Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I zzie stiffened, recognizing the voice. She turned, and surely enough, there was Tristan Bassingthwaighte, regarding her from the middle of the path.

Two months ago, Mr. Bassingthwaighte had asked her parents for permission to court her. At first, Izzie had been pleased by the prospect. He had a reputation for being a poet of some talent. She had thought they might pair well together—the poet and the authoress of Gothic novels. Although Mr. Bassingthwaighte was not what you would call plump in the pocket and was likely drawn to her at least in part for her handsome dowry, Izzie hadn’t minded. She didn’t need palatial surroundings. The most important thing was finding a husband who would support her writing.

Unfortunately, that would not be Mr. Bassingthwaighte. A month into their acquaintance, he had asked to read a chapter of her story. She’d had to copy it out by hand, as she’d been preparing to submit the complete manuscript to The Minerva Press, her dream publisher, which specialized in Gothic novels. She’d passed it to him at a garden party. The next morning, when a footman had announced that Mr. Bassingthwaighte was there to call upon her, she’d twisted her hands into knots as she glided down the stairs, anxious about his reaction.

At least he had not left her in suspense. “Izzie,” he said the second she entered the room, not even bothering to start with a good morning , “tell me you have not been wasting your time on this rubbish .”

They’d fought about it for a good fifteen minutes. Izzie knew her story wasn’t rubbish. She’d been writing Gothic novels since she was thirteen and could admit that her early works were best left in the box under her bed where they currently resided.

But she hadn’t given up. She had worked hard, and this book was good. She knew it was—an opinion that would be confirmed one week later when The Minerva Press wrote back offering to publish it.

Mr. Bassingthwaighte would hear none of it. Gothic novels were not serious literature , a distinction Izzie actually did not mind as writing serious literature had never been her aim. She’d wanted to write something entertaining and enjoyable.

But, according to Mr. Bassingthwaighte, entertaining and enjoyable were not worthy goals. There was serious literature, and there was rubbish, and Izzie’s manuscript fell into the latter category.

Mr. Bassingthwaighte was furious when she asked him to leave and even angrier when she refused to receive him after that. He’d attempted to corner her at a ball—not to apologize, mind you, but to explain again why she was wrong. He’d been so persistent that her brother, Harrington, had eventually noticed and come over to run him off.

That had been two weeks ago. Izzie hadn’t spoken to him since.

Nor did she have any desire to renew their acquaintance.

“Mr. Bassingthwaighte,” she said coldly. “Do excuse me. I was just leaving.”

She turned on her heel and managed to take two steps toward the front of the gardens before she was waylaid by a hand around her upper arm.

“Don’t play coy with me,” Mr. Bassingthwaighte snarled. “We both know why you’re here.”

She tried to keep her voice from trembling. “You are mistaken, sir, if you think my reasons for being here have anything to do with you. Now, I will thank you to unhand me.”

He only tightened his grip. “You’ve been leading me on a merry chase these past few weeks, pretending you wanted nothing to do with me.”

Izzie tried and failed to yank her arm free. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“But tonight,” he continued, ignoring her, “when you saw me heading for the dark walks, you decided to follow me.”

Izzie gave another futile pull at her arm. “I most certainly did not!”

“Was this your plan from the start? To string me along for a few weeks, then make it up to me tonight? Or were you overcome with jealousy when you saw me slip away, knowing what I would be doing back here and that I would be doing it with a woman other than you?”

“Whoever you met with, she is welcome to you!” she snapped. “I offer her my most profound sympathies. Now, unhand me this instant.”

He laughed, but not in a nice way. “That’s part of your game, isn’t it? You like to act all high and mighty, don’t you? To pretend you’re too good for the likes of me.”

“I am too good for the likes of you! And my reasons for visiting the dark walks have absolutely nothing to do with you.”

“Oh, really?” Mr. Bassingthwaighte looked openly skeptical. “There’s only one reason people visit these dark walks.”

Izzie happened to know that was wrong. To be sure, she had learned tonight that most people visited the dark walks in order to fornicate, for lack of a better term.

But based on what she had overheard, there was a small but persistent minority that came there to discuss acts of treason.

“You wanted an assignation,” Mr. Bassingthwaighte continued, leaning in so she could smell the wine on his breath. “That’s why you’re here.”

“Not with you ,” she said without thinking. She quickly realized her error. A planned rendezvous with any man in the dark walks would be enough to ruin her. It would have been better to claim she’d lost her way and hadn’t meant to be there at all.

This statement also made Mr. Bassingthwaighte’s lips twist cruelly. “So fickle, Lady Isabella? How quickly your affections move from one man to another.”

This was patently unfair. She had danced with Mr. Bassingthwaighte a handful of times and had a half-dozen conversations with him. But she had made him no promises, nor had she whispered any words of affection. He had managed to extinguish her budding regard for him when he referred to her book as rubbish .

But it did not seem wise to say as much when his hand was gripping her arm in a way that seemed likely to leave a bruise.

“Let me go,” she whispered.

He responded by grabbing her other arm and slowly drawing her toward him. “Why should I?”

“My brother will call you out!”

This was normally a potent threat. Harrington was one of the best shots in all of England.

But Mr. Bassingthwaighte just laughed. “No, he won’t. What good would it do to shoot me? You would still be ruined. He needs me alive so I can marry you. That will be the only way to quash the rumors.”

He continued droning on about how he expected Izzie to be more obedient once she was his wife. Izzie paid him little mind. The future he was describing was not going to happen. She would make sure of it.

He might not be worried about Harrington calling him out. But Harrington was useful in more ways than one and had shown all his sisters precisely where to knee a man for maximum impact.

She marked the moment he became so involved in his speech that his attention started to drift. As he cast a long-suffering gaze toward the trees, she brought her knee up, taking him square in the groin.

Harrington’s advice worked better than Izzie could have hoped. Mr. Bassingthwaighte released her at once, clutching his intimate bits with a piteous moan. He crumpled forward, winding up on his knees in the dirt.

Izzie turned and ran, then stopped as she realized she had started in the wrong direction and was heading deeper into the dark walks.

She started to turn but saw that Mr. Bassingthwaighte had struggled to his feet. “You’re going to… regret that!” he ground out, staggering toward her.

Oh, dear. He was blocking her best escape route. Now, she had no choice but to flee even deeper into the gardens.

Behind her, she could hear a series of pops as the evening’s fireworks display commenced. She came to a crossing and turned left, catching a glimpse of Mr. Bassingthwaighte lurching after her. He was gaining ground in spite of his injury, and she struggled to gather handfuls of her skirts so she could run properly.

He pulled within an arm’s length, and she made a quick decision. Without warning, she cut sharply to the left, abandoning the path and taking her chances in the wooded thicket.

It was pitch black in the trees. Izzie couldn’t see where she was placing her feet, but she knew she couldn’t stop. She stumbled once… twice… but somehow managed to keep her feet. She could hear Mr. Bassingthwaighte crashing through the underbrush behind her, cursing all the while, but she couldn’t see well enough to determine how close he might be.

Somehow, she managed not to fall, and after what seemed like an eternity of stumbling blindly through the darkness, she detected the faint red glow of the fireworks display filtering into the woods up ahead.

Surely enough, the path appeared before her. She could have wept with gratitude as moonlight fell upon her face.

And then, after having somehow floundered through the trees in total blackness, that was the moment she managed to trip.

What a disaster this night was turning into! She braced herself, expecting to fall face-first in the dirt.

Instead, a pair of strong hands caught her about the waist. Rather than feeling the gritty path against her cheek, she collided with a warm, firm wall covered in soft wool. But no, not a wall.

A man.

Oh, God . It was probably Mr. Bassingthwaighte, and she was out of the frying pan and straight into the fire. Although… Mr. Bassingthwaighte had smelled of cheap wine and sweat. This man smelled clean, like plain white soap and fresh linen that had been dried in the sun.

She tentatively lifted her head and peered at him in the moonlight. “Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy?”

“Y-yes,” answered a familiar, deep voice.

Izzie sagged with relief, clinging to him for purchase. “Oh, thank goodness it’s you!”

On one level, almost anybody was better than Tristan Bassingthwaighte. And it was true that she scarcely knew Archibald Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy.

But her entire family held him in high esteem. Her sister, Anne, thought the world of him.

Surely, he would help her.

“Are you all right?” his rich baritone rumbled in her ear.

She answered honestly. “I am, now that you’re here.”

That must’ve flummoxed him because he didn’t answer. What he did was stand there, steady as an oak, not pawing at her, or dragging her about, but giving her a moment to catch her breath. His hands, warm and gentle, remained at her waist, but strangely, she found their presence reassuring rather than threatening.

She had almost recovered her equilibrium when the sound of someone crashing through the underbrush behind her sent her reeling again. She squealed, glancing over her shoulder, but couldn’t tell how close Mr. Bassingthwaighte had drawn in the darkness.

Suddenly, her feet left the ground. Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy lifted her and turned, reversing their positions so he could shield her with his big body.

Her heart gave a squeeze. After the assortment of vices she had encountered in the dark walks, it was good to remember that there were some decent men left in the world.

Still, if Tristan Bassingthwaighte was going to come crashing out of the underbrush at any second, she needed to take action. She had told him her purpose in visiting the dark walks was to meet another man.

There was another man right here.

“I must ask you for the most terrible favor.”

“Anything,” he whispered, his breath carrying a hint of cinnamon.

Although… perhaps he was not the right man to ask to help her stage this scene. He was courting Cecilia Chenoweth, after all, and had just taken her off in order to propose marriage when the Duke of Trevissick had arrived at Vauxhall and announced his intention to do the same.

It occurred to her that the fact that he was here in the dark walks, alone, almost certainly meant that Ceci had accepted the duke’s proposal, not his.

Still, she found herself asking again, “Are… are you sure?”

“Anything,” he said firmly.

The sounds from the underbrush were growing louder. She didn’t have time to hem and haw. And, after all, he had said anything , not that depends, or what, exactly, did you have in mind ?

Who was she to question him?

So, what she said was, “Oh, thank you!”

And she looped her arms around his neck, rose up on her toes, and kissed him.