Trevor heard all of this with an air of frustration. “I will have no compunction about telling the dowager just how unwelcome her interference will be,” he said. “Though,” he continued, “it might be better for your own peace of mind, as well as for your reputation among the staff, if you rout her yourself first.”
“Oh,” Isabella said with a smile, “have no fear of that. My first action upon arriving in London will be to have a very long chat with her about just what her role in the household will be. I have little doubt that in my absence she has moved back into Ormonde House and has begun bullying Perdita about the arrangement of the furniture and all that nonsense.”
“Why does your sister allow the dowager to bully her so?” Trevor asked, puzzled. “I have a difficult time imagining a sister of yours being bullied by anyone, much less another woman.”
“You are kind to say it,” Isabella said with a shake of her head, “but you cannot know what it is like until you’ve been there yourself. Perdita and I grew up in a very disjointed sort of household. And unfortunately, we married quite young. We were neither of us very lucky in the men our father chose for us to marry. And though Perdita was thought at the time to have made the better match—after all, a duke outranks a viscount—it turned out that despite his elevated status, the late duke was hardly the catch society thought him to be.”
“In what way?” Trevor pressed. There was something about his cousin that Isabella was not telling him. He knew that her own husband had been physically abusive. Could it be that Perdita’s husband had been so as well? Or was there something else?
“I do not like to tell my sister’s story without her consent, Your Grace,” Isabella said with a frown. “Suffice it to say that he and Ralph were quite good friends. And in some respects, the late duke outpaced his friend by a great deal.”
“I am sorry to press you, my dear,” Trevor told her, squeezing her hand. “I know this must be difficult for you to speak of. I simply wish to know as much as possible about what went on in the Ormonde family before I go trampling in like a bull in a china shop. I cannot know how best to handle the dowager unless I know how her son managed the dukedom. And I most definitely wish to know as much as I can about the dowager before I meet her. Forewarned is forearmed.”
“As to managing the dukedom, that was mostly up to the duke’s personal secretary, Lord Archer. I don’t know how Ormonde managed to keep him from leaving and going to work for someone who was more amiable. I certainly would have done.”
Trevor was grateful that Lord Archer Lisle hadn’t left, too. Though he knew himself perfectly capable of handling the affairs of the dukedom, he would be a fool to think that he would be able to simply step into the role without any previous training and excel at it from day one. His correspondence thus far with the secretary indicated that Lord Archer was a levelheaded and organized man who was knowledgeable about every aspect of the estate. And Trevor was damned grateful to have him.
Trevor’s new wife, however, was more perceptive than he’d given her credit for. “You have nothing to fear on that score, Your Grace,” she told him firmly. “I have seen how marvelously you run Nettlefield. And I have little doubt that you’ll do just as well with the Ormonde estates. Once you’ve managed one estate much of it carries over. Or so I would assume.”
“You are no doubt right,” he told her, kissing her on the nose. “Now, I believe I requested that when we are alone you call me Trevor. I do not care for the idea that we will one day be in our dotage and you will continue to refer to me as ‘Your Grace.’ It simply will not do.”
“But I thought you only meant for me to address you as Trevor when we are—” She broke off, blushing. “That is to say, in private-private.” She whispered the last two words lest he think she referred to some other more open sort of privacy.
“I should prefer that as well,” he said into her ear. “Now,” he said, grasping her by the waist and pulling her into his lap, “do you consider this to be private-private? Or are we both wearing too many clothes?”
Isabella’s response was muffled by his mouth.
* * *
They arrived at Nettlefield just after the dinner hour. They were greeted on the stairs by Belinda and Eleanor, who had heard the approach of the carriage and hurried downstairs to meet the newlyweds.
“What was Gretna like?” Belinda asked, tugging on Isabella’s left hand, while Eleanor slipped her own arm through the right.
“Was it very romantic?” Eleanor asked with a sigh. “It must have been, for how could a place so devoted to marriage not be romantic?”
“Did you actually marry over an anvil? Was he a real blacksmith? I can’t imagine Mr. Fawkes from the village simply stopping in the middle of some smithing task to marry people. For one thing, he gets quite sweaty while he’s working.” Belinda’s nose wrinkled at the thought.
“Give us a moment to adjust to being out of the carriage, girls,” Trevor told his sisters from his position behind them on the stairs. “I don’t think you’ve let Isabella get a word in since we entered the house.”
But Isabella didn’t mind. She was surprised to realize just how much she’d missed the chatter of the Carey sisters. She remembered all too well the excitement of welcoming her parents home after they’d been on some journey or other and how she and Perdita had often peppered them with questions. Or the girls had peppered their mother with questions, Isabella amended. Her father would disappear into his study as soon as he returned.
She was pleased to note that Belinda and Eleanor harbored none of the fear for their brother that she and her sister had felt for their father.
“Oh, pooh, Trevor,” Belinda scoffed. “Isabella can tell us herself if she’s overwhelmed. And clearly she is not.”
“How can you tell that?” he asked wryly, following them into the hallway that led to the family chambers.
“She hasn’t told us to be quiet for one thing,” Eleanor said with a grin. “Have you, Isabella?”
Noting Trevor’s raised brow, Isabella grinned back. “It’s true. I haven’t.”
Shaking his head at them, Trevor surrendered. “Don’t say I didn’t try to save you,” he said, stopping before his bedchamber door. “Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I intend to wash off the dirt of the road.” His lingering look indicated that he would very much like Isabella to join him, but she studiously ignored him. There would be plenty of time for that when she’d spent a bit of time with his sisters.
“Come, girls,” she told them, heading for the door to the mistress’s chamber, which was just down the hall from Trevor’s. “I brought you both gifts.”
Her ears smarting from the squeals of delight, she stepped into her rooms and found her maid unpacking her bags.
“Sanders, did you unpack the gifts I brought for the girls?” she asked.
“They’re on the desk by the window, Your Grace,” Sanders said. “Shall I ring for a bath to be brought up?”
“Yes,” Isabella said absently as she led her sisters-in-law to the window. “Thank you.”
The girls had already descended upon the desk where their gifts sat.
“The one in the blue paper is yours, Eleanor,” Isabella said with a smile. “And yours is the pink, Belinda.”
Though she and Trevor had only been in Gretna overnight, Isabella had insisted upon visiting one of the local shops to pick up baubles for the girls. She was very aware of the responsibility of her new role as their brother’s wife. And she had grown quite fond of them in her short time at Nettlefield. She knew just how hungry they were for feminine guidance, and she wanted to prove to them that she was as eager to provide it as they were to receive it.
“I love it,” Belinda said, removing the cameo pendant from its box. Isabella could still recall her very first piece of jewelry—a pin not unlike the one she’d chosen for Belinda. She’d gazed upon it for hours after her mother brought it to her from some trip she’d taken with her own sisters. To Isabella’s surprise and delight, Belinda threw her arms around her and gave her an enormous hug. “I cannot wait to show it to Flossie.” Clearly the cat was a greater admirer of jewelry than Isabella had given her credit for.
“Open yours, Ellie,” the younger girl prodded her sister. “I want to see!”
Carefully, Eleanor unwrapped the paper from a larger box than Belinda’s. Inside lay a pair of elegantly crafted ivory hair combs.
“Oh,” Eleanor gasped. “They are lovely.” She turned to Isabella with a sweet smile. “I love them. Thank you!”
“You must be sure to thank your brother as well,” Isabella said. “He spent a great deal of time poring over every item in that particular shop. He wanted just the right thing for you two.”
“He did?” Belinda asked, her mouth agape. “I cannot imagine it.”
“He loves you both very much,” Isabella told them, recalling his insistence that he and Isabella visit just one more shop. “I know he seems to spend a great deal of time working on the estate and whatnot, but he does think a great deal about whether he is making the right decisions where you two are concerned.”
“We’ll thank him,” Eleanor assured her. “And thank you again.” She hugged Isabella, before leading Belinda to the door.
“We are very glad you’re our sister now,” Belinda said before they left.
Isabella stood for a moment, then wiped her eyes and told herself not to be a goose.
Now that she was alone, the fatigue of the journey settled upon her at once. She’d heard the footmen delivering the hot water to her dressing room while the girls had opened their gifts. Eager to soak away the aches in her body, she crossed the room into the dressing room and found Sanders putting her favorite scent into the steaming bath.
“Excellent,” she said, stepping farther into the chamber. “I haven’t looked forward to a bath in quite some time.”
“Before you get in,” Sanders said, “it seems you received a package while you were gone. I assume it was a wedding or betrothal gift, since Templeton says it was hand delivered. I was going to let it wait until morning, but to be honest, Your Grace, it’s begun to smell a bit. So I think it might be cheese or something edible. You know how country folk are.”
Isabella bit back a smile. “I know we are far from London, Sanders, but you really mustn’t be such a snob.”
“Hmph,” Sanders responded. “There’s a reason I stayed in London instead of taking a position in the country, Your Grace. These country folk aren’t civilized, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Isabella had thought the same thing when she’d first arrived in Yorkshire, but her opinion of the people here had changed not long after she’d become acquainted with them. Of course Sanders’s acquaintance thus far had been with the servants, who, for all Isabella knew, were savages. So she forbore from chastising her.
Taking the box from Sanders, she noted that it did indeed smell. If it was cheese she would simply have to send a thank-you note and pretend that it had been delicious to whoever had sent it. “There was no card with it?” she asked the other woman.
“No, Your Grace,” Sanders replied, not even bothering to pretend she wasn’t desperate to know what the box held.
Carefully, Isabella untied the ribbons holding the lid on. “Well, here we go,” she said, lifting the lid with a laugh.
But all laughter fled when she saw what was inside.
She heard a scream and realized with shock that the sound was coming from her own throat.
* * *
Trevor had finished his own bath and was submitting to his second shave of the day when he heard Isabella’s shriek. Despite wearing a dressing gown with nothing underneath, he sprinted toward the door that separated their two dressing rooms and threw it open.
He found both Isabella and her maid staring with shock and horror at an open box. The lid had been cast aside, along with a pretty grosgrain ribbon that had clearly held the package closed.
“What is it?” he demanded, stepping forward and looking inside.
Neither woman responded as Trevor stared in repugnance at the dead rabbit in the box.
“Poor little creature,” Isabella said with a shudder. “I hope it didn’t suffer overmuch.”
Trevor wrapped his arms around her, livid to feel her trembling beneath his arms. “Take it downstairs,” he instructed his valet, who had followed him and was hovering in the doorway between the two rooms.
Jennings stepped forward and lifted the box. “I’ll take care of it, Your Grace.”
He was stepping away when he stopped. “Your Grace, there’s a note inside.”
Trevor paused, his hand resting between Isabella’s shoulder blades. He watched as Jennings gingerly reached into the box and withdrew a folded sheet of foolscap. Silently he handed the note to his master. Isabella’s maid, exchanging a look with Trevor, followed the valet from the dressing room, leaving Trevor and Isabella alone.
“I’m all right,” Isabella said, pulling away from Trevor in reluctance. “I want to know what it says.”
Wordlessly Trevor unfolded the paper and held it out so that they could both see what it said.
I had to get the evil out
Isabella gasped, covering her mouth with her hand to keep herself from crying out.
Trevor was at her side in an instant. “What is it? Do you recognize the handwriting?”
Wordlessly she shook her head and buried her face in his neck, needing more than ever the feel of his strong body holding her. “N-no,” she managed to say. “But the words, they are familiar.” Her body began to shake uncontrollably.
“Easy,” Trevor said, gathering her up in his arms and carrying her bodily into his bedchamber. As if she were a child, she felt him lower her to the bed and climb up beside her, never letting her go.
After a few minutes of him stroking her back, calming her, she stopped shaking and was able to speak.”I am sorry,” she said softly.
“For what?” he asked, not letting her out of his arms. “For being human?”
“I hadn’t expected it,” she said simply. “I thought no one knew about what Mama had done, you see. So, it came as a shock.”
“I think you’d better tell me,” Trevor said, kissing the top of her head. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know the whole story. If you’re up to it, that is.”