Trevor didn’t miss her corrected mistake. Was he going to have to put the fellow in his place as well as ensure that the dowager relinquished her control of the dukedom?
Trevor stood, deciding to leave the sisters to the conversation. “I’ll just go pay him a visit then,” he said. He turned to Isabella. “I trust I’ll see you at dinner?”
Perhaps still regretting her earlier slight, Isabella smiled up at him. “Yes, of course.” Giving in to impulse, Trevor leaned down and kissed her full on the lips. Before either sister could comment, he left the room and went in search of the duke’s … his … study.
* * *
“That certainly doesn’t look like a marriage of convenience,” Perdita told her sister with a grin.
Isabella knew her face flamed with color but tried to pass it off. “He just wanted to prove a point, or some such nonsensical masculine thing. I can hardly blame him given what I just said about possible prosecution.”
“Yes,” her sister agreed, leaning back in her seat to survey Isabella. “He wanted to prove that you are his wife and that he’s in love with you.”
Perdita had always been the more romantic of them. Even before they made their debuts, she’d waxed philosophical about the handsome young beaux who would come and sweep them both off their feet. She’d been sorely disappointed when the opposite happened. Now Isabella wondered how her sister had survived marriage to someone like Gervase yet still believed in happy ever after.
“It truly is a marriage of convenience, Perdy,” she said, feeling like a clod for crushing her sister’s romantic notions but unable to let her continue to think of Isabella’s marriage as anything but what it was. “We were caught in a compromising position at a country ball. Trevor needed someone to look after his sisters and I agreed to it.” She didn’t mention the fact that Trevor seemed to be the only person who believed that she wasn’t going stark raving mad.
“Isa,” her sister said with a look of reproach. “You might gammon everyone else in Christendom about the circumstances behind your match, but I know you. And there is no way on earth you’d have consented to marry again unless you were head over ears in love.”
The situation was far more complicated than Isabella was willing to reveal to her sister at this point. Aside from the fact that Isabella did, indeed, fear that she was falling in love with her own husband, the knowledge that someone was trying to discredit her made her current relationship with him one in which she relied upon him for far more help than she would have liked. Now that they were finally back in London, where she was in her preferred milieu, she hoped that the balance of power would shift a bit and she would be able to repay Trevor for the support he’d given her when they were in Yorkshire.
Aloud, however, she merely said, “We are fond of one another, and that’s the end of it. Besides, we’ve only known one another for a few weeks. That’s hardly the basis for true love.”
But Perdita remained unconvinced. “Say what you will, Sister, but I know what I see before me.”
Deciding to get a bit of her own back, Isabella asked her sister, “What of you and the Earl of Coniston? Are we to see an announcement in the papers before too long?”
To Isabella’s surprise, however, her sister did not break into a bashful grin as she’d expected; instead Perdita looked troubled. “I’m afraid I have some bad news on that front. Lord Coniston and I have decided that we should not suit after all.”
Isabella could not keep from gaping at her sister. “What do you mean you ‘should not suit’? I thought you had all but accepted the man! At least that is how things were before I left for Yorkshire. Did the dowager perhaps put some sort of spoke in the wheel there? For if she did I will have no compunction about—”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Perdita said quickly, her tone placating. “This was between Coniston and myself. I must ask you to keep this solely between us, but the truth of the matter, Isa, is that I simply do not love him.”
Isabella took her hand. “But when did this happen? How? I thought you had decided that what you felt for Lord Coniston was far more real than your feelings for Gervase.”
“I can’t really say when or how it happened,” Perdita admitted. “I simply knew one day while we were having a rather stilted conversation over the luncheon table. It really should not be difficult to carry on a conversation with the man you are supposed to love. And we were always arriving at some sort of conversational impasse.”
“No, you are right about that,” Isabella said thoughtfully. Even when she and Trevor were arguing, they never had difficulty finding things to say to each other. It was one of the things she loved about him.
Startled at the turn of phrase, she nevertheless chose not to overanalyze the thought. After all, it was simply a way of speaking. It didn’t mean she loved him, for pity’s sake.
But Perdita’s next words gave Isabella pause.
“I know you are surprised, but I must say that your arrival just now has only reinforced my certainty that we have made the right decision in breaking off our prebetrothal, I suppose you’d call it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Isabella asked with suspicion.
“Only that seeing you with your Trevor has reminded me of what true love looks like,” Perdita said with a laugh. “And I can tell already that the two of you are madly in love.”
Impulsively Perdita hugged her sister, and though Isabella wasn’t quite sure she agreed with her sister’s assessment of her marriage to Trevor, she hugged her back.
“You’re quite mad,” Isabella told her, “but I do love you. And I hope that one of these days you will find a husband who loves you to distraction.”
“I love you, too,” Perdita said with a grin. “Even if you have stolen a march on every other lady in London by marrying Trevor before the rest of us even had a chance to meet him.”
Eager to change the subject, Isabella asked, “What has really been going on with the dowager since I left?”
Perdita shrugged. “Once she convinced you to leave for Yorkshire, she seemed to … deflate.” Her eyes darkened with worry. “I know that she blackmailed you into going,” she said, “and I do hate that in choosing not to marry Coniston I made your trip to Yorkshire utterly unnecessary—aside from your marriage to Trevor of course. But I just don’t think the dowager had it in her to stop my engagement if I’d wanted to go through with it.”
“She’s a sour old woman,” Isabella retorted. “If I didn’t believe her capable of doing those very things I wouldn’t have left town.” She reached across to take her sister’s hand. “I know you hold her in some affection, dearest, but she truly believes that we were responsible for Gervase’s death. And she’s never for a moment believed him capable of the things he did to you.”
“You just don’t know her as I do, Isa,” the younger woman said with a sigh. “I know you don’t trust her. You have every reason not to, considering how she returned you to Ralph that time you tried to run away. But she thought she was doing the right thing. She’s from a different generation. The Duchess of Devonshire put up with all sorts of outrages from her husband and never really left him. I believe the dowager thought that you were simply being headstrong or overreacting.”
“I was not overreacting,” Isabella said through clenched teeth, remembering again just how betrayed she’d felt when her own godmother had told her husband where she was hiding from him. “He killed the child I was carrying, Perdita. If I’d remained with him he would have killed me as well. As it was, he nearly did so when I was returned to him.”
“She didn’t know, Isa. I promise you,” Perdita said, tears forming in her eyes. It was an old argument between them, and one that Isabella knew her sister took to heart. Maybe if Isabella had spent as much time with the dowager as her sister had she’d understand the old woman’s behavior like Perdita did. But Isabella still couldn’t understand how her sister could defend the woman who had accused her of intentionally killing her husband. “She stayed with the old duke, so she didn’t understand why we shouldn’t stay with Ralph and Gervase.”
“Let’s not argue over her, Perdita,” Isabella said, a sudden weariness coming over her as she recalled all of the heartache and drama that had surrounded her first marriage. “There is something I must tell you.”
At Perdita’s squeal of delight Isabella realized that she’d perhaps phrased that wrong. “No,” she said with a nervous laugh, “I assure you it is not that I am with child.” It was far too soon for such a thing. Besides which, she had enough on her plate at the present time without the addition of a pregnancy to the mix.
“It is something else entirely,” she said firmly. “Something much more sinister.” Quickly she explained to her sister everything that had happened to her while she was in Yorkshire, beginning with the intentionally broken carriage and ending with the dead rabbit.
“Who would do such a thing?” Perdita demanded. She could be quite fierce when her loved ones were endangered.
“I don’t know,” Isabella said with a lift of her shoulders. “At first I thought it might be someone who knew about how Gervase died, but this last note is almost eerily similar to Mama’s last words. Who knows about that but us? Papa is dead, after all. And I only told Wharton.”
“No one that I can think of,” Perdita said. “I was always quite careful not to say anything to Gervase about it. Especially after I saw how Wharton used it against you.”
“That’s what I thought,” Isabella said. “But god knows who Ralph told. He was quite angry about it when I told him.” An understatement if ever there was one.
“Someone obviously knows now,” Perdita said, her light brows drawn. “What would someone have to gain by making you think you’re going mad?”
“I’m not sure,” Isabella said truthfully. “There’s no reason I can think of for someone to persecute me in this way. I thought at first that it might be the dowager, but her illness makes that a slim possibility.”
“There is the fact that you were there when Gervase died,” Perdita said carefully. “The dowager might not be capable of perpetrating such a scheme, but Gervase left any number of friends and associates with reason to hate you.”
“But what of you, and Georgina?” Isabella asked, not liking to think of her sister and her friend being subjected to the sort of games that this villain had put her through.
Perdita looked down.
“Perdita?” Isabella asked, her stomach tightening. “What is it that you aren’t telling me?”
“I didn’t tell you because I thought you were in Yorkshire falling in love.…” She looked sheepish at her own foolishness. “But both Georgie and I have received notes in the past week or so.”
“What did they say?” Isabella asked, though she knew what her sister would say.
“‘I know what you did last season.’”
Nineteen
Trevor found the personal secretary to the Duke of Ormonde in the massive study, just where Perdita had said he would find him.
He didn’t bother knocking, preferring to simply walk in like he owned the room, since he did. And he wanted to gauge how the man responded to such a tactic. Trevor wasn’t sure who was terrorizing Isabella, but as the man who ran the Ormonde estates, Lord Archer, younger son of the Duke of Pemberton, was in as good a position as anyone to orchestrate such a campaign of mental attacks.
The man himself was seated not at the largest desk in the room, which was piled with newspapers, mail, estate books, and any number of documents that went into keeping the House of Ormonde running smoothly, but instead hunched over a smaller desk to the side, where he wrote feverishly in a large ledger. The piles were neat, clearly ordered by someone who knew that tidiness was a must when dealing with some twenty properties, farms, estates, and various other holdings.
His boots soundless on the thick carpeting, Trevor stepped closer, not speaking until the younger man, as if sensing his presence, looked up. As soon as Lord Archer realized who it was he’d been interrupted by, he leapt to his feet and offered a deep bow.
“Your Grace,” he said, his voice cultured and smooth, and as urbane as Trevor’s was blunt. “It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Welcome to Ormonde House.”
Lord Archer stepped out from behind the desk and bowed again.
“Lord Archer,” Trevor said with more gruffness than he’d intended. “It is good to finally meet the man who runs the Ormonde estates.”
If the fellow showed the merest hint of resentment, that might be a clue that he was vulnerable to being used as a means of getting at Isabella. But there was no sign of anger or frustration at being taken for granted in Lord Archer’s manner. Far from it.
“I would hardly say that, Your Grace,” the young lord said with a good-natured laugh. “I am merely the man who keeps things in order so that the big decisions can be made by you. And that’s the way I like it.”
Gesturing for the other man to take a seat before the fire, Trevor followed him and took a seat himself. “So you have no ambitions to run a household of your own one day?”
Lord Archer rubbed his forehead, causing a dark curl to tumble over his brow. “I won’t say that I don’t wish for a home of my own one day,” he admitted, “but I am quite content for now to act as your personal secretary. Though I will admit that I hope your arrival in London might mean that you are ready to take up your seat in the Lords.”
Taken by surprise, Trevor laughed. “I hadn’t really thought of it, to be honest. Politics has never been an ambition of mine, though I do understand the need for those in power to do what’s needed to keep the nation running.”
“I hope while you’re in town that I might be able to persuade you to take a more active role, Your Grace.”
Trevor was pleased by the other man’s plain speaking. He did not betray a hint of shyness about the matter, for which Trevor was grateful. It showed him that Lord Archer Lisle was a man who knew his own mind. “I will look forward to hearing your argument, Lord Archer,” he said with a smile. “What role have my predecessors played in the government?”
He leaned back and listened attentively to his secretary outline what Gervase, his father, and the dowager’s late husband had done in their own time in the House of Lords. It was clear that Lord Archer was an acute observer of politics, the government, and all that those subjects entailed. When he was finished, Trevor knew that the House of Ormonde was generally considered to have Tory leanings but that from time to time, when politically expedient, they voted with the Whigs. And he realized that he could do far worse than to allow his secretary to steer him through the shark-infested waters of the English political system.