find being a society beauty burdensome, then, Miss Alstone?’
‘I do when people throw it at me like an accusation, Mr FitzDevelin.’
‘I apologise,’ he said impatiently.
‘I doubt it, but you must have come here to speak to me, since you don’t know my family and I doubt if you’re a business connection of my brother-in-law. A strange man on the strange horse I assume is resting in my brother-in-law’s stables as we speak won’t go unnoticed long, however much you tipped the groom to look the other way. My brother-in-law will want a good reason why you came here uninvited now his family are arriving for Eastertide and my sister is in an interesting condition.’
‘Before I’m grabbed by the scruff of my neck and thrown out I admit I came to plead with you.’
‘You? Plead with me?’ Isabella exclaimed, although he’d come a long way to play a trick if he was lying. ‘I doubt you even know how.’
‘Then I must learn, mustn’t I?’ he said impatiently. ‘Magnus is a broken man,’ he accused with such fury in his ice-blue eyes he must think it was her fault. ‘He’s shockingly thin and can’t shake off the influenza I’m told he contracted at Christmas. He needs you. I can’t imagine why when you kiss strange men at the drop of a hat and threw him over when you got tired of being engaged to marry him.’
‘Please don’t bother stretching your poor, underused imagination any further, then, because I’m not the woman your half-brother needs.’
‘You really are stony-hearted, aren’t you?’
‘Apparently,’ she said calmly.
Letting him know his accusation hurt as if a knife had been plunged into her chest would be even more stupid than finding the air at Cravenhill Park fresher and the sunlight brighter because he was here, even while he was flinging insults at her. If she had any sense, she’d turn her back on him and walk away; prove how indifferent she was to him and his misconceptions. A foolish part of her was far too pleased he was here to do that, despite the fury in his gaze as he let it slide over her.
‘What will get me past the ice between you and nobodies like me so I can reason with you?’ he asked and began to pace, as if that was the only way he could stop himself shaking her.
‘Nothing you can say,’ she told him steadily and refused to let him know he’d hurt her. His picture of events was so wide of the mark she’d laugh if she wasn’t feeling so sick.
‘And I dare say you’d turn his life upside down and treat him like a fool if you did agree to wed him after all, but even that would be better than watching him waste away for the lack of you in his life.’
‘I shall not and certainly not to please you. Please me by going away and avoiding me like the plague from now on, Mr FitzDevelin. Your brother and I had our own very good reasons not to go ahead with our wedding, but not one of them is any of your business.’
‘Yes, it is. I got back to England a week ago to find Magnus half the man he was when I left and he’s worth a hundred of either of us. I won’t let you set him at naught because his devotion has become tiresome.’
‘Find a fresh horse and go home, because you’ve had a wasted journey. Your insults won’t change a thing and next time you set out on a wild goose chase you should talk to your brother about it before you begin.’
‘He won’t talk to me,’ the wrong-headed idiot mumbled as if he didn’t want to admit he’d failed.
‘Neither will I,’ she said quietly.
Was it right to enjoy the blaze of anger and frustration lighting his eyes to purest ice blue before he turned to pace up and down the path again to stop himself taking her back to London by force for his brother like a juicy bone someone stole?
‘He obviously loves you to distraction,’ Wulf FitzDevelin threw out as he paced close enough to vent his fury without Sophia hearing. ‘Heaven knows why when you treat him like a whining dog you can kick aside when you’re weary of it.’
‘I don’t kick dogs. Your arguments are so persuasive I’m surprised you’re not employed as a diplomat, Mr Wulf,’ she retaliated sweetly. She was stoking an already scorching fire and it felt wickedly enjoyable as well as oddly powerful to bait him when he couldn’t lay a finger on her without having to explain it to a pair of children and her furious male relatives, but she really should stop it. ‘You’ll scare the children and as they’re Kentons it takes a lot of doing.’
He frowned even more fiercely and looked over at Sophia, who was staring at him while little Kit ran round the maze making war whoops as if he witnessed fiery adult battles of will every day of the week. He might well, given who his parents were and the fact they were notorious for enjoying a good argument. This wasn’t a good argument, though, was it? Still, Wulf looked a little sheepish when he turned back to her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly, as if every word cost a fortune.
‘Are you? Now I’ve seen your true colours I’m not surprised Magnus doesn’t confide in you.’
‘We were close as real brothers until he got engaged to you. He’s been closed as an oyster ever since and now just drinks and looks miserable as sin whenever someone mentions your name. You broke off the engagement days before you were due to marry; you’ve broken his heart.’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic; it was two months until our wedding and the invitations hadn’t even been sent out.’
‘Be grateful we’re being watched by innocents, Miss Alstone. I’m so tempted to find out if there’s red blood in your veins I doubt much else would hold me back.’
A hard and feverish sort of wanting blazed in his ice-blue eyes as if his steely will was all that stopped him kissing her witless, so she’d have to be grateful Sophia and little Kit were nearby, wouldn’t she? ‘I’d bite you if you tried it, Mr FitzDevelin, then we’d see what yours is like and never mind mine.’
‘How very uncivil of you,’ he snapped back sarcastically as if he hoped his words would freeze in mid-air and physically hurt her.
Isabella was hard-pressed not to wince. ‘Lucky we are being watched, then, since I don’t care to lower myself to your level,’ she replied and she needed to feed that fury; keep him standing across the green dell glaring at her like an enemy. She was almost terrified by the wild emotions burning the frosty air yet fascinated by the idea of exploring them and never mind conventions, relatives by marriage or her thorny Alstone pride.
‘You’re afraid you might kiss the bastard back, again.’
‘No, I could never want a man who despises me,’ she lied.
‘Why not, you did last time, Isabella,’ he reminded her with such deadly softness she felt his words scorch as if he’d written them in Greek fire on her flinching skin.
He was quite right; that night she kissed him as if her last breath depended on it and why was she such a confounded idiot as to want him and not his half-brother? She felt the merciless heat of longing for a dark and dangerous man she’d never been able to feel for gentlemanly, handsome and much kinder Magnus Haile. Raw wanting ran through her like wildfire, but this time she’d keep it to herself.
