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‘Do you believe that I am completely innocent of this scandal? I feel so awkward, thinking you might have reservations about my contact with the girls.’ She faltered to a halt, fearful that she had been gabbling. Guilt for sins past and hidden, no doubt. But this scandal was here and now and the countess, however kind, had a reputation for strict moral principles. It was said she did not even allow a beer house in the estate village.
‘Of course I believe you would never do anything immoral, Isobel.’ Her conscience gave an inward wince as the countess drew her to the chairs set either side of the fire. ‘But your mother was so discreet I have no idea exactly what transpired. Perhaps it is as well if I know the details, the better to be prepared for any gossip.’
Isobel stared into the fire. ‘When Lucas died I was twenty. I stayed in the country for almost a year with my old school friend Jane, who married Lucas’s half-brother. You will recall that he drowned in the same accident. Jane was pregnant, and their home was so remote: it helped both of us to be together.
‘I wanted to remain there, but Mama felt strongly that I should rejoin society last year because I had missed two Seasons. I hated it—I was older than the other girls, none of the men interested me in the slightest and I suppose I allowed it to show. I got a reputation for being cold and aloof and for snubbing gentlemen, but frankly, I did not care. I did not want to marry any of them, you see.
‘Mama thought I should try again this year and, to ease me in, as she put it, I went to the Harringtons’ house party at Long Ditton in January. I knew I was not popular. What I did not realise was that what might have been acceptable in a beauty with a vast fortune was merely regarded as insulting and irritating in a tolerable-looking, adequately dowered, second daughter of an earl.’
‘Oh, dear,’ Lady Hardwicke murmured.
‘Quite,’ Isobel said bitterly. ‘It seems that instead of being discouraged by my snubs and lack of interest, some of the gentlemen took them as an insult and a challenge and resolved to teach me a lesson. I was sitting up reading in my nightgown late one night when the door opened and three of them pushed in. They had all been drinking, they had brought wine with them and they were bent, so they said, on “warming me up” and showing me what I had been missing.’
A log collapsed in a shower of sparks, just as one had in the moment before the door had burst open that night. ‘I should have screamed, of course. Afterwards the fact that I did not seemed to convince everyone that I had invited the men there. Foolishly I tried to reason with them, send them away quietly before anyone discovered them. They all demanded a kiss, but I could see it might go further.
‘I pushed Lord Halton and he collapsed backwards into a screen which smashed with the most terrific noise. When half-a-dozen people erupted into my room Halton was swigging wine from the bottle where he had fallen, Mr Wrenne was sprawled in my chair egging on Lord Andrew White—and he had me against the bedpost and was kissing me, despite my struggles.
‘One of the first through the door was Lady Penelope Albright, White’s fiancée. No one believed me when I said I had done nothing to encourage the gentlemen, let alone invite them to my room. Lady Penelope had hysterics, broke off the engagement on the spot and has gone into such a decline that her parents say she will miss the entire Season. Lady Harrington packed me off home at dawn the next day.’
‘Oh, my dear! I could box Maria Harrington’s ears, the silly peahen. Had she no idea what the mood of the party was? I suppose not, she always had more hair than wit.’ Lady Hardwicke got to her feet and paced angrily to the window. ‘And what now? Do your parents think this will have died down by mid-April when we go to Ireland and you return home?’
‘They hope so. And I cannot run away for ever. I suppose I must face them all some day.’ Isobel put a bright, determined smile on her face. The thought of going into society again was daunting. But she could not live as a recluse in Herefordshire, she had come to accept that. She had parents and a brother and sister who loved her and who had been patient with her seemingly inexplicable desire to stay away for far too long.
She might wish to be removed from the Marriage Mart, but not under these humiliating circumstances. And London, which she enjoyed for the theatres and galleries, the libraries, the shops, would become a social minefield of embarrassment and rejections.
‘That is very brave,’ the countess said. ‘I could call out all those wretched young bucks myself—such a pity your brother is too young to knock their heads together.’
‘I would certainly not want Frederick duelling at sixteen! It is not as though I feel any pressing desire to wed. If I had found a man who was the equal of Lucas and this had caused a rift with him, then I would have something to grieve over, but as it is…’ As it is I am not faced with the awful dilemma of how much of my past life to reveal to a potential husband.
CHAPTER TWO
ISOBEL STARED INTO the fire and finally said the things she had been bottling up inside. She had tried to explain at home, but it seemed her mother would never understand how she felt. ‘I suppose I should be fired up with righteous indignation over the injustice of it all. I was so hurt and angry, but now I feel no spirit for the fight any more. What does it matter if society spurns me? I have not felt any burning desire to be part of it for four years.’
She bit her lip. ‘The men believe I am putting on airs and think myself above them, or some such foolishness. But the truth is, even if I did wish to marry, they all fail to match up to my memories of Lucas. I still remember his kindness and his intelligence and his laugh. People say that memory fades, but I can see his face and hear his voice.’
‘But you are no longer mourning him, only regretting,’ the countess suggested. ‘You have accepted he is gone.’
‘Oh, yes. I know it, and I have accepted it. There was this great hole full of loss and pain and now it is simply an empty ache.’ And the constant nagging doubt—had she done the right thing in those months after Lucas’s death? The decisions had seemed so simple and yet so very, very hard.
‘I do not want to go through that again. Or to settle for something less than I felt for him.’ Isobel turned, reached out to the older woman. ‘Do you understand? Mama does not, she says I am fanciful and not facing up to reality. She says it is my duty to marry.’
‘Yes, I understand.’ Lady Hardwicke gave her hand a squeeze. ‘But I should not give up on men quite yet,’ she added with a shake of her head. ‘Do you mind if I tell Anne in confidence what happened at the house party? She is almost eighteen now and will be making her come-out in Dublin. She might pick up something from gossip in friends’ letters and I would have her know the truth of matters. It will serve as a warning to her.’
‘To fawn on young gentlemen in case they turn on her?’ Isobel enquired.
‘To lock her bedroom door at night and to scream the moment she feels any alarm,’ the countess said with a smile.
‘No, I do not mind.’ Isobel returned the smile. The older woman was right to reprove her for that note of bitterness. If she became a sour old maid as a result of this, then those rakes would have made her exactly what they jeered at her for being.
‘I will have tea sent up and hot water. Relax and rest until dinner time, then you will feel strong enough to face at least some of my brood. Charles and Caroline must have nursery tea and wait until the morning to meet you, but I will allow Lizzie and Catherine to have dinner with us, and Anne and Philip will be there, of course.’
‘And the architects?’ Isobel asked with studied nonchalance.
‘Yes, they will join us. Mr Soane will travel back to London tomorrow. It is never easy to persuade him to stay away from his wife and his precious collection of art and antiquities in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, but Mr Harker is staying. I confess, I wish he were not quite so good looking, for the girls are all eyes and attitudes whenever they see him, but to do him credit, he gives them not the slightest encouragement, which is just as well, considering who he is.’
She swept out, adding, ‘Do not hesitate to ring if you need anything, my dear, I am so pleased to have you here.’
Isobel sank back into the chair, puzzled. Who Mr Harker is? He was an architect, but so was Mr Soane. Architects of good breeding—or even the sons of bricklayers like Mr Soane, if they were cultivated and successful—were perfectly acceptable socially, even at the dining table of an earl. Mr Harker’s accent had been impeccable, his manners—if one left aside his hostile gaze—without reproach, his dress immaculate. He was a gentleman, obviously, and as eligible as a houseguest as Mr Soane. But who was he? Isobel shrugged. ‘Why should I care?’ she asked the crackling fire. ‘He is insufferable whoever he is.’
The clock in the inner hall struck seven as Isobel reached the foot of the stairs. Where was everyone? There were no footmen to be seen and the doors ahead and to the right were closed, giving her no clues.
‘If you say so…’ A low masculine rumble. At least two of the party were down already, she realised with relief. It was always so awkward, standing around in a house one did not know.
Isobel followed the voices into the front hall and realised they came from the rooms to the left of the entrance. The cues lying on the billiard table in the first hinted that perhaps some of the gentlemen had only recently left. The conversation was clearer now, coming from the room beyond. The door stood ajar.
‘…pleasant young lady, she will be companionship for Lady Anne, no doubt.’ That was Mr Soane. Isobel stopped in her tracks. Was he talking about her?
‘She is a good six years older than Lady Anne,’ Mr Harker replied with disastrous clarity. ‘One wonders what she is doing unwed, although I imagine I can hazard a guess. She has too bold an eye—no doubt it attracts the wrong sort of attention, not honourable proposals.’
‘You…’ Isobel bit back the words and applied her eye to the crack between door and hinges.
‘You think she might prove to be an embarrassment?’ the older man asked. He sounded concerned. ‘I have seen the lengths you have to go to to prevent young ladies from becoming…um, attached.’
‘I have no intention of allowing her to so much as flirt with me. She was staring in the most brazen manner in the hall—presumably she thinks it sophisticated. That, or she is on the shelf and signalling that she is open to advances.’
Harker was strolling around the room, looking at the pictures that hung on the panelling. For a moment the exquisite profile came into view, then he vanished with a flick of dark blue coat tails.
You arrogant, vain swine! Isobel’s fingers uncurled, itching to slap that beautiful face.
‘I do hope not.’ A slice of Soane’s long, dark countenance appeared in the slit, furrowed by a frown. ‘Lady Hardwicke would be most upset if there was any untoward flirtation. You know her reputation for high standards.’
‘And it would rebound on you by association, Soane, as I am your protégé. I have no intention of risking it, have no fear. It is hardly as if she offers irresistible temptation in any case.’ Both men laughed, covering Isobel’s gasp of outrage.
‘A pity gentlemen cannot have chaperons in the same way as the ladies,’ Soane remarked. ‘Being a plain man myself, I never had any trouble of that kind. Find yourself a wife, preferably a rich one, and settle down as I have, that is my advice, but I have no doubt you enjoy your freedom and your dashing widows too much, eh, Harker?’
‘Far too much, sir. Besides, finding the right wife, in my circumstances, will take more application than I am prepared to expend upon it just now.’
As if anyone would have you! The words almost left Isobel’s mouth as the sound of their voices faded away. Her vision was strangely blurred and it took a moment to realise it was because her eyes had filled with tears of anger and hurt. It was so unjust to be stigmatised as a flirt, or worse, simply for staring at a man. And then to be labelled as on the shelf and too ordinary to offer any temptation to a connoisseur, such as Mr Harker obviously considered himself to be, was the crowning insult.
It took a few moments to compose herself. Isobel turned back the way she had come, unwilling to risk walking into them again. Was that cowardice or simply the wisdom to keep well away from Mr Harker while her palm still itched to slap him?
There was a footman in the hall when she emerged. ‘May I help you, my lady? The family is in the saloon, just through here, ma’am.’
Ushered back through the inner hall, Isobel found herself in a pleasant room with a large bay window. It was curtained now against the February darkness, but she assumed it would look out onto the gardens and park stretching off to the north.
The earl was poring over what looked like architectural drawings with Mr Soane and a fresh-faced youth was teasing a giggling girl of perhaps twelve years—Lord Royston and Lady Lizzie, she guessed.
The countess sat on a wide sofa with Lady Anne and her fifteen-year-old sister, Catherine, who were making a show of working on their embroidery.
Mr Soane must have come through a connecting door, but there was no sign of the viper-tongued Mr Harker. Where was he? Isobel scanned the room, conscious of butterflies in her stomach. The evidence of nerves gave her another grudge against Mr Perfection.
The children saw her first. ‘Ma’am.’ Philip bowed. ‘Welcome to Wimpole Hall.’
‘Are you our Cousin Isobel?’ Lizzie was wide-eyed with excitement at being allowed to a grown-up party. Isobel felt her stiff shoulders relax. He was not here and the children were charming.
Giles Harker straightened up from his contemplation of the collection of Roman intaglio seals in a small display table set against the wall. Lady Isobel had entered without seeing him and he frowned at her straight back and intricate pleats of brown hair as she spoke to Philip and Lizzie. She was a confounded nuisance, especially in a household presided over by a lady of known high standards. Lady Hardwicke’s disapproval would blight his chances of commissions from any of her wide social circle. She might be a blue-stocking and a playwright, but she was the daughter of the Earl of Balcarres and a lady of principle.
The Yorke daughters were charming, modest and well behaved, if inclined to giggle if spoken to. But this distant cousin was another matter altogether. At his first sight of her a tingle of recognition had gone down his spine. She was dangerous, although quite why, Giles would have been hard pressed to define. There was something in those wide grey eyes, her best feature. Some mystery that drew his unwilling interest.
Her frank and unabashed scrutiny had been an unwelcome surprise in an unmarried lady. He was used to the giggles and batted eyelashes of the young women making their come-outs and made a point of avoiding them. His birth was impossibly ineligible, of course, even if his education, style and income gave him the entrée to most of society. But he was unmarriageable and dangerous and that, he was well aware, was dinned into the young ladies he came into contact with.
Yet those very warnings were enough to make some of them think it irresistibly romantic that the illegitimate son of the Scarlet Widow was so handsome and so unobtainable.
For certain married ladies Giles Harker was not at all unobtainable—provided his notoriously capricious choice fell on them. Something the son of the most scandalous woman in society learned early on was that one’s value increased with one’s exclusivity and he was as coolly discriminating in his sins as his mother was warmly generous in hers. Even in her fifties—not that she would ever admit to such an age despite the incontrovertible evidence of an adult son—her heart was broken with delicious drama at least twice a year. His remained quite intact. Love, he knew from observation, was at best a fallacy, at worst, a danger.
Lord Hardwicke and Soane straightened up from their litter of plans, young Lord Royston blushed and the countess smiled. ‘Come in, my dear. Philip, bring that chair over to the sofa for Cousin Isobel.’
Giles watched as she walked farther into the room with an assurance that confirmed him in his estimate of her age. ‘Thank you, Lord Royston,’ she said as he brought her chair. ‘And you are Lady Lizzie?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I think I must be Cousin Isobel to you and Philip, for your mama assures me we are all related. Will you take me and introduce me to your sisters?’
Giles let the lid of the display table drop for the last fraction of an inch. Lady Isobel turned at the small, sharp sound. There was a friendly smile on her lips and it stayed, congealed into ice, as her gaze passed over him without the slightest sign of recognition.
A most-accomplished cut direct. It seemed an extreme reaction. He had sent her that chilling look in the hall out of sheer self-defence, as he did with any over-bold young woman who seemed interested. Mostly they took the hint and retreated blushing. This one seemed to have taken deep offence instead. She turned back and went to take her seat, sinking on to it with trained elegance.
For the first time in a long time Giles felt a stirring of interest in an utterly ineligible woman and it made him uneasy. That meeting of eyes in the hallway had been astonishing. He had intended to warn off yet another wide-eyed virgin and instead had found his snub returned with interest and hostility. Why she was so forward, and why he was so intrigued, was a mystery.
The earl began to pour drinks for the ladies without troubling to ring for a footman. Giles strolled over. ‘Allow me to assist, sir.’ He took the two glasses of lemonade for the youngest girls, noting how tactfully their father had used wine glasses to make them feel grown up. He came back and fetched the ratafia for Lady Anne and Lady Isobel, leaving the earl to serve his wife.
‘Lady Isobel.’ He proffered the glass, keeping hold of it so that she had to respond to him.
‘Thank you.’ She glanced up fleetingly, but did not turn her body towards him. ‘Would you be so good as to put it on that side table, Mr Harker?’ He might, from her tone, have been a clumsy footman.
Giles put the glass down, then spun a chair round and sat by her side, quite deliberately rather too close, to see if he could provoke her into some reaction. He was going to get to the bottom of this curiosity about her, then he could safely ignore her. As good breeding demanded, Lady Isobel shifted slightly on the tightly stuffed blue satin until he was presented with her profile.
Now she was rested from her journey she was much improved, he thought, hiding a connoisseur’s assessment behind a bland social smile. Her straight nose was no longer pink at the tip from cold; her hair, freed from its bonnet, proved to be a glossy brown with a rebellious wave that was already threatening her hairpins, and her figure in the fashionable gown was well proportioned, if somewhat on the slender side for his taste.
On the other hand her chin was decided, her dark brows strongly marked and there was a tension about her face that suggested that she was braced for something unpleasant. Her mouth looked as though it could set into a firm line of disapproval; it was full and pink, but by no stretch of the imagination did the words rosebud or bow come to mind. And she was quite definitely in at least her fifth Season.
Lady Isobel took up the glass, sipped and finally turned to him with a lift of her lashes to reveal her intelligent dark grey eyes. ‘Well?’ she murmured with a sweetness that did not deceive him for a second. ‘Have you studied me sufficiently to place me in your catalogue of females, Mr Harker? One well-bred spinster with brunette plumage, perhaps? Or do I not quite fit into a category, so you must bring yourself to converse with me while you decide?’
‘What makes you think I have such a catalogue, Lady Isobel?’ Giles accepted a glass of claret from the earl with a word of thanks and turned back to her. Interesting that she described herself as a spinster. She was perhaps twenty-four, he guessed, five years younger than he was. The shelf might be in sight, but she was not at her last prayers yet and it was an unusual young woman who would admit any danger that she might be.
‘You are studying me with scientific thoroughness, sir. I half expect you to produce a net and a pin to affix me amongst your moth collection.’
Moth, he noted. Not butterfly. Modesty? Or is she seeing if I can be provoked into meaningless compliments?
‘You have a forensic stare yourself, ma’am.’
Her lips firmed, just as he suspected they might. Schoolmarm disapproval, he thought. Or embarrassment, although he was beginning to doubt she could be embarrassed. Lady Isobel seemed more like a young matron than an unmarried girl. She showed no other sign of emotion and yet he could feel the tension radiating from her. It was strangely unsettling, although he should be grateful that his unwise curiosity had not led her to relax in his company.
‘You refer to our meeting of eyes in the hall? You must be tolerant of my interest, sir—one rarely sees Greek statuary walking about. I note that you do not relish being assessed in the same way as you study others, although you must be used to it by now. I am certain that you do not harbour false modesty amongst your faults.’
The composure with which she attacked began to nettle him. After that exchange she should be blushing, fiddling with her fan perhaps, retreating from their conversation to sip her drink, but she seemed quite calm and prepared to continue the duel. It confirmed his belief that she had been sounding him out with an intention to flirt—or more.
‘I have a mirror and I would be a fool to become swollen-headed over something that is due to no effort or merit of my own. Certainly I am used to stares,’ he replied. ‘And do not welcome them.’
‘So modest and so persecuted. My heart bleeds for you, Mr Harker,’ Lady Isobel said with a sweet smile and every appearance of sympathy. Her eyes were chill with dislike. ‘And no doubt you find it necessary to lock your bedchamber door at night with tiresome regularity.’
‘That, too,’ he replied between gritted teeth, then caught himself. Somehow he had been lured into an utterly shocking exchange. A well-bred unmarried lady should have fainted dead away before making such an observation. And he should have bitten his tongue before responding to it, whatever the provocation. Certainly in public.
‘How trying it must be, Mr Harker, to be so troubled by importunate members of my sex. We should wait meekly to be noticed, should we not? And be grateful for any attention we receive. We must not inconvenience, or ignore, the lords of creation who, in their turn, may ogle as much as they please while they make their lordly choices.’
Lady Isobel’s voice was low and pleasant—no one else in the room would have noticed anything amiss in their conversation. But Giles realised what the emotion was that had puzzled him: she was furiously angry. With him. Simply because he had reacted coldly to her unladylike stare? Damn it, she had been assessing him like a housewife looking at a side of beef in the butchers. Or did she know who he was and think him presumptuous to even address her?
‘That is certainly what is expected of ladies, yes,’ he said, his own temper rising. He’d be damned if he was going to flirt and cajole her into a sweet mood, even if Lady Hardwicke noticed their spat. ‘Certainly unmarried ones—whatever their age.’
Her chin came up at that. ‘A hit, sir. Congratulations. But then a connoisseur such as yourself would notice only ladies who offer irresistible temptation. Not those who are on the shelf and open to advances.’
She turned her shoulder on him and immediately joined in the laughter over some jest of Philip’s before he had time to react to the emphasis she had put on some of her phrases. It took a second, then he realised that she was quoting him and his conversation with Soane a few minutes earlier.
Hell and damnation. Lady Isobel must have been outside the door. Now he felt a veritable coxcomb. He could have sworn he had seen the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes. Now what did he do? His conscience stirred uneasily. Giles trampled on the impulse to apologise. It could only make things worse by acknowledging the offending words and explaining them would simply mire him further and hurt her more. Best to say nothing. Lady Isobel would avoid him now and that was better for both of them.
CHAPTER THREE
‘DINNER IS SERVED, my lady.’ There was a general stir as the butler made his announcement from the doorway and the party rose. Giles made a hasty calculation about seating plans and realised that ignoring Lady Isobel might be harder than he had thought.
‘We are a most unbalanced table, I am afraid,’ the countess observed. ‘Mr Soane—shall we?’ He went to take her arm and the earl offered his to Lady Isobel. Giles partnered Lady Anne, Philip, grinning, offered his arm to fifteen-year-old Catherine and Lizzie was left to bring up the rear. When they were all seated Giles found himself between Lady Isobel and Lizzie, facing the remaining Yorke siblings and Mr Soane. Conversation was inevitable if they were not to draw attention to themselves.
Lizzie, under her mother’s eagle eye, was on her best behaviour all through the first remove, almost unable to speak to him with the effort of remembering all the things that she must and must not do. Giles concluded it would be kinder not to confuse her with conversation, which left him with no choice but to turn and proffer a ragout to Lady Isobel.
‘Thank you.’ After a moment she said, ‘Do you work with Mr Soane often?’ Her tone suggested an utter lack of interest. The question, it was obvious, was the merest dinner-table conversation that good breeding required her to make. After his disastrous overheard comments she would like to tip the dish over his head, that was quite clear, but she was going to go through the motions of civility if it killed her.
‘Yes.’ Damn it, now he was sounding sulky. Or guilty. Giles pulled himself together. ‘I worked in his drawing office when I first began to study architecture after leaving university. It was a quite incredible experience—the office is in his house, you may know—like finding oneself in the midst of Aladdin’s cave and never knowing whether one is going to bump into an Old Master painting, trip over an Egyptian sarcophagus or wander into a Gothic monk’s parlour!
‘I am now building my own practice, but I collaborate with Soane if I can be of assistance. He is a busy man and I owe him a great deal.’
Lady Isobel made a sound that might be interpreted, by the wildly optimistic, as encouragement to expand on that statement.
‘He employed me when I had no experience and, for all he knew, might prove to be useless.’
‘And you are not useless?’ She sounded sceptical.
‘No.’ Hell, sulky again. ‘I am not.’ Deciding what to do with his future during that last year at Oxford had not been easy. It would have been very simple to hang on his mother’s purse strings—even her notorious extravagances had not compromised the wealth she had inherited from her father, nor her widow’s portion.
Somehow the Dowager Marchioness of Faversham kept the bon ton’s acceptance despite breaking every rule in the book, including producing an illegitimate child by her head gardener’s irresistibly handsome soldier son, ten months after the death of her indulgent and elderly husband. She was so scandalous, so charming, that Giles believed she was regarded almost as an exotic, not quite human creature, one that could be indulged and permitted its antics.
