Secrets of a Proper Countess

by Lecia Cornwall

  Isobel shut her eyes, imagining all the letters her father must have intercepted and destroyed, letting her believe that her mother had forgotten her.

  Then he’d married her off to Robert Maitland, forever putting her out of Charlotte’s reach, and Honoria had likely taken over the task of destroying her mother’s letters. It explained why her mother-in-law insisted on reading her mail before she did.

  She looked at the cross the sun now slanted over her mother’s bed. This room had been as much of a prison for Charlotte as it was for her now. How many nights had she paced the floor, trapped and unloved, while she slept in the nursery?

  Isobel shut her eyes. Her mother had loved her after all, spent years trying to get her back. She looked at the blue satin gown, and her eyes filled with tears. In the mist, she saw her mother wearing it, looking at her child with love in her eyes. Charlotte had come back to her child at last. Isobel the invisible stepped into the light.

  She folded the last letter and got to her feet. It was getting late. Now she had to get her own son back.

  Chapter 48

  “There are only four guards by my count,” Phineas said, scanning the abbey’s gray stone facade. He handed the telescope to Adam and eased his position on the straw that filled the loft of the small stable, trying to ignore the pain in his shoulder. “It should be easy enough to get inside and find Isobel and Marianne.”

  Adam squinted at the grounds and the other outbuildings before handing the glass back. “There’s no way to know what’s happening inside, and we don’t even know if they’re here. We’ll wait for my men to arrive,” he said stubbornly.

  Phineas wiped the sweat from his forehead and squinted at his brother-in-law. Adam wasn’t sweating, damn him. His wounded shoulder nagged, insisting he needed a decent meal and sleep.

  But he couldn’t drink or eat or sleep until Isobel was safe. “Don’t you think we’d better get them out before the trouble starts?” he asked. “I assume that’s what you’re expecting?”

  Adam’s jaw tensed. “Marianne is probably at home, where she belongs, and Isobel is there with her.”

  “That would be a sensible assumption if we weren’t talking about Marianne,” Phineas said sarcastically. “I know my sister as well as you do. If the Maitlands took Robin, then this is exactly where Isobel will be, and Marianne will be right by her side. You said yourself my sister was nothing if not loyal.”

  Fear crossed Adam’s face briefly, but he rubbed it away. “I can’t afford to jeopardize this mission now, Phineas. Not even for Marianne.” He turned away, scanned the building again. “If I charge in and she’s not there, then we’ll have lost months of work.”

  “Is it better to lose your wife?” Phineas asked. “My sister? Isobel and her son?”

  Adam snapped the scope shut. “Prove to me they’re here, Blackwood! This time, I’m not willing to trust a hunch.”

  Phineas felt his gut tighten. His hunches had always been enough for Adam before. He’d counted on them. “Then I’ll go in, find proof, and see what’s happening.”

  “You’re in no condition to go anywhere. Can I even trust your judgment? You’ve changed in the past weeks, and you’re bedding a woman who may yet turn out to be a traitor. Would you arrest her if you had to? Shoot her?”

  “I will do what’s necessary,” Phineas said through clenched teeth.

  “Then you will wait until we have enough men to do this properly,” Adam said, making it an order.

  Phineas lifted the telescope and scanned the face of the building again. There were no windows on the upper floors, just cross-shaped slits in the stone, a reminder that this had once been a convent where women lived a life of peace and contemplation until Henry VIII’s men tore their world apart. He swallowed. Was history about to repeat itself? His grip tightened on the telescope until the leather bindings creaked under the pressure.

  A flash of purple against the gray stone caught his eye, and he turned the glass toward it and stared.

  “You wanted proof?” He passed the telescope to Adam, and waited while his brother-in-law looked at the petticoat fluttering from the narrow window.

  Adam pursed his lips and shut the glass with a snap. “I hope that’s not the undergarment my wife is supposed to be wearing.”

  “Perhaps it belongs to Isobel,” Phineas replied.

  “Hardly. Isn’t hers hanging out of your pocket?”

  Phineas glanced at the trailing scrap of pink silk that peeped from the pocket of his coat. The idea of Isobel not wearing it was just as arousing as the thought of her in it. He tucked the silken garment away.

  “So now we have proof. How do we get in?” Phineas asked. “Assuming you don’t want to go to the front door and inquire if your wife is inside and properly dressed, of course.”

  Adam stared at the fluttering petticoat and stalled. “Old abbeys like Waterfield always have a warren of secret passages and priest holes,” he mused. “There are probably tunnels leading to the beach, or out to the stables. I’ve studied a number of tales about it. For instance, the hall at Carbrooke Abbey collapsed during a country dance a few years ago, and the owner discovered a secret room below his house, filled with forbidden books and religious treasures hidden there over two centuries ago.”

  “So how do we find the tunnels?” Phineas asked, nudging him back to the present.

  Adam blinked. “We don’t. That could take days. Nor can we knock on the front door. There are probably French agents inside, ready to shoot anyone suspicious. In a few hours, possibly less, our forces will arrive with the French king’s decoy. Then we’ll have enough men to mount a rescue, but I can’t risk it now.”

  “Your wife is in there,” Phineas growled. With Isobel.

  “If Marianne is healthy enough to wave indecent garments out of a window, I assume they’ve locked her up unharmed.” He met Phineas’s hard stare with one of his own. “Maitland wouldn’t dare harm my wife.”

  “And Isobel and her son? Isobel’s maid said they took the child from his bed in the middle of the night. What about him? Charles cannot take the title while Robin Maitland lives.”

  Adam looked away. “An unfortunate circumstance, but he may be dead already. We have no way of knowing, and there are more pressing matters at hand.”

  “What if it was Jamie?” Phineas demanded.

  “It isn’t Jamie. My son is at home where he belongs. For his sake, I will get his mother out safely when the time is right, without any pointless heroics that could get either of us killed.”

  “Glad to hear you love my sister,” Phineas growled, wondering if Adam was made of wood and metal like one of his blasted inventions.

  “More than life,” Westlake murmured. “Even so, I will not charge foolishly into danger and risk my life or hers. My son needs a father, and siblings. When the time comes, I will do whatever I have to do to get Marianne back, and Isobel and the boy if it’s possible. Until then I expect you to obey my orders, Blackwood, and stop thinking with your—”

  “Captain Lord Westlake?”

  Phineas pulled his pistol and spun on the man behind them. The sailor put his hands up and glanced at Adam.

  “Ah, Mr. Gibbs. It’s about time you arrived.” Adam rose, brushing the straw from his coat.

  “Sorry for the delay, sir. We hit some wind off Margate.”

  “Looks like you have all the help you need out here,” Phineas said. “I’m going inside.”

  Adam’s lips thinned. “No.”

  “I wasn’t asking for your permission, Westlake.” He got to his feet and clenched his fist as Adam opened his mouth to argue. “I am going inside, but I’ll fight you first if I have to.”

  Adam looked at his bandaged shoulder and bloody shirt with cold appraisal. “Do you really think you can best me—or Maitland—in your condition?”

  Phineas silently raised his eyebrows, letting Adam read the determination in his eyes. For England, and for the woman he loved, he would face any danger.

 
; Adam relented. “Just be careful, Phin. Keep them safe if there’s trouble.”

  “You can count on it, Westlake, same as always.”

  He left the stable and skirted the wall, heading for the little courtyard that lay between the kitchen and the main building. Long shadows filled the cloisters around an overgrown garden, and he scanned the open area for signs of trouble.

  A sudden scream made him spin, but the danger was inches from his face and it was too late to shoot his attacker. With a grunt of pain, he dove for the gravel.

  A gull swooped past his head, missing him by inches. Phineas watched the bird climb toward the tower, its raucous cries and clumsy wing beats loud in the little courtyard. Another gull dropped from the sky to join the first, followed by another and another, until the small garden was filled with the noise and flap of a dozen large seabirds. Bread was flying from one of the high window slits, and the birds fought a pitched battle for every scrap.

  A memory twitched in Phineas’s mind. Jamie and Robin pelting the ducks with bread crumbs in Hyde Park. He looked up. High above him a beam of dying sun glinted on red curls in the narrow window as more bread dropped. He grinned.

  Robin Maitland was still alive.

  Chapter 49

  Marianne read each letter as Isobel dropped it. “Oh, Isobel! Is this why you won’t marry my brother?” she asked, finishing the last one with tears in her eyes.

  Isobel’s eyes widened. “Blackwood told you?” she asked. “About everything?”

  Delight kindled in Marianne’s eyes, and she swiped at her own tears, smearing dust across her cheek. “Everything? What ‘everything’? He told me you refused his proposal. I explained that you were unhappily married and had no wish to repeat the experience. That’s why you said no, isn’t it? Is there more to it?”

  “I—” Isobel hesitated, besieged by the pert questions.

  “Is it Phineas’s reputation?” Marianne demanded.

  Isobel looked at her in surprise. “Oh no, it’s not that at all—”

  “I’ve never seen him so besotted, and I’ve waited years for it to happen,” Marianne gushed. “I can see he’s in love, and you’re the perfect match for him.”

  He loved her?

  Isobel wanted to believe it. Butterflies dizzily circled in her chest.

  “Do you love him?”

  Yes, she loved him. “Of course not!” she said. She looked at her fingers, rubbed at the dirt. “I have responsibilities, and duties, and people that need me to be—”

  Marianne gave an unladylike snort. “You’re a terrible liar, Isobel. I’ve seen the way you look at him. Of course you love him.” She pointed. “You see—that blush gives your secret away, even under all that dust.” She picked up a petticoat and began to clean her own face. “We really must make ourselves more presentable before they arrive.”

  Isobel shook her head. “It makes no difference, Marianne.”

  Marianne blinked at her over a single clean patch of skin on her cheek. “What doesn’t, dirt or love?”

  “Love.” Isobel breathed the word. “I cannot marry anyone, no matter how much I love him. It’s impossible.”

  “Why?” Marianne demanded.

  Isobel hesitated. She had never admitted to anyone that her life was not her own, but Marianne’s eyes remained fixed on her, waiting. “We have time, so you might as well tell me.”

  If nothing else, the truth would shock Marianne into silence, so she could have time to think, to plan a way to free herself and her son.

  “Robert’s will forbids me to remarry, or even form friendships without Honoria’s permission. If I do, I will lose Robin. I have lost Robin, because I dared to—” She glanced at the blue gown again. She was just like Charlotte after all. She clenched her fists, determined she would not spend the rest of her life trying to get her child back.

  She had refused Phineas. Robin was all she had left. He needed her. Without her, Charles would—

  She swallowed the panic that rose to choke her. There had to be a way.

  “Oh, Isobel. I had no idea,” Marianne said, interrupting her thoughts. There wasn’t the slightest hint of shock in her face, only sympathy. “Does Phineas know?”

  Isobel shut her eyes. “It’s too late. I refused his proposal.” If—when—she escaped this room and found Robin, she’d leave London, even England if she had to, to keep him safe from Charles and Honoria. She’d probably never see Blackwood again, but hope hung by a thread.

  Marianne put a hand on her knee. “Of course it isn’t too late! Look at these letters—your mother had a second chance, a chance to love and be loved, and she took it. She did the right thing, Isobel.”

  A shock of betrayal shot through Isobel, and she looked at Marianne in surprise. “But my son—” she began.

  Marianne held up her hand. “Hear me out. Charlotte’s only mistake was leaving without you, hoping you would join her later. She should have taken you with her. Your father kept you out of revenge, even married you off to Robert Maitland for hatred of Charlotte. No wonder you have such a poor opinion of marriage! It won’t be like that with Phineas, Isobel. Adam will arrive and find Robin, and you will tell Phineas you love him, and marry him, and you will both be happy at last.”

  Isobel shook her head. “It’s still not that simple. Robert took my son away from me. Honoria and Charles are his legal guardians. What court would overturn a father’s will?”

  Marianne laughed. “Oh, that’s a trifling thing! We Archers are one of England’s most powerful families. We have titles, money, and we’re friends of the king. Charles Maitland is just a gentleman with a courtesy title. We’ll convince him to give up his wardship of Robin.”

  “You mean to bribe him?” Isobel asked, her eyes widening.

  Marianne shrugged. “Given that he’s imprisoned the Countess of Westlake, and the Earl of Westlake is rather unforgiving about such things, I doubt money will enter into it, and Phineas tends to be a hard man when crossed as well. He’s protective of the ones he loves, and I think he loves you desperately.”

  Was it really possible to have every happiness? Blackwood loved her, and for the first time in her life, hope filled her heart.

  Marianne glanced at the window. “I can’t imagine what’s taking Adam so long. It’s nearly dark.” She picked up the hairbrush and mirror. “Oh well, at least we’ll have time to comb our hair and tidy our faces before our brave knights come and rescue us.”

  Terror replaced hope in a heartbeat. Night offered cover for sinister deeds like smuggling and murder. If Robin lived, she had to reach him now. She couldn’t wait for a rescue that might not come.

  Isobel watched Marianne calmly tie up her hair and pinch her cheeks like a debutante preparing for a ball. Marianne had no idea, she thought, what Charles was capable of.

  She snatched the mirror out of Marianne’s hand. She couldn’t wait for Blackwood, and she could not, would not, allow Charles to harm anyone else. She crossed to the door while it was still light enough to see. Shutting her eyes, she smashed the mirror against the wall, ignoring her friend’s gasp. Marianne probably thought she was as mad as the rest of the Maitlands. She didn’t have time to explain.

  Picking up a shard of glass, Isobel began to scrape away the crumbling plaster that held the first hinge in place.

  Chapter 50

  It was so quiet inside the abbey that Phineas could hear the beating of his heart as he moved along the dark stone corridor. The pain in his shoulder dropped away as his senses sharpened, came alert, watching, listening for signs of trouble.

  Ahead, light spilled from a wide archway, and he followed it.

  The large room had likely once served the convent as a refectory, but it was empty. There were few clues to divulge the purpose the room was meant to serve now.

  No carpets softened the stone floors, but the walls were draped in heavy red velvet. There was a dais at one end of the room, with a long oak table upon it. Pitch torches hung on the walls, reflecting red and g
old on the polished surface.

  Three carved chairs had been set behind the table, as ornate as ancient thrones, but they faced a plain wooden stool that crouched miserably in the middle of the floor.

  In the corner farthest from the door, a bulky shape loomed tall and ghostly under a canvas drape emblazoned with an N surrounded by a crown of laurels.

  Napoleon’s crest.

  His fingers froze at the ringing echo of boot heels on the stone floor of the corridor.

  He had only seconds to slide behind the velvet drapes. He clung to the wall, the cold seeping into his bones. He drew his pistol, cocked it, and waited. His eyes burned in the darkness.

  “We’ll take our places as soon as he is brought in.” Phineas recognized Charles Maitland’s voice. “I’m sure you will agree, my lord, that since the matter is a fait accompli, there is no point in drawing it out. Given the circumstances, I think it best we leave this place as soon as possible. You have a ship waiting, I assume?” he asked nervously.

  “Of course. In the cove,” Philip Renshaw replied. “That’s why I chose Waterfield, for the easy escape it offers. But you already know that, don’t you, since you use the cove for smuggling?”

  “I—” Charles faltered, but didn’t bother to deny Philip’s charge.

  Renshaw’s tone grew darker, more dangerous. “That’s why I had to change my plans and come back to England through London, risking discovery. I’ve had this place watched, you fool. On any given night a dozen men wait for your shipments to land in that cove. It’s only when there’s a full moon that they stay away. Like tonight. We won’t have company, will we?”

  Charles cleared his throat, the nervous sound loud in the stone room, and Phineas peered carefully around the edge of the curtain. Charles was pale in the torchlight, his eyes hollow. He shook his head soundlessly in response to the question.