Chapter 3
It was all a cold and bleary sort of mess.
Isabel had been forced awake after her fainting to tell the stranger where she lived, clutching her reticule with all her might. She remembered that and she remembered fumbling at the front door, refusing to let him touch her key.
Everything beyond that was blurry and uncomfortable.
I would much rather pretend it hadn’t happened.
In fact, it would make much more sense that nothing had happened after that moment. But it couldn’t be helped. Obviously, the man had been confused when no one answered the door and why it was so cold.
“I was so frightened when I saw him the next morning,” Amber had breathed with wide eyes while recounting the story.
“He had bundled you up tight in half the blankets in the house before a roaring fire. When he couldn’t find more coal, he told me he broke a chair with his own hands!
And he used his own cravat to stave off the bleeding of his injury. ”
“That doesn’t explain why I am here,” Isabel had pointed out. She’d woken in her bed, bundled and warm, with the hope that last night had all been a dream.
Her maid beamed. “He carried you! He didn’t want to touch you again without someone else present. Wasn’t that polite of him? And he’s called a physician for you.”
That jolted Isabel up. “What! How dare he. We cannot afford one. No, Amber, that cannot happen.”
“Oh, he said he would take care of it.” Amber paused, flushing. “No one else had woken up yet. He didn’t see anyone else. I told him we were simply forgetful, that we hadn’t made some purchases. After I gave him some tea, he promised to tend to some matters for us. A delivery of fish and coal.”
Isabel’s jaw dropped. “Alongside a physician? No, we cannot.”
“He said it would be done. I don’t know how we stop him. Should I search him out?”
Falling back down in the bed––and under the covers where there was still an ounce of warmth––Isabel sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I… Perhaps. Did he give you his name?”
“No.” Amber hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. “He was about to, I think, but then said he didn’t have any cards on him. I said he could return on the morrow so you could thank him properly. I thought you might appreciate that. But he said he was busy and wasn’t certain if it could happen.”
“Good. I don’t want to thank him,” Isabel admitted.
“But didn’t he save your life?”
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Because Amber was right, the mad had indeed saved her life. He had fought off the other villains and she was certain his presence had kept her safe after retrieving her reticule. Yes, he had saved her life.
It’s awfully embarrassing being saved.
It smarted at her pride, and that was one of the last things she still had besides the house, the few servants, and her housekey. And it particularly was embarrassing that after the entire incident last night, she had fainted.
I’ve never ever fainted before.
“Are you unwell?” Amber asked, leaning forward on the creaking bed.
“Yes. No, I mean no. I’m not unwell.” Isabel forced herself to open her eyes and smile. “Thank you for everything, Amber. I’m glad it was you who saw him this morning and no one else. Can you please keep this between us?”
Her maid eagerly nodded. “Certainly. I won’t say a word. We’ll put it all behind us.”
Hopefully they would. That was Isabel’s goal as she grudgingly climbed out of bed for a spot of weak tea and stale toast. She dressed, wearing two layers of stockings, and started to move about the house.
The promised arrivals came just as her mysterious savior had. The physician saw she was on her feet, checked on her carefully, and promised she was well. Then the fish came and so did the coal. All of them were deliveries enough to last their small household at least two weeks.
“He’s like a prince charming coming to save us,” Amber whispered delightedly. “No, a mysterious benefactor.”
Isabel tried to hold back a chuckle but couldn’t at the girl’s delight. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken to reading aloud to you all those silly novels.”
Her maid winked. “You know you liked them, too.”
It was true that she did. She adored reading the silly books. Amber proved too unconfident in learning her letters, so Isabel had taken to reading them aloud on a frequent basis. It helped distract them during the summer when her family fell apart.
But now, Isabel wasn’t certain. She had been a damsel in distress, albeit temporarily one with a whip. No one was supposed to have come to her aid. And then he had. In the midst of it, he’d caught her fainting and wound up with a blade in his arm. It was all her fault and awfully messy.
Hopefully we will never run into each other again.
Isabel stayed in the house that day and the next, remembering the giant in the shadows and how warm his arms had been. And then she remembered the carriage, the one that made her terribly anxious as she prayed repeatedly that no one had seen them. No one had known them.
The third day, she had to leave the house.
The fish and coal would last a while but not for long. It was best she ensure they had more in the cupboards while she waited to hear from her parents. Unwilling to starve or let the servants struggle, she took a beautiful vase in a careful container with Amber’s help to go pawn.
“It was worth ten times as much,” Isabel huffed on their way out of the shop. She fumbled with her reticule, so thin and light after the sale. “This will get us through December and part of January, but it should have been enough until spring.”
Amber nodded. “He was rather nasty. Perhaps we should have tried another shop. Or you should let me haggle next time.”
“Probably, but I don’t want to do that for you. I must learn to do it myself,” Isabel said stubbornly. “I’m the lady of the house. I’m responsible for everyone and must do better.”
“Goodness gracious, is that our Lady Belle?” Sang a loud voice from the street.
She stopped in her tracks.
No one called her Belle these days. That had been what her family and friends called her before the incident. Because Thomas had given her that name when he struggled with ‘s’ sounds as a child. She had loved the neat little name, how it rang off the tongue and charmed everyone.
Apparently, Lady Lucy had decided it was finally time to acknowledge her.
Turning slowly to the carriage, Isabel managed to put on a strained smile as she looked to the person she had once called a friend. Who she had seen only a few nights ago without ever being acknowledged. Her heart pounded as she wondered what was supposed to happen.
“Lady Belle,” sang Lucy as her carriage stopped before them.
The window curtains widened to reveal Lucy’s mother, brother, and aunt.
Her aunt, Lady Agnes Trembling, was the biggest gossip in the city––if not all of England.
“What a delight it is to see you up and about after what happened on the street.”
Amber gasped for her.
Swallowing hard, Isabel tried not to look around. But she could count several people she vaguely knew and even more whom she didn’t. All of whom had ears. “I beg your pardon?”
“You and that beastly duke, of course,” Lucy teased loudly. Her mother muttered about pulling her back into the carriage, but Lucy was having too much fun. She beamed with a wicked glint in her eyes. “I must ask, my dear girl. Whatever were the two of you doing walking about Mayfair at that hour?”
Isabel wished she could faint right then. Or rather, disappear. Have the entire earth swallow her up. She stepped back, nearly hitting her maid, and tried to think of some respectable response.
Except Lucy had ruined anything potentially respectable about her in a simple question.
Cheeks flaming, Isabel ducked her head. “Let’s go,” she ordered Amber and fled down the street as politely as she could muster.
The two of them hastened home without talking to anyone else. While Isabel had meant to purchase some new tea, there was not a chance in high heaven she could bear to acknowledge anyone else at the moment. Not with society hearing what Lucy had just said.
By now, all of London would have heard. They would be asking the same questions. Which hour? Which duke? Her? Why? What could they have been doing?
“My lady,” Amber panted when they fumbled into the front hall. “Perhaps they didn’t mean it.”
Isabel gave her a sharp look. “I beg your pardon? You don’t think anyone else heard her shouting about me in the middle of a busy street?”
Someone cleared their throat. Their butler and footman, Wesley, stood in the middle of the hall with a grim smile. “My lady.”
She froze, sensing ill tidings. “Yes, Wesley?”
“You have a guest.”
“I have a…?” A minute was required for her to acknowledge this. She never had guests. Not unless it was Emilia, who walked right through the house like she lived here. “Are you certain?”
“In the parlor, my lady.” He motioned to the door at his side that was cracked open.
Her cheeks flamed as she wondered if they had been overheard. She fumbled with her thin cloak and hat. Once Amber had them in hand, Isabel moved on stiff legs to the doorway, and opened it while bracing herself for a nightmare.
“My lady.”
The man rose to his feet, casting out the sunlight from the window behind him.
She inhaled deeply as she recognized his figure at once as the man who had saved her just three nights before.
Was he taller today? She couldn’t be certain.
She was taller than nearly every woman she knew, even her father by two inches. But she was still smaller than him.
“You.” A lump formed in her throat as she recalled Lucy shouting in the street. Extremely unladylike but also extremely successful. She felt her cheeks begin to burn as she recalled the words. And the title. “Your Grace.”
“Call me Vale.”
“Eastwynd,” she chose instead. The title felt a little safer than his family name.