Once an Heiress (38 page)

Bessie frowned thoughtfully, deep lines marking her cheeks. “My nephew did drop off a few shirts when he brought the peat on Monday.”

“There you are.” Isabelle smiled brightly. “Go ahead and see about them.” She watched the maid disappear into her small bedchamber. The door shut.

Foolish, stupid girl,
she chided herself. If she weren’t cautious, Bessie would discover Isabelle’s true identity. The past year had passed in peaceful anonymity. Her only correspondents were her brother and her last remaining friend, Lily. They both knew to address their letters to Mrs. Jocelyn Smith.

Isabelle stroked her hand down the gown’s limp sleeve, the embroidery’s ridges a textural contrast to the slippery silk beneath. She’d never worn the dress. It was a winter gown, suited for a fête in London. That party never came.

What had come was her mother-in-law Caro, hurling accusations of adultery against Isabelle and Justin — while Isabelle was still bedridden with a broken rib.

What had come was Justin’s disappearance. She never saw or heard from her friend again after Caro came to Hamhurst.

What had come was Marshall, confused and angry. He asked her over and over whether she had betrayed him. But what was the word of his wife of only months, compared to the wisdom of the woman he’d known all his life? He believed the worst, that Isabelle was the fortune-hunting, title-hungry jezebel his mother had always known her to be.

What finally came, after months of agonizing uncertainty, was the divorce.

• • •

Isabelle stood on the walk in front of the village’s little posting office, clutching the letter from her brother. Finally, her allowance. She tore it open as she started toward the mercantile where the owner would exchange a bank draft for currency. There remained no money to purchase peat for the fireplace, nor tallow candles, or Bessie’s wages — or much food, for that matter.

With fingers aching in the cold, she unfolded the letter and blinked in surprise. Instead of a bank draft tucked inside, there were only a few lines in her brother’s hand. She stopped and read the note in the middle of the walk:

Cut off. Alexander had finally done it. She’d wondered, with her pittance of an allowance coming later and later every quarter, whether this was where it was headed. She scanned the letter again, searching for any sign of filial affection. There was none. Rather, she detected anger behind his words. Her
present situation
could only refer to her being divorced. If he truly felt no obligation to support his divorced sister, why had it taken him nearly three years to say so?

Isabelle reversed direction and trudged back to her cottage with her brother’s letter buried in the pocket of her heavy wool coat. There was nothing remotely feminine or decorous about her outerwear, but neither was there anything refined about the bitter wind that lifted last night’s snowfall from the ground in swirling clouds that stung her eyes.

The mile-long walk would not have been so burdensome if she had money in her pocket, instead of the cruel letter. Twice she lost her footing on snow-covered ice.

“All it needs is a broken ankle to complete the Gothic tragedy,” she muttered.

She passed the rest of the trip home playing out the novel in her mind: the ill-used maiden, broken in body and heart, taken to bed with consumption. The doctor shaking his head sadly. No hope for it, he’d say, nothing more to be done. Alexander, contrite, kneeling beside her bed, clutching her hand and weeping, begging her forgiveness and promising all the peat she could burn, if only she’d recover. She would turn her fevered eyes upon him, open her mouth as if to speak, and then sigh her last. Her brother would gnash his teeth, and pull out clumps of hair in his despair, cursing himself for being such a fool.

She opened the cottage door no richer, but a little lighter in spirits.

• • •

The following Saturday, a visitor arrived to alleviate the winter doldrums. Though the cottage door opened into the front hall just off the parlor, Bessie took the unnecessary step of announcing the identity of the new arrival.

“Miss Bachman to see you, Mrs. Smith.”

Isabelle was already on her feet, flinging her needlework aside to embrace her friend.

“Lily!” she exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing here?”

Lily’s abigail sidled in behind her mistress, carrying a valise. She scrutinized her surroundings with a dismayed expression on her face.

Both women sported bright pink cheeks. “Never say you walked in this inclement weather!”

“Nothing like a bracing bit of exercise to shake off a post chaise trip,” Lily said.

She divested herself of her fashionable bonnet and cloak, revealing a fetching red traveling costume. Isabelle took the items and passed them off to Bessie.

“You must be freezing,” Isabelle said. “Can I offer you some — ”

Behind Lily, Bessie emphatically shook her head. No tea.

“That is, perhaps you would care for some coff — ”

Bessie shook her head again.

Isabelle’s face burned. Oh, this was low. She silently cursed her brother and the Duke of bloody Monthwaite, but most of all, she cursed herself for being in this predicament.

Lily patted her lovely chestnut coiffure and pretended not to notice Isabelle’s discomfiture. Her brown eyes lit up.

“I just remembered.” She gestured to her maid who pulled a small wooden box from her own coat pocket and handed it to Lily. “I brought some tea. It’s a new blend I haven’t tried.” The container was about the size of her palm, and a couple inches deep. “I know you probably have your own favorite,” she said apologetically, “but if it’s not too much trouble, would you try this one with me?”

Isabelle blinked back the tears burning her eyes. Only Lily could come bearing charity and make it sound as though Isabelle would be doing her a favor by accepting.

She took the proffered gift, her fingers cradling the box. “Of course,” she said, her voice thick. “Tea, please, Bessie.” Her mouth twisted into an ironic half-smile. “In the good service.” She only had the one.

Bessie gave the faintest of curtsies and bustled off, carrying Lily’s outerwear and the tea. Isabelle directed Lily’s abigail to take her bag to Isabelle’s own bedchamber. They would have to share a room, as they’d done when they were girls.

When the maids left, Lily started to sink onto the faded couch, but Isabelle scooped her up again in a fierce hug. “Thank you,” she whispered against her friend’s ear. They sat down and Isabelle took in her friend’s lovely ensemble. “It’s so good to see you in a cheerful color,” she said kindly. “The black never suited you.”

Lily nodded. “Believe you me, you cannot be happier to see me in a color than I am to be wearing it. What an odd thing it was, to mourn a man I scarcely knew — to be a widow before I’d even wed. I’m glad the year is over, but neither do I quite look forward to being thrust onto the marriage mart. My whole life, I never had to wonder who I’d marry; I always knew. But now my future husband is an enigma. Which makes me like every other female in England, I suppose,” she finished matter-of-factly.

Isabelle smiled sympathetically. Through the designs of all parents involved, Lily had been born with her wedding date already set. She was to marry her betrothed the first of June, 1811, when she was twenty years of age. January of that year, however, Ensign Charles Handford and the rest of the Nineteenth Lancers were sent to reinforce Wellington’s Peninsular force. Charles didn’t make it home for the summer wedding, and in November 1811, he’d been killed in battle. Isabelle knew her dear friend did not truly grieve him, but neither was she glad to have escaped the match at the cost of the groom’s life.

These dreary thoughts occupied her mind until Bessie brought the tea tray. While Isabelle poured, Lily pulled Bessie aside and murmured to her in a low voice. The maid nodded and collected Lily’s abigail. The women donned cloaks and departed through the front door.

“What was that about?” Isabelle asked wryly, hoping to put aside the somber atmosphere. “You haven’t sacked Bessie, have you? No one else worth a salt will work for such a miserable pittance. I shall never find another like her.” She passed a cup and saucer to Lily.

“I’ve sent them to the butcher.” Lily shrugged guiltily. “You know how particular I am about food. I’m a horrible guest.”

Isabelle shook her head. Again, Lily made her gifts sound like a nuisance.

“Besides,” Lily continued with the spark of the devil in her eyes, “I wanted your dear Bessie out from under our feet. I live in fear of slipping up and calling you Isabelle, instead of Jocelyn or Mrs. Smith.”

Isabelle nodded. “Fair enough.” A strand of her blond hair fell down alongside her cheek. She hooked it behind her ear. She couldn’t remember the last time her hair had been styled by a lady’s maid. “Why have you come, Lily?” She touched her friend’s arm lightly. “Not that I’m not delighted to see you, of course, but I don’t get many surprise visitors.”

Lily set her tea on the small table beside the sofa. “I’ve come to issue an invitation.”

Isabelle’s ears perked. “To what? No one’s invited me anywhere in years.”

“A wedding,” Lily answered. “My cousin, Freddy Bachman, is returned from Spain. He’s getting married in a week. I hoped you’d come as my guest. It will be my first outing in quite a long time, too.”

A wedding? Isabelle wrinkled her brow and buried her face in her teacup. A wedding was so respectable. Two people standing before God, pledging their lives to one another — surely they wouldn’t want a divorcée there. She’d be like a leper at a garden party — completely out of place, abnormal, despised.

“Isabelle?” Lily ventured.

She raised her eyes over the rim of her cup.

“Shall I pour, dear?” Lily asked. “Your cup was empty before you lifted it.”

Isabelle quickly lowered the vacant china. “Ah, so it is. Yes, please,” she said with tight gaiety. She forced a laugh. “Who on earth is married in the dead of winter?”

“My cousin, for one,” Lily said while she poured Isabelle a fresh cup. “His fiancée has been waiting these several years for his discharge from the army.”

Isabelle’s smile faltered. “She waited for him to come home from the war? For years?” Such a testament of devotion was humbling. Isabelle shook her head. “I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

Lily’s finely arched brows drew together and she tilted her head to the side. One gleaming curl rested prettily on the shoulder of her red dress. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Isabelle shook her head again. “No.”

“Why not?” Lily took Isabelle’s cup and set it aside, then scooped both of Isabelle’s hands in her own. “You must stop thinking of yourself as some kind of pariah. You’re divorced, not diseased. No one else is going to … catch it.” Her full lips turned up in a sympathetic smile. “You’ve been in exile long enough,” Lily continued. “I assure you, no one is talking about you at all anymore.”

Isabelle regarded her warily. “Really?”

Lily nodded. “You’re not nearly as interesting as you think you are.”

Isabelle laughed, then drew a nervous breath. “Oh, I just don’t know. I would feel so conspicuous.”

“It’s just a family affair,” Lily assured her. “You wouldn’t know anyone there, and they don’t know you, either — except for my parents, of course, and they adore you. It will be a perfect first step.”

Isabelle sighed. “It does sound like an ideal reintroduction to respectable company. But, something has happened that may delay my plans.” She went into her bedchamber to retrieve Alexander’s letter and handed it to her friend.

Lily scanned the page, then clicked her tongue. “The absolute gall of the man.” Her fist closed around an edge of the page. She shook it in front of her. “How dare he? Punishing you yet again? What does he hope to accomplish by cutting you off?”

“I don’t know.” Isabelle pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “But you see, now is not the time for me to try to go back into society. I’ll have to work first, save a little money — ”

“Work?” The word fell from Lily’s mouth like a bite of rotten egg. “What do you mean?”

“I have to earn money,” Isabelle explained calmly. “I’ve given it a great deal of thought. I’ll do something small to start, perhaps take in mending. I can’t rely upon unexpected visitors to keep me in tea.”

Lily blushed.

Isabelle stood and paced the length of the small room. “I should like to open a shop, eventually. Perhaps a millinery.”

“You don’t make hats,” Lily pointed out.

“There is that,” Isabelle agreed. “Perhaps I could import them. From Paris.”

Lily’s eyes widened. “Smuggled bonnets? I really can’t imagine you mingling with the criminal element. Not at all a respectable endeavor.”

“I suppose not.” Isabelle tapped her chin. “There must be something!”

“We’ll think about it this week, all right?” Lily reassured her. “I wonder, though, if you won’t be in your dotage by the time you have enough money to launch yourself again.”

Isabelle sighed and plopped back onto the couch in a rather unladylike fashion. “I just want a family, Lily. Is that really too much to ask? A respectable husband and a few children of my own?”

The familiar emptiness in her heart ached. Childbirth had taken both Isabelle’s mother and the infant girl who would have been her little sister. Her father then fell into a melancholy from which he’d never recovered. Fairfax Hall went without the attention of its master for a decade. Isabelle had likewise gone neglected. Left to the care of doting servants and a tutor, she’d been permitted to do as she pleased.

Her treasured friendship with Justin Miller should never have gone on as long as it did, she now knew. It was not at all the thing for a young lady to be on such close terms with a young man, but no one bothered to put a stop to it. Justin was the one constant source of affection and amusement in her life.