Once a Duchess (10 page)

Isabelle couldn’t contain her giddiness as she contemplated the pleasure of shopping for leisure. A mere two months ago, she would have waved away such frivolity as nonsense. Indeed, at that time, any purchase made out of anything other than dire necessity had been quite out of the question. Now, however, she could think of nothing she would rather do than walk down Bond Street with Lily, with no aim to her morning beyond procuring a new pair of kid gloves.

The sun burned off the morning’s clouds, bringing in a lovely afternoon. A light breeze found its way through the London streets to tug at the tendrils of hair peeking out of Isabelle’s fetching new bonnet, straw with silk flowers in a bunch at the brim, matching the lilac spencer she wore over her white muslin dress.

A gentleman Isabelle didn’t recognize doffed his hat and bade them a good afternoon. She noticed the color in Lily’s cheeks as the man continued down the street.

“Who is that?” Isabelle murmured.

“Mr. Reeves,” Lily answered, a small smile spreading over her full lips.

They stepped into the shop while Lily’s footman waited outside. Display tables were spaced at close intervals around the narrow space. Some showcased tempting kid slippers, but Isabelle headed right for her desired target.

She lifted a pair of oyster gloves from among a grouping of white and near-white ones. “What do you think of this pair?”

Lily wrinkled her nose. “Too cold a color for summer.”

Intrigued by the mysterious Mr. Reeves, Isabelle cut a sideways glance at her friend as she returned the gloves to the table. “Has any particular gentleman captured your notice?” At Lily’s wary expression, she continued, “We’ve not been here long, but with you new to town, you must be — ”

“I’ll have you know,” Lily said in a querulous tone, “I’ve no intention of marrying just yet, and I’m under no pressure to do so. Father has decided to let me choose my husband this time — provided he has a title. I find myself not knowing very much about the opposite sex, and I intend to take my time in learning so I might make a sound choice.” Her plum mouth twisted in a smirk.

Isabelle caught the bitter edge to Lily’s last words.
Mister
Reeves didn’t fit the one requirement Mr. Bachman had placed on Lily’s marriage, then. She smiled sympathetically at the taller woman, but Lily just cleared her throat and returned to the task at hand.

“Do you like these?” Lily pointed to a pair made of pink lace.

“Pretty, but not practical for riding.”

“Isabelle? Lord, is it really you?”

Isabelle swung around to see a lovely young lady wearing a fashionable sprig muslin frock, a breezy white pelisse, and a pale pink bonnet accented with white ribbons and daisies. There was something familiar about her face, but Isabelle couldn’t quite place her. The gentleman standing at her elbow, glowering at Isabelle, she recognized at once: Grant Lockwood, Marshall’s younger brother. Which would make the young woman —

“Lady Naomi!” Isabelle forced a bright smile to her face. “What a delightful surprise,” she lied.

The girl beamed as though they were the closest of friends; all the while her brother’s expression vacillated between a strong desire to flee, and an equally strong desire to wring Isabelle’s neck.

“It’s been ever so long since I’ve seen you.” The girl stepped forward and actually took Isabelle’s hands in her own. “I wondered if you would remember me.”

“Indeed,” Isabelle said, her alarm increasing with every passing moment, “I scarcely recognized you. You’ve grown up since we last met. How very pretty you are looking.”

Naomi’s open countenance bespoke nothing but goodwill. Could it be that not the entire Lockwood family held Isabelle in the lowest possible esteem? Isabelle’s nerves began to relax somewhat.

“Lady Naomi,” Isabelle said, “please allow me to present my friend, Miss Bachman. Miss Bachman, Lady Naomi
Lockwood
.” She did not miss the startled expression that flitted across Lily’s face for an instant before her friend turned a sociable smile on Naomi.

Naomi introduced Lily to Grant, who bowed stiffly. He had a brusque greeting for Isabelle.

“This is just too delightful,” Naomi gushed, looping her arm through Isabelle’s. “Tell me, where are you staying?”

“With the Bachmans,” Isabelle replied, inclining her head toward Lily.

“How marvelous,” Naomi said. “I do hope I’ll see you soon.”

Isabelle’s smile faltered. “That’s kind of you, Lady Naomi, but I rather doubt it. I don’t move in the same circles as you.”

Behind Naomi, Grant cleared his throat meaningfully.

Naomi took Isabelle’s hands in hers again, and squeezed them. “It’s been lovely to see you again, Isabelle.” She nodded to them both, then left the shop with Grant.

Isabelle stared after her, unnerved by the encounter.

“Well!” Lily exclaimed. “There’s something we didn’t expect when we left home this morning.”

Isabelle gave her friend a wry smile and shook her head. “I’m surprised Lady Naomi even recognized me. I met her on several occasions, of course, but she was much younger, and it’s been three years.”

She returned her attention to selecting a new pair of gloves. Much of the delight she’d felt in the task had gone. Finally, she settled on a mauve pair to complement her new riding habit. “Still,” she said after they’d stepped back into Bond Street, “it is gratifying to know Naomi has not been entirely poisoned against me.”

“Not at all,” Lily replied. “In fact, she seemed perfectly at ease. She greeted you like a long-lost friend, not as a woman who made a fool of her eldest brother. Lord Grant, however … ” Her voice trailed away.

“He did look rather as though he’d swallowed a particularly sour lemon, didn’t he?” Isabelle acknowledged.

• • •

The encounter had been so far outside the ordinary, by the next morning it had already begun to take on a dream-like quality. And so Isabelle was more than a little surprised when the butler walked into the parlor where the girls were working on their needlework to announce Lady Naomi Lockwood had come to call.

She and Lily set aside their hoops and stood just as Naomi entered wearing a guarded expression.

They exchanged greetings, and Lily invited Naomi to join them. Their guest nervously smoothed her light green skirts.

They were quiet as the maid arrived with tea and served it in china decorated with lavender and pink flowers blooming from sprigs of foliage.

“Her Grace did not accompany you?” Lily asked after the maid left the parlor.

Naomi shook her head. “My maid rode with me. Perhaps I ought not have come. I can see my arrival has distressed you.”

“This is just unexpected,” Isabelle explained. She exchanged looks with Lily.

“I understand,” Naomi said. “However, I came personally because I wanted to issue an invitation for you. It’s rather short notice, but I’m having a supper party on Friday, and I should like nothing more than having the both of you attend.”

Isabelle paused with her teacup halfway to her mouth. “
You
are having a supper party?” she asked dubiously. It was a most unlikely suggestion.

“Well, I’m not hostessing, no,” Naomi admitted.

Isabelle carefully set her teacup into her saucer. “I cannot imagine either your mother or your brother have consented to my attendance.”

“Neither of them knows,” Naomi blurted. A shocked silence followed her daring.

Naomi squared her shoulders and plowed on, “It’s to be a small gathering of only thirty guests, both ladies and gentlemen. My Aunt Janine is acting as hostess, as Mama will be busy with the orphanage committee. Marshall has no plans to attend; he is not the least bit interested in the goings on of silly débutantes, as he calls us. The gentlemen will leave after supper. The ladies will spend the night and we’ll have a breakfast. That’s all. I’ve already written to Aunt Janine, and she agrees there is no problem with your attending, should you so choose.” Naomi brushed a strand of hair off her forehead and exhaled audibly.

Isabelle looked at Lily and barely shook her head.

“Your invitation is most gracious, Lady Naomi,” Lily started. “Unfortunately, I cannot conceive how we can possibly accept,”

“Miss Bachman,” Naomi said, drawing herself up again, as though preparing to argue once more. Isabelle had to admire the girl’s pluck. “Would you kindly excuse us for a few moments?”

Lily turned her brown eyes on Isabelle, questioning. Isabelle nodded.

When Lily had gone, Naomi sprang from her seat and began pacing the room, wringing her hands.

“Lady Naomi,” Isabelle said, concerned at the younger woman’s vexation. “is anything the matter?”

“No,” Naomi said. “Rather, yes. Something is the matter.” She stopped in front of Isabelle, who had to crane her neck back to look the girl in the eye. “Something is dreadfully wrong.”

Isabelle’s curiosity was piqued. She stood and took Naomi’s cold hands. “You’re trembling! What’s happened?”

Naomi lifted her chin. “You called me Lady Naomi.”

Isabelle blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You must not stand on ceremony with me, Isabelle. You are — were — my sister.” Naomi spoke haltingly, a slight frown on her brow.

Isabelle bit her lip, which suddenly wanted to quiver at her former sister-in-law’s kindness. “But I’m not any longer.”

Naomi sank to the couch. Isabelle sat down beside her. “I can’t wrap my mind around the notion,” she said softly. “You became part of our family. How can you no longer be?” Her shoulders stooped slightly and lines creased her brow, as though the question weighed heavily on her mind. “You didn’t do it,” Naomi stated.

“No,” Isabelle said with a shake of her head, “I didn’t.”

Naomi glanced at her hands in her lap. “I knew it. I never believed you’d done what they said you did.”

Isabelle wanted to grab the girl into a hug for her quiet loyalty. Instead, she smiled sadly. “That doesn’t change anything, Naomi. Marshall divorced me. In the eyes of society,” she continued, “I’m an adulteress. It would be improper beyond all recall for you to have me as a guest at Marshall’s home.”

The younger girl’s face drew together in thought. “It’ll be at Bensbury, an hour outside town. No one minds so much in the country.”

Isabelle opened her mouth to protest, but Naomi ran over her again.

“They took you away from me,” she said, suddenly vehement. “When you married Marshall, you became a Lockwood, part of
my
family. You were the sister I never had. That dreadful Lady Lucy Jamison will never feel like family.”

Isabelle drew back, thunderstruck by Naomi’s words. Was Marshall betrothed? “It’s kind of you to say such nice things about me, Naomi, but if your brother is to wed Lady Lucy, you must try to think charitably of her.” The words felt like razors, slicing her up as she said them.

Naomi scowled. “Supposedly, there is an understanding, but I’ve heard nothing of it from Marshall. I pray he doesn’t marry her. What a mistake that would be.”

As flattering as it was to hear Naomi preferred her to Lady Lucy, it wasn’t right to disparage the woman. She picked her words carefully before continuing. “Naomi, is this … ” She gestured back and forth in the space between them. “You coming here, the invitation, is this about you not approving of Lady Lucy?”

The younger woman drew herself up. “Certainly not.”

“Please think about what it is you’re asking,” Isabelle said. “Flouting propriety like this just isn’t done. You cannot know — ”

“I
do
know,” Naomi interrupted, her blue eyes alight with fierce determination. “Everyone treats me like a Ming vase, ready to break at the slightest upset, only to be handled with the most delicate touch. You should see the way Marshall looms over me at balls, like my larger, uglier shadow. It is most provoking!”

Isabelle laughed against her fingers at the image of the unflappable Marshall closely guarding his darling sister.

“Mother treats me like the veriest goose. Just as she does Marshall and Grant, like we lack possession of a sound mind between us, and only she can save us all from ourselves.

“I know I’m not supposed to pursue an acquaintance with you, or even acknowledge you. I wouldn’t have, if Grant had his way yesterday. He was quite vexed with me for speaking to you, you know.” Naomi gave her a look that universally bespoke the ridiculousness of the male sex.

“You mustn’t alienate your family for my sake,” Isabelle said.

Naomi waved her worry away with a hand. “As I said, Isabelle, I am not the ninny they’d like to take me for. I know the rules, and I know that rules are made to be broken. Sometimes,” she amended, smiling wryly. “Perhaps, for the sake of appearances, we cannot see each other regularly, but we can correspond, and we can visit on occasion. Does this not strike you as reasonable?”

Naomi’s words began to spread through Isabelle like the flame of revolution, igniting a heady change of perspective. All these years, Isabelle had punished herself, acting like the cast-off adulteress they all took her for. Though she’d not committed the unpardonable sin for which she was divorced, on some level she’d believed herself deserving of contempt.

For years, she blamed her friendship with Justin as the source of her woes. Had he not visited her at Hamhurst while her husband was away, the circumstances may have been different. Marshall had known about Justin from the start of their unlikely romance and had accepted their friendship without remark.

Since the divorce, she’d taken Justin’s disappearance as evidence of some sort of guilt on his part and hers. But there had been no wrongdoing, other than the impropriety of inviting him without her husband’s knowledge. At the age of eighteen, though, it had been as natural as breathing for Isabelle to call upon her longtime friend for company. She had been naïve, but she’d never been an adultress. No matter what Caro said she’d witnessed in the woodcutter’s cottage, what she’d seen had been Justin tending her injuries, not a tawdry liaison. The fact that Marshall persisted in his refusal to accept the truth did not
change
the truth.