Deceived (13 page)

"I wanted to acquaint you with this." Pen gestured toward the news sheets. "But I see that I am too late. May I have some tea? I assure you that I require it."

"Please do." Isabella put down her toast and honey and wiped her sticky fingers. She drew the papers toward her. "I suppose I should have foreseen this."

"It is as I said yesterday." Pen waved the teapot around with emphasis. "You cannot even move for drawing scandal, Bella." She frowned at her sister. "Upon my word, you are very calm about this. There is a crowd outside your front door!"

"I know," Isabella said.

"The
Mercury
and the
Preceptor
are running rival columns," Pen grumbled. "It is most vexing."

"It is certainly vexing that they are two most scurrilous rags in London," Isabella agreed. She viewed her sister's flushed face with concern. "You seem to be taking this very personally, Penelope."

"I?" Pen jumped. "No. . . Well. . . Yes, I think it is a disgrace."

Isabella shrugged. "The fuss will die down. It always does."

"You are evidently accustomed to this."

"Of course." Isabella fixed her sister with her amused blue gaze. "Ernest was forever attracting the attentions of the papers."

Pen leaned her elbows on the table and drank deep from her cup, her curious gaze fixed on her sister over the rim. "Yes, I see," she said. She hesitated. "Bella, that thing that you said. . . Is it true?"

Isabella frowned. "What thing? What did I say?"

"That Englishmen are the worst lovers in the world? I do hope not. I did not get the opportunity to quiz you about it last night since cousin Marcus seemed intent on refuting your words in the quickest possible time!"

Isabella frowned.
"I
am shocked that you should ask such a thing, Penelope."

Pen laughed. "My interest is purely intellectual." She made a slight gesture. "I am seven and twenty years old, Bella. Am I to pretend that I do not know such a side of life exists?"

"I suppose not," Isabella admitted. "It seems rather foolish to pretend."

Pen opened her eyes wide. "So?"

"I have no notion whether it is true or not," Isabella said. "I was merely being deliberately shocking."

Pen stared. "You do not know?"

"No." Isabella raised an amused eyebrow. "I do not have sufficient experience to judge." She stopped, thinking of Marcus. He had been her lover, but in those sweet early days of youthful indiscretion he had seemed much more. He had been her whole world.

Pen was watching her thoughtfully.

"You know full well that three quarters of my bad reputation is the result of Ernest's profligacy," Isabella added.

"And the remaining quarter?" Pen persisted.

"Ah well. . ." Isabella considered. "For the most part that is the fiction made up by those so-called gentlemen whose advances I rejected. Alas, they were not able to admit that I found them resistible." She sighed. "I cannot deny that there was a gentleman I turned to when I thought that there might be some affection there to sweeten my life with Ernest—" She broke off, shaking her head. It had taken years before her misery had led her to be unfaithful to her husband in the aftermath of Emma's death. She had been very lonely and had fallen disastrously in love with an Austrian soldier of fortune who had seen her unhappiness and courted her gently—and abandoned her ruthlessly only ten days later. Disillusioned, heartbroken, she soon realized everyone was discussing the affair and came to her senses. After that she had locked her heart and her unhappiness away.

"It is the greatest piece of nonsense in London that I stand accused of being a lady rakehell when in fact I am utterly uninterested in the pleasures of the bed," she said now.

Pen frowned. "How can such matters possibly be uninteresting?"

"Trust me," Isabella said, heartily munching a piece of toast. "They are."

Pen was looking dissatisfied. "Then it seems to me that it is Ernest who must bear the responsibility for being the worst lover in the world or you would not feel like that."

"Very true," Isabella concurred. She paused, elbows on the table, while she thought not of Ernest but once again of Marcus. Her first experiences of love at Marcus's hands had been undeniably dazzling. She had burned for him. Yet now it seemed a pale dream, something that had happened long ago in another life, if it had happened at all. And although he could still awaken something deep within her, she vowed he would not have the chance. When she had been seventeen, matters had seemed simple. She had loved Marcus and had given herself to him with love. Since then she had lost a great deal and she knew, with absolute certainly, that the best way to avoid future loss was not to engage with risk in the first place. Besides, Marcus held her in the lowest possible esteem now. She recalled his hostile words from the previous night. If anything proved to her that the marriage had to be ended, and quickly, it was Marcus's bitterness. She must contact Mr. Churchward immediately to arrange an annulment and the terms under which she would repay her financial debt to her husband. She could not bear to be beholden to him any longer than she must.

Pen pursed her lips. "I am disappointed that you are unable to advise me on my love affairs. I was hoping that that would be one of the benefits of having a sister with such an exciting reputation."

"I apologize for proving inadequate," Isabella said cheerfully. "My advice to you would be—do not."

"Do not indulge in love affairs?"

"Preferably not. Love is not at all as it is reputed to be in literature. It is simply not worth it."

Pen smiled faintly. "I am sorry to hear you say that." She drained her teacup and sat back. "I take it that you would apply that ruling to Marcus Stockhaven?" She added dryly, "He would not be worth the trouble of a love affair?"

Isabella could feel the bright color sting her cheeks. She wished Pen had not introduced Marcus's name again. She hated blushing. It felt naive and self-conscious.

"It would be far too perilous to consider an affair with Lord Stockhaven under any circumstances," she said, evading Pen's gaze. "There are some men that are best avoided because they are too—"

"Attractive?" Pen said.

Isabella shrugged irritably. "Too dangerous to know."

"I see," Pen said. "In which case, what was all that fascinating byplay between the two of you last night? You cannot deny it."

Isabella sighed. "You ask too many questions, Pen."

"I beg your pardon." Pen tapped the newspaper. "They are the same questions everyone else is asking."

Isabella groaned. She was expecting Marcus to walk through the door at any moment, which would only serve to fuel Pen's curiosity. But perhaps he could not gain entry because of the crowds outside. Her spirits rose to think of him struggling to persuade Belton to admit him.

Pen sighed, evidently judging that no further information would be forthcoming at this point. After a moment she acknowledged defeat and changed the subject.

"Do we go out today?" she asked.

Isabella sighed, too. "I was hoping to take some fresh air but I fear it will be impossible to escape the crowds outside."

"I supposed that you would be accustomed to fight-
ing
your way through them."

"I suppose that I am. When Ernest died in the arms of his mistress, Madame de
Coulanges
, I could not escape the house in Stockholm for several days, so great was the press of people outside. They all wished to know whether or not I had a view on the manner of his passing."

"And did you?"

"Certainly I did, but I was not going to share it with them." Isabella rubbed her brow ruefully. "I do so wish that I had had the same good sense last night."

"Why did you not?"

"Because that old harpy the Duchess of
Plockton
provoked me. She got under my skin and then I fear I was disinclined to respond with any courtesy to her following remarks." Isabella met her sister's gaze. "I can rise above most things—goodness knows, I have had sufficient practice—but when anyone makes reference to Emma and suggests that Ernest tried to take her from me because I was an unfit parent—" She broke off, swallowing hard. She had been told from the start that little Princess Emma of Cassilis must have her own household. That was tile royal style. There was no possibility of the child traveling across Europe with them. Isabella had been young and inexperienced but she had also been courageous. She had dug her heels in and insisted that she keep her daughter with her. Ernest had looked down his nose and condemned her as irremediably middle class but she had not cared. Emma was the whole world to her and when she had contracted scarlet fever and died, a part of Isabella had died, too.

Pen's face had stilled into sympathy. "Yes, I do understand. That is, I cannot understand how you feel of course, Bella, but I realize it must be intolerable for you to hear people say such foolish and malicious things."

Isabella returned the clasp of her sister's hand with a brief squeeze. "Thank you, Pen."

There was a knock at the door. "I beg your pardon for interrupting, Your Serene Highness," Belton said glumly, "but the flower cart has arrived with seventeen bouquets for you."

Pen looked astonished. "Have I forgotten that it is your birthday, Bella?"

"No," Isabella said. "My birthday was in April, as well you know."

"Then how does one explain the arrival of seventeen bunches of flowers?"

Isabella put down her napkin and rose to her feet. She gestured toward the papers again. "I rather suspect that this explains it."

Pen looked down at the newspaper column and up again, the sparkle restored to her eyes. "Oh, I say! What famous entertainment!"

The hall was overflowing with blooms. The housemaids were scurrying around trying to find sufficient receptacles in which to place them and had already pressed into service a tin hip bath, a coal scuttle and milk pail. There were many whisperings and
gigglings
over one particular arrangement, which Belton was attempting to usher out of the way.

"Good gracious!" Pen said. "I do believe that is shaped almost exactly like a—"

"Penelope!" Isabella said.

"I have seen plenty of sculptures of naked male bodies," Pen said irrepressibly, "and that penis looks overlarge to me."

Isabella was reading the card. "It is from Lord Forrester. He swears its dimensions are the same as his own and promises to introduce me to all the pleasures that I have been missing. He is set upon redeeming the reputation of English lovers."

Pen snatched up another card. "Oh! So is Sir
Chumley
Morton! And Lord
Hesketh
! And Mr. Styles has written you a poem, but I shall not read it for it is both rude and appallingly bad verse into the bargain."

"What on earth are these?" Isabella asked, retrieving what looked like a union flag from the center of a red-white-and-blue themed flower arrangement. "Good gracious, I do believe they are a pair of gentleman's drawers."

"Your Serene Highness!" Belton whisked them out of her hands before she could hold them up for inspection.

"Well," Isabella said, hands on hips as she surveyed the riot of flowers, "I imagine that all the bucks in London must have read the papers this morning."

One of the footmen came up to Belton and they exchanged a few urgently whispered words before he hurried off again. Belton cleared his throat.

"The
Marquess
of
Grimstone
has called, Your Serene Highness," he announced, "as have Lord Lonsdale and Mr. Carew. I have taken the liberty of suggesting that you are not at home. I hope that is appropriate."

Pen gave him an admiring look. "You are remarkably good at this, are you not, Belton? One might almost think that you are practiced in working for someone as disreputable as my sister."

Belton ignored her politely, still concentrating on addressing Isabella. "There is also a gentleman who swears that he has no connection with the popular press, Highness. He has a letter of introduction from Mr. Churchward, and has come to value the art collection."

"Thank you," Isabella said. "Please show him into the drawing room, Belton, so that he may make his inventory."