“You’re referring to his time in Spain during the war, I suppose?”
“And the ten years after that.”
Isabel’s brow furrowed, and she glanced over to find Miss Fox studying her reaction.
“It hasn’t been a year since Lord Percival returned to England. You didn’t know?” Miss Fox asked.
“He was in Spain all that time?”
“I rather suspect he was all over the Continent.”
Isabel exhaled a frustrated huff. Why wouldn’t Miss Fox simply speak a straightforward answer? “Doing what?”
“Hasn’t he told you? Oh, this is rich.”
Miss Fox’s mouth curled into the sort of smile that said it was about to divulge a delicious secret. Isabel braced herself.
“Why, being a spy, of course.”
“A spy?”
“That is the rumor, anyway.” Miss Fox pierced Isabel with her pointed eye. “Truly, you don’t know the story?”
Isabel shook her head, unable to trust herself to speak. Last night, Lord Percival had let her believe his war was a lark as she’d lashed out at him, as she’d tried to make him a hair less devastating. But in her heart she’d known differently. It wasn’t only the evidence running along his right cheekbone, but the evidence that lay within his eyes.
“He was thought dead for over ten years. Slain at the Battle of Maya. That was the story.”
“Slain?” Lord Percival’s history took one strange turn after another.
“While his wife remained in London as a widow and raised their daughter. Then, a few years back, he turned up alive in Paris. I’ve heard rumors of amnesia, but never confirmed. Anyway, his wife raised a big fuss when she petitioned Parliament to set the marriage aside. Within a year she was swept off her feet by the oh-so-dashing Viscount St. Alban, who is Miss Radclyffe’s father as it so happens. The whole matter set the beau monde on its ear, I can assure you.” Miss Fox paused long enough to draw breath. “Lady St. Alban was delivered of twin sons in February, an heir and a spare in one go. I always thought her a clever woman. Of course, she is a twin herself, so not such a great surprise.”
What a story to keep straight, but one point of curiosity Isabel would have Miss Fox expand upon. “And Miss Bretagne? How did she fare through all this?”
Miss Fox gave an indifferent shrug. “She seems to have come through with her spirit intact. But, technically, the girl is a bastard, as is any child whose parents obtain a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. If Miss Bretagne had been a ‘mister,’ Parliament wouldn’t have been so acquiescent, no matter how much arm twisting the Duke of Arundel did on behalf of his former daughter by law.”
Matters between father and daughter became clearer to Isabel. “It’s no wonder Miss Bretagne cannot stand the sight of her father.”
“Perhaps, but it may not be the direct cause of the enmity. To my eye, her bastardy hasn’t the least impact on her life as her status in the family doesn’t appear to have changed. A rumor floated around that St. Alban offered to adopt her, but nothing came of it. I suspect the Duke of Arundel wouldn’t hear of such an action, as it’s obvious the chit is the apple of his eye. My feeling is the cause is rooted in the fact that Lord Percival chose to stay away.”
“If he was a spy,” Isabel returned, “perhaps it wasn’t his choice. He could have endangered his family had he returned.”
Why was she defending the man? She hadn’t known him long enough to have the faintest clue who he really was. She could ignore the tiny voice that offered a counter-argument that she’d met the real him last night.
And possibly liked him.
“A girl of thirteen or fourteen years might not be able to see it from that point of view,” Miss Fox continued. “An absent father can inflict a surprising bit of damage onto a daughter. She might forgive him in time. Such a thing cannot be rushed.”
Isabel intuited that Miss Fox wasn’t speaking only of Miss Bretagne. Miss Fox spoke with the voice of experience.
They topped a short rise and, as one, drew their horses to a halt. “Oh, would you look at that,” Miss Fox uttered.
The ruin with the sea at its back was the stuff of Romantic artists like John Constable. Set on the edge of a cliff, it looked on the verge of collapsing into the sea, a decaying ode to a time long ago of Catholic monks and the Viking marauders who regularly plundered their riches, now ghosts haunting its crumbling walls.
When Isabel and Miss Fox reached the outer wall, they found a groom waiting to tether their horses along with the others. Isabel didn’t think she could ever grow accustomed to the luxury aristocrats took for granted.
Her insatiable curiosity pulling her along, Miss Fox swept past Isabel, so that by the time Isabel entered the ruin, Miss Fox had disappeared on her own adventure.
In truth, Isabel was relieved to be on her own as she began meandering, her feet free to wander at will. The open sky above, the maze of brown stone walls that in some places only reached her hip, the cool of the breeze, the roar of the sea, the muffled chatter of the young people two walls over. She passed them exploring one room, and, in another, Miss Fox down on her hands and knees, dusting off a patch of ground that appeared to be a grimy floor mosaic. On Isabel explored until it caught her ear: the low rumble of cultured male voices.
He was here.
She rounded a corner and a blast of salt air greeted her full in the face as the view opened. There, not twenty yards away, at the cliff’s edge stood Lord Percival and his brother, Lord Exeter, their voices carrying in snatches on the changeable wind. How similar the brothers were in height and coloring, yet how different in personality.
Isabel sank into the ancient stones at her back, eyes only for the one brother.
Lord Percival—Percy, he’d insisted—stood a tall sentinel, tousled black hair blowing about a face that was all irresistible, brooding angles. How could she look away?
And the line of that long, lean body of his, with his hip cocked onto the wall at his side, it shouted aristocratic poise and confidence and coiled tension. He appeared at his ease, but he was ready for action, the pose said.
Another action came to her: the kiss. Even in memory, it stole her breath away.
What other sort of kiss would a man like him deliver? Of course his kiss would scorch the earth and leave devastation in its wake. The trembly shimmer in her veins was a testament to it.