Her family.
The Haws.
The Barlows.
And her pretend husband.
All in the same place at the same time. Why hadn’t he told her their plans for the day? If she’d known, she could have avoided this. Shehatednot knowing.
Rowan strode toward her like a shadow growing long and large as the sun climbs the sky. She’d seen him in small places, walled in and low lighted, and he’d always seemed to soak up the space and air and light. A large park should have shrunk him down to man size.
It did not. He seemed even bigger, as if he’d grown to fit the space, a dark demi-god in black clothes, his dark hat pulled low despite the heat of the day. Surely he was burning up. She was. She ran the back of her hand down the side of her neck, and it came away damp from her own sweat. Thank God for the clouds covering the sun.
Rowan stopped right in front of her. “Isabella.” His voice flattened every tree in its path; it rumbled so heavily across the terrain. “What a surprise.”
“Surprise,” she said to his jacket buttons, “is one word for it.” Tragedy another. Perhaps a more accurate one.
He hooked his arm through hers and stepped to her side, revealing two smiling Barlows behind him. She waved. They waved. The end of the world was, apparently, brimming with social niceties.
“Your husband,” Mrs. Barlow said, “has been treating us to ices at Gunter’s. We decided to walk through Hyde Park afterward. Mr. Trent said you were busy with family today.”
“Yes. Well, I was. And then, I wasn’t.” Isabella laughed—a tepid little thing, convincing no one—as she strained her eyeballs not to look every direction all at once. She must keep an eye out for the others. They couldn’t see her on this man’s arm.Samuelcouldn’t see. Her sisters would lock their lips tight and demand answers later. But Samuel… There would be the ranting, then the demanding, then the inevitable foggy desolation.
Rowan patted her hand where it lay limp on his forearm. “I am pleased you decided to join us. You can walk with us back to Hestia.”
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Barlow said, “You must. Mrs. Barlow has been missing female companionship, someone to gawk at all the finery with.”
“I…” Caught. Like a mouse in a trap. “I do not think—”
Rowan’s arm tightened, became a vice, trapping her to his side. She couldn’t groan, so she smiled harder. She likely looked like Imogen had earlier. Imogen stood just down the path, so close, her profile to them, wearing that too-wide awkward smile.
“Isabella?” Rowan said, his rough voice a caress. “Is something amiss? You seem distracted.” He glanced in the direction Isabella gawked. Right at Imogen.
Isabella fainted. Tried to. Her body went limp, and his arm banded impossibly tighter around hers, and she sort of… hung there, off his arm, everyone staring at her. She pressed a hand to her forehead and whimpered just a bit.
Rowan knelt and pulled her into his arms. “Good God, are you ill?” He leaned over her, pretending to check her breathing but hissing in her ear, “What is this spectacle about?”
“I have grown too hot.” She spoke softly, each word measured as if shaping them were much too difficult in such oppressive heat. “Shade.” She drooped in Rowan’s embrace.
Mrs. Barlow squealed, and Mr. Barlow made little concerned tutting noises.
“A doctor, Mr. Barlow, we must find a doctor!”
“No!” Isabella half recovered from her swoon. “No. Do not go to the trouble. I simply need my husband to help me to some shade, and I will soon recover.”
Rowan lifted her to standing and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Return to the hotel. She’s quite delicate. Faints often. I know what to do to set her to rights.”
The Barlows complied with frantically bobbing heads, and Isabella felt a thrill of victory. Two down. How many more to go? Too many to count, but soon Rowan would be neutralized.
“Those woods,” she said, pointing to a line of thick trees running the length of the Serpentine. Before they made it to the cover of the low branches, the clouds shifted, and the sun beamed hard and hot, sizzling the air. A trickle of sweat ran down Isabella's temple. Rowan sneezed, shook his head, and wrinkled his nose. Then, so casually it made her forget for a buzzing moment that he was not her husband in truth, he wiped away the bead of sweat on her forehead with his thumb. That touch hotter than the blazing orb above.
No, not Rowan making her sweat. Certainly not now. More dangerous by far the fact that she was surrounded, poised teetering on the crumbling edge of this dangerous game she played. Shemustfocus. But focus on what? She seemed to be floating, all the way to the trees and beneath, and then he was releasing her, and she fell back down to earth beneath the midnight pitch of his hard stare.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “You’re not going to faint again, are you?”
That popped the soap bubble she’d been floating on. “I did not faint to begin with, as I’m sure you’ve deduced.”
“Are you trying to hide me?”
