He didn’t like it. Either scenario—her in the rain, or her sulking in bed. This was a young lady that was meant to be alive and smiling and laughing. This version of her was depressing. But what could he do about it? If he couldn’t manage to bring a smile to his own face, how could he possibly strive to bring one to hers? And worse, how was he supposed to keep it there?
What would she look like for the rest of her life? This?
He couldn’t stand to look any longer.
Turning his attention to the fields and distant hills that were cleverly hidden by the dew hanging heavily in the air, he said, “As you are aware, we had agreed that had your memory not returned after seven days, I would alert the papers.”
“I recall.”
“It has been nine. Days,” he added for clarification. As if clarification was needed.
“So it has,” she agreed.
“I have not sent off to the papers quite yet, though I thought to do so today.”
“Of course.”
With her lack of a more substantial answer, he sought to explain, just in case she was not able to see the importance. Though, it really should be quite obvious. “I would imagine that expediency in this matter could only be to our benefit, as the opposite would only do to delay our nuptials and further aggravate any gossip.” After a brief pause, he added, “That and a return of your sense of self.”
“My sense of self,” she repeated, though it was more to herself than it was to him.
Desmond had no qualms answering, despite the lack of a question mark at the end of the sentence. “Yes. It won’t return your memory, but at least you’ll have an identity. Which, as you’ve just recounted, you presently lack.”
She had to be upset; that had to be the emotion she was hiding. Beneath all that soft pale skin, she had to be a cacophony of emotions.
Damn, he had an identity and he couldn’t keep his emotions straight.
Either way, he’d diverted the conversation from turning down a path where actual tears might try to present themselves, to a conversation of facts. Fact was that they would figure out who she was. And then they would marry and it wouldn’t matter if she had her identity, because she would feel just as alone as she did now.
But she didn’t need to know that.
All she needed to know was that he would marry her.
Well, it was what it was, and they’d both have to get used to it, they didn’t have a choice. They’d be required to marry, it was a fact.
“You’ll post it today, I suppose,” she interrupted his thoughts.
“That is the plan,” he answered, jumping in quick behind her. Though, even he himself was growing wary of it now.
He had promised her a week to recover her memory. And yet he’d allow nine days to pass. For the past two days he’d neglected to post the letter, postponed the inevitable. And it was for good reason. The sooner they discovered who she was, the sooner they would be married. It was no surprise to Desmond that he was not ready for such a leap, even if he was falling in love with her.
He hadn’t been ready for the last six years; what would enable him to suddenly be ready now?
True, he was thirty-two years old—no young sprite any longer—and he had a century’s old title to carry on that would happen into nonexistence as he was the last living male relative in his entire family. The last living relative, full stop. However, an heir was not at the top of his priorities. Nor were the funds needed to keep the estate in the family’s name.
At the top of his priorities was himself, and keeping himself from falling apart. Any slight shift in the sand below his feet could bring it all crashing down, and it had shifted enormously as it was in the last nine days. Marriage could very possibly be the straw that broke the camel’s back, throw his life into utter disarray, set him back twenty-three years to when he was but a boy coping with loss.
He felt his breast pocket where the letter he’d written waited for him to post. And when he returned to the house, it remained waiting for the whole of the night.
*****
Isabelle was a vault. Information went in, but nothing came out. It couldn’t be allowed to. For if she allowed anything to escape, the possibility of the wrong thing escaping was too high.
For years she had watched and she had learned how to get her way, do whatever she wanted without getting caught, without consequence. It had come at her sister’s expense. Her sister whom she loved dearly and who loved her dearly in return. Her sister who was her protector personified, who would take the reproach of their mama and the beating of their papa in her stead, without revealing a shred of the truth.
If ever there was a perfect person, a perfect daughter, a perfect sister, it was Rosalyn. Rose. But she was more than that.
Rose resented her role, her life. She was miserable inside it. It was a fact that could only be told by someone who knew her mask well, someone who knew not only to see beyond it, but how. Isabelle had carefully created her own mask to Rose’s likeness. But Isabelle was not reserved like Rose, was not humble or meek or all the other things a prim, proper, perfect lady should be. Isabelle had a mind full of information she gathered constantly, not the fluff it was supposed to be filled with. And just like her elder sister, within that mask that was in conflict with her personality, she felt trapped.
She always had.
Being herself was not what Society wanted, and certainly not her dear mama.
Isabelle was not allowed to run and play and laugh. She could not smile.
And she’d hated it. She’d hated repressing the person she was never allowed to be, the person she knew she could be.
So she’d turned into something else. Something worse.
She’d turned into a spiteful monster.
A caged animal would always seek escape, and that’s exactly what she was.
A lion, kept in a cage for the whole of its life, could easily turn on its keeper, eat him for lunch just to break free from the bars behind which he was shackled. Cages were not natural. Movement was natural. And Isabelle had always wanted to move.
So she’d pushed. She’d pushed on the gilded bars of the cage that she’d been stuffed into, to see just how far she could go. She’d broken vases, muddied floors and hems alike, put crickets into her parents’ beds. She’d never broken herself free, but she’d never become more constrained due to her actions either. Which was all owed in thanks to her sister, who was always willing to take the punches—both figuratively and literally.
Rose had protected Isabelle from their parents’ harshness. But perhaps she could have benefited from having been punished, because the false sense of independence Rose’s protection had given Isabelle had only pushed the latter farther. The more freedom she managed to steal out from under their parents’ noses, the more she’d wanted.
Always had she been push, push, pushing, but it was like pushing a boulder up a hill. Isabelle knew she was going nowhere, but still she pushed.
And she’d always be pushing.
She was going to marry Lord Thornton; she knew her father would not disapprove of the match after all that had transpired—or all that gossip will have believed transpired, as she had spent such an extended period of time alone in the company of a gentleman.
And it was not a bad thing—that she was to be marrying Lord Thornton. He was a good man, Desmond was. And theirs would not be a marriage of chains and bars. But still, she would be confined, unable to tell him the truth that she was in love with another, and that the child she bore was the offspring of that other. The rest of her life consisted of pushing down the truth and her emotion.
The future was as the past. Bleak, painful, a lie.
Lord Thornton deserved more, and so did she. She deserved for Andrew to be alive, to be planning a wedding and a life with him. And Desmond deserved someone with whom he felt comfort, with whom he could open to, and that was obviously not her.
All she could do was wait. Because soon her family would find her, and her
life of pushing would recommence.
She couldn’t think about it any longer, or about Desmond and the lie she was keeping. Instead, they walked home and she spent the afternoon in her bedchamber. She took her evening meal there as well, pretending to turn in early so that she would not be disturbed for the duration of the night.
She wanted to be alone so she could make a decision she thought she’d already made.
She needed to think. Even if it took all night.
Chapter 26
Isabelle brushed off sleep. She dragged herself out of bed to the pull on the wall and waited at the window, staring out at the misty morning for the summoned maid to arrive.
Morning was beautiful here in Waiting. But not in the way that it was everywhere else. Not this time of year. The morning was not a golden sun, blinding in its intensity. Morning was met with the heavy air of night being trapped between the hills, settling over the landscape like a veil, easing one into the day to come. The sun rose from behind it, its colors muted yet sparkling in the same as it broke through the bank of low-lying clouds.
It was a spectacular sight. And exactly what she needed. It was nice to be eased into something for once.
Everything about her life felt rushed at present. But for this moment, it was stagnant.
Isabelle choked out a bitter breath as she crossed the floor to the room’s old bureau, leaning her entire weight heavily against its smooth, solid surface.
She could do this. She had to. She’d decided to last night in the hours she had spent awake and restless.
She couldn’t deceive Desmond. And this was the only way to make her life not be a lie. Well, the only way to do that without telling the truth.
Downstairs, she found herself alone in the breakfast room. Well, alone if one did not count the footman standing stiffly against the wall.
She rolled her eyes upward. Just days ago, the feeling of loneliness had brought a self-consciousness that she could not bear. She would have engaged the rigid young man in conversation in the hopes that she could maybe chase away some semblance of her isolation. But now, she found, she rather liked the solitude. It made the present seem rather distant. Without Desmond here, reality could be suspended, memories forgotten.
Nothing lasts forever.
Pulling the small package out of her pocket, she dropped some leaves into the tea strainer, pouring the hot water she had requested over it. As she waited, she went to the sideboard and put a solitary piece of toast on a plate. It wasn’t that she was feeling unwell this morning—a fact for which she was grateful—but she wasn’t going to push her luck by eating a large meal so soon.
And soon she could very well be truly unwell. There was no need to fill her stomach only for it all to come back out.
Her hands shook so that the plate she held in her hand chimed as she set it back down on the table. Taking her position at the table, she opened the paper that had arrived that morning from London. It was several days old by this point, but the news was new to her nonetheless.
Her eyes flickered across the front page, searching for information that was actually worth noting. She was sure that all of this interested someone but, on a whole, the majority of its contents did not interest her.
Until she turned the page. And dropped the cup of tea she held halfway to her lips.
Oh, it didn’t fall far. Just the few inches back to the table. The china didn’t even crack. The only indication that was left behind that anything had occurred was the dark tea stain on the tablecloth.
She heard the footman, who’d been waiting silently in case she required assistance, hasten to her assistance at once to clear the mess. Her hands shaking, her voice queer to her own ears, she said, before he had the chance to come any closer, “Leave me.”
Bless the man, he did as he was told.
The paper in her hands shook as she stared at… herself.
A rendering of her likeness was staring at her direct, the headline above it, Lady Isabelle MISSING. Reward for Recovery dated May 17, 1816.
The article read,
The Lady Isabelle Hayes has been reported as missing. Last seen on the 14th of May at her home in Lincolnshire just days after her sister Lady Rosalyn’s disappearance. It is unclear whether the two vanishings are related, or whether either lady was taken by force.
The family has offered a substantial reward for anyone with information as to the whereabouts that lead to the recovery of their second eldest daughter, Lady Isabelle.
By the end of it, Isabelle’s teeth were grinding together, doing their best to turn teeth into dust. It wasn’t that the article was anything less than the facts. She was missing, and she had gone missing just days after Rose unexpectedly quit the scene. But it felt… It felt…
She felt angry. And the honest truth was she really didn’t know why. Not entirely.
But, a reward?
It wasn’t so much of a surprise. But it irritated her anyways. Her parents were offering a reward for her recovery. As though she were a runaway dog. It was humiliating. And vexing. And couldn’t have come at a worse time.
She looked around her, then back to the paper.
It was only a matter of time until someone put two and two together and added it up to equal her. She was Lady Isabelle. The lady in residence with no name and no memory. And she would be restored to her life. Not literally—her parents would probably never let her step foot in their home again—so, she supposed, it was more to say that her life would be restored to her. She would have to open her eyes and deal with it, deal with her parents, answer the endless number of questions that they no doubt had.
She didn’t want to answer for any of it. She was going to be marrying Desmond, was that not enough? No, it wouldn’t be.
So perhaps that was why she leapt from her seat and over to the hearth where a small fire burned off the cold of the night.
She leaned in carefully, holding the paper over the flickering flames until the fire took hold. She held it for as long as she could, until the heat magnified and the licking tendrils of flame threatened to nip at her fingertips.
Then she dropped it into the fire, jumping back and around with a stunned little “Oh” of surprise.
*****
There was something about the air this morning, the way it was hanging heavily down, that sought to raise spirits. It was an odd sort of contradiction, but not one that Desmond was particularly interested in contemplating. It was what it was. The sun was shining through the mist in the valley, and his spirits had risen a full octave.
It was spring, the rebirth of all that was vital. Soon the air would be heavy with the smell of flowers of every kind and of trickling brooks and the like.
Spring was a time of magic and imagination and growth. And Desmond was growing.
He didn’t know how, but it seemed to be that his heart had grown two sizes in his chest. At least.
There was almost a skip in his step when he went downstairs for breakfast. Not actually, but it was almost there. He thought about skipping and that certainly was something he’d never considered, nor ever even thought he would ever consider.
Desmond sighed, an almost smile on his normally stone face, as he caught sight of the lady that had brought the change he had never expected. She was standing before the fire, probably warming her toes—it might be spring, but the nights were still quite chilly so far north.
It was almost comical, her standing beside the hearth like that. He could imagine her pulling up on the hem of her dress to afford the warmth entrance inside.
It wasn’t that he was presuming her to be immodest or anything of the like. She was clearly a very well trained lady. However, she had a spirit about her most ladies lacked. She enjoyed sitting in the rain and learning to swim in cold springs in her shift. He’d seen her smile, heard her laugh. She was alive inside. Pulling up the hem of her dress to warm herself would be something that she would do.
He chuckled to himself.
And the lady in
question jumped. As in, jumped out of her skin. And while she did, while she spun around to face him, her eyes wild with fright, all Desmond could notice was the hem. As she twirled, it spun out, nearly casting itself into the flame. It was rather irresponsible to be so careless with her person so close to a fire; she could easily be set aflame.
He had the mind to walk over and physically move her, pull her away from the infernal hearth that could be her demise, but then he saw that there was something burning in the flames, something crackling, making the fire grow higher.
Something was burning. And not just in the fire. In her eyes. They were wide and wild, as though he had a pistol pointed at her head.
She watched him.
Desmond watched her.
And neither spoke.
He was waiting for her explanation, but when none was offered, he asked, all suspicion leading his tone as his heart shrunk in his chest, “What happened? What are you burning?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, correcting herself with, “The paper. I spilled my tea on it.”
He looked to the table where her place was set, the untouched toast, and the stain of her spilled cup. He stared at it for a long time before he looked back at her.
She was standing, her back pressed up against the stone mantle, not a care that her hem was swishing just inches away from the fire. She hadn’t moved.
She was hiding something.
“What was in the paper?” he asked from his position just inside the door. His hands were fists at his sides. He wanted to hit something, wanted to hurt something. Oh, not her. But if a footman were to enter just then, the lad might just find himself leveled on the ground.
She was hiding something from him. He’d devoted his life to her by promising marriage. He’d devoted his heart to her, though she didn’t yet know it. And she was lying to him. It was infuriating.
She looked behind her to the place where the remnants of the paper still burned. “Nothing,” she said. It was a blatant lie. The word rushed past her lips, so fast, so concise, that it was hard to do anything but suspect it to be a fallacy.
Wherefore Art Thou. Page 21