The Sweetest Revenge (21 page)

“Surely that must have more to do with the length of his confinement?” Isabelle asked.

“Perhaps. But he wants you. Nothing else will suffice. He believes you to be his savior. It is almost as if he imagines you as some angel, come back from the dead to rescue him from the cruelty of Lady M and the wicked ways of Mistress Jane.”

Anna snorted. “Exactly.”

Isabelle thought of Leo down in the cellar, picturing her as frozen in time, a haloed young girl come to rescue him. “I am no angel.”

“Oh, but you are wrong, Iz,” Anna said. “You are much more agreeable than I’ll ever be.”

“For my plan to work, you must remember your years of loneliness,” Susan said.

“I could never forget them.” Isabelle bit her lip, remembering the first time she’d laid eyes on Leo in the cellar, how drawn she’d been to him, how quickly she would have forgotten everything if he’d only beckoned.

But she was wiser now. Learning Anna’s and Susan’s stories had strengthened her. She was no longer the sheltered lass with a memory of being loved once and abandoned forever. For the first time in her life, she felt like a mature woman, with a bona fide suitor and real, lifelong friends. This experience had given her a newfound confidence and strength.

She looked up at Susan. “Tell me what I must do.”

“You must go to Leo.”

Isabelle nodded.

“You must talk to him. Make him believe that you come in secret.”

“Lie to him?”

“Yes, Isabelle.”

“Very well. What then?”

“Then you must seduce him.”

Isabelle’s hand flew to her throat in a vain attempt to stifle the strangled sound erupting from it.

“But let him think he is the one doing the seducing. Don’t allow him to believe you are aggressive like Mistress Jane, or cold like Lady M. Be yourself. It will require more than one visit to the cellar. Each time, mention how you are betraying Lady M and Mistress Jane, but how you cannot help yourself, you must see him.”

Isabelle licked her dry lips. The lacy edge of her bodice tickled her hand as she ran her fingers over it.

Susan continued. “You must never let him see you, Isabelle. Keep him in the dark. Finally, at the end, you must complete your seduction by joining with him.”

“Nay!” she gasped.

“Oh, don’t be so missish.” Anna prodded her on the shoulder. “You want him, he wants you, what’s the bother?”

Isabelle stared at the fire. Anna made it sound so simple. But it was more than that, so much more. Shudders rolled through her body.

“This is the way to finish this at last,” Susan said softly. “I did not know whether he was redeemable, but now we have learned his weakness: you. One night with you and I am certain he’ll comprehend how he has wronged us. He’ll be cured. We will send him home.”

Anna’s arm slipped around her shaking shoulders. “Goodness, one would think she’s ordering you to murder the man. No, just one simple night of pleasure. I know it was a long time ago, but you certainly must remember pleasure with Leo, Iz. You need it, you really do. It will help you to survive once you’re back in Scotland.”

Or it might just kill her.

“It likely seems impossible now, sitting here with us, but when the time comes, it will seem as natural as breathing.”

Isabelle blinked at the fire. Susan was right, of course. Whenever she was with Leo, she felt overpowering urges. Unnatural, wicked urges. Urges that could only lead to complete disaster.

“Susie’s right,” Anna said. “When you’re with a man you lust after—for that’s what it is, Isabelle, is it not?—when you’re with someone you lust after, it is easy to give yourself over to that lust.”

“True,” Susan said, “but that is not the difficult part.”

Isabelle groaned. “What is the difficult part, then?”

“The difficult part comes afterward. You must laugh and walk away.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Leo dreamed of Belle. He awoke thinking of her. He tried to read the book Lady M had loaned him, and could only apply everything its jaded author had written to Belle. Mrs. Wollstonecraft pigeonholed her sex into a group that society valued only for its youth and wit and beauty. But Belle was different. When he had known her, she had not depended on wiles or wit, on coquetry or deception. Her attractiveness had been pure, unwitting, and she reacted to her own appeal with something akin to embarrassment.

When his hands were unbound, he straightened his shirt and smoothed his trousers, washing a soiled spot on them from his basin of water. In case she came.

Please, Belle. Please. Come to me.

He could feel the pull between them, like the most powerful of magnets coursing through him, drawing him to her. He wondered if she felt it too, if the reason she had come to him and kissed him that night was because of its pull.

Come to me, Belle.

Anna Newton came to bathe him again, but she was quiet and unaccountably polite and did not try to seduce him with her experienced hands, a fact for which he was happy. This time, she allowed him to remove Hercules’s shirt so he wouldn’t freeze after the fact. And afterward, he was treated to a generous meal of sausages, ham, and eggs, which he devoured. The food gave him much-needed energy—energy with which to think of Belle.

Come to me, Belle. Please, come to me.

Later that night, the door swung open, and one of the ladies entered the cellar. His heart sank. He could tell by the footsteps that it wasn’t Belle. It was Lady M.

“Good evening, Leo. I fear you have only me to visit you tonight, for Mistress Jane and Miss Juliette have prior engagements.”

Prior engagements? Where was Belle off to? A soiree? A ball? The theater? Would the women spread rumors about her while the men conspired to get her into their beds?

His heartbeat raced; knots of tension formed across his shoulders and down his back. A primitive reaction. He wanted nothing more than to be with her, to protect her from other men’s wicked thoughts.

Good God, what if she encouraged them? What if she agreed?

No. Not Belle; never Belle.

Yet she had gladly gone along with his scheme to debauch her. Then again, he had not really schemed. He had been driven by something powerful, something outside himself. As had she.

He didn’t respond to Lady M.

“Now don’t become sullen and silent with me. You’re like a schoolboy at times. Act your age, Leo.”

He didn’t answer.

“Ooh, we are not progressing. Not at all. We are taking backward steps, not forward steps. At this rate, we’ll never see the end of you.”

“Stop,” he gritted out.

“The man speaks. And he is not a child after all, is he?”

“No.”

He heard her riffling through the pages of the book. “Did you read it a second time, Leo? Are you ready for another?”

“I did. I am.”

“And what did you think on your second perusal?”

“Belle is nothing like the witless women the author describes.”

“Isn’t she?”

“Not at all.”

“How old is your Belle, Leo?”

“She is close to me in age. Twenty-six in a few months, I believe.”

“Is she not on the shelf, then, in the eyes of society?”

“I don’t give a damn what the eyes of society see.”

“Well then, what do you see?”

“Take this damned blindfold off, and I will tell you.”

***

Anna used a cucumber to assist in educating Isabelle on the finer points of seduction.

“It is a man’s most treasured possession,” Anna said, grinning. “Treat it as the most beautiful, wondrous thing you have ever beheld, like a piece of delicate crystal or a coveted gem, and he will never forget you, or forget wanting you.”

Isabelle peeked through the fingers hiding her face. She’d only ever felt that particular part of Leo deep within her, and imagining doing other things to it with her hands and mouth made her feel oddly exhilarated and terribly afraid. She wanted to do this. She was curious. But though she lacked inhibition when she was in bed alone, she would be far too shy in the presence of a man.

“It is also quite a delicate, sensitive thing,” Anna continued. “You must not press too hard with your teeth, or he will screech and jump through the ceiling.”

Despite herself, Isabelle laughed. “It is more sensitive, than, say, an arm? If someone bit my arm, I would be inclined to jump through the ceiling.”

“Oh, it is much more sensitive than an arm,” Anna said gravely. “It is more like the tips of a woman’s breasts or that secret bump between her legs. Do you know of what I speak, Isabelle?”

Isabelle flushed. “Yes.”

“It is like that, but larger and sensitive all over. But the most sensitive part of all is the very tip. If all else fails, explore it with your mouth, and you will make him mad for wanting.”

“Och. I can’t do it.”

“Of course you can,” Anna said tersely. “Now watch me.”

She rounded her lips over the cucumber and proceeded to take it deep into her mouth. Isabelle covered her eyes again and groaned.

Anna did not speak, her mouth being full of cucumber. Isabelle peeked through her fingers. Sensuously, slowly, Anna withdrew the thing. When it was completely out of her mouth, she licked its top and then ran her tongue over her lips as if she had just tasted the most delectable dessert.

Isabelle would never, ever be able to do this.

“This is much, much too far out of my depth, Anna. Please. I cannot. How would we ever arrive at such a point where this became a possibility?”

Anna laughed. “Oh, you are such an innocent soul, Iz. Touch him through his trousers, stroke him, then unbutton them and crawl down. Start off slow, exploring, enjoying, with your hands, and then slowly bring your mouth to it.”

“I would be too afraid. What if I did something wrong? What if I hurt him?”

“Short of biting him or pinching his skin, it would be difficult indeed to hurt him.” She came close to Isabelle and cupped her cheeks in her hands. “You will enjoy it. You have a delicate nature to begin with, and I’d wager it would be impossible for the likes of you to hurt him. Me, on the other hand”—she grinned—“well, that would be another matter altogether. But you are gentle, and you will only succeed in teasing him to oblivion, into rapture. He will choke on his own lust. Trust me. I have a great deal of experience in these matters.”

Isabelle eyed her warily. No doubt Anna did have experience in these matters. And of course Isabelle wanted Leo. Wanted him desperately. She wanted to learn all the things she had wondered about for so many years, about men’s bodies and her own.

In the end, it wasn’t the carnal aspects of the plan that disturbed her the most. It was that she was to be the instrument of revenge.

She could not conceive of betraying her friends. And yet, the idea of deliberately hurting Leo pained her. She didn’t know why—he had laughed at Susan, abandoned Anna. He had hurt them, and no doubt he had hurt many other women as well. For their sakes, she should be impatient to wreak their vengeance.

Susan was right. It was time to make Leo understand exactly what he had done. It was the only way to cure him. It was the only way to finish it. It was the only way to set him free.

Yet, even knowing all that, the thought of hurting him killed something inside her.

***

Susan and Anna had given Isabelle exact instructions for her first meeting with Leo, had even made her rehearse what she would say and do, but it felt so wrong. Not to mention dangerous. She could destroy everything tonight, with just one misstep, one word said incorrectly. And everyone knew her clumsy way with words. It was a miracle Susan had entrusted her with this.

She passed Pierre with a tight smile and a nod, opened the door, and walked into the cellar for the first time since the night she had kissed him.

Leo was sitting upright in a wooden chair, one of the two the servants had brought down to the cellar. His hands were bound behind the chair and tied to the chair back. His clothes were the same as those she’d seen on his first night here—tight black trousers and the white shirt with the open neck. Bare feet, hands, head. A sardonic tilt still lingered about his lips, but it seemed less cocksure than it had the first time she had seen him.

He raised his head but did not speak. His body bristled with wariness.

“Good evening.”

She stood by the door and watched him as he identified her voice. His lips parted, then pressed together. The small amount of color remaining in his face leached away.

Even in his pallor, he remained a handsome man, appealing in a roguish, piratical sort of way. His nearness made her insides turn molten and her skin prickle, and she took a deep, careful breath to combat those unwelcome sensations.

“Belle.” His voice sounded hoarse. “I’ve been waiting for you. What kept you?”

“Other duties.”

“I have waited a long time, Belle. Seven years. What ‘other duties’ could have kept you away for so long?”

She said what she had rehearsed with Susan. “I’m here against the wishes of the lady.”

He cocked his head. “Is that so?”

Tentatively, she approached the chair. “I cannot untie you, for I am informed that you might try to flee.”

“I would never try to escape from you.”

“And I may not remove your blindfold, for I fear that you might use whatever you see against me.”

“I would never use your face against you, Belle. You must hear what I have to say. I need you to understand—I thought you were dead. They told me you had died. The grief—I was sick with it. I—”

“Stop it!” she burst out, fighting a sudden gush of tears.

He stopped midsentence, his lips parted. “Very well.” He bowed his head. “I’ve been asking for you. Why did you finally decide to come?”

She breathed a silent sigh of relief. Good. Back to the script. “I couldn’t stay away. I needed to see you again.”

“Why?”

“I think about you all the time.”

His head snapped up, his brow furrowing. “You do?”

She took another step toward him. “I have not had another man since…since…” Susan had instructed her to say more, but it sounded indelicate, and she could not force the words past her lips. She hoped he would understand, that he wouldn’t force her to say it.