Ashlyn Macnamara (35 page)

Perhaps, but at what price? Best she never found out.

“Do ye want to talk about what happened while I was away?”

“I let a man charm me again.” That much was safe. That much she could admit to without dwelling on what might have been. “You’d think I’d have learned better after the first time.”

“Men are meant to charm women, and we as women are inclined to fall. It’s the way of things.”

Isabelle stared while Biggles poked at her nascent fire. “You were never so foolish.”

“Foolish?” Biggles reached for the kettle. “P’rhaps. But lucky, too. I was never caught.”

Of course she wasn’t, and if she had found herself with child, she knew just what to take to restore her courses.

“Ye wouldn’t be wanting some pennyroyal with your tea, would ye?”

“No.” The reply was automatic. More the fool her, perhaps, if she actually was expecting George’s child, but she could no more expunge the seed than she could Jack. She looked up to find Biggles watching her closely. She held the other woman’s gaze and repeated the reply. “No.”

“Have ye fallen for the man, then?”

Isabelle closed her eyes against Biggles’s continued scrutiny. “It does not matter. I’ve no claim on him, whatever else happens. If I bear his child, he’ll never know.”

Biggles opened her mouth, but a rapping at the door cut off her reply.

“Lawks, give a body time t’ get home,” she muttered. “Must’ve had their noses pushed t’ the window awaitin’ our arrival.”

“Yes, and now they’ve come to see what they can dig up,” Isabelle replied darkly.

Biggles pressed her lips into a line of assent and opened the door. “Why, Mrs. Weston.”

The vicar’s wife stood on the threshold, her expression collected, or perhaps a better term would be set.

Isabelle stood and fumbled immediately for her pocket. She’d carried Mrs. Cox’s bundle of herbs on her for the better part of three days, although they might now be
worse for wear after their dousing. “Is Peter ailing again?”

“I haven’t come about Peter.”

Mrs. Weston’s tone carried an edge that sent a finger of warning creeping down Isabelle’s spine. She’d heard that very tone of censure before—from her own family. “Then why have you come? We’ve only just arrived from retrieving my son.”

“I am aware.” The vicar’s wife remained rooted firmly to the doorstep, as if the air in the cottage might somehow be tainted. Yet she craned her neck, and her gaze darted to the far corners of the room. “Rather a fancy conveyance. I trust it was well sprung.”

So cool she was in her superiority, so composed. Isabelle’s father had comported himself in the same manner—ever the gentleman, even when he turned his own daughter out of the house.

Biggles crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “Have ye come for a reason or are ye nosing for gossip?”

“It is my unfortunate duty on behalf of the parish to inform Miss Mears she is no longer welcome as a resident of this village.”

“Wot’s this now?”

Mrs. Weston went on as if Biggles hadn’t said a word. “We were willing to tolerate one natural child. Anyone might make a mistake, but as long as the error is atoned for, as long as it is viewed with contriteness and a firm intention not to repeat the error, well …”

She waved a hand as if chasing off a fly. “What we will not tolerate is the kind of carryings-on that might lead to more bastards. Beyond the intolerable example set by such behavior, we see no need to give alms when such could be avoided through more rigid morality.”

The ruffles on Biggles’s mobcap shook as she drew herself up. “Such nerve ye have, goin’ on about morality
when Isabelle’s been sick with worry over her boy. Have ye no heart? I’ll warrant ye never lifted a finger to help her search.”

“
My
son was ill.”

“He wouldn’t always be ill if ye made certain he ate properly. Spoiled little brat.”

Isabelle should have reacted by now, but a numbness caused by the overwhelming emotions of the past few days encased her. She might as well be walking waist-high in icy water. No more. After losing her son, after Lucy, after George, after all the years she’d fought for acceptance in this place, she no longer felt the inclination to fight. Society had defeated her. Let it win.

She closed her fist about her father’s card, and its thick edges cut into her palm. She did, after all, have a choice. “It’s all right, Biggles. Jack and I will be gone in the morning.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

R
EDDITCH
’
S BUTLER
ushered George into a small parlor. The room was clearly not a place where the master would receive his most distinguished guests, but its polished woods, silk-upholstered furnishings, and embossed wallpaper made the space well enough appointed. An understated taste that screamed of blunt.

Lush carpeting muffled the sounds of his footfalls as he crossed to a painting. An ornate frame, edged in gilt, surrounded the portrait of a haughty-looking man in a white periwig, his cheeks rouged, his hand tucked into the breast of a teal blue coat. Lace cascaded from the subject’s cuffs and throat. His free hand perched atop a walking stick.

George allowed himself a grim smile. Redditch was such a stickler for propriety, or at least the appearance of propriety, but this ancestor—“Nothing but a macaroni.”

Footsteps echoed through the vast corridor beyond, and George turned, even though their rapid cadence indicated legs too short to belong to an adult.

Jack trotted into the room. “Thought I saw you.”

George caught his breath. What the devil was Jack doing here? And in that garb? The boy was clothed in deep green breeches and waistcoat of the same velvet he’d spotted on the footmen. Livery. Redditch had turned his own grandson into a servant.

George knelt to bring himself on a level with the child. “Why have they got you all jumped up like that?”

Jack glanced down at his garments and scrunched his face into a scowl. “Eastwicke says I have to. I don’t like it much. The coat itches, and the shoes pinch.”

“And what have they got you doing in such dress?” George couldn’t imagine a position fit for a lad his age. He was too small for the stables and had yet to develop the physical strength required of house servants.

“They’re fixing to make me hall boy. Only Eastwicke says I’m to improve my manners and speech.”

George shot to his feet and strode to the window. Hall boy! Fit for nothing better than to empty the servants’ chamber pots and polish the master’s boots. When he was a bit older, he might advance to lighting the kitchen fire. How could Isabelle allow it? How could she think this life was an improvement over their life in Kent?

“Do you like being hall boy?” He struggled to keep his tone casual.

“It’s all right. I don’t like the clothes, but Cook gives me all the beef I can eat.”

Well, yes, at least he wasn’t starving, but hall boy! “What does your mama have to say about your situation?”

Before Jack had a chance to reply, a voice sounded in the corridor. “That boy! Where has he got to now?”

That boy’s eyes widened. “I’ve got to run.”

He scampered from the room before George could say another word. Just as well. He wanted to smash something. He eyed the portrait of the dandy. “I ought to put you out of your misery.”

Not that sending his fist through the canvas would make him feel any better. Or endear him to Redditch, for that matter. He must at least start this interview on a friendly note. Defacing the earl’s ancestor hardly fit the bill.

And just where was Isabelle in this monstrosity of a townhouse? Did she even have a say in Jack’s upbringing now that she’d returned to her family? Had they truly taken her in, or did she live like a servant as well?

He shook his head, as if that would clear out his thoughts of her. It was over. She couldn’t forgive him. He must accept that and forget. Once he was quit of Redditch today, his last tie to her would be severed. And then he’d have no more reason to think of her, to lie in bed at night and dream of the sweet haven of her body.

More footsteps, heavier this time, announced another imminent arrival. George pressed his fingernails into his palm, the mild pain a reminder that he must maintain his
sang-froid
. The idea of Jack being treated like the lowest of servants sent his blood pounding through his veins in seething torrents.

But he’d cooled his heels for weeks waiting for Redditch to return to Town. He would achieve nothing if he got himself thrown out for insolence or, worse, violence.

“Yes, and what might I do for you?” Redditch possessed nothing of his daughter’s ethereal beauty and delicate lines. Except for his lack of overly garish clothes, he bore a striking resemblance to the fop in the portrait, although his nose was longer and thinner. The better to look down on peons.

“Have we been introduced?” His tone matched his air, cold and distant. In sheer disdain, Isabelle was his equal. She’d uttered her final words to George with the same amount of frost.

“Did your man not give you my card?”

No response. Not even a blink of a steely gray eye.

“No matter, my lord. I’ve come on business.”

Redditch hitched up his chin. “You have business with me?”

“In the name of Adrian Summersby, I do.” George expected a reaction to that name, at the very least.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?”

Was the man made of ice? Even so, the heat of George’s anger would be sufficient to melt the earl, and soon. His blood was ready to boil over.

“Am I to surmise from that question that you hound so many men to take their own lives, you can’t even keep their names straight?” George reached into his pocket with a shaking hand and withdrew a heavy purse. “There’s more where this came from, a down payment, if you will. I thought to give it to you to clear a friend’s name.”

Redditch looked him in the eye. “Do you enjoy tilting at windmills?”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“You wish to restore the honor of a suicide.” Redditch gave an ugly shout of laughter. “What next? You’ll petition the church to give him a decent burial and the courts to restore his goods to his heirs?”

George let his chest expand with air, again and yet again, enough that the urge to hurl the purse at Redditch’s head subsided. “Do you have any idea what it looks like when an old friend puts a pistol in his mouth and pulls the trigger? I do, thanks to you. It isn’t pleasant.”

Redditch’s pasty cheeks took on a pinkish tinge. “You can’t lay the blame at my feet if the man was too cowardly to face up to his obligations.”

“He was desperate,” George hissed. He wouldn’t let himself shout, wouldn’t give in to the need to grab this bastard by the lapels and pummel some sense into him. “Your lackeys hounded him until he saw no other way out. And for what? Filthy lucre. You don’t look as if you’re in any great need.”

He flung a hand in the direction of the fop. “Good
Christ, you might sell a painting or two and make up the difference.”

“Now see here—”

George hefted the purse. It weighed heavy in his palm, but surely not as heavy as Summersby’s worries during those final days. Most definitely not as heavy as Jack’s duties would weigh on him over the years.

Jack.

Only one of them was alive. Only one would have to endure this man’s notion of justice and propriety. And Jack was so young. Years stretched ahead of the boy before he might extricate himself from this situation, if he ever did. George couldn’t condemn a child to that. He’d had enough personal experience with a relative holding him back.

As for Summersby’s widow, he had enough to ensure her care, as well.

“Yes, I see now.” He closed his fingers about the bag of coins. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not about to hand you as much as a pence for Summersby’s debts. You can choke on them.”

Redditch opened his mouth, no doubt to summon the butler, along with a bulky footman or two to convince him to leave.

“No matter what,” George said before Redditch could call out, “Summersby isn’t coming back, and there’s the living to consider. I’m going to put these funds into a trust—in the name of your grandson.”

The pink in the earl’s cheeks turned to two ugly red blotches. “I have no grandson,” he roared.

“I can see how you prefer to deny him, since you’re currently treating him as your hall boy.”

“You know
nothing
of my family. Nothing!”

“I reckon you have your daughter spirited away somewhere as well. Perhaps I’ll find her in the scullery.”

“Eastwicke!”

“You might want to reconsider before summoning your toughs. I know a great deal about your family’s scandals, a great deal I’m sure you’d rather keep quiet.” George turned the purse in his hand. “I’m sure I’ve got enough here to print pamphlets.”

The butler loomed in the doorway. “You called, sir?”

“An error on my part. I do not require anything.” Redditch waited until Eastwicke had returned to his designated circle of hell before continuing. “If you print pamphlets, I shall sue for libel.”

“One problem with that, my lord.” George permitted himself a smile. “It isn’t libel if it’s true.”