Kasey Michaels (40 page)

His aunt put down Mrs. Farraday’s yarn—the ball of soft yellow wool she had been about to stuff up her sleeve—and turned to look at her nephew. “I don’t understand. Why should you be looking guilty? I was the one who read the journals, and then told Amelia Crossley that business about that MacLeish person and Constance Winstead. But that’s all I said, I promise you that! I’ve racked my brain, and racked it again, and I’m sure that’s all I said.” She spread her hands, as if loosing a captured pigeon to the skies. “And the rest of it I’ve ordered to simply
fly
out of my mind!”

“I can’t tell you bow that gratifies me, Aunt,” Bramwell said, sipping from his glass. “However, if you don’t want to have to forget something else, you might want to find something to do in the morning room or elsewhere for a while. Isadora wrote in her note that she’d be here now, saving me a trip to Mount Street, and her coach just drew up out front. I think our conversation should remain private.”

Lady Gwendolyn nodded. “Yes, dear. Desiree already told me. You’re going to let her toss you over even though you really want to throw her away.” Both hands flew up to cover her mouth as her eyes grew wide and panicked. “Did I say that? I didn’t mean to say that. That is, I mean that I didn’t mean for you to know that I knew that, and that I knew that I shouldn’t say... well,
that
. Not that I know
that
. Or should. I mean. That is. Um. Oh, what
do
I mean? Bramwell, don’t just stand there, laughing at me—
help
me!”

Bramwell helped his aunt to her feet, figuring that was as good a place to start as any. “It’s all right. I know just what you mean, Aunt,” he said soothingly, all the time guiding her toward the door. “But we will have to have a few more conversations on the subject of discretion, I believe.”

“Oh, my goodness, yes! I really think we should. Definitely.” The knocker went, and Lady Gwendolyn all but up jumped out of her skin as she picked up her skirts and headed for the staircase leading to the bedchambers. “I’m gone, I’m gone! Bobbit—” she called out, leaning over the railing in order to see down into the foyer, “don’t you dare move one step toward that door until I’m gone!” Then she paused on the first step, her hand on the newel post, and turned to Bramwell. “I like your smile, Nephew. It’s good to see it.”

“Thank you, Aunt Gwen,” he told her departing back, then started toward the door to the drawing room, motioning for Bobbit, standing below in the foyer, to answer the knock.

He counted to twenty, then stepped out into the hallway once more, just as Isadora was climbing the last stair to the first floor, her abigail left behind in the foyer. Obviously this was going to be a very brief visit.

“Selbourne,” Isadora said, her voice more clipped than usual. She inclined her head slightly as he bowed over her hand, his lips missing her gloved fingers by a good inch or more. “We must talk.”

“I know,” he answered, leading her toward the nearest couch, then sitting down beside her. “I had wanted to come to you, but I had other business to attend to first, I’m afraid. However, before we begin, I have to tell you that it was entirely my fault. Sophie had absolutely nothing to do with anything. It was—”

“Sophie? Selbourne, stop, you’re confusing me. What does Miss Winstead have to do with anything? And you really shouldn’t be so informal, referring to her by her Christian name.”

Isadora stripped off her gloves, a precise pull on each of her fingertips, one after the other, accomplishing the feat with admirable grace. “Lud, I don’t know when I’ve been this nervous, upset. Charles wanted to come here with me, but I refused, of course. This is my burden, I told him, and I must carry it alone. It’s the Waverley way.”

She laid her gloves in her lap and looked at Bramwell, her eyes eloquent with a message he was damned if he could read. “Selbourne, I have done you a great disservice, and I cannot, therefore, in good conscience marry you. There! I’ve said it. Lud, that was difficult!”

Bramwell’s mind was all but stumbling over itself in its rush to understand what in the devil Isadora was saying.
She
had done
him
a great disservice? “Isadora, I’m sorry,” he said, seeing that her usually alabaster cheeks were chalk white, that her bottom lip had begun to tremble. Not that she would cry. Lord, no. Waverleys didn’t cry. “You’re obviously overset, Isadora. It’s I who owe you my deepest apologies.”

But she wouldn’t let him speak, seemed determined not to let him speak. “Lud, Selbourne!
You
, apologize to
me
? When I felt my heart leap in my breast when I’d learned you wanted to cry off from Lady Buxley’s party last night, leave me with my evening free to make... to make... lud! To make a fool of you, Selbourne. There is no way to dress this up in clean linen. I
betrayed
you, Selbourne. Lud, I’m such a wretched, wretched woman!”

Bramwell opened his mouth to correct her, to say that it was he, not she, who should be begging forgiveness. But then it dawned on him. All at once a blinding flash of lightning lit up the entire world, and he saw, he understood. Isadora had decided how this interview would go, and he would be a cad not to allow it, even if he didn’t understand it.

“How did you betray me last night, Isadora?” he asked quietly, fishing in his pocket for his handkerchief. For he’d been wrong. Waverleys did cry. At least this one did.

Isadora wiped at her eyes, blew her nose, then went to return the handkerchief, which Bramwell smilingly refused to accept. “I—I had been having second—second thoughts. For
days
. Horrible thoughts. Unworthy of a duchess, of your duchess. I was ashamed, Selbourne. If I had loved you—if you had meant the world and all to me, I should have survived it. The gossip, the old scandal that reached out to touch me wherever I turned.”

She needed to resort to the handkerchief again, as her nose had begun to run in earnest now. It was rather wonderful, though, seeing Isadora as a real woman, and not just as the perfect wife for a duke, which was how he’d previously seen her. She leaned toward him, looking at him earnestly. “Do you love me, Selbourne? I don’t think you do.”

He leaned forward and kissed her damp cheek. “You’re right, Isadora. I don’t love you. But I’m finding that I
like
you much more than I would have believed a week ago. But you love someone, don’t you? Do you want to tell me about him? I believe you mentioned someone named Charles?”

For the following ten minutes Bramwell’s only function was to serve as a willing pair of ears while Isadora spoke of Lord Charles Allston and his daughters, Sarah, Mary, Lucy, and Ruth something-or-other. How kind Charles was, how she’d remembered him so fondly from years ago, how they’d met unexpectedly after she’d seen him come to visit Miss Winstead, and how their friendship had blossomed again almost immediately. How wonderfully polite and pretty the daughters were, how very much she was needed by them, would find her utmost happiness as their friend, their mentor, their mother.

It was all settled. She and Charles—and the girls, of course—would drive down to meet with Isadora’s father. They were leaving London that very afternoon, in less than an hour. They would then be wed in the family chapel before retiring to Lord Anston’s estate in the country until next Season, when Sarah—or was it Lucy? Bramwell was having trouble keeping the four names and various ages straight—would come to London to be presented. Everything was wonderful. Everything was settled.

Except that Isadora was still betrothed to Bramwell. That part was still presenting just a smidgen of a problem....

“Then, Isadora,” Bramwell ventured at last, wondering why he felt it necessary to ask, “you didn’t see me out and about last night?”

“See you?” she repeated, her frown warning him to silence. “I don’t know to what you are referring. See you
where
, Selbourne? I told you. I was visiting with Charles and the girls. It was very proper, but very private. I didn’t see anybody, barely another soul all evening. Everyone was at Lady Buxley’s you know. I’ve already heard it was a sad crush—extremely successful. But, now that you mention it, I did see something very strange as I was being driven away from Charles’s town house.”

It was all a game. They were playing a game Isadora had devised for some reason he’d probably have to have Sophie explain to him, and it was his turn to move a piece. “What did you see, Isadora?”

“Well, lud,” she supplied quickly, “it was the strangest thing. The coachman turned through the Square, the better to exit it, I suppose, as Charles’s town house is quite near the entrance. And, while he was driving around the Square, directly as we were passing by Lord Sidmouth’s residence—well, lud, Selbourne, you just won’t believe it, that’s all.”

Bramwell’s smile was stuck to his face; he couldn’t unstick it even if he tried. “I won’t?”

Isadora lowered her voice to a whisper. “It was Lord Sidmouth himself. Standing directly in front of one of the upstairs windows—and without a stitch of clothing on! He was standing there, and then he slammed down the window. Very angrily, I’d say, as if he wasn’t pleased to have found it open. I imagine one of his servants must have done it against his orders, or some such thing. Now, don’t you think that strange?”

“That he’d be naked, Isadora, or that he’d close his own window?” Bramwell asked, relaxing as he remembered that there had been a loud sound from somewhere above him just as he’d dragged Sophie into the shadows.

“Lud, Selbourne—that’s so funny!” Isadora exclaimed, giving him a playful rap on the wrist with her gloves as she stood, clearly relieved that their interview had gone so well, that he had been so cooperative. She reached into her reticule and handed him the Seaton family ring, a most imposing ruby. “Here, Selbourne. I was honored to wear this, but I find that I will be even more happy being Lady Anston than I could ever have been as the duchess of Selbourne. Lud—that was rather insulting, wasn’t it? I didn’t mean it that way, truly. I don’t know if I’m on my head or my heels since I found my dear Charles again. We just talked and talked—for hours! Oh, please, forgive me. Forgive me for everything. And say good-bye to Sophie for me, please. I owe her so much.”

“You do?” Bramwell asked, slipping the ring into his pocket, knowing that it would not be the one he’d give to Sophie. Sophie should have diamonds. And sapphires. And emeralds. And, perhaps, rubies. He’d have this particular one made into a necklace. Yes, that would suit her. He shook himself back to attention, believing that Isadora had just given him a clue to the reason behind her generous action. “What do you owe Sophie, Isadora?”

“My thanks, Selbourne, my deepest, most heartfelt thanks. Poor Selbourne, you don’t understand, do you? But I do, and Sophie will, and that’s enough.”

Bramwell nodded his agreement to forward Isadora’s thanks to Sophie, then snapped to attention as his now-former fiancée pulled on her gloves once more, saying briskly, “You’ll allow my father to handle the notice in the newspapers, of course, and graciously accept all blame for the termination of our engagement. Papa will be as vague as he can possibly be, but the
ton
will all know why I’ve rejected our marriage. Or at least they’ll think they do. They’ll blame it on your father, and Miss Winstead’s mother. They’ll say I was appalled by the gossip and such. That’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. And then, as I’ll be married shortly, there will be the rumors that I had actually jilted you for another. But it can’t be helped, can it? You’re a good man, Selbourne, and I can only ask you to be brave. For your sake, for Sophie’s. I’m eternally in her debt. Be brave for her.”

“I’ll do my best to help Sophie weather the storm, Isadora.” Bramwell bowed over her hand, feeling as if he should have a medal hanging from his chest after being given such a bracing round of congratulations for having excelled in a battle he’d yet to fight. Isadora would have made a fine general. And he would wager she’d make a finer, if somewhat stern, mother. Little Ruth something-or-other and her sisters had better learn to step sprightly.

“I’ll walk you to your coach,” he said, not seeing, but still sensing that Sophie was somewhere above their heads, hanging over the second-floor railing, hearing every word.

“No need, Selbourne,” Isadora said. She surprised him down to his toes by leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek, then holding on to his shoulders, remaining close. “She’s up there, Selbourne, so don’t look,” she whispered into his ear. “I want you to know that I wish you both as much happiness as I’ve found with Charles. Lud, you’re so well suited to each other. She’ll make a fine, if rather original duchess. And I’ll be a good mother, I really will. Just please allow me to be first to the altar? Oh, and someday you must tell me what the two of you were doing at Lord Sidmouth’s. But not now. Good-bye—Bramwell.”

“Good-bye, Isadora,” he said, his admiration for the women in his world growing by leaps and bounds. “And thank you.”

Bobbit ushered Lord Upchurch into the drawing room directly after dinner, the man brushing past him almost before he could be announced.

“I’ve got terrible news!” Lord Upchurch exclaimed, going directly to Bramwell, who had been amusing himself by kissing Sophie’s fingertips, one after the other, as Sophie giggled and his aunt looked on in a delicious mixture of shock and pleasure at seeing her nephew so happy.