Louise Allen Read online

  ‘He was injured in the fight defending Lord James and, by extension, me.’

  ‘Well, he might be less of a menace to women now he has lost his looks. The man was a positive Adonis, so I hear—and there are enough foolish ladies with the instincts of lightskirts to encourage men like that,’ Lady Bythorn added with a sniff.

  ‘Perhaps he is only a menace to married ladies,’ Isobel said sweetly, her hands clenched so tightly that a seam in her glove split. ‘Cousin Elizabeth has no qualms about allowing him to socialise with her daughters or myself. Suitably chaperoned, of course.’

  ‘I am glad to hear about the chaperonage, at least! But that is all academic—I expect your woman can have your things all packed by the time we have finished luncheon.’

  ‘Packed?

  ‘Well, of course.’ Her mother beamed at her fondly. ‘Now everyone knows the truth of what happened, there is no reason for you to be hiding in the country. You can come home and do the Season just as we planned.’

  ‘But—’ Isobel could hear Cousin Elizabeth’s voice coming closer. And the butler and footmen were still standing in the background, having stood to attention with blank faces throughout Lady Bythorn’s opinions on Giles’s morals. This was no place to start arguing with her parents about her future.

  ‘Margaret! Bythorn! What a pleasant surprise.’ The countess sailed into the hall, beaming. ‘You’ve come to collect dear Isobel, of course. We are going to miss her sadly.’ She ushered them towards the Yellow Drawing Room. ‘Margaret, would you like to go up with Isobel to her room? I will ring for her woman to bring you whatever you need after your journey. You must have set out at the crack of dawn to make such good time.’

  ‘I will go up in a moment, Elizabeth—it is so good just to see Isobel again! We left as soon as we received Lord James’s letter and put up overnight at the Bell at Buntingford. I could not wait to get my dear girl home again. Thank heavens we have not missed anything of the Season.’

  ‘I imagine Isobel is more glad about the restoration of her reputation than the opportunity to take part in social events,’ Cousin Elizabeth said with a glance at Isobel. There was understanding in the look and a kind of rueful sympathy. She, at least, had some inkling of how reluctant Isobel was to plunge back into the social whirl that she so disliked and the imagination to understand what gossip and snide remarks would still follow her.

  ‘I would prefer to stay here, Mama,’ Isobel said. She folded her hands on her lap and sat up straight, as though perfect deportment would somehow be a barricade against this disaster. If she let her shoulders droop, if she relaxed in the slightest, she did not think she would be able to stop herself either sobbing in despair or running to find Giles.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Stay here?’ said Lady Bythorn, turning her gaze on Isobel. For a moment she thought there was hope, then her mother shook her head. ‘But you cannot impose on Lady Hardwicke’s hospitality now it is not necessary. Really, Isobel, it is about time you shook off this pose of indifference to society. We should never have allowed you to stay with Mrs Needham for over a year in that remote place as we did. I declare you came back a positive stranger to us.’

  ‘I am sorry, Mama.’

  ‘It would be best for you to go back to London, Isobel,’ Cousin Elizabeth said. ‘We will miss you, but there is the risk that rumours may begin again if you do not make an appearance. It might seem that you have something to hide after all.’

  So there was no help there. Where else could she go? If she ran away to Jane and Annabelle, then Papa would fetch her back and she did not think she could face him meeting his granddaughter all unawares. Without her allowance she had no money. To throw herself into Giles’s arms would be to embroil him in a scandal that might wreck his career.

  It seemed very hard to think coherently. Isobel felt she was running through a darkened house, banging on doors that all proved to be locked, twisting and turning in a maze of corridors.

  She had thought she had a few more precious days with Giles—now those had been snatched away from her. She had to speak to him. When he left the hall he had turned towards the stairs. He must have gone up to his chamber to change.

  ‘Mama, shall I show you to my rooms? I can set Dorothy to packing.’ From somewhere she dredged up the courage to smile and stand and pretend composure.

  ‘Of course.’ Her mother linked arms with her as they went up the stairs. ‘Now, you only have to overcome this indifferent shyness you seem to feel and all will be well. The country air has done you good—your cheeks are rosy, your lips look fuller and there is such a sparkle in your eyes.’

  All the consequence of Giles’s lovemaking, if her mother did but know it. It seemed she had no suspicion that anything untoward had occurred, even though they had entered the house together. Perhaps it seemed impossible to Mama that her daughter would even think of flirting with someone in his position, let alone anything else.

  ‘Here we are. It is a lovely view, is it not? Dorothy, please can you pack all my things as soon as possible—I am sure you can ask for help if you need it. We will be leaving after luncheon, so do not neglect your own meal. But first, please fetch hot water for her ladyship.’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’ The maid bobbed a curtsy to the countess. ‘I am so glad Lady Isobel is going home, my lady, if I may be so bold.’

  ‘Thank you, Dorothy. We are all delighted,’ Lady Bythorn said and the maid hurried out.

  ‘Mama, would you excuse me while I run up to the nursery and schoolroom and say goodbye to the children? I have become very fond of them.’

  ‘Of course. I will just sit here and admire the prospect from the window and rest a little.’

  Isobel dropped a kiss on her mother’s cheek and went out of the door leading to the back stairs. As soon as she was out of sight she ran up to the attics and into the schoolroom.

  ‘Cousin Isobel!’ Lizzie jumped up beaming from her seat beside Caroline, who had her head wrapped in a shawl and was looking very woebegone.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Henderson, for interrupting your lesson, but I have to say goodbye to the children. My mama and papa have come to collect me, Lizzie.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her face fell. ‘Can you not stay a little longer?’

  ‘No, I am sorry. I promise I will write to you all. Is Charles in the nursery? I must kiss him as well,’ she said as she disentangled herself from the children’s hugs.

  ‘If you are all very good, we will wrap up warmly and go out on the leads to wave Lady Isobel goodbye,’ the governess suggested.

  ‘That will be lovely. Thank you. Now, I will be going to London, so I will send you all a present. Would you like that?’

  She left them agog at the thought of gifts arriving when it was not even their birthdays or Christmas and whisked down the stairs and along the passage leading to Giles’s bedchamber. There would be just time, if he was only still there.

  Isobel pressed her ear to the panels, but she could hear no voices, so the valet was not with him. Without knocking she opened the door and slipped inside.

  ‘Isobel!’ Giles strode out of his dressing room and shut the door behind her.

  ‘Your face—why have you taken the dressing off? The doctor hasn’t even removed the stitches. Oh, it looks so sore!’

  ‘It looks thoroughly unsightly and will, I hope, convince your parents that no daughter of theirs would look twice at its owner.’ He gave her a little shake. ‘What on earth are you doing here? There will be hell to pay if you are found with me.’

  ‘I had to talk to you,’ she protested. ‘And I do not know when we could have snatched even a moment alone. Papa intends to return home immediately after luncheon. Giles, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Nothing, except come to our senses,’ he said, his face harsh. ‘This is a blessing in disguise—the longer we were together, the more chance there was of this being discovered.’

  ‘But we have no chance to plan now—’

  ‘There is nothin
g to plan for. You are not a romantic young girl, Isobel. You knew this was hopeless, just as I did, but we let ourselves daydream and now it is time to wake up.’

  ‘Just like that?’ She stared at him. The cold, aloof man of their first meeting was back and her tender lover was quite vanished. ‘No regrets, no sadness, just a blessing in disguise? I love you, Giles.’

  ‘And I let myself think I could dally with an earl’s daughter.’ He cupped his hand around her cheek. ‘Sunshine in February. I should have known there would be a frost to follow. Wake up, Isobel—it is over.’

  ‘So you really do not love me?’ she asked painfully. He thought of what had happened as just a dalliance? The rain drumming on the window echoed the frantic beating of her heart.

  ‘I told you that. And you have not fallen in love with me, if you will only be honest with yourself. You had been hurt and rejected by people you thought were your friends. You wanted affection and you wanted to rebel, too.’

  ‘You think so? After we made love as we have, you can still say it was all a delusion, an act of rebellion? It must have been, because I thought I knew you and now I do not think I do, not at all.’

  She turned away, unable to bear his touch any longer, then swung back. ‘Why did you fight for me if I was not important to you?’

  ‘It was the right thing to do, for my friends and for any lady who had been betrayed in that way.’

  ‘Gallantry, in effect. Just like rescuing two drowning people from the lake. I thought I was your friend.’ It sounded forlorn, but however much it hurt her pride, she could not help herself. ‘You said I belonged to you.’

  ‘It was wrong of me to think I could make a friend of an unmarried lady and what I said about you being mine was foolish sentimentality.’

  ‘So there is nothing between us?’ It was like sticking pins into her flesh, but she had to have the truth from him. ‘You were gallant and then deluded. We made love, but that was merely lust.’

  ‘I admire your courage and your generosity, your wit and your elegance. I was privileged to share your bed, and my lips will be for ever sealed about that. You need have no fear I would ever give the slightest hint that so much as a kiss had passed between us.’

  Isobel stared up at the scarred, battered face and tried to find her friend, her lover, her love, somewhere behind the hard mask. But there was nothing, just a faint pity, the hint of a smile. ‘I trusted you, Giles.’

  ‘I never lied to you. I never told you I loved you. I am sorry it went as far as it did.’

  ‘But not as sorry as I am, Giles.’ Isobel turned on her heel and walked out. She wanted to hesitate at the threshold, to stand there a moment, for surely he would call her back, but she made her feet keep walking, closed the door behind her with care and went back to her own room. He did not speak.

  *

  Her mother, hair tidied and complexion restored with the judicious use of rice powder, was sitting with her feet on a stool while Dorothy bustled about packing.

  ‘Isobel dear—have you been crying?’ Her mother sat up straighter and stared at her.

  ‘No… Well, a little. I was upset at leaving the children, they are very sweet. I suppose it has made my eyes a trifle watery, that is all. There is the gong—shall we go down?’

  They descended the stairs arm in arm again. Her mother had relaxed now, Isobel sensed. Her unaccountable daughter had yielded, the Season could be exploited in every possible way and, by the end of it she, Isobel, would have come to her senses and be betrothed to a well-connected, wealthy man who would father a brood of admirable children. All would be well.

  Cousin Elizabeth and her three eldest children were already in the dining room. Lord Hardwicke and her father followed them in and then, on their heels, Giles entered.

  Lady Bythorn took one look at his face, gasped audibly and plunged into conversation with Lady Anne. Cousin Elizabeth frowned, more in anxiety about the effects of leaving off the dressing than from any revulsion at the scar, Isobel thought. Her father stared, then resumed his discussion of tenancy issues with the earl. Giles, apparently oblivious, thanked Lady Caroline for the bread, passed her the butter and addressed himself to his meal.

  ‘Some brawn, my lady?’ Benson produced the platter. Isobel stared at it quivering gently in its jelly and lost what little appetite she had left.

  ‘Thank you, no, Benson. Just some bread and butter, if you please.’

  It was strange, she thought as she nibbled stoically through two slices of bread and butter and, to stem her mother’s urgings, a sliver of cheese. She had not expected a broken heart to feel like this. She was numb, almost as if she no longer cared. Perhaps it was shock; they said that people in shock did not feel pain despite dreadful injuries.

  Over the rim of her glass she watched Giles and felt nothing, just a huge emptiness where only a few hours ago there had been a turmoil of feelings and emotions. Hope, love, desire, fear, uncertainty, happiness, confusion, tenderness, worry—they had all been there. Now, nothing.

  She found she could smile, shake her head over Cousin Elizabeth’s praise of her courage in rescuing Lizzie, tell her mother of the interesting recipe for plum jam the vicar’s wife had given her. When her eyes met Giles’s down the length of the table she could keep her expression politely neutral, even smile a bright, social smile.

  It was only as they were gathered in the formal elegance of the Yellow Drawing Room to make their final farewells that Isobel realised what she felt like. She had visited Merlin’s Mechanical Museum in Princes Street once and had marvelled over the automata jerkily going about their business with every appearance of life and yet with nothing inside them but cogs and wheels where there should have been a brain and a heart and soul.

  She shook hands, and exchanged kisses, and smiled and said everything that was proper in thanks and when she saw a shadow fall across the threshold, and Giles stood there for a moment looking in, she inclined her head graciously. ‘Goodbye, Mr Harker.’

  But when her parents turned to look he was gone. Like a dream, she thought. Just like a daydream. Not a memory at all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘I have absolutely no expectation of finding anyone I wish to marry, Mama,’ Isobel said, striving for an acceptable mixture of firmness and reasonableness in her tone. ‘I fear it is a sad waste of money to equip me for yet another Season.’ For four days she had tacitly accepted all her mother’s plans, now she felt she had to say something to make her understand how she really felt.

  Lady Bythorn turned back from her scrutiny of Old Bond Street as the carriage made its slow way past the shops. ‘Why ever not?’ she demanded with what Isobel knew was quite justified annoyance. She was doing her best to see her second daughter suitably established and any dutiful daughter would be co-operating to the full and be suitably grateful. ‘You are not, surely, still pining for young Needham?’

  ‘No, Mama.’

  ‘Then there is no reason in the world—’ She broke off and eyed Isobel closely. ‘You have not lost your heart to someone unsuitable, have you?’

  ‘Mama—’

  ‘Never tell me that frightful Harker man has inveigled his way into your affections!’

  ‘Very well, Mama.’

  ‘Very well what?’

  ‘I will not tell you that Mr Harker has inveigled in any way.’

  ‘Do not be pert, Isobel. It ill becomes a young woman of your age.’

  ‘Yes, Mama. There is no illicit romance for you to worry about.’ Not now.

  ‘We are at Madame le Clare’s. Now kindly do not make an exhibition of yourself complaining about fittings.’

  ‘No, Mama. I will co-operate and I will enter into this Season, fully. But this is the last time. After this summer, if I am not betrothed, I will not undertake another.’

  ‘Oh!’ Lady Bythorn threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘Ungrateful girl! Do you expect me to wait for grandchildren until Frederick is finally old enough to marry?’

  The
guilt clutched like a hand around her heart. Mama would be a perfect grandmother, she loved small children. She would adore Annabelle and Annabelle would love her. ‘I am afraid so, Mama. Thank you, Travis,’ she added to the groom who was putting the steps down and remaining impassive in the face of his mistress’s indiscreet complaints.

  Isobel followed her mother into the dress shop, sat down and proceeded to show every interest in the fashion plates laid out in front of her, the swatches fanned out on the table and the lists of essential gowns her mother had drawn up.

  ‘You have lost weight, my lady,’ Madame declared with the licence of someone who had been measuring the Jarvis ladies for almost ten years.

  ‘Then make everything with ample seams and I will do my best to eat my fill at all the dinner parties,’ Isobel said lightly. ‘Do you think three is a sufficient number of ballgowns, Mama?’

  ‘I thought you were not—that is, order more if you like, my dear.’ Her mother blinked at her, obviously confused by this sudden change of heart.

  One way or another it would be her last Season—either a miracle would occur and she would be courted by a man who proved to be outstandingly tolerant, deeply understanding and eligible enough to please her parents or she would be lying in a stock of gowns she could adapt for the years of spinsterhood to come.

  ‘Aha! All is explained! Lady Isobel is in love,’ the Frenchwoman cried, delighted with this deduction.

  Isobel simply said, ‘And two riding habits.’ She felt empty of emotion. That had to be a good thing. It meant she could lead a hollow life and indulge in all its superficial pleasures for a few months: clothes, entertainment, flirtation. It would satisfy Mama, at least for a while, and it would be something to do, something to fill the void that opened in front of her.

  *

  ‘I am not certain I quite approve of Lady Leamington,’ Lady Bythorn remarked two weeks later as the queue of carriages inched a few feet closer to the red carpet on the pavement outside the large mansion in Cavendish Square. ‘She strikes me as being altogether too lax in the people she invites to her balls, but, on the other hand, there is no doubt it will be a squeeze and all the most fashionable gentlemen will be there.’