked at her warily. He had a
question for her as well, but it was one that he preferred not to
ask with a room full of people. He had been looking forward to
getting her alone since being blindsided by the knowledge that a
life without Isabella was not one he was prepared to face with
equanimity. The idea that he had been attempting to find her, what
he himself wished to provide, had shaken him to his very
foundations.

Isabella Hathaway wasn’t going to marry
anybody but himself.

‘What do you wish to know?’

She drew a deep breath and took a step
towards him. ‘I wish to know why you didn’t put yourself on that
list of suitors. Was it the scandal? Do you feel that you could
not… could not tie yourself to such a family?’

‘You know perfectly well it is not. You have
an admirable family.’

‘I see. So it was me, then. Something about
me.’

‘It ended up being totally about you,’ he
said slowly. ‘I believed I did not wish to marry -’

‘You made that perfectly clear!’

‘ –
but then you persisted
to haunt my thoughts. You
burrowed
inside my brain until I could think of little
else.’ He shook his head. ‘I had never thought a great deal about
the kind of woman I wanted to marry but I had a vague notion that
she would be sweet and placid and agreeable – none of which you
are, incidentally – and that we would have an unremarkable union.
Then I met you.’

‘I am not the kind of female who will stand
mute if I think something is absurd,’ she told him quietly.

‘Nobody knows it better than I, Miss
Hathaway.’

‘Flippin’ hell!’ Gallows Jack muttered.
‘I’ve busted in to an asylum.’

Both Harry and Isabella ignored him, staring
at each other.

‘You seem not to care for me at all, most of
the time.’

Harry shook his head. ‘Did it feel that way
when I was kissing you?’

‘You
kissed
Isabella?’ Alora demanded. She
might be wrapped in his lordship’s arms but her hearing was clearly
working.

Harry’s eyes were still fixed on Isabella.
‘Let me loose and I shall show you once again how I do not care for
you.’ He saw the blush that colored her cheeks and an ache of need
to touch her, to hold her, swept over him. ‘Isabella… please.’

‘Oh for gawd’s sake, let’s go,’ Jack growled
in disgust. ‘Gentry. Is it any wonder common folk think the lot of
‘em madder than a sack fulla cats?’

With a sigh, Isabella sank to the floor and
began to pick at the knot that tied him to the chair. ‘It is very
tight!’ she commented, giving Jack’s man a severe look as he went
to move past the chair.

‘Sorry,’ came the mumbled reply.

Harry smiled, looking down at the fair head
bent over the task at hand. Miss Hathaway had turned his life
upside down within the space of ten days but he could not imagine
wanting it any other way. She was entirely too enchanting for her
own good.

One hand free, he helped her with the other,
then to her feet and she was once again looking up at him. He
caught the uncertainty there and it tugged at his heart. She had
been through so much, this bold, forthright girl and he wanted to
set her future to rights, to reassure her that from now on, she
would no longer be facing things alone. Couple with that, of
course, was a quite desperate desire to kiss her.

‘So why didn’t you wish to be on that
list?’

‘Because I am a slowtop, Isabella. I had not
realized that I was -’

A pounding on the front door sounded,
echoing through the house.

‘Now who could that be?’ Joss wondered.

Gallows Jack and his three men had paused,
Jack tilting his head as his expression became cautious. ‘Maybe out
the back door,’ he decided and changed direction.

The hammering continued and Joss, with Alora
still tucked close beside him, went to answer it.

Harry and Isabella had not moved, still
looking into each other’s eyes. They heard the Watch announce
themselves and Joss’s response but it was all background noise.

‘There seem to be a great many
interruptions,’ she observed, rather breathlessly.

‘All things considered, there will probably
be a great many more. Come along. I think Gallows Jack had the
right idea.’ And taking her hand, he led her through a different
door, along a passageway all the way out the back door that was
still ajar from the exit of the moneylender and his men.

The moment Harry shut the door behind them
he turned and gathered Isabella into his arms. It was shadowy on
the porch that covered the back steps but he found her mouth in the
darkness and kissed her with all the fierce hunger he had bottled
up since the last time he had kissed her. It was primitive, it was
savage and Isabella enjoyed every moment of it, wrapping her arms
around his neck and pushing herself against him the better to feel
his need. Harry groaned, somewhere in the back of his throat and
explored the exquisite softness of her lips while his body caught
fire. She was all softness against him; the full, sweet lips, the
delicious curve of her breasts and the hips that, even now were
wriggling against him in the most distracting way. He wanted to
keep kissing her forever but that would impede his need to explore
the rest of her. To strip the clothing off her and imprint himself
on her skin so that she could never be free of him.

Harry, who had always considered that he had
such a cool head, was caught up in fever of desire and he suspected
nothing would assuage but it to take Miss Isabella Hathaway on his
back porch. She required all of the especial attention a man was
honor bound to show to a woman, especially when that woman had
never enjoyed the pleasures of the body.

Besides, if ever a female
needed
all
of his
attention, it was the girl in his arms. He fully intended to do
this right.

It took a great deal of willpower to raise
his head, even more when she gave a soft moan of protest.
‘Isabella…’

‘Don’t you dare say
anything sensible! I do not
care
if you do not want a wife right now.’

He paused, then grinned. How utterly
typical. ‘About that. I rather think I’ve changed my mind.’

In the moonlight that filtered dimly through
the trees at the back of the house, he saw her blink, saw his words
sink in. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Indeed. I have decided that I am in need of
a wife after all.’

‘You… Oh honestly Mr. Carstairs, you are the
most confusing man!’

‘I know. And I apologize. And tomorrow I
promise you that I will come around and visit your mama and ask
properly. But as of tonight you are officially off the marriage
market.’

‘Oh am I now.’ She drew back a little,
looking up at him. ‘But what of poor Mr. Huntingdon? He has nine
thousand a year and is a very pleasant man. I doubt we would utter
a cross word to each other.’

‘I don’t care if he has a basement full of
gold and a castle in Kent,’ Harry retorted. ‘You would find him
exceedingly dull and you know it. You’re marrying me and that’s the
end of it. Unless you want me to kidnap you. I will ask Joss for
some tips on how to go about it.’

Isabella gave a small hiccup of laughter and
moved close again and his arms slid around her automatically,
pulling her even closer. ‘I’m afraid I will not make a very docile
wife.’

‘If I wanted a docile wife I wouldn’t have
fallen in love with you.’

Her breath caught. ‘Did you? Fall in love
with me, I mean. For I have discovered I am not the kind of girl
that could countenance a mistress. And I really do have an opinion
on almost any subject you can think of. And I want to travel and
read books and have a family…’

‘I have no intention on finding a mistress,’
Harry retorted. ‘Two females would be more than I could manage. And
we will travel together and have a family and read whatever books
you care to bury your nose in. Only tell me…’

‘Yes, Mr. Carstairs?’

‘Tell me that you love me. Put me out of my
misery once and for all. I have been a fool but I swear, I will do
better in the future.’

‘I do love you,’ Isabella murmured, reaching
up to pull his head down to her own once again. ‘Now kiss me again,
Mr. Carstairs. And if you won’t seduce me tonight, then hurrying
our forthcoming marriage along for I find that there are some
things I am impatient to discover.’