She shook her head firmly. “Nay,” she said. “I swear it, my lord. Nothing you have said or done. In fact…”
“In fact… what?”
“Would you consider moving to London?”
His grin was back because her question gave him hope. “Not all the time,” he said. “But if my wife loved London so much, I might be convinced to build a home there, one we could stay in while we visited her friends.”
Her eyes widened. “Would you really?”
He nodded. “Of course I would,” he said. “My lady, I was married once and one of the things I remember from that relationship was that it was necessary to compromise if I wanted my wife to be happy. I know that most men view marriage as a monarchy – the man is king and everyone does as he commands. But I found that marriage was better when it was more of an alliance and a partnership. Sometimes I had my way, and sometimes Jane had her way. But the main thing was that we were willing to compromise. I believe that keeps everyone happy.”
Isalyn was listening intently. “And you found that it worked well enough?”
“Indeed, it did.”
She thought very hard on that. “And you would be willing to compromise with me?”
His eyes glimmered at her from across the chamber. “For you and you alone,” he said quietly. “Isalyn, I realize we have not known each other for very long but, in that short time, I have come to see that you have some very good qualities. You are brave and you are honest, and I respect that a great deal. You are also cultured and literate. I know of no other woman who writes dramas. Do you know why I invited you and your father for a visit?”
Isalyn had been hanging on his every word. “Nay… I do not think so.”
He stepped away from the door, moving slowly in her directly. “I invited you because I did not like the thought of never seeing you again,” he said. “You were planning on returning to London and I wanted to see you before you went. But the truth is that I did not want you to go at all.”
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t?”
“Nay.”
Isalyn wasn’t sure what to say. Her cheeks flamed an obvious shade of pink and she grinned, putting a hand to her warm face. She was so flattered that she was actually speechless for a moment. Never in her life had a man said to her what Tor just had. But if he was being so honest, perhaps she should be as well.
His candor gave her the confidence to speak her mind.
“Why do you think we came so soon?” she said, lowering her gaze bashfully. “I did not want you to forget about me.”
He smiled broadly. “You?” he said. “Never. Never would I forget the woman who introduced me to the Crown and Sword.”
She laughed softly. “At least my culinary knowledge impressed you.”
“Everything about you impressed me.”
She looked at him, feeling a good deal of disbelief. She could hardly believe the man was as interested in her as she was in him.
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
She looked him over, picturing him as her husband and the very idea made her heart swell with pride. The provincial knight who had changed her mind about provincial men. He was anything but the rural bumpkin she had imagined knights in the north to be. After a moment, she sighed.
“Did you mean what you said about having a home in London?” she asked softly.
He nodded. “There is one thing you should know about me immediately,” he said. “I never say anything I do not mean. And I will never say anything I will not follow through on. My word is my bond. If it would make you happy, then I will buy or build a home in London where we may stay when we visit. But know that I will not live there all year. My home is here, at Blackpool, and this is where I will spend the bulk of my time. But a few months a year spent in London, if it will make you happy, is something I would be willing to do. As long as you would be willing to come back to Blackpool with me.”
He was being truthfully and incredibly sweet. Already, he was speaking to her as if she meant something to him and it was endearing like nothing else.
“I would be willing, of course,” she said. “But you do not have to come to London with me if you do not want to. I would not force you to. I know you have obligations here and that it is your home as much as London is mine.”
He took a few more steps and ended up sitting on the bed, closer to her. “Would you really want to spend so much time away from your husband?”
She shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “But I would not force you to go with me if you did not want to.”
“You are that determined to spend time in London?”
She shrugged. “As you said, it is my home.”
“Would you be happy with just a few months a year?”
She thought on that a moment. “I would,” she said. “Summers are miserable in London, but the spring and autumn are lovely months. But would you be happy there, happy away from Blackpool?”
“I think I could be happy wherever you were.”
More sweet words. She could hardly dare to hope that they were true. “If you are certain, then we have a bargain.”
His smile was back. “If you are certain, then we do.”
“I am.”
“No lamenting a marriage to a provincial knight?”
She winced. “You are not going to let me forget that, are you?”
He laughed softly. “Not for a while, anyway,” he said. Then, he sobered. “And about what happened with Barbara and Lenore… if I seemed inactive in any way against punishing them, you have my deepest apologies. I have spent so long simply trying to ignore them that I fear it has become habit. Nay, that is not entirely true. Because they are Jane’s sisters, I felt guilty even thinking of punishing them and they know it. But no longer – you are to be my wife and their reign of terror is at an end.”
Isalyn averted her gaze. “I will be truthful with you,” she said. “To have them continuing living here with you… with us… is concerning. I do not mean to speak against them or disparage them, for my experiences with them are my own and they are limited, but I will not go the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and wondering what they are going to do to me next. I realize they are your dead wife’s sisters, but do you think she would have approved of their behavior?”
Tor immediately shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I know she would not have. And I will not have you fearful in your own home, so we will have to come to a pleasing solution to the problem of Barbara and Lenore.”
“Have you thought of finding them husbands?”
He grunted. “They do not wish to marry.”
“That is because they have you. Why should they?”
He looked at her, sharply. “I am not their husband, nor am I bound romantically to either one of them.”
She shook her head. “Forgive me,” she said. “I did not mean that the way it sounded. I simply meant that they tend your home, they fulfill the roles that a wife would normally fill, so mayhap they view you as a husband-figure in a sense.”
As much as he didn’t want to admit it, that made sense. But after a moment, he simply shook his head. “That is my fault,” he said. “I should have had them married off long ago. But they are my last link to Jane and I suppose I was in no hurry to do it.”