Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘Am I disturbing you?’
Isabel looked up from polishing the table and her eyes widened.
Sebastian stood in the doorway to the dower house, attired in moleskin breeches and an elegant cutaway coat of red wool.
He carried a riding crop and gloves and his hair looked windswept, but then it rarely looked tidy even with the best haircut.
She hastily smoothed down her skirts and tried to look like a dowager viscountess, not the hired help. She wore her oldest gown of dark blue cotton gingham with a large apron tied over it. She had tied her hair up in a scarf, and she was sure there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek.
‘No, not at all. Have you been out riding?’ she enquired.
He nodded. ‘I rode over to Fairchild Hall to collect Connie’s necklace.’
‘You could have sent one of the lads,’ Isabel said.
‘I could have done,’ he agreed, ‘but I wanted to go myself.’
The breath left her body as if she had been hit, and she looked down at the duster she held in her hand. Lady Kendall again. Always Lady Kendall.
‘Fortunately, the missing necklace had been found,’ Sebastian added.
‘Connie will be pleased. She seemed very upset this morning at breakfast. What a shame that it spoiled her evening.’
Sebastian nodded, and a slow smile spread across his face.
‘She did very well for her first foray into polite society. I was very proud of her.’
‘I have every confidence in Connie. What brings you here?’ Isabel enquired.
‘You mentioned at breakfast you planned to spend the day at the dower house so I thought I should come and see if there is anything I can do for you.’
She patted her hair and was alarmed to find a spider web adhering to her fingers.
‘No, nothing. I just need to clean a few things up, rearrange the furniture...’
She broke off and looked around at the shabby, outmoded furniture, covertly wiping the spider web on her apron as Sebastian circled the room.
‘The proportions are lovely,’ he said, more to himself than to her.
‘It was the original house, built in the reign of Queen Anne, I believe. Your great-grandfather built the big house sixty years ago to replace it.’
She looked up at the ceiling painted with a mural of Greek Gods, noticing, with annoyance, that here and there the paint had flecked off.
‘It’s old and a little shabby, but I like it.’
He turned around to look at her. ‘Is there anything you want from the big house?’
‘A few pieces of furniture, all of which I brought with me on my marriage. That’s all.’
‘Nothing of sentimental value?’
She shook her head. ‘No. The contents of the big house are for show, not sentiment. Come into the garden. That’s the heart of this house.’
She threw open the large double doors that opened onto a terrace. Sunlight streamed in and, still holding the doors, she lifted her face up to the sun.
‘What a glorious day,’ she exclaimed.
As they stepped out onto the terrace, Sebastian said, ‘This is charming. Old-fashioned, but perfectly suited to the house. I wouldn’t change a thing.’
She found herself smiling. ‘Really?’
‘Really... Maybe I would strengthen that parterre and perhaps a row of pencil pines against that boundary.’
‘What do you know about gardens?’ she teased as they strolled the overgrown paths.
He shrugged. ‘I understand what works. The gardens of the big house need to be redesigned. They don’t make the most of the view down to the lake.’
‘The lake?’
She looked up at his profile. This man seemed riddled with contradictions; a soldier with the soul of an artist.
Sebastian kicked at a weed. ‘I’ll send some of the gardeners down to help with bringing this garden back into shape.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘Can you spare me some time? I’d like to show you something.’
She glanced back at the house, thinking of all the things she had planned to do that day, and decided a stroll with Sebastian was far more to be preferred. Fetching her bonnet and shawl, she found Sebastian waiting for her on the front steps.
They set off in the direction of the lake.
He prowled beside her, reminding her of a cat moving easily on long legs, with only the barest hint of an uneven gait.
She cast a furtive look sideways, taking in his profile with the strong nose and sensitive, well-shaped mouth.
He had the height and the figure to carry off the high, immaculate stock and cut away jacket.
She thought of the strong, well-muscled chest beneath his clothes and for a moment, her wanton imagination took her into the bedchamber.
She shook her head, banishing the wicked thought. She had no right to think such thoughts. Far better to keep their friendship at a distance.
As they walked, he outlined his thoughts about the garden.
‘That sounds grand,’ she said.
He gave a snort of laughter. ‘Just dreams in the air. There are other priorities before I can lavish any money on the garden.’
At the edge of the lake they stopped to admire the vista across to a grove of trees where the dome of a small summerhouse peeked through the surrounding foliage.
Isabel sat down on the grass and drew her knees up.
Sebastian lowered himself down beside her.
He sprawled full length, propped up on his left elbow.
She leaned her chin on her knees. ‘I am terrified of water. I saw a child drowned in Jamaica, and in my nightmares I always imagined the sea as some sort of ravenous beast, pulling innocent children to their death, just as this lake did Amy Thompson.’
‘Even as an adult?’
She nodded. ‘I look at this beautiful lake and imagine it is full of weeds and dead things.’ She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘It’s as if her ghost haunts it.’
He looked up at her. ‘She drowned herself I am told.’
Isabel nodded. ‘So they say. I never understood it...’
She frowned. The time had come for honesty.
‘Sebastian, may I confide in you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Anthony came to see me a few days after Amy’s body had been found caught in that stand of willows.
’ She pointed to a stand of willow trees bowing gracefully over the water.
‘He was almost manic with distress. He had heard the gossip. They were saying she was with child, his child, and it was his rejection of her that had led to her suicide.’
She looked away. She had never confided in anyone before, and to do so would cost her dearly.
‘Go on,’ Sebastian urged.
‘He told me things.’ She took a deep breath. ‘About himself. Terrible, shameful things. Things for which he could be hanged... but he could not have Amy’s death on his conscience. He was not the father of her child.’
‘Isabel,’ Sebastian said softly, sitting up. ‘I know all about Anthony.’
She turned to look at him, her eyes wide with shock. ‘How?’
He sighed. ‘Gossip.’
She looked down and humiliating tears pricked the back of her nose. ‘So everyone but me knew? All the years I had been married to him, I had assumed his lack of interest in me was because...’ She stopped herself from saying any more.
The shame at her own naivety and her anger at Anthony for his duplicity welled up inside her, and the hot, angry tears began to roll unbidden down her cheeks.
She steeled herself, trying desperately to will them away. Sebastian sat up and put his arm around her shoulders, and drew her into the curve of his body. She made no protest. It felt good to be held. He pressed a large, clean white kerchief into her hand, and she mopped at her face.
‘You don’t have to say any more,’ he whispered.
‘But I do,’ she gulped. ‘That’s why I never understood about Amy. Anthony swore he never touched her and, given what he told me, I believed him.’
Sebastian looked down at her, a small frown creasing his brow. ‘There is no doubt she was with child?’
Isabel nodded. ‘The doctor confirmed it.’ She gave a great shuddering sigh and let her hands fall in her lap. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’
‘Because it is something you have kept to yourself for too long, Isabel. There’s no shame in it and, for what it’s worth, I believe Anthony did care for you in his own complicated way.’
She gave him a scathing glance. ‘How would you know?’
‘Georgiana Kendall told me,’ he said.
She pushed away from him, a band around her chest tightening as she said the hated name between gritted teeth.
‘Georgiana Kendall …’ she began, trying to find the words to express her feelings.
Sebastian laid his hand over hers. ‘They were not lovers, Isabel. She was under no illusions about Anthony’s preferences. She was just part of the picture he painted about himself.’
Isabel looked away, her humiliation complete. Georgiana Kendall had known something of such importance while she, his wife, remained in ignorance, torturing herself with her own imagined inadequacy.
‘How she must have laughed at me,’ Isabel said, the tears beginning again.
She shook her head. ‘In some ways it was easier to believe that they were lovers, but once I knew the truth and understood that he could talk to her in a way he could not talk to me, it felt like as much of a betrayal than if he had taken her to bed.’ She dashed away the tears.
‘Sebastian I am such a fool. I knew he only married me for my dowry. I hadn’t realised it was also for the veneer of respectability it gave him.
I was just a part of that same picture.’
Sebastian took her chin between his fingers and tilted her face up to look at him. His thumb gently stroked her tearstained cheek.
‘Isabel, I am no apologist for Anthony, but you are the one who was so quick to tell me to put the past behind me. I can only give you the same counsel. There will be someone, somewhere, who will care for you the way you should be loved.’
She looked into his brown eyes and saw something she had never seen before.
Compassion, yes, but something else—desire.
All she needed to do would be to let her reserve go, close her eyes, and feel his lips on hers.
The thought sent a warm rush flooding through her, and her betraying body softened, leaning in towards him.
He could kiss her... she could kiss him. Her lips parted, her eyes closed and his breath caressed her cheek, warm and sweet. If she just let this happen, it would change everything. Her plans, the school...
The school!
She pushed him away and jumped to her feet. Caught off balance, Sebastian fell backwards. He lay on his back and to her surprise he began to laugh.
‘I deserved that. Please forgive me, Isabel. I would not risk your friendship for anything.’
He held out his hand and she grasped it, not that he needed any assistance in rising.
He rose smoothly to his feet as she said in a voice, husky with her confused emotions, ‘Nothing happened, Lord Somerton.’
For a long moment they stood looking at each other. He swallowed and looked down at their still clasped hands. His fingers relaxed their grip and he ran the hand through his disordered hair.
She handed him back his soggy handkerchief.
‘I am grateful for the loan of your handkerchief.’ He cleared his throat and glanced back the way they had come. ‘I am keeping you from your home, Isabel. Let me walk you back.’
‘I can make my own way...’
He crooked his arm. ‘Please, I insist...’
She looked up into his face, seeing the contrition in his eyes. Once again, that warm rush seeped through her bones and she bit her lip and took a deep breath. She could not, would not, allow these feelings. Not again... not ever.
‘No, thank you, Lord Somerton,’ she said and, turning, she hurried away, before he saw the tears that coursed down her cheeks.
Sebastian watched her go, her proud, stiff back disappearing around a hedge.
‘Damn it!’
He swore and hit his leg with his hat.
What was it about her that aroused feelings in him that he had not felt since… since Inez.
He needed to walk off his frustration and anger with himself, so he turned and strode along the path leading around the lake, following it up to the summer pavilion in the trees.
It was a pretty little folly, built of once white marble in the style of a circular Roman temple.
A statue of Diana frolicked in its centre and marble benches lined the sides.
He sat down on the steps and looked down at the house, the view obscured by the foliage. Thinking about improving the view distracted him from thinking about Isabel. In a tree nearby, a cuckoo called, and a soft breeze brought the scent of the new mown hay drifting in.
‘What was I thinking ...?’
He had behaved like a boor, like the commoner he was. He had compromised the one person whose good opinion he valued most. What had been done could not be undone and he had to face Isabel again, see the reproach in her eyes.
Her good opinion anchored him to his new life. More than that, it also represented a thread of hope that he could love again—that he was learning to love again—and he had thrown it all away.
‘Do I dare?’ he said aloud, looking up at the few wispy clouds in the blue sky.
Anthony had much to answer for, and the damage he had done to his innocent young wife could never be forgiven, but could it be mended?
Did he dare risk his own heart again to woo and win Isabel?
It would have to be done slowly. He had seen the fear in her eyes, like a frightened deer that realises the man with the gun is a foe not a friend but, before that, he had seen something else. Yearning? Desire?
There was no impediment to any match between them. They were both widowed, they were both of the same class, whatever that meant. But they were both damaged.
The cuckoo in the trees called again.
‘You’re right,’ he said to the unseen bird. ‘I think it is possible, but I must tread carefully.’