2. Isla
Isla
Halfway around the world, Lady Isla Brighton sat in the elegant offices of Judge James Riordan and watched as he dipped his quill into a pot of ink. He glanced up with a teasing glint in his eye. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Very sure, Uncle James.” He wasn’t really her uncle, but he’d been one of her mother’s dearest friends and confidants for more than the twenty-two years Isla had been on this earth. She glanced at the document lying on his desk and wondered again how things generally worked to her advantage.
Her life had begun on a promising note as she’d been somewhat gifted in appearance if one was drawn to a woman with strong features, high cheekbones, a sturdy chin, and full lips that smiled more readily than they frowned.
Men were often drawn to her mesmerizing green eyes that lit with a blazing emerald fire whenever something vexed her.
She was not vexed, however, as she sat watching her uncle sign the documents for which she had her grandmother and, upon her death, her mother to thank.
Some seventeen years earlier, when Isla’s widowed grandmother had died, a much younger James, as the executor of her estate, had done his due diligence, searching the family’s birth records far and wide, looking for a male heir to inherit the family’s considerable holdings.
Isla’s father, an officer on board one of his majesty’s sailing ships, would have inherited the fortune through marriage but had been killed repelling a pirate attack mere months before her grandmother’s demise.
To the dismay of the ruling class, James had found no male heirs to the Brighton family line.
Subsequently, Isla’s mother had become one of the wealthiest women in the land.
Now, upon her mother’s death, it was Isla’s turn.
Several months earlier, Isla’s heart had been rendered in two when her mother passed away after contracting a particularly virulent strain of influenza.
Judge Riordan had conducted a second, thorough search.
Once again, thanks to a history of widowed only daughters having female offspring or, in several cases, no children whatsoever, he found no male heirs.
With a twinkle in his eyes and one monumental flourish of his quill, Isla Brighton walked the same path as her mother and grandmother before her to become a very wealthy young woman.
James bent and blew on the ink, waiting a moment before handing the quill to his clerk, whom the Judge had drafted to stand in as witness.
Her Uncle James was a rotund little man with a bulging belly and short, fat arms that, when he stretched them to their full length, only reached a finger’s length below his considerable waistline.
His rounded chin tripled as he grinned down at his clerk, who carefully scratched out his signature on the requisite line.
Both men cheerfully blew on the ink, and Isla smiled at two of the three people she adored most in the world.
When he deemed the ink sufficiently dry, James handed the document to her for safekeeping.
Both men then signed the duplicate copy, which James placed in his private safe.
That done, he turned and clapped his hands together once.
“So, Lady Brighton. What say we celebrate your good fortune with a tumbler of brandy and a platter of cheeses, eh?”
Isla and the clerk, Fornette, agreed wholeheartedly.
The clerk, a tall, lanky man whose long, pointed nose descended from between two close-set, friendly brown eyes, rang a small table bell, and before long, the third member of Isla’s triumvirate of close personal friends hurried into the room.
The judge’s secretary, a slight woman hovering around the age of fifty with a full head of striking gray hair, hurried in with a charcuterie tray she’d prepared for this very special occasion.
“Congratulations, Lady Brighton. This is an auspicious occasion for women everywhere.” The woman, Celine Smythson, had worked in the offices of James Riordan, Esq.
since he’d first set up his law practice some twenty-five years prior.
Celine was a handsome woman, though one would be hard-pressed to say she’d ever be called pretty in the conventional sense of the word.
Her nose was a little too long, her lips a little too thin, but her intelligent, almond-shaped eyes were framed by long, thick lashes that conveyed a warmth and kindness that drew people to her like bees to honey.
In addition to the aforementioned attributes, an unkind person might call her shoulders a titch too wide.
Still, they tapered to a waist that, while never described as delicate, gave her a full-figured look many women envied.
Fornette had taken it upon himself to pour four snifters of brandy, which he brought to the glass-topped coffee table on a silver serving tray. After setting the tray next to the cheese, he handed out the glasses.
While Isla remained seated, the other three stood and raised their brandy in a toast. Of course, the judge did the honors.
“This happy occasion was only eclipsed some seventeen years ago when your lovely mother inherited her estate. May you be as diligent and accomplished as she in increasing your holdings, giving to charity, and helping those less fortunate than yourself. More importantly, though, may you be happy in all you do, and may friendship come easily and your spirit be filled with love, laughter, and just a bit of wickedness and roguery to add spice to a long and delicious life.”
The other two lifted their glasses. “Hear, hear.” Everyone drank, and once the burning had receded from her throat, Isla laughed, “Uncle James, is this the bottle of French brandy you stole from my mother after you cheated her at cards?”
His teeth, stained a light brown from the enormous amounts of sweet tea he drank during the day, appeared when he pulled back his lips in a wolfish grin.
“I thought it only fitting, my dear. God knows your mother cheated me enough times that it’s hard to tell which of us the bottle actually belongs to.
” He opened the drawer of the coffee table and pulled out a box of cigars, which he handed around.
“It only seems fair that we should also enjoy a few of her cigars.”
Isla laughed as she reached for a cheroot, her mother’s favorite, one that was open at both ends. She placed her full red lips over one end and allowed Fornette to hold a match to the other. It took several puffs, but she eventually had a good burn.
While Isla refused to wear the panniers that were popular during her day, she did like to wear beautiful ankle-length skirts over several layers of petticoats, topped by fitted blouses and short, tight suitcoats that emphasized all her best womanly attributes.
She crossed one leg over the other and distractedly bounced the toe of her button-up boot.
James noticed, and with a good deal of grunting and a final heartfelt gasp as he fell the final few inches onto the sofa, he settled himself before asking, “Are we keeping you from something, my dear?”
The toe bouncing stopped. “No, Uncle. I’m sorry. I really don’t know what has me so anxious.”
Celine sipped her drink and sat in the maroon leather wing chair facing the sofa. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the hordes of eligible men lining up at your doorstep, now, would it?”
Fornette sat in the chair next to hers. “Now, Celie. You know as well as I that’s nothing new. Men have been after our Isla since she first reached her sixteenth birthday. I’m afraid there hasn’t been a single one any of us would’ve deemed worthy to be called Mr. Isla Brighton.”
Celine lifted a carefully sculpted brow.
“And I daresay there have been a fair number of women with their eyes on our Isla, too, no?” She smiled at the woman in question, who rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“I’m perfectly content with the three of you in my corner.
I have no desire to find a man,” she glanced pointedly at Celine, “or a woman to cohabitate with. And can you imagine the scandal if I did find a woman? My inheritance is vexing enough to the men and, quite honestly, to a good majority of the ladies in our community. I’d have the religious zealots beating down my door demanding the harlot, me, be driven out of town while dangling from a pole with all four appendages tied to it like a roasted suckling pig. ”
If the truth were known to anyone outside of the people in this room, she wasn’t attracted to men and, in fact, found most boorish and overbearing.
Contrary to her mother’s devilishly wicked personality, Isla was too reserved to become a billy—women who dressed in men’s clothes and openly courted other women.
Of course, the practice was reviled in polite society, but there had been several occasions when Isla had been out on the town, and her friends had mocked the billies going into the less-than-reputable establishments.
The women she socialized with often commented about her silence on the topic.
They’d have been shocked to know she secretly admired those dapper women and wished she could find ways to visit with them in a private setting where they could chat about life and smoke the cigars she so enjoyed.
Her mother had raised her to be bold and, some would say, forward, but unlike her mother, and contrary to James’s toast, roguery wasn’t in the cards where she was concerned.
Not because she rejected the idea, but because as a small child, and later in the various schools she attended, she’d heard whispers about how her mother’s brazen flouting of societal norms was scandalous at best and disgraceful, disgusting, and reprehensible at worst.
As much as she hated to admit it, that talk had shaped her into someone who envied brazen women from afar but who retreated into staid respectability when it came to personal interactions with other women.
She allowed one exception, though. Her mother had introduced her to the gentlemen of the Enigma Club, who not only allowed said mother a seat at the table but laughed at her undeniable enjoyment of the aforementioned cheroots and, of course, her, some would say, rapturous, almost orgasmic enjoyment of any rare and exotic brandy.
Saturdays were the day Isla looked forward to most because it was on those evenings that her mother escorted her to the club and taught her the finer points of enjoying excellent spirits, cigars, and the subtleties of light, social gambling.
Celine waved her hand in Isla’s face. “Hello. Where did that pretty little head take you?”
“What? Oh, sorry, and yes, Celie, I’m worried that now that I’ve come into my inheritance, that line of men beating down my door will increase sevenfold.
How many times must I reject Lord Margot or Viscount Penderley before they realize I’m simply not interested?
Maybe someday a man will come along and sweep me off my feet… .”
Celie’s snort was unladylike but warranted. “Not bloody likely.”
Isla grinned, rolled her eyes, and pointedly repeated herself.
"Maybe someday a man will come along and sweep me off my feet, but until that time, I’m content spending my time with the gentlemen at the Enigma Club and with My Lady friends who enjoy tea on the verandas and croquet on their immaculately groomed lawns. ”
Now, it was Celie’s turn to roll her eyes. “You can’t tell me you enjoy listening to them talking about how Lord Puffed-Up-Like-a-Pigeon smiled at them as they passed one another in the park or Lord Nose-in-the Air asked so-and-so to dance at the latest ball.”
“No. I assiduously avoid those conversations and instead spend time with women who express even a minimal interest in business or current affairs. I thoroughly enjoy Anastasia’s interest in watercolors and am quite often amazed at her comprehensive knowledge of the artists of our time.
And then there’s Tillie, whose discourse of music composition and theory can hold me in rapture for hours on end.
And when I manage to pry Pris away from her airheaded, obsequious friends, she becomes a font of information about thoroughbreds and their bloodlines. ”
James, who, though he didn’t ride himself, was an ardent follower of the hunt, perked up at that. “Speaking of which, I heard there’s a champion stallion coming up for auction. You’ve often talked of building up your stables when you had the means, and now, my dear, you have the means.”
Her grin widened into a full-blown smile. “Yes, Uncle, thanks to you and my wonderful Mamá, I most certainly do.”