Pen was watching her thoughtfully.
“You know full well that three quarters of my bad reputation is the result of Ernest’s profligacy,” Isabella added.
“And the remaining quarter?” Pen persisted.
“Ah well…” Isabella considered. “For the most part that is the fiction made up by those so-called gentlemen whose advances I rejected. Alas, they were not able to admit that I found them resistible.” She sighed. “I cannot deny that there was a gentleman I turned to when I thought that there might be some affection there to sweeten my life with Ernest—” She broke off, shaking her head. It had taken years before her misery had led her to be unfaithful to her husband in the aftermath of Emma’s death. She had been very lonely and had fallen disastrously in love with an Austrian soldier of fortune who had seen her unhappiness and courted her gently—and abandoned her ruthlessly only ten days later. Disillusioned, heartbroken, she soon realized everyone was discussing the affair and came to her senses. After that she had locked her heart and her unhappiness away.
“It is the greatest piece of nonsense in London that I stand accused of being a lady rakehell when in fact I am utterly uninterested in the pleasures of the bed,” she said now.
Pen frowned. “How can such matters possibly be uninteresting?”
“Trust me,” Isabella said, heartily munching a piece of toast. “They are.”
Pen was looking dissatisfied. “Then it seems to me that it is Ernest who must bear the responsibility for being the worst lover in the world or you would not feel like that.”
“Very true,” Isabella concurred. She paused, elbows on the table, while she thought not of Ernest but once again of Marcus. Her first experiences of love at Marcus’s hands had been undeniably dazzling. She had burned for him. Yet now it seemed a pale dream, something that had happened long ago in another life, if it had happened at all. And although he could still awaken something deep within her, she vowed he would not have the chance. When she had been seventeen, matters had seemed simple. She had loved Marcus and had given herself to him with love. Since then she had lost a great deal and she knew, with absolute certainly, that the best way to avoid future loss was not to engage with risk in the first place. Besides, Marcus held her in the lowest possible esteem now. She recalled his hostile words from the previous night. If anything proved to her that the marriage had to be ended, and quickly, it was Marcus’s bitterness. She must contact Mr. Churchward immediately to arrange an annulment and the terms under which she would repay her financial debt to her husband. She could not bear to be beholden to him any longer than she must.
Pen pursed her lips. “I am disappointed that you are unable to advise me on my love affairs. I was hoping that that would be one of the benefits of having a sister with such an exciting reputation.”
“I apologize for proving inadequate,” Isabella said cheerfully. “My advice to you would be—do not.”
“Do not indulge in love affairs?”
“Preferably not. Love is not at all as it is reputed to be in literature. It is simply not worth it.”
Pen smiled faintly. “I am sorry to hear you say that.” She drained her teacup and sat back. “I take it that you would apply that ruling to Marcus Stockhaven?” She added dryly, “He would not be worth the trouble of a love affair?”
Isabella could feel the bright color sting her cheeks. She wished Pen had not introduced Marcus’s name again. She hated blushing. It felt naive and self-conscious.
“It would be far too perilous to consider an affair with Lord Stockhaven under any circumstances,” she said, evading Pen’s gaze. “There are some men that are best avoided because they are too—”
“Attractive?” Pen said.
Isabella shrugged irritably. “Too dangerous to know.”
“I see,” Pen said. “In which case, what was all that fascinating byplay between the two of you last night? You cannot deny it.”
Isabella sighed. “You ask too many questions, Pen.”
“I beg your pardon.” Pen tapped the newspaper. “They are the same questions everyone else is asking.”
Isabella groaned. She was expecting Marcus to walk through the door at any moment, which would only serve to fuel Pen’s curiosity. But perhaps he could not gain entry because of the crowds outside. Her spirits rose to think of him struggling to persuade Belton to admit him.
Pen sighed, evidently judging that no further information would be forthcoming at this point. After a moment she acknowledged defeat and changed the subject.
“Do we go out today?” she asked.
Isabella sighed, too. “I was hoping to take some fresh air but I fear it will be impossible to escape the crowds outside.”
“I supposed that you would be accustomed to fighting your way through them.”
“I suppose that I am. When Ernest died in the arms of his mistress, Madame de Coulanges, I could not escape the house in Stockholm for several days, so great was the press of people outside. They all wished to know whether or not I had a view on the manner of his passing.”
“And did you?”
“Certainly I did, but I was not going to share it with them.” Isabella rubbed her brow ruefully. “I do so wish that I had had the same good sense last night.”
“Why did you not?”
“Because that old harpy the Duchess of Plockton provoked me. She got under my skin and then I fear I was disinclined to respond with any courtesy to her following remarks.” Isabella met her sister’s gaze. “I can rise above most things—goodness knows, I have had sufficient practice—but when anyone makes reference to Emma and suggests that Ernest tried to take her from me because I was an unfit parent—” She broke off, swallowing hard. She had been told from the start that little Princess Emma of Cassilis must have her own household. That was the royal style. There was no possibility of the child traveling across Europe with them. Isabella had been young and inexperienced but she had also been courageous. She had dug her heels in and insisted that she keep her daughter with her. Ernest had looked down his nose and condemned her as irremediably middle class but she had not cared. Emma was the whole world to her and when she had contracted scarlet fever and died, a part of Isabella had died, too.
Pen’s face had stilled into sympathy. “Yes, I do understand. That is, I cannot understand how you feel of course, Bella, but I realize it must be intolerable for you to hear people say such foolish and malicious things.”
Isabella returned the clasp of her sister’s hand with a brief squeeze. “Thank you, Pen.”
There was a knock at the door. “I beg your pardon for interrupting, Your Serene Highness,” Belton said glumly, “but the flower cart has arrived with seventeen bouquets for you.”
Pen looked astonished. “Have I forgotten that it is your birthday, Bella?”
“No,” Isabella said. “My birthday was in April, as well you know.”
“Then how does one explain the arrival of seventeen bunches of flowers?”
Isabella put down her napkin and rose to her feet. She gestured toward the papers again. “I rather suspect that this explains it.”
Pen looked down at the newspaper column and up again, the sparkle restored to her eyes. “Oh, I say! What famous entertainment!”
The hall was overflowing with blooms. The housemaids were scurrying around trying to find sufficient receptacles in which to place them and had already pressed into service a tin hip bath, a coal scuttle and milk pail. There were many whisperings and gigglings over one particular arrangement, which Belton was attempting to usher out of the way.
“Good gracious!” Pen said. “I do believe that is shaped almost exactly like a—”
“Penelope!” Isabella said.
“I have seen plenty of sculptures of naked male bodies,” Pen said irrepressibly, “and that penis looks overlarge to me.”
Isabella was reading the card. “It is from Lord Forrester. He swears its dimensions are the same as his own and promises to introduce me to all th
e pleasures that I have been missing. He is set upon redeeming the reputation of English lovers.”
Pen snatched up another card. “Oh! So is Sir Chumley Morton! And Lord Hesketh! And Mr. Styles has written you a poem, but I shall not read it for it is both rude and appallingly bad verse into the bargain.”
“What on earth are these?” Isabella asked, retrieving what looked like a union flag from the center of a red-white-and-blue themed flower arrangement. “Good gracious, I do believe they are a pair of gentleman’s drawers.”
“Your Serene Highness!” Belton whisked them out of her hands before she could hold them up for inspection.
“Well,” Isabella said, hands on hips as she surveyed the riot of flowers, “I imagine that all the bucks in London must have read the papers this morning.”
One of the footmen came up to Belton and they exchanged a few urgently whispered words before he hurried off again. Belton cleared his throat.
“The Marquess of Grimstone has called, Your Serene Highness,” he announced, “as have Lord Lonsdale and Mr. Carew. I have taken the liberty of suggesting that you are not at home. I hope that is appropriate.”
Pen gave him an admiring look. “You are remarkably good at this, are you not, Belton? One might almost think that you are practiced in working for someone as disreputable as my sister.”
Belton ignored her politely, still concentrating on addressing Isabella. “There is also a gentleman who swears that he has no connection with the popular press, Highness. He has a letter of introduction from Mr. Churchward, and has come to value the art collection.”
“Thank you,” Isabella said. “Please show him into the drawing room, Belton, so that he may make his inventory.”
“Your Serene Highness.” Belton bowed and moved away.
Isabella tiptoed over to the window and twitched the curtain so that she could peep outside. The whole street was crowded with people jostling and pointing. The one person missing was the one man who had said he would call. Marcus Stockhaven. She might have known. No doubt he was leaving her to fret over his absence, which was exactly what she was doing, damn him….
Isabella let the curtain fall back into place. “If we are to go out, then it will need to be through a rear window,” she commented.
“And once we are in Bond Street we shall be plagued with gentlemen once again,” Pen observed. “Drat! I have been saving for a new bonnet these three months past and was looking forward to a shopping expedition, but I do not wish to have an audience for it.”
“We shall go shopping,” Isabella said. “Or rather, we shall ask the shopping to come to us. Belton—” she turned to summon the hovering butler “—pray send a footman to Beaux Chapeaux in Bond Street and ask them to send a selection of their finest bonnets around for our inspection.”
Pen looked enraptured. “Will they do that, Bella?”
“Oh yes,” Isabella said. “I may have no money nor credit for any, but any shopkeeper worth their salt knows that when it comes to spending money on clothes, a princess will always find a way.”
She threw another glance in the direction of the heaving street. She had no intention of lurking indoors for the foreseeable future. There was an opera she wished to attend that evening and she had just thought of a way in which her barrage of admirers could be used to set a false trail and lead Marcus astray. It was a most satisfying thought. And in order to be a further step ahead in the game, she would write to Churchward and instruct him to instigate an annulment forthwith. Her spirits lifted. She always felt better when she was in control of the situation.
She was about to hasten to the library and pen that very letter when Belton marched in with a final floral tribute. Penelope smiled
“Oh! Now that is pretty.”
The bouquet was indeed beautiful; twelve tightly furled creamy pink roses in a little basket. Isabella reached for the note. Suddenly she felt nervous.
The card was written in a strong hand and Isabella needed no signature to identify it, although there was one, as strong and bold as the man himself.
Meet me at Churchward’s office within the hour. Marcus Stockhaven.
Isabella felt cold. This was nothing more than a stark order.
“Who is it from, Bella?” Pen’s voice broke into her thoughts and she instinctively crushed the card between her fingers.
“It is from Lord Stockhaven,” she said.
“Has he written a pretty poem, too?” Pen inquired.
“Not precisely,” Isabella said. “Lord Stockhaven is not the man to be subtle when bluntness will achieve his aim. I beg your pardon, Pen,” she continued. “I find I have an urgent appointment. I am afraid you will have to purchase your bonnet alone.” She turned to Belton, holding out the pretty little basket.
“Have that one put on the table outside my bedchamber door please, Belton,” she said. “It is the closest to my bedroom that Lord Stockhaven will get.”
And she tore the note into shreds.
CHAPTER NINE
MARCUS STOCKHAVEN HAD ARRIVED in Brunswick Gardens a half hour before. It had been his intention to call upon Isabella early that morning, but when he had returned from East London it was to find an urgent note from Lord Sidmouth, summoning him to the Home Office on business related to his sojourn in the Fleet. It was Sidmouth who had given him permission to run his unorthodox masquerade in the first place, and the price was that in return Marcus passed on as much information about Edward Warwick as he could, since the authorities had their eye on Warwick as a dangerous malefactor. Now there were rumors of Warwick’s involvement in several political disturbances and rioting, as well as a robbery on a gunsmith’s shop. Sidmouth wanted the man caught and wanted to know whether Marcus thought it likely that Warwick would take himself to Salterton again to finish whatever business he had started there.
It had been several hours before Marcus could extract himself from the meeting and he’d chafed against the delay throughout. When he finally arrived in Brunswick Gardens it was to find the place overrun with journalists and frustrated swains. The butler was informing the multitude that Princess Isabella was from home. Marcus did not believe it for an instant but he was not prepared to make a scene in front of a crowd in order to get into the house. One of Isabella’s servants was mingling with the masses, selling the information that the princess intended to attend the performance of Congreve’s The Way of the World at the Haymarket that evening. Marcus applauded Isabella’s ingenuity. It was entirely possible that her servants sought to profit from her in this way, but he doubted it. He was sure that she had arranged for that rumor herself.
Marcus clenched his fists in his pockets, spoiling the elegant line of his jacket. To see so many eager bucks seeking out his wife turned his barely simmering frustrations to near madness. He was losing his head and his self-control over a woman he disliked but had to possess. He could feel the hunger and thwarted desire sharpening to a white-hot edge inside him. The longer he had to wait, the more determined he was.
He made his plans quickly. There was a flower girl on the street corner, and from her he purchased an innocent-looking bouquet of pink roses. He did not have a pen handy so he borrowed one from one of the reporters milling about the front steps. Then he went around to the tradesman’s entrance, knocked at the door and delivered the bouquet into the hands of the housekeeper.
And then he waited.
It was forty-three minutes precisely before the door of the servants’ quarters opened and the butler came out to procure a hack. Marcus thought that he looked distinctly unimpressed to be doing so. The carriage waited at the back door and presently Princess Isabella descended the steps and got in. She was wearing scarlet, with an outrageously fashionable hat.
As the carriage turned the corner of the street, Marcus let out a long sigh. He had not been certain that his wife would respond to the rather peremptory order enclosed in the card. In fact he had not been able to predict how she would react at all. The fact that she was on her way o
ut did not, of course, confirm that she was heading for Churchward’s chambers. She might be traveling to the other end of Town. But it was promising.
He went out onto Brunswick Avenue and hailed a hack for himself. He was quietly confident that he was one step ahead in the game now. Even so, it would not do to be complacent. To underestimate Isabella would be the biggest mistake of all.
MR. CHURCHWARD THE ELDER was a very unhappy man.
He had reluctantly acceded to the request made by the Earl of Stockhaven to conduct a meeting between the earl and his wife at his chambers. It was the very last matter on earth in which he wished to be embroiled, and now that the two protagonists were present, he was wishing himself in Hades. The atmosphere was very tense indeed.
The Countess of Stockhaven had arrived first. She was gowned magnificently in scarlet and wore a cunning little bonnet that partially hid her expression. She greeted Mr. Churchward with cool composure and sat down to await the arrival of her husband. When Marcus Stockhaven was ushered in, she pointedly made no move whatsoever to stand up and greet him.
The earl’s expression was stony and his demeanor most autocratic. Mr. Churchward reflected that it would have cowed many lesser men into silence. Isabella, however, did not appear in the least impressed.
“Perhaps we could proceed to business,” she said coolly. “I am a little short of time.”
Marcus looked down his nose at her in his most intimidating manner.
Isabella carelessly flicked a thread from her skirt and gave him a smile that could have frozen water.
Mr. Churchward cleared his throat.
“Madam, the earl has requested this meeting so that certain matters pertaining to your marriage may be discussed and a mutually agreeable conclusion reached.”
“Cut the niceties, Churchward,” Marcus said brutally. “We are here to explain to my wife the terms of this marriage.” He turned to Isabella. “I have asked Mr. Churchward to be present at our meeting so that there may be no misunderstandings about the nature of our agreement, madam.”
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