Chapter 10

10

Bella and Issie could not believe their London season was coming to an end and they had not received a declaration of love or an offer of marriage, or both, from their desired bridegrooms. Neither, it seemed, could Lady Dutton believe it.

On their way home from a musical concert a few nights after Bella’s visit to the theatre, Lady Dutton said abruptly to her: “Lord Brooke hasn’t spoken to you?”

“Spoken to me?” Bella asked, confused, as Lady Dutton had seen her and Lord Brooke in conversation just moments earlier.

“I had naturally assumed he would come to me or Lord Dutton first, before speaking to you, but this modern generation”—she made a tsk-ing sound—“they do not show proper respect for The Way Things Are Done.” From the manner in which Lady Dutton said those last five words Bella imagined them capitalized, like a proper noun. And she now understood Lady Dutton’s meaning.

“No, Aunt Lucretia. Lord Brooke has not spoken to me.”

“Hmph,” Lady Dutton said. “And you’re sure you have not done anything to give him a disgust of you? Talked to him of politics, or religion, or—God forbid— science ?”

“I would never even think of discussing science with Lord Brooke,” Bella said, and her irrepressible sense of humor saved her from becoming angry with Lady Dutton, or Lord Brooke, and made her want to giggle instead.

“Well, I see no reason for you to be grinning about it,” Lady Dutton said, which caused Bella’s grin to widen. “However, I am sure he intends to speak soon. Otherwise he would not have paid you such pointed attentions.”

Bella didn’t feel like grinning when she thought over that conversation later in the privacy of her bedchamber. She was extremely ambivalent about the end of her visit to London. On the one hand, she would finally be finished with this charade and could resume her own identity. On the other hand, if Lord Brooke did not express his love for her soon, she would leave London and never see him again anyway. From what he had said to her at the theatre, it did seem like he was fond of her, but he had made no move to seek her out privately since that night. What if she had no opportunity to tell him the truth of her identity before she returned to Fenborough Hall? Was it possible that, despite his words, this had been no more than a flirtation for him? In that case, what would it matter if she was called “Arabella Grant” or “Lady Belle”? Who would even care what her name was when she was immured in Oxfordshire? Not the cows or the milkmaids, that was for certain.

But a few days later, she and Issie were confronted with an even more horrible fate. Both girls had gone down to the drawing room that morning, as Lady Dutton had requested a meeting. They were experiencing some trepidation about what she could want, but assumed it concerned their plans for returning to Fenborough Hall.

However, according to what they learned from Lady Dutton, they were not returning to Fenborough Hall.

“Since Lord Dutton was appointed the primary trustee of your estate, and you will not have control of it until your marriage or until you turn five-and-twenty, we have decided to appoint a caretaker for the hall, and you, Isabelle, will go with us to our estate in Warwickshire. Your cousin will have to make her own arrangements,” Lady Dutton said, casually picking up a bonbon and popping it in her mouth, with absolutely no concern for the devastation she’d just wrought.

There was a shocked silence before Bella finally spoke up. “I don’t understand; I thought that my cousin and I would be going back home to Fenborough Hall. We’d much prefer to do so. Surely, that would be less bother and expense for you, Aunt Lucretia.” Bella was speaking in her guise as Lady Isabelle, and Issie nodded vehemently in agreement with her words.

“You have no older female relative to chaperone you there. We could hire one, I suppose, but it makes no sense to do so, nor does it make sense to keep an entire estate running for the comfort of one young woman, when you can stay with us, and the expense for your upkeep will be negligible. Also, I’m sure you’ll be wed very soon, just as soon as Lord Brooke makes a formal offer, which should be any day now. He could not call on you if you were living unchaperoned at Fenborough Hall, but he can if you’re living with me.”

Both girls ignored the part of Lady Dutton’s speech concerning Lord Brooke, as they were still stymied by her previous remark that Bella would not be accompanying them.

“But—what about Ara—?” Issie said, finding her voice and then remembering she was supposed to be Arabella . “What about me? What am I supposed to do?”

“That is not my concern. If you’d had any sense at all, you would have taken advantage of this precious opportunity to find yourself a husband. Surely, there was some foolish gentleman on the fringes of Lady Isabelle’s court who could have been convinced to take her cousin instead. But no, you couldn’t be bothered to secure your future and spent the last two months pampering yourself.”

Issie shrank back into her chair at the harsh tone Lady Dutton had used, and though Bella knew the unkind words and the bleak fate were intended for her, not Issie, she also knew that it was Issie who was most harmed by such a speech, because it brought back painful memories of her mother’s cruel tirades.

So Bella quickly drew Lady Dutton’s attention back to herself. “When are we to leave for Warwickshire?”

“Friday,” Lady Dutton answered.

It was now Wednesday. The two girls looked at each other in despair, before quickly taking leave of Lady Dutton and running up to Bella’s room.

“What are we to do, Bella? She can’t actually separate us, can she?” Issie asked, and she suddenly looked as pale and sickly as she had when they had first arrived in town.

“I think she can, at least for the next six years, until you turn five-and-twenty.” Bella wished she’d not voiced such a thing when she saw Issie wince, as it did sound like an unbearably long period of time when spoken aloud.

But then Issie stood up straighter and a look of resolution appeared on her face. “I must convince Dr. Jordan to marry me,” she said.

“Do you think—Will Lord Dutton even permit you to marry him?” Bella asked, as she now realized that Lady Strickland’s death had not brought them the absolute freedom they’d assumed it had. “If you marry, you’ll have to give your real name and reassume your true identity. Besides, Lord Dutton knows who we really are.”

“I can elope, if necessary,” Issie said, and Bella was impressed by the determination in her voice and expression. “Don’t you see, Bella? If I marry, I can take possession of Fenborough Hall, and then you can come and live with us.”

This did not sound to Bella like the fulfillment of all her hopes and dreams as it obviously did to Issie, but it did solve a number of problems. The first being where she was supposed to live.

“I think I must find somewhere to stay for a few weeks anyway,” Bella said slowly, “because even if Dr. Jordan does want to marry you, it won’t all come about instantaneously.”

“Perhaps that would be wise,” Issie said with a frown. “You do have some money, don’t you?”

“I do,” Bella said, and had to smile at her cousin’s total ignorance when it came to financial matters, even though she felt like sobbing. But then Issie surprised her. She told her cousin to wait and disappeared for a few minutes. Bella sat obediently at her dressing table, staring unseeingly at her reflection as she tried to decide what she should do.

And then Issie ran back into the room, her hands full of a glittering array of jewelry. “Which do you think could be sold the easiest?” she asked Bella, after casually throwing jewels worth a small fortune onto the bed.

“Oh, Issie, you can’t give me your jewelry!” Bella protested.

“Why not? You mean more to me than any of these things. If one of them can provide you with money to live on until we can be together again, that will make me far happier than these jewels ever did.”

There were rings, brooches, and bracelets that were inlaid with emeralds, sapphires, rubies, diamonds, and pearls. Bella wished she or Issie were more knowledgeable about the amounts such items would fetch, but neither of them was, so Bella had to make an intuitive decision. She finally chose a ring with a huge sapphire surrounded by diamonds, reasoning that she could sell a few stones at a time or the entire thing, and hoped it would provide enough, combined with her own income, to last the six years until she could live with Issie again. (If, that is, Issie wasn’t successful in convincing the doctor to marry her.) The ring also seemed too large and heavy for Issie’s slender, elegant finger, so Bella reasoned it wasn’t one she was likely to wear very often anyway.

She showed it to Issie and asked her opinion, but it was obvious Issie didn’t care any more about that piece than she did any of the rest, and so Bella wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it under her mattress and Issie went to return the rest of the jewels to their case.

She came back again, still seething. “I will never live with Aunt Lucretia,” she said, and Bella became concerned that Issie’s anger might cause her to do something unwise.

“Issie, don’t make any rash decisions; you may have to live with her for at least a short time.”

“Never. It would be like living with my mother again. I will not be in a carriage headed for Warwickshire on Friday. I don’t care what I have to do,” Issie said, and Bella reflected that she’d never seen her timid little cousin look so ferocious. But since Bella was just as angry with Lady Dutton, she wasted no further time trying to placate Issie and instead set her mind to worrying about her own future.

That night marked one of Bella’s last appearances as Lady Belle, and she was resolved to look her best. She also decided to dress more simply than the current mode. She had started her masquerade by wearing ornate court dress, complete with feathers and lappets and hooped skirts, and wanted to end the season in the opposite manner. She supposed it was somewhat metaphorical, as she was slowly stripping away her false identity and revealing more of her true self, but she wasn’t thinking that deeply about it, and was instead merely following her inclination.

She wore a gown of blue-gray satin with a ruched V-neck bodice from which the skirt extended down to the ankles with no adornment, other than one very modest band of trim at the hem.

Around her neck she wore the only jewelry that was truly hers; three strands of seed pearls with a large, jeweled clasp that was made of paste. Her uncle had given it to her on her twelfth birthday and told her it had been her mother’s and that she had worn it on her wedding day.

Bella ran into Lord Dutton in the hall before leaving, and after they exchanged greetings, his attention was caught by her necklace. He seemed surprised to see it, and it was the first time she had seen him drop his habitual air of noble hauteur.

“That’s a pretty bauble. Where did you get it?” he asked.

Bella reflected that it was good he knew her real identity, as she was able to say honestly, “It was my mother’s.”

“Really?” he said, looking even more surprised, though why he would be, Bella could not fathom, unless it was because he didn’t think an apothecary’s daughter could afford even the simplest of jewelry.

“Yes, really,” she said, standing up straighter.

He continued to look at her in a very odd manner, as if he was seeing her for the first time. And then he bowed, asked her to excuse him, and left.

Shortly afterward, the coach was ready and she and Lady Dutton left the house for their final evening out.

At the same time Bella was attending her last ball of the London season, Issie was listening to a lecture with Dr. Jordan at the Surrey Institution. It was the third in a series on the English poets given by William Hazlitt, and his subjects that evening, Shakespeare and Milton, were long dead, so could not complain about anything critical he might say of them.

Issie was too nervous to truly enjoy herself, though the subject was of genuine interest to her and the speaker was a talented one. However, the rotunda where the meeting was held was extremely crowded, and the bench she sat on was not designed to hold the number of people it currently did. While she did not mind at all that she was pushed against Dr. Jordan’s side, it made her extremely uncomfortable to sit so near another strange gentleman. The doctor eventually realized why Issie was burrowing into his side and put his arm around her, using it as a buffer between her and her neighbor. This relieved some of Issie’s discomfort, but the delight she took from being held in his arms reminded her of the other reason for her nervousness: she had to find some way to convince the doctor to propose marriage to her before the evening was over.

Obviously, this could not be accomplished in the middle of a lecture, though she thought that the fact he had placed an arm around her was a good start. However, she was so overwhelmed by Dr. Jordan’s proximity she was paying even less attention to the speech, so that when the rowdy audience broke out in boos and hisses or applause and laughter, it startled her so much that she jumped in response. The doctor responded by stroking her arm in a soothing manner. This did nothing to calm her nerves, but did cause her to focus far more on the pleasurable tingle his caresses were causing than on the clamor of the crowd. And as the hour progressed, her concentration was centered so much on the touch of his hand that she might have been marooned with him on a deserted island for all the awareness she had of the people who surrounded them. She had unknowingly started holding her breath whenever his hand stilled, in anticipation of when his fingers might resume lightly brushing her arm again and in wonder over how those featherlight strokes could cause such a tumult inside of her.

After the lecture had ended, Dr. Jordan turned to look at Issie, and though he smiled at her, he appeared slightly self-conscious. “Did you enjoy that?” he asked, withdrawing his arm from around her, which caused Issie to shiver.

“Very much,” she said, though she didn’t think either of them were speaking of the lecture. They were staring silently into each other’s eyes, and it wasn’t until someone began to complain that the doctor was blocking the row that he and Issie began making their way out of the building.

Issie was clinging to the arm he’d given her to lean upon, but people were bumping and jostling her, so that he again put his arm around her, and she gratefully nestled into his side, placing her own arm around his waist.

When they were finally outside on the street and a little removed from the others, he tightened his arm around her before gently withdrawing it.

“I must find a hackney to take you home,” he said softly. And Issie nodded in comprehension, though she felt what he was really doing was apologizing for having to leave her side.

After he had found a coach and they were both seated inside, there was an awkward silence, as if the doctor had repented of his earlier boldness and it embarrassed him. Issie could not clearly see his face; it was dark inside the carriage and he was seated on the bench across from her. She had no idea what to say or do to regain their previous intimacy, and was very aware that every turn of the coach’s wheels was hastening their eventual parting unless she did something.

“I leave London on Friday,” she finally blurted out.

“So soon?” he asked, and she was heartened by the obvious disappointment in his voice. She told herself she hadn’t the time to be shy, and moving as cautiously as she could in the bouncing carriage, she transferred to his bench. However, she stumbled a bit when the carriage hit a rut in the road, and she would have fallen had he not caught her.

His hands were on her shoulders and she was almost sitting in his lap, and the silence seemed to hum from the tension between them. Finally, Issie said: “Dr. Jordan? Would you kiss me?”

Without a single word he instantly complied, kissing her with such passion and intensity, it was as if he had been waiting all evening for just such an invitation. Issie wondered if perhaps she had a weak heart after all, as it was pounding so fiercely she thought she might be about to expire in his arms. But then she reflected everyone had to die sometime, and she couldn’t think of a better way to go. And she began kissing him back just as passionately, proving to be as quick a learner at this activity as she was in all her other studies.

He finally paused and drew back, gasping for breath, as was Issie. “Miss Grant, I beg your pardon. You are probably not strong enough for such a vigorous embrace.”

But when he called her by her cousin’s name, it caused Issie to suddenly remember the confession she must make. After a necessary pause spent recovering her breath, she said, “Dr. Jordan, I must tell you: my name is not Arabella Grant.”

“What?” Dr. Jordan said, and though Issie could not see him, she imagined he must be extremely confused. First she threw herself into his arms, then boldly asked him to kiss her, and finally informed him she was not the lady he thought she was.

“Arabella Grant is my cousin’s name, and she is using mine for the season. As you know, I was not well enough for my come-out when we first arrived in London, and that was the sole reason my aunt invited us to town. Bella and I decided it would be better for all involved if she assumed my identity and took on those exhausting social activities in my place. The substitution was merely to last the duration of our visit to London. Though, honestly, I would not care if it were to last the rest of our lives.”

“I am not sure I understand. Your cousin…She is Lady Isabelle, is she not?”

“That is the name she has been using, but it is actually I that am Lady Isabelle.” As soon as she’d said this, Issie worried her grammar was incorrect, and then decided it didn’t matter.

“Good God, I have been kissing Lady Isabelle Grant? The daughter of a marquis? The toast of London society?”

He sounded completely appalled and Issie was surprised by his reaction. “No, of course not. You haven’t been paying attention: it is my cousin who is the toast of London.”

“Because she is an heiress to a large fortune and a palatial estate! But you are actually those things,” Dr. Jordan said, and though he was still in darkness and she couldn’t make out the expression on his face, Issie could tell from his tone of voice that he was upset for some unknown reason. Perhaps because he felt himself beneath her now that he knew her true position and assumed there was no possibility she would consider his suit. She was delighted to be able to tell him how she really felt.

“Well, yes, I thought it might be immodest of me to admit it right away, but if you were to marry me, I am not the poor orphan you believed me to be—”

“If I were to marry you ? Marry Lady Isabelle Grant ?” he said, as if that were the most repellant notion he had ever heard. “Ha! I’d rather die!”

Issie, who was still sitting very near to Dr. Jordan on the bench, drew back as if she’d been slapped.

“I am sorry, Miss—Lady Isabelle, that was not very polite. It’s not you that I object to. Or at least, not when I thought you to be Miss Grant. But, you see, I have nothing but contempt for the aristocracy.”

Issie did not find this explanation at all comforting, and just wanted the ride to be over so she could attain the privacy of her room and sob into her pillow. All she knew was that not only had she failed in her attempt to find an escape from her dire situation, she had also been ignominiously and resoundingly rejected. She really did not care to hear the reasons why. From the first moment she’d heard that tone of contempt she was so familiar with, she’d wanted nothing more than to escape the situation. But the doctor went into a long lecture about how families such as hers had made their wealth through profits from the slave trade or, even if they did not own plantations in the West Indies, there was a glut of child labor in England itself that they benefited from. And then there was the Inclosure Act, which Dr. Jordan said was a complete travesty of justice and had made the landowners rich at the expense of the common Englishman. While Issie had no doubt that the aristocracy was responsible for much of the corrupt and terrible crimes he was speaking of, and she held a similarly negative view of the so-called noble class, she highly doubted that her family was specifically to blame for every ill. She knew for a fact that they had not participated in the slave trade, as her father had been a staunch abolitionist. But she had no desire to defend herself. Her head was spinning, and she couldn’t understand how those beautiful lips had gone so quickly from lovingly caressing hers, to issuing this fierce diatribe.

Finally, they reached Lady Dutton’s townhouse and the doctor sputtered to a stop. “I beg your pardon, Lady Isabelle. I seem to have mounted my particular hobbyhorse and gone on a bit of a tirade.”

Issie did not reply; she was fumbling with the carriage door and trying to exit the coach as quickly as possible.

“Here, let me help you,” he said, and he opened the carriage door and jumped down before holding out his hand to help her descend. She gingerly took his fingers, wishing she needn’t touch him at all, and dropped his hand as soon as she reached the ground. Then she ran for the townhouse, with him following behind, mumbling apologies and farewells that she ignored. Once she had reached the house and the door had been opened for her, she turned and closed it in his face without having said a single word since he’d stated he’d rather die than marry her.