To her shame, tears sprang into her eyes. Whenever she was truly angry it happened. And this … this person infuriated her. What right had he to play god? Gervase had died through his own brutality. Neither she nor Perdita nor Georgina was responsible for his temper that night. They had not lured him into putting the knife to Perdita’s throat. Georgina would not have been forced to use her pistol if he hadn’t threatened Perdita’s life.
But whoever this monster was, he thought that they were responsible. And he was willing to risk the lives of good, loyal, hardworking servants in his vendetta against Isabella.
She had to warn Perdita.
Shaking, she pushed her chair back from the table and snatched up the letters. Wiping her eyes, she hurried to the doorway, only to slam into the solid chest of Trevor.
“Your Grace,” she said, hoping she had dashed away most of her tears. “I, that is … Trevor. My apologies, I was in a hurry and did not—”
“Not at all, Lady Wharton,” he said, gripping her arms for longer than was strictly proper. “I hope you are not unwell. I had hoped to visit the tenant cottages after luncheon.”
Desperate to be away from him, she considered taking the excuse he offered but shook her head. “That would be agreeable,” she said, trying to make her voice sound as cheerful as possible. To her own ear it sounded false, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I was simply rushing off to write a reply to my sister,” she said, holding up the letters. “Is there a writing desk that I might use?”
She could feel his gaze on her, seeing more than she wanted him to. But he let her go and said mildly, “Of course. You may use my mother’s sitting room. There are paper and ink in her desk. I believe Eleanor uses them for her own correspondence at times.”
Nodding, Isabella pushed past him and hurried off in the direction of the sitting room, feeling his gaze upon her as she went.
* * *
Pensive, Trevor served himself from the sideboard and took his place at the breakfast table.
Isabella had been lying. Of that he was positive. Something in those letters had overset her; he wanted to know what.
Her confession last night of just how she’d ended up married to Wharton had confirmed to Trevor that she was in need of someone to look after her. When he thought of how her father had chosen to marry her off to a man so many years her senior solely for the benefit of his own coffers, Trevor felt his hands clenching into involuntary fists—as if he could pummel a dead man. He might not have spent his formative years moving among the
ton,
but he knew that such men existed. He’d seen enough evidence of such selfishness here among the gentry of Yorkshire. Even so, he had been appalled to hear just how mercenary Isabella’s father had been. No wonder she was so concerned over his sisters.
He had no intention of allowing either of them to marry without him thoroughly investigating the man in question, but Isabella had no way of knowing that. She was used to the way that the men she’d been around her whole life treated the women under their protection.
She had proved herself in the past few days to be a strong woman. Some might call her cold, but he had not been around her for more than a few hours before he realized that her coolness was a façade. A posture she adopted so that those around her would take her seriously. It was not unlike what his mother had done when she mixed with those members of the surrounding neighborhood who thought his father had married beneath him. She’d once confided to Trevor that when she took tea with the squire’s wife she would often pretend that she was a queen, dining with her subjects. Not to say that she thought of herself that way as a general rule. But something about fixing that posture in her mind would give her strength. And would make others see her as something stronger than a farmer’s daughter.
It was this sort of posturing that Trevor saw in Lady Wharton. For whatever reason, she had decided that in order to get what she wanted she would need to appear strong. This morning that façade had slipped and when he saw her hurrying toward him he’d seen tears in her eyes. It might, he told himself, have something to do with the dowager’s attempt to lure him to London. But he thought it must be more personal than that.
Swallowing his tea, he considered the wisdom of asking her outright, then dismissed the notion. She would not take kindly to his prying into her affairs. No more than he would if their situations were reversed. But he disliked the idea of Isabella being upset. He told himself it was because she was a guest in his home, but he knew deep down there was more to it than that. He did not dare to ask what that more might be.
For now, he would wait to see if she would confide in him.
Perhaps when he told her of his plans to take his sisters shopping in York she would tell him.
Then again, perhaps she would not.
One thing he’d learned about Lady Wharton was that she would do things when she was ready and not one moment before.
Rising from the table, he set off to find Eleanor and tell her of their proposed trip.
* * *
“My tree looks like a blob of green,” Belinda said glumly, daubing paint onto the paper with her brush.
Once she’d finished her letter to Perdita, Isabella had gone in search of the Carey sisters and proposed that they spend the morning painting in the garden. The threatening letter had left her with a pang of fear in her stomach, but there was little she could do about it now. Rather than stew about it, she would lose herself in a few hours of activity.
She had found the painting supplies in the girls’ mother’s sitting room and, since it was too soon for Perdita to have sent any prospective governesses their way, she had decided that she would take up the duties of the position for now and divert both herself and the young ladies for the rest of the morning.
“No, it doesn’t look like a blob,” she said automatically to Belinda, though her tree did rather resemble a green blob. “Here,” Isabella instructed. “Do not put so much paint on your brush. It might take a bit for you to get used to the brushstrokes, but you’ll get there.”
“Like this,” Eleanor demonstrated for her sister. “It’s not difficult once you get the knack of it.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Belinda retorted. “You’ve done this hundreds of times.”
“I can’t help it if you chose to stay home every time I went to the Greens’ to paint with Mary and Susan,” Eleanor said with a shrug.
“You know I cannot abide Mary Green, Ellie.” Belinda leaned sideways to look at how her sister was holding her brush. “She puts on such airs.”
Before Eleanor could respond, they heard a call from the doors leading out into the garden. To Isabella’s amusement, it was the Green sisters.
“Lovely,” Belinda said with a roll of her eyes. “Just when I was beginning to enjoy painting.”
“Hush, Bel,” Eleanor said with a hiss. “They’ll hear you.”
But it was obvious to Isabella, at least, that Belinda could not possibly have cared less. She wondered if Perdita had ever felt so much annoyance over Isabella’s friends. Then chided herself. Of course she had. It was the lot of younger sisters everywhere.
Eleanor gave her sister a stern look before the Greens reached them.
“Darlings,” Mary Green said with a languid drawl that Isabella had to admit
was
rather affected. Mary was a pretty enough girl, but her bored expression, no doubt cultivated to give herself what she thought to be an air of sophistication, just made her look sleepy. “How lovely to see you out here enjoying the beauties of nature.”
She kissed the air on either side of Eleanor’s cheeks, and when she tried to do the same to Belinda the younger girl gave her a glower that would have done the dowager proud. Isabella would gauge Mary’s age to be somewhere around Eleanor’s. Mary’s sister appeared to be slightly older.
“Lady Wharton,” Mary said when Eleanor had presented the newcomers to Isabella, offering her a perfectly correct curtsy, “I have heard so much about you. What a delight it is to finally make your acquaintance.”
Isabella returned the greeting with absent cordiality as she helped Belinda with the grip of her paintbrush. She may not have remembered Perdita’s dislike of her own friends, but she remembered quite clearly what it had been like to have a younger sister hanging on her every words with them, so she tried to occupy Belinda in an effort to free Eleanor to speak to her friends in some degree of privacy.
Mary Green had no such desire for a comfortable coze, however. Instead, she addressed all of them. “I am so pleased to find you all here,” she said, her eyes alight with pleasure, “for just this morning I have heard from Mrs. Palmer that she, too, has a guest from London. And she is planning a ball in his honor!”
“A ball!” Susan Green echoed, clapping her hands together, for the first time since their arrival showing any sort of animation. “Can you possibly imagine?”
“And I feel sure you know the man, Lady Wharton,” Mary continued, as if she were an old and dear friend of Isabella’s rather than an acquaintance of approximately three minutes. “His name is Sir Lionel Thistleback and he says he was a close personal friend of your dear departed husband.”
Isabella had been prepared to hear that this august personage from London was someone with whom she had a passing acquaintance, but to learn that he was her husband’s most intimate crony was the outside of enough. Not only did she loathe Sir Lionel, but he in turn loathed her also. For him to spread tales of their previous acquaintance among the people of the village of Nettledean was despicable, mostly because it stemmed from not a pleasant nostalgia but a wish to ingratiate himself with the neighborhood at her expense. The idea that anyone would think she approved of a man like Thistleback was repugnant. And she was prevented by good manners from saying anything of the sort. He’d tied her hands, the toad.
To the girls, however, she said none of what she was thinking. “I do know him a little,” she said, inclining her head but revealing nothing more of the true relationship between them.
“Do you think my brother might be persuaded to allow me to attend the ball?” Eleanor asked, her eyes alight with excitement. She gripped Isabella’s arm and turned a pleading gaze on her. “He won’t listen to me, Lady Wharton,” she said quickly, “but he might be persuaded by you. He listens to you.”
Aware of Mary and Susan Green’s avid gazes on her, Isabella smiled at Eleanor. It was her fondest wish that Eleanor never make Thistleback’s acquaintance. But she supposed that a country ball where Eleanor’s brother was in attendance might be the safest location for such a meeting. Besides, Isabella had little doubt that Thistleback was in the process of seducing some local widow and would pay little enough attention to a girl of Eleanor’s age. “I do not know where you got the notion that your brother hears anything I have to say, Eleanor,” she said. “But I will try to persuade him. It is a country ball, after all. And I think the social niceties are not quite so rigid as they are in town.”
“I have heard that you have a great deal of influence over the duke, Lady Wharton.” Mary’s knowing little smile was coy. “He has spoken of nothing but you since your arrival at Nettlefield.”
“I hardly think that the duke spends his days jaunting about the countryside regaling anyone who will listen with tales of my wonder.” Isabella was torn between amusement at the girl’s exaggeration and a pang of longing. After all, if the duke were really so inclined to do whatever she wished he’d pack his bags today and head off to London to kneel at the feet of his grandmother. She knew, however, that this was not the case.
It was one of the rare occasions when she found herself wishing gossip were true.
But it was Belinda who punctured Mary’s tale. “You are just trying to make yourself sound important, Mary Green! If my brother is so influenced by Lady Wharton, then why was he shouting at her last evening?”
Before Isabella could comment, Eleanor cut in, looking daggers at her sister, “Don’t be absurd, Bel. Trevor was simply arguing his point.”
“I fear the duke was a bit overset when he learned that I’d loaned one of my gowns to Eleanor,” Isabella said with a laugh, trying to dispel any suspicions the Green sisters might have about her interactions with him, argumentative or otherwise. “It was a tempest in a teapot. And Belinda, you should apologize to Mary for insulting her. That was not well done of you.”
Mary brushed off the apology, however. “I have known Belinda since she was in leading strings,” she said cheerfully, as if she were decades older than the girl. “Tell me about the gown, Eleanor. Was it from Madame Celeste’s?”
How the girl knew which modiste she used Isabella would never know. Clearly the gossip network in Nettlefield was more robust than she’d given it credit for.
“May I see it?” Mary continued, her sophisticated pose dropping for a moment in her excitement.
“Me, too,” Susan added, grasping Eleanor’s arm. “Is it as beautiful as Lady Wharton’s other gowns?”
“More,” Eleanor confirmed. Turning to Isabella, she asked, “Is it alright if I go show Mary and Susan my gown?”
Isabella was touched that the girl thought to ask her permission at all. She was not in any position of authority over her. But she nodded to her. “Don’t forget to show them the slippers as well. The gown doesn’t work without them.”
With an eager nod, Eleanor hurried with her friends to the house, Belinda and Isabella watching them as they went.
“I’m sorry for telling them about Trevor and the yelling,” Belinda said, turning back to her painting. “I was so annoyed with Mary for pretending that she knows what Trevor thinks about things. She just likes to talk about him because he’s a duke.”
Isabella looked at the younger girl and was pleased to see she’d done a better job with the tree on the opposite side from the green blob. “I’m afraid most people are that way,” she said, speaking of Mary. “Once it becomes known that your brother has agreed to take up his role as the duke, you’ll find all of you will become the subject of gossip.”
“I won’t need to bother with that,” Belinda said firmly, “because I don’t intend to ever leave Yorkshire. I will stay here and help Mr. Woods in the stables and ignore the silly ladies of the village.” Mr. Woods was Trevor’s very patient head groom, who let Belinda run tame in the stables.