“Come now,” he continued, lifting her chin with his finger and kissing her. “Are you going to come with me to London so that we can rout the dowager and catch this person who is hell-bent on terrifying you?” He said the last with a crooked grin.
Isabella shook her head. It was impossible to stay away from this man. Especially when he was at his charming best. Damn him.
“You are absurd,” she said, unable to stop the smile from turning up the corners of her mouth. “I will come with you to London. But you must know that I will want to be as involved as possible when we capture this fellow.”
“Absolutely,” Trevor said with a smile. “I’ll need someone to hide behind, after all.”
Isabella couldn’t help it. She laughed.
* * *
The trip from Yorkshire to London took four days. Because they were traveling without the girls, Trevor made the decision to go as fast as they could given the circumstances. The dowager’s carriage, which had finally been repaired, was following behind Trevor and Isabella’s vehicle and carried their baggage and Isabella’s maid.
He chose not to send a letter ahead of them informing his grandmother of their impending arrival. Surprise was, after all, a tactical advantage, and he was damned if he’d give it up just to make her more comfortable. They stayed at an inn just outside of London on the night before they descended upon Ormonde House. And as he made love to Isabella that night he couldn’t help but feel that tomorrow might bring changes to their relationship that he wasn’t able to foresee. For all that he felt he knew what sort of person she was at her core, there were still aspects of her personality and past that he had yet to learn. And despite what she’d told him about the night his cousin had died, he knew in his gut that there was more to the story than she was telling him.
As the carriage rolled to a stop outside the door of Ormonde House, he pulled her close for a kiss. “Head high,” he told her. “We must approach her as a team, or she’ll try to play us against each other.”
He was not surprised to see Isabella raise one dark brow. “Are you sure you’ve never met your grandmother before?” she asked. “Because that’s just what she’s going to try to do. And I was about to warn you of the fact.”
“I know how manipulative women work,” he said with a shrug. “You’ve met the ladies of Nettledean, haven’t you?”
She grinned and allowed him to hand her down from the carriage.
Pulling her to his side, Trevor straightened his hat and offered his wife his arm. When they reached the top of the steps, the door opened to reveal the dour-faced butler, Timms. “Lady Wharton,” he said, inclining his head. “Whom may I say accompanies you?”
Not letting her respond, Trevor handed the fellow his hat and gloves. “The Duke of Ormonde.”
If the man was surprised by the announcement, he didn’t show it. He merely handed Trevor’s things to a waiting footman, who betrayed his surprise only by a slight widening of his eyes. The servants were well trained, at least, Trevor thought.
“Very good, Your Grace,” Timms said, his stoic expression revealing nothing. “May I say how good it is to welcome you to Ormonde House? We have kept your rooms ready in the event of just such a happy occasion.”
“Excellent. And I trust that you will ensure that my wife’s rooms will be made ready as well,” Trevor told the man, taking Isabella’s hand in his own, lest the butler assume he had some other wife waiting in the wings.
“Of course,” the butler said, inclining his head at another footman. “I’ll have word sent to Mrs. Timms at once.”
He turned his attention to Isabella. “May I be so forward as to wish you happy, Lady … that is, Your Grace?”
“Of course, Timms,” Isabella said with a smile. “I thank you. Now, can you tell us if the dowager is at home this afternoon?”
“She is indeed, Your Grace,” the older man said with a smile. If Trevor wasn’t mistaken, the old fellow looked positively gleeful. In as reserved and restrained a manner as possible, of course. “Shall I have tea sent up to her sitting room?”
Isabella turned to Trevor. “What do you think, darling? Shall we go up?” Trevor knew that what she was really asking was a tactical question. Would they go to the dowager in her own territory, or would they choose some neutral location for their first meeting?
Deciding to let her make the decision, he shrugged. “It’s up to you, my dear.”
She nodded. “Then we’ll have the tea tray in the duchess’s sitting room, Timms.”
“I trust you’ll be able to find your way to the sitting room, Your Grace?”
“Of course,” she said. Then, before he could walk away, she asked, “Timms, can you tell me if the young dowager is in this afternoon?”
“I believe she has gone to pay afternoon calls, Your Grace,” Timms said. “But I feel sure that she will be quite pleased to learn of your return.”
Trevor watched as Isabella stared after the departing butler for a moment. If the man thought it odd that the sister of the previous mistress of the house had now taken her place, he didn’t say it. If Trevor read the situation aright, he would say that the old man was fond of both of them. And not fond of the dowager. Yet another ally, he thought to himself.
“Shall we go up?” Isabella asked him, linking her arm in his. “I must confess that I’m quite famished. Cook makes the most delicious little cakes. I think you’ll like them.”
Somewhat bemused by the entire situation, Trevor allowed himself to be led up the stairs and toward the family rooms.
Eighteen
“What is the meaning of this?” the Dowager Duchess of Ormonde asked, stepping into the sitting room that had once been hers. The new duchess was pleased to see that the knowledge smarted for her godmother, though Isabella did feel a pang of guilt over it. She had chosen to have the dowager’s first meeting with Trevor in these rooms because it had been one of the things she most resented when Perdita married Gervase. Now the dowager would be annoyed by the fact that they’d been passed on to Isabella. Be careful what you wish for, Isabella thought.”You cannot simply order me about like a servant.”
“I hardly call issuing an invitation to tea the equivalent of ordering you about,” Trevor said, rising from his position next to Isabella on the sofa. “And you are hardly the one to complain about being ordered about. I believe it was not so very long ago that you sent Isabella up to Yorkshire to fetch me to London like a recalcitrant schoolboy.”
“Hmmph,” the dowager retorted, lowering herself to the chair on the other side of the tea table with some difficulty. “It was high time for you to take up your duties as the duke. What nonsense for you to bury yourself away in Yorkshire holding on to a grudge that wasn’t even yours to begin with. I was merely reminding you that your duty is to the family.”
If Trevor was expecting to be welcomed with open arms by his grandmother, Isabella thought, he was to be sorely disappointed. Her godmother had never been a demonstrative person, but now faced with the very situation she’d done her utmost to make happen she was still positively glacial.
“And I thought it was to my family that I was showing loyalty by refusing to come to heel,” Trevor said, resuming his seat. “But that’s neither here nor there. I am here now and quite ready to take up the duties of the dukedom.”
“Excellent,” the dowager said with a nod. Not even pausing to take a breath, she went on, “I have a list of excellent ladies who will make the perfect duchess for you. I believe that Lady Marianna—”
If Isabella weren’t so amused, she’d have been shocked. Though she supposed she should have stopped being shocked by the dowager’s behavior long ago.
Trevor cut her off. “I have no need of such a list. I already have a wife.”
The dowager’s eyes hardened. Isabella had seen the very same look precede some of her most heated quarrels with the dowager. Clearly Timms had not told her about Isabella’s marriage to Trevor, which was at once hilarious and terrifying. The dowager on a good day was not altogether pleasant. But the dowager on the day that she realized her greatest wishes had been thwarted was positively catastrophic. Even so, Isabella wouldn’t give up what she was about to witness for love or money.
“Isabella,” the dowager barked, “you may leave us. I am grateful that you were able to persuade my grandson to give up his sheep and come to London to do his duty, but we have much to discuss now.” She inclined her head in the manner of a god granting a prayer. “I will keep your sacrifice in mind when it comes to your sister, have no fear.”
But Trevor found nothing funny about the situation, apparently. “Isabella will remain here with me. As is only right.”
“Well,” the dowager conceded, “I do think it magnanimous of you to allow her to see the fruits of her labor, but there are things we should discuss that only family should be privy to.”
“Yes,” Trevor said patiently. “And Isabella is family.”
“This is foolish,” the dowager said, her patience wearing thin. “Yes, she is the sister-in-law of the former duke, but that hardly makes her—”
Isabella could almost feel sorry for the old woman. If she hadn’t brought the whole business down upon herself, that was.
“No, I mean she is my wife,” Trevor said firmly. “Surely that is enough to earn her a place in this conversation.”
The room grew eerily quiet as the dowager took in Trevor’s words. Isabella could hear the clock on the mantle tick. A costermonger calling out the price of his wares on the street outside. A door creaking in some other part of the house. Silently she slipped her hand into Trevor’s as the dowager opened and closed her mouth like a fish.
“Your,” she began, her voice increasing in volume as the words left her mouth, “your … what?”
To Isabella’s horror, the dowager’s face turned an unnatural shade of purple. “You married him?” she demanded, leaping up from her chair and approaching Isabella with menace. “You were supposed to bring him back to London! Not marry him! Do you know what you’ve done? You foolish, foolish girl!”
Trevor rose as if to stop the dowager from striking Isabella, but to Isabella’s surprise, instead of launching herself at her new granddaughter-in-law, the Dowager Duchess of Ormonde collapsed.
* * *
“She’s sleeping,” Perdita said, quietly closing the door to the old dowager’s bedchamber. Perdita didn’t have her sister’s dark hair and brows. Instead her hair was a lighter shade of brown. They had the same blue eyes, however, and there was something about the arch of their brows and the slant of their cheeks that marked them as siblings. “Dr. Henderson says that she should be kept quiet for the next few days to ensure she doesn’t suffer another attack.”
“How long has she been hiding this?” Isabella asked from her place on the settee. She had been shaken by the dowager’s fit, and Trevor had been surprised and pleased by her quick assessment of the situation. Like most men, he had little knowledge of what to do when someone fell ill, and since he was not acquainted with the dowager, he had no way of knowing if the collapse was due to something she often suffered from or if it was a new occurrence. Resuming his seat beside Isabella, he watched as Perdita tried to frame a response to her sister’s question, perching on a chair opposite them.
“I believe she has been having little spells for some time now,” Perdita admitted, pouring herself a cup of tea from the pot on the table between them. “You know how proud she is, Isa,” she said with a shake of her head. “I would not be surprised if this was something she’s been hiding from us for a year or more.”
“Since your husband’s death, you mean?” Trevor asked. He was not surprised to see both women blanch, considering the way that the late duke had died, but Trevor was beginning to understand why his grandmother had been so adamant about him coming to London to assume the role of the duke.
If she was cowed by the question, Perdita didn’t allow it to enter her voice, however. “Yes,” she continued, “I suspect that the shock of his death was likely the incident that caused her to suffer her first spell. She took his death quite hard. Even knowing what a…” She paused, obviously trying to come up with some delicate way to describe her late husband.
“He knows, Perdy,” Isabella told her with a glance at Trevor. “I told him everything. About that night.”
Perdita looked from Trevor to Isabella, her creamy complexion turning paler. She swallowed before saying, “I suppose you had to.”
“He is my husband,” Isabella said, lacing her fingers through Trevor’s. He felt a lump form in his chest. But her next words made it dissolve. “And he is the duke, so if there is any danger of our being prosecuted he will stand up for us.” Suddenly their hasty marriage—despite his own insistence upon it—took on a different complexion altogether.
“Quite,” he drawled. “I will certainly ensure that you do not hang for murder. At the very least.”
He felt a fool for not seeing the possibility sooner. It had simply never occurred to him that Isabella might have orchestrated their reasons for marrying. She’d seemed so resistant to marrying again. Could that have truly been an act?
Now was hardly the time to consider the matter, however. There were other things to consider.
Beside him, Isabella had the grace to blush. Whether it was guilty or not he could no longer trust himself to decide. “I didn’t mean it like—”
But he cut her off, not wishing to hear excuses now, asking Perdita, “If the dowager has been ill all this time, who has really been running the Ormonde estates?”
“She has, for the most part,” Perdita said, though she looked a bit uncomfortable at the byplay between Isabella and Trevor. “And you, I suppose. Also, I believe a great deal of the estate business has been handled by Archer.”
“The duke’s—rather my—secretary.” It wasn’t a question. He’d found, through their correspondence, that Lord Archer was a competent and at times brilliant secretary, maintaining both the estates and the at-times-complicated management of the various dependents on the dukedom with a light but firm hand. “He resides here, does he not?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Perdita said with a slight blush. “I believe he is currently in his—I mean your study.”