Chapter 18

18

Isabella faced the idea of many, many hours alone in a closed carriage with Lady Irlam with a certain amount of trepidation. She had been informed that the Earl kept teams of fine horses stabled on the road to his principal seat, and would face no delay at any of the changes, being well known at each and every superior inn, but it was still a long journey. Their maids were travelling separately with the luggage, and the gentlemen were riding. Thank heaven for that, at least. But what would they talk about, she and Cassandra? She could think of several topics of conversation that really would be best avoided, for everybody's sake.

It had been decided that they would make better time if they left together early in the morning, rather than stopping to pick Lady Ashby up on the way, so Isabella bade farewell to Blanche and Eleanor, and Billy too, late one afternoon, before going to spend the night at Lord Irlam's mansion in St James's Square. She found herself surprisingly emotional at the parting, and Blanche shed tears when she tried to express her thanks for what had been so much more than a casual, brief visit. ‘I'm so glad you came to us,' said her hostess, embracing her. She had sent her daughter from the room on an errand to fetch something that had been forgotten, which all three women were quite aware was the merest pretext. The kitten was present, but he showed no interest in the conversation, being quite absorbed in his meticulous ablutions. ‘I'm not imagining how much being here has helped you, am I? I don't mean to say that you weren't well when you arrived – you were – but you seem so much better now. Back to your old self, almost.'

If only you knew, thought Isabella. But she must be grateful to her sister-in-law for her kindness, and said so again. Blanche brushed aside her thanks. ‘You will always be my sister,' she said. ‘I hope you know that. You will for ever be a member of this family, no matter what happens. Gabriel is of the same mind, I know. And I shall miss you.'

‘No doubt we will see each other next year,' Isabella murmured, touched. ‘You will pass through Harrogate on the way to Northriding Castle, surely, or I will be with you in York as we were this year, for the assemblies and the races. I will miss you too, both of you, but it is not so long until the spring, after all.'

‘Hmm,' said Blanche, mopping her eyes. ‘Do not take me up wrongly, my dear, if I say that I hope not to see you in either of those places, unless of course you are accompanied by a new husband. Then I shall greet you – both – with a great deal of pleasure.'

Isabella was astonished, and could only gaze at her hostess in incredulity. ‘I don't…' she spluttered at last. Tears were starting in her eyes too.

‘It's absolutely none of my business, which is why I have not spoken till now, but now that you are going, I find I must say something or be out of reason cross with myself. My dear…' Blanche took Isabella's hands in hers and leaned forward urgently. ‘My dear sister, Ash would have hated the idea of you living as a widow for the rest of your life. Hated it with a passion. You must know that I am right.'

Ash's widow was crying in earnest now, strong ugly sobs racking her despite all her attempts to control them. ‘I can't betray him!' she managed.

‘It wouldn't be a betrayal. It would not! I didn't mean to distress you, and I am sorry for it. We all loved Ash; his death hit us all hard. I was as worried about Gabriel as I was about you, for a long time – you let your feelings out, which perhaps was healthier, rather than bottling it all up inside as he did and pretending to be unaffected. But he is healing now, with Georgiana, and making a new life for himself, and you deserve no less.'

‘I don't want to forget him!' she almost wailed. ‘I don't want to, I won't!'

‘No one is asking you to. We will all remember him, and love him, as long as we live. I hope Gabriel will name a son for him one day soon. But you might easily have another fifty or sixty years to live, and you are owed some happiness after so much misery. I'm sure your parents would agree, and I am entirely confident Ash would have said so himself if he had been able.'

‘ You haven't remarried,' said Isabella, sniffing, aware that it was a foolish thing to say as soon as the words left her lips. She knew that Blanche had been widowed a few months before her own wedding; she did not know, because Blanche rarely spoke of her husband, whether her marriage had been a happy one, but she had sometimes suspected it had been not always been easy.

‘Oh, me!' replied Blanche with a slightly twisted smile. ‘Who would I marry? Some old gentleman who wants a nurse in his declining years, or thinks to live on my son's estate at my son's expense? I thank you, no. I am too set in my ways by now to want to see another nightcap on my pillow and accustom myself to another man's snoring. But it's different for you.' Isabella made no reply but shook her head in stubborn, mute refusal. ‘Very well! I have said my piece. You will do as you think best, and so you should, but I want you to know one thing. If some gentleman should aspire to your hand – don't worry, I shall not be indiscreet enough to name him! – then when you are assembling frivolous reasons for refusing him, assuming of course he should be a worthy candidate for your affections, do not think to use the disapproval of the Mauleverer family as one of them. I simply won't have it. I would very happily dance at your wedding, and so would Gabriel. I should tell you that I speak for him in this.'

‘I… I don't know what to say.' Eleanor was taking an unconscionable time about finding her mother's missing hartshorn, or whatever it was. Isabella wished she would come back and put an end to this.

‘Say nowt. Just think on what I've said,' Blanche responded, sounding very Yorkshire suddenly. They found themselves laughing after their tears, and soon they parted, Isabella kissing her hostess, Eleanor, and the entirely indifferent cat goodbye and wishing them all a safe journey to Ireland.

It was ridiculous, of course, thought Isabella as she lay sleepless under Lord and Lady Irlam's roof later that night. It could not affect her intentions in the least, and she would pay no attention to Blanche's words, kindly meant though they were. Blanche had no desire to marry again; well, neither did she. Ash had been her one love, and that would never change. And Leo, if Blanche had divined something, some spark between them, and had been speaking of him, did not, in point of fact, aspire to her hand in any case, because he was in love with Cassandra and always would be. Which was absolutely fine, and suited her perfectly. She was employing him – that was a horrid way of putting it, but it was true – to heal herself, and it was working. It was definitely working. He didn't do so badly out of the bargain, after all, and she had no need to feel guilty. She didn't feel guilty. He had told her that he wasn't enormously sexually experienced; well, by the time she'd finished with him, he would be, and what he then chose to do with all that skill was entirely up to him. He would marry, no doubt, despite his unrequited love, perhaps when he was older and had forgotten his beloved at least a little, and some unknown girl would be very lucky indeed, and perhaps rather surprised. Isabella fell asleep at last, dreaming of number eight, which for the Captain's benefit she had subdivided into parts (a) and (b), and his face when she told him so.

The household rose very early the next morning, and the two ladies were bundled into the travelling carriage and swaddled in luxurious rugs and wrappings, their feet set upon hot bricks, while they were both still half-asleep. It was seductively easy to slip into slumber again in the comfortably sprung modern vehicle, and it was not until the first change of horses that Cassandra and Isabella woke fully, yawning and stretching and eagerly drinking the hot coffee that was so solicitously brought to them.

Somehow, the fact that they had both been relaxed enough to sleep while together eroded much of the constraint that Isabella, at least, might have felt. It made no sense, but she was less worried about unwelcome topics of conversation. She felt warmly grateful to her hostess for the lovely carriage, and she was besides now a dashing, daring, unconventional sort of a woman, who had a lover, a lover with whom she had done outrageous, illegal, wonderful things, and she could quite easily deal with any slight awkwardness in discourse. What was mere conversation? She was a woman of the world, a woman who took charge, and equal to anything. Maybe there had been brandy in the coffee, also. She would make sure always to take it that way in future.

They ate delicious little morsels that Lady Irlam's pastry chef had prepared for them, and talked in a desultory fashion, and dozed a little more between changes, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, or so it seemed, they dismounted from the carriage to take nuncheon with their gallant horseback protectors. They had not encountered any highwaymen from whom they had needed to be rescued, the journey had been entirely without incident, and they were more than halfway there.

And so the day passed, as a half-seen late autumn landscape of bare fields and almost leafless trees unrolled outside the carriage windows, and in the chilly dusk they found themselves sweeping up the carriage drive to alight at last, a little stiffly, at Castle Irlam, to lights and a welcome from many liveried servants. Lord Irlam and Captain Winterton had ridden ahead at the end of the journey and so were waiting to help them tenderly down. The other guests had not yet arrived, Isabella was told; only family was present, and they had already dined. She was not obliged to meet them in her tired, dishevelled state – with exquisite care, she was whisked away to her warm, comfortable panelled chamber, and a bath was offered her, and, afterwards, her dinner on a tray, a glass of rich red wine, and sleep, in a deep feather bed. Tomorrow she would write home, with the reassurance that she had arrived safely, having met with no accident upon the way.