The Gentleman’s Agreement (Heirs & Heroes #3)
Chapter 1
One
Isabel! Get down here this instant. Young ladies do not climb on ruins. They walk around them carefully.” Trust the governess to try to spoil their fun. “You should not be running around with the boys.”
With her closest friends in mourning, Isabel had little choice of associates.
Besides, racing her brothers to the top of the lower wall had long been a tradition among the Godderidge children.
As fast as her younger brothers were growing, this might be the last time Isabel won.
A claim she never had with her elder brothers, who taught her to climb.
Ignoring her governess, Isabel reached the top seconds before Morris and Nigel.
She raised her arms in triumph as her brothers sat next to her on the two-foot-wide wall that had once protected the monastery—built hundreds of years before the first Lord Godderidge settled in the area.
“Miss Isabel, I am warning you. Get down now before you ruin your dress. This is unseemly!” The governess shook with rage.
Isabel looked down at her governess. “The dirt will wash out. I changed into an old dress.”
“Something you can explain to your mother. I told her I would put in my notice if I had to take any more of your cheek. I cannot continue with such a rebellious girl. I have tried to instill proper decorum in you. You will always be a rustic country girl, not fit to mingle with the ton.” The governess turned and marched down the road back to Leadon Hill leaving the children to the boys’ tutor who had wandered deeper into the ruins.
Her younger brothers cheered. Isabel wished she could.
However, chasing away a second governess in the same number of years would not bode well in the conversation she wished to have with her parents.
How could she prove she was no longer in need of a governess when she chased another one off?
The last wasn’t her fault. Edward’s gift of a frog in Isabel’s sewing basket relocated itself to her governess’s chair.
The governess screamed as if she had encountered an alligator, not a harmless frog.
Edward took full responsibility, however, the disgruntled governess loudly blamed Isabel for the frog incident as she packed her bags.
Isabel could not have been more thankful to see that one leave until someone even colder and more rigid arrived to take over her education.
What unfeeling governess would replace this curmudgeon?
Today was not entirely her fault either.
Her younger brothers’ tutor suggested looking for historical clues in the ruins of the old monastery.
Since the governess had no imagination for creating lessons of her own for her single pupil, she allowed Isabel to go on the outing as well.
A considerable amount of dirt coated the old stones, which had the governess fussing from the moment they arrived.
The race to the top of the wall occurred only after the tutor had discussed the history of the monastery and the architecture.
Earlier, when Morris and Nigel found an especially fat spider and hatched a plan to send the governess away screaming, Isabel kept the boys from dropping the spider down the governess’s back.
The shrewish woman should thank Isabel, not scold her.
Isabel climbed down the wall and trudged after her governess.
The sooner she faced her parents, the better.
She would own her part. She first climbed the wall at the age of six with the help of David and Edward.
At nearly fourteen, she knew that this was likely the last time she could climb the wall.
A thought she had several times over the past year.
Honestly, if she could have visited her friends, the Lightwoods, she would have gone to Kellmore Manor instead.
Dressed in a clean gown and washed, Isabel stood before her mother in the blue parlor.
“You’ll be out the season after next, and yet you are still running around as if you were one of your brothers.
I am so glad my children enjoy one another’s company.
So many siblings are not as good of friends as you five are.
However, you have reached an age where you can no longer do everything they do.
” Mamma’s face did not show any anger but rather a bit of sadness.
Sandwiched in the center of four brothers, Isabel had no fear of reptiles or arachnids.
Her brothers taught her to climb trees, fish, and even swim.
They included her in many of their games and pranks, and best of all, they defended her.
Her oldest brother, David, had once ended a dance at an assembly prematurely when his partner ridiculed Isabel’s hoydenish ways.
Mamma had been equally pleased and disappointed in David then, much as she seemed with Isabel now.
“Perhaps we could plan a tea with the Lightwoods?” asked Isabel, hopeful of seeing her friends. Quiet private interactions were appropriate during mourning, were they not?
Mamma sighed. “Maybe in a few weeks, they have only been in mourning for a month. It is much too soon to invite them to make social calls or to call on them.”
“That is terribly unfair. They cannot come out even for a walk.” She knew she was pouting, but last month Lady Lightwood died in a tragic accident along with her son, leaving Alex in an uncertain state.
As far as she knew, the eldest sister, Alex, had not returned home yet.
She suffered from injuries that Mamma only whispered about in low tones to Pappa when they thought Isabel was occupied.
The entire community felt the shock. It could not be right to isolate the family at such a difficult time. They needed friends.
Mamma took Isabel’s hand. “One day—hopefully many years from now—you will lose your father or me and will understand why one needs time for mourning. I too am concerned about the girls, and we shall visit them before the month is out.”
“They must be lonely.” Could five sisters truly be lonely? They always seemed to be laughing together. Little Rose might be since she was so much younger/ Phil shared a room with Alex who convalesced at her grandfather’s so she might be lonely as the twins had one another.
“As are you?” asked Mamma.
Isabel nodded in answer to her mamma’s question.
Every day grew lonelier as her brothers went on adventures she could not join in.
Edward and David were off visiting school friends for the summer holiday.
Making the indignity of still having lessons in June all the worse.
Morris and Nigel would be off to Eton in the autumn. Then she would be completely alone.
“You can write to Philippa, Alexandra, and the twins if you wish.”
“I doubt they wish another letter of condolence any more than I wish to write one. Besides the tutor made us write them a fortnight ago, and they have yet to answer.”
Mamma turned to her writing desk. “Here is something that might interest you for the summer. A painter is visiting the area, and he is offering lessons in watercolor and oil. I could arrange for lessons. You have shown an aptitude for painting before.”
“They’ll tease me.” All her brothers were merciless when it came to her drawings. More than her music, singing, sewing— they never teased her about that—it was as if they knew which of her pastimes she was most proud of accomplishing.
“Your brothers will find a reason to rile you even if you don’t take lessons.”
“I’ll take lessons, but only if I can have a private place to paint where Morris and Nigel cannot enter and destroy my work.” Her younger brothers were still learning the difference between a good joke and something hurtful.
“The nursery has lovely windows for light, and I’ll give you the key to the governess’s bedroom to store your paints in as I will not be replacing her.”
Isabel clapped her hands. Not sure which was more exciting—a space free of her brothers or that there would not be another governess. “Thank you, Mamma.”
“I would remind you that a key has never kept any of my children out of a room.”
Isabel laughed. Mamma didn’t know that she was the best picklock in the family.