Deceived (9 page)

"Thank you, Belton," Isabella said. She put her head around the library door, cutting through the wrangling of her brother and sister with a crisp:

"Children! Lord Augustus is here to escort us to the ball."

"Just like the fairy godmother," Pen said. She rose to her feet. "I am looking forward to this evening, Bella. As it is your first social event in the Ton since your widow-hood, you may prove to me just how inconspicuous you can be."

"I intend to," Isabella said, glaring repressively at her. "I shall be as quiet and retiring as a nun, I assure you. It will be in no way a night to remember."

CHAPTER SIX

Isabella had always considered
royalty to be vastly overrated. The same people who bowed and smiled this evening as she glided along the sumptuous red tartan carpet at the Duchess of Fordyce's Scottish reception would have cut her dead when she had been little Isabella Standish, without a handle to her name or a feather to fly. In fact they
had
cut her dead. She recognized plenty of faces from her season as a debutante twelve years before but reflected that it was more likely that she would recognize people's backs. She could still recall them turning away in disdain and those long-ago whispered conversations:
"Who is that?"

"Nobody, my dear. . . That jumped up fishmonger's granddaughter, Isabella Standish. . ."

"Oh, oh I see. . . . I thought she looked well to a pass but now I realize that she is nowhere near as pretty as she would have been with a title and a fortune. . . ."

Isabella paused patiently while Lord Augustus halted to receive the greeting of the Duchess of Fordyce herself, flanked by her three unmarried daughters and the bored-looking son and heir to the Fordyce millions. John Fordyce had brightened when he spotted Penelope following behind. Gentlemen did brighten when they saw the angelic-looking Penelope. The good impression generally lasted until she opened her mouth, when everyone else realized what Isabella and Freddie already knew—that she was a bluestocking with a tongue that could flay you alive.

"Lord Augustus!" The duchess was smiling so hard that Isabella feared her rouge would crack. She had heard that Her Grace seldom smiled for fear of the aging effect of wrinkling. Tonight, however, she had evidently granted herself a special dispensation.

"How utterly delightful to have you back with us in London, my lord," the duchess said. "And with your dazzling companion! Your Serene Highness. . ." A fulsome curtsy followed. "Thank you for choosing to adorn our event this evening."

Isabella heard Penelope give a snort of derision that she did not even attempt to turn into a cough. She gave her sister a quelling look.

"It is a great pleasure to be here, Duchess," Isabella said, adding with scrupulous truth, "Your Scottish exhibition is quite spectacular."

It was indeed. Ever since the Prince Regent had started a craze for all things Caledonian earlier in the year with his sudden and rather awkward nostalgic attachment to the Stuart dynasty, the Tory hostesses has adorned their houses with tartans and bagpipes and the dancing was all reels and
strathspeys
. Isabella could hear a fiddler tuning up in the ballroom to the right of them; when the strains of the violin where joined by the wheeze of the bagpipes, several people in the vicinity had the pained expressions of those suffering the earache.

"How marvelous," Isabella said, as the duchess winced at the sound. She turned to Augustus. "We must certainly dance the reel later, my lord."

The duchess beamed in relief and Augustus smiled, too, and gave Isabella's arm a little squeeze of approval, which irritated her with its
proprietory
overtones. Augustus, whom she had first met when he was a diplomat at the Swedish Court and she and Ernest were in exile there, had never been any more than a useful escort to social events. She suspected that like many men over the years, he liked to give the impression of being more than merely her friend. Her presence gave the staid diplomat a slightly risqué, man-of-the-world aura that she knew he enjoyed. Yet if it had come to marriage, she knew that matters would have been very different. There was no possibility that Augustus Ambridge would have taken on her reputation and her debts in any formal sense. He would have run from the thought like a lily-livered rabbit.

The duchess was greeting Penelope now. Her tone had cooled by at least ten degrees since she was speaking to someone with barely a title and very little fortune, whom she had identified as being an unsuitable prospect for her son. It seemed that John Fordyce had other ideas, however. Led astray by Pen's dazzling prettiness, he asked for her hand in the next Scottish dance.

"No, thank you, my lord," Pen said sweetly, "I only reel when I am drunk, and in the words of Shakespeare, drink is good only for encouraging three things, one of which is sleep and another urine. I merely quote, you understand, to illustrate my point."

One of the Fordyce sisters tittered behind her fan; the duchess's face turned still with horror and John's smile faltered as he backed away. "Some other occasion, perhaps," he sputtered.

"Oh, I do hope so," Pen said, smiling with luscious promise. "I look forward to it."

"Come along, Penelope," Freddie said hastily. "We are holding up the reception line."

Pen permitted herself to be drawn away from the group and up the sweep of stairs toward the ballroom.

"And you think that
I
am outrageous, Pen!" Isabella chided, taking her brother's arm as Augustus drew away from her with a hurried word and went off to seek the company of the duchess's more respectable guests. "We must be a sad trial to you, Freddie."

"Comes of having a fishmonger for a grandfather," Freddie said cheerfully. "Neither of you ever had any idea of how to behave. I suppose I must be the one to set the good example."

They reached the top of the staircase and he dropped their arms as abruptly as though they did not exist. A vision in pale blue had wafted across his line of sight.

"I say, there is Lady Murray!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Excuse me—squiring one's sisters about is the most lamentable dead bore." And with that he dove into the crowd.

"Oh well," Pen said, linking her arm through Isabella's and drawing her into the ballroom. "So much for Freddie's manners! Lady Murray is his latest inamorata, I am afraid. It will end in tears."

"Hers?" Isabella asked.

"His," Pen said. "She dangles him on a string and there are at least three other gentlemen she dallies with."

"Now that," Isabella said,
"is
outrageous. How is it that I am tarred with scandal whilst others behave badly and no one raises an eyebrow?"

"Hypocrites," Pen said comfortingly. "Speaking of which, look at Augustus, Bella! He has eyes for no one but himself tonight."

It was true. Augustus Ambridge had stopped in front of one of the duchess's long gilt mirrors and was studying his appearance with intensity. Brown hair slicked back with Mr. Cab-burn's Bear's Grease, a sovereign lotion for reviving thinning locks; buttons polished, shoulders ever so slightly padded, jacket bolstered with buckram from the Prince Regent's own tailor, calves plumped out with a lime wadding to improve the shape of his leg. . . Indeed, Isabella reflected that he was the very image of an elegant diplomat, and barely an inch of it was real.

"Oh, Penelope," she chided. "Can you not at least try to like him?"

Penelope paused, apparently to give the matter genuine consideration. "No," she said, at length, "why should I? Since you are not to marry him, there is no obligation on me to try. You are kinder than I am, you know, Bella. I would not even give him the time of day."

"I know." Isabella sighed.

"That is why I have never been married," Pen continued. "Nor am I likely to be. I have yet to meet a man who interests me."

"You judge too harshly," Isabella said. "Surely there must be a man who pleases you." She gestured across the ballroom. "Sir Edmund Garston, for example? He is extremely handsome."

Pen surveyed the dandified baronet as he raised a quizzing glass and ogled the gold lace on a passing lady. "No," she said. "He is too effeminate. He would teach one much about fashion and nothing about passion."

Isabella laughed. "A neat summary."

Around them the hum of the ballroom rose and fell. The orchestra was playing a
strathspey
with much enthusiasm and as many wrong notes. Isabella could see Augustus approaching a slender debutante in white, bow to her and ask for her hand in the dance. The girl accepted with a sketch of demure pleasure. Isabella smiled inwardly over Augustus's maneuvers. He was at the stage in his career where he required a well-connected wife with an impeccable reputation to enhance his prospects. She rather thought that this was where he and she parted company. She had served her purpose in drawing him to the attention of everyone who mattered and giving him a debonair gloss. Now he had to capitalize on that success.

People were watching her, gossiping over the perfidious behavior of her supposed lover. Isabella was accustomed to it. One of the oddest things about being an object of curiosity was that people seldom spoke to her but they always gossiped about her as though she was not there. She could hear the murmurs:

"They will tolerate any old riffraff on the continent, of

course. Her husband was a rackety fellow and her own reputation is none too sweet. . . Do you know, she was so indif
ferent to scandal that she permitted her husband's mistress to attend his funeral? She is only received because of the title. . . ."

Isabella sighed inwardly. Ernest's infamy was the only thing that he had ever bestowed on her with any degree of generosity.

But the whisperer was not done yet. She had more powerful ammunition still in her arsenal.

"Apparently they even tried to take her child away from her. . . . She said she never wished for more children. An unfit mother. . . . No wonder the poor little girl died."

It was like a sliver of glass in the heart. Isabella spun round a little too quickly. Was that a real whisper or her bitter imaginings? Such words haunted her nightmares, even now, six years after Emma's death. . .

She surveyed the nodding plumes and the eager faces beneath the turbans. The matrons smiled and nodded back at her, but their eyes were like ice. Then the dowager Lady Burgoyne raised her voice a little.

"We were wondering, Your Royal Highness, whether you are fixed in London for a while or whether your fancy will take you elsewhere soon?"

There was a giggle and a flutter of fans. The gold-and-white rout chairs creaked under matronly bottoms as they wriggled with the glee of tormenting one of their own who had stepped beyond the line. "If only you had kept to your place," those wiggles seemed to say. "You climbed too high and now we will punish you."

"Serene,"
Pen said loudly. "Princess Isabella is a Serene Highness, not a royal one." Her face was flushed with loyal indignation. She was as capable as Isabella at feeling the nuances in the room.

Isabella put a gentle hand on her arm. She felt anything but serene. The hurtful jibe about Emma lodged painfully in her chest and she took several deep breaths to maintain control.

"Perhaps the princess will go wherever Lord Augustus Ambridge takes her," the voluminously padded Duchess of
Plockton
said, weighing into the debate. Her tortoise face surveyed the ballroom and paused at the sight of Augustus dancing with his debutante. "Oh, but it would seem that Lord Augustus's fancy has moved on." Her gaze swung back to Isabella. "Perhaps you have also found yourself a new. . . companion, Princess? You never allow much time to elapse, do you?"

Isabella felt Pen stiffen protectively again and open her mouth to give the duchess a blistering
setdown
. Pen knew no fear, but she did not deserve the disapprobation that would surely follow her outburst. On the other hand, Isabella knew that her own reputation was such that it scarce mattered what she said. Such knowledge was liberating. She dug her sister in the ribs and Pen spluttered into silence.

The music came to an end; there was a lull in the ballroom. And Isabella spoke with the clarity of a perfectly modulated bell.

"Thank you for your interest in my affairs, Duchess, Lady Burgoyne. I am sure you will be disappointed to know that my fancy seldom wanders toward any gentleman these days, and especially not whilst I am in this country. Englishmen make the very worst lovers in the entire world, as you may know."

There was a moment of silence, like the false calm before the first lightning strike, and then there was a collective intake of outraged breath. The shock broke over the ballroom like a series of intense ripples spreading out in an ever-widening circle.

Isabella smiled broadly. Let the Duchess of
Plockton
put that in her clay pipe and smoke on it until it choked her. Sometimes there was great satisfaction to be gained from overstepping the line, bad
ton
or not.