“What history?” Kitty asked, looking between Edith, Charlotte, and Izzy in turn. She sat next to Prue, helping her with the Society Dabbler and sipping tea quietly.
Edith set down her pen and turned towards Kitty with a kind smile. “Och, lass, ‘tis a murky muddle of political and social matters that we really needn’t explore in such a genteel setting as this. But suffice it to say that the wearing of clan tartans was outlawed in Scotland during the last century, and it’s all permitted now, as is the Highland culture, in a way, but recently tartan has become a popular print of calico. Even those with no Scottish ties are wearing it.”
Kitty’s eyes were round, yet her tea never so much as quivered in her hand. “Does that offend you?” Kitty whispered.
Edith smiled with more than a hint of humor. “Not in the least, lass. Unless Charlotte wore my clan’s tartan.”
“I beg your pardon!” Charlotte laughed in delight.
Izzy quietly returned to her desk, discreetly sliding her story under other papers, and pulling a fresh sheet out.
Apparently, she was writing an article about tartan calico and the consideration one ought to take with such things.
Lovely.
“I love the tartan calico myself,” Grace offered from her chair near the window. “It can be so flattering,”
“Maybe for you, dear,” Georgie scoffed, reaching for another biscuit. “It does nothing for me, I can assure you.”
Izzy glanced over at Edith surreptitiously, and found the woman watching her with a bemused smile.
She nodded her thanks, and Edith acknowledged it with a dip of her chin. Then she winked at Izzy and went back to her article.
Edith was so delightful an ally, and Izzy had never imagined such a thing.
She would have to tell her the good news.
“DISGRACEFUL!” bellowed a voice down the hall.
Charlotte groaned, put down her pen, and covered her face. “Oh, good. Elinor’s here.”
Kitty giggled a laugh, then covered her mouth.
Charlotte dropped her hands and grinned at the young woman. “I knew I liked you, Kitty Morton. You have excellent taste.”
Kitty giggled again, and Prue patted her knee fondly, sighing. “You’ll g-get used to Charlotte, dear.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Grace muttered, straightening up and facing the doorway in anticipation of their new arrival.
“MONSTROUS! SHAMEFUL, APPALLING, AND SO REPREHENSIBLE!”
Elinor appeared in the door, indignation as high as her color, her hair barely containing itself in whatever form she’d left home in. She stood there, glaring at them all, chest heaving as she fumed.
“Did you swallow a dictionary, Elinor?” Charlotte asked dryly as she picked up her tea, making a face when she sipped it. “Lord above, Izzy, why would your mother…?”
“What a mess, what a mess,” Izzy’s mother suddenly said as she appeared behind Elinor.
Charlotte coughed quickly, setting aside her tea. “Mrs. Lambert! What a pleasure.”
“Oh, my dear girls,” Izzy’s mother simpered, looking around at all of them. Her gaze fell on Izzy, and immediately filled with tears.
Izzy turned in her chair completely. “Mama?”
“Aunt Faith, you’re frightening me,” Georgie told her as she folded her shawl more tightly around her.
Elinor glared harder at Georgie. “I wasn’t frightening you?”
“You frighten me out of my wits, child,” Charlotte scoffed, waving her into the room. “On a daily basis. Mrs. Lambert, on the other hand, never has.”
Elinor threw up her hands, then pulled a paper from her reticule. “I do believe Mrs. Lambert and I are upset over the same thing.” She shoved the paper at Charlotte, then sat down roughly on the sofa. She reached for the tea, then hesitated, glancing up at Izzy’s mother, before wisely changing course and reaching for a cake.
Charlotte’s eyes flew over the page, her brow furrowing further and further as she did so. Then she looked up, scowled, and slammed the paper down on the table. She screeched a sound through clamped lips, then looked down at her hands as they clenched painfully together in her lap.
Izzy looked at Georgie and found her cousin wide-eyed and curious, then they both turned their attention to Charlotte.
“Is she all right?” Izzy’s mother asked, wiping away a tear.
Charlotte smiled tightly, blinking twice. “As well as can be expected. I was only restraining my less ladylike exclamations so they would not sully your ears and make you think less of me.”
Impossibly, Izzy’s mother smiled. “My dear, I have three sons, two of whom have been known to exclaim all sorts of things, and I still consider them gentlemen. Under the circumstances, I would have thought it mildly appropriate.” She looked at Izzy again, and her smile turned more tender, and then she moved back out of the room.
Charlotte stared at the door, then at Izzy, shaking her head slowly. “Now I have seen it all, Isabella Lambert.”
Izzy shrugged, then indicated the paper. “What is it?”
Charlotte plucked up the paper, then looked at it again. “Let’s see if I can find a bit worth reading.” She hummed in discontent, then cleared her throat. “ ‘The bitterest, most reviled of women, they consider themselves to be above any and all company, which their unmarried state would surely disprove. According to one such Spinster,’ with a capital S, I might add,” Charlotte told them all, interrupting the reading.
“Continue, please,” Grace told her tightly.
Charlotte nodded once, then looked back to the page.
“ ‘According to one such Spinster, who is considered by all to be the kindest of the lot, this writer is depraved and injurious to those around him, simply for wishing to meet a young woman and warn her against the dangers of such company. What hope is there for any innocent young woman if the Spinsters descend upon her and turn her into one as cold and jaded as they? For they truly wish all women to remain as unmarried and without purpose as they themselves are. They have even put a respectable lady into a compromising position that they might be the heroines to save her, thus projecting their own self-importance into the attention and notice of Society. They must be stopped, and our innocent misses saved.’ ”
The parlor was silent as Charlotte finished, and the sound of the paper rustling against the table as she replaced it seemed deafening.
“Who would write such a thing?” Grace murmured weakly, looking a little pale.
“Two guesses,” Elinor replied with a stiff voice. “And it rhymes with Hugh Sterling.”
Izzy could barely hear them over the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears, as her entire body began to fume with indignation. Odd that she could not see the steam rising from her, even as she could feel it doing so. Heat and tension filled every part of her in equal measure, extending all lengths and breadths of every limb and appendage.
She could not even feel her face anymore.
Just heat.
“Why would he write such horrid things?” Kitty asked, her voice sounding like that of a child.
Elinor laughed darkly and sat up, facing the younger girl with venom in her eyes.
“That’s enough, Elinor,” Georgie said before the girl could start on a topic from which they would never recover her.
Izzy blinked and somehow it pained her.
She had been the one Hugh had written about. She had been the one to enrage him to this degree. She had stood up to him and told him how he injured others. She had…
She had offended him defending herself.
Now he had written something for all of London to see, slandering them in every way, except by name, though anyone with a basic insight into London Society and gossip would know exactly who was being spoken of.
Everyone would know he meant her.
And all they had tried to do would come to nothing because of her.
Izzy shot to her feet, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides.
; “Izzy?”
She didn’t know who asked, and she didn’t particularly care.
She moved out of the parlor, walking swiftly and stiffly, her arms swinging just the smallest bit by her sides, hands now balled into tight fists. She paced out in the corridor, willing her heart to quiet itself, for her temper to abate, for some semblance of her calmer, kinder self to reappear. After so many years of being generous and gracious and biting her tongue, now one act of defiance uprooted all of that?
Her pacing picked up, more frantic, just as her heart did.
Something needed to give, something needed to burst, something…
“Izzy, come here.”
Her arm was grabbed, and she felt herself tugged along, and she didn’t resist. She inhaled and exhaled roughly through her nose, tears burning at her eyes.
Then suddenly she found herself in the library, among the books and the solitude that had always accompanied this room.
She exhaled once, then turned around.
Sebastian stood there, watching her, his expression curiously blank. She’d forgotten he was in the house, that he would have made himself comfortable in the library, as he tended to do when Kitty was there with the Spinsters. She’d forgotten that he would have been able to hear her pacing, that he would be aware, that he…
She shook her head and held out a hand. “Sebastian, I have just had some distressing news, and I’m not entirely calm at the moment. It would be best if you would leave me be.”
“Good.”
She blinked at him in confusion. “What?”
He lifted a broad shoulder, his gaze squarely on her. “I said, ‘Good.’ You should be angry and upset, and it should drive you to distraction. I’m pleased you could admit as much aloud, let alone to me.”
Izzy began to shake where she stood. “Why are you so delighted by my reaction to…?”
“To Hugh Sterling’s article?” Sebastian finished with a knowing look.
She bit down on the inside of her lip, her fingers rubbing against each other hard. “I’m beginning to wonder if you sent it in for him.”
Now Sebastian smirked, though there was a coldness to his look. “Just because I am pleased with your response, Iz, doesn’t mean that I take delight in what happened, or that I had anything to do with it. Quite the contrary, actually. I’m considering riding over to fetch Camden Vale, and perhaps Tony, and paying a visit to Hugh Sterling to let him know exactly how we feel about it.”
Izzy widened her eyes at that and swallowed once.
“The only reason I have not done so already,” Sebastian went on, perfectly calm, “is that I fear taking Vale along would mean I would not have opportunity to get in a single blow, and that would not do for me at all.”
“No?” Izzy asked, wishing she could smile, that she could take pleasure in what he was saying, but the anger still raged within her, and tears were nearing the surface.
Sebastian shook his head, then put his hands on his hips. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Izzy asked through gritted teeth.
He grunted softly. “Don’t bite it back, Iz. It’s just us. Rage and roar, cry, and scream… I can see the anger and the hurt within you. Let it out.”
Izzy whimpered a strangled, growling sound. “How?” she pleaded, her teeth grinding now. “There is so… much…”
“Tell me, Iz,” Sebastian told her, taking two steps forward. “Tell me what you’re feeling, how it burns, what you want to do…”
Izzy squeezed her eyes shut, exhaling an almost sob. “I want to scream in his face, and I want to tear his nasty article to shreds. I want to eviscerate him in the Chronicles, and I want to tell everyone what really happened, what he’s really like. How cruel he was to Prue, and what he did to Georgie, what he…” She swallowed, biting off before she could confess what he’d said about Kitty.
If anything was going to make Sebastian lose his reserve, it would be that.
She had to spare him that much.
“I feel so angry,” she growled, pacing again, blinking back the tears. “Angry… and embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?” Sebastian stepped into her pacing path. “Why?”
She rubbed her thumbs over her clenched fingers. “I’ve spent my entire life being good and quiet and avoiding attracting attention. The Spinster Chronicles gave me some, it’s true, but it was still anonymous. I’ve been nice and kind and giving and obedient… and the one time that I decide to stand up for myself, I bring all my best friends down with me. I was singled out, blatantly so, but it was also an attack on all of us. And it’s my fault.”
He moved to her quickly, taking her arms. “No. No, no, no, you do not get to turn his actions into something to blame yourself for.”
“How else can I look at it?” she demanded, looking up at him. “I decide to not stay silent, and it offends him to such a degree that he lashes out publicly.”
“That is his fault,” Sebastian insisted, taking her chin in hand. “Not yours. It’s not your fault. Don’t waste a single moment of your glorious fury feeling guilty or ashamed. Don’t apologize. Don’t pity. Don’t.”
A tear edged its way from the corner of Izzy’s eye and rolled down her cheek. Sebastian watched it fall, then gently wiped it away, brushing her cheek again. The path of his thumb left a warm, tingling sensation in its wake, leaving the rest of her skin deliciously cool by comparison. His eyes returned to hers, and she was struck by the impossible color of them. Such a fine, rich blue, and like nothing she’d ever seen in nature or in life.
Only his eyes had that color.
Only he could.
“You’re still angry,” he whispered, his thumb brushing her cheek once more.
“It’s fading,” she replied in the same tone.
A corner of his mouth curved, and with it her knees, as they suddenly seemed to sway in that direction, leaving her feeling a bit at sea. “But it’s still there, isn’t it, Iz?”
Her wavering knees began to buzz, tickling up and down her legs with the name only he called her. And she was helpless to resist him when he looked at her like that. Or called her that…
She wet her lips carefully, her fingers unclenching with just as much force as they had been clenched moments before. “Still there,” she told him with real honesty, “but certainly better. I don’t know that I’ve ever raged like that in my life.”
He chuckled. “I just wanted you to express yourself, Izzy. I wanted you to let yourself feel the pain he caused, not ignore it or write it off or feel bad for it.”
“And I would have, too,” she admitted, finally able to laugh at herself. “No doubt in an hour, I will write an apology to Hugh Sterling, given that I upset him so, and wallow in guilt for my anger.”
“You should never feel guilty for feeling things,” Sebastian told her softly. “It’s a natural part of us. And as for Hugh Sterling…”
He reached out and touched her cheek gently, as though she had another tear falling, though she knew full well that there were none.
“He doesn’t deserve an apology,” he murmured, his eyes trained on hers. “Not from you. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“But I feel bad,” Izzy breathed as she willed her hands to move, to hold onto him, to do anything but hang uselessly by her sides.
They did nothing.
“Don’t.” His voice was a hoarse rasp, a ripple that cascaded down her frame, and then his lips were on hers.
Gentle, soft, and sweet, his lips caressed hers, creating sensations and feelings she had never experienced, and had no defense against. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she was lost to the new and bewildering sensations. His thumb brushed against her cheek, the tingling pressure making her gasp against his mouth.
She felt him smile against her, felt the gentle tilting of her face up to his, felt the more perfect fit against his lips this way. Her unresponsive hands suddenly moved, trembling as they went to his coat, not gripping, not clutching, not even holding the material. They sim
ply felt him, rested against him, connected with him.
She had never been kissed in her life, and her inexperience was on display now, sending an embarrassed burn across her skin. She didn’t know how to respond, how to be, what to think. All she knew was that she loved this, wanted this, needed more of this…
How? How to ask him, how to show him, how…
He broke off with a soft stroke to her cheek, then his thumb moved to her bottom lip and gave it a brief caress.
She opened her eyes and stared into his, feeling his heart pound beneath her hands.
It matched her own.
Sebastian smiled the gentlest, warmest, most perfect smile at her. “I had to kiss you, Iz. I’ve been wanting to for days.”
Her legs shook with his admission, and she managed to smile back at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t know how to go about it.”
His hand cradled her face, and he kissed her nose very softly. “Don’t apologize for that. I don’t mind in the slightest.”
“I feel… very much at a disadvantage for it,” Izzy told him, sighing in a mixture of delight and apology. “It’s maddening.”
“Don’t worry, Iz,” he told her, that maddening smile still playing at his lips. “I’ll help you.”
She laughed at the offer, and tossed her hair, giving him a wry look. “Are you going to make that one of the conditions of our partnership, too?”
Sebastian grinned, then sobered with a shrug. “Perhaps. It seems a very good idea to me.”
Izzy rolled her eyes, her fingers shifting against his chest. “So helpful. Such a gentleman.”
Something changed in his eyes, and his smile turned less playful. “Even a gentleman feels things.”
She tilted her head at that, curious and wondering. “What do you do? When you’re angry?”
He shrugged, his hand moving to her shoulder, rubbing her arm. “Depends on the situation. I don’t have much of a temper, though I certainly have my moments. Actually, my mother first helped me with my emotions.”
“Your mother?” Izzy repeated, rearing back.
He gave a soft, humorless laugh. “Yes, when I was a child, and I felt particularly angry about something, but tried not to show it, she took me into a room of breakable things, and told me to pick one. Then, she had me throw it across the room.”
Spinster and Spice (The Spinster Chronicles, Book 3) Page 20