“Oh, the lump, you mean?” She’d lived with it for so long now, she scarcely thought about it. “That’s where I broke my rib when I fell off of Davey Boy that day.” At the dark expression that crossed his face, she hurried, “It doesn’t hurt. The bone healed, just not evenly.”
He laid his hand flat over the place where she’d been injured, then squeezed lightly. As his fingers again encountered the lump in her rib, Marshall grimaced. He suddenly looked so sad. Her heart lurched at his concern on her behalf.
Without thinking, she lifted her head and kissed him.
He pulled back as though startled, his expression growing more serious.
“Don’t tell me you’re turning maidenly,” Isabelle ventured, hoping to regain their easiness.
Marshall shook his head. “Isabelle … ” Something in his voice made her nervous.
He sat up and held a hand out for her. Her hopes faltered and crashed back to earth at the impersonal civility of the gesture. Whatever affection he’d expressed this afternoon must have only been his male urges talking. Now that they’d been satisfied, she already felt him receding from her. He gathered her clothes. She desperately searched his face for any remnant of emotion as he handed them to her. He met her gaze dispassionately.
Isabelle turned her back and dressed as best she could, while unshed tears burned her eyes. What a fool she was! She silently berated herself while she wrestled with her dress.
“Allow me.” Marshall’s voice held a modicum of tenderness, but he was a gentleman, after all, and undoubtedly did as much for any of his paramours. She stood ramrod straight while he fastened the buttons.
When he finished, Marshall gave her shoulders a little squeeze. Isabelle wrested away from his touch. She retrieved her slippers and stood on one foot to put one on, and then the other, shaking so badly she nearly fell over. Marshall steadied her with a hand on her elbow.
“Isabelle?”
She looked up at him. Dressed once more in his gardening garb, he looked every bit as handsome and composed as he had a couple hours ago, before her heart had been turned inside out. He blinked and opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again.
She wanted to fling her arms around his neck and kiss him until the warmth returned. She wanted to drag him back to the tarp and spend the whole day making love. She wanted to pretend their divorce never happened. But he didn’t. It had been nothing more than a diversion for him.
“I can’t do this again.” It was a small victory that her voice trembled only a little.
She shook her head, turned, and ran all the way back to the house. She couldn’t let him destroy her again. Time to collect Lily, go back to London, and forget Marshall Lockwood existed.
Chapter Eleven
“The provisions, Your Grace?” Perkins said.
Marshall blinked. His secretary held the list toward him with an expectant look on his face.
“Oh, yes,” Marshall said. “Thank you. Put it there.” He gestured to a pile of papers on his desk. “I’ll look over it later.” He cast around and picked up a book sitting on the corner of the desk. “After I sign these things.” He distractedly flipped through an atlas of South America.
“As you say, sir.” Perkins cast him a dubious look before bowing out of the study.
Marshall sighed and closed the book. It wasn’t any use trying to get work done. He hadn’t been able to concentrate in the three days since he parted ways with Isabelle.
He struggled to put her out of mind. Things here demanded his attention, he thought, glowering at the express packet sitting in the middle of his desk. Anxiety gnawed at his middle. The hastily scrawled missive from his steward at Helmsdale had been waiting for him when he returned to town from Bensbury. It described the eerily familiar poisoning of one of his brood mares and the substance found in front of the horse’s stall.
The message rang loud and clear: Thomas Gerald had returned to England, and he was angry. Not that Marshall could blame him — were the situation reversed, Marshall would hate the man who had robbed him of his youth. “Well done,” he muttered. “You’ve created a criminal in truth.”
He’d sent an express back to Helmsdale, summoning Roden, his longtime stable master, to come to London with the jar. There was no doubt in his mind that the sticky matter was the same formula involved in the accident with his father’s mare all those years ago, but he needed both Roden and the poison here to present to an investigator. The matter had become urgent. He could not allow a vindictive convict to run loose, killing his horses and plotting God only knew what other kind of revenge.