The Earl's Mistress (38 page)

“Actually, Lady Petershaw initially told me,” Isabella replied, “not that it was any of my business. It still isn’t. But I can see the two of you are very close.”

Anne looked a little stricken. “But not like
that,
my dear,” she said swiftly. “We are close like cousins. Like brother and sister, almost.”

Isabella nodded. “I understand, Anne, truly.”

“Good.” Anne paused a heartbeat. “In any case, I am glad he invited us here for this little holiday. I’m glad we got to renew our acquaintance, Isabella. And I hope we can remain friends no matter what?”

“No matter what?”

“No matter what happens between you and Tony,” Anne clarified. “The Aldridge family failed you, and I’m very sorry for it. I hope that we can remain friends now. You must come to one of my political salons, perhaps?”

Isabella shook her head. “I sell books now, Anne,” she said. “I’m sure the kind of people you must entertain would have little interest in a shopkeeper from Knightsbridge.”

Anne, to her credit, did not deny this. “Then it is their loss, my dear, but it shan’t be mine, for I intend to keep our friendship somehow,” she said blithely. “So if I cannot involve you in my life, might I pry into yours? Before leaving London, Tony mentioned you’ve had some trouble with your cousin, Lord Tafford.”

Isabella really did not wish to think about it, let alone discuss it. But Anne meant well. “Yes, my cousin has suggested he wishes Georgina and Jemima to live with him,” she said, dropping her gaze to her lap. “Indeed, he has hinted he might try to take them from me.”

“Good Lord!” Anne’s eyes widened. “How can Tafford expect to get away with such a thing?”

Isabella sighed. “He has guardianship of Georgina,” she said, “so technically, he might be able to. But he has never shown the slightest interest in the girls until recently.”

“Then there must be money involved,” said Anne, narrowing her gaze. “With men like Tafford, there always is—your pardon, I know he is your cousin, but the man is a gazetted scoundrel. Your father must have left the child something you don’t know about.”

Isabella shook her head. “Father had nothing that wasn’t entailed—and that was merely Thornhill, with its leaking roof and crumbling barns.”

“Oh,” said Anne. “Well, I am sure you’d know better than I.”

“In any case,” said Isabella, putting her cup down with an awkward clatter, “that was your cousin’s reason for bringing us here. Just . . . to give me a little respite and take the girls beyond my cousin’s reach. That is all, Anne. There will be nothing more than kindness between us after this.”

“And again, my dear, you’d know better than I,” Anne repeated. “But I have agitated you, and I never meant to do that. Here, let me refill our coffee.”

“Thank you,” said Isabella, her gaze following Anne to the sideboard.

Anne lifted the pot and tipped out a graceful stream. “Has my cousin ever told you, Isabella,” she said nonchalantly, “why he and I never married?”

“I’m sure it is none of my concern,” said Isabella.

Anne laughed and put down Isabella’s coffee. “Well done!” she said. “But has he told you?”

“He told me you fell in love with Sir Philip,” Isabella prevaricated.

“And—?” Anne settled a little ponderously back into her chair, then smoothed her loose skirts over her belly. “Pray do not tell me he blamed the whole debacle on me and suggested I was inconstant?”

“No.” Isabella let her gaze drop to the tablecloth. “No, he said that he was. And he told me about Diana. And the . . . terrible things that happened. I shan’t ever repeat it, of course.”

Anne gave a dismissive toss of her hand. “I don’t give a farthing if you do,” she said. “Diana is dead, God rest her soul, and Aunt Hepplewood has gone on to her great reward.”

“You did not like her,” Isabella blurted. “Diana, I mean. I’m sorry; that did not come out well.”

“No, I suppose I did not like Diana,” said Anne musingly. “Aunt Hepplewood was just a product of her generation and class, I suppose. But Diana was always . . .
conniving
. I despise sly people. I should far rather a person be outright venal, and in my face with it.”

Isabella was shocked by Anne’s vehemence. “I beg your pardon,” she murmured. “I was of the impression she was . . . shattered, really.”

“Well, she was mad as a hatter, if that’s what you mean,” said Anne with asperity. “But that does not preclude being sly, does it?”

“Well, no,” Isabella admitted.

“As to Tony’s view, he always did have a blind spot where Diana was concerned—and she played to it, my dear. That wheedling girl nearly ruined his life, and he can feel nothing but guilt and sorrow.”

“But it does sound as if her life was hard,” said Isabella.

“Yes, well, whose is not, at some point?” Anne had warmed to her topic. “Look at yourself, for example.”

“At . . . me?”

“Yes, you,” said Anne, tossing a hand in Isabella’s direction. “You had a difficult marriage and were left an impoverished widow. You were turned out of your own home and burdened with two children to raise. You have learnt to work for a living, when you were brought up to live an entirely different sort of life. Did you consider murdering anyone over it?”

“Well, yes,” Isabella admitted, forcing a smile. “My cousin Everett.”

Anne laughed. “Oh, Isabella, you haven’t got it in you,” she said. “And you certainly have not tried to trick someone who did not love you into marrying you.”

Again, Isabella’s gaze dropped, and she could feel her face warming. “Is that what Diana did?”

“Yes, and she—”

But Anne’s words were cut off by boots thundering back down the main staircase. An instant later, Hepplewood appeared in the doorway, filling it with his height and his shoulders.

“I beg your pardon,” he said in some haste. “Isabella, I fear urgent business calls me back to London. And I think . . . yes, I think that you had better go, too.”

Isabella pushed back her chair a little awkwardly. Hepplewood looked more than a little distracted. A few moments earlier, he had not wished to let her go. Now, it seemed, he could not wait to be shed of her.

“Well, certainly I shall go,” she said, rising. “Thank you for having us. Do we leave at once, then?”

“No, no, in the morning,” he said, waving her back into her chair. “And I do apologize for pressing you. I know ladies require time to—”

“I do not,” Isabella calmly interjected. “I came here on no notice, and I’m quite capable of leaving the same way.”

He turned his gaze on his cousin. “Anne?” he said. “You are welcome to stay, of course.”

“What, with the life of the party leaving?” Anne pushed back her chair. “And taking my new bosom beau with him? Thank you, no. My work here is done.”

“You’re a good sport, cuz.” Then he cut them a little bow. “Well, until dinner then, ladies. I must get a message to Jervis.”

And then he was gone, the hems of his elegant frock coat almost flying out behind him.

Anne and Isabella exchanged uneasy glances.

“Well, that bodes ill,” said Anne, heaving herself up again. “I supposed we’d better get packing.”

CHAPTER
19

I
sabella’s evening passed no less restlessly than her day had done, and even before going up to bed, she knew she was destined to rise on the occasion of her final day at Greenwood Farm with a heavy heart.

As much as she had hoped he might, Hepplewood said nothing of coming to her bed one last time. Indeed, he scarcely spoke throughout dinner and retired to his study immediately thereafter, pleading letters that needed to be written.

Anne waved him off, and together she and Isabella spent the evening flipping through magazines. It was as if Hepplewood’s inexplicable haste to be gone had cast a pall over the ordinarily exuberant crowd, and in the end, Isabella and Anne both went up to bed early.

After tucking the unhappy girls in, and barely forestalling an outright temper tantrum from Lissie over their upcoming departure, Isabella went straight to her room to simply stare at the empty bed and its wicked little night tables. The memories of the previous evening flooded back, making her blush despite the fact there was no one there to see.

She forced the heated memories away, drew on her plainest nightdress and wrapper, then poured herself a glass of wine from the decanter Mrs. Yardley kept filled on the dressing table. Cradling it low, she went to the deep window and stared out into a night so brilliantly moonlit she could see all the way to the wood that spanned the back of the stable yard.

Something Anne had said at breakfast kept nagging at her.

There must be money involved.

And Anne might be right. Perhaps Isabella had needed some distance from Everett in order to question it. Pretty little girls were tuppence a dozen in London, and pretty little tweeny maids could be virtually imprisoned beneath a man’s roof for not much more than that.

Why would Everett go to such lengths over Georgie and Jemma? And why would Lady Meredith keep pressing her to marry him? It had to be more than pride and ruffled feathers.

No, Anne was right, somehow. Isabella’s fear of Everett’s vices had made her panic and jump to conclusions. She had missed the forest for the trees.

Hepplewood would aid her in thwarting Everett and his mother, she’d come to trust, insofar as he was able. But the law was the law, and she had been chasing the matter around in her head for some time now, always returning to the same terrible conclusion.

If Everett followed through with his threat of Chancery, Isabella could see but two choices left to her. Marry Everett in order to stay with the girls. Or sell what was left of her mother’s things and book the first passages to the United States she could get.

Not Ontario, she had decided; the long arm of the British judiciary could too easily reach her there. But the western territories, she’d read, were a lawless wasteland, direly in need of teachers.

It was a sickening thought, leaving England.

Leaving
Anthony.

On impulse, she downed the rest of her wine and, after listening to be sure the household had settled, went down to see if a light still shone beneath his study door. She was not entirely certain what she meant to say, but she needed desperately to see him alone one last time.

At her light knock, he bade her enter, and she went in to find him at his desk.

He was dressed for the ease of his office, without a coat or neck cloth. His shirt was open at the throat, his burgundy silk waistcoat snug and elegant. Crisply starched shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow, revealing the corded muscles of his arms, lightly dusted with dark hair.

Before him, in a pool of lamplight, lay a pair of large, rather ominous-looking sidearms, one of them in pieces. The tang of solvent was sharp in the air.

He had risen at once. “My carriage pistols,” he said in response to her widening eyes. “I’m just cleaning them.”

“Heavens,” she said, circling around to better study the impressive weapons. “Expecting those highwaymen after all?”

His smile was muted. “I just didn’t think you and the girls would have much use for them tomorrow.”

“No. No, I should hope not.”

“Isabella?” She lifted her gaze to see him looking quite intently at her. “Was there something you wanted?”

Yes, you,
she nearly blurted.

But the sight of the large pistols had thrown her—indeed, Hepplewood’s swift change of plans had thrown her, along with his oddly focused mood. And suddenly, she felt hesitant to question his choices.

After all, it was precisely what she’d asked him to do; to take her home to London.

She lifted her eyes to his. “Anthony, may I ask you something?”

“Certainly.”

“This haste to return to Town,” she said, “has it anything to do with Everett?”

He hesitated. “Yes, in a way,” he said. “I’ve had Jervis poking about. He thinks he may have learnt something—I’m not sure what, or precisely what will come of it.”

“But it isn’t about the girls, really, is it?” she said pensively. “Anne got me thinking this morning after you left us at breakfast. She’s less naive, I think, than I.”

He gave a dark laugh. “Anne works with politicians,” he said. “Nothing crushes naiveté more thoroughly, my dear. But what did she say to trouble you?”

“She remarked that Everett’s behavior must have something to do with money,” said Isabella. “Does it?”

He hesitated, a frown tugging at his mouth. “I cannot yet be certain, my dear,” he said. “May we leave it at that for now? Can you trust me to uncover the truth? Isabella,
do you
trust me to deal with Tafford?”

“Yes,” she said, the word coming swift and certain. “You cannot alter the laws of England, of course, but to the extent it is humanly possible—”

“
Humanly possible,
Isabella, suggests something is
impossible,
” he interjected, his voice lethally soft, “when almost nothing is. It’s the sort of thing spineless men say when they don’t want to exert enough effort or spend enough money or suffer enough pain to see a thing through.”

His certainty made her breath catch. “What are you saying?”

“That I will do what I must,” he answered, “to keep your family safe and to keep you happy. Never doubt it.”

He’d said similar things before, but for the first time Isabella realized Hepplewood was not just serious but deadly serious. His words were not platitudes or slick reassurances meant merely to land her in his bed. Besides, she’d already been there—and she’d gone easily, too.

She pressed her shoulders back and found a calmer voice. “You are quite right,” she said, “and I thank you. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve such devotion, but—”

“You are mine,” he interjected, setting the gun down with a heavy
thunk
. “You are mine, Isabella, and those girls, by extension, are mine, too. Just as Lissie is yours. And we look after what is ours.”

“Yes, but—”

“But just think how fast you ran to her when she fell off that wall last week,” he said, gently cutting her off. “How quickly you snatched her up. Then think, Isabella, what you would have done had she fallen the other way—into the path of some carriage barreling round the drive, for example. You’d have flung yourself over, too, I don’t doubt, trying to save her. That’s what we do when something is ours to protect.”