Chapter Twenty
At last, Isabel and Lucy were settled in the Bedford Square house, and the huge one on Lombard Street was for sale.
The shape of the new town house felt right around Isabel, as if everything too big and fussy were gone. Like the fashions she preferred, with furbelows stripped away, the house was designed to her tastes. Andrew’s furniture, sold. The paintings on the walls, ditto. Isabel had kept a few pieces, items bought since their marriage.
She had brought nothing to it but money and manners, but Andrew had considered her taste when choosing a settee for her dressing room, and he had consulted her in the choice of a console table for the entrance hall. Oh, now!—to have the freedom to order one’s walls painted in blues and greens, the plaster and wood whiter than ever snow was in London. No more silk paper on the walls, rich-looking for the sake of looking rich. No more gruesome figural paintings. The world was landscapes, blessed landscapes, blessedly free of fleshy, hairless nudes.
The garden outside was everything she’d hoped for, an elegant confusion of trees and a riotous arrangement of flowers. Blooms of all colors, her skirts trailing over them when she stepped from the path. And in the evening, when stars struggled through the smoke and fog, and the new gas lamps were lit, she always wandered from the path.
She wore color here, blues and greens the colors of sky and ocean and springtime leaves. She wore no rings, no jewelry save for a strand of pearls that had belonged to her mother.
Satisfying though it was to settle into the house, she was not happy. She had never held happiness as essential, growing up educated to become a lady of society. Better influence than happiness, better charm than education.
What was it all for, though? Making other people like her . . . why? For the sake of the liking itself? If that was the case, she’d failed to keep the liking of the one person whose esteem she truly coveted. Callum Jenks could not be charmed or tricked into thinking better of her than she deserved, or returning her love.
She’d seen him once, when her carriage happened—just happened—to be driving along James Street. She’d requested a different route when Jacoby drove her back home. Not because she didn’t want to look upon him; because her eyes got spoiled for the sight of anything else.
After that, she’d gone to Kent for a short visit. It was long overdue; she had not visited her father’s estate in more than a year.
Lord Greenfield, elderly and frail, hadn’t known Isabel the last time she visited him. She hadn’t expected he would this time either. But she had gone for herself: to see the home in which she’d grown up, the father who had approved her too-young marriage to a man who was no good.
Ultimately, marrying Andrew had been her own choice. And that choice had brought her here.
“It’s good to see you, Papa.” She had taken her father’s thin fingers in one hand.
The old marquess had smiled, greeting Isabel by her mother’s name. He’d scrabbled at his lap robe, growing agitated, and Isabel had helped him pull it back into place. He’d sat often before the fire in the library, Martin had told her. Even as the earth warmed for summer, their father was always cold.
Martin had peered in every so often—making sure Isabel wasn’t being disruptive, she’d assumed. She hadn’t been. Plucking a book from the library shelves, she’d pulled an ottoman over beside her father’s chair. She’d sat on it and read to him while he gazed off, contentment taking the place of agitation.
When he began to doze, she’d closed the book and sneaked out. Eager for a bit of country air, she’d stepped outside. At the base of the stone steps, Martin had been surrounded by a swirling, yapping mass of beagles and foxhounds.
“I should have kept Brinley,” Martin had called over the noise. “He’d have grown up to fit right in.”
She’d clipped down the steps, laughing. “That’s why you should have kept him? Not the fact that he was a mischievous little ball of fur that was completely full of devotion?” And urine, she had not added. And endless noise.
Martin had looked sheepish. “He’s happy with you, though, isn’t he?”
“He would be happy anywhere. It’s a gift of his. But yes, he’s been happy with us.” Isabel and Lucy. They made a fine household of two.
After spoiling her nieces and nephews, praising her sister-in-law’s latest changes to the estate, and throwing more sticks for Martin’s dogs than she could calculate, she’d returned to London. Again, James Street called to her.
To distract herself, she kept her Tuesday afternoon at-homes. She always enjoyed the company of Lady Teasdale. Happily betrothed, Lady Selina Godwin was a cheerful visitor. Even anxious young Mrs. Gadolin, eager to ascend the ranks of society, called a few times. When she did, she confided to Isabel that her dear Gadolin was very interested in the Lombard Street house, because their current home was too small and the neighbors were not the right sort.
Neither was the former master of the house, Isabel thought, but she only smiled and told Mrs. Gadolin she hoped they would be happy in the house if they chose to buy it. All the servants who stayed behind to maintain the place, she provided her highest recommendation.
Finally, she cleared out the hidden room. She took the paintings from it by night, with Butler’s help, and stowed them in a bedchamber of the new house. Inside a locked wardrobe, within the mattress, beneath a sofa. All covered, preserved, hidden. And then all the furniture went under Holland covers, and she locked the room and did not give the key to the housekeeper.
It was not as secure as having a hidden room, but it would have to do. She and Butler had not done badly, considering that they hadn’t the help of someone with a deep understanding of stealth and criminality.
Although maybe Isabel had learned more from Callum than she realized.
In the past few years, her life had become a puzzle, and it was almost solved. It did not look quite like anything she’d ever imagined when the pieces were all scattered and the solution was in the future. But it was a fine picture, one she’d put together herself. There was only one piece missing: love.
She had tried for it. The less said about that, the better. Now she would try to find it for Lucy.
But the coveted invitation to Lady Selina’s engagement ball—which, rumor had it, would be the greatest, grandest crush of the Season—did not arrive by the morning post on the expected day. Nor did it come in the afternoon, or the evening. A widow with money and a maiden without: neither was an attractive guest for a matron seeking all the attention for her daughter.
Lucy kept peeping into the entry hall, looking for new post on the silver tray Selby kept for the purpose on the console table. Isabel hated to see her look away disappointed, time after time.
“I am sorry I failed you,” she said after the last post of the day was delivered.
“Not at all!” Lucy pasted a bright smile onto her face. “There are lots of balls, every week. And if I don’t marry, I’ll live with you and teach art lessons, and it’ll be fine.”
Ever since they had found the pearl brooch, unspoken worries were like a wall between them. How had it come to be in Morrow’s desk? Isabel didn’t know. She didn’t know if she ever would know, or if she wanted to. Lucy said she did not; she didn’t want to think about it anymore. She had taken the brooch, put it in her jewel box, but she never wore it.
The following morning, the invitation arrived, just late enough to make clear that they hadn’t been on the first list. Or the second. But there it was.
Naturally, they would attend, and they both had new gowns for the occasion. Lucy was a copy of a fashion plate from Ackermann’s Repository, wearing white muslin trimmed in pale pink, and with a complicated truss of plaits and fillets atop her head.
Isabel wore a gown of gold satin overlaid in gauze, the waist right beneath her bust so the skirt draped in a long, sleek column. The sleeves were short and full, but the dress was otherwise unornamented by the epaulettes, the rouleaux and braids and trims and loops favored by other women. She was apart from fashion. She wore the gown rather than the reverse, and she loved it.
If only Callum Jenks could have seen her in it. The gold really was most becoming.
When they arrived at the rooms rented for the ball, a crush of carriages blocked the road, so they descended and walked the rest of the way. As they drew near the steps, a hubbub spilled forth from the rooms. Inside, where guests were announced, the enormous space was suffocatingly hot. They could hardly squeeze into the crowd, could hardly look around the room. What Isabel could see of it was decorated with frescoes of classical scenes. Any woman who was scantily draped was hairless, docile-looking, dazed.
Andrew would have loved them.
Lucy paled, looking over the crowd. “There are so many people.”
“I know, dearest. But we can only speak to one person at a time, and so it doesn’t matter if there is one person here, or five hundred. Whom shall we speak to first?”
“Um . . .” Lucy looked dazzled.
“Our hostess, then,” Isabel decided. Finding their way to the Duchess of Ardmore was a feat requiring fifteen minutes of struggle through the crowd. Along the way, Isabel made introductions to Lucy when she saw a familiar face. Mrs. Gadolin flicked her fan in greeting, thanked Isabel for agreeing to her dear Gadolin’s price on the Lombard Street house, then looked about to see whether anyone had noticed and whether it was quite the thing.
When they finally reached the Duchess of Ardmore, she seemed pleased by their congratulations, distant and vaguely friendly as ever. She held a small flask from which she sipped occasionally, no doubt dosing herself with the medicine that left her in a perpetual cloud.
And then they encountered the Dowager Lady Mortimer, whose younger son Isabel had thought might be a match for Lucy. The dowager had responded to this assay with a disapproval that she seemed still to hold tightly.
“Lady Isabel! And Miss Wallace. I’m so glad you could attend. I didn’t know if it was your sort of affair anymore. You seem to have different tastes these days. I saw the most startling print recently!”
Life was too short for veiled innuendo. “Do you mean that caricature of me wearing trousers? It wasn’t a bad likeness, but it wasn’t accurate either. I’ve never worn an outfit such as that.”
The dowager pursed her lips. Had she powdered her hair? It was gray as a ghost, and her face held the same chalky color. “I did wonder, though, about the other part.”
“My hair?” Isabel tutted. “It was in terrible disarray. I had a word with the printmaker.” She patted her own neatly dressed locks.
“No! The . . .” Lady Mortimer leaned forward, confiding behind her fan. “The pistol.”
Honestly. If the woman wanted to gossip with her, she might as well be straightforward. “You were curious about my husband’s death? You’re not the only one, my lady. I’ve wondered about it since the day it happened. I wouldn’t be so gauche as to speak about it, though. Would you?”
The older woman’s mouth opened and closed.
“I didn’t think you would.” Isabel smiled. “I’ve always known you as a woman of impeccable manners. Thank you for your concern, of course. Look, Lucy—there is George. Shall we say hello?”
Isabel pushed through the crowd. The room was huge and warm, lit by hundreds of candles and stuffed with hundreds of elegantly-dressed bodies. The air was all perspiration and perfume and the hot burnt scent of melted wax.
George was an elegant fixture at the ball in honor of his sister. He looked still better than the last time she’d seen him, without the puffiness of dissipation. The leanness she remembered from their late youth was coming back into his features, his form. It suited him. She watched narrowly as he took a proffered glass of champagne, then handed it off to someone else.
“Abstaining?” Isabel asked.
“Only from champagne.” He winked. “If it’s not fun anymore, then what’s the point of it? And I’ve never thought a bubbly wine much fun. A good brandy, now . . .”
Isabel laughed with him. “I prefer port, myself.”
Attending the ball was like slipping on an old garment. It still fit, and there was something nice about seeing it again. But it didn’t suit her like it used to. She felt more comfortable at the edges of the party. Because she was a widow, and she didn’t want to look for a husband as the Isabel of ten years ago had? Because she liked looking at people now, noticing what they were doing? Who was angry, who was flirting, who was hoping to retreat unseen. Everyone had a story, and if one thought only of oneself, one’s slippers, one’s next dance, then all these other stories were lost.
She wondered what the person slipping away around the edges of the room was up to. He was too far away for Isabel to recognize him, though he had the sleek confidence of a scion of the ton. A bit of the look of Andrew. Oh! Maybe that was Lady Selina’s betrothed. What was he up to?
Probably he was looking for the necessary. Isabel thought it was in that direction. Lucy had murmured something about finding it, and she and Isabel had been separated in the crowd before they reached George. No matter. Somehow they would find each other again.
She was pleased to come upon Lady Selina, quite the belle in a gown of silver and blue. “I’m glad you could come!” said the duke’s daughter, sounding perfectly sincere. “I remember our discussion about marriage, and—well, you see that I took it to heart.”
“Our discussion?” Isabel cast her mind back. Yes, she did recall a few sentences tossed back and forth idly. She’d been distracted at the time, wondering how to find the Botticelli within Ardmore House. It seemed ages ago. “You are wedding for love, then, as well as the more common reasons.”
“Not as well as, but instead of !” Selina beamed. “I’ve no need to marry for money or security.”
Yes, because you’ve had them in abundance since the day you were born. But: “Fortunate you,” was all Isabel said. “I am glad you are so well pleased.”
“I wanted to tell you.” Selina put a confiding hand on Isabel’s arm. “Just because you needn’t marry for those reasons doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. A woman can never be too secure.”
With this, Isabel could not disagree. “It is certainly easy for us to lose what we have.”
“Especially reputation, which cannot be bought back once lost.”
Isabel’s brows knit. “I agree, but I do not take your meaning as it applies to me.”
Selina laughed. “Why, Isabel, you are becoming such a rogue! Taking your own household, throwing off fashion.”
“I rather thought I was setting it,” Isabel sniffed.
“Taking a lover . . .” Selina whispered. “Have you? Haven’t you?”
“As if no widow has ever done such a thing before?” Isabel gave Selina’s hand a reassuring pat. “Thank you for your confidences, my dear. You may be assured, I will be careful to hold tight to the things that are important to me.”
“Good, good.” Selina looked uncertain—then pulled her into an impulsive embrace. “You’ve always been such a good friend to George and me. I do want you to be happy, you know.”
“I’m sure I shall be. It just might not be in the way I expected.”
For one could be happy alone, couldn’t one? It was better than being wed to someone who never thought much of her, and far better than being paired with someone unkind.
The only option compared to which everything else paled was the one she yearned for: being with someone wonderful, and damn however suitable or unsuitable he might be.
“Excuse me,” said Isabel. “I’m going to see about getting a dance for Lucy.”
“Of course!” Selina smiled, reassured that all was well as long as there was dancing.
But she didn’t see Lucy in the ballroom. Not at the edges, either, where the wallflowers and matrons sat. She wasn’t at the punch table, or in the supper room, or playing cards.
Isabel fought down a tide of worry. There was no need for concern. Yes, this was the first great crush Lucy had been to, but it was perfectly safe. Isabel might have missed seeing her. Or Lucy might still be waiting for a turn in the ladies’ retiring room. Yes, that was probably it. Isabel would slip out of the ballroom and find her.
No. Lucy was not in the retiring room.
Had she got lost? Impossible, with the clamorous noise from the huge ballroom to orient one. Even here, she could hardly hear her own footsteps over it.
There was another corridor, heading farther away. Plain-papered and narrow, it was clearly meant for servants. It probably led to the kitchens, where food for hundreds was prepared and plated. Isabel peered down its length.
And everything fell apart.
Because the corridor wasn’t empty. And it didn’t only hold Lucy.
Callum Jenks was there, with those redheaded twins she’d met at Bow Street. The woman was holding fast to a struggling Lucy while the man bound her wrists with rope.
On the floor lay a body. Dead? Unconscious? Callum was crouching over it, hunting for a pulse. The prone figure was the man Isabel had seen leaving before—a man she now recognized for certain as Lady Selina’s fiancé. His scalp was bloody, and there was a bullet hole in the wall.