“We’ll think about it this week, all right?” Lily reassured her. “I wonder, though, if you won’t be in your dotage by the time you have enough money to launch yourself again.”
Isabelle sighed and plopped back onto the couch in a rather unladylike fashion. “I just want a family, Lily. Is that really too much to ask? A respectable husband and a few children of my own?”
The familiar emptiness in her heart ached. Childbirth had taken both Isabelle’s mother and the infant girl who would have been her little sister. Her father then fell into a melancholy from which he’d never recovered. Fairfax Hall went without the attention of its master for a decade. Isabelle had likewise gone neglected. Left to the care of doting servants and a tutor, she’d been permitted to do as she pleased.
Her treasured friendship with Justin Miller should never have gone on as long as it did, she now knew. It was not at all the thing for a young lady to be on such close terms with a young man, but no one bothered to put a stop to it. Justin was the one constant source of affection and amusement in her life.
Lily’s family came from their home in Brighton only a couple times a year to visit Mrs. Bachman’s parents, who were neighbors to Fairfax Hall.
Alexander had gone to Oxford, and Isabelle’s papa spent his time in solitude — in the library, in his study, or wandering the estate. Several times, she and Justin had found him lying on the ground, sleeping beside the white marble tomb he’d built for his wife and child. There was room inside for him, too. It seemed to Isabelle as though he wanted to crawl inside and join her.
Isabelle sometimes wondered how her life would have been different if he had been dead in truth, rather than absent only in mind and spirit. She would have been properly provided for, she supposed, not allowed to develop such hoydenish tendencies. It had been painful, too. As a child, she tried and tried to cheer her father. She danced and sang silly songs. He smiled wanly with eyes devoid of humor and patted her head. Isabelle wondered why she and Alexander weren’t good enough. She missed Mama, too, but there were still people she loved around her. Didn’t Papa love her? She was certain there was something — some one thing — that would make him better. Isabelle spent countless hours trying to find it.
In time, when she was twelve, Papa did the only thing that would end his suffering. Isabelle heard the shot and got to his study first. He’d fallen sideways on the leather sofa, and what she noticed most was not the blood, but the peaceful expression on his face.
Isabelle returned to herself. She blinked a few times and said in a low voice, “I’ve never had a family, Lily. Is it too selfish of me to want one of my own?”
“Of course not,” Lily cooed. “We’ll get you there, Isa, never you fear.” She straightened to a businesslike posture. “As much as I dislike the idea, I agree you must do something to generate income. I’ll save up my pin money, too, and maybe in a few months — ”
“No,” Isabelle interjected vehemently. She clutched her skirt in her fists. “I’ll take your tea, but I cannot accept your money.” Lily started to protest, but Isabelle raised a hand to stop her. “Please. I have endured this situation for several years. This is just a new obstacle, and I shall overcome it. But not with your allowance.”
Lily sighed. “All right, then. Do say you’ll come to the wedding, though. I should dearly love your company.”
The allure of polite society warred with Isabelle’s practical concerns. At last, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t, Lily. Not with things so tight here. The days I’d spend away are days I could be earning money to keep this place heated.”
Worry lines bracketed Lily’s mouth. “I wish you would let me do something for you, dear. Your bleak circumstances cannot persist.”
A half-smile tugged Isabelle’s mouth. “Things will improve. And I’ll tell you something,” she said, pulling her shoulders back. “It will be nice to have reliable income, rather than depend on a man’s whim.”
“Hmm.” A thoughtful expression crossed Lily’s pretty features. “I didn’t think of that, but you’re right. What a novel idea. Since you won’t come to the wedding with me, I’ll do what I can to help you find a position.”
“Maybe it will even be fun,” Isabelle said, her mood brightening. “This is a chance to make a new start. I’ve been living a kind of half-life ever since the divorce. Now I can start over.”
Lily raised her chipped teacup. “To new beginnings.”
Isabelle lifted hers to join the toast. “To new beginnings. And, to the devil with men.”
• • •
Lily’s brows shot to her hairline. “A cook? Really, Isabelle, what are you thinking?”
A week after her arrival, the maids bustled to prepare for Miss Bachman’s departure to her cousin’s wedding. In that time, Isabelle had approached every business in the area at which she might be at all useful.
Isabelle playfully swatted her friend’s arm. “Yes, a cook. I’ll have you know, I’m a reasonable hand in the kitchen. At home, Cook taught me out of Mother’s French recipe books.”
The taller woman cast her a dubious look. “Be that as it may, inns are frequently rather seedy.”
“Oh, no, the George is a very clean establishment. Mr. Davies was so impressed with the stew I made, I was even able to negotiate a higher wage.”
“Wage negotiations?” Lily’s shoulders rose and fell with her sigh. “All right, Isabelle, you’ve impressed me. Go ahead and tumble into the working class. I suppose you’re ready as you’ll ever be.”
Isabelle grasped her friend in a tight hug. “Thank you for everything.”
Lily held her back at arm’s length. “You can do anything you put your mind to, Isabelle. Your dreams of a husband and children — you can have those, you know. Go and cook for your villagers if you must, but you’re still hiding. Come back to the world and take your proper place.”
Isabelle’s lips curved in a wistful smile. “This is my proper place now, Lily. This is the life I must live.”
Chapter Two
“On the matter of Thomas Gerald, Your Grace, there has been no progress.”
Marshall Trevelyan Bruckner Lockwood, Duke of Monthwaite, looked up from the folding desk in his traveling chaise where he was reviewing the annual expenditure summaries he’d collected from his various stewards over the past month.
His secretary, Perkins, sat opposite, with papers strewn across his lap and the seat. The pale, bespectacled man had a mind as strong as a steel trap. He’d been in Marshall’s employ for several years now, and had become invaluable in keeping Marshall’s dealings sorted out.
“Nothing?” Marshall asked, raising a brow.
Perkins scanned the parchment in his hand. He pressed a handkerchief to his lips, squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head. “No, sir, nothing.” He cleared his throat. “Thomas Gerald’s name appears on the manifest of the Destiny, which sailed from Van Diemen’s Land August 17, 1809. He worked as a deck hand to pay his passage. All told, the voyage took the better part of a year, with stops for provisions, and repairs in the Caribbean islands. He could have disembarked at any one of these locations, rather than return to England. His name is not mentioned again, either in the manifest or the captain’s log. There is nothing more.” Perkins dabbed at the sheen of sweat that had popped out on his forehead as he spoke.
“How does a man just disappear for years?” He muttered to himself. “Are you all right?” he asked Perkins. “You’re looking a touch green.”
“Apologies, sir,” the secretary said through clenched teeth. “Reading in a moving vehicle causes a mild indisposition. I’m quite well, though, I assure you.” Marshall watched his fastidious secretary run a finger under his neck cloth, loosening it. “Shall we continue?”
“No, that will do for now,” Marshall said. “I’d rather you not cast your accounts on m
y boots.”
Perkins scowled.
“Take a rest,” Marshall suggested. “We’ll soon be stopping for the night.”
“Thank you, sir.” Perkins looked decidedly peaked, but neatly stowed away all the papers before leaning his head back against the squabs.
Marshall took up the Thomas Gerald file and flipped through it. He once again scanned the sole report his investigator had been able to generate about Gerald’s departure from the penal colony, having fulfilled his ten-year sentence for the willful destruction of Marshall’s father’s property — his prize mare and her foal. The information was now several years old. He could be anywhere, Marshall thought in frustration — Brazil, or Haiti … or England.
He closed his eyes, and the whole horrible scene was there, as though the incident had been yesterday, not twelve years ago. In his mind’s eye, he saw the mare, Priscilla, past due for her foaling, and the grooms worried about her. He saw Thomas Gerald, a young man just a couple years older than Marshall, laughing and jovial as he joked with the other grooms, tender and concerned when he looked after the ailing Priscilla.
And then Marshall saw himself: a boy of thirteen, bored with the confines of the schoolroom, desperate to prove his maturity, and longing to earn his father’s approval. His newfound interest in botany consumed his adolescent mind. He’d read a few books and had begun helping the gardener in the greenhouse, observing the way the man planted seeds in different fashions and watching carefully as he grafted one plant onto another. In short order, Marshall became the embodiment of the phrase about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.
Priscilla’s swollen belly had the stable in a tizzy, and the duke on tenterhooks. But Marshall remembered the midwife’s words he’d once overheard to the blacksmith, offering the man’s wife a tincture of mugwort and juniper berries to help ease her birthing, and an idea took shape in his mind.
Then Priscilla ate from Thomas Gerald’s gentle hands. The mare convulsed. And then she screamed. Marshall pressed his hands to his eyes — dear God, he could still hear that horse’s scream. Marshall had never been so scared in all his young life. He squeezed himself into a corner, where he remained unnoticed as every hand in the stable came running.
So much blood. At first, Priscilla had thrashed and protested against the restraining hands that held her down while she was examined in her stall. Marshall heard the head groom yelling for a towel — he was going to try to pull the foal free. Gradually, Priscilla’s cries gave way to piteous whinnies, until even those declined into gentle moans, and then silence. Horrible, heavy silence.
They sent for His Grace, and explained to Marshall’s father that Priscilla’s womb had ruptured. Both mare and foal had been lost.
His father was terribly distraught. Marshall remembered his pale face, the concerned crease of his brow as he looked into the poor mare’s stall, how he pressed a handkerchief to his lips and then quickly walked away.
Marshall himself slipped out of the stable a short time later. He spent the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening wandering through the woods, throwing accusatory looks at every herb he encountered. They were supposed to help, not hurt! His beloved flora had betrayed him.
The next morning, Marshall awoke to a house in an uproar. When the mare’s body had been removed and the stall cleaned, a jar had been discovered under a layer of straw, containing the remains of an unknown sticky substance.
Someone had fed Priscilla poison. Someone had deliberately killed His Grace’s favorite mare. If there was one thing in the world the Duke of Monthwaite was passionate about, it was his horses. The gruesome way in which his most prized bit of horseflesh had met her demise was beyond all reckoning. The criminal would be punished. Severely.
Another groom said he recalled seeing Thomas Gerald feeding the horse by hand, but never imagined he’d do something so heinous. Sticky stains found on Gerald’s shirt cuffs gave weight to the accusation. For his atrocious crime, the fifteen-year-old groom was transported to Van Diemen’s Land for ten years on the labor gangs.
The carriage pulled to a stop. Marshall opened his eyes and drew a shuddering breath. Somewhere in the world, possibly even in England, roamed a man who could rightfully blame Marshall for ruining his life. Such a man was dangerous and had to be found before he attempted something foolish. Marshall scrawled a note on the report to remind Perkins to call in yet another investigator, since this one had lost the trail.
• • •
In Leicestershire, Marshall stopped at the estate of David Hornsby, the younger son of an earl. He had the good fortune of a sire who’d acquired a spare estate to give his youngest offspring.
As a result, the estate’s master epitomized the idle rich. Mr. Hornsby was of an age with Marshall, and lived well off the income of his land. With a competent steward taking care of the estate’s day-to-day operations, Hornsby had no purpose in life other than pursuing pleasure and fulfilling his own whims.
One of his few redeeming qualities was a kindred leaning toward botany. They had attended lectures together at the Royal Society and struck up something of a friendship, founded only on their shared intellectual pursuits. The botany community was a small one, and Marshall would not turn his nose up at a man who was as eager as he was to see progress in the field.
Marshall was shown into Hornsby’s library, the walls of which were adorned with framed prints of local wildflowers.
“Monthwaite!” Hornsby sprang from the leather chair in which he’d been ensconced with a book and a bottle of brandy. Marshall noted this last item with distaste, considering it was just past noon. Hornsby extended his hand for Marshall’s greeting and pumped the duke’s arm vigorously. “Good to see you, Monty, good to see you. How fare the great swaths of the kingdom in your possession?” The man’s face, flushed with drink, clashed against his yellow-checked jacket.
Hornsby had no sooner returned to his seat than he sprang up again. Most men as far into their cups as he appeared to be — judging by the alarmingly low level in the brandy decanter — would have been half-asleep by now. However, Marshall’s host appeared as energetic as if he’d just awoken from a refreshing night’s sleep.
Hornsby strode on thick legs to an oak table standing near a large picture window overlooking the expansive gardens on the back of the house. He unrolled a map and gestured for Marshall to join him at the table. He jabbed a chubby finger into the map. “I believe I’ve located a suitable site for the herbarium.”
“Coventry?”
Hornsby nodded. “London would be the obvious choice, of course, but land there is dear and hard to come by. I thought,” he said, turning his glassy brown eyes on Marshall, “a centralized location would be a nice gesture.”
“To whom?” Marshall asked.
Hornsby shrugged and smiled like the spoiled little boy he was. “Everyone.”
Everyone Marshall took to mean the entire population of Britain, and indeed the world, to whom their proposed herbarium would be open.
For a long moment, he held Hornsby’s gaze. His eager face seemed desperate for Marshall’s approval. Though they had been born the same year and Marshall only a few months before Hornsby, Marshall still felt as though Hornsby looked to him for guidance, like an older brother. He regarded the map again. His lips turned up in a slow, lazy smile.
“You might be on to something,” he drawled. He nodded, affirming his statement. “Yes, let’s go have a look at the land you have in mind.”
A wide grin broke across Hornsby’s face. “Really?” he breathed rapturously.
Marshall took a step back and away from the fumes rolling off his friend.
“I’ll have my bags ready in a trice,” Hornsby said. As he hurried from the room he called over his shoulder, “I know a good inn where we can stay tonight.”
Chapter Three
Isabelle g
ave the stew a stir. She wiped her palms against the faded linen apron around her waist, then peeked into the oven to check on the roasting chickens. Everything was coming along nicely, but a few customers had been kept waiting longer than she — or they — liked.
In the month she’d been working in the kitchen at the George, word of the inn’s uncommonly good cook quickly spread beyond the village. The inn now often saw customers who came just to dine, rather than to stay the night or spend the evening drinking in the common room.
The first dish to win the locals’ acclaim had been her savory beef stew. Initially, Isabelle made use of the last bit of ale in the barrels as the base for her concoction. The dish had become so popular, however, Mr. Davies now purchased ale specifically for cooking.
A serving girl stuck her head in the kitchen. “Is the stew ready yet, Miz Smith? Some of the blokes are startin’ to grumble.”
“Almost, Gretchen.” Isabelle fished out a slice of carrot and bit it. Still a touch too firm in the center. “Ten more minutes,” she told the girl. At the servant’s harried expression, Isabelle snapped, “I could give it to them raw, but they wouldn’t like that, either.”
“I s’pose not,” Gretchen muttered. “But they’re ’plainin’, and I’m the one has to hear it.”
Isabelle’s annoyance fell away, and she gave the girl a sympathetic smile. “Why don’t you hide in here with me for a few minutes?” She blew at a wayward strand of hair that had fallen loose from the cap containing her unruly tresses.
The serving girl gave her an appreciative look and stepped farther into the kitchen. It was a large room, but cramped for all that.
A brick oven was set into one wall, pouring out heat as a steady supply of bread went in and came out. Beside the oven was a long counter on which the dough was mixed, kneaded, and set aside to rise.
A large table for preparing meats and vegetables dominated the center of the room. Above it hung a black iron rack covered with saucepans, stockpots, and skillets. Beside the pantry, a door opened on stairs leading to the modest wine cellar.
Time After Time Page 209