Chapter 21
Isabella spent the rest of Thursday afternoon at the pianoforte, laboring over Beethoven’s Sonata no. 14. There was no beauty in the music. The soft lamenting first movement, the stormy third, sounded equally flat and lifeless, the notes sliding from beneath her fingertips with one dull clunk after another, the hammers and strings making noise, not music.
Finally she gave up. She bowed her head, resting her forehead on the pianoforte, and closed her eyes. What am I to do?
A knock on the door jerked her upright. Rufus woke abruptly, scrambling to his feet, shedding the two kittens who’d been dozing on his flank.
“Yes?”
“The Duke of Middlebury,” her butler said.
“Julian?” She stood as abruptly as Rufus. “Here?”
“I took the liberty of showing him to the library, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Hoban,” She hurried to the door. The butler stood back to let her pass. “Fetch up a bottle of the best claret, please.”
Julian was standing by the window in the library, just as Nicholas had done. He turned at her entrance and came towards her, blond and tall, thickening slightly now that he’d reached forty, and engulfed her in a hug.
Isabella clung to him. I am not going to cry.
Julian released her. He looked down at her, smiling. “I’d thought you’d be in Hyde Park, showing off that phaeton of yours.”
“Not today.” Nor yesterday either, not after that shattering interview with Major Reynolds.
She pushed thought of Major Reynolds away. “Come,” she said, taking her brother’s hand and drawing him to the sofa. “Tell me how Marianne and the children are.”
Julian sat down beside her, sinking back into the cushions, stretching his legs out with a sigh. “They’re well.” He looked towards the door as it opened. At the sight of the butler bearing a tray with a bottle and two glasses, he straightened slightly. “Claret?”
“Of course.”
Julian examined the bottle and poured with careful reverence.
“I didn’t know you were coming to town,” Isabella said, as her brother took a first, savoring sip. His eyebrows rose in silent appreciation of the claret. “How long will you be here?”
“Just tonight,” Julian said, lowering his glass. “I’ve put up at Grillon’s.”
“Grillon’s? But you can stay here—” Abruptly she remembered that she had no cook. And that she had a secret guest upstairs.
“You’ll be out anyway, if I know you. What is it tonight?” His voice held a teasing note. “A masked ball? The opera?”
“Nothing,” Isabella said, looking down at the glass in her hand. “I’m rather tired. I shall be staying in tonight.”
Julian said nothing. She glanced up to find his eyes on her face.
Isabella forced a smile. “Are you here on business?”
“No,” he said. “I came to town because of you.”
“Me,” she said blankly. “Oh, the letter I sent you!” Hope rose sharply in her breast. Here was a solution for Harriet. “You have a vacant living?”
Her brother shook his head.
“Oh.” Isabella tried not to show her disappointment. She bit her lip and looked at the wineglass again.
Julian laid his arm along the back of the sofa. His hand almost touched her shoulder. “I came because a number of people have mentioned your name in connection with a Major Reynolds.”
Isabella’s head jerked up. The wine slopped in her glass, almost spilling.
“In more than ten years I’ve not known you to show interest in any man, let alone make one your beau.” Julian’s expression was serious, but his eyes were smiling. “I would like to meet this Major Reynolds for myself.”
“He has left town.” Because of me.
“Ah.” The smile faded from her brother’s eyes. “A shame. I’d hoped to make his acquaintance.”
Isabella bit her lip again. She looked down at the dark wine.
“Tell me about him.”
Her gaze jerked to his. “About Nicholas?”
Julian’s eyebrows rose. Too late, Isabella realized what that slip of the tongue told her brother. Yes, I call him by his Christian name. Faint heat flushed her face.
On the heels of that realization, came a second. If I speak of Nicholas, I will cry. She prevaricated: “What do you know of him?”
“Major Reynolds?” Julian swirled the claret in his glass. He looked at her a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. He put the wineglass down. “You’re not in the habit of indulging in flirtations, so when I heard about this man I was curious. Very curious.” He shrugged slightly. “So I asked a few people about him.”
Isabella moistened her lips. “You did?”
Her brother nodded.
“What did they say?” she asked, clutching the stem of her glass more tightly.
“Everyone I spoke to thought highly of him. He was respected by the men he commanded, and by the men who commanded him. Respected and liked.”
Isabella relaxed her grip on the glass. “Yes,” she said. “He is a... a good man.”
“I also heard that he would be a colonel, if he hadn’t chosen to sell his commission.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said, surprised.
Her brother’s fingers tapped on the back of the sofa. He was frowning now. “He turned down a colonelcy—which isn’t something most men would do.” The frown deepened. “War can do things to a man, can unbalance—”
“Nicholas is not unbalanced,” Isabella said firmly. “He left the military because he has had enough of death. He wants children. He wants a family.”
Her brother’s fingers stilled their tapping. He observed her face for a long moment and then asked quietly, “And are those things that you want?”
Isabella flushed. “I . . .” Yes. But she couldn’t utter the word. Her throat had closed. Tears threatened. She swallowed and held tightly to her composure. I am not Harriet. I am not going to cry.
Julian waited for her to answer. When she didn’t, he continued. “He has a reputation for fairness, your major, and a reputation for getting things done. A very competent man, by all accounts.”
Isabella nodded. Very competent. She’d witnessed that. And then she frowned slightly. How had Major Reynolds discovered that she was sheltering Harriet?
“So, what I want to know is: is he worthy of you?”
Isabella swallowed again. “He is... the best of men.” Her voice was only slightly unsteady.
Julian surveyed her thoughtfully. One of his fingers moved—tap-tap—on the back of the sofa. “May I ask what your intentions are with this major? Your name has been... rather closely linked with his.” There was no censure in his voice or his expression. Instead she saw his concern, heard how much he cared for her. He loves me. He’s worried about me.
“My intentions—” Her voice broke. Hastily she averted her face. She put down her wineglass with a shaking hand. Don’t let me cry in front of him.
“Izzie,” Julian said softly. His hand was on her shoulder, warm and comforting. “Is everything all right?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. No. No, it’s not.
Julian shifted on the sofa. His arm came around her. “Izzie,” he said again.
The composure she’d held onto so tightly fractured into tiny pieces. She began to cry, and as she’d feared, she couldn’t stop.
“Hush,” Julian said, holding her, one hand smoothing her hair as the sobs tore endlessly in her chest. “Hush.”
The storm of grief passed finally, leaving her limp. Julian didn’t release her. She leaned against him, her face pressed against his waistcoat. Tears seeped from beneath her eyelids. “I love him,” she whispered. “And he... and he...” He hates me.
Julian’s hand, stroking comforting circles on her back, stilled. She felt him stiffen. “Has he done anything to you? Has he—”
“It was me,” she said, into his waistcoat. “I was the one who did something wrong. I lied to him.”
“You? Lied to him?” But Julian didn’t push her away; instead his arm tightened around her shoulders. His hand resumed its slow, stroking circles. “I’ve never known you to lie, Iz. You must have had good reason.”
Isabella sighed. The sound was ragged, almost hiccupping. “I didn’t mean to, but everything... it just...” She paused and inhaled a shaky breath. “It started in Stony Stratford, when I was on my way back from visiting you.”
She told him the whole story: finding Harriet, her slip of the tongue in front of Sarah Faraday, the attempt she’d made to stop the ridicule, her growing friendship with Major Reynolds. She left out only the kisses. Everything else—the lies, the little deceits—she recounted in a halting voice. Julian listened silently.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, at the end of her recitation. “Nicholas has left town. I don’t know if he’ll come back. He was so angry.” Tears threatened again. She bit her lip, holding them back.
“If he loves you, he’ll come back.”
Isabella gulped a breath. “You think so?”
“Yes.” Julian stopped rubbing her back. He groped in his pocket and handed her a linen handkerchief.
Isabella blew her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said, to his waistcoat. “I didn’t mean to cry.”
Julian tightened his arm around her. “I haven’t seen you cry since you were a child. Not like that.”
“No.”
They were silent for a long moment, and then Julian said, “He means a lot to you, this Major Reynolds.”
“Yes.” He means everything. Isabella straightened and sat up. She wiped her face. “Would you like to meet Harriet?”
Julian reached for his wineglass again. “Yes.” He didn’t drink, though. “You did the right thing, helping her. If Felicity were ever in such straits...” His mouth tightened.
But his daughter never would be in such straits. She had parents who loved her. Whereas Harriet did not.
Isabella sighed. “Yes, it was the right thing. But I did everything wrong after that.”
Julian didn’t deny it. His mouth twisted in a wry grimace. He tilted the glass and swallowed a mouthful of claret.
Isabella reached for her own glass.
“Should I take her home with me? A companion for Felicity? They’re the same age, you said.”
Isabella paused, glass in hand. For a moment she felt lighter, as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders, then the weight settled again. She shook her head. “Thank you, but it’s best that Harriet remains here. The fewer people who know, the easier it will be to keep this a secret.”
If the ton found out...
Isabella sipped her wine slowly. The major’s accusation echoed clearly in her head: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
The ton would think she’d done that, too. She could see it in her mind’s eye: the sly amusement, the laughing whispers, the ridicule.
Her hand tightened on the glass. I won’t let that happen again. Not to Nicholas.
* * *
Julian stayed to eat dinner with them, chicken fricassee and a raised giblet pie. With a seventeen-year-old daughter of his own, he managed—with no apparent effort—to put Harriet at ease. After they’d drunk tea together in the drawing room and discussed in detail the appetite and sleeping habits of his youngest son, three-month-old William, he took his leave, bowing to Harriet and Mrs. Westin. “I shan’t see you again, Izzie,” he said cheerfully. “I’m off early tomorrow morning.”
Isabella accompanied her brother to the door. “I don’t like this responsibility you’ve taken upon yourself,” Julian said. The cheerfulness was gone. His face was serious.
“You don’t like Harriet?”
“No, not that. What I meant was...” He frowned. “You’ve taken trouble upon your shoulders, and I can’t see how it will turn out.”
Neither can I.
“If you need help, you must tell me. Promise?”
“I promise.”
Julian continued to frown. “If this major of yours is still angry when he gets back to town, if he’s... difficult, I’ll come at once.”
If he wants revenge, you mean. If he tries to punish me. She remembered the moment in Hyde Park when Major Reynolds had asked after Harriet’s benefactress, the expression on his face—implacable, hard, cold—and repressed a shiver. “Don’t worry.”
“Promise me,” Julian said again.
Isabella bit her lip, looking at him. He was as tall as the major, as broad, but older, too. Nicholas is more dangerous than Julian. If it came to a duel—
“Promise me,” Julian repeated, and his expression was as implacable as the major’s had been.
Isabella sighed. “All right, I promise. But he won’t be difficult. He’s not that kind of man.” I think. I hope.
Julian wished aloud that he had a vacant living to bestow on Mr. Fernyhough, kissed her cheek, and departed.
* * *
On Friday morning Harriet presented Isabella with a sheet of paper.
“What’s this?” Isabella read the first item on the list—Invalid’s Companion—and glanced at the girl.
“I need to earn my living.” Harriet swallowed a sob. “I can’t remain here forever.”
Isabella read the next item on the list: “Seamstress?”
“I’m good at needlework,” Harriet said, with a trembling smile.
That was undeniably true. Harriet was neat and quick with a needle. Isabella had lost count of the number of sheets and handkerchiefs the girl had hemmed in the past three weeks—tasks that would have bored her to tears but that Harriet apparently enjoyed.
The girl certainly had the skills to be a seamstress, but... Isabella shook her head. She read the next item—Trimming Hats—and shook her head again. Yes, Harriet had the temperament to not mind being indoors all day, sitting and sewing, but...
Not an easy way to earn a living, bent over a needle and thread.
Lady’s Maidwas the next item on the list. And after that, Kitchen Maid,Housemaid, Nursemaid, and Milkmaid.
Isabella rejected those careers. She looked at the first item again. It was the most promising. Invalid’s Companion. But such a position would be more arduous than the tasks the girl performed here: reading aloud to Mrs. Westin, hemming handkerchiefs and embroidering flowers at the corners. There’d be fetching and carrying, perhaps nursing her employer. And she’s only seventeen, far too young. A child still, not a woman.
She put down the list and looked at Harriet. The girl looked back at her, anxiously. Tears brimmed in her soft brown eyes.
Isabella sighed inwardly. What am I going to do with her? Harriet had been raised to be a gentlewoman, not a servant—although that meant little in these days of economic crisis. Many an indigent gentlewoman eked out an existence as a governess or paid companion, or even a seamstress.
As if Harriet had read her thoughts, she said, “I didn’t put down governess because...” She flushed. “Because my grandfather didn’t think that girls need education.”
Of course he didn’t.
Isabella looked down at the list again and thought, not for the first time, how lucky she was. If she’d been born into a different family this would have been her fate: invalid’s companion, seamstress. Or wife, she reminded herself. And that was the best solution for Harriet: marriage. The girl needed someone to look after her.
I need to find a vacant living for Mr. Fernyhough.
And until then . . . could the girl stay as Mrs. Westin’s companion? But openly, without any of the secrecy of the past few weeks.
When Nicholas comes back, I’ll ask him. He deserved a say in Harriet’s future. He had cared enough about the girl to want to marry her.
Harriet was still watching her, her expression anxious. Did she think she was in danger of being thrown out?
“I know you’re dreadfully worried, but you mustn’t be.” Isabella folded the sheet of paper and gave the girl a reassuring smile. “We’ll think of something. And until we do, you shall stay here.”
“I don’t wish to be a burden—”
“You’re not,” Isabella said firmly. “We like having your company.”
Grateful tears trembled on the girl’s eyelashes. “Thank you, ma’am.” She bobbed a curtsy and left the morning room, quietly shutting the door behind her.
Isabella sighed. She looked down at the folded piece of paper in her hand. Damn you, Nicholas. Where are you?