Louise Allen (2 page)

‘Catherine, Anne and Philip will have been sorry not to be here to greet you.’ The countess moved about the room, shifting the little vase of evergreens on the mantelpiece so it reflected better in the overmantel mirror and checking the titles of the books laid out beside the bed. ‘We did not expect you to make such good time in this weather so they went out after luncheon to call on their old governess in Royston.’

‘Cousin Elizabeth.’ On an impulse Isobel shut the connecting door to the dressing room and went to catch the older woman’s hand so she could look into her face. ‘I know you wrote that you believed my account of the affair—but was that simply out of your friendship for Mama? You must tell me honestly and not try to be kind. Mama insisted that you would never expose your daughters to a young woman who had participated in a veritable orgy, but I cannot help but wonder if you perhaps think that there was no smoke without some flicker of fire?

‘Do you believe that I am completely innocent of this scandal? I feel so awkward, thinking you might have reservations about my contact with the girls.’ She faltered to a halt, fearful that she had been gabbling. Guilt for sins past and hidden, no doubt. But this scandal was here and now and the countess, however kind, had a reputation for strict moral principles. It was said she did not even allow a beer house in the estate village.

‘Of course I believe you would never do anything immoral, Isobel.’ Her conscience gave an inward wince as the countess drew her to the chairs set either side of the fire. ‘But your mother was so discreet I have no idea exactly what transpired. Perhaps it is as well if I know the details, the better to be prepared for any gossip.’

Isobel stared into the fire. ‘When Lucas died I was twenty. I stayed in the country for almost a year with my old school friend Jane, who married Lucas’s half-brother. You will recall that he drowned in the same accident. Jane was pregnant, and their home was so remote: it helped both of us to be together.

‘I wanted to remain there, but Mama felt strongly that I should rejoin society last year because I had missed two Seasons. I hated it—I was older than the other girls, none of the men interested me in the slightest and I suppose I allowed it to show. I got a reputation for being cold and aloof and for snubbing gentlemen, but frankly, I did not care. I did not want to marry any of them, you see.

‘Mama thought I should try again this year and, to ease me in, as she put it, I went to the Harringtons’ house party at Long Ditton in January. I knew I was not popular. What I did not realise was that what might have been acceptable in a beauty with a vast fortune was merely regarded as insulting and irritating in a tolerable-looking, adequately dowered, second daughter of an earl.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Lady Hardwicke murmured.

‘Quite,’ Isobel said bitterly. ‘It seems that instead of being discouraged by my snubs and lack of interest, some of the gentlemen took them as an insult and a challenge and resolved to teach me a lesson. I was sitting up reading in my nightgown late one night when the door opened and three of them pushed in. They had all been drinking, they had brought wine with them and they were bent, so they said, on “warming me up” and showing me what I had been missing.’

A log collapsed in a shower of sparks, just as one had in the moment before the door had burst open that night. ‘I should have screamed, of course. Afterwards the fact that I did not seemed to convince everyone that I had invited the men there. Foolishly I tried to reason with them, send them away quietly before anyone discovered them. They all demanded a kiss, but I could see it might go further.

‘I pushed Lord Halton and he collapsed backwards into a screen which smashed with the most terrific noise. When half-a-dozen people erupted into my room Halton was swigging wine from the bottle where he had fallen, Mr Wrenne was sprawled in my chair egging on Lord Andrew White—and he had me against the bedpost and was kissing me, despite my struggles.

‘One of the first through the door was Lady Penelope Albright, White’s fiancée. No one believed me when I said I had done nothing to encourage the gentlemen, let alone invite them to my room. Lady Penelope had hysterics, broke off the engagement on the spot and has gone into such a decline that her parents say she will miss the entire Season. Lady Harrington packed me off home at dawn the next day.’

‘Oh, my dear! I could box Maria Harrington’s ears, the silly peahen. Had she no idea what the mood of the party was? I suppose not, she always had more hair than wit.’ Lady Hardwicke got to her feet and paced angrily to the window. ‘And what now? Do your parents think this will have died down by mid-April when we go to Ireland and you return home?’

‘They hope so. And I cannot run away for ever. I suppose I must face them all some day.’ Isobel put a bright, determined smile on her face. The thought of going into society again was daunting. But she could not live as a recluse in Herefordshire, she had come to accept that. She had parents and a brother and sister who loved her and who had been patient with her seemingly inexplicable desire to stay away for far too long.

She might wish to be removed from the Marriage Mart, but not under these humiliating circumstances. And London, which she enjoyed for the theatres and galleries, the libraries, the shops, would become a social minefield of embarrassment and rejections.

‘That is very brave,’ the countess said. ‘I could call out all those wretched young bucks myself—such a pity your brother is too young to knock their heads together.’

‘I would certainly not want Frederick duelling at sixteen! It is not as though I feel any pressing desire to wed. If I had found a man who was the equal of Lucas and this had caused a rift with him, then I would have something to grieve over, but as it is...’
As it is I am not faced with the awful dilemma of how much of my past life to reveal to a potential husband
.

Chapter Two

I
sobel stared into the fire and finally
said the things she had been bottling up inside. She had tried to explain at
home, but it seemed her mother would never understand how she felt. ‘I suppose I
should be fired up with righteous indignation over the injustice of it all. I
was so hurt and angry, but now I feel no spirit for the fight any more. What
does it matter if society spurns me? I have not felt any burning desire to be
part of it for four years.’

She bit her lip. ‘The men believe I am putting on airs and
think myself above them, or some such foolishness. But the truth is, even if I
did wish to marry, they all fail to match up to my memories of Lucas. I still
remember his kindness and his intelligence and his laugh. People say that memory
fades, but I can see his face and hear his voice.’

‘But you are no longer mourning him, only regretting,’ the
countess suggested. ‘You have accepted he is gone.’

‘Oh, yes. I know it, and I have accepted it. There was this
great hole full of loss and pain and now it is simply an empty ache.’ And the
constant nagging doubt—had she done the right thing in those months after
Lucas’s death? The decisions had seemed so simple and yet so very, very
hard.

‘I do not want to go through that again. Or to settle for
something less than I felt for him.’ Isobel turned, reached out to the older
woman. ‘Do you understand? Mama does not, she says I am fanciful and not facing
up to reality. She says it is my duty to marry.’

‘Yes, I understand.’ Lady Hardwicke gave her hand a squeeze.
‘But I should not give up on men
quite
yet,’ she
added with a shake of her head. ‘Do you mind if I tell Anne in confidence what
happened at the house party? She is almost eighteen now and will be making her
come-out in Dublin. She might pick up something from gossip in friends’ letters
and I would have her know the truth of matters. It will serve as a warning to
her.’

‘To fawn on young gentlemen in case they turn on her?’ Isobel
enquired.

‘To lock her bedroom door at night and to scream the moment she
feels any alarm,’ the countess said with a smile.

‘No, I do not mind.’ Isobel returned the smile. The older woman
was right to reprove her for that note of bitterness. If she became a sour old
maid as a result of this, then those rakes would have made her exactly what they
jeered at her for being.

‘I will have tea sent up and hot water. Relax and rest until
dinner time, then you will feel strong enough to face at least some of my brood.
Charles and Caroline must have nursery tea and wait until the morning to meet
you, but I will allow Lizzie and Catherine to have dinner with us, and Anne and
Philip will be there, of course.’

‘And the architects?’ Isobel asked with studied
nonchalance.

‘Yes, they will join us. Mr Soane will travel back to London
tomorrow. It is never easy to persuade him to stay away from his wife and his
precious collection of art and antiquities in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, but Mr
Harker is staying. I confess, I wish he were not
quite
so good looking, for the girls are all eyes and attitudes
whenever they see him, but to do him credit, he gives them not the slightest
encouragement, which is just as well, considering who he is.’

She swept out, adding, ‘Do not hesitate to ring if you need
anything, my dear, I am so pleased to have you here.’

Isobel sank back into the chair, puzzled.
Who Mr Harker is? He was an architect, but so was Mr Soane.
Architects of good breeding—or even the sons of
bricklayers like Mr Soane, if they were cultivated and successful—were perfectly
acceptable socially, even at the dining table of an earl.
Mr Harker’s accent had been impeccable, his manners—if one left aside
his hostile gaze—without reproach, his dress immaculate. He was a gentleman,
obviously, and as eligible as a houseguest as Mr Soane. But who
was
he?
Isobel shrugged.
‘Why should I care?’ she asked the crackling fire. ‘He is insufferable whoever
he is.’

* * *

The clock in the inner hall struck seven as Isobel
reached the foot of the stairs. Where was everyone? There were no footmen to be
seen and the doors ahead and to the right were closed, giving her no clues.

‘If you say so...’ A low masculine rumble. At least two of the
party were down already, she realised with relief. It was always so awkward,
standing around in a house one did not know.

Isobel followed the voices into the front hall and realised
they came from the rooms to the left of the entrance. The cues lying on the
billiard table in the first hinted that perhaps some of the gentlemen had only
recently left. The conversation was clearer now, coming from the room beyond.
The door stood ajar.

‘...pleasant young lady, she will be companionship for Lady
Anne, no doubt.’ That was Mr Soane. Isobel stopped in her tracks. Was he talking
about her?

‘She is a good six years older than Lady Anne,’ Mr Harker
replied with disastrous clarity. ‘One wonders what she is doing unwed, although
I imagine I can hazard a guess. She has too bold an eye—no doubt it attracts the
wrong sort of attention, not honourable proposals.’

‘You...’
Isobel bit back the words
and applied her eye to the crack between door and hinges.

‘You think she might prove to be an embarrassment?’ the older
man asked. He sounded concerned. ‘I have seen the lengths you have to go to to
prevent young ladies from becoming...um, attached.’

‘I have no intention of allowing her to so much as flirt with
me. She was staring in the most brazen manner in the hall—presumably she thinks
it sophisticated. That, or she is on the shelf and signalling that she is open
to advances.’

Harker was strolling around the room, looking at the pictures
that hung on the panelling. For a moment the exquisite profile came into view,
then he vanished with a flick of dark blue coat tails.

You arrogant, vain swine!
Isobel’s
fingers uncurled, itching to slap that beautiful face.

‘I do hope not.’ A slice of Soane’s long, dark countenance
appeared in the slit, furrowed by a frown. ‘Lady Hardwicke would be most upset
if there was any untoward flirtation. You know her reputation for high
standards.’

‘And it would rebound on you by association, Soane, as I am
your protégé. I have no intention of risking it, have no fear. It is hardly as
if she offers irresistible temptation in any case.’ Both men laughed, covering
Isobel’s gasp of outrage.

‘A pity gentlemen cannot have chaperons in the same way as the
ladies,’ Soane remarked. ‘Being a plain man myself, I never had any trouble of
that kind. Find yourself a wife, preferably a rich one, and settle down as I
have, that is my advice, but I have no doubt you enjoy your freedom and your
dashing widows too much, eh, Harker?’

‘Far too much, sir. Besides, finding the right wife, in my
circumstances, will take more application than I am prepared to expend upon it
just now.’

As if anyone would have you!
The
words almost left Isobel’s mouth as the sound of their voices faded away. Her
vision was strangely blurred and it took a moment to realise it was because her
eyes had filled with tears of anger and hurt. It was so unjust to be stigmatised
as a flirt, or worse, simply for staring at a man. And then to be labelled as
on the shelf
and too ordinary to offer any
temptation to a connoisseur, such as Mr Harker obviously considered himself to
be, was the crowning insult.

It took a few moments to compose herself. Isobel turned back
the way she had come, unwilling to risk walking into them again. Was that
cowardice or simply the wisdom to keep well away from Mr Harker while her palm
still itched to slap him?

There was a footman in the hall when she emerged. ‘May I help
you, my lady? The family is in the saloon, just through here, ma’am.’

Ushered back through the inner hall, Isobel found herself in a
pleasant room with a large bay window. It was curtained now against the February
darkness, but she assumed it would look out onto the gardens and park stretching
off to the north.

The earl was poring over what looked like architectural
drawings with Mr Soane and a fresh-faced youth was teasing a giggling girl of
perhaps twelve years—Lord Royston and Lady Lizzie, she guessed.

The countess sat on a wide sofa with Lady Anne and her
fifteen-year-old sister, Catherine, who were making a show of working on their
embroidery.

Mr Soane must have come through a connecting door, but there
was no sign of the viper-tongued Mr Harker. Where was he? Isobel scanned the
room, conscious of butterflies in her stomach. The evidence of nerves gave her
another grudge against Mr Perfection.

The children saw her first. ‘Ma’am.’ Philip bowed. ‘Welcome to
Wimpole Hall.’

‘Are you our Cousin Isobel?’ Lizzie was wide-eyed with
excitement at being allowed to a grown-up party. Isobel felt her stiff shoulders
relax.
He
was not here and the children were
charming.

* * *

Giles Harker straightened up from his contemplation of
the collection of Roman
intaglio
seals in a small
display table set against the wall. Lady Isobel had entered without seeing him
and he frowned at her straight back and intricate pleats of brown hair as she
spoke to Philip and Lizzie. She was a confounded nuisance, especially in a
household presided over by a lady of known high standards. Lady Hardwicke’s
disapproval would blight his chances of commissions from any of her wide social
circle. She might be a blue-stocking and a playwright, but she was the daughter
of the Earl of Balcarres and a lady of principle.

The Yorke daughters were charming, modest and well behaved, if
inclined to giggle if spoken to. But this distant cousin was another matter
altogether. At his first sight of her a tingle of recognition had gone down his
spine. She was dangerous, although quite why, Giles would have been hard pressed
to define. There was something in those wide grey eyes, her best feature. Some
mystery that drew his unwilling interest.

Her frank and unabashed scrutiny had been an unwelcome surprise
in an unmarried lady. He was used to the giggles and batted eyelashes of the
young women making their come-outs and made a point of avoiding them. His birth
was impossibly ineligible, of course, even if his education, style and income
gave him the entrée to most of society. But he was unmarriageable and dangerous
and that, he was well aware, was dinned into the young ladies he came into
contact with.

Yet those very warnings were enough to make some of them think
it irresistibly romantic that the illegitimate son of the Scarlet Widow was so
handsome and so unobtainable.

For certain married ladies Giles Harker was not at all
unobtainable—provided his notoriously capricious choice fell on them. Something
the son of the most scandalous woman in society learned early on was that one’s
value increased with one’s exclusivity and he was as coolly discriminating in
his sins as his mother was warmly generous in hers. Even in her fifties—not that
she would ever admit to such an age despite the incontrovertible evidence of an
adult son—her heart was broken with delicious drama at least twice a year. His
remained quite intact. Love, he knew from observation, was at best a fallacy, at
worst, a danger.

Lord Hardwicke and Soane straightened up from their litter of
plans, young Lord Royston blushed and the countess smiled. ‘Come in, my dear.
Philip, bring that chair over to the sofa for Cousin Isobel.’

Giles watched as she walked farther into the room with an
assurance that confirmed him in his estimate of her age. ‘Thank you, Lord
Royston,’ she said as he brought her chair. ‘And you are Lady Lizzie?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I think I must be Cousin Isobel to you and Philip, for your
mama assures me we are all related. Will you take me and introduce me to your
sisters?’

Giles let the lid of the display table drop for the last
fraction of an inch. Lady Isobel turned at the small, sharp sound. There was a
friendly smile on her lips and it stayed, congealed into ice, as her gaze passed
over him without the slightest sign of recognition.

A most-accomplished cut direct. It seemed an extreme reaction.
He had sent her that chilling look in the hall out of sheer self-defence, as he
did with any over-bold young woman who seemed interested. Mostly they took the
hint and retreated blushing. This one seemed to have taken deep offence instead.
She turned back and went to take her seat, sinking on to it with trained
elegance.

For the first time in a long time Giles felt a stirring of
interest in an utterly ineligible woman and it made him uneasy. That meeting of
eyes in the hallway had been astonishing. He had intended to warn off yet
another wide-eyed virgin and instead had found his snub returned with interest
and hostility. Why she was so forward, and why he was so intrigued, was a
mystery.

The earl began to pour drinks for the ladies without troubling
to ring for a footman. Giles strolled over. ‘Allow me to assist, sir.’ He took
the two glasses of lemonade for the youngest girls, noting how tactfully their
father had used wine glasses to make them feel grown up. He came back and
fetched the ratafia for Lady Anne and Lady Isobel, leaving the earl to serve his
wife.

‘Lady Isobel.’ He proffered the glass, keeping hold of it so
that she had to respond to him.

‘Thank you.’ She glanced up fleetingly, but did not turn her
body towards him. ‘Would you be so good as to put it on that side table, Mr
Harker?’ He might, from her tone, have been a clumsy footman.

Giles put the glass down, then spun a chair round and sat by
her side, quite deliberately rather too close, to see if he could provoke her
into some reaction. He was going to get to the bottom of this curiosity about
her, then he could safely ignore her. As good breeding demanded, Lady Isobel
shifted slightly on the tightly stuffed blue satin until he was presented with
her profile.