“Really, it was nothing,” Toby said, in a tone of false humility that he knew would draw him even more praise. Isabel’s admiration was perhaps a bit more than he deserved, but he wasn’t about to spurn it.
“It was wonderful. And terrifying. Oh, Toby. I was so certain you would be trampled.”
She nestled close to him, and he let his hand wander down the curve of her hip. Really—
shouldn’t a daring rescue like that entitle a man to a few liberties? Here he’d been wanting to slay a dragon for her, and Toby supposed subduing a panicked carriage horse was as close as he’d ever get.
“Thank you,” she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder.
“Really, the trick of it’s all in the timing. And it’s Mr. Yorke you ought to thank,” Toby replied, breathing in the delicious scent of her hair. “I’d never have learned that maneuver if not for him.”
“Truly?”
“My mother forbade me to practice that vault, you see. Told me I’d break my neck. So naturally, Yorke encouraged me just to spite her. I spent most of my fourteenth summer in his eastern pasture, practicing. Took me weeks, and I took my share of nasty spills, but I finally mastered the way of it.”
“I can understand why your mother objected. It sounds horribly dangerous.” She raised her head and looked up at him. “Why on earth did you want to learn?”
“I had my heart set on joining the cavalry. Though deep down, I knew I never could. With my father gone, it was too great a risk. If I died without an heir, my mother and sisters would be left alone. Still, at fourteen I had my dreams. Pictured myself charging around French battlefields, spilling Bonapartist blood.”
Toby laughed a little. Ah, to be young and spend hours spinning detailed, grandiose fantasies of changing the world. Isabel certainly wasn’t a girl any longer, but she’d somehow retained that youthful idealism he’d long outgrown. He didn’t always understand her zeal, but he did admire it. At times, he envied it. Honor, Justice, Charity … the way she pronounced those terms, he could hear the capital letters implied. They were words she spoke often, but never lightly. And she took the same earnest tone when she spoke of being a Lady, with a capital L. Toby hadn’t thought much of being a Sir since he was a boy, envisioning himself the hero of a lost Arthurian legend: Sir Toby the Valiant. Isabel made him feel that there could be something to this whole notion of nobility, aside from assuming his place in the throng of bored aristocrats—men with nothing better to do of an afternoon than sit at the club swilling brandy. Perhaps he could make his title something more than just the fading gleam on a centuries-old suit-of-armor.
Or perhaps Isabel could.
“Cavalry or no, that vault turned out to be a useful trick.” He squeezed her hand and donned a devilish grin. “Soon I came to appreciate its other application.”
“What’s that?”
“Why, impressing the young ladies, of course.” He brushed a light kiss on her lips. “Did it work?”
She nodded, blushing.
“Very good. Let’s see if I can impress you further.” He thrust his free arm under her hips and swept her off her feet.
She squeaked with surprise. “Toby!”
“Oh, I like that noise,” he said, holding her in his arms as he crossed the shallow stream. “Can you make that one again?” he asked, lowering her to her feet. “Later tonight?”
She dismissed his teasing with a little wave of her hand and walked on ahead.
“That’s rather bold of you,” he said, grinning at the enticing sway of her hips as she marched away. “How do you know you’re not walking the wrong direction?”
“Am I?” she asked, without pausing to look back.
“No.”
“Well, then.”
He watched her walk a few paces more before starting after her. Following her path at a leisurely pace, he twisted a length of ivy from a nearby branch and worked it with both hands.
“Wait,” he called. “Hold right there.”
She paused, framed between two trees—standing in the doorway between this small, shaded grove and the sunlit world beyond. A corona of golden light surrounded her, caressing every lush curve of her silhouette.
“What is it?” she asked.
Toby couldn’t even answer. He just stood there, blinking, awestruck by the vision of loveliness before him. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he slowly approached his wife. One by one, he pulled the pins from her hair as she looked up at him, adorably befuddled. At last her dark tresses tumbled free, and she arranged them about her shoulders with an unconscious toss of her head.
“There, that’s better.” Grinning like a fool, Toby adorned her gleaming ebony crown with the ivy wreath he’d fashioned, then framed her bewildered smile in his hands. “Isabel, I know I’ve told you this a hundred times or more. And now I regret not saving the words for this moment. For that matter, I regret ever speaking them to anyone else, because now the words seem too paltry, too common. Completely inadequate. But I promise you, I’ve never meant them more honestly than I do right here, right now. You are … beautiful. Truly, you take my breath away.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, my. Now that was impressive indeed.”
“Was it?”
“Yes,” she laughed. “Even I’m breathless, and I’m not romantic by nature. I can’t imagine what that little speech must have done to your young, impressionable ladies.”
Toby felt his grin fading. He’d never made that speech to anyone else. The crown of ivy nonsense, countless times—but never that speech. Those words were for her alone.
“You do realize I’ve already married you?” she asked. “And here you are pulling out all your best tricks. Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. What an astute question she posed. Why, indeed? Out of habit? Simply for sport?
No. No, it was because he knew—they both knew—he might have stolen her away from Gray, wedded and bedded her, even rescued her from certain peril, but he hadn’t yet engaged her heart. He, who had female hearts flung at him with all the frequency, and velocity, of cricket balls—hadn’t secured the adoration of his own wife.
And she was his wife. For what ever shallow reasons he’d begun this courtship—for the first time in his life, Toby was out of his depth. Isabel was a woman of strong principles and simmering passions. It would take more than adolescent flirtation to touch her heart. But her heart was the only one that mattered. He had to win it before he lost the election, or he might never have a chance again.
She looked out at the sloping hillside beyond the woods. “I think we must be nearing your estate.”
“That stream was the property line, as a matter of fact. How could you tell?”
“Your whole manner has changed,” she said, placing her hands on his chest. “You’re …
boyish. Carefree. Full of mischief.” She smoothed his waistcoat with her palms. Toby knew it wasn’t wrinkled. She simply wanted to touch him.
And God, did he want to touch her. It was all coming back now, the rush of desperate need.
“Full of mischief, I’ll grant you.” Sliding his hands to her backside, he backed her up a step, so that she stood braced against the trunk of a tree. “But boyish?” He ground his hips against hers, eliciting her small gasp. “I have to disagree with you there.”
“Toby,” she said, her voice tight. Her open palms pressed against his chest. “We really should keep moving.”
“Oh. Very well.”
He released her, but stayed close—denying her the space to walk away. Heart pounding with lust and brain churning with confusion, he stared down at his wife’s flushed countenance. She wouldn’t even meet his eyes. Something was wrong, but damned if he knew how to name it. He couldn’t understand why one minute she could be so passionate, even flirtatious, drawing him near—and the next, pushing him away. As she said, they were already married. And today he’d used all his most impressive tricks, and invented a few new ones in the bargain.
“Someday,” he said, “I’ll take you back to visit Tortola.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It’s your home. Don’t you miss it?”
“Not today.” She tried to wiggle past him, but he had her boxed in.
“I’d like to see your childhood home. I wonder, would I see the girlish Isabel there? Carefree, full of mischief?”
“I don’t know.” Her tone was light. Falsely so. “I don’t know that I was ever full of mischief.”
Nor carefree, he supposed. A hint of sadness pulled at the corner of her mouth, and Toby found himself wishing he could perform the truly impossible—reach back in time to slay the dragons haunting her past.
She toyed with the end of his cravat where it hung loose about his neck, then looked off into the distance for a moment. A heartbeat later, those wide, dark eyes flashed up at him again.
“Perhaps you’re seeing her now.”
With that, she plucked the cravat from his neck, ducked under his arm and ran off—charging
up the hill, scattering laughter on the breeze behind her. Toby gave chase. Despite her head start, he gained on her quickly. He caught up to her at the crest of the hill, where she’d stopped in her tracks with her back still to him. The cravat fluttered in her dangling hand.
“I’ve caught you now.” He whipped one arm around her chest and reached for the cravat with the other. “Give it here, you minx.”
He encountered no resistance as he yanked the neck cloth from her grasp. She didn’t even turn to look at him. Instead, she simply reclined against his chest and stared down at the valley below.
“Oh, Toby,” she said in a tone of breathless awe. “What is it?”
Smiling through his labored breaths, he hugged her tight. He’d been wrong. He did have one last trick up his sleeve, and this the most impressive one yet.
“Why, that’s our home.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Isabel had always been a grateful sort. She had always been aware that her life situation was one of great wealth and comfort, relatively speaking. But if she had felt one source of deprivation in her girlhood, it was that she had grown up in a house with very few books. Very few books of interest to a young girl, at any rate. Still, she read any volume she could, several times over. There had been a book of fairy stories she could probably recite by heart even now, if she tried. And the frontispiece of that book was permanently engraved upon her memory. It depicted a castle. A smallish one, though stout. Fortified with a turret and moat, but made friendly by the ivy clinging to its stone face and the manicured gardens in its shadow. As a girl, Isabel had stared at that etching for more hours than she could count, imagining the homelands of her parents, dreaming of centuries long past, missing her brother when he was at Oxford, and sometimes simply wishing to be anywhere far, far away.
And now—here it was. Her castle. Moat, turret, ivy, gardens … it was an exact rendition of her girlhood dream, washed in brilliant color. Real.
“How can it be?” she asked.
Toby’s arms tightened around her waist. “I told you we’d be here soon enough. It isn’t a long walk.”
“No, I mean … I’ve seen this place before. This very house, in a book.”
“Really?” She felt him shrug. “I don’t doubt it. More than one artist has painted this prospect. When my great-great uncle had it built, he was excessively proud of the place. Invited just about everyone in England to come visit.”
“You mean it hasn’t been here for centuries?”
“Oh, no. Not even one. It’s only built in the medieval style, but it’s quite modern inside. The old man had a rather romantic imagination, wouldn’t you say?”