Chapter 3
Isolde was doing her best to keep her mind on what Tatiana was saying, but she was failing spectacularly. She wanted to be seen as a good houseguest, for her own sake, if nothing else, and she also wanted to humor Tatiana, who was obviously delighted to have made a new friend.
Isolde wasn’t sure how old she was, but she must have been around Cornelia’s age, and so Isolde felt an instinctive warmth toward her.
Unfortunately, it was also a keen reminder that she’d just left Cornelia for she knew not how long, and her thoughts kept straying back to her sister. Though she was physically not far away at all, this new arrangement made her seem almost unreachable.
“Henry spends so much of his time in London these days,” Tatiana was saying, “so you won’t see very much of him, I don’t think. You’re stuck with me, though, I’m afraid! And this is our music room, of course!” Tatiana said, ushering her into yet another space in the house.
Isolde realized she had not retained anything the girl had just been saying. She could feel a headache coming on from the effort of keeping her face pleasantly neutral. “Do you play at all?” Tatiana asked.
She had stopped with her hand on a beautiful piano, her green eyes bright with curiosity. Isolde had noticed she, her brother Henry, and their mother all had eyes that same shade of bright green, in contrast to Thaddeus’s warm brown ones.
The three of them shared the same jet-black hair color as well, though Lady Harrow’s was turning silver. Their beauty was of a more striking, severe kind than Thaddeus’s sun-kissed charm. Isolde wondered if he took after his father.
She could not recall much about the late Lord Hartington, other than she had found him scary as a child.
“Only a little, I’m afraid,” Isolde answered in response to Tatiana’s question. “Certainly not skilled enough to subject others to my abilities.” She and Cornelia had taught themselves, mostly. Cornelia had wished for lessons, but Isolde and Thomas had thought it wise not to incur any extra debts.
“No matter,” said Tatiana cheerfully. “Thad plays quite well; perhaps he will play for you sometime. You can turn the pages for him! Won’t that be sweet?”
Isolde nodded, though she didn’t actually know if that would be sweet at all. She wished she better understood what part she was meant to play here. Was that something he wanted from her – to sit by his side and aid him in his tasks?
Things in her father’s house were difficult, but at least she knew her place and what was expected of her.
The longer they wandered through Hartington, the more this tour felt like a metaphor for her situation – that she was alone, in an unfamiliar place, where she could not get her bearings.
Not for the first time, she felt tears pricking the corners of her eyes and quickly blinked them away.
Perhaps not quick enough, because Tatiana suddenly frowned a little, tilting her head to study Isolde.
“Goodness, look at me! I’ve just been chattering away, pulling you here and there, and you must be longing to sit and have a moment to settle in. Let me take you to your room so you can rest.”
Isolde felt she should lie and protest that she was fine, and they could continue the tour. That would certainly be in keeping with the plan she’d proposed to Cornelia, of attempting to build an alliance that could help them escape their father’s vices.
But she was suddenly too overwhelmed to lie convincingly, so she just nodded and said, “Thank you, Lady Tatiana. And thank you for showing me around, it was a lovely tour! Though I am not quite sure I got the lay of the land. I shall have to rely upon your help to navigate, I think.”
The suggestion delighted Tatiana as much as Isolde had hoped it would.
“Of course! You must rely on me for anything you need!”
And with that, she companionably tucked her arm through Isolde’s and led her back through the house.
She thankfully did not linger once she’d seen her to the door of her room, only squeezed her hand and said, “I’m so glad Thaddeus finally fell in love!
” before practically skipping away down the hall.
Isolde barely registered the room as she went in, instead allowing herself to fall to the bed, finally letting the tears fall. She pressed a hand to her mouth to keep herself from making noise, but the sobs still shook her whole body.
***
She indulged her crying fit as long as she dared, and then lay on the bed, spent. She made her way to the window, opening it to let in some fresh air.
A breeze caressed her tear-stained cheeks, and she sighed into it. The crying hadn’t helped, exactly, but she did feel less like any moment she might snap and scream out her frustrations.
She found that if she stood in the right place, she could see her own home from her window, and that reminded her of why she was enduring all this. She must find a way to turn this situation into one that benefited her and more importantly, her family.
She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and gave herself a shake, telling herself that she would make it happen, because she must.
Not long after that, one of the household’s maids knocked on the door to inform her that supper would be served soon.
Someone had unpacked and hung all her clothes in the wardrobe earlier, and Isolde surveyed her options dimly.
They had seemed perfectly serviceable when she had carefully selected them the day before, but now, having seen the full size and grandeur of Hartington, she wondered if they were up to the task.
Still, these clothes were what she had, and she would make do. She dressed and went down, straightening her shoulders and holding her head up. Perhaps they would think her clothes were shabby, but they could not fault her posture, at least.
Half an hour later, she was starting to tire of holding herself so primly, and the urge to scream had returned. Aside from initial greetings, there had been barely any talking at dinner.
The rest of the family seemed to be taking cues from Thaddeus, but Thaddeus did not seem inclined to speak, or even really meet her eyes. She kept catching his eyes lingering on her gown, which she felt was a bit rude.
Of course, it wasn’t as fine as the dresses the marchioness and Lady Tatiana were wearing, but she felt it was not so shabby as to call attention to itself.
Finally, Lady Hartington seemed to feel she had to take matters into her own hands.
“How did you find your tour of our Hartington, Miss Fairchild?”
“It was lovely. The house is very beautiful.”
“I told her that you played piano, Thad,” Tatiana added, evidently happy to have been given tacit permission to converse. “Perhaps you can play for her after dinner.”
Thaddeus’s gaze flitted from Tatiana to Isolde, and then back to his plate. “Perhaps another night.”
Isolde was relieved that she wouldn’t be required to sit through after-dinner entertainment, but she was confused by his dismissiveness. He had invited her here. Why do that if he didn’t seem to plan to spend any time with her? He was inscrutable.
As if she’d been thinking the same thing, Lady Harrow spoke again.
“Given as this is rather an … unusual arrangement, perhaps Tatiana has a point. You should try to know one another better. Perhaps court Miss Fairchild first, Thaddeus. Before any sort of … public confirmation of your relationship.” Her face and tone were politely neutral, but the hint of disapproval was unmissable.
Isolde winced, wondering if the disapproval was about the manner of their engagement, or simply her.
She glanced at Thaddeus and found him looking thoughtful.
“What a wise woman you are, Mother,” he replied, and then shifted his gaze to Isolde. “We shall do just that. There is no rush to announce our engagement officially, and no rush for us to marry. You’re safe now that you’re here with us.”
He said the last bit almost to himself, and it struck Isolde as an odd thing to say. And yet, it was true, wasn’t it? She could breathe easier here. Her troubles weren’t gone, of course, but she no longer lived with them.
She let herself relax, just a little. And for a moment, for the first time, she considered whether this marriage might be a good thing.
But then, glancing up at her intended husband, she could not imagine what a life with him would be like. He was so different from the boy she had known. He could barely speak to her. And, lest she forget, he had won her in a card game.
The small bit of hope that had started to bloom in her chest withered.
“Well, I think it’s all quite romantic!” Tatiana said.
“Romantic?” Isolde asked, trying to keep the skepticism out of her voice, but not quite succeeding.
“Tatiana,” Thaddeus said, his voice quiet but clearly warning her off the subject.
“But it is,” Tatiana insisted. “You stepped in and won the day, and the hand of a beautiful woman!”
Tatiana made it sound like he’d ridden in on a white horse in shining armor, and the way she was looking at Thaddeus, starry-eyed, Isolde had no doubt that was how she saw her brother. “And of course, you defeated that awful Lord Crowley, imagine being engaged to him.”
“Lord Crowley was there?” Isolde heard herself ask before she could stop the question from leaving her mouth.
A chill wrapped itself around her spine.
Thomas had said nothing about Lord Crowley.
And now that she had voiced the question, she found she needed to know the answer.
She looked over at Thaddeus, whose expression was unreadable.
“He was,” Thaddeus finally answered. “But you need not worry about him. Like I said, you are safe now.”
***
The rest of dinner passed in a blur as she tried to rearrange her understanding of what had happened the night of the card game. Before she knew it, dinner was over, and she was walking back toward her room.
Just before she started up the stairs, she heard Thaddeus call her. She turned back and found he had followed her out of the dining room.
“I would speak with you. Walk with me?” He gestured to the long gallery that started just past the staircase and ran the length of the house.
Inwardly, she sighed. She had been looking forward to collapsing in bed as soon as she could undress. She was still exhausted from her cry earlier, and mentally, she was just as tired.
Outwardly, she said, “Of course, My Lord.”
They started down the gallery, passing several paintings before he finally spoke.
“Forgive me for my reticence, Miss Fairchild. I meant to give you space to acclimate, but after the dinner conversation, I realized I must make some things very plain.”
Nerves crept up Isolde’s spine. Had she somehow offended him?
“I’m sure we each have much to say to the other,” she said aloud. “Please speak freely.”
“I shall, in the interest of not prolonging any misunderstanding between us. I have no intention of marrying you.”
Isolde stopped walking and stared up at him. He smiled bitterly at the shocked expression on her face.
“No reason to be coy now that you know more or less the full truth of that night. Your father bet your hand and your dowry in a game against Lord Crowley. I did not wish to see him win, so I inserted myself into the game. It was not my place to step in, but I believe your fate would have been significantly worse had I not. I only wished to help.”
Isolde’s head was spinning with emotions, but she managed to gasp out a few words.
“I am not sure how to express my gratitude for what you’ve done, My Lord.”
“Any decent gentleman would have done the same.”
“Then I fear decent gentlemen are in short supply these days,” she murmured.
He chuckled – nothing like the way he used to laugh, full-throated and sparkling, but it still felt a little good to make him laugh.
“At any rate, do not thank me yet,” he continued.
“I have a proposal for you. As I said, I have no intention of marrying you. But my mother’s suggestion gave me an idea.
Were I to court you, publicly, that would buy you time to look for a match of your own.
I can give you that, as much time as you need.
When you find someone, we will discreetly break off our engagement, and you can then marry the man you have chosen and be free of your father forever. ”
For the second time, Isolde stopped walking. They had reached the end of the gallery, and she stared up at some presumed Hartington ancestor hanging on the wall, barely seeing the painting.
She felt as if in the past 48 hours, her world had collapsed, and she had been staring at the pieces, trying to make them fit together – only to now be told that she’d been looking at them upside down.
She grasped for something to say and settled for the simplest question of the many she had.
“But … my dowry that you won?”
“Yours. I am not a thief, Miss Fairchild. If you make a match, you will need it.”
Hers. The hope that had withered began to bloom again. It blossomed in her chest like fireworks.
Thaddeus gently turned them around and started them walking back the way they’d come. He let her process in silence for a few long minutes before speaking again.
“Shall we say we have an understanding?” he asked.
Isolde took a deep breath. Her head was still spinning, but her heart suddenly felt so light at the thought that she could perhaps not just escape this arrangement but do it into a marriage of her choice.
It was certainly not the proper way to get a husband. And yet, it was the way she had, and how could she not take it? There was just one further thing, and though she hardly dared to ask for more, she made herself.
“Yes, we have an understanding. But …” her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and she took a deep breath to steady herself, “... just as you could not leave me to any dire fate, I must not leave my sister to whatever choices my father makes for her. Please, if you want to help, help me get my sister away from him, too.”
Thaddeus was quiet for a long moment.
“That may not be within my power,” he said finally. “But I will try.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
“Of course,” he replied. “In the meantime, you must treat Hartington as your home. You may do as you wish here, so long as you don’t bring trouble to our door.”
They had reached the main staircase again, and he gave her a gentle bow.
“I shall bid you good night here,” he said, and without waiting for her reply, he strode away toward the other side of the house, leaving her to stare after him with a confounding mix of emotions.
She felt a warm glow from his kindness, unexpected and overwhelming, and a great relief that she may have finally found a way to escape the ruin her father seemed determined to bring down upon them.
Still, Thaddeus’s last words lingered – why should he think she would bring trouble to Hartington?