Sally James (4 page)

Sir Roderick took himself out after spending a couple of hours fussing over the enforced delay, saying he might as well pay final visits to some of his friends. He charged Isabella with strict instructions that Georgiana, while permitted to leave her room, was under no circumstances to be allowed to see any visitors. Mr Reece had been to the house on the previous day to offer his somewhat inarticulate explanations and apologies, and Sir Roderick was convinced the young man would attempt to see Georgiana. Georgiana, having no more desire to see Mr Reece than Sir Roderick, retreated to her room, saying huffily that there were no visitors she had any wish to see. When Sir Frederick Hill arrived, therefore, he found Isabella, to his obvious gratification, alone in the drawing room where she was checking lists of the considerable number of items she had purchased for her cousin Fanny during the past few days.

She suppressed her annoyance when Baxter announced the visitor and greeted him composedly.

'Sir Roderick is out, I am afraid, Sir Frederick, and I cannot be certain when he will return,' Isabella informed him.

'As it happens, Miss Clinton, I did hope I might find you alone,' Sir Frederick said, moving towards her, an ingratiating smile on his face.

Isabella turned away and hastily seated herself on a small chair well away from its fellows.

'Pray won't you be seated?' she suggested, and Sir Frederick, after a slight hesitation, sat as near to her as he could, at the extreme end of a claw-footed sofa. He was a tall and rather thin man, with faded yellow hair and rather protuberant blue eyes. Isabella noted with some apprehension that he was dressed with even more care than usual, and she had always considered him a fastidious dresser, although he did not, she suddenly thought, look nearly so elegant as Lord Fordington.

'I wished to see you,' Sir Frederick was saying, 'although I have known you for such a short time Miss Isabella – I trust you do not object? – I have come to regard you highly.'

'You are kind to say so,' Isabella interrupted swiftly. 'It is indeed a short time since you were down in Sussex, is it not?'

'So short a time, and yet I feel it is going to prove the most momentous period of my life!'

'You had rarely been in the country before, I understand?' Isabella said desperately, uncomfortably sure that Georgiana's prediction was about to be fulfilled.

'Only a few times,' he replied now, 'for I have never followed the
ton
to Brighthelmstone. I consider it a rackety place, and from all I hear some of the goings-on at the Pavilion – h'mph, yes, well. Besides, my sister died some years ago and, until I had to attend to her husband's affairs when he died earlier this year, I had not been to her home for a considerable time.'

'The sea-bathing is beneficial, it is claimed,' Isabella said desperately.

'I hear many unlikely claims for its merits,' he replied, 'but whatever the value I cannot wholeheartedly approve of such a public display.'

'Surely it is no different from the baths at watering-places,' Isabella offered.

'But they are much warmer, and only fellow bathers are admitted,' he replied with a laugh. 'At least, so my wife told me when she went to Bath. Yet there was no cure to be found for her there, I fear.'

'How sad! Particularly for your daughters,' Isabella felt constrained to say.

'Yes, poor mites, left motherless, and Agnes was but a babe. It is five years since I was widowed, Miss Isabella, and my children left to face the world alone.'

'No, surely not alone!' Isabella put in. 'They have an excellent father, I am convinced.'

'But I alone cannot guide them. Matters might be different if I had been given a son, but poor Charlotte gave me only daughters. Not that I ever reproached her, you understand. I trust that I was a loving and considerate husband whatever the disappointments I had to bear.'

'No doubt she, your wife, was disappointed too!' Isabella could not resist pointing out.

'Naturally she was, and she blamed herself most bitterly. However, Miss Isabella, it was not to talk of my poor Charlotte that I came to see you this morning, although I am sure, since you are a most sensible young woman, you will understand my circumstances. No, it was to do with my present – ah, feelings, my situation at this time.'

'Indeed?' Isabella uttered faintly when he paused expectantly.

Sir Frederick smiled and rose to his feet, moving to lean against the mantelpiece and look down at Isabella. The smile lingered on lips which she suddenly noticed were moist and slack. Resolutely suppressing the urge to shrink away from him she cast about frantically to discover a way of averting the threatened declaration, but received no inspiration.

'I have been most favourably impressed with your devotion to your young cousin, and to her unfortunate mother,' Sir Frederick continued. 'Although we have met but rarely I have formed an excellent opinion of your character, my dear Miss Isabella. I have been conscious for some time that I ought to endeavour to provide my daughters with another mother, someone who could guide them through the perils of this world, and at the same time, dare I hope, comfort me during the rest of my life – a life which has been empty and incomplete during the years since I lost Charlotte! I have observed you closely, Miss Isabella, as I say, and found in you all the estimable qualities-'

'You are too kind, Sir Frederick, but I do not deserve your praises,' Isabella interjected hastily, rising to her feet and moving rapidly to the window.

'Truthful too,' he replied complacently, and strode purposefully across the room towards her. He was prevented from seizing her hands in his only by her swift action in lifting and pretending to examine an exquisite piece of Chelsea ware displayed on a small table beside the window. 'Miss Isabella, tell me, may I hope that my regard for you-'

'Lord Fordington,' Baxter announced in ponderous accents and Isabella turned, her cheeks flushed, a look of relief in her eyes, towards the new visitor.

* * * *

Lord Fordington glanced quizzically from Isabella, unusually agitated, to Sir Frederick, who had stepped hastily away from her when Baxter had so opportunely entered the room, and was uncomfortably fingering a heavy signet ring on his little finger.

'I fear I interrupt,' he said, a quiver of a laugh in his voice.

'N-no, not at all, pray do come in. Baxter, will you bring the Madeira, please.'

The butler inclined his head and departed, and Isabella, regaining her composure, replaced the figurine and sat down again, inviting the two men to be seated.

'I was just telling Sir Frederick that my cousin was out and did not inform me when to expect his return,' she said hastily. 'May I give him a message, Lord Fordington?'

'Thank you, but my business can wait. It was but a small query about the farms that I can ask when I see him.'

'You are planning to go down to Sussex soon?' Sir Frederick asked in surprise, then glanced suspiciously from Lord Fordington to Isabella, who was nervously twisting her hands together.

'I know it is a trifle early, the season still not over, but there is little to keep me here, after all.'

'I was under the impression you had several engagements with young Flaxton,' Sir Frederick commented. 'He was at Watier's last night and mentioned the party his parents are giving next week.'

Discerning the malicious note in his voice, Isabella glanced up at Lord Fordington. He was looking amused and she recalled a scrap of gossip she had heard that he was paying decided attentions to Miss Lizzie Flaxton, one of the belles of the season, and causing speculation that one of the
ton's
most eligible bachelors was at last about to throw the handkerchief.

'Did he?' was all the reply he vouchsafed to Sir Frederick's remark. 'How is Miss Georgiana?' he asked, turning to Isabella.

'Still in disgrace,' she told him.

'Yet you have not posted back home at the crack of dawn!'

'Dressmakers are so dilatory!' Isabella pointed out, laughing. 'But I confess it is uncomfortable here with Sir Roderick playing the stern parent and Georgiana unable to expend her energies by riding or walking, and I shall be pleased to be home. Georgiana offended her father by a silly prank the other day,' she added calmly, noting Sir Frederick's ill-concealed curiosity.

'Another instance of a young girl with inadequate guidance,' was the response. 'Not that one can blame her poor mother, naturally, but Sir Roderick has been too preoccupied with his attendance on the Prince Regent to be able to devote as much time as he must have wished to do to his children.'

'And I have been a very poor help!' Isabella said quickly. 'Will you both take some wine?' she asked, and Baxter, who had just appeared, handed round the Madeira and then withdrew.

After a few more minutes of desultory conversation Lord Fordington set down his glass, and rose.

'Pray give my regards to Miss Georgiana and say that I am unhappy not to have seen her,' he said, holding his hand out to Isabella.

She had risen too, and gave him such an anguished look his eyebrows rose in surprise. Isabella blushed and began to murmur a disjointed farewell, but Lord Fordington nobly answered her unspoken appeal as he turned to Sir Frederick.

'Are you going my way, Hill? I've no doubt Miss Clinton wishes us both at the devil but is too polite to say so! You must have a vast amount to do, being so unexpectedly whisked back to Sussex,' he added, smiling reassuringly at her.

Sir Frederick demurred.

'I have hopes Sir Roderick may be back soon,' he said stonily.

'Oh? Then perhaps I should stay too. It would be a pity to lose the opportunity of seeing him.'

Sir Frederick succumbed. Seeing that Lord Fordington was about to sit down again he rose to his own feet and took his leave of Isabella.

'Farewell, Miss Clinton. Sussex has so much to recommend it I believe I might after all bring my daughters to visit it. The sea air might be beneficial for them and, as you know, I wish them always to have the best that I can provide.'

* * * *

Thankfully Isabella watched them depart, and gave Baxter stern instructions that she was not at home to any callers. She greatly feared that Sir Frederick, once he had shaken off Lord Fordington, would return to persist with the very unwelcome offer he had most fortunately been interrupted in. She reflected guiltily it might be better if he did so immediately and was given the answer that she would never accept him, rather than for her to run the risk of having him inflicting more of his company on her in Sussex. She shrank away from the task, however, well aware that his monumental self-esteem would make him very unlikely to accept a rejection, and feeling unequal to the arguments likely to ensue. Firmly trying to convince herself he would forget about her once she had left London she picked up her lists and retreated to her own room, but nonetheless felt most insecure until, early the following morning, they set out for Woodings.

Chapter Three

Sir Roderick was in a benign mood despite the discomforts of the journey. Two circumstances combined to foster this rare occurrence. In the first place no word of Georgiana's escapade appeared to have reached any of the acquaintances he had seen in the two days which had elapsed since that disastrous homecoming, and in the second he had begun to place a new and flattering construction on Lord Fordington's willingness to purchase his land.

In common with the rest of the
ton
Sir Roderick had watched Lord Fordington's unfaltering progress through the traps set for him by designing mamas and their by no means less designing, if less experienced, daughters. He had served for several years with the Peninsular Army, selling out after Waterloo to return to his estates, left for five years since he had inherited them in the care of his agents. He had twice been wounded and sent home on extended furloughs and had swiftly become a favourite, as much for his amiable disposition as his considerable fortune, decidedly elegant figure and handsome face. Yet he seemed totally disinterested in the female wiles of marriageable daughters, and disappointed matrons had begun to assume he was content to see his title and fortune pass to his young half- brother. Rumour connected him with one of the most dazzling Cyprians, but if there was a liaison it was conducted in an abnormally discreet fashion, and no one could discover where the rumour had started or the truth of it.

People were beginning to accept Lord Fordington as an unrepentant bachelor, until he had been seen several times recently in the company of Miss Lizzie Flaxton, a vivacious beauty who was rumoured to have rejected at least half a dozen most eligible suitors in her first season. Bets were being laid on her chances of capturing him, and yet here he was proposing to leave London before the end of the season and, as far as Sir Roderick was aware, remain in Sussex. The Flaxtons, Sir Roderick knew for a fact, were planning to spend the summer on one of their estates near Cheltenham.

Sir Roderick had never been particularly interested in his offspring, but even he had to admit that Georgiana bade fair to become a ravishing beauty. Could Lord Fordington, impervious to feminine charms for so long, have succumbed at last to those of a girl hardly out of the schoolroom? There seemed a strong possibility of this, and the enticing prospect of marrying Georgiana so well, and without the expense of a London season to boot, produced an affability that alerted Isabella's suspicions,  suspicions that were confirmed when Sir Roderick began to drop complacent, clumsy hints.

The first of these came when the family sat down to a late dinner, delayed because of the protracted journey from London.

'I think it fairly certain Lord Fordingtoon intends to purchase those farms,' he told his wife.

Lady Sharman, a pale, thin woman with very little of her former good looks or spirit left after years of continuous pain and ill health, looked at him enquiringly.

'What farms? I did not know you wished to sell. Is it wise?' she asked, frowning.

'How many?' his son William, a dark thickset young man of three and twenty, demanded.