The Earl's Mistress (26 page)

“He was most insistent,” said Isabella. “He said that since I was uncomfortable going there with him, he would invite others, too. He seems to want to keep the girls far from Everett. I believe he fears Everett is up to something wicked.”

“Of course Everett is up to something wicked,” said the marchioness brusquely, “for he always is. Fortunately, he is also stupid. And Tony is . . . oh, heavens . . . but surely, I must be right?”

“Right?” Isabella’s brow furrowed. “About what?”

“About Tony,” the marchioness said, tapping one finger on her perfectly powdered cheek. “Yes, yes, just so, my dear girl. The earl is going to ask you to marry him. He would not be inviting his daughter and his family were it otherwise.”

Isabella drew back, horrified. “Oh, ma’am, I am sure he does not mean to do any such thing.”

“I am very sure he does not,” agreed the marchioness, “but I am equally sure that he will.”

Isabella felt her brow furrow. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, never mind that,” said Lady Petershaw, pushing away the tea. “Men rarely know what they are thinking until it blurts from their lips—or their wives tell them. Tomorrow, did you say? You had better get packing, my dear—and you will, of course, pack those things I sent you to purchase from Madame Foucher’s?”

Isabella opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Well, I had not thought on it,” she said. “I believe his purpose is more to keep the girls away from Everett’s grasp.”

“And to get
you
within
his
grasp, you pretty fool,” said Lady Petershaw. “Oh, I know that is not what he
said
. It might not even be what he
meant
. But it is what he
wants,
and it is what he will
get
.”

“Oh, dear,” said Isabella. “Is it?”

But she already knew the answer to that—and knew that, in her heart, it was what she hoped for.

Moreover, the marchioness had already risen. “Well, hurry along, my dear Mrs. Aldridge,” she said, waving her hastily toward the door. “Yes, yes, go home at once! And pack your tarty underthings, my girl—or I shall be utterly ashamed of you!”

IT WAS TO
prove very difficult, Isabella soon realized, to explain to Mrs. Barbour and Jemima just how she had come to be friends with the Earl of Hepplewood—near enough friends, in fact, to travel alone with the man to his farm in the rural countryside.

In the end, she told Barby something of the truth; that she had become acquainted with the gentleman after having interviewed with him for the position of governess. And that through his friendship with the Marchioness of Petershaw, Hepplewood had come to share her suspicions of Everett and wished to remove the girls from London for a few days.

It did not suffice, of course; the servant merely sniffed disdainfully and said that her mistress must do as she pleased, but that she was very sure no good would come of it. All this said, of course, just before she hugged Isabella and pressed a basket of sandwiches into her hand.

That little exchange had been painless compared to Jemima’s puzzled expression the previous evening. The girl had seen, if not quite heard, much of Isabella’s anguished conversation with Lord Hepplewood, and Isabella could sense that it had left Jemima troubled.

“Just try to trust me, Jemma, to know what’s best,” Isabella explained as they packed the last of their things on Tuesday morning. “Lord Hepplewood is a gentleman, and he merely wishes you and Georgina to have a little holiday in the country.”

“Don’t try to deceive me, Bella,” said Jemima softly. “It’s more than that, I know. But to travel alone with a man we so recently—”

But they were not to travel alone, for just then, a knock sounded.

Eager to escape Jemima’s solemn gaze, Isabella hurried down to find a pretty—and apparently pregnant—blonde on her doorstep. The lady wore a sky-blue gown and a riot of gold curls topped with a wide-brimmed hat turned dramatically up on one side, and pierced with a curling white feather.

“Isabella!” said the lady warmly, offering her gloved hand, “what a pleasure to see you again.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Isabella, taken aback. “Have we . . . ?”

“Oh, heavens, yes, but I was far thinner!” The lady laughed, showing rows of lovely white teeth. “I’m Anne Tarleton—or was. You came out the year after me. We are cousins, actually, of a fashion.”

Isabella was turning the name over in her mind when she realized that children were clambering out of the massive and very luxurious traveling coach parked before her shop.

“Mamma, a book about trains!” said the eldest, practically flinging himself at Isabella’s shop window. “Look! Look! That’s a Great Western engine on the front!”

“Stand up straight, Harry, and stop smudging the glass,” said his mother, snapping her fingers. “Get over here and make your bow to your cousin Isabella.”

Harry leapt to it and cut a very pretty bow, his blond curls and sharp blue eyes so familiar to Isabella that her stomach did a little twist. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

Cousin Isabella?

“Bertie?” Brow furrowed, the lady was looking about. “Caroline, where has Bertie gone?”

The apparent Caroline, a tall girl who was carrying a much younger one on her hip, turned to look. “Down the street,” she said, pointing. “He’s seen a dog.”

“Bertie!” shouted Anne Tarleton, “get back here this instant.”

“May I look at the book now?” said Harry.

“You have a lot of children,” uttered Isabella, trying not to stare at her rounding belly.

“Oh, I have another in the carriage asleep,” said Anne. “But Caroline—Caroline, darling, bring Deanna here, and go fetch Bertie—Caroline is not mine but another cousin.”

“Actually, I think this is Deborah,” said Caroline, handing the girl to her mother. Then she paused and made a quick curtsy to Isabella. “A pleasure, ma’am. I’ve heard such lovely things about you.”

And then the girl was off down the street, chasing after the boy and the dog, who now appeared to be busy sniffing one another’s private parts on the corner of Brompton Road.

“In any case,” said the lady, shifting Deborah/Deanna to the other hip, “Tony is sending his coach behind me. I thought we might convoy up to Greenwood—all the better to avoid highwaymen, you know.”

“Highwaymen?” Isabella was feeling increasingly off balance.

The lady laughed. “Oh, just kidding!” she said. “I see my own toes, I daresay, more often than Buckinghamshire sees highway robbery—neither, of course, occurring with any frequency. Oh, hello? Who is this?”

Isabella realized that Jemima had crept down and was standing in the shadows behind her. “Why, this is my stepsister, Jemima Goodrich,” Isabella managed. “ ‘Jemma’ for short. Jemma, this is—” She stopped, uncertain how to introduce the lady.

Deanna/Deborah was now chewing off the tip of her mother’s feather. Oblivious, the lady turned. “Hoo, Caroline, come back,” she shouted. “Here is Miss Goodrich, whom Tony speaks so well of.”

“How kind of him,” murmured Isabella.

Anne turned her toothy, radiant smile on Jemima. “Hello, Jemma. I’m Lady Keaton, your sister’s distant cousin,” she said. “We used to know one another a little when we were young.”

“And how, precisely, are you related?” asked Jemima, who was no one’s fool.

Anne turned her gaze inward. “Well, I’m actually more Lord Hepplewood’s cousin,” she said, “for we’re related by blood. But I married Sir Philip Keaton, who was—now, let me count back—yes, a grandson of the
fourth
Earl of Fenster.”

Isabella’s gasp must have been audible.

Anne’s gaze sharpened, and met hers. “And the fifth earl is your father-in-law, is he not, Isabella?” she said evenly. “He is on his deathbed, in case you weren’t aware.”

“I . . . no, I was not,” Isabella managed.

Anne shrugged. “Well, his life was a tragedy,” she said, “some of which he brought upon himself. In any case—where has Caroline got to?”

“Down there, wrestling with Bertie and his dog.” Harry had his nose pressed to Isabella’s window again and had blown a great cloud of fog upon the glass.

But Isabella was scarcely aware, for her heart was thumping in her chest, the blood draining from her face.

“It is not Bertie’s dog,” said Anne a little hotly.

“It could be,” Jemima interjected. “It’s a stray. Mrs. Barbour has been feeding it scraps, but it doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“Really?” Harry brightened and pulled away from the window. “Bertie,” he bellowed, starting down the street, “bring the dog. We can have him, Jemma says.”

“Caroline Aldridge,
do not
let Bertie bring that dog up here,” commanded Anne.

But Isabella heard all this as if from a great distance. Just then, the jingling of harnesses sounded, and another large coach rumbled in from Brompton Road, driven by Hepplewood’s elderly coachman.

“Oh, here is Marsh with Tony’s carriage,” said Anne, sounding relieved. “Just in time, too. Lissie will be in it—and Nanny Seawell, of course—and my maid, Nell, whom I sent down with a message.” She stopped, and began to count heads. “Oh, dear. Will we fit?”

“I imagine,” said Isabella numbly.

Anne was frowning. “I shall put Nell with me,” she said, “and Caroline with you. I thought, you see, that she and Jemima might get on. Tony is going up on horseback. He could, perhaps, take Bertie up. Ah, there he is now, on Colossus.”

“Shall I fetch Georgie?” asked Jemima, already starting up the stairs.

“I . . . uh, yes, Jemma,” Isabella managed, “thank you.”

Lord Hepplewood had rounded the corner on the massive bay she’d seen thundering off into the mist during her first visit to Greenwood. The earl wore the same sweeping black duster and knee-high black boots, too. On his head was not his usual top hat but one more soft and broad-brimmed, and better suited for shading the eyes during a long journey on horseback.

As to the horse, Colossus was no misnomer; the creature stood some seventeen hands, by Isabella’s estimate, with eyes that glittered as dangerously as his owner’s. Isabella watched their approach with trepidation. She had lost track of names, cousins, and children in general—for the word
Fenster
had struck her nearly dumb and sent her thoughts skittering like marbles.

He drew up, the still-fresh horse dancing sideways across the road. After sweeping a faintly heated look down Isabella’s length, he reined the creature under control, then flung his leg over his saddle and began to bark out orders.

The street became a hive of activity; coachmen hopping down, footmen fetching luggage, and children clambering back into carriages under the instruction of an elderly woman in a starched white cap.

The boys, Isabella vaguely realized, were busy cramming the dog into the first carriage, and Lady Felicity was hanging half out the second, shouting rather imperiously that Georgina should be brought to her at once.

Jemima led Georgina out at that moment and climbed up into Hepplewood’s carriage, but her expression was still uncertain. It was on the tip of Isabella’s tongue to order them out again when Caroline Aldridge climbed in, flashing Jemima a shy smile.

It was too late.

To flee now would be as embarrassing as facing the ugliness.

Anne’s footman brought down Isabella’s last bag, and suddenly Hepplewood was at her side, slipping an arm beneath her elbow.

“Isabella?” He drew off his hat, dipping his gaze to catch hers. “You’re pale as a ghost.”

“W-we must talk,” she said.

He pulled her through the door and into the shadows of her tiny vestibule, pushing the door shut behind. “Is it Anne? Look, I know she can be overwhelming,” he said, gently tipping Isabella’s chin up with one finger. “Look at me, love. What’s happened?”

“
She is married to Sir Philip Keaton,
” said Isabella almost accusingly. “He is—
was
—my husband’s cousin.” She set her fingertips to her temples. “My God, this is a nightmare.”

“Shush, my dear,” he said, pulling her into his embrace. “It does not matter.”

“It
does
matter,” said Isabella harshly, her hands fisting against his chest. “This—this is just one of a hundred reasons I stay out of society. Anthony, that family hates me. They said . . . dear heaven, they said I
murdered Richard
.”

He set his chin atop her head and held her close. “
They
said no such thing,” he replied. “
Fenster
said it, the poor, half-crazed bastard. But no one believed it then, my dear, and they certainly don’t believe it now.”

“Well, for a rumor so strongly discounted, it certainly got round pretty thoroughly,” said Isabella bitterly. “Moreover—wait, you
knew
of this connection?”

But she should not have been surprised, she realized. Hepplewood seemed to know all her most intimate secrets.

“Anne mentioned it, yes,” he said, “and she also mentioned that Sir Philip hasn’t spoken to his uncle since. I think it’s part of the reason she agreed to come along, my dear. Perhaps she imagines the family owes you something?”

“Those people don’t owe me a damned thing,” snapped Isabella, “save to be left in peace.”

She tried to push away, but Hepplewood held her tight. “Wait,” he ordered.

“Let me go,” she said hotly, her confusion burning down to righteous indignation. “We will be seen like this.”

That seemed to irritate him. “Shush,” he said again, his arms banding even more tightly about her. “If we’re seen, what of it?”

“I couldn’t bear it, that’s what,” she said into his shirtfront. He smelled of starch and man and sandalwood—of
Anthony
—and suddenly, she wanted to sob.

What of it?

Did he not understand? She was in love with him—desperately, madly so.

Yet she could not be his mistress. And she would never be his wife; Lady Petershaw was dead wrong on that score. Worse, he apparently knew everything about her. Simply everything. It felt as though there was nothing—not one small thing—she would ever be able to hold back from him. And she wondered if she even wished to.