The unlocked door swung open to an empty room. He wasn’t there. Mingled relief and panic weakened her knees.
“Mrs. Smith,” a hoarse voice called behind her. She turned, hand at her throat. The man who greeted her from the yard was dressed in worn and somewhat shabby clothing, but it was the attire of a well-bred man of the nineteenth century, not a Border Reiver of the seventeenth.
Matthew.
She straightened and met his gaze. So long since she’d seen him, and yet he was as achingly handsome as before. Iron gray hair flowed about his shoulders, unfashionably long. His face was weathered and lined with some new sadness. His eyes…
His eyes swept over her and clouded with emotion.
“Isabelle,” he said. He took a step forward, paused, tugged at the collar of his frayed shirt. “It’s b-been—I didn’t expect—”
“Where is Matthias?” she asked suddenly.
“Gone,” he said. “I’m sorry. If you… came to find him, I f-fear… He is gone.”
Isabelle flinched at the strangely final ring of the words. He spoke as if Matthias were dead. And yet he stood before her, in his other form, very much alive. “Mr. Forster, I know you have little wish to see me now. Nevertheless, I have come to ask you—”
He plunged forward in an ardent dash, one hand held out in supplication. “I failed you, Isabelle.”
She stared with incomprehension at his flushed face. “I do not understand—”
“No. They wouldn’t have t-told you, would they?” He laughed under his breath. “Matthias was the one who proposed it. He said that… one of us m-must go to London to challenge Leebrook and defend your honor.”
“What?”
“He could not be permitted to… insult you as he did. But Matthias… could n-not go to London. I went in his place. And I failed.”
Isabelle was very much in need of a place to sit down. As if he anticipated her thoughts, Matthew rushed to take her arm and lead her inside the cottage. He seated her at a plain chair beside an equally plain table.
“You… challenged Lord Leebrook?” she asked faintly.
“Matthias gave me his sword. I traveled to London… but it was all a d-debacle.” He leaned heavily on the table. “Leebrook would not accept my challenge. They thought me m-mad. The earl sent my nephew Quentin to fetch me home.”
Isabelle resisted the urge to gather Matthew’s bent head against her breast. “Then… that was why you left Greyburn?”
A blaze of fierce pride crossed Matthew’s face. “Aye. I’d have made that b-bastard Leebrook pay—” He broke off, and when he looked at Isabelle it was with a bitter sadness. “But he didn’t pay for his crimes. And I… am ashamed.”
The world had turned upside down. Matthew, ashamed, for failing to defend her nonexistent honor? It was the sort of mad scheme an old-fashioned hero would invent—a man like Matthias, bred to another, less enlightened age.
But Matthew had gone to London—Matthew, who for so many years had hidden himself away in loneliness and sorrow.
“No,” she said softly. She dared to touch Matthew’s hand. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
He sighed and bent his chin to his chest. “It was when I was in London… that I knew I w-would never need Matthias again.”
“Where has he gone?”
The light in Matthew’s eyes was unlike any she’d seen there before. She realized that his stutter was much reduced, and he spoke with an echo of Matthias’s calm assurance. “When I came home to Greyburn, he wasn’t here. We both knew that he wasn’t n-needed anymore.”
She searched his face, wondering if she understood him. “Why?”
“Because I had come to…” He turned his hand to clasp Isabelle’s. “I told you part of a s-story before… about how Matthias rescued me from despair. You m-must have thought me mad indeed, Isabelle. But I knew all along that I was Matthias, and he myself. It was my way of p-pretending the real world no longer existed. I drew into my own dreams of raids and Reivers. I lost myself in an ancient l-legend of a guardian of Greyburn. It gave me purpose, no matter how illusory, and I could b-become someone strong and sure. I let my family believe I was m-merely a harmless eccentric. I preferred my fantasy to my family’s contempt.”