“Absolutely,” Isabella said, leading him into the dining room. “Though you might find her a bit easier to deal with if you change how you treat her. She is nearly grown and you treat her as if she is as young as Belinda.”
“She isn’t so much older than Belinda,” he said defensively.
“There is a vast ocean of difference between thirteen and seventeen,” Isabella said. “And well you know it. You simply wish there were not. It won’t be long before she has beaux. I wouldn’t be surprised if she weren’t already smitten with some country swain.”
He gulped down his brandy at the thought. “You don’t think…” He glanced warily at Isabella.
“No,” she said, much to his relief. “I don’t. But you should prepare yourself for the day. You cannot keep her in the schoolroom forever.”
“I can try,” he said, pacing over to the window.
“You know that’s not a rational plan,” Isabella said, employing the kind of rational tone women universally used to soothe men into doing their bidding.
“Come,” she said, placing her hand on his arm. “Let’s go in to dinner. I’ll have Cook send your sisters something in their rooms.”
With a sigh he turned and allowed her to lead him to the dining room.
* * *
“How did you come to be so knowledgeable about the whims of young ladies?” Trevor asked, after they had finished their meal and had retired to the drawing room, where Isabella could have tea and he could enjoy a brandy.
The meal itself had been more pleasant than he could have imagined. He’d expected Isabella to be incapable of conversing about anything but the latest on-dit, but she had proved knowledgeable on a variety of topics, including, to his great surprise, the glamorous world of crop rotation. She’d explained it away, saying that her father had been fond of agricultural talk despite making his home in London. She had, she said, absorbed the information over the course of many years listening to him drone on about it.
Now they had wandered into talk that was more to her taste. Seated in the wing chair across from him, she sipped her tea politely, but it was her eyes that told the real story. They flared with emotion as she warmed to her subject. Trevor wondered how many men in London had been just as intrigued by her as he was.
“I once was a young lady,” she said now, in response to his question. “And though I suspect many young men are bewildered by the workings of a young lady’s mind, I believe ladies in general are much less difficult to understand than we are given credit for.”
Her eyes sparkled as she continued, “We are not so thoroughly inscrutable, are we, Your Grace?”
He laughed at her flirtatious tone. He could well imagine her twisting the males of the ton around her little finger with that tiny bit of vocal inflection. “Perhaps not thoroughly,” he admitted. “But even you must agree that a great deal of the misunderstandings between our two sexes come about because of a purposeful attempt on the part of females to pull the wool over our male eyes.”
“Ah,” she said with a sad smile, “but that is because men have all the power. What are we ladies to do but use the wiles that God gave us to ensure that we are able to meet our own needs?”
“Surely that is for the men in your life to provide,” Trevor said, wondering when Isabella had first learned that the men in her life were not to be trusted. He found himself re-evaluating his opinion of her. Perhaps he’d judged her a bit too harshly to begin with. The thought bothered him for some reason. He had always thought himself to be a fair man, but maybe he was as guilty of leaping to conclusions as he’d accused her of doing with him.
“Not all men are as honorable as you are, Your Grace,” Isabella said taking a sip of tea. “It sounds to me as if your father took his responsibilities to your mother, and you and your sisters, quite seriously. But you must know that not all men are cut from the same cloth. Look at your grandfather, for example. He cut off his son and his wife and children without a by-your-leave. Unfortunately, that is the rule rather than the exception. At least from my own experience.”
“What of your father?” Trevor asked before he could stop himself. It was really none of his business, but sitting here in the drawing room of his country house, talking with a beautiful woman while the candles around them burned down, he felt a kind of intimacy with her that made such a question seem less impertinent than it would in the light of day.
And if he were honest with himself, he was just plain curious.
“My father,” Isabella began, relaxing into the sofa as she pondered the question. “My father was an earl whose estates were so impoverished that he talked of nothing from the time I turned fourteen but how my sister and I should marry wealthy peers. And when we made our come-outs, we did.”
Trevor tried to imagine what it would be like to bear the weight of an entire estate’s financial stability on his shoulders. In a way, he knew just what it felt like. But she was right enough when she spoke of the differences between men and women. It had been his own choice to take of the responsibility of Nettlefield. Isabella hadn’t been given a choice. How resentful she must have been.
“So that is how you came to marry Wharton?” he asked.
“That is how I came to marry Wharton,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact. “He was fifteen years my senior and married me at his own father’s behest. So neither of us came to the marriage through our own choice. Foolish me, I thought that would mean he’d understand my reluctance to…”
She paused, coloring a bit. “Well, let us just say my general reluctance. He was not as understanding as I would have wished, however. He felt his own frustration at the situation but was not quite able to understand my own.
“Perdita and I thought that she was to be the luckier one,” Isabella went on, clutching her teacup between her hands. “After all, she was to marry the young, handsome, virile Duke of Ormonde.” She laughed bitterly. “We were wrong about that, too.”
Even buried away in the country, Trevor had heard tales of the young duke’s wildness. There had been mentions of his cousin in the gossip pages of the Times and he’d told himself that he’d done the right thing by staying away from his family. Especially since mixing with the late duke would have meant exposing Trevor’s sisters to his wildness.
He hadn’t thought to extend his sympathies to the fellow’s young wife, however. It simply hadn’t occurred to him. He’d assumed that anyone who was foolish enough to marry a man with that sort of reputation deserved whatever she got. Now, imagining Eleanor or Belinda in such a situation, he knew better. Perhaps he’d been wrong to shirk his familial duty. The thought pained him.
Still, he could see that Isabella was reluctant to speak more about his cousin, so he changed the subject.
“How long were you married before…?” He couldn’t quite figure out how to phrase the question. And he wanted desperately to know that she had not been trapped in an unhappy marriage for very long.
“Before my husband was so kind as to shuffle off this mortal coil?” Isabella asked with a laugh. “He died in a duel defending the honor of his mistress just shy of my twenty-fifth birthday. We’d been married for seven years.”
Seven years, Trevor thought. Long enough for the brute to leave a mark upon her. Long enough for him to beat the spirit out of her. And yet, here she sat. Head held high. Proud. Resilient.
No, he’d been wrong about her, he thought. At least in this aspect. She might be just as obsessed with town frivolities and the like, but she was not the shallow puppet he’d thought upon their first meeting. He might not seek her out as a potential bride for himself, but he was no longer so loath to trust her judgment when it came to his sisters. Perhaps not fully—he might never trust someone else entirely with their care—but certainly when it came to matters of attire and social niceties.
He was lost in thought and, if the truth be told, watching her with a bit too much intensity when she stood. Trevor scrambled to his feet, the movement bringing their faces da
ngerously close to each other.
“I hope you will remember my little morality tale the next time you wonder why women are so keen to manipulate the world around them, Your Grace,” she said, her only outward sign of awareness of his proximity the slight blush in her cheeks. “When so little of your life is under your own control you’ll take hold of whatever bit of strength you have.”
“Then what is it that you control?” he asked suddenly, remembering her reason for coming to Nettlefield in the first place. Surely someone who had so lately thrown off the shackles of marriage would be reluctant to be ruled by another woman. “If the dowager has some hold over you, then what do you have hold of?”
Isabella laughed. “Haven’t you figured it out by now, Your Grace?”
“Stop,” he said, suddenly hating to hear the deference for his hated title after they’d spoken so frankly. “Call me Trevor.”
He was surprised to see her eyes widen at the request. But she nodded. “Trevor, then.”
She said his name again, as if the permission to do so made her wish to do so as much as she could. “Trevor, there is only one thing I have absolute power over.” She leaned forward and he could smell the light lavender of her hair and feel the heat of her body so close to his as she whispered into his ear. “Myself.”
Without another word she left the chamber, leaving him aching and wanting nothing more than to follow her up the stairs.
Five
Isabella went downstairs the next morning still feeling like a fool for revealing so much of her personal history to the duke. Or Trevor, as he’d insisted she call him.
It hadn’t been her intention to tell him the tale of how she and Perdita had come to be married to such brutes, but seeing how befuddled he’d been by Eleanor’s response to his dictates regarding her wardrobe, Isabella had felt it necessary to warn him just how vulnerable his sisters would be if he weren’t there to look after them. She supposed it was only natural for someone who’d been raised in the country as he had been to assume that most husbands and fathers were as honorable as his own father had been, but someone had to point out to him that the world was not as cheery as his country upbringing had led him to believe.
Of course he wasn’t quite so naïve as she painted him. She knew that. He’d been to university, and as a landowner he’d doubtless seen things among his tenants that would make her hair curl. But even so, his lack of understanding when it came to women and their precarious position in the world had prompted her to inform him that far from being the sheltered flowers he assumed them to be, most women were forced to do what they could to protect themselves from the careless control that the men in their lives exercised over them. It was one thing to remain ignorant because no one had ever told him otherwise, but it was something else altogether to refuse to see the truths right before his eyes.
She hoped that her little talk had impressed upon him the importance of choosing his sisters’ husbands with great care, rather than frightened him away from allowing the girls to go to London altogether. Only after she’d climbed into bed had she realized that the latter was a real possibility. After all, if they remained in the country he could allow his sisters to choose their husbands from among the young men of the local gentry whom Trevor had likely known all their lives. London offered a whole ton full of fortune hunters, social climbers, and otherwise nefarious men who wished nothing more than to marry the sister of a duke not because of her sweet personality or even her beauty, but solely because of what such a match could do for his own standing.
Putting it that way, Isabella wasn’t so keen on Eleanor and Belinda going up to London herself.
But at least with her guidance, in addition to Trevor’s watchful eye, the girls would be protected from the worst of the lot. And Isabella was surprised to find herself looking forward to showing the Carey sisters just how to navigate the treacherous waters of the beau monde. Not that she would have much to do with them once she returned to London, she reminded herself. She was here to persuade the duke and that was all. She had her own life to get back to in London.
This resolution in her mind, she stepped into the breakfast room to find it unoccupied. Telling herself that she was relieved rather than disappointed, she saw that next to her place at the table were two letters. One was from Perdita, clearly sent by special messenger.
It was the other that gave her pause.
It could not be from the dowager. That lady’s correspondence was all but trimmed in gold to mark her elevated position. This was a simple missive. The paper was rather fine, but the lack of markings on it—with the exception of Isabella’s name—indicated that it had also not come through the Royal Mail.
With what she considered a laudable sense of control, she opened Perdita’s letter first, only to discover that it was another plea for Isabella to reconsider her decision to bow to the dowager’s wishes. As always, her sister was willing to sacrifice herself on the altar of sibling affection. But Isabella had had enough of watching her sister pay the price for Gervase’s sins. And if Isabella could manage to convince the duke to return to London, then she could see to it that neither she nor Perdita was ever under the thumb of the dowager again. And she could do so with a clear conscience, because she had seen enough of Trevor Carey’s character to know that he would die before he let his grandmother dictate to him as she had done to his predecessor.
Folding the note, Isabella moved on to the other letter. Using her knife to break the seal—which was just as nondescript as the rest of it—she unfolded it. She scanned the words and realized several things at once. Whoever had written the message had intended it to cause her great mental harm. To instill fear.
The carriage accident was just the beginning. I know what you did last season and I will punish all of you.
At first she thought the words had been written in brown ink, but she uttered a little gasp when she realized that it was instead blood.
It was positively gothic.
And utterly terrifying.
She knew from what Trevor had told her that the carriage crash was no accident, but to see it put into writing, perhaps by the very person who had tampered with the wheel, was chilling.
Someone with the intention of doing Isabella bodily harm had purposely weakened the vehicle, putting not only her but also everyone else in the carriage at risk, other innocents who had nothing to do with Gervase’s death. Someone who was willing to put anyone unlucky enough to be in Isabella’s company at risk right along with her.
To her shame, tears sprang into her eyes. Whenever she was truly angry it happened. And this … this person infuriated her. What right had he to play god? Gervase had died through his own brutality. Neither she nor Perdita nor Georgina was responsible for his temper that night. They had not lured him into putting the knife to Perdita’s throat. Georgina would not have been forced to use her pistol if he hadn’t threatened Perdita’s life.
But whoever this monster was, he thought that they were responsible. And he was willing to risk the lives of good, loyal, hardworking servants in his vendetta against Isabella.
She had to warn Perdita.
Shaking, she pushed her chair back from the table and snatched up the letters. Wiping her eyes, she hurried to the doorway, only to slam into the solid chest of Trevor.
“Your Grace,” she said, hoping she had dashed away most of her tears. “I, that is … Trevor. My apologies, I was in a hurry and did not—”
“Not at all, Lady Wharton,” he said, gripping her arms for longer than was strictly proper. “I hope you are not unwell. I had hoped to visit the tenant cottages after luncheon.”
Desperate to be away from him, she considered taking the excuse he offered but shook her head. “That would be agreeable,” she said, trying to make her voice sound as cheerful as possible. To her own ear it sounded false, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I was simply rushing off to write a reply to my sister,” she said, holding up the letters. “Is there a writing desk that I might
use?”
She could feel his gaze on her, seeing more than she wanted him to. But he let her go and said mildly, “Of course. You may use my mother’s sitting room. There are paper and ink in her desk. I believe Eleanor uses them for her own correspondence at times.”
Nodding, Isabella pushed past him and hurried off in the direction of the sitting room, feeling his gaze upon her as she went.
* * *
Pensive, Trevor served himself from the sideboard and took his place at the breakfast table.
Isabella had been lying. Of that he was positive. Something in those letters had overset her; he wanted to know what.
Her confession last night of just how she’d ended up married to Wharton had confirmed to Trevor that she was in need of someone to look after her. When he thought of how her father had chosen to marry her off to a man so many years her senior solely for the benefit of his own coffers, Trevor felt his hands clenching into involuntary fists—as if he could pummel a dead man. He might not have spent his formative years moving among the ton, but he knew that such men existed. He’d seen enough evidence of such selfishness here among the gentry of Yorkshire. Even so, he had been appalled to hear just how mercenary Isabella’s father had been. No wonder she was so concerned over his sisters.
He had no intention of allowing either of them to marry without him thoroughly investigating the man in question, but Isabella had no way of knowing that. She was used to the way that the men she’d been around her whole life treated the women under their protection.
She had proved herself in the past few days to be a strong woman. Some might call her cold, but he had not been around her for more than a few hours before he realized that her coolness was a façade. A posture she adopted so that those around her would take her seriously. It was not unlike what his mother had done when she mixed with those members of the surrounding neighborhood who thought his father had married beneath him. She’d once confided to Trevor that when she took tea with the squire’s wife she would often pretend that she was a queen, dining with her subjects. Not to say that she thought of herself that way as a general rule. But something about fixing that posture in her mind would give her strength. And would make others see her as something stronger than a farmer’s daughter.
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