Regency Rumours (21 page)

‘Gallantry, in effect. Just like rescuing two drowning people from the lake. I thought I was your friend.’ It sounded forlorn, but however much it hurt her pride, she could not help herself. ‘You said I belonged to you.’

‘It was wrong of me to think I could make a friend of an unmarried lady and what I said about you being mine was foolish sentimentality.’

‘So there is nothing between us?’ It was like sticking
pins into her flesh, but she had to have the truth from him. ‘You were gallant and then deluded. We made love, but that was merely lust.’

‘I admire your courage and your generosity, your wit and your elegance. I was privileged to share your bed, and my lips will be for ever sealed about that. You need have no fear I would ever give the slightest hint that so much as a kiss had passed between us.’

Isobel stared up at the scarred, battered face and tried to find her friend, her lover, her love, somewhere behind the hard mask. But there was nothing, just a faint pity, the hint of a smile. ‘I trusted you, Giles.’

‘I never lied to you. I never told you I loved you. I am sorry it went as far as it did.’

‘But not as sorry as I am, Giles.’ Isobel turned on her heel and walked out. She wanted to hesitate at the threshold, to stand there a moment, for surely he would call her back, but she made her feet keep walking, closed the door behind her with care and went back to her own room. He did not speak.

Her mother, hair tidied and complexion restored with the judicious use of rice powder, was sitting with her feet on a stool while Dorothy bustled about packing.

‘Isobel dear—have you been crying?’ Her mother sat up straighter and stared at her.

‘No…Well, a little. I was upset at leaving the children, they are very sweet. I suppose it has made my eyes a trifle watery, that is all. There is the gong—shall we go down?’

They descended the stairs arm in arm again. Her mother had relaxed now, Isobel sensed. Her unaccountable daughter had yielded, the Season could be exploited in every possible way and, by the end of it she, Isobel, would have come to her senses and be betrothed to a well-connected, wealthy man who would father a brood of admirable children. All would be well.

Cousin Elizabeth and her three eldest children were already in the dining room. Lord Hardwicke and her father followed them in and then, on their heels, Giles entered.

Lady Bythorn took one look at his face, gasped audibly and plunged into conversation with Lady Anne. Cousin Elizabeth frowned, more in anxiety about the effects of leaving off the dressing than from any revulsion at the scar, Isobel thought. Her father stared, then resumed his discussion of tenancy issues with the earl. Giles, apparently oblivious, thanked Lady Caroline for the bread, passed her the butter and addressed himself to his meal.

‘Some brawn, my lady?’ Benson produced the platter.
Isobel stared at it quivering gently in its jelly and lost what little appetite she had left.

‘Thank you, no, Benson. Just some bread and butter, if you please.’

It was strange, she thought as she nibbled stoically through two slices of bread and butter and, to stem her mother’s urgings, a sliver of cheese. She had not expected a broken heart to feel like this. She was numb, almost as if she no longer cared. Perhaps it was shock; they said that people in shock did not feel pain despite dreadful injuries.

Over the rim of her glass she watched Giles and felt nothing, just a huge emptiness where only a few hours ago there had been a turmoil of feelings and emotions. Hope, love, desire, fear, uncertainty, happiness, confusion, tenderness, worry—they had all been there. Now, nothing.

She found she could smile, shake her head over Cousin Elizabeth’s praise of her courage in rescuing Lizzie, tell her mother of the interesting recipe for plum jam the vicar’s wife had given her. When her eyes met Giles’s down the length of the table she could keep her expression politely neutral, even smile a bright, social smile.

It was only as they were gathered in the formal elegance of the Yellow Drawing Room to make their final farewells that Isobel realised what she felt like.
She had visited Merlin’s Mechanical Museum in Princes Street once and had marvelled over the automata jerkily going about their business with every appearance of life and yet with nothing inside them but cogs and wheels where there should have been a brain and a heart and soul.

She shook hands, and exchanged kisses, and smiled and said everything that was proper in thanks and when she saw a shadow fall across the threshold, and Giles stood there for a moment looking in, she inclined her head graciously. ‘Goodbye, Mr Harker.’

But when her parents turned to look he was gone. Like a dream, she thought. Just like a daydream. Not a memory at all.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘I
HAVE ABSOLUTELY
no expectation of finding anyone I wish to marry, Mama,’ Isobel said, striving for an acceptable mixture of firmness and reasonableness in her tone. ‘I fear it is a sad waste of money to equip me for yet another Season.’ For four days she had tacitly accepted all her mother’s plans, now she felt she had to say something to make her understand how she really felt.

Lady Bythorn turned back from her scrutiny of Old Bond Street as the carriage made its slow way past the shops. ‘Why ever not?’ she demanded with what Isobel knew was quite justified annoyance. She was doing her best to see her second daughter suitably established and any dutiful daughter would be co-operating to the full and be suitably grateful. ‘You are not, surely, still pining for young Needham?’

‘No, Mama.’

‘Then there is no reason in the world—’ She broke off and eyed Isobel closely. ‘You have not lost your heart to someone unsuitable, have you?’

‘Mama—’

‘Never tell me that frightful Harker man has inveigled his way into your affections!’

‘Very well, Mama.’

‘Very well what?’

‘I will not tell you that Mr Harker has inveigled in any way.’

‘Do not be pert, Isobel. It ill becomes a young woman of your age.’

‘Yes, Mama. There is no illicit romance for you to worry about.’
Not now
.

‘We are at Madame le Clare’s. Now kindly do not make an exhibition of yourself complaining about fittings.’

‘No, Mama. I will co-operate and I will enter into this Season, fully. But this is the last time. After this summer, if I am not betrothed, I will not undertake another.’

‘Oh!’ Lady Bythorn threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘Ungrateful girl! Do you expect me to wait for grandchildren until Frederick is finally old enough to marry?’

The guilt clutched like a hand around her heart. Mama would be a perfect grandmother, she loved small children. She would adore Annabelle and Annabelle would love her. ‘I am afraid so, Mama. Thank you, Travis,’ she added to the groom who was
putting the steps down and remaining impassive in the face of his mistress’s indiscreet complaints.

Isobel followed her mother into the dress shop, sat down and proceeded to show every interest in the fashion plates laid out in front of her, the swatches fanned out on the table and the lists of essential gowns her mother had drawn up.

‘You have lost weight, my lady,’ Madame declared with the licence of someone who had been measuring the Jarvis ladies for almost ten years.

‘Then make everything with ample seams and I will do my best to eat my fill at all the dinner parties,’ Isobel said lightly. ‘Do you think three is a sufficient number of ballgowns, Mama?’

‘I thought you were not—that is, order more if you like, my dear.’ Her mother blinked at her, obviously confused by this sudden change of heart.

One way or another it would be her last Season—either a miracle would occur and she would be courted by a man who proved to be outstandingly tolerant, deeply understanding
and
eligible enough to please her parents or she would be lying in a stock of gowns she could adapt for the years of spinsterhood to come.

‘Aha! All is explained! Lady Isobel is in love,’ the Frenchwoman cried, delighted with this deduction.

Isobel simply said, ‘And two riding habits.’ She
felt empty of emotion. That had to be a good thing. It meant she could lead a hollow life and indulge in all its superficial pleasures for a few months: clothes, entertainment, flirtation. It would satisfy Mama, at least for a while, and it would be something to do, something to fill the void that opened in front of her.

‘I am not certain I quite approve of Lady Leamington,’ Lady Bythorn remarked two weeks later as the queue of carriages inched a few feet closer to the red carpet on the pavement outside the large mansion in Cavendish Square. ‘She strikes me as being altogether too lax in the people she invites to her balls, but, on the other hand, there is no doubt it will be a squeeze and all the most fashionable gentlemen will be there.’

Isobel contented herself with smoothing the silver net that draped her pale blue silk skirts. A shocking squeeze would mean plenty of partners to dance with, many fleeting opportunities for superficial, meaningless flirtation to give the illusion of obedience to her mother. In large, crowded events she felt safe, hidden in the multitude like one minnow in a school of fish.

Following the scandal of Lord Andrew’s arrest and subsequent disappearance to his country estates, she found herself of interest to virtually everyone she met. Men she had snubbed before seemed eager to try their luck with her again, young ladies gasped and
fluttered and wanted to know all about how
ghastly
it had been. The matrons nodded wisely over the sins of modern young men and how well dear Lady Isobel was bearing up.

‘I do not care any more, so I have suddenly become attractive,’ she said wryly to Pamela Monsom who stopped for a gossip when they met in the ladies’ retiring room. Pamela had been one of the few friends who had stood by her in the aftermath of the scandal, writing fiercely to say that she did not believe a word of it and that men were beasts.

‘It is not just that,’ Pamela said as she studied her, head on one side. ‘Although you are thinner you also look more…I don’t know. More grown up. Sophisticated.’

‘Older,’ Isobel countered.

‘Oh, look.’ Pamela dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘See who has just come in!’

‘Who?’ Isobel pretended to check her hem so she could turn a little and observe the doorway. ‘Who is that?’

The lady who had just entered was exceedingly beautiful in a manner that Isobel could only describe as
well preserved
. She might have been any age above thirty-five at that distance—tall, magnificently proportioned, with a mass of golden-brown hair caught
up with diamond pins to match the necklace that lay on her creamy bosom.

She swept round, catching up the skirts of her black gown, and surveyed the room. The colour was funereal, but Isobel had never seen anything less like mourning. The satin was figured with a subtle pattern and shimmered like the night sky with the diamonds its stars.

‘That, my dear, is the Scarlet Widow,’ Miss Monsom hissed. ‘I have never been this close before—Mama always rushes off in the opposite direction whenever she is sighted. I think she must have had a fling with Papa at some point.’ She narrowed her eyes speculatively. ‘One can quite see what he saw in her.’

For the first time in days Isobel felt something: recognition, apprehension and a flutter very like fear. The wide green eyes found her and she knew Pamela was right: this was the Dowager Marchioness of Faversham, Giles’s mother.

The lush crimson lips set into a hard line and the Widow stalked into the room.

‘She is coming over here!’ Pamela squeaked. ‘Mama will have kittens!’

Isobel found she was on her feet. Her own mother would be the one needing the smelling bottle when she heard about this. ‘Lady Faversham.’ She dropped a curtsy suitable for the widow’s rank.

‘Are you Lady Isobel Jarvis?’ The older woman kept her voice low. It throbbed with emotion and Isobel felt every eye in the retiring room turn in their direction as ladies strained to hear.

‘I am.’

‘Then you are the little hussy responsible for the damage to my son’s face.’

‘I shall ignore your insulting words, ma’am,’ Isobel said, clasping her hands together tightly so they could not shake. ‘But Mr Harker was injured in the course of assisting Lord James Albright to deal with his sister’s errant fiancé who had assaulted me.’

‘You got your claws into him, you convinced him that he must defend your honour and look what happened!’ The Widow leaned closer, the magnificent green eyes so like Giles’s that a stab of longing for him lanced through Isobel. ‘He was
beautiful
and you have scarred him. You foolish little virgin—you are playing with fire and I’ll not have him embroiled in some scandal because of you.’

No, I do not want to feel, I do not want to remember
…‘I should imagine that Mr Harker has far more likelihood of encountering scandal in your company than in mine, ma’am,’ Isobel said, putting up her chin. ‘If a gentleman obeys an honourable impulse on my behalf I am very grateful, but as I did
not request that he act for me, I fail to see how I am responsible.’

‘You scheming jade—’

‘The pot calling the kettle black,’ Isobel murmured. Her knees were knocking, but at least her voice was steady. She had never been so rude to anyone in her entire life.

‘I am warning you—keep your hands off my son.’ By a miracle the Widow was still hissing her insults; except for Pamela beside her, no one else could hear what they were talking about.

‘I have no intention of so much as setting eyes on your son, ma’am, let alone laying a finger on him,’ Isobel retorted.

‘See that is the truth or I can assure you, you will suffer for it.’ Lady Faversham swept round and out of the room, leaving a stunned silence behind her.

‘What dramatics,’ Isobel said with a light laugh. ‘I have never met Lady Faversham before and I cannot say I wish to keep up the acquaintance!’

That produced a ripple of amusement from the handful of ladies who had been staring agog from the other end of the room. ‘What on earth is the matter with her?’ Lady Mountstead demanded as she came across to join them.