“I am.”
Isabella hugged her, and Felicity threw her arms around them both. Arms and skirts tangled, they looked at the wardrobe as one, as if doing so included their mother in the embrace.
“What if I find the letter?” Isabella pulled away from her sisters,wandered closer to the wardrobe, setting her hand on the door, right over the lock. “Will you still marry him if I find the letter and there is no need for you to?”
“Yes.” Imogen sounded unmovable. “It is what I want.”
“But what about… passion? Of the sort we know exists.” What about love?
“That exists in the imagination. It is what books like those are for—to provide what does not exist in the world.”
“Are you positive, Imogen? I think it might be rather possible for a man to kiss you like he’s starving. And you’re a banquet.” The silence that buzzed around them rushed more words from Isabella’s lips. “Our sisters, I mean. I, of course, have no firsthand knowledge. But I have seenthemappear quite… dazed from amorous activity.”
Felicity raised an eyebrow, and Imogen fought a grin.
“Do not worry, ladies,” Imogen said. “There is no beast the Merriweather sisters cannot defeat. We will prevail.”
They would. Because they had to. For Samuel.
Imogen and the others were providing her more time. Isabella must find the letter. But how could she even search for it with Mr. Trent keeping such a close eye on her? And hand. And lip. And tongue.
Heavens, it was terribly hot in here.
She must avoid Mr. Trent and his kisses. For her family’s sake. And for her own.
Chapter Eleven
Three hundred and thirty-six hours—the amount of time in a fortnight. Thirty-eight hours—the amount of time Isabella had been inside Hestia. Not all at once. The hours were cut up across the days, a few one day, an entire block another, each minute she roamed his halls ticking away in his brain, which apparently had developed two new talents—the ability to know precisely when she arrived and when she left, and the ability to find her immediately no matter where in Hestia she hid or what she occupied her time with.
Thirty-eight hours of complete distraction. It seemed too many. And too little. He kept himself well hidden as he watched her, and his fingers well stuffed in his pockets or occupied with tasks… other than tracing along the line of her spine or over the curve of her hip.
A hellish thirty-eight hours. A hellish fortnight. Because added to the intensity with which he felt her presence in Hestia was the question of when the Barlows would contact him with another invitation to the Blue Sheep. Until that happened, he’d keep his distance from Isabella, watch her from the shadows. Only Mr. Barlow’s summons would give him permission to step close and link his arm through hers.
She’d bewitched him.
His entire body seemed to growl for her, to demand her, and he’dsliced half-moons into his palms in an effort to stay away. Best to keep his nails as short as he could to avoid further injury.
His study door creaked open, and his secretary, Mr. Poppins, slipped inside. Tall and broad of shoulder and belly, he was a beast of a man with an impossible personality. His brown hair always seemed meticulously kept, and his thick eyebrows perpetually raised over cynical pale-brown eyes. “The mail, Mr. Trent.” He slapped a pile of folded epistles on Rowan’s desk before bracing a hip against the desk’s edge. “If you do not mind me saying, sir, you look like a fresh pile of horse—”
“I do mind you saying.”
“Yet, I feel it should be said, nonetheless. Perhaps a cup of tea will perk you up. Or coffee.” Mr. Poppins flicked a careless glance toward the windows. Rowan had inherited Poppins when he’d bought Hestia. He suffered the man’s insolence because he usually offered excellent advice. “Or to open the shrouds and let in some light.”
“Curtains, not shrouds.”
“If you say so, sir. But saying so does not make it so.”
“Please look to your own logic, Poppins. They are curtains.” Rowan reached for the letters.
“The maid who is not a maid is here again.”
Rowan froze, his fingers a scant inch above the first letter. “I’m aware.” This time he’d seen her come in, a hurrying shadow through the back door, her face flicking up toward his window for a scant moment before she’d disappeared inside.
“They have a betting pool downstairs. About why you’re giving her free roam of the place.”
“I’m not interested in servant gossip.” Rowan snapped up the top letter and tossed it aside. Then the next.
“Your loss. Better entertainment than Vauxhall, I say.”
