Louise Allen (17 page)

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.’

Isobel contented herself with smoothing the silver net that draped her pale blue silk skirts. A shocking squeeze would mean plenty of partners to dance with, many fleeting opportunities for superficial, meaningless flirtation to give the illusion of obedience to her mother. In large, crowded events she felt safe, hidden in the multitude like one minnow in a school of fish.

Following the scandal of Lord Andrew’s arrest and subsequent disappearance to his country estates, she found herself of interest to virtually everyone she met. Men she had snubbed before seemed eager to try their luck with her again, young ladies gasped and fluttered and wanted to know all about how
ghastly
it had been. The matrons nodded wisely over the sins of modern young men and how well dear Lady Isobel was bearing up.

* * *

‘I do not care any more, so I have suddenly become attractive,’ she said wryly to Pamela Monsom who stopped for a gossip when they met in the ladies’ retiring room. Pamela had been one of the few friends who had stood by her in the aftermath of the scandal, writing fiercely to say that she did not believe a word of it and that men were beasts.

‘It is not just that,’ Pamela said as she studied her, head on one side. ‘Although you are thinner you also look more... I don’t know. More grown up. Sophisticated.’

‘Older,’ Isobel countered.

‘Oh, look.’ Pamela dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘See who has just come in!’

‘Who?’ Isobel pretended to check her hem so she could turn a little and observe the doorway. ‘Who is that?’

The lady who had just entered was exceedingly beautiful in a manner that Isobel could only describe as
well preserved
.
She might have been any age above thirty-five at that distance—tall, magnificently proportioned, with a mass of golden-brown hair caught up with diamond pins to match the necklace that lay on her creamy bosom.

She swept round, catching up the skirts of her black gown, and surveyed the room. The colour was funereal, but Isobel had never seen anything less like mourning. The satin was figured with a subtle pattern and shimmered like the night sky with the diamonds its stars.

‘That, my dear, is the Scarlet Widow,’ Miss Monsom hissed. ‘I have never been this close before—Mama always rushes off in the opposite direction whenever she is sighted. I think she must have had a fling with Papa at some point.’ She narrowed her eyes speculatively. ‘One can quite see what he saw in her.’

For the first time in days Isobel felt something: recognition, apprehension and a flutter very like fear. The wide green eyes found her and she knew Pamela was right: this was the Dowager Marchioness of Faversham, Giles’s mother.

The lush crimson lips set into a hard line and the Widow stalked into the room.

‘She is coming over here!’ Pamela squeaked. ‘Mama will have kittens!’

Isobel found she was on her feet. Her own mother would be the one needing the smelling bottle when she heard about this. ‘Lady Faversham.’ She dropped a curtsy suitable for the widow’s rank.

‘Are you Lady Isobel Jarvis?’ The older woman kept her voice low. It throbbed with emotion and Isobel felt every eye in the retiring room turn in their direction as ladies strained to hear.

‘I am.’

‘Then you are the little hussy responsible for the damage to my son’s face.’

‘I shall ignore your insulting words, ma’am,’ Isobel said, clasping her hands together tightly so they could not shake. ‘But Mr Harker was injured in the course of assisting Lord James Albright to deal with his sister’s errant fiancé who had assaulted me.’

‘You got your claws into him, you convinced him that he must defend your honour and look what happened!’ The Widow leaned closer, the magnificent green eyes so like Giles’s that a stab of longing for him lanced through Isobel. ‘He was
beautiful
and you have scarred him. You foolish little virgin—you are playing with fire and I’ll not have him embroiled in some scandal because of you.’

No, I do not want to feel, I do not want to remember
...
‘I should imagine that Mr Harker has far more likelihood of encountering scandal in your company than in mine, ma’am,’ Isobel said, putting up her chin. ‘If a gentleman obeys an honourable impulse on my behalf I am very grateful, but as I did not request that he act for me, I fail to see how I am responsible.’

‘You scheming jade—’

‘The pot calling the kettle black,’ Isobel murmured. Her knees were knocking, but at least her voice was steady. She had never been so rude to anyone in her entire life.

‘I am warning you—keep your hands off my son.’ By a miracle the Widow was still hissing her insults; except for Pamela beside her, no one else could hear what they were talking about.

‘I have no intention of so much as setting eyes on your son, ma’am, let alone laying a finger on him,’ Isobel retorted.

‘See that is the truth or I can assure you, you will suffer for it.’ Lady Faversham swept round and out of the room, leaving a stunned silence behind her.

‘What dramatics,’ Isobel said with a light laugh. ‘I have never met Lady Faversham before and I cannot say I wish to keep up the acquaintance!’

That produced a ripple of amusement from the handful of ladies who had been staring agog from the other end of the room. ‘What on earth is the matter with her?’ Lady Mountstead demanded as she came across to join them.

‘Her son was injured assisting Lord James Albright to put right an unpleasant situation—I am sure you know to what I refer. The Dowager blames me for some reason.’ But not as much as she blamed herself.

Isobel lingered, working to dampen down the speculation, turn it towards gossip about the scandalous Widow and away from her own affairs. She felt reasonably confident she had succeeded when she left the retiring room, but her mother would be aghast, she knew it.

‘I had best go and find Mama and warn her of that little incident,’ she said to Pamela. ‘If we do not see each other again tonight, you must call, very soon.’

‘I will most certainly do that.’ Pamela was still wide-eyed with speculation. ‘And I expect to hear all about the shocking Mr Harker. But now I suppose I had better go and rejoin my party in the supper room.’ She hurried off.

Thoroughly flustered, Isobel took the other right-hand corridor. It was deserted, badly lit, but she thought it might lead to the end of the ballroom where she had last seen her mother. The temptation to tell her nothing at all was strong, but the gossip would be certain to reach her ears, so she had no choice but to warn her.

She hurried on, head down, trying to think of a way to break the news that she had been accosted, in public, by the Scarlet Widow. ‘Ough!’ The man she had walked right into caught her by both arms to steady her, then, as she looked up, the grip tightened. ‘You!’

‘Me,’ Giles agreed. He did not release her and she stood still in his grasp, not knowing whether that was because she wanted to have his hands on her or because struggling would be undignified.

‘Your face is healing well.’ It was the first thing that came into her head that she dared say out loud.
I love you
or
You abandoned me
or
Take me away with you
or
I hate you
were all impossible. ‘How long have the stitches been out?’ The scars were still red, but the swelling and bruising had gone—soon they would begin to fade.

‘Two weeks.’

‘You look...it makes you look dangerous.’

‘So I have been told.’ Something in his tone suggested that whoever had said so had been female. ‘You appear to be enjoying yourself, Isobel.’

‘Do I? You have been watching me?’

‘You are hard to miss in that gown and when you are so ubiquitous. Dancing every dance, flirting with so many gentlemen. Your heart has quite recovered, I see.’

‘And also whatever of yours was engaged.’ Isobel twisted her right hand out of his light grip and flicked at the trace of face powder on his lapel. ‘The lady favours Attar of Roses, I think.’

‘One of them, as I recall, yes.’ He sounded bored, like a tomcat who could hardly be bothered with the hunt. With his newly broken nose and the scars above the immaculate white linen and complicated neckcloth, he looked like a pirate playing at being a gentleman.

‘Such a bore for you, all these women throwing themselves at you,’ Isobel said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. ‘Still, I suppose you can hardly afford to neglect your admirers—who knows, one of them might be about to persuade her complaisant spouse that she needs her boudoir remodelled.’

‘The lady with the Attar of Roses wants a new library as a present for her husband.’

‘And I am sure she will be at home the entire time to supervise.’

‘Probably.’ He was angry at her jibes. The colour was touching his cheekbones and the green eyes were cold, but the drawl was as casual and as insolent as before. ‘What are you doing in town, Isobel?’

‘The Season. What else?’ She shrugged.

‘I thought that was the last thing you wanted.’

‘That was before a certain gentleman reminded me about the pleasures of the flesh,’ she said, smiling at him when his brows snapped together in a frown. A demon seemed to have taken control of her tongue. ‘I thought perhaps I might be...entertained if I came to London.’

‘And I thought you did not want to marry again.’

‘Were we discussing marriage, Giles?’

‘You little witch. If it is fleshly pleasure you want—’ He tugged on the wrist he still held captive, pulling her against his exquisite silk waistcoat. The lingering scent of roses warred with his citrus cologne in her nostrils and under it was the faint musk of a man who was hot with temper.

And lust, she realised as his mouth came down and his hands trapped her and his lips punished her for defiance. She knew his body and he knew hers. She found she had clenched one hand on his buttock, holding him tight against her. The pressure of his erection sent tongues of flame to the core of her as his mouth left hers and he began to pull at the neckline of her gown, his lips seeking the nipple, his tongue and teeth wreaking havoc with her senses.