The Sweetest Revenge (33 page)

She released a controlled breath, trying not to shiver.

A light rapping noise came from the front door just down the hall outside of the drawing room. Phil’s town house, being suitable for a bachelor, wasn’t large.

He stiffened behind her. “The servants are abed. Probably some beggar or the like. Ignore it.”

The petticoat slid to the floor.

The sound came again, louder this time.

Phil plucked at the laces of her stays.

The rapping came again, this time so close that Isabelle jumped. Someone was at the drawing room window.

Clutching her stays to her breast, Isabelle turned to the window. Thick velvet draperies obscured whoever lurked behind the glass.

“Sutherland, open the door. I know you’re in there, damn it!”

The voice was muffled, but it was deep and low and masculine and sent a ripple of recognition through her body.

Leo
.

The blood froze in her veins. Isabelle felt like a piece of crystal. If she moved, she would break.

Phil released a harsh breath. “Bloody hell.” He turned to Isabelle, clasped her shoulders. “Stay here. I will get rid of him.”

She watched him move to the door, open it, walk out, close it behind him. All her senses attuned, she heard him murmur something to the man outside.

Her feet moved of their own volition. She stepped out of the drawing room. Phil stood at the end of the hall, his back to her. Just beyond him, Leo on the landing, wearing buckskin breeches and black, muddy boots, his face pale and drawn, his coat soiled, his hair tousled. Something electric buzzed through her limbs.

He was furious.

He saw her.

His gaze caught hers and held, then dropped lower, grazing over her loose stays and chemise. Her face burned. She had forgotten she was nearly naked.

Phil saw her, too. Both men stared at her, their expressions darkening.

Leo rounded on Phil. “I’m going to kill you.”

“For Christ’s sakes, Leo, get inside,” Phil said in a low voice. “You’re going to wake the whole deuced neighborhood.”

Leo stalked in, never taking his eyes off Phil.

Phil shut the door and leaned against it. “Now what’s this about?”

Leo lurched at Phil, grabbed his cravat, and lifted him to his toes. “You know how I feel about her, goddamn you.”

Harsh choking noises emerged from Phil’s throat as he clawed at Leo’s arm, trying to get free. But Leo was apparently made of steel.

Phil made a valiant effort to speak. “Is this a challenge? Tomorrow morning, then, at dawn…ah…p-pistols.”

His face had turned an alarming shade of purple.

Isabelle stepped forward. “Let go of him.”

Leo snapped his head around to her, his eyes dark, undecipherable. He dropped Phil, who sagged briefly, then straightened his spine, held his neck, and glared at Leo.

“I’ll not be attacked in my own home,” Phil rasped. “If you wish for satisfaction, then send me a note in the morning.” He flicked a glance at Isabelle. “If not, leave. You can see that I am occupied.”

“You vulgar little maggot.” Leo’s fist shot out and smashed into the side of Phil’s face, connecting with a sickening crack. Phil crumpled to the floor.

“What is wrong with you?” Isabelle cried, rushing forward to kneel beside Phil.

Leo didn’t seem to hear her. He stared down at the other man. “You’ve always wanted what’s mine, haven’t you? That’s what all those ‘friendly competitions’ were about. Who would be first to tumble the most alluring woman? And now you’ve got her and you think you’ve won. You bastard.”

Phil heaved himself to his feet, his hand covering his cheek. Isabelle crouched on the floor, staring at both men uncomprehendingly.

Leo knew Phil. They competed for women
.

“What you had with her, that was a long time ago, Leo,” Phil said, his words slurred. “You’d forgotten all about her.”

“Like hell,” Leo growled.

Phil sneered, an ugly expression, one Isabelle had never seen from him. “You pretend to care about her? After what you did? Where you left her?”

“You know exactly what happened,” Leo said in a low voice. “You know it destroyed me.”

Something lurched inside of Isabelle. She looked up at his outraged face.

“You’re overstating your feelings.” Phil grimaced. He must be in severe pain. His hand hadn’t moved from his cheek. “You’re jealous that I finally reeled in the one you were unable to catch.”

“You’ve pushed the game too far, Sutherland.” Leo’s lips set in a thin line. His dark eyes sparked dangerously. “I will not share this time. She’s mine.”

Phil stepped forward. Over his fingertips, his eye spasmed, a seemingly uncontrollable tic.

“Too late.” His eye twitched one last time, his lip curled, and out came the lie. “You already have shared her.”

Leo leapt at him. They moved so quickly, they blurred. Fists flew. Isabelle didn’t know which man was which, or who hit whom.

“Stop!”

They paid no attention to her. Leo slammed Phil against the wall, then tossed him to the marble floor of Phil’s tiny foyer. A painting crashed to the floor. Phil punched Leo in the gut.

They were trying to kill each other.

Phil rolled to the top, grabbing Leo’s coat in one hand, pummeling his fists into Leo’s face, his chest. Isabelle cried out, rushed toward him and tried to pull him away. Phil flung her off as easily as a horse’s tail swished away a fly. She crouched on her haunches in the corner, stunned.

Phil’s momentary distraction was enough for Leo to break away. They tumbled about, grunting and cursing, the dull sounds of connecting blows, of smacking flesh, rending the air.

They slammed into the legs of a small table, and a vase fell off it, shattering into pieces. They rolled over shards of pottery.

Leo pinned Phil beneath him. Over and over he punched him. Blood smeared across Phil’s face. He struggled desperately, but his movements turned sluggish. Then his arms dropped, limp, at his sides.

On his knees, straddling Phil, Leo kept hitting him, cursing, sweating, his face livid with exertion and rage.

“He’s hurt!” Isabelle lunged forward, clutched Leo’s shoulders, and pulled at him with all her strength. “Get off him, Leo! Get off!”

He froze. Everything in the room froze. Then he seemed to come to his senses. He looked up, blinking. Isabelle looked up. The servants were standing in the hall in their nightclothes, some of them holding candles, gaping at them.

Phil coughed. The servants looked down. Isabelle and Leo looked down.

“Problem is, old chap,” Phil murmured, his voice scraping through his throat, “I think I love her.”

His eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp.

Leo shook her off, struggled to his feet, and loomed over her. Still kneeling on the floor, Isabelle stared up at him. A thin line of blood dribbled from the side of his mouth. His face twisted with anguish.

“Belle…?”

She moved her head from left to right, a minute movement, and tore her gaze away, fixing on Phil’s inert form. “Go away.”

“No.”

Her lips thinned, her eyes narrowed. All the anger she had ever felt toward him boiled over. “Go!” she bellowed.

Leo swiped his forearm over his eyes and stared at her. She met his eyes, furious. Why here? Why now? He was too late, damn him!

His expression faltered, and his eyes misted over. Then he blinked, and, cursing in a low voice, he turned away and strode out the door.

As soon as the door banged shut, the servants rushed forward, taking charge. Remembering her near-naked state, Isabelle retreated to the corner. The butler rattled off instructions: “You fetch the doctor; the three of you, help me carry him up to his bedchamber; you two, go to the kitchen and find some water and clean towels.”

Ailis came to her side and grasped her hands, her freckled face soft with concern. “Are ye unhurt, miss?”

“Aye.” Isabelle rose wearily. “Come into the drawing room and help me with my gown, will you please?”

After she dressed, Isabelle sent Ailis to bed. She could do nothing else but watch in silence as the servants took over the care of their master. When they carried him upstairs, she followed.

They laid Phil gently on his bed. He faded in and out of consciousness—one moment breathing as heavily as someone in the deepest sleep, and the next moment completely lucid. At one point, he sat up and shouted, “Where is he?” before collapsing back onto the bed and resuming a grinding snore. He didn’t seem to notice Isabelle sitting in the chair beside him.

The doctor arrived, a paunchy, ruddy-cheeked John Bull, who didn’t seem at all perturbed that Mr. Sutherland’s footman had dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night. The doctor spent several minutes examining Phil, and finally proclaimed that he had a fractured cheekbone, some cracked ribs, and several cuts on his back from the pottery shards, but his wounds were not serious and would heal. He said Phil should not be up and about for a month or longer.

Isabelle breathed a deep sigh of relief. It would have been so much worse if Phil’s life was in danger, or, heaven forbid, if Leo had gone so far as to kill him.

Leo
.

No, she couldn’t think of him now, couldn’t think of the reasons behind why he’d come, couldn’t think of the look in his eyes when he’d said her name. It was all too shocking, too odd, too upsetting. And now a man lay unconscious before her, because he’d fought for her. She couldn’t make sense of any of it.

When she asked why Phil couldn’t seem to retain consciousness, the doctor told her it was a common response to extreme pain but not a perilous state, rather for the better. Having him sleep through the pain was a much more appealing prospect than having him moaning and shouting.

After strapping his immobile patient’s ribs, the doctor departed with a jovial smile.

One of the housemaids wiped a seeping cut by Phil’s eye. Isabelle reached for the cloth and dismissed the woman. “I’ll stay with him tonight, but please return at dawn.”

The maid curtsied and went away. Isabelle dipped the cloth in a clean basin of water and gently swiped at the fresh blood. Phil murmured and shifted in his sleep, but he didn’t wake.

He would be horrified by the appearance of his face. His lips were cut and bruised. His broken cheekbone had left one side of his face black and purple and so swollen she doubted he’d be able to open his eye. The other eye had a dark gray ring around it. Scattered cuts marred his handsome face.

His torso, which she had seen for the first time tonight when the doctor had cut off his shirt, hadn’t fared much better. It was deathly pale with spots of ugly blue-and-purple bruises, swollen in some areas, cut by the vase shards in others. The doctor had bound his chest with strips of linen, and Phil’s breath seemed to pause and falter each time he inhaled deeply.

She watched his chest labor for a long while, then looked up to his face, which seemed to have relaxed a bit. He lay on his side in a deep sleep. She stood to adjust his covers and smooth back a lock of black hair that had fallen over his face, then knelt to kiss his brow.

“Sweet dreams, Phil.”

She sat in the chair, pulled it closer to the bed, rested her head on her arms, and drifted off.

***

She woke to someone stroking her hair. Phil’s hand drew back as she lifted her head and rubbed her eyes. Soft light filtered in through the cracks in the curtains. It must be near dawn.

She looked at him. He peered back at her, one eye a mere slit but still vibrantly blue. His lips cracked into a smile, which must have required a valiant effort, given the amount of swelling in his face.

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” he slurred.

She reached out to take his hand. Even his knuckles were swollen. “Of course I’m here. How are you feeling?”

“Terrible.” He laughed, gasped, stopped laughing.

“Oh dear. I’m so sorry. Can I give you something? More medicine for the pain?”

“No, thank you.” He glanced over at the vial of medicine the housekeeper had brought and then turned back to her. “My face… It’s difficult to talk.”

“Your left cheekbone is broken, but the doctor thinks it’ll heal up perfectly. He promised you’ll be back to your old self in no time at all.”

Silence stretched between them. A bird chirped outside the window.

At length, she said, “Your eye really does twitch when you lie.”

“It does.” He tore his gaze away from hers. “I’m sorry I said that. We were so close…and I was so angry at the interruption, at his pompous claim of ownership…”

She raised her free hand. “Stop. It is all right.”

“Forgive me.”

She nodded. How could she blame him? If Leo had arrived an hour later, she and Phil would have already lain together, and he would not have had to lie.

She scrutinized his face. “Phil, may I ask you something?”

He squeezed her hand and spoke soberly. “Anything.”

“Did you always know of my past with Lord Leothaid? Is that why you pursued me?”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. The blue glistened in the feeble light. “Yes,” he said, voice low. “I met Leo at Cambridge. He’d told me all about you. He told me you died. Imagine my surprise when I learned you were alive. When I saw you at Lady DeLinn’s house, it was like a vision, a dream. I was…shocked.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “Yes. I did it because of Leo. We have a long-standing competition—and he has stolen other women from me. I thought”—he coughed, wincing—“when I saw you, I knew that through you, I could achieve my revenge. If I had you, I could flaunt you before him. Soundly beat him at our game, you know?”

She shook her head, regarding him sadly.

“But it changed. I don’t know how. From the first time I met you at Lady DeLinn’s, there was…something about you. You are different. Special. I’d never met anyone quite like you.” He stared at her with shining, pleading eyes beneath all the swelling. “I never lied to you, Isabelle. I fell in love with you.”

She looked down, fingering the striped design on his counterpane with her free hand. How could she hate him? After all, she had sought her own revenge on Leo.