The Earl's Mistress (20 page)

“But the shop allows you to stay at home with us, Bella,” said Jemima, sorting through the post on the counter, “and that matters more.”

“Thank you, Jemma.” Isabella tossed her a grateful glance, her heart welling with affection.

Jemima was far more mature than her years would suggest, and had been of inestimable help in getting the shop started. It was in moments like this—moments in which she was so deeply glad to have the girls—that Everett’s threats began to haunt Isabella.

Surely no judge would permit him to take them? Jemima had been barely eight when Isabella had taken her from Thornhill, and Georgina could not even remember her parents. Isabella and Mrs. Barbour were the only motherly influences the child had ever known.

But the awful truth was, the law afforded women no rights when it came to children—not even those they had borne. Only a man was thought fit to serve as trustee or guardian, and to make the hard decisions as to how a child would be brought up, educated, or even married off. And technically, Everett was both to Georgina, though he’d never shown the slightest interest in her until now.

So far as poor Jemima was concerned, she was stuck with their pinch-penny uncle, Sir Charlton, who’d never so much as enquired after the girls these last many years. The last time Isabella had written him for help, he had blithely suggested that the best solution for everyone was that Isabella simply accept Everett’s marriage proposal, since he was willing to take both children.

Damn it, her father had been such a trusting fool.

Isabella would sooner abscond with both girls into the wilds of Canada than surrender either of them to Everett. She only prayed it never came to that.

But Jemima was opening the mail, and she had paused to frown at something.

“What’s that you’re glowering at, my dear?” Isabella asked.

Jemima sighed. “A dun from Tallant and Allen. Can we settle the account?”

“Soon, I think,” said Isabella. “Sales have been surprisingly good. What else is there?”

Jemima waved a creamy piece of stationery and grinned. “Ooh, another plea from your Mr. Mowbrey in Chesham,” she said. “How many is that?”

“None of your business,” Isabella said, snatching it.

“Well,” murmured Jemima, “one begins to wonder if your scholarly gentleman doesn’t want something besides his rocks sorted.”

“Do not be impertinent, miss,” warned Isabella.

But Jemima’s grin had faded. “And here’s another from Lady Meredith,” she said, pinching it like a soiled rag between two fingertips. “Shall I toss it in the rubbish?”

“No,” said Isabella on a sigh. “Hand it here.”

Taking both, she left Jemima to watch the shop and went out into what passed for a back garden. This was, in fact, the third letter from Lord Hepplewood, for she’d intercepted the second herself while the girls were walking in the park with Mrs. Barbour.

That one, however, had been hand-carried by a liveried footman from Clarges Street.

Yes, she was very glad the girls had been away for
that
delivery.

Upon returning from Greenwood all those weeks ago, Isabella had lied and told the girls that, having realizing the time required, she’d decided she would miss them too much to be away working for Mr. Mowbrey. That was the trouble when one told an arrant lie; more had to be heaped atop it until, like a dangerous pile of rubble, the whole lot was apt to come crashing back down upon one’s head.

When the first letter postmarked Chesham had arrived, the girls had begun to giggle and make jokes about the mysterious Mr. Mowbrey’s true interests. Isabella had forced herself to laugh, then gently chide them.

But the letters were no laughing matter. The first had been carefully worded, merely enquiring rather pointedly after her health—a delicate euphemism if ever there was one—and repeating in very firm words his wish that she should visit him at Greenwood Farm.

She had responded by informing him all was well with her, and she had provided her new direction as well. After all, she told herself, if the man wished to find her, he would. Worse, there was always the small chance that her “health” was not all she might hope.

The second letter had been less personal. The delicate enquiry had been repeated, but the invitation had not. He was writing to inform her Lady Felicity had taken up residence with him in Clarges Street, and that he congratulated Isabella on her new business venture.

By then Isabella was quite sure she was not with child and had written in veiled terms to tell him so. And that, she had expected, would be that.

But it was not, she now realized, sitting down on a bench in the sun.

She held the letter in her hands, scarcely able to breathe. Then, in a great rush, she tore it open to find . . . nothing, really.

Hepplewood had decided to return to Greenwood to oversee the spring planting. Lady Felicity was accompanying him. There was no invitation. There was nothing, really, save banalities about the weather, followed by a curious final paragraph.

I should be pleased, I daresay, to hear of your excellent good health. And I am—or so I tell myself. It would be selfish to wish otherwise. I will not be tempted to write again, but I shall remain, ever your devoted servant,

Hepplewood

Good God, what did that mean?

Had he really hoped she was with child? And was he suggesting that, since she was not, and would therefore require nothing of him, he meant to move on?

Had he simply given up?

But given up on what? And what did it matter? A waning of his interest should feel like permission to breathe again. Wasn’t that precisely what she wished?

Isabella set a hand to her heart, which had sunk into the pit of her stomach. Apparently, it was not what she wished.

She had not realized until that moment how much she had invested in Lord Hepplewood’s promise, or how much she’d come to look forward to his letters, however veiled or stilted or demanding they might be; this, despite the fact that they had not bought her a moment’s peace.

They had instead given her an excuse to rekindle a fantasy; a reason to let her mind wander back to the passion that burned between them, and to spin a dream of what could have been. She had saved each and every one—hidden them away amongst her nightgowns and chemises—including his first. The one he’d left for her at Greenwood, sending her away.

No, she did not wish to be forgotten, she realized, her fingertips going to her mouth. And she did not wish to forget him. Because she was in love with the Earl of Hepplewood. The reality of it had been pressing in upon her for some days now.

It was utter folly, of course. His intensity overwhelmed her. His dark edges frightened her. And yet she was in love with him, and his threat to pursue her had allowed her to go on hoping—though hoping for what, she scarcely knew.

And now he had given up his pursuit. He had relinquished, apparently, the claim he’d so boldly laid to her. She was free to relax, to again focus the whole of her emotional energy on the children. So why did she feel so suddenly swamped with grief? What had she imagined would happen?

That he would wait forever? That he had meant all the things he’d said?

Yes, fool that she was, she nearly had.

On a score of occasions—fitful, near-sleepless nights, all of them—she had arisen amidst her feverish dreams of him and gone to the window overlooking the street far below. Through the glass, at the most oblique angle, one could just make out the Brompton Road and the lamppost by the greengrocer’s shop.

Three times she’d seen a man standing there in that pool of gauzy, mustard-colored light, simply staring up—or so it had felt—at her windows.

The first time, on an especially rainy night, the man had worn a sweeping greatcoat with a scarf wrapped high against the damp. More recently, he’d been attired in an opera cloak that had swirled low about his calves, its claret-colored lining shimmering in the wind. Always he wore a hat tipped over his face.

And always the same man. Tall and lean, with an aristocratic bearing. And each time, her heart would stop.

Lord Hepplewood, she had imagined.

This is not over,
he had said.
I will not let it be. You are mine. And I will wait you out, I swear to God.

So Isabella had let herself believe, during those dark and quiet nights, that he was keeping his promise. That she was his. And that he, in his harsh and old-fashioned way, was simply guarding what was his.

But she did not belong to anyone. She never had, really.

Despite knowing this, Isabella had twice been obliged to stop herself from hurrying out her own front door, so intent had she been upon tossing on a cloak and hastening down the street.

It meant nothing, she reminded herself now. It was just a man, loitering in the street after midnight. Besides, men made promises lightly and kept them rarely. Not a one of them had ever watched over her, guarded her back, or planned for her best interests—nor was one of them ever apt to. Isabella was on her own, she reminded herself, and always would be.

As to the mysterious man across the street, he was probably some daring fellow waiting to bed the greengrocer’s wife, for she was a lively, buxom blonde, and her husband was often away in the wee hours to meet the market carts.

“Bella?” Jemima’s sharp voice stirred her to the present. “Are you all right?”

Isabella looked up to see her stepsister framed in the back door, her long, blonde braids swinging over her shoulders, her figure so thin the opening dwarfed her.

“Oh, yes,” Isabella said, forcing a smile lest her face betray her. “I was woolgathering. Have you got the shelf dusted?”

Jemima nodded and turned round. Hastily Isabella read her aunt’s letter. It was indeed nothing; talk of the goings-on at Thornhill, thoroughly laced with vaguely patronizing remarks followed by an insistent invitation to visit. But the words no longer stung, for they simply did not matter. None of it mattered.

Thornhill was no longer her home.

Lord Hepplewood was no longer her lover.

It felt as if nothing in her life had changed, or was ever apt to.

Ramming both letters deep into her smock’s pocket, Isabella inhaled a ragged breath, jerked to her feet, and returned to work.

CHAPTER
11

“H
is name, my lord, was Mr. George Flynt.”

“Flynt?” Lord Hepplewood was closeted with Jervis in the library at Clarges Street on an especially sunny May afternoon, his gaze sweeping down paragraph after paragraph of legalese. “Not a family I know.”

“The great-grandfather was called George also,” said his secretary, “and possibly another after that. It isn’t clear. Certainly there were grandsons called William and James. But I gather the Flynts were in the Canadian provinces at least six generations before them.”

“So barely English at all, perhaps?” muttered Hepplewood.

“Indeed, there was a vast amount of French and Red Indian blood in the family, I gather,” he said. “It tells a little, I think, in Mrs. Aldridge’s dark hair and remarkable face.”

It did, thought Hepplewood, though nothing on earth could explain those haunting violet eyes. “What was the Flynt family’s origin?” he asked.

“Minor gentry from Shropshire, it’s believed,” said Jervis. “You know how it is, sir. A second son of a second son, sent out to the colonies to make his fortune.”

“And they seem to have managed,” said Hepplewood dryly. He tapped a finger on a line in the document. “So you think this might be the language causing the Flynts so much dyspepsia?”

“It
might
be, sir,” said his secretary, “if the thing’s worth the paper it’s written on.
Per stirpes
is Latin meaning ‘by representation.’ Legally, it is a way of dividing assets equally amongst the branches of a family.”

Hepplewood set the documents aside and pinched hard at the bridge of his nose. He’d begun this fool’s errand in some vain attempt to understand Isabella’s fears—and to winkle out the motivation behind the bits and pieces of Tafford’s threats. But by the time his clever secretary was done unearthing rumors and moldering old paperwork, Hepplewood was beginning to wonder where it would end.

“Well done, Jervis,” he said, “though you’ve raised more questions than you’ve answered, perhaps.”

“Shall I stay at it, sir? Back to Liverpool?”

“By all means,” said Hepplewood. “And you suspect that the fellow who drew these documents is on his way to London?”

“Oh, no, he’s long dead, I should think.”

“But someone from the firm, I mean?” Hepplewood pressed.

“The solicitors I found in Liverpool said the firm threatened as much,” reported his secretary, “but as they are no longer affiliated, it’s hard to say. I can go up the Ottawa Valley myself, sir, but it will take—”

“—time,” Hepplewood supplied. “No. The trouble, I think, is in England—or will be. And England is where I’ll need you.”

Just then, the library door burst in to admit a whirlwind of blonde ringlets and yellow muslin. “Papa!”

“Whoa,” he said, rising from his desk. “What’s this? Is the house afire?”

“Papa!” said Lissie again, her expression pleading, “
may
we go to the park with Harry and Bertie?
May
we?
Pleaaase
?”

“Well, miss,” said Hepplewood, scooping her up in one arm, “Mr. Jervis and I are just—”

“No, please, please,
please
!” said the child, flinging her arms around his neck.

“Beg pardon, my lord.” Mrs. Seawell, her longtime nurse, appeared on the threshold, red-faced and panting. “Got away from me, milady did. Can’t think what’s got into her lately, sir—begging your pardon again, sir.”

Hepplewood waved her back. “It’s perfectly all right, Seawell, we are finishing up here,” he said, hitching Lissie onto his hip. “Now, what’s all this about the park?”

“Lady Keaton sent a note,” said Mrs. Seawell, bobbing a belated curtsy. “She means to take Mr. Henry and Mr. Bertram out at four on their ponies.”