Chapter 4

CHAPTER4

Henry felt numb at first as he looked around the clearing. The way Lady Bellamy was taking pleasure in what had happened was so apparent, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Lady Travers looked away as if her eyes had been burned by the sight before her.

We didn’t even do anything!

Yet, Henry would have been lying to say he hadn’t felt something stirring. The lady with him was an enigma, something of a mystery, and an exciting one at that. Striking in appearance with her height and her bold green eyes, he’d been quite happy to stay out here in their playful argument. He hadn’t realized it was going to lead to anything though.

“Lady Isabella, what will your father say about this?” Lady Bellamy continued, her words now disgusting Henry.

Hurriedly, he stood to his feet, knowing he had to take control of this situation.

Lady Isabella, daughter of the Earl of Sinclair. Why do I know that name?

His eyes flicked towards Isabella, that sense of familiarity returning. He had thought there was something familiar about her when she had first run into him. He didn’t have time to think more about it now. She was blushing bright red, one hand latched over her mouth as her eyes became wet.

At once, his guilt raged. Henry may have been a rake, but he had busied himself with widows and married women who were not cared for by their husbands. He never wanted to risk a young unmarried woman, someone who had her reputation to lose.

“Such tales to be spun now,” Lady Bellamy drawled and actually laughed at her own words.

Henry spun on his heel to face her, moving so fast that, at his sharp movement, he saw in the moonlight the way the three ladies flinched.

There is only one thing I can do now to stop a further scandal.

“How dare you speak to the future Duchess of Sutterton in that way?”

His words had an instant reaction. The three ladies exchanged looks with one another.

“The D—Duchess?” Lady Bellamy stammered.

“That is right. Now, give us some privacy.” He stepped towards them, taking command completely. “And do not let your tattling tongues run away with you, ladies. I do not doubt what damage you could do with them, yet to do so would only be hurting yourselves in my eyes.”

Lady Travers looked ashamed, but neither of the other women did.

“Be gone. Now.” Henry gestured towards the lane, demanding they leave.

The ladies hurried away, moving so fast that their skirts fluttered behind them. Even when they were a little distance away, he could hear them talking and laughing. He didn’t doubt that, despite his request, they would spread rumors the moment they returned to the ballroom.

“What have you done?” a small voice asked.

Slowly, Henry turned round to face Isabella.

Isabella. That is her name.

Her bold green eyes were wide, and her full lips opened wide, apparently searching for words.

“I’ve done all I could do.” His voice deepened as he suddenly felt overwhelmingly dizzy with the realization of what he had done. He reached towards the nearest yew bush, holding onto a branch to keep himself standing just as Isabella moved to the bench and sat down with a heavy thud. “If I didn’t offer to marry you, then what comes of your reputation, My Lady?”

“I don’t wish to be married.” Isabella began to shake her head firmly, casting her brown curls repeatedly around her cheeks. “Least of all to you.”

“So kind,” he said with a sardonic smile.

“This cannot happen.” She waved a hand between them. “You do not wish to be married, nor do I. Just because we fell—”

“I believe you were the one who fell, and I just cushioned your fall.”

“Are you actually trying to seek blame in this?” she asked, scowling. “I could point out that fact that your shirt is so undone it left little to the ladies’ imagination!”

Henry had to concede she was right in that regard. He raised his hands and laced up his shirt before noting she had discovered his waistcoat beneath the stone bench. She threw it at him, but he was so unprepared for it that it fell over his face.

“I see there is kindness in you,” he muttered sarcastically, earning a huff from her in answer. He reset his clothes as he looked at her. She seemed on the edge of tears despite her anger towards him. “What else would you have me do? I had to offer to marry you, or you would be ruined.”

“There has to be another way, there has to be,” she said repeatedly, clinging to the bench.

“No matter what that is, we cannot stay out here anymore.” He buttoned up the waistcoat. “We have to return to the ball.”

“And be faced with a wall of gossip?” She laughed, though there was no real humor in it. “You may be used to being gossiped about, Your Grace, but I am not. People usually say nothing about me.”

He tilted his head to the side as he watched her, convinced there was something familiar in her manner now.

We have met before, I am certain of it.

Yet, he still couldn’t place where he had seen her.

“Then you’ll simply have to find the courage to face them tonight.” He shrugged on his tailcoat. “Come, let us return to the ball. You will find your family and head home. I will come to see you tomorrow.”

He took a step towards the lane, only to notice she did not follow. Isabella remained firmly on the stone bench, staring down at the gravel beneath her feet.

“Lady Isabella?” Henry turned back to face her. She flinched when he said her name and jerked her head upwards to meet his gaze. “We must go before anyone else finds us here.”

Slowly, she moved to her feet. She fell into step alongside him, yet she kept a distance between them.

Henry wasn’t sure what to feel about that distance. He’d been happily attracted to this woman minutes before. If she’d been a widow, he might have actually propositioned her seriously, rather than just having a laugh with her. Yet, now, he faced getting married.

I vowed never to marry, yet what has become of me?

He felt trapped, stuck, with no other option. He may have been happy to destroy his own reputation, but damaging a young woman’s reputation was another thing entirely. He wasn’t callous or cruel, just self-destructive.

“Tomorrow, I will come to see you,” he muttered, his voice business-like.

“We do not have to marry,” Isabella said again. “There must be another way out of this. There must be.”

“What way is there?” he asked sharply. “Think about it. Ladies’ names are ruined by this sort of thing. Their entire families are dragged through the mud.” At his words, her footsteps slowed. “No time to slow down now.”

“My sisters.” She swallowed with terror in her tone. “They will be so hurt by this.”

“You have sisters? Then it is settled more than ever.” He huffed and walked on, his fast pace urging her to hasten her steps. “I will come and see you tomorrow. Did they say you were the Earl of Sinclair’s daughter? I know that name. He lives in James Square, does he not?”

“Yes, Sinclair House,” Isabella answered quickly.

They stepped up onto the stone terrace, where Henry caught sight of the gentlemen smoking. Apparently, the ladies hadn’t stopped to tell them about the news on their way back to the ball, for the men barely turned to acknowledge them. When one of the gentlemen knocked into his friend, spilling a glass, Henry had a sudden recollection.

In his mind’s eye, he saw a glass of champagne dropping from a lady’s fingers. It spilled over his brand-new tailcoat. He’d already been unhappy that evening, vowing it would be his last ton event for a while, but that had been the last straw. As he had shaken off the droplets from his jacket, he’d looked up to see who had dropped that glass.

It was the lady who stood beside him now, Isabella.

“Wait.” He looked at her. Isabella hesitated from walking into the ballroom, moving back and forth on the balls of her feet and wringing her hands together repeatedly. “You spilled a glass of champagne on me once, didn’t you? That was you?”

“That’s what you remember?” Her lips thinned before she shook her head. There was something strange about the reaction before she laughed at him. “What a privilege, eh?”

“Privilege?” Henry repeated in surprise.

“I suppose I should be honored for such a great man, one of such lofty standing, to even recall a brief meeting he had with me.” There was tartness in her tone as she reached for the door and hurried back into the ballroom.

“Wait, you remembered me?”

Henry followed her into the building, wondering why she hadn’t said before that they had met. As he hurried behind her, something else came to his mind.

It was a brief image of him with his hand on Isabella’s waist and his other hand clasping her own. Were they dancing? He could almost remember humming along to the tune, practically whispering in her ear.

And the bonnie lass’s hand he will take…

The image broke off. Was it a memory? Surely not. Had he just imagined it?

Isabella had come to such a sudden halt that he nearly walked straight into her back. Wary of touching her again now that they were in a ballroom, he leapt to her side, angling his head around just as he saw why she had come to such an ungainly halt.

Many in the room were staring their way, and their gawkers weren’t being subtle. There was open whispering and pointing in their direction. Henry lifted a hand and pinched the brow of his nose, fearing what he had done.

This was never part of the plan to ruin a good woman’s name.

“I wish the ground would swallow me whole,” Isabella muttered at his side.

“Me too.” He lowered his hand and took her arm. She started so much that she wrenched her arm away from his grasp. “Please, be calm. We have to talk reasonably now.”

“Oh yes, perfectly easy to speak reasonably at such a moment as this,” she said with sarcasm.

Any other time, Henry would have laughed at her dry humor, but not at this moment.

“Go to your family,” he pleaded with her. “Ignore the whispers and the gossip, and just depart for the night. I will see you tomorrow. Don’t make eye contact with others, and do not be drawn into conversation. If you have any scandal sheets arrive tomorrow, burn them without reading them.”

“Sound advice indeed,” she muttered.

She was no longer looking at him but staring someplace over his shoulder.

“Lady Isabella.” He said her name a little sharply, in the hope of capturing her attention. As he hoped, her eyes flicked towards his. “We will sort this out. Trust me on that.”

“That’s the second time you have asked me to trust you.” She shook her head. “Yet, I cannot. We will find another way out of this, a way that does not require marriage.”

“Then your hope will be a vain one.” His answer was simple, though she didn’t appear to pay attention to him.

She scurried past him, leaving him at the side of the ballroom without a word of parting or a single goodbye.

As Henry turned round, he saw her hurrying towards two young ladies who waved at her, clearly trying to get her attention. Across the ballroom, he saw John’s face. He was in deep conversation with his future mother-in-law before his expression became one of humor, and he lifted his face to search for Henry amongst the crowd.

At least someone can smile at this mess, but I cannot.

* * *

“What have you done?”

Andrew had Isabella’s wrist in a vice-like grip and was dragging her out of Lord Hillson’s house, towards the carriage on the driveway.

“I didn’t do anything,” Isabella protested, though her words fell on deaf ears.

Behind her, her sisters scurried along, carrying their pelisses and shawls, even Isabella’s shawl, which she had neglected to pick up herself.

“Have you not listened to what I have said? I stumbled across the Duke of Sutterton outside—”

“Oh yes, a perfectly understandable explanation,” Andrew said tartly and flung open the door of the carriage so hard that it banged on its hinges.

Susan yelped in shock before Irene ushered her into the carriage. Isabella went to follow, but her wrist was still caught in her father’s grip, and he spun her back around to face him.

“Ow, Father, you’re hurting me.”

“How can you do this to us, Isabella?” he asked, his tone wild. “You’ve ensnared a man into marriage?”

“I did no such thing.” She straightened her spine and stood as tall as her father, refusing to be cowed by him. “I am not capable of such artful evil as to trap a man in such a way.” When her father refused to release her wrist, she bent her hand back at such an angle that he was forced to release her at the risk of being hurt himself. “I didn’t want to get married. If I can help it, I still won’t.” She turned on her heel and clambered into the carriage.

At first, Isabella tried to sit on her usual side of the carriage, but her sisters took her arms and pulled her back to their side. It was a squeeze with the three of them sitting on one bench, but they kept her there, perched in the middle as if they could somehow protect her as Andrew clambered up into the carriage and slammed the door shut behind him.

“Have you lost your good sense?” Andrew roared as he hit the side of the carriage, signaling to the driver to set off.

“I have told you for many months I have no intention of marrying,” Isabella reminded him.

“This changes things, surely you see that.” He gestured towards her with a derisive hand motion. “The one thing about being a bluestocking, spending every day and evening with your head in your books, should surely mean you have some intelligence in that head of yours.”

“Father!” Isabella snapped at him.

Normally, if her father ever lost his temper, she would try to get him as far away from her sisters as possible, yet trapped in a carriage with him, that endeavor was now an impossible thing.

The stench of whisky wafted off him, and judging by the way he swayed in his seat, he’d had a fair amount that night. It went a good way to explain the wildness in his eyes.

“I perfectly understand what has happened, and that being seen with the Duke has ruined my reputation—”

“The family’s reputation!” Andrew added, waving both palms towards Irene and Susan.

“Yet, I did nothing wrong.” Isabella shook her head. “I bumped into a man in the garden. Why should I marry a man for that?”

“That is not what the gossip said.” Her father lowered his voice and leaned towards her. “Everyone in that ballroom was talking about seeing Lady Isabella on top of the Duke of Sutterton.”

“Is that true?” Susan asked in amazement, her eyes wide.

“No! I mean, yes… not exactly!” Isabella hurried to add when Irene whistled in incredulity. “I tripped and fell over him.”

“You tripped?” Andrew scoffed at the idea, his lip curling in scorn.

“You of all people are always pointing out how clumsy I am.” Isabella turned her focus on her father. “You know I fall over as other people find it as easy to breathe.”

“This is not like tripping over the corner of a rug, Isabella,” her father boomed. “You fell on a man!”

“It was not my doing.” Isabella’s voice was now losing its strength as she slumped back against the bench.

She sensed the truth of the matter, that when her father was drunk, she was not going to have any success in her argument. Her sisters took her hands, trying to offer silent comfort.

“I must commend you conning such a man into marriage though, I’ll say that.” Her father laughed derisively. “The Duke of Sutterton. He has more money than any other man in London.” He suddenly froze and sat straight, the corner of his lip tilting upwards in a smile. “Yes… you will have a wealthy husband indeed now.”

“You’ve changed your tune,” Isabella murmured, noticing how different her father’s manner was becoming as he realized how it could be to his advantage.

The madman is now thinking about how he can use the Duke’s money to pay off his debts. It will not come to that. Never.

“Maybe this is all some dreadful misunderstanding?” Susan asked, her words carefully uttered.

“Yes, it is,” Isabella agreed with her.

“If you do not wish to marry him, you do not have to,” Susan assured her, tapping her hand.

“Thank God—”

“Have you both lost all your senses?” Andrew snapped, looking between Isabella and Susan. “Susan, she has no choice. If she does not marry the Duke of Sutterton now, both you and Irene will be ruined. Every man who passes you by would rather look at the ground you walk on rather than you. They’ll think you no better than a courtesan.”

I’m surprised he scolds the idea of courtesans, considering how many of them he’s bedded.

Isabella wondered if her father could read something of her thoughts in her gaze, for he broke their connected stare and looked away, brushing a hand over his waxed hair.

“Come what may, Isabella, you will have to agree to marry the Duke of Sutterton.”

“We’ll see about that.”