Isabel noticed the building they were walking toward. The stable. Into view cantered Lord Percival, exercising a horse in the paddock, all his attention focused on the animal below him. If he was devastating on two feet, he was gloriously so by horse. The way he sat his saddle was so natural, an at-oneness with the animal.
“I have no idea how to get close to such a man,” she murmured.
Montfort snorted. “Oh, these things have a way of working themselves out.”
Isabel simply couldn’t imagine Montfort was correct. Still, if this was her chance, she would seize it and worry about the how later. “Tonight?”
“Eager, are we?” Montfort emitted another light chuckle that scraped Isabel’s nerves raw. “Hold on to your maidenhead until I say. Understood?”
Isabel nodded, mortified. Her eye followed Lord Percival as he took the horse through its paces. She would seduce that man?
Incomprehensible.
If she’d ever encountered a man who was unseduceable, it was he. He was too hard, too calculating. She couldn’t imagine anyone ever got anything over on Lord Percival.
But she would, she determined then and there.
She removed her hand from Montfort’s arm and pivoted to face him. He would meet her eye when he answered her next question. “And then the debt will be paid? And Papa’s freedom secured?”
“In truth,” Montfort said, his cold eyes belying the warmth of his words, “that is all I’ve ever wanted from you and Eva.”
Oh, how Isabel hated this man. How she wanted to snatch up Eva and Ariel and run. But she couldn’t. For Eva, Ariel, and Papa, she would do whatever it took to secure their safety, even if the thought tugged a strange pang of guilt from her.
Whatever Montfort had planned for Lord Percival—beyond her role—she wasn’t certain he deserved it.
She shook the thought loose and set it on the breeze. Lord Percival was nothing to her. Nothing.
Her family were everything. If she must be the key to a man’s ruin to secure their safety and freedom, so be it. Besides, she wasn’t convinced Lord Percival was all that good a man.
Across the fifty or so yards that separated them, Lord Percival’s eye met hers for the flicker of a second. For that tick of time, everything froze inside Isabel. The intake of her breath. The beat of her heart. The functioning of her brain.
A figure leaning against the paddock fence pulled her attention. The Duke. Clearly, it had been Montfort’s intention to walk her to the stables, and to Lord Percival, all along. How very smooth he was at working situations to his advantage.
Before Isabel could reply or ask another question, the Duke waved at them. Isabel gave a half-hearted wave back. Montfort called out, “She was absolutely bereft and missing her groom, so I’ve delivered her to you.” He gave Isabel’s hand a paternal pat, purely for show. “I am going up to Town and must bid you adieu for a few days, Arundel, but Lady Bertrand will stay to charm you in my absence.” To Isabel, “I shall be interested to see what progress you’ve made when I return.”
With that, Montfort pivoted neatly on one heel and strode away.
A chill traced through Isabel as she stood alone and observed the Duke watching his son with pride. Oh, the way that man moved in the saddle with an ease so very opposite the tense Lord Percival she’d observed this past day. She suspected it was closer to the truth of the man than what he’d shown her. And it was—oh—so attractive.
How did she get close to this man?
A lightning bolt of inspiration hit her, and a feeling pooled deep in the pit of her belly, light and variable, anxious, too. This was the moment. She either tucked her tail between her legs and skulked away in defeat, or she stood her ground and began as she meant to go on. If she was to best this man, she must start now.
To the Duke, she was his son’s wife, family. She was Lady Percival, and Lord Percival would treat her as such, at least when they were in the company of others. She could use the Duke’s presence to her advantage.
“Tender husband,” she called out. Oh, that was bold. “Could you teach me to ride?”
With every fiber of her being, she anticipated his riposte with hitched breath.
How much more alive the beat of her heart felt now than it had thirty seconds ago.
Chapter 9
Percy had been trying to ignore Isabel’s approach. He had several dozen questions to ask her. But not here. Not in front of the Duke.
However, her question made her impossible to ignore. “You don’t ride?” He sounded like a popinjay who couldn’t conceive of a world where people didn’t know how to ride a horse.
Through the seriousness of her gaze glinted an amused light. Was she toying with him?
“Percy,” began the Duke, “you can’t have a wife who doesn’t ride. I hardly know how you would spend any time together.” He turned to address Isabel. “You see, my dear, you won’t find a better horseman in all of England. Percy was born to the saddle.”
Isabel’s lips tipped up ever so slightly. Ever so wickedly. “Lord Percival,” she began, “is the sort of man who would be the best at everything he attempts.”
“You couldn’t put yourself in better hands,” said the Duke, ignoring the clear double entendre.
Isabel met Percy’s eye. “I can’t imagine anyone whose hands I’d rather put myself into.”
Percy’s eyebrows nearly lifted off his forehead, and the Duke cleared his throat.
He couldn’t say no—that Percy understood perfectly—not without alerting his father’s suspicions.
And the woman with the knowing glint shining in her eyes and smirk pulling about her mouth knew it, too. She’d located the chink in his armor—that he didn’t want his family to know he’d brought home a wife who wasn’t really his wife—and decided to use it to her advantage. She’d changed the rules of the game. If he wasn’t so annoyed, he might admire her for it.
He’d be damned if it didn’t stir him.
“My hands are ever empty without you in them, my love,” he said, matching her sauciness note for note.
The spark of triumph in her eyes fizzled, and she shifted on her feet as if he’d thrown her physically off balance.