Once a Duchess (31 page)

At the sound of the door, he turned. His hazel eyes crinkled as a broad grin split his face.

“Justin?” Isabelle clapped a hand to her mouth and staggered back against the door. Her eyes widened in stunned disbelief at the vision before her. Her dear friend had been missing for so long, without a word — but here he was, in her parlor!

“Hello, Isa.” He cocked his head to the side in that disarmingly charming way of his. “How are you, darling?”

Isabelle threw herself into his outstretched arms. He grabbed her to his chest in a strong hug. She laughed and laughed while joyous tears poured down her face.

“Oh, my God,” she murmured. “You’re home. I thought I’d never see you again.”

He gave her a tight squeeze and grunted. Then he dropped a kiss on her forehead and pushed her back to arm’s length.

“You look wonderful, Isa. Tell me how you’ve been keeping yourself.”

Isabelle wiped her face with a handkerchief. She sniffed loudly. “How have I been?” she said through her smile and tears. “Are you serious?”

She gestured to a chair. Justin sat, crossing his right ankle to his left knee. Isabelle sank to an adjacent settee.

“You heard about the divorce.”

Justin’s smile fell. He nodded and looked at his shoes.

As happy as she was to finally see her friend, myriad questions that had plagued her for years came bubbling to the surface. She tucked her legs up against her side and leaned toward him. “Where were you?” she asked softly. “I faced the entire House of Lords. My name was shredded in the papers. I lived in exile, Justin.”

He made a clucking sound and a wretched expression crossed his face. “I’m so sorry you had to face that alone, Isa. I should have ignored his threats and stayed close.”

Isabelle’s brow furrowed. “Whose threats? Marshall’s?”

“Yes, at least,” he gave a half-smile and jerked his head to the side, “I thought so. Now I’m not so sure.”

Isabelle’s head reeled. “I don’t understand.”

Justin raised his hands. “I’m hoping you can help me clarify a few things. We’ll get to that. I thought you’d like to know where I’ve been the last several years.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement,” Isabelle said.

“I went to America,” Justin said. “It was made clear to me, in no uncertain terms, I could either expatriate myself or suffer fatal consequences.”

Isabelle startled. “Marshall threatened to
kill you?” Her brow furrowed. “That doesn’t sound like him at all.” Then she remembered how he’d pounced on Viscount Woolsley when he’d asked Isabelle to become his mistress. Maybe he would have been capable of threatening Justin, when he thought he’d been intimate with his wife.

“See for yourself.” Justin produced an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Isabelle. The corners were bent and the edges worn. The broken wax seal was brittle with age, but bore the unmistakable imprint of the Monthwaite crest.

Isabelle scanned the unsigned note, which indeed bore a very threatening message. Something about it though wasn’t right. And then it came to her.

“But Justin,” she said, looking up, “this isn’t — ”

“Da da!” squealed a little voice.

A very small girl wearing a light blue dress took several toddling steps through the parlor door and across the rug before falling to her knees. She resolutely pushed herself up again. Her tiny, rosebud lips pursed in a determined scowl as she half-ran, half-fell toward Justin.

For an instant, Isabelle thought she was daydreaming again, imagining the precocious child.

“There’s my girl!” Justin said in a happy tone. “All clean now?”

Isabelle’s jaw dropped in surprise.

Justin slid from the chair to the floor, his legs sprawled wide. He held his hands out to the little child. She gurgled a laugh when he snatched her up and lavished kisses on her plump cheeks.

“Hello, ma’am.”

A pretty, dark-haired woman about Isabelle’s age followed the baby into the room and made an awkward curtsy.

Isabelle’s questioning eyes flew to Justin. He smiled and shrugged. She stood to greet the newcomer. “Mrs. Miller, I presume?”

Justin clambered to his feet with the small child in his arms. “Isa, this is my wife, Mrs. Rebecca Miller.”

“How do you do,” the woman said in an unfamiliar accent. She curtsied again and wobbled, clearly unaccustomed to such gestures.

Isabelle clasped her hand. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Mrs. Miller,” she said. “Please don’t curtsy, I’m not the queen.” She smiled warmly, hoping to put the woman at ease. Instead, Mrs. Miller’s face flushed pink up to her brunette hairline.

“And this,” Justin hoisted the little girl around to face her, “is Belle.”

Isabelle leaned forward, bringing her face level to Belle’s. The little girl had round, rosy cheeks and a tiny nose. Her eyes were a startling hazel and they peered fearlessly at Isabelle.

“She has your eyes, Justin,” Isabelle murmured.

The girl’s hair was a wispy, honey brown fringe on the top of her head. Isabelle lightly stroked the feathery hair that felt like silk under her fingers. “Hello, darling.”

Belle extended a small hand with bits of fuzz stuck to it and grabbed Isabelle’s nose in a strong grip.

“Ow!” Isabelle yelped in pretend pain.

Belle gave an open-mouthed laugh, revealing eight miniature, pearly white teeth in her gums.

Tears stung Isabelle’s eyes. “Justin, she’s perfection.”

She looked up to his face, which beamed with pride. “Isn’t she?”

“Did you really name her for me?” she asked.

“No,” Justin deadpanned. “She’s named for my other friend Isabelle.”

Isabelle wrinkled her nose. She turned to his wife. “Please, Mrs. Miller, sit down.”

Mrs. Miller sank onto the sofa and smoothed her simple cotton dress with her hands. “Call me, Rebecca, ma’am.”

“Of course,” she acquiesced. “But you must call me Isabelle.”

Bessie arrived with tea. Little Belle crawled around the floor, always staying close to her mother and father. She pulled up on her mama’s skirt, balancing precariously on small, booted feet.

“How old is she?” Isabelle asked as she poured for everyone.

“A year last month,” Rebecca answered, stroking the girl’s head fondly.

An unexpected sadness crept over Isabelle as she watched the mother and daughter’s loving interaction. “I wish I’d known you were coming,” she said, blinking away her despondency. “I’m having the nursery painted. I’d have done it sooner — ”

Justin cut her off with a wave of his hand. “We wouldn’t arrive on your doorstep unannounced and expect to stay with you. There’s a fine inn in the village that will suit.”

“The George?”

“That’s the one,” Justin answered. “Do you know it?”

Isabelle raised her teacup and chuckled. “Yes, I’m familiar with the establishment. It’s a good inn.” She sipped her beverage. “I do hope you’ll stay here, though. It won’t be any trouble at all.”

Rebecca and Justin exchanged a silent communication. Isabelle envied their obvious closeness.

“All right, then,” Rebecca answered. “Thank you so much for your hospitality, ma’am.”

“Dearest, you must not bestow any honorific upon Isa whatsoever,” Justin chided his wife. “You should have seen the way she abused me the one and only time I called her Your Grace — and she was a duchess!”

Isabelle rolled her eyes at his teasing, but then she caught the uneasy expression on Rebecca’s face. The subject of Isabelle’s divorce was clearly made the woman uncomfortable. For that matter, Isabelle thought crossly, she’d never discussed it with Justin; he’d disappeared before it ever transpired. Yet, here he was, teasing her about it like he used to tug her braid.

She felt her temper rise. How could he have let so many years elapse without a single word of communication, and then come waltzing back with his American wife and child to pop in for tea as though it were nothing?

“Why didn’t you write?” The words came out more bitingly than she’d intended them to do. Justin slowly lowered his teacup. “When the baby was born?” Isabelle said, moderating her tone. “Or when you married? I would have liked to have known. Or that you were in America — or alive, for that matter.”

Justin flinched. “I’m sorry.” All the gaiety he’d shown at their reunion evaporated. His shoulders slumped a fraction. He sighed heavily. “Isa, believe me, I’ve argued with myself since the second I set foot on American soil, wondering if I was doing the right thing. I know it can’t have been easy for you. We visited my parents first thing when we got back. Then we went to Fairfax Hall. Alexander told us how awful the trial was.”

Isabelle’s jaw tightened. She didn’t like to think of her brother discussing the particulars of her personal life with anyone, even if it was Justin. He hadn’t been here. What gave him the right to know these things now?

“Part of me wishes I’d never left,” Justin continued. “I don’t know that the two of us could have stood a chance against the Lords, but at least it would’ve been two, and not just you.” His mouth twisted in a bitter expression. Isabelle knew he felt guilty for leaving her alone to face Marshall’s accusations.

“Well,” Isabelle demurred, “if you hadn’t gone, you wouldn’t have met Mrs. Miller.” She smiled and nodded toward the woman. “And sweet Belle wouldn’t be gracing my home with her presence.”

The baby pawed at her mother’s face, oblivious to anyone else. A fresh pang of longing shot through Isabelle like an arrow. She turned on Justin again. “But why didn’t you write at all?”

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his head drooped between his shoulders. He raised his eyes to her hurt gaze. “When your mother-in-law came to Hamhurst, she made those horrible accusations. She said she sent for your husband, and she demanded I leave at once. I didn’t want to go, Isa, I swear. But I feared staying in the house would make things worse for you. So I decided to wait at a nearby inn. Figured between us, you and I could convince Marshall of the truth.”

Justin’s fingers clenched and released. “The next evening, there was a knock on my door. Two big fellows. After that, I don’t remember anything, until I woke up on a ship already at sea, with a lump on my head, a broken nose, and that letter stuffed in my pocket.”

Isabelle’s hand flew to her throat. “My God, Justin!” She grabbed his arm. “Are you all right?”

He chuckled. “I am now. It was a long time ago.” His expression sobered. “All along, I planned to turn around and come right home, despite the threats. When we arrived in Boston, though, the captain gave me this.” He produced another missive and handed it to Isabelle.

The Monthwaite ducal seal had stamped this one, too. Isabelle smoothed the creases out of the paper and began to read. And promptly felt as though she’d been slammed into a wall.

“Me?” Who hated her so much? Her voice raised an octave; there was a hollow ringing in her ears. “Why? What did we ever do to deserve this?”

Rebecca took a porcelain figurine away from the baby. “Isabelle, it’s all right now. Everyone is safe. Justin, do something, for mercy’s sake.”

Her friend took the letter and its unthinkable words away.

“I just don’t understand.” she said. “Threaten me harm if you so much as contacted me? This is unreal.”

“Now you know why I didn’t write,” Justin explained. “I didn’t want to believe Monthwaite would actually hurt you. It just didn’t seem like anything he was capable of. But I couldn’t take a chance, Isa. I wasn’t willing to risk causing you harm.”

“How is it you are back now?” Isabelle asked. “If you were told never to return under pain of your death and mine … ”

Justin exhaled a laugh. “It’s a curious thing. Two months ago, I received a letter from Monthwaite. The third and final epistle in this saga.”

“Two months?” Isabelle’s eyes drifted to the window. For Justin to have received the letter two months ago, Marshall must have sent it after Isabelle left Bensbury.

He pulled another letter from the interior pocket of his coat. As he unfolded the paper he said, “He apologized profusely for accusing us of … ” Justin’s face reddened and his eyes cut to his wife.

“He said what I knew all along,” Rebecca announced stoutly, “that Justin hadn’t done anything wrong. Or you, ma’am,” she added.

Belle twisted around in her mother’s arms. She lunged toward Isabelle, who took her from Rebecca and jostled her on her knee. The little girl gurgled in delight.

Isabelle bent her neck to breathe in Belle’s scent. Her hair smelled faintly of powder. All the upset of the last few minutes faded and the world receded to a hazy background. She could have happily held her friend’s child for the next twenty years.

“Isa?”

Justin’s voice pulled her from her blissful daze. “Hmm?”

“Can you look at this letter? This is what I wanted to ask you about. The handwriting doesn’t match the others. I thought perhaps this most recent letter was a forgery, but the bank draft was good, so it seemed safe.”

“Those first two aren’t Marshall’s hand,” Isabelle said simply. “He did not write those threats. I’m stunned that anyone would, but I knew at once it wasn’t Marshall. He would never kill in cold blood. And he most certainly would never threaten me so.”

Calm certainty spread through her as she spoke. Marshall might be capable of horrible blunders, but he was no murderer.

He frowned. “A secretary, maybe?”

Isabelle snickered. “Really, Justin, how many gentlemen do you suppose have their secretaries scribe their criminal communications? No, Marshall neither wrote nor dictated those.”

Justin extended the third letter. “How about this one?”

She recognized his distinctive hand in the salutation. “That’s Marshall, definitely.”

“Then who wrote the first two?” Justin mused.

Isabelle blew her cheeks out. “If I were a betting woman, I’d put my money on the dowager. She’s gone to excessive lengths over the years to punish me for overstepping my station and marrying her son.” She rolled her eyes. “Obviously, whoever wrote those wanted you to think they were from Marshall. She has easy access to his stationary. I don’t think anything would have actually come of these threats, but even thinking to write them is ghastly.”