Deceived by Nicola Cornick Read Free Book Online

snatched her hand away, so acute was her response to him. She knew that he would be able to feel her trembling, and felt as vulnerable as though she had been stripped naked. This was not how it was meant to be, with her emotions at the mercy of this man.
    The service began. It seemed to Isabella that they were racing through it, for a Fleet wedding was never going to be a long and languorously romantic affair. There were no lingering glances of affection between bride and groom or indulgent smiles from the chaplain. There was a tense silence broken only by the mumbled words of the service, Marcus's decisive tones as he made his responses and Isabella's own, more hesitant words of commitment. At one point she faltered, engulfed by memories of her first marriage twelve years earlier, and Marcus's hand tightened on hers as he turned to look at her. She thought that she would read impatience in his eyes, but when she looked up at him, he was watching her with a strangely speculative interest. She drew on the shreds of her courage and straightened, repeating her vows in a stronger tone.
    "Do you have the ring?" the priest asked.
    Isabella shook her head. She had not remembered that she would need one and since she had pawned all her jewelry to meet some of her debt, she could not have provided one anyway. She heard Marcus sigh with resignation. A moment later he had taken his signet ring off and placed it on the open pages of the priest's Psalter. Isabella shot him an agonized look.
    "You cannot give me your signet ring!"
    Marcus looked unimpressed. " This is not the time and place to discuss it."
    "But I—"
    Marcus ignored her and turned back to the priest. "Proceed."
    He took the ring and slid it onto her finger, clasping his hand briefly around hers in an oddly protective gesture. The ring felt warm and heavy on Isabella's hand. It was too big for her—she fidgeted with it, turning it round and round on her finger. It was inscribed very plainly with four entwined letters. M. . .J. . .E. . .S. . . She traced the lines in the gold.
    It felt quite wrong to be taking Marcus's signet ring, wrong and too personal when she had wanted nothing more than his name on a piece of paper.
    The priest folded the Book of Common Prayer away under the sleeve of his dirty surplice. He had already scribbled the marriage certificate and now he thrust it at Isabella and waited for his fee, anxious for the matter to be finished. Isabella's fingers were shaking as she folded the document carefully and stowed it in her reticule. This was her liberty, the paper that spelled her freedom. Yet when Marcus had let go of her hand at the end of the service, she had felt more alone than ever, free but not comforted.
    Marcus was watching her. She thought that there was an element of mocking amusement in his eyes. No doubt he found her predicament comical, the scandalous Princess Di Cassilis obliged to marry a debtor. . .
    "Well?" he said.
    'Thank you," Isabella said, finding herself unable to look at him.
    "Do not mention it." Marcus was smiling but it was not the sort of smile that comforted her. "I do believe that in return you offered me something."
    Isabella met his eyes. Her errant heart skittered nervously. Her throat felt suddenly dry. Images of those long-lost evenings mingled in her mind; the tender touch of his lips against her damp skin, the dry salty scent of the sea mingled with old roses, the blazing heat of that summer. . .but the flames of that passion were long dead after many winters.
    "Some bottles of wine, the means to purchase some proper food and a few items to make life more tolerable?" Marcus prompted when she did not speak.
    "Oh, of course." Isabella could feel herself blushing at the vastly different direction her own thoughts had taken. She paused. Her purse was almost empty, but it was not that that held her back. To repeat the offer of such a crude inducement had seemed unthinkable after Marcus's angry rejection of it earlier.
    "I