by Liz Carlyle
No, not where her cousin was concerned. Hepplewood was not wrong; something dark and ugly was coming to a head. Isabella had begun to feel it in Everett’s desperation—something in him had altered, somehow. There was a sense of urgency that had been waxing since . . . yes, since she’d seen him in the train station.
And had her life not been so fraught with work and caring for the girls and sheer survival, she suddenly realized, she would likely have spared it more thought. Perhaps she was fortunate that Lord Hepplewood had thought about it.
“Yes?” He dipped his head to catch her gaze. “Yes, Isabella, you will come?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes. If you think it wise. Yes, we will come.”
CHAPTER 13
Monday afternoon in Park Square, Lady Petershaw’s butler bowed politely when Isabella knocked. As she so often did, Isabella asked to see not the marchioness but Lord Petershaw and his brother. Both boys having just returned from school, Isabella was happily received in their private suite, situated in a separate part of the house from the marchioness’s salons.
Since Lord Petershaw’s departure for Eton almost three years earlier, it had become Isabella’s habit to chat with him when he came home from school to ensure his education was progressing as it ought, and she’d followed suit with his brother.
This was a duty Lady Petershaw had expressed an unequivocal disinterest in, and one she had happily ceded to Isabella with a wave of her lace-cuffed hand. But the unspoken truth was that, having no formal education whatever, Lady Petershaw secretly feared herself incapable of assessing her sons’ progress, and she did not trust Eton’s condescending schoolmasters to tell her the truth.
Isabella knew this, and she knew, too, that despite her blithe declarations, Lady Petershaw cared very deeply for her children.
The boys were as lively and as happy as ever, and Isabella rose half an hour later, her spirits considerably lifted. Before leaving, she gave Petershaw a book on the history of horse racing and Lord John a bound copy of The Mysteries of London. They were small gifts, really; samples Isabella had acquired when stocking the shop, but the boys seemed genuinely touched, and kissed her cheek on the way out.
She still missed them, she realized. She had spent more than six years in Lady Petershaw’s employ, much of it while trying to support and care for Jemima and Georgina at the same time. And when Isabella looked back on her life and wondered if she had wasted it, those four children were ever in the forefront of her mind.
As she went down the stairs, Isabella could feel something a little like tears warming the backs of her eyes. She blinked rapidly and hastened toward the door, for the next duty called, and she’d not so much as begun her packing.
In the great hall, however, Smithers stopped her and asked that she attend the marchioness in her private sitting room. It was not an unexpected request, and one Isabella had hoped for, despite the press of time. She went up at once to find herself promptly pulled toward a tea tray already set with two cups and a platter of tiny sandwiches.
The marchioness was dressed today in a rich gown of aqua silk, but it was absent her usual flamboyance. Her hair, too, was dressed quite simply. Neither alteration served to diminish her beauty.
“My dear Mrs. Aldridge,” she declared, motioning her to a chair. “How wicked you are to try to escape without seeing me when I’ve been anxiously awaiting news of your new venture. But first, how did you find my lads?”
It was a little ritual they went through, and Isabella began at once. “I believe Lord Petershaw has taken a thorough grasp of his algebraic concepts this term,” she reported. “The headmaster’s report is quite good. I read it in some detail.”
“Did you? How very kind.” Lady Petershaw smiled. “That sort of thing bores me excessively.”
“Whilst I, on the other hand, perversely enjoy it,” said Isabella. “As to Lord John, he excels in his history, as always. And he has become quite the oarsman, as I’m sure you are aware.”
“But they will be ready to go up to university when the time comes?” A faint catch in her voice betrayed the marchioness’s anxiety. “It was his late lordship’s deepest desire that they should both attend—and excel at—Cambridge. I owe it to him, at the very least, to ensure that happens.”
“There is no question they will be ready,” Isabella reassured her. “Everything comes easily to Lord John, and Petershaw has learnt to work hard. Please set your mind at ease, ma’am.”
The marchioness smiled, relaxed almost imperceptibly, and began to pour. “You will visit with them again before term starts?” she asked, dropping in Isabella’s one spoonful of sugar. “You will impress upon them how very important it is that they continue to do well?”
“I would be crushed, ma’am, not to see them.” Isabella took the outstretched cup.
“Excellent,” said the marchioness, as if a plan had just been agreed to. “And now you must tell me about your fascinating little bookshop.”
Isabella did so, with little embellishment. Her account books were still in the red, but only just, and she expected to turn a profit by the end of June.
Lady Petershaw expressed great delight in this advancement, poured a second cup of tea, and said, more coyly, “And what of your other little venture? Have you brought Lord Hepplewood to heel yet?”
Isabella felt her face flush with heat. “I do not think Hepplewood is the sort of man a woman brings to heel, ma’am,” she said quietly.
“I shouldn’t have thought so, either,” the lady confessed, daintily lifting her teacup. “Well, not easily, at any rate. But I saw his face, my dear Mrs. Aldridge, when he sat here angry and bereft all those weeks ago—in that very chair in which you now sit, you may recall. And he was a man stricken, of that I am quite sure.”
“He is a man stricken with great arrogance,” said Isabella, “of that I am quite sure. Moreover, I cannot say he’s ever struck me as bereft. And yet . . .”
“Yes?” The marchioness leaned intently forward. “And yet . . . ?”
Isabella looked up from a detailed study of her saucer. “And yet he is a man of great kindness, I’ve come to believe,” she added. “Yes, he has been . . . kind to me.”
“Kind!” said Lady Petershaw in a huff. “That is very dull. Tell me, my dear, that he has at least tried to sweep you off your feet?”
Isabella hesitated a moment, her color deepening, she was sure. “He has, yes, in his own way,” she admitted. “And he has taken it upon himself to thwart Everett on my behalf.”
“Very bold of him,” declared the marchioness. “So I’m sure, then, that he has also attempted to lure you back into his bed. Tell me, my dear, has he succeeded?”
“Yes,” Isabella confessed, shifting her gaze to the elegant carpet. “Once.”
“Only once?” Lady Petershaw’s eyes widened. “Hepplewood is slipping. In the old days, no female found herself able to refuse those glittering blue eyes and curling golden locks.”
“The truth is, I’ve seen little of him,” said Isabella. “We had some sharp words, I fear, about my duty to my sisters and his duty to his daughter. And shortly thereafter, he brought her down from Loughford. I believe she is taking up a vast amount of his time.”
“But that is what governesses are for!” declared Lady Petershaw.
“You may recall, ma’am,” said Isabella dryly, “that he has not hired one.”
“Still?” The marchioness trilled with laughter. “What does he mean to do with the child, then?”
“That is precisely what I mean to ask him,” said Isabella, “and very soon, too. You see, Hepplewood has asked me up to Buckinghamshire, ma’am, with the girls. And with Lady Felicity and some of his cousins. I said that I would go. Have I made a mistake, Lady Petershaw? It seems all so very odd to me.”
“Oh, my word!” Lady Petershaw dropped her cup onto its saucer with a discordant clatter. “You cannot mean it?”
“He was most insistent,” said Isabella. “He said that since I w
as uncomfortable going there with him, he would invite others, too. He seems to want to keep the girls far from Everett. I believe he fears Everett is up to something wicked.”
“Of course Everett is up to something wicked,” said the marchioness brusquely, “for he always is. Fortunately, he is also stupid. And Tony is . . . oh, heavens . . . but surely, I must be right?”
“Right?” Isabella’s brow furrowed. “About what?”
“About Tony,” the marchioness said, tapping one finger on her perfectly powdered cheek. “Yes, yes, just so, my dear girl. The earl is going to ask you to marry him. He would not be inviting his daughter and his family were it otherwise.”
Isabella drew back, horrified. “Oh, ma’am, I am sure he does not mean to do any such thing.”
“I am very sure he does not,” agreed the marchioness, “but I am equally sure that he will.”
Isabella felt her brow furrow. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, never mind that,” said Lady Petershaw, pushing away the tea. “Men rarely know what they are thinking until it blurts from their lips—or their wives tell them. Tomorrow, did you say? You had better get packing, my dear—and you will, of course, pack those things I sent you to purchase from Madame Foucher’s?”
Isabella opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Well, I had not thought on it,” she said. “I believe his purpose is more to keep the girls away from Everett’s grasp.”
“And to get you within his grasp, you pretty fool,” said Lady Petershaw. “Oh, I know that is not what he said. It might not even be what he meant. But it is what he wants, and it is what he will get.”
“Oh, dear,” said Isabella. “Is it?”
But she already knew the answer to that—and knew that, in her heart, it was what she hoped for.
Moreover, the marchioness had already risen. “Well, hurry along, my dear Mrs. Aldridge,” she said, waving her hastily toward the door. “Yes, yes, go home at once! And pack your tarty underthings, my girl—or I shall be utterly ashamed of you!”
IT WAS TO prove very difficult, Isabella soon realized, to explain to Mrs. Barbour and Jemima just how she had come to be friends with the Earl of Hepplewood—near enough friends, in fact, to travel alone with the man to his farm in the rural countryside.
In the end, she told Barby something of the truth; that she had become acquainted with the gentleman after having interviewed with him for the position of governess. And that through his friendship with the Marchioness of Petershaw, Hepplewood had come to share her suspicions of Everett and wished to remove the girls from London for a few days.
It did not suffice, of course; the servant merely sniffed disdainfully and said that her mistress must do as she pleased, but that she was very sure no good would come of it. All this said, of course, just before she hugged Isabella and pressed a basket of sandwiches into her hand.
That little exchange had been painless compared to Jemima’s puzzled expression the previous evening. The girl had seen, if not quite heard, much of Isabella’s anguished conversation with Lord Hepplewood, and Isabella could sense that it had left Jemima troubled.
“Just try to trust me, Jemma, to know what’s best,” Isabella explained as they packed the last of their things on Tuesday morning. “Lord Hepplewood is a gentleman, and he merely wishes you and Georgina to have a little holiday in the country.”
“Don’t try to deceive me, Bella,” said Jemima softly. “It’s more than that, I know. But to travel alone with a man we so recently—”
But they were not to travel alone, for just then, a knock sounded.
Eager to escape Jemima’s solemn gaze, Isabella hurried down to find a pretty—and apparently pregnant—blonde on her doorstep. The lady wore a sky-blue gown and a riot of gold curls topped with a wide-brimmed hat turned dramatically up on one side, and pierced with a curling white feather.
“Isabella!” said the lady warmly, offering her gloved hand, “what a pleasure to see you again.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Isabella, taken aback. “Have we . . . ?”
“Oh, heavens, yes, but I was far thinner!” The lady laughed, showing rows of lovely white teeth. “I’m Anne Tarleton—or was. You came out the year after me. We are cousins, actually, of a fashion.”
Isabella was turning the name over in her mind when she realized that children were clambering out of the massive and very luxurious traveling coach parked before her shop.
“Mamma, a book about trains!” said the eldest, practically flinging himself at Isabella’s shop window. “Look! Look! That’s a Great Western engine on the front!”
“Stand up straight, Harry, and stop smudging the glass,” said his mother, snapping her fingers. “Get over here and make your bow to your cousin Isabella.”
Harry leapt to it and cut a very pretty bow, his blond curls and sharp blue eyes so familiar to Isabella that her stomach did a little twist. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
Cousin Isabella?
“Bertie?” Brow furrowed, the lady was looking about. “Caroline, where has Bertie gone?”
The apparent Caroline, a tall girl who was carrying a much younger one on her hip, turned to look. “Down the street,” she said, pointing. “He’s seen a dog.”
“Bertie!” shouted Anne Tarleton, “get back here this instant.”
“May I look at the book now?” said Harry.
“You have a lot of children,” uttered Isabella, trying not to stare at her rounding belly.
“Oh, I have another in the carriage asleep,” said Anne. “But Caroline—Caroline, darling, bring Deanna here, and go fetch Bertie—Caroline is not mine but another cousin.”
“Actually, I think this is Deborah,” said Caroline, handing the girl to her mother. Then she paused and made a quick curtsy to Isabella. “A pleasure, ma’am. I’ve heard such lovely things about you.”
And then the girl was off down the street, chasing after the boy and the dog, who now appeared to be busy sniffing one another’s private parts on the corner of Brompton Road.
“In any case,” said the lady, shifting Deborah/Deanna to the other hip, “Tony is sending his coach behind me. I thought we might convoy up to Greenwood—all the better to avoid highwaymen, you know.”
“Highwaymen?” Isabella was feeling increasingly off balance.
The lady laughed. “Oh, just kidding!” she said. “I see my own toes, I daresay, more often than Buckinghamshire sees highway robbery—neither, of course, occurring with any frequency. Oh, hello? Who is this?”
Isabella realized that Jemima had crept down and was standing in the shadows behind her. “Why, this is my stepsister, Jemima Goodrich,” Isabella managed. “ ‘Jemma’ for short. Jemma, this is—” She stopped, uncertain how to introduce the lady.
Deanna/Deborah was now chewing off the tip of her mother’s feather. Oblivious, the lady turned. “Hoo, Caroline, come back,” she shouted. “Here is Miss Goodrich, whom Tony speaks so well of.”
“How kind of him,” murmured Isabella.
Anne turned her toothy, radiant smile on Jemima. “Hello, Jemma. I’m Lady Keaton, your sister’s distant cousin,” she said. “We used to know one another a little when we were young.”
“And how, precisely, are you related?” asked Jemima, who was no one’s fool.
Anne turned her gaze inward. “Well, I’m actually more Lord Hepplewood’s cousin,” she said, “for we’re related by blood. But I married Sir Philip Keaton, who was—now, let me count back—yes, a grandson of the fourth Earl of Fenster.”
Isabella’s gasp must have been audible.
Anne’s gaze sharpened, and met hers. “And the fifth earl is your father-in-law, is he not, Isabella?” she said evenly. “He is on his deathbed, in case you weren’t aware.”
“I . . . no, I was not,” Isabella managed.
Anne shrugged. “Well, his life was a tragedy,” she said, “some of which he brought upon himself. In any case—where has Caroline got to?”
; “Down there, wrestling with Bertie and his dog.” Harry had his nose pressed to Isabella’s window again and had blown a great cloud of fog upon the glass.
But Isabella was scarcely aware, for her heart was thumping in her chest, the blood draining from her face.
“It is not Bertie’s dog,” said Anne a little hotly.
“It could be,” Jemima interjected. “It’s a stray. Mrs. Barbour has been feeding it scraps, but it doesn’t belong to anyone.”
“Really?” Harry brightened and pulled away from the window. “Bertie,” he bellowed, starting down the street, “bring the dog. We can have him, Jemma says.”
“Caroline Aldridge, do not let Bertie bring that dog up here,” commanded Anne.
But Isabella heard all this as if from a great distance. Just then, the jingling of harnesses sounded, and another large coach rumbled in from Brompton Road, driven by Hepplewood’s elderly coachman.
“Oh, here is Marsh with Tony’s carriage,” said Anne, sounding relieved. “Just in time, too. Lissie will be in it—and Nanny Seawell, of course—and my maid, Nell, whom I sent down with a message.” She stopped, and began to count heads. “Oh, dear. Will we fit?”
“I imagine,” said Isabella numbly.
Anne was frowning. “I shall put Nell with me,” she said, “and Caroline with you. I thought, you see, that she and Jemima might get on. Tony is going up on horseback. He could, perhaps, take Bertie up. Ah, there he is now, on Colossus.”
“Shall I fetch Georgie?” asked Jemima, already starting up the stairs.
“I . . . uh, yes, Jemma,” Isabella managed, “thank you.”
Lord Hepplewood had rounded the corner on the massive bay she’d seen thundering off into the mist during her first visit to Greenwood. The earl wore the same sweeping black duster and knee-high black boots, too. On his head was not his usual top hat but one more soft and broad-brimmed, and better suited for shading the eyes during a long journey on horseback.
As to the horse, Colossus was no misnomer; the creature stood some seventeen hands, by Isabella’s estimate, with eyes that glittered as dangerously as his owner’s. Isabella watched their approach with trepidation. She had lost track of names, cousins, and children in general—for the word Fenster had struck her nearly dumb and sent her thoughts skittering like marbles.