by Anne Gracie
In other words, Isabella was resigned to her fate, as he was. So be it.
The Mother Superior steepled her hands and rested her chin on the points of her fingers, peering down her long nose at him. “What are your plans, Lord Ripton?”
“We leave immediately for England.”
The elegant arched brows almost disappeared under the wimple. “Immediately?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he amended. She would need to pack, he supposed. But the sooner he was gone from this accursed country, the happier he’d be.
The nun inclined her head graciously. “Then this will be Isabella’s last night in the convent. We will hold a small farewell at dinner for her. You are, of course, invited.”
Silence lapsed. Luke drummed his fingers lightly on the desk.
Mother Superior eyed his fingers contemplatively. Luke stopped drumming.
Where the devil was Isabella? She was taking her time.
Mother Superior began to tell him about the history of the convent and the story behind the broken angel. She eyed him thoughtfully when he shifted restlessly for the third time.
Sitting still was not Luke’s forte. Nor were tales from a convent. At least not this kind.
The Mother Superior moved on to the subject of his bride. His bride.
“Isabella is a good girl, really. A little hotheaded and impulsive—her father was like that, too, as a boy. She will steady once she’s given adult responsibilities. That’s the trouble—she’s not suited to convent life. She’s not the contemplative sort.”
Nor was Luke. His gaze wandered the room. Lord, but he would have gone mad cooped up in this place for eight years.
He recalled Isabella’s sudden dread when he’d brought her here all those years ago. She’d panicked suddenly and begged him again not to leave her there, to take her with him. Of course, it was impossible.
He remembered her as a battered little scrap, all big eyes and questions, his little baby bird. Had she grown into a swan in the last eight years? A man could only hope.
Eight years… Where had they flown? He still couldn’t believe she was now in truth going to be his wife. For the rest of their lives.
“And then there’s her sewing.” Reverend Mother paused, and Luke realized she was testing his concentration.
“Her sewing?” he prompted, trying to look interested. Where the devil had the girl got to? He wanted to get this over with, meet her, make the arrangements, and then leave this blasted country as quickly as possible. He found himself rubbing the spot just below his left shoulder and stopped.
“I do hope you are not expecting exquisite embroidery from your wife.”
“Exquisite embroidery?” Luke repeated blankly.
“The convent is famous for its embroidery,” she said with gentle reproof. “World famous.” As if he should know who was whom in the world of embroidery.
“Congratulations,” he said politely. Where was the chit? Dragging her heels?
Had she other plans? A marriage to some Spanish fellow, for instance.
No, she couldn’t have met anyone stuck here in the mountain fastness with a bunch of nuns.
Although the Spanish did tend to arrange such things…
“Isabella, alas, was never able to acquire the skill of fine sewing.”
“It’s of no interest to me whether she can sew or not,” he said bluntly. Right now he was wondering if she could walk. Where was she?
If he didn’t know better, he might think he was nervous. But that was, of course, ridiculous. There was nothing to be nervous about. It was a done deal. They were married. No way out of it. Firmly leg-shackled.
If he was feeling mildly jumpy, it was nothing to do with meeting his wife after eight years, and everything to do with being in this blasted country again. He needed to leave. Immediately.
“It’s to be hoped you will take an interest in what your wife does do well,” she said severely. Luke was reminded of being back in the nursery. She went on. “Showing an interest in a woman’s daily concerns is a way to strengthen a marriage. A neglected wife is an unhappy wife.”
Bloody hell. He was being lectured on marriage by a nun.
“Isabella’s taking rather a long time to get here,” he observed coolly. “Is there a problem?”
She gave him a thoughtful look then reached for her little bell, but before she could ring it, there was a knock on the door.
Luke jumped as if it were a gunshot. He straightened his neckcloth, ran a hand over his chin, and smoothed back his hair.
“Enter,” Reverend Mother said, and the heavy oaken door swung slowly open.
A small, thin girl in a fussy, frilly dress entered, her hair twirled into an elaborate nest of curls and draped with a lacy mantilla. Her face was made up, pale with some kind of powder, her lips brightly rouged into a tiny bow, her cheeks glowing with the same color. She curtsied and darted him a shy glance from huge golden eyes. He remembered those eyes. This, then, was his bride.
Luke politely rose to his feet, hoping his disappointment didn’t show.
Four
This, then, was her husband. Isabella tried not to stare.
He was even more beautiful than she remembered. Eight years ago she’d seen him with a child’s eye, and he was her savior and, she had to admit, she’d confused him in her mind a little with the angel of the statue. She had, after all, only known him a day.
But she was a child no longer, and he was… he was breathtaking. Tall, dark, his skin burnished with the sun, a rich dark gold flush along his cheekbones, and such fine cheekbones they were. His nose was a strong, straight blade; his mouth, severe and beautiful. And his eyes, dark, so dark they looked black, but she knew from before they were the darkest blue she had ever seen. There was no sign of blue now.
All those nights dreaming of him… and now. He was not the same.
She remembered him as very tall and strong with a loose elegance of movement. Now he seemed bigger, more… solid, his shoulders broader, his chest deeper. A man, rather than a boy, with a soldier’s bearing—no, a hunter’s bearing. Alert, tense, wary.
She could see other changes in him, now that she looked. The brightness, the resilience of youth had been burned away, leaving the hardness of bone and bitter experience behind. And cynicism, she thought, looking at the hard, chiseled mouth.
The war had left none of them untouched.
Lieutenant Ripton might be as beautiful as an angel—a stern one, as Sister Josefina had said—but there was a darkness in those eyes of his that had nothing to do with any angel. Except a broken one.
His eyes, the eyes that had danced in her memory, now watched her with a flat, assessing look.
She swallowed and held her head higher, knowing what he would see in her, knowing they were ill-matched. The girls had done their best to make her look as beautiful as they could. It wasn’t their fault she looked as she did. She knew she’d never make a beauty. She desperately wished she looked pretty for him.
But she could see in his eyes she didn’t.
Dear God, but it was Mama and Papa again, Papa the handsome eagle soaring high and Mama the plain, dowdy little pigeon, bleeding with love for a husband who never looked twice at her.
Mama’s words rose unbidden to her mind. Guard your heart, my little one, for love is pain. Love is nothing but pain.
Lieutenant Ripton was still the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Lord, but the girls were going to have to eat their words when they saw him.
And she was not her mother.
“Isabella, how do you do?” he said, and his voice was deep and, oh, she remembered it, remembered the way it shivered through her, even though he was talking to her now like a polite stranger.
She managed to return some sort of polite response—something inane, she was certain, but this was why children were drilled in good manners, she thought irrelevantly; so when they couldn’t think what to say, the right thing popped out anyway.
He bowed and bent over
her hand.
His hair was dark and thick and combed smooth and neat. She’d remembered it as constantly tousled, windblown. Now it was almost… regimented. She wanted to touch it, to run her fingers through it, to mess it up as it used to be. Reverend Mother would have had a fit.
It occurred to her that Lieutenant Ripton might not like it, either. There was no warmth in his eyes, the way she’d remembered. But perhaps he was nervous, too.
He pressed his lips to the back of Isabella’s hand, a light, dry pressure that was over almost before she felt it. Hardly worthy of the name of a kiss.
Certainly not the kind of kiss she’d dreamed about all these years. It was more like a meeting of strangers than a glorious reunion. He hadn’t even smiled at her.
She hadn’t smiled at him, either, she told herself. It was nerves, just nerves.
Her eyes ran over him as he straightened, trying to drink in the changes, boy to man. He was a young man still, younger than she’d expected. He could not yet be thirty, she was sure. As a child, she’d thought him much older.
“How old are you?” she blurted.
“I beg your pardon?” he said, and at the same time she heard Reverend Mother sigh. Isabella Ripton, putting her foot in her mouth again.
Too bad, Isabella thought. She wanted to know, and it wasn’t rude to ask. He was her husband. Her husband.
“How old are you?” She wanted to know everything about him.
“Twenty-eight.” Just.
“So you were twenty when we married.” Younger than she was now.
“Nineteen, actually. I turned twenty a few weeks later.”
She nodded. That would account for the difference in him; he’d been little more than a boy when they’d married, an impossibly beautiful stripling, full of the joy of life. Now he was a man, still impossibly handsome but with the weight of experience and the knowledge of war graven into him.
Her chest felt suddenly tight and full, as if her heart was swelling. This man, this stern, grave, handsome man, was going to be her husband. Was her husband.
Her girlhood dreams hadn’t died after all, she realized shakily. They’d just grown a protective skin. Now he was here, tall, severe looking, and beautiful, examining her as closely as she was staring at him. A dozen memories of him were recalled to life by the solid reality of his presence.
She devoured him with her eyes. Lieutenant Ripton, her Lieutenant Ripton, was here, come for her at long last. He hadn’t forgotten her. He was here.
“You’re all grown up,” he said, his gaze dark upon her, and she suddenly remembered his long, long eyelashes and how it wasn’t fair that a man should have such lashes. They made her breathless, those lashes…
Her secret girlhood hopes and dreams stirred again within her, returning to life like flowers lain hidden and dormant through the bitter snows of winter, sprouting new, tender shoots, unfurling petals to the sun.
His dark gaze ran over her, taking her in as she’d taken him in. What was he thinking? Did he like what he saw? And what did he see?
She wished again she had a proper dress that fitted, one she liked instead of something fussy and elaborate, covered in frills. She’d had to wear one of Paloma’s dresses; all the others were too short.
She tried to think of something to say, something clever or interesting, something to make this tall, grave man look at her, see her, not the silly dressed-up doll the girls had made of her.
“How was… How was your war?” she said, and she groaned inwardly at the gaucheness of the question. If only she could go back out and start this whole meeting over.
His gaze shifted, and he glanced toward the window to the courtyard. “As you see, I survived.” Suddenly there was a faint chill in the room.
So much for that topic, she thought. She should ask about his trip. People did when someone had made a long, arduous journey.
He really was a stranger. She’d been thinking she knew him because he’d lived in her dreams so long, but this man was not her handsome prince, the Lieutenant Ripton of her dreams. He was someone else, a cold, reserved stranger. She knew nothing about this Lieutenant Ripton. And he’d come to take her away.
“Why now?” The words popped out without thinking.
“Isabella,” Reverend Mother said in a repressive tone.
“I beg your pardon?” Lieutenant Ripton gave her a cool, steady look that was meant, she was suddenly sure, to make her retract the question, to change the subject.
The look annoyed her. Particularly coming from eyes with such long, beautiful lashes. Eyes like that had no business giving such cold glances.
She opened her mouth.
“Isabella, that’s enough,” Reverend Mother said in a warning voice, accompanied by her famous Quelling Stare. It usually reduced Isabella and every other girl in the convent to abashed silence.
But Isabella was a schoolgirl no longer. This was her husband, and she had a right to know why he’d left her in the convent for eight interminable years, and why, long after she’d given up all hope of seeing him again, he’d suddenly turned up.
“Why did you come for me now, Lieutenant Ripton?”
“Lieutenant Ripton no longer. I sold out of the army as a captain,” he corrected her. “And the year before last, I inherited my uncle’s title and estates and became Lord Ripton. Which means you are now Lady Ripton.”
She turned the information over in her mind. It wasn’t what she’d asked him. “Yet for the last eight years I’ve had no word from you. The war has been over for several years, so why wait until now to come for me?” Something to do with his title, perhaps? A service to the Crown? A wound that took some years to heal? Though he looked in perfect physical condition.
He frowned, as if her question didn’t make sense. “Why now?” he repeated crisply. “Because I only just discovered the application for annulment was rejected.”
The word hit her like a blow. “Annulment?”
“That’s correct, annulment,” he repeated, as if she were somehow slow of wit.
“You tried to annul the marriage? Our marriage? And you found you couldn’t?”
“Correct.” He gave her a searching look, and his frown deepened.
She stared at him. He was so matter-of-fact about it. The remnants of her dreams, newly wakened to life, curdled as she put it all together. “So you’ve come for me now because you have no other choice. Because you can’t get out of the marriage and—oh!—of course, because you’re Lord Ripton now, and you’ll need a legitimate heir—correct?”
He stiffened and gave a short nod. “Yes, but—”
“And for a legitimate heir you need a wife, and you thought, oh yes, I had one of those eight years ago and I left her… Now where did I leave her? Oh yes, a convent, where she’d be in the care of nuns and no bother to anyone. And now, because you’re stuck with me, you’ve come to fetch me like a parcel you set on a shelf and forgot—correct?”
Hot tears of bitter humiliation welled up behind her eyes. She squeezed them back down. She would rather die than let him see how badly he’d hurt her.
Or anyone else. Oh, how she’d boasted… The triumph with which she’d left the sewing room a few minutes ago. Her prince had finally come.
Because he’d tried to get rid of her and failed.
He was silent a long moment. “I can see you’re upset, but—”
“Please excuse me. I feel… unwell.” Clinging to the last remnants of her dignity, she hurried from the room.
Bella ran through the quiet corridors. Penance if she was caught running, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t a schoolgirl anymore. She had to get away, to think, to understand…
She headed for her favorite place, a tiny courtyard on the far side of the convent, shaded in summer, a pool of warm sunlight in winter. A place for contemplation, Reverend Mother had said when she’d found Bella there once.
She’d been in tears then, too. In trouble for fighting, defending the honor of her absent husband. His h
onor…
The thought brought a fresh spurt of angry, bitter tears as she flung herself onto the cold stone bench that had been witness to so much of her misery.
The other girls had been right all along. It had taken stupid, stubborn Bella Ripton eight long years to learn the truth they’d recognized from the start. He hadn’t wanted her. He’d abandoned her to her fate. And he’d tried to annul their marriage, to erase all trace of it.
And failed.
She felt sick. Devastated. Furious. He thought he could just come and pick her up. Bella the Parcel. Stick her on a shelf until he remembered her.
Because he needed an heir.
Didn’t need her, just a wife.
Didn’t want her, just an heir.
All those years of worry on his behalf. What a fool she’d been.
She dashed scalding tears from her cheeks. Her fingers came away pink and streaky. Paloma’s rouge. She pulled the handkerchief from the bodice of her dress and scrubbed at her face, trying to remove the rice powder and rouge. Why, oh, why had she let the girls dress her up like a stupid doll for him? She could have been dressed in a sack for all he cared.
Humiliation roiled in her gut like an angry snake. She felt ill. Such a fool she was, coming all dressed up, primed for a romantic reunion.
So many times she’d sat in this small, sunny courtyard, remembering her wedding day. To tell the truth, she didn’t remember all that much about it, only standing in the little whitewashed village church with the priest saying the words, a mumble of Latin. She remembered holding Lieutenant Ripton’s hand; it was so big and warm, and her hand so small and cold. It was cold in the church, and he’d rubbed his thumb lightly back and forth over her hand, a silent reassurance that everything would be all right, just as he’d promised her in the pine glade…
The priest asked a question, and just as Lieutenant Ripton answered, a beam of sun shone through the narrow windows of the tiny church and gilded his face, and he looked like an angel. He’d glanced down at Bella and smiled, just with his eyes, and she felt so safe, as if she’d been blessed.
She’d been so certain the golden beam of sunlight was a sign that her marriage had been blessed, that it was meant to be.