The Earl's Mistress (3 page)

“I do miss it,” Isabella admitted, for what was the point in denying it?

But her aunt’s face held no real sympathy. “I could lie, Isabella, and say I pity you, but I think you know that I do not,” she said with some asperity. “This is what comes of thinking too well of oneself. Still, I hope no one has ever called me unforgiving or unchristian. Perhaps I might ask Everett to have you and the children down to Thornhill for a day or two, if you would find it a comfort?”

“To Thornhill?” Isabella echoed. “With Everett?”

“Yes, he still speaks of you—and lately of Jemima, too. We saw her in the park last week. What a beauty the child is becoming! Perhaps I might agree to bring her out, too, when the time comes.”

“Bring . . .
Jemima
out?” The chill became like a knife in Isabella’s heart.

“Oh, pray do not thank me yet!” cautioned her aunt, throwing up a limp hand. “I must ponder it. But I
will
have Everett bring the three of you for a visit.”

“Thank you,” Isabella managed, “but the girls have school.”

Her aunt wrinkled her nose. “Is that what you call it?” she said, dropping her voice to an admonishing whisper. “Really, Isabella, I cannot think it seemly that the late Lord Tafford’s daughter—or even his stepdaughter—should be reduced to rubbing elbows with charity waifs. Everett, I do not mind to tell you, is appalled. And before you turn up your nose at that, kindly recall your father appointed him trustee.”

“A moot point, I imagine,” said Isabella dryly, “since Papa had nothing left to entrust—nothing that was not entailed to the estate for Everett. Moreover, the Bolton School is not a charity. One pays according to one’s means, and they take only the brightest children in Kensington.”

“Along with the spawn of every second-rate actor and starving artist in a two-mile radius,” her aunt countered. “Oh, Isabella! It pains me to think how unnecessary all this is!”

“I thank you, Aunt, for your concern, but—”

“Oh, never mind that, here is Everett now.” Her aunt brightened. “And he has found Viscount Aberthwood. They have become great friends, you know, so he’s going down to Thornhill with us.”

The gentlemen drew up, both attired in the height of fashion. The viscount looked younger than Everett’s twenty-seven years, but otherwise the pair appeared to be peas in an aristocratic pod. Her cousin had managed to shoehorn himself into the highest echelons of society, it seemed.

“Bella, old thing,” Everett oozed, bowing over her hand. “Aberthwood, do you know Mrs. Aldridge?”

“Your cousin, isn’t she, Tafford?” The gentleman looked Isabella up and down, as if taking in her plain gray coat and worn boots before finally acquiescing to lift his hat a fraction. “How do you do, ma’am?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

Just then, a porter pushed out Isabella’s trunks and looked at her enquiringly. “Out to the curb, miss?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you,” said Isabella. “And might you help me hire a cart of some sort?”

Lady Meredith tossed her hand dismissively. “Oh, just run back, Everett, and catch our coachman,” she ordered. “Brooks has nothing better to do. He can take Isabella and her trunks down to Fulham.”

It was on the tip of Isabella’s tongue to refuse and suggest her aunt go to the devil with Cousin Everett riding on her coattails, but she wisely bit back the words. She had already consigned the vile Lord Hepplewood to hell, and while she had no wish to be further beholden to her aunt, what was left of Hepplewood’s first-class train fare would pay for several days’ worth of heat. Assuming they weren’t turned out before the coal-monger came round.

So she accepted Lady Meredith’s charity and allowed Everett to escort her from the station and out onto the street, though she refused to take his arm.

On the curb beyond the crowd, however, he stopped and turned with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

“Isabella.” He lifted his hand and set his fingers to her cheek for the briefest instant. “Oh, my dear girl, how you do try my patience.”

“I am not trying anything, Everett,” she said wearily. “Do not start with me.”

Something ugly twisted his almost effeminately handsome face. “Come, Bella, we both know how this ends,” he replied. “Look at yourself. Look what you’ve been reduced to. Think what your father would say. Think of the girls. Come home to Thornhill. You have only to say yes.”

But Isabella
was
thinking of the girls. “Everett, I’ve already said no,” she reminded him, “repeatedly. And if you really gave a tuppence about the children, you wouldn’t wait for me to marry you. You would do something to help them.”

“What, and sacrifice that ace I’ve been keeping up my sleeve all these years?” He laughed. “Look, Bella, you aren’t getting any younger. And I’m not getting any more patient.”

“Then we’ve reached an impasse, it would seem,” she said calmly. “Look, there is Brooks.”

“So it is.”

Fury darkened his eyes, but he would not lower himself to berate her in front of her father’s old servants. With one last bow to Isabella, Everett snapped out orders to the coachman, then tipped his hat and calmly walked away.

Yes, pride did indeed go before a fall, she thought as her trunks were hefted up. In fact, Isabella had begun to wonder if she had any pride left at all, for Lord Hepplewood’s advice had been ringing in her ears all the way down from Morpeth.

Go back to London,
he had suggested,
and find yourself a husband or a protector.

Well, she had already found herself one husband, and given how that had turned out, she was not apt to find another. Not unless she was willing to humble herself and accept Everett’s oft-repeated proposal—which made starving to death look like a viable option.

And the other choice—a protector; dear God, it churned her stomach just to think of it! But the truth was, women were faced with that hard choice every day. The knowledge had wrenched at her heart during the interminable ride back to London.

Isabella fleetingly shut her eyes and swallowed hard. She was a widow of poor but noble descent, not some dashing high-flyer. But she had a measure of grace—and beauty, she was often told. And though she had made some foolish choices, she was not stupid. Such assets might provide a way, she acknowledged, of paying the proverbial rent. Some women flourished from such arrangements; a few even grew wealthy.

Isabella felt tears threaten again. It felt as if Lord Hepplewood had been her last honest hope—and he’d been her ninth interview since leaving Lady Petershaw’s employment. She truly had not imagined it would be so hard to find a post.

She had believed, she supposed, that her employment with the scandalous
La Séductrice
would be overshadowed by the fact that she had been governess to the young Marquess of Petershaw. She had believed, too, that her father’s good name would still carry some weight. Worse, in her naiveté, she’d imagined her reckless marriage and abrupt widowhood would be long forgotten.

But memory of her father had not long survived the grave, and Lady Petershaw was as notorious as ever. As to Richard’s death, his ghost still clung to her like a shroud, and she was not apt to ever cast it off. Between Richard’s vindictive father and her scheming aunt, one of them would surely make certain of it.

The porter was hefting the last of her trunks onto Everett’s coach. Brooks, her father’s old coachman, was holding open the door with sadness in his eyes.

“Fulham, is it, Miss Bella?” he gently pressed.

“Yes, Munster Lane,” she said. “And thank you, Brooks. It is lovely to see a dear, old face.”

“Thornhill is not the same, ma’am, without you,” he said as she climbed in.

Her cottage in Fulham was well beyond the elegant environs of Belgravia, where her aunt and cousin lived, and so small the great hall at Thornhill could have swallowed it. But it was her home now—for as long as she could pay the rent, which was already three months behind.

As was the butcher’s bill, the greengrocer’s bill, and every other account Isabella owed. Jemima’s shoes were worn nearly paper thin. Georgina was in Jemima’s hand-me-downs. Mrs. Barbour hadn’t been paid in months, though the woman never whispered a word of complaint. But the rent—dear heaven, to lose the very roof over their heads? How would they survive?

The last time Isabella had gone to beg mercy from Mr. Greeley, her landlord, he’d stopped picking his teeth with his penknife long enough to offer her an easy payment option—one which had involved Isabella on her knees and Mr. Greeley getting his
“knob polished reg’lar-like.
” Following this offer of Christian charity, the man had fumbled beneath his ponderous belly with a gesture sufficient to get his point across, even to one so dim-witted as Isabella.

A shudder ran through her at the memory, but just then, the porter circled back around.

“That’d be the last of it, gov’ner,” he shouted at Brooks. “Off the curb, if you please.”

On impulse, Isabella set a hand on the door. “Wait, Brooks.” She hesitated and crooked her head out. “Have you nothing pressing to do just now? Truly?”

A smile split his warm face. “Well, you know what they do say, miss,” he said, winking at her. “Whilst the old cat’s away, the mice may play. Can I do you some service?”

The familiar teasing in his voice was very nearly her undoing. Isabella blinked back the hot press of tears. “Will you take me round to Lady Petershaw’s first? I might be a while.”

“I’ve all the time in the world, Miss Bella,” he said.

CHAPTER
3

T
he Marchioness of Petershaw resided in an ivory palace along the west side of Park Square, preferring, as she liked to put it, to always situate just uphill of the very best shopping.

And shop the lady certainly did. Isabella looked about the pink withdrawing room—not to be confused with the blue or the gold withdrawing rooms—and let her gaze take in the sparkling new garniture of ormolu and magenta marble, its center clock soaring four feet off the mantelpiece. Near it sat a new ottoman of tufted pink velvet that, in the East End, might have slept a family of four in comfort.

There were also new porcelains, new lamps, a new Axminster carpet woven of pink, cream, and burgundy, along with six pairs of sweeping, deep-rose draperies that had replaced the pale lilac ones Isabella had seen a mere month earlier.

Returning her gaze to the door, she neatened her gray skirts and tried not to think how much all of it must have cost.

As usual, the marchioness kept her waiting.

La Séductrice
made it a policy to keep everyone waiting—especially her gentlemen callers.
After all, my dear Mrs. Aldridge,
she had often said,
salivation is good for the soul,
oui
?

The marchioness admired all things French—words, wine, couture, and décor—despite the fact that her father had been a cooper from Margate, and the closest her mother ever got to Paris was selling
pastilles de Vichy
to the well-bred drunks staggering up St. James after their clubs closed.

But one somehow forgave the marchioness her pretense. She was rich, charming, and beautiful. And even the
grande dames
of society who professed to loathe her would likely have cut off their best strand of pearls just to be Lady Petershaw for one day.

Or perhaps for one
night
?

The notion made Isabella smile.

After half an hour, the double doors opened, flung dramatically inward by a brace of identical footmen in the marchioness’s white and gold livery.

It was at this moment that Isabella always expected a blast of tasseled trumpets and a run of red carpet flung down the center of the room. But there were no trumpets, just a litter of toy poodles, barking and nipping at Lady Petershaw’s heels as she floated across the carpet, arms outstretched in greeting.

“My dear Mrs. Aldridge!” she declared, as if her most heartfelt wish had just been granted. “To what do I owe this inestimable pleasure?”

Isabella had risen to make a graceful curtsy, mentally steeling herself. “My lady, I hope I did not disturb you,” she said.

“No, for I was entertaining a gentleman who had become overconfident,” she said, eyes sparkling with humor. “A snub will remind him, perhaps, of the value of my affections. But those shadows beneath your eyes, they
do
disturb me.” Here, the lady laid a finger to her lips. “Ah, I recall you’ve but recently ventured north. It was not, I collect, all you might have hoped?”

“It was not,” said Isabella, her heart sinking anew. “It was . . . frightful, really. I came straight here from King’s Cross.”

Her frown deepening, the marchioness bade Isabella be seated and sent one of the matching footmen trotting off for tea. Then, after settling one of the poodles in her lap, she began to pry from Isabella the details of her trip to Northumbria.

Reluctantly, Isabella supplied them—without mentioning Lord Hepplewood’s name.

He was, in fact, just the sort of man who danced attendance on the marchioness, for despite her charm, the lady had a taste for lovers who were mad, bad, and dangerous to know—and she could drive them to an inch.

At the age of thirteen, it was rumored, Lady Petershaw had been sold off the street by her bonbon-hawking mother to a duke reputed to be a devotee of the carnal arts. The price had been two hundred guineas and no questions asked. Lady Petershaw’s mother had hung up her wooden vendor’s tray, never to be seen again.

It was said the wicked nobleman tutored his young mistress diligently, both in and out of the bedchamber. So pleased was the duke with his pupil’s progress that he began keeping her in a grand and increasingly public fashion, showering her with jewels and delighting in the envy of his friends, until one day he obligingly keeled over and fell off the bed from exhaustion—a victim, one might say, of his own tutelage.

La Séductrice
had gone on to a succession of wealthy protectors, throwing them off when they bored her, the legend of her sensual prowess growing by leaps and bounds, until, at the age of five-and-twenty, she became with child by the elderly Marquess of Petershaw. Or so the rumors had it.