Page 68 of The Rake's Daughter
Izzy rose to her feet. She was shaking. “You—you thinkIcontrived with that... that vile Milly Harrington to compromise you?”
“Did you not?” he said, but it wasn’t a question. A hard knot lodged in Izzy’s chest. He’d already decided her guilt. Without even giving her the benefit of the doubt.
“I had no idea she was there, no idea she would come bursting in on us like that.”
“Really?” His voice oozed flat disbelief. “So it was pure coincidence that a sheltered young woman would come outside into a shared garden—in her dressing gown and slippers, after two in the morning—just in time to see you kissing me? And to then burst in loudly exclaiming that I had compromised you.”
“Coincidence?” Izzy’s voice was shaking with anger and indignation. “Yes, it was exactly that. Milly Harrington is a stupid, nosy, grubby-minded busybody, and she pops up uninvited at all kinds of inopportune moments.” She broke off and took a deep breath, but it wasn’t in the least calming. “Didn’t you hear me threaten her? Warning her not to breathe a word to a soul—not even to her mother—on pain of dire consequences?”
He shrugged. “Pretty playacting. But it didn’t fool me.”
“ ‘Pretty playacting’?” She clenched her fists. She stared at him, unable to believe her ears. Could this hard-faced, arrogant, judgmental man be the same man who’d reduced her to a puddle of bliss the previous night?
“Really! Really?” She was almost dancing with rage.“So that’s what you think, is it? Then how do you account for the fact thatyouchose to come down when you did, after two in the morning, when the party was over and everyone had left? I arranged that, did I? And did I tell Milly Harrington to wait and be ready for you when you came down? Because I must have, mustn’t I? Naturally I knew you’d appear, and obviously we would kiss, because what else does one do when a man arrives unexpectedly in the summerhouse at two in the morning after a party?”
She glared at him. He had a frozen look on his face, as if he’d just swallowed a live toad. She only wished he had.
“Youapproached me, Lord Salcott.Youkissed me. Nobody forced you—and nobody was trying to compromise you.”
He didn’t say a word. His face was still stupidly blank. She wanted to hit him. She took a few paces around the room. “You called it ‘despicable in the extreme,’ but I find it despicable ofyouto evensuspectI could stoop to such a vile and shabby scheme. I wouldneverplay such a nasty underhanded trick—not on any man, and especially not on you! Not even now I know what a conceited, self-important, pompous ass you are.”
She stalked to the door. “I don’t need to trap men into marriage, Lord Salcott. In case you didn’t notice, there were a dozen or more fine gentlemen vying for my attention last night. And there will be others interested, I’m sure. So take your self-importance and your arrogance and your stupid suspicious mind and... and... bottle it!”
Izzy slammed the door behind her, ran up the stairs, flung herself on the bed and burst into tears.
***
Leo took himself back to his house in something of a daze.
What had he done? It hadn’t been a trap after all. He’d jumped to a wholly unreasonable conclusion. And now he’d insulted and offended her. Badly.
He stripped off his wet clothes, realizing as he did that he was chilled right through. Matteo had a hot bath waiting, and he sank into it
His damnable temper. He thought about those kisses in the summerhouse, and groaned. He’d ruined everything.
“Milor’?” Matteo asked anxiously. “The water too hot? Not hot enough?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“I shave you now?”
Leo nodded, closed his eyes as Matteo laid a hot towel across his face, and gave himself up to the man’s skillful ministrations with the razor. A good shave could be wonderfully soothing, but this time it did little to ease the turmoil of his mind.
He forced his thoughts away from the conundrum that was Isobel and his own disastrous misapprehension, and turned his mind to the girls’ stated intention of bluffing as long as they could, expecting that once their deception was discovered, they would be shunned. It was crazy, but he had to respect their courage, if courage it was and not reckless foolhardiness.
What would it be like to be shunned? He pondered the notion. In his earliest weeks at school he’d felt alone and friendless. Was that the same as being shunned? He didn’t think so.
The effect would probably depend on what kind of person was being shunned, how sociable they were and how much they would miss being able to mix in society. And how much they needed other people’s approval.
Leo wasn’t terribly sociable. As long as he had one or two good loyal friends, that was enough. But he had a feeling that Studley’s daughters were the sociable type—especially Isobel. Not that he was thinking about her at the moment.
He lay back and focused on the agreeable scrape of the razor over his skin, the sensation of heat and the scent of the shaving soap.
For years after his father’s seizure had taken place, Leo lived quite an isolated life. He hadn’t had much of a social life at all—there was so much to do, and his worries were such that he was rarely in the mood for frivolous pastimes and pointless entertainments. But he had friends who visited, and a few locals he saw regularly, so his restricted life hadn’t bothered him much at all.
And of course, having his friend, Mabel, had helped. Leo smiled to himself, thinking of her. He’d never known how to think of her place in his life—she would laugh to hear herself called his mistress, though in truth that was what she was. But Mabel was no kept woman and would have smacked anyone who suggested as much, Leo included.
A blunt speaker herself, Mabel would probably approve of a young woman who could blister his ears as Isobel had.Take your self-importance and your arrogance and your stupid suspicious mind and... and... bottle it!
