‘Thank heavens you’re here at long last,’ he said easily to the woman and Isabella’s fists tightened so much she had to relax them before her nails ate holes in her soft leather gloves. ‘Mama and the girls have missed you sorely,’ he added and jealousy twisted viciously in Isabella’s gut until she had to get away or shout something hot and furious at the woman for being at the heart of this family after what she’d done.
‘Come, Heloise,’ she murmured and hustled her maid away in order to avoid being formally introduced to the reason why there had been so many bumps in her own road lately. Lady Delphine Drace was the very last female she wanted to meet when she was still trying to deal with the consequences of the silly woman’s actions, or lack of them.
* * *
‘Magnus, oh, my darling. It’s lovely to see you again, but you shouldn’t have made the journey back here until you were feeling a lot better than you look right now,’ Lady Carrowe scolded Wulf’s brother later the same day.
She stood back to view her second son at arm’s length and Wulf knew she was trying her hardest not to cry. Gus probably did as well. There was barely a sign of the once light-hearted and sociable Honourable Mr Haile in his brother’s thin face and shadowed eyes, but Gus’s smile made a brave attempt at resurrecting him.
‘Now, do make your mind up, Mama,’ he said. ‘Either you want me here or you don’t and how could I stay at Cravenhill Park cosseting myself like an ageing spinster when I knew you needed me here?’
‘I’ve been stuck here longing to come to you and spoil you shamelessly, but I knew the gossips would trouble you all the more if I persuaded Wulf and the girls we should travel to Herefordshire to look after you. Maybe I should have because Lady Shuttleworth ought not to have let you travel when you look as if a strong wind might blow you over.’
Gus shot Wulf a reproachful look as if he should not have even told their mother about his collapse, but what else would excuse his absence when his father had been horribly murdered? ‘Perhaps I’ll ape my little brother a little late in the day and run away from home,’ Magnus said lightly and made their mother laugh.
Wulf thought even this sad old house couldn’t quite kill the sound of his mother’s spirit reviving after years of forced penance, but Gus deliberately refused to meet his eyes to agree he could see the change in her as well. Wulf felt impatient with his brother’s old habit of being visibly put out when his life wasn’t going as easily as he thought it should. You’d have thought he’d have got over it after the turmoil and upset he’s been through lately, wouldn’t you? Wulf told an invisible listener in his head who looked very much like Isabella. He was in even more trouble than he’d thought if he was holding inner debates with her instead of himself.
‘I might come with you,’ Lady Carrowe told Gus with a smile.
‘I did offer my house if you want to do that; it’s a bit small, but we could manage if the girls don’t mind sharing a room,’ Wulf said.
‘No, my love. I’m not bringing trouble down on you in your place of sanctuary. If we came to you, we would be sure to be accused of hiding away and I won’t have that. I’m done with that, but if we went to Haile Carr with our goods and chattels, your brother would be obliged to let me live in the Dower House, if only because it would look bad if he didn’t,’ their mother went on, trying to make the best of things. ‘Now he and Constance have the Big House they can’t claim they need it themselves.’
Wulf had often wondered why his mother seemed to like Gresley almost as little as he did himself. Apparently she didn’t feel duty-bound to hide her feelings towards her eldest son now his father was dead and he was a hundred miles away and hadn’t come as soon as he heard the old Earl was murdered. Wulf puzzled over the old enigma of a doting mother who loved all her children except one and couldn’t solve it this time either. Even Lady Mary Junget, the Dowager Countess’s first child and eldest daughter, received a rapturous welcome when she came up to town. Lady Carrowe would sit with her fractious elder daughter for hours, patiently soothing her into a more hopeful state of mind and doing her best to get her to realise she was lucky to have a faithful, if rather dull, husband and a tribe of healthy children. Yet for her firstborn son their mother would give a wary nod of greeting and the blank, almost defensive smile she usually kept for her husband.
‘I do hope we won’t have to go there to beg for shelter,’ she added, confirming Wulf’s idea it would be a great sacrifice to ask for the home she had every right to as mother of a current earl and widow of the last one.
‘We won’t beg for anything, Mama,’ Magnus said, looking a lot more like his cool and self-confident old self as his expression said the idea of having to plead for what was theirs by right revolted him.
Wulf thought he might have to swallow his pride if Gresley proved too mean to give up his mother’s jointure, Magnus’s own patrimony and the girl’s small fortunes without a fight. ‘If Gresley holds off claiming this place a few more days, you can all go to Hampstead and not have to,’ he said soothingly because Gus had been ill and would find out the harsh realities of his new life soon enough. ‘As it was once your home and your father left it to you for life, living there as soon as Gresley deigns to come to town and take possession of this wreck won’t be interpreted as running away from your obligations as Dowager Lady Carrowe.’
‘I forget I’m one of those now. I shall have to practise a disapproving frown in the mirror,’ she said and Wulf thought those self-appointed guardians of the rules of polite society would have more of a battle than they thought if they tried to put her back in the corner her husband ordered her into when Wulf was born.
‘Please don’t, but will you agree to move out of this ruinous old barrack for the girls and Magnus’s sake if you won’t do it for your own, Mama? We can soon have Develin House replastered and repainted and you and the girls can fuss over Gus as much as you please and use his health as an excuse to seek clear air and open spaces for the poor old breakdown to recuperate in.’
‘Thank you for that, dear brother,’ Magnus said with a long-suffering sigh Wulf thought largely put on.
He had to discover what was troubling his brother and he believed Isabella now—it wasn’t her refusal to wed him that had brought Gus so low he couldn’t throw off the lethargy that fever he’d had after Christmas left him struggling against.
‘Develin House has always felt like home to me and this is Gresley’s house now. I suppose he can do what he likes with it if we don’t need it and Hampstead isn’t that far away,’ his mother said as if her resolution to stay here and defy the gossips was weakening now she could see Gus needed to get away from this vast and smoky city to recover his strength.
‘Well, I won’t be sad to go,’ Aline said brightly. ‘This poor old house has needed knocking down and starting again for the last fifty years.’
‘Probably more, my love,’ her mother said with a rueful glance at cracked plaster, rotted panelling and the faded runners and crumbling brocade curtains in what had once been a Restoration Lady Carrowe’s luxurious parlour. ‘Yes, let’s go to Hampstead,’ she finally agreed and Wulf felt his burdens lighten a little as he calculated how much easier it would be to keep them safe from stray maniacs in a much smaller, more modern house.
* * *
Magnus was home and Aline and their last housemaid had done the best they could with the food available to at least make a gesture at killing the fatted calf. Wulf felt he must stay with them all tonight although he’d prefer to be at home alone, with maybe a bottle and a warm fire to sit and brood by. Then he’d be free to think about Isabella instead of worrying about his brother and what sort of life he could have when he recovered. Wulf refused to entertain the notion stubborn, funny and compassionate Magnus Haile would give up on life as if it didn’t matter. Yet if he went home, something told him Gus would be the one sitting up with a brandy bottle and that wasn’t a way out he was prep
ared to allow either. Stay he must, then, and he’d better try to take part in this muted family reunion instead of sitting here brooding about a woman he couldn’t have.
Except his mind would keep wandering back to this afternoon and his latest attempt to pretend he wasn’t in thrall to Isabella.
And be honest with yourself, at least, Wulf. You’ve longed for her like a love-sick puppy ever since that night at Haile Carr. One passionate and stealthy kiss could be written off as an accident, twice is a habit. You have a burning need for a lady you can’t have and isn’t it lucky no one knows about it except her?
He couldn’t snuff out the thought of Isabella warm and real in his arms a few hours ago. Even while he ate dutifully, listened to his family and occasionally joined in their banter, he couldn’t stop wondering what she was doing and feeling right now. Here the Earl of Carrowe had been missing from his wife and daughters’ lives for so long his death hadn’t touched them as deeply as the murder of a better father would have done. Thinking about the man lying horribly and pitiably dead a few rooms away one dreadful morning a few weeks ago was enough to put Wulf off his cheese pie and whatever greens were cheapest at the market when it was closing. Isabella was a much more inviting subject and thinking about her seemed inevitable, so he might as well indulge himself and forget the old devil for an evening.
The Isabella underneath that glamorous protective shell of hers was frighteningly alluring as well as so complex he wondered if she’d stop surprising him even if they had a lifetime to explore each other. The resolute version of her he first met in the ramshackle estate office down the hall was even more unforgettable than the glamorous and lovely society lady who coolly ordered him to go away at Cravenhill Park a few weeks ago. His inner fool might whisper that the real Isabella saw past his scandalous birth and lack of fortune, but all he had was a modest account at Coutts and his pen. The account and his career both suffered from him crossing the Atlantic twice to try to forget a woman he couldn’t have. And that reminded him he should be working on the account of his travels he’d promised to have with a printer as soon as possible to earn some of it back again.
Even if Isabella would have him as the most disreputable husband she could choose to infuriate her family with, he refused to be a kept man. Living off his wealthy wife wasn’t for him. Not knowing quite how to be a man while he wasted his life trying to keep up with her and all her social obligations sounded like a nightmare to a man who had learnt to rely on himself very young. Maybe he should make her a formal proposal so one of her brothers-in-law could shoot him for daring to ask and he wouldn’t have to worry about impossible things any more.
Idiot, he told himself as he tried to retune his ears to the conversation and face reality. Even when the Earl had beat him to the edge of sanity or locked him in the dark until he was so terrified and hungry that he’d agree to do anything he was told to, the escape of self-destruction had never occurred to him. Hatred had driven him to succeed, to spite a brute in the skin of a civilised man. No, he wouldn’t let it be because of the old Earl he’d made anything of himself but despite him. And perhaps it was time to do it for a better reason. A picture of the best reason there was hit him like a brick in the face and finally shocked him back to the present, because he wanted Isabella in his life so badly, but he still couldn’t have her.
He was distracted from his thoughts by Delphine Drace entering the room after her long rest from the journey. The tense silence when Magnus stood up and stared at her as if he’d received a mortal blow wrenched Wulf’s attention away from Isabella and made him question another lot of assumptions.
Delphine was staring back at his brother and Wulf had to wonder at the tension between them. Delphine must have thought she was safe from seeing Magnus when rumour said he was ill and over a hundred miles away from Carrowe House. Wulf wondered fiercely what she’d done to hurt his beloved brother so badly that Magnus would flinch at the sight of her.
‘Magnus, I thought you were fixed at Lord Shuttleworth’s country seat until you were better,’ she said at last and it sounded like an accusation.
‘I was,’ Gus said, looking as if he found it hard to string more than two words together in her presence without cursing.
‘Yet here you are,’ she added hollowly.
As a boy Wulf had been jealous of the bond between Gus and the girl he was so close to when they were in the country, where Wulf wasn’t often permitted to go. After Wulf ran away from home, Lady Delphine Bowers had been Gus’s playmate and partner in crime more than ever. Wulf used to wonder sulkily if his brother had missed him at all. Then they all grew up; Gus went to Oxford and Lady Delphine was tidied up, polished and turned into a young lady to make her debut in polite society. Then she met Sir Edgar Drace and Wulf hadn’t given her much thought until she turned up on the doorstep earlier today. He’d felt pleased she was being a faithful enough friend of his family to turn up even this late in the day and thought no more of it.
‘I couldn’t stay away from my home and family at a time like this, Lady Drace,’ Magnus was replying stiffly. ‘As soon as I was well enough I insisted on coming back. Lord Shuttleworth was kind enough to send his coachman and two grooms to make sure I didn’t topple out of his travelling coach halfway here.’
‘You were very ill, then?’ she asked.
Wulf recognised something yearning and bitter in her eyes when she stared at his half-brother, because he felt that ache when he watched Isabella when he thought nobody was looking. What was keeping them apart? Magnus was legitimate and the woman he yearned for a widow. He recalled Isabella’s hints that he needed to talk to Gus about the reason why their marriage didn’t take place and cursed under his breath. If Delphine and Gus were in love, then why the hell had Gus asked Isabella to marry him? And who else was knotted up in the mess they’d made?
His brother had a lot of questions to answer and it was high time Wulf asked them and refused to let Gus slide out of telling him the truth.
Chapter Eleven
‘Are you quite sure you wish to dine with us tonight, Isabella?’
‘Of course, Charlotte; you keep such interesting company I’d be a fool to stay away when I will have to endure so much of the other sort once the new social Season is in full swing and all the debutantes are busy giggling in corners.’
‘Do stop being so old and sophisticated, my love, but you must know how endlessly Ben and his friends like to argue over their pet projects by now,’ Charlotte said with a shrug that almost convinced Isabella she was worried her guests would rattle on about steam engines and lathes and celestial bodies and Isabella would be bored.
‘Lucky I’m not the empty-headed society female some people think me. I find the talk around your table on such nights fascinating and I don’t think I’ve ever sat about fanning myself and trying to grab the limelight at any of your entertainments so far. I could always stay in my room if you’d rather not risk me putting on a public display of fashionable boredom.’
‘That’s not what I mean and you know it. Even if you were bored to the edge of mania, your company manners are far too good for you to let it show. I was the one who had to drill them into you and Kate after your wicked aunt left you to raise yourselves like a pair of wild ponies abandoned on a mountainside.’
‘Then if you can trust my manners, why don’t you trust me to be as richly entertained by your clever friends as I usually am?’
Charlotte frowned at her own feet as if to avoid Isabella’s gaze, so her friend was seriously worried but didn’t want to admit it. Silence stretched uneasily between them for once. ‘It’s not you I don’t trust,’ she said uneasily at last.
‘Then who don’t you have so much faith in?’
‘Whom,’ Charlotte corrected half-heartedly and looked wistfully at her baby daughter’s cradle, as if she wished the little mite would wake up furious just this once.
‘Whom don�
��t you trust, then?’ Isabella asked with exaggerated patience.
‘It’s not that I don’t trust him exactly.’
‘Am I supposed to know whom you mean?’ Isabella said shortly.
‘I know you, Isabella. There’s a capacity for deep feeling in you I don’t think even you know about and it’s a pity you engaged yourself to marry Magnus Haile without loving him with every fibre of your being, but I’m so glad you saw sense and refused to wed him.’
Charlotte met Isabella’s eyes so steadfastly she suspected her friend had been trying not to say what she thought since she first read about her engagement in the Morning Post. And hadn’t she found endless reasons not to call on Charlotte and Ben before she left for Haile Carr so she couldn’t tell them about her engagement? As she thought back, that said so much about her secret doubts she was surprised she hadn’t questioned it at the time. Maybe Wulf was the shock she had needed to make her wonder if the life Miss Isabella Alstone had built was as flawless as she’d managed to convince herself it would be once she married a good man.
‘And what’s that got to do with the price of fish?’ she asked brusquely. ‘Or a dinner you and Ben arranged for a few friends before I came to stay?’
‘You don’t know all our friends,’ Charlotte said glumly and shifted in her comfortably padded chair as if she might have sat on a pin.
‘Is one of them a murderer or a thief, then?’ Isabella heard herself joke lamely and how could she even say that in jest after the Earl’s terrible death? Charlotte had caught her off guard with that jibe about thinking she could control her feelings when she knew how impossible that was now.
‘No, criminals are such bad ton.’
A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress Page 13
