“In those…”—Alejandra gestured—“thoseconventclothes! She hasn’t seen her husband for eight years. She can’t go to him in those!”
“Yes, she needs something pretty,” Dolores agreed.
Bella looked down at her plain dark blue and gray dress. “I don’t have anything pretty.” She’d arrived at the convent with nothing, and the convent had dressed her ever since. The lack had never bothered her. Until now.
“No, but I do,” said Alejandra. She turned to Sister Josefina. “Sister, let us dress Isabella nicely to meet her husband. Please, Sister, we won’t take long.”
“Yes, pleeeeease, Sister,” the other girls joined in.
The young nun glanced from the girls’ eager faces to Isabella standing there in her drab clothes. “Be quick then,” she said. “Reverend Mother is waiting.”
Luke sat across the desk from Isabella’s aunt and willed himself not to fidget. She was now the Mother Superior and seemed in no hurry to move things along. He’d left his horses outside the convent in the care of a grubby urchin. Times were still bad in Spain, and the mountains were no doubt still full of brigands. And most thieves started young.
“She won’t be long, Lieutenant Ripton.” Isabella’s aunt had aged a good deal in the last years, Luke thought. Her face, under the severe nun’s garb, was thinner, her pale ivory complexion drawn tight over high cheekbones and blurred with a web of fine lines. The war had not been easy on her.
“Lord Ripton,” he corrected her. Her brows arched, and Luke explained. “I inherited the title from my uncle who was drowned in an unfortunate boating accident.”
“I had not realized you were the heir to a… ?”
“Barony. I had no expectations of it, but my uncle’s twosons drowned with him, and so the title and estates came to me.”
“Estates?” she inquired delicately, a reminder that however the marriage had been made, any alliance was still about blood and wealth. She was still Isabella’s aunt, after all.
Luke, however, had no intention of discussing it. “Suffice it to say I still have no need of Isabella’s fortune. How is she?”
“Isabella is well. Grown up. In two weeks’ time she will be twenty-one. She will, I am sure, be surprised to see you after all this time.” Said with an edge of acid.
Her tone annoyed Luke. He pulled out the letter he had received and broached the matter bluntly. “This letter denies my application for annulment. It says, ‘On information received by the Mother Superior of the Convent of the Angels.’??” He slapped the letter on her desk. “Eight years ago you told me an annulment would be a straightforward arrangement.”
She fixed him with a steady gaze. “I did not know then that Isabella was no longer a virgin.”
Not a virgin?Damn. The bastard must have got to her after all. Luke had been sure he’d saved her in time. Apparently not. His brows snapped together as another thought occurred to him. “Don’t tell me she—”
“No, there were no unfortunate consequences,” Mother Superior said in an austere tone. “Isabella herself told me of the attack—she had nightmares afterward, you see. But what’s done is done, and so…” She spread her thin-veined hands in a fatalistic gesture.
Luke nodded. “How did Isabella take the news?”
“Isabella is a lady by birth and training.”
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.
