Chapter 5
Chapter Five
C ould a man so well muscled, so well-endowed, and so well situated between a woman’s thighs really scowl so terribly? Apparently, he could. Did the artist sketch the scene from memory or from imagination? Hopefully the latter, but then why would he imagine such a scowling liaison?
“Italian artists must have odd ideas about fornication,” Isabella said. “They take it quite seriously it seems.” She peeked at the parlor door—closed—before turning the page of the battered notebook she held gently in her hands. She tried not to consider what residue might have created the stains on its cover. She moved the pages gently. They seemed fragile, corners torn in places. Clearly much loved.
Around the circle, her sisters chuckled. Imogen, Felicity, and their older sisters Lottie, Andromeda, and Prudence. They’d all had their turn to take a peek, and Isabella felt their amused gazes on her as she flipped from sketch to sketch.
“Well”—Isabella stopped at a sketch of a lady draped across a low bed, her head dangling off, her mouth open on a cry as a man knelt between her legs—“I can certainly see why it was destroyed. Quite the scandal.”
“Not destroyed entirely, my dear.” Lady Templeton had been their mother’s closest friend, and she remained a steadfast friend of their own even now. “Copies of the original sketches still float around. I Modi is infamous in Italy. For those in the know. Thankfully, dear Thurston is in the know. Who knew he was so good at sketching? These are his copies.” Thurston, Viscount Helston was Lady Templeton’s son, an obstinately unmarried fellow to the absolute despair of his mostly doting mother.
Imogen slipped the notebook out of Isabella’s hands to take another look. “Truly? He did these? Hm.”
“I’m just as surprised,” Lady Templeton admitted. “Apparently, he possesses some talent. If only it were something he could advertise.”
Thurston’s talent surprised Isabella less than the fact she had not known about it. Then again, she’d never consciously hunted after information on Thurston. Perhaps she should have. It might have helped Lady Templeton in some way, could still do so. What if his drawing got him in trouble in some way? Lady Templeton would want to know, to keep her son safe.
“Does he know you have these?” Lottie, the oldest of the Merriweather sisters, sat prim and straight in her chair, her blue eyes bright and cunning.
Lady Templeton laughed. “Not at all. I’ll have to return them before he discovers they’re missing.”
“Do not worry.” Andromeda, the second eldest sister, reached over to pat the older woman’s hand. “We have a new book to occupy your mind. We knew you’d be home from Italy soon, so we saved it for you.” She reached behind a pillow budged between her and the coach arm, freeing a small, brown leather book. She handed it to the marchioness.
“Do read it quickly!” Felicity had been introduced to their mother’s books during her first Season, had promised secrecy, and had taken to the books like a fish to water. She beamed now. “I must discuss the horse-riding scene with you. I found it so very novel . Oh.” Her light dimmed a little. “Should I not have said anything about the scene? Have I spoiled it for you?”
“Not a bit.” Lady Templeton nodded. “I do enjoy it when two hearts share a horse. Though I suspect the horse does not. Leave horses for the time being. Where are your babies ? I must have a tiny bundle to dandle on my knee this instant. I demand it.”
“The men have them in the nursery,” Lottie said. “Three men, one nurse, five children under five, and Trudy and June.” Their youngest sisters were not yet out, though at seventeen, Gertrude soon would be. “The men are thoroughly outnumbered.”
“Such good papas.” Lady Templeton sighed. “I will never have grandchildren. Thurston will never marry.”
Isabella leaned close to Imogen and whispered, “Why would he marry when he can have two mistresses. At the same time.” That she did know about Thurston.
Imogen’s mouth dropped open for a breath, then snapped shut. “At the same time and in the same place? Or… different places, do you suppose?”
“Different places.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“At Almack’s last week.”
“Fascinating.
“Where is your brother, then,” Lady Templeton asked. Quite the efficient change of subject. “Where is the duke?”
“In his study,” Andromeda said. “He has a visitor.”
“Is he close to choosing a bride?”
Isabella leaned forward and snagged a scone from a tray. “I think so. It must be Lady Margaret. Miss Haws thoroughly embarrassed herself in the park yesterday. Besides, I’ve heard not even a whisper of gossip about Lady M. Nothing questionable about her family, either.” Her father had a love for horses, but he never overspent. He treated the servants at the Hestia well, too. Always ignored, never ranted. Couldn’t ask for more, frankly. After her observations at the Hestia, she was convinced he would make a fine father-in-law for Samuel.
They were to be her last observations, however. Her gut tied in knots, and she placed the scone aside. Who did that horrid man think he was? He could not bully her into making poor decisions. She made enough of her own without him. And she could gather information without his blasted hotel.
“I do not think”—Imogen pulled at a curl at the nape of her neck as she always did when cogitating—“we can judge anyone for gossip. Or scandal, frankly. We’ve courted both since… well… forever.”
“True,” Lady Templeton said, “but we’ve also worked hard to scrub any rumor away from your reputations and to save you from further danger. If your brother must marry a woman with a scandal in her wardrobe, at least let her have the sense to use a key to lock it up tight.”
Scandal was more difficult to hide than most supposed. Isabella knew that well. Few could keep secrets from her because she hid where no one looked and kept her ears open when others flapped their lips.
“Is Lady Margaret the sort who”—Lady Templeton tapped the side of her teacup—“ enjoys reading , do you suppose?”
“We could never invite her to read with us,” Andromeda said. “We’d have to ask her to keep our reading material secret from Samuel, and I cannot imagine hiding something like that from Tristan. I would not ask it of another woman.”
“Yes, but you are in love with your husband,” Prudence said. “We all love our husbands, but… I rather doubt there is much love between Samuel and Lady Margaret.”
Silence felt like a heavy, velvet blanket, smothering the room, extinguishing their joy.
“Well,” Lady Templeton said, clapping her hands, “shall we take another peek at Thurston’s sketches?”
Yes, please. Something to distract them all, to bring back the smiles and laughter, and banish the suffocating silence. But also, she found herself more interested in male anatomy than she had been yesterday. How did one know what a man looked like beneath his clothes? Surely, there was no way of knowing. How then had her imagination conjured an entire, detailed physique for Mr. Trent while she’d slept last night?
She jumped at the book. “I did not get a good enough look at that last one.”
The others crowded closer, and the door swung open. Samuel stood in the frame, his fingers twitching at his sides, his face pale.
“Clearford”—Lady Templeton grinned—“you are finished with your guest and come to welcome me back to England’s shores. ”
He nodded, a stiff, unnatural movement. “It is good to see you, my lady. But I am afraid I must speak with my sisters. Will you excuse us?”
“But of course.” Lady Templeton rose, her gaze never leaving the duke, her frame relaxed and controlled, even though she seemed to extend motherly arms over the sisters. She plucked Thurston’s notebook from Isabella’s hands and faced them all in the doorway. “I will see all of you soon?”
Lottie nodded. “You promised to offer your opinions on some of my choices for my ball in a fortnight.”
“I’ll visit you tomorrow, then.” With one last smile for everyone, Lady Templeton patted Samuel’s shoulder and disappeared down the hall.
So too did Samuel, turning with a snap and marching in the other direction. Isabella rose with her sisters, all at once, melting into a line that followed their brother like bright, fallen autumn leaves floating along a current of wind. When they stepped through Samuel’s study door, he’d already lined the chairs up, and they sank into them, leaves fluttering to the ground.
“I have news.” Samuel stood rigid as a board before them, his arms folded behind his back. “Miss Haws and I are to be married.”
Where had all the air gone? The same place as all the sounds. Perhaps time had stopped. But the clock next to the door still wound its way round with silent tick, tick, ticks .
“Well?” Samuel asked, the word frigid and sharp.
Prudence leaned forward. “It is only that… I thought you said Miss Haws .”
“I did.”
She snapped back upright. “Ah.”
“But we thought you were going to choose Lady Margaret,” Isabella said. Yesterday at the park… all the other days. Miss Haws had seemed a fly about their brother’s head, all his attention going to Lady Margaret as he waved his hand to swat back the annoyance of the other lady. She’d pursued him, not the other way around.
Felicity half rose from her chair, and Samuel’s gaze swung to her, dropping her back to her seat. “It is only, Samuel, that she is… younger than me. ”
“She’s of marriageable age.”
“But you are so old.”
“I am not old.” Had his jaw popped? “Such age differences are not uncommon.”
“You don’t seem happy about it,” Lottie said, one eyebrow arched high.
“She’s certainly pretty,” Andromeda said. “A diamond.”
“Not very sharp, though,” Imogen added. “So maybe a flower is a more apt comparison.”
“Enough.” Samuel began to pace the length of their row and back. “I am not happy. I would not marry her if I did not have to.”
“Have to?” Isabella wrapped her hands around the ends of her chair arms. “What do you mean?”
Samuel stopped pacing. “My guest this morning was her father. Mr. Haws has a letter. From our mother to his wife. Mrs. Haws is the daughter of a viscount, and she and Mother, apparently, were friends until their marriages. When his wife died last year, he discovered the letter among her belongings. The letter is… distressing.”
A letter from their mother. A new bit of paper with her voice splashed across it. Forget distressing epistles. Isabella needed that voice. It had been so long since she’d had any new words from her mother. “Let us read it, please.” She clenched her hands tighter around the chair arms to keep from grabbing for it.
“You cannot. Mr. Haws still has it. I saw it. It’s her writing, but he jumped away from me before I could take it from him.”
“Then fling a knife at him, Samuel,” Lottie said. “What good is your particular talent if not put to use?”
“I can’t use a rich man as target practice. I can’t knife the father of the woman I’m now forced to marry.”
“Pardon me?” Isabella said. “I think I have wax in my ears. I think you just said forced , but that can’t be right.”
“It is. If what Haws says is true about its contents, the letter is damning. He’ll keep his silence if I marry his daughter.”
“No!” Prudence jumped from her chair. “Absolutely not. The Duke of Clearford cannot be blackmailed into marriage. ”
“Yes”—Samuel hung his head, his words almost a whisper—“he can.”
“Well, what is in the letter?” Lottie demanded.
Samuel’s jaw twitched. “He claims Mother possessed an entire library of… unmentionable books.”
In the silence that followed, one could have heard a flea fart. Felicity had frozen, wide eyed like a deer in a hunter’s sight. With the patience of a well-trained governess, Lottie crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin. Andromeda, who sat in the center of their line, peered first left, then right, meeting each sister’s gaze before melting into the back of her chair. Prudence rolled both lips between her teeth. She seemed to be keeping a deluge of words at bay. Badly. She vibrated. Imogen and Isabella reached for each other at the same moment, their hands locking together. Everyone seemed to look toward Lottie at the same time.
Shouldering well the weight of their regard, their oldest sister leaned slightly forward, tilted her head, and spoke with clipped precision. “How can the books be unmentionable if you have just mentioned them?” A rather semantic approach, but perhaps it would buy them time.
“What sort of books do you mean?” Prudence asked, the words tumbling out all at once.
Andromeda cleared her throat. “Do you mean books of a… questionable moral nature? Perhaps ones that might be unfortunate for an unmarried lady to read?”
Samuel tilted his face to the ceiling with a groan, red raging across his cheeks.
“Perhaps,” Lottie said, “the sort of book Quinton and I caused a scandal with before we married?”
“Exactly that,” Samuel snapped, still studying the ceiling. His shoulders seemed to have bunched up around his ears. “But there is more. Involving… you. All of you. He says… he says his wife has heard, from a credible source, that you now have Mother’s books.” His chin dropped, his gaze settling on them.
What had Isabella expected to find in his eyes? The flames of rage? A cold sheet of impenetrable ice? She found neither of those. She saw a tightly controlled sheen of tears. Confusion. Also, a heavy dose of indignation.
He set off pacing once more, his steps long and violent, churning up the electricity of all their emotions. “How dare he accuse you. How dare he even speak your names. Where in hell would you even keep an entire library of… of those sorts of books? It’s preposterous!”
You could hide them in a rather large, locked wardrobe in their mother’s personal sitting room. Not that Isabella would let him know.
The sisters leaned toward one another, their chairs screeching across the floor as they dragged them close enough to put their heads together. Samuel continued ranting, and the sisters whispered all at once.
“He knows .”
“ He doesn’t. Mr. Haws does.”
“What do we do?”
“Perhaps not whisper like this. It’s suspicious.”
“He’s busy. He won’t notice.”
“How many knives does he have on him today?”
“He’s not going to stab us. He’s protecting us.”
“And Mother.”
“But if he discovers what Mr. Haws says is true?”
“ Shhh .”
They looked up at Samuel, who still paced and ranted, the slap of his boots on the floor a percussive rhythm for his diatribe.
“He won’t stab us even then,” Prudence said. “He loves us.”
Lottie arched a brow. “But does he? He loves who he thinks we are. He doesn’t know everything.”
“He loves us,” Andromeda insisted. “Even then. I know it.”
“What do we do?” Felicity wrung her hands.
Imogen wrapped an arm around her. “Keep silent.”
“I don’t think we can,” Andromeda said. “Perhaps it’s time.”
“It is never time.” Prudence shook her head.
Everyone looked at Lottie, who looked at Isabella. “Have you heard any hint of these rumors?” Her sisters did not know how she always had the latest gossip, only that her well of information never seemed to dry up.
“I’ve not. There’s been…” Oh. Oh, no.
“What is it?” Prudence hissed.
Isabella’s lips felt numb, but she managed to speak anyway. “I heard him say he had an ace up his sleeve. He was talking to Lord Sillsbury about whose daughter Samuel would propose to.”
“The letter is his ace.” Lottie nodded. “Nothing else?”
Isabella shook her head.
“I suggest we keep quiet, then,” Lottie said.
Across the room, Samuel still paced, still ranted.
Andromeda’s hand fluttered to her heart. “But what about Samuel? He’s prepared to marry a woman he doesn’t like to protect Mother’s memory. To protect us. We cannot let him do that.”
One of Samuel’s knives must have gotten stuck between Isabella’s ribs, quite close to her heart. It burned. She searched her sisters’ faces. The same pain, the same truth twisted there.
Andromeda pulled out of their circle first and faced their brother with a defiant chin. “We must tell him, so he knows he does not have to save us. We have brought this on ourselves.”
One by one, they returned to their line, and when the screeching of chairs and rustle of skirts subsided, Lottie said one firm but gentle word.
“Samuel.”
He stopped midstep, midword, and blinked at them as if he’d only just remembered their presence. “Do not worry. I won’t let that man and his family hurt you. I’ll marry whomever I must to keep you safe.”
Oh. The knife twisted, ripping muscle, scratching bone. Andromeda was right.
“You need not,” Lottie said. “In fact, we demand you do not.”
His brow furrowed. “Of course I will. I—”
“It’s true, Samuel.” Andromeda stood, her shoulders thrown back. “Mother possessed a collection of erotic books she shared with her friends.”
His head tilted to the side .
Prudence leaned over and hissed. “Don’t use words like erotic around him. He’ll go toes up from the shock.”
Felicity groaned, dropping her face into her hands.
And the red drained from Samuel’s face. His hands, which had been balled into fists to smash into Mr. Haws’s nose, relaxed all at once, dropping, drooping with his entire body.
Andromeda glared at the others before focusing on their brother once more. “After her death, we found them. And we continued her… enterprise.”
“Much has changed since we began,” Lottie said. “Prudence has devised some particularly clever ways to reduce the risk of ruination, increase secrecy. And we’ve left the day-to-day running of the borrowing system to a trustworthy friend.”
Samuel’s jaw dropped, his gaze went hazy, focusing on some unseeable point above their heads.
“Do you remember Annie’s former betrothed?” Prudence asked. “The man from Cornwall she used to write to?” Prudence paused for an answer, but when Samuel only continued to stare into the distance, slack jawed, she pushed onward. “They were never engaged. He supplied our books. He did for Mother, too. He still does. Imogen writes to him now.”
Samuel wobbled, reached for the nearest surface, found none, toppled into a crashing descent. The sisters rushed for him, caught him in twelve arms before he hit the floor, and helped him to the sofa near the fire.
“Tea,” Imogen cried. “We need tea. Or smelling salts.”
“I know it’s a shock,” Lottie said. “But now you know you are not obligated to ruin your life for us. We knew from the beginning the risks we took. But we wanted to take those risks.”
Andromeda knelt next to the sofa near Samuel’s head. “To feel closer to Mother.”
“To prove our worth.” Prudence hung over the back of the sofa and pushed a lock of hair out of Samuel’s eye.
“To learn,” Lottie said, “and banish the ignorance most would have us live in. I will not apologize for doing it. But I will do anything I can to keep it from hurting you. Let the world know. We are not afraid. ”
Samuel pushed to sitting, and the sisters lurched back a step, as if his rising were an ocean wave shoving them backward. A wall of electricity seemed to grow around him, keeping them at a distance. “Yet it will impact me if others know. And June and Gertrude. Every damn one of you as yet unmarried.”
For a breath, they hung their heads.
For a breath, they felt the weight of guilt.
For a breath, Isabella did regret. All of it.
Each breath heavier than the last, filling her lungs with muck instead of air.
Imogen stepped through Samuel’s crackling electric wall. “When the secret is out, we will better know who courts us for us and not for you.”
Samuel stood, steadier than before. “I must think. Out, all of you.”
“Not until you promise not to marry Miss Haws,” Lottie said.
He ran a steady hand through his hair. “I will marry her. Nothing has changed. I’ll do anything I must to keep your names in good social standing, to keep you happy. Now, leave.” Such finality there.
“What if we want you to be happy, too?” Prudence said.
He turned his back to them, looking at the large family portrait that had hung over the fireplace since their parents’ death. A mother and father, all eight daughters, and one son—smiling, happy. A moment of the past never to be repeated.
The sisters filed out of the room, setting defeated footsteps toward their mother’s old sitting room. They closed the door and draped themselves across various surfaces, unable to defeat the buzzing silence growing louder around them.
Finally, in a small voice, Prudence said, “We don’t even have all the books anymore. Gave them to Cora.”
“We’ve worked hard to keep Mother’s secret,” Lottie added.
“ Our secret.”
Andromeda leaned against the wardrobe that held their mother’s erotic books. She stroked a hand down one closed door.
“Everyone’s secret,” Isabella added. How many of the ton’s ladies had borrowed books from them? They’d kept the circle small, but they could not control everyone’s tongue. Tongues liked to talk, a fact Isabella generally enjoyed.
“What do we do?” Felicity, sitting on the plush rug, dropped onto her back.
No one seemed able to answer that.
Isabella looked out the window. The passersby offered no answer, either. Each had a story eager to tell, and each would be more eager to hear another’s story, especially if it caused a scandal. Soon, the Duke of Clearford’s name would be on their lips. For his upcoming nuptials. Or his sisters’ names. For their disgrace.
Isabella did not care for herself. She wanted to marry, but what a rare thing to find a man who wanted to see a woman’s soul, who held her up as precious and loved her fully, with all the brightness of the sun. She would not settle for less.
She cared for her sisters. Yes, Lottie and Annie and Prudence would survive, buoyed by the love of their husbands. But Felicity had a romantic’s heart. And Imogen… hadn’t she recently implied she had formed a tendre for some unknown man? Gertrude. June. Were they to lose their futures before they left the schoolroom?
Perhaps it was for the best that Samuel would not budge. If only Mr. Haws did not possess solid proof. If he did send Mother’s letter to a paper for publication, everyone would know, and then they’d remember Lottie’s scandal with the book dropped in Hyde Park. Two and two did make four.
That cursed letter. How had she not known about it, following Haws and Lord Sillsbury about as she had been doing this Season? She always knew everything before it happened. And yet she’d had no idea about this letter. And now Samuel was paying for it.
The letter.
Isabella yearned for it. To trace her mother’s ink, to hear her voice leap off the page. And she wanted to burn it, too. And she could. She could slip into the Hestia, gain entrance to the Haws’s suite of apartments and…
She could. She could! She jumped to her feet. “I must go.”
“Where?” Lottie demanded. “We need all our brains working on this right now. ”
“My brain is quite diligent on the matter, I assure you. I know how to get the letter.”
Imogen jumped to her feet. “You do?”
Felicity scrambled to sit upright. “How?”
“I’ll tell you. But I must go now!” Because one single stone sank her joy. Mr. Trent. He’d promised to banish her for not helping him. But he left at noon today. It was noon now. She could sneak in while he was away.