Once a Duchess (6 page)

The scent of freshly starched linen almost set her off again, but Isabelle managed to restrain herself.

“I think,” Marshall said, “you’re awfully brave.”

Isabelle pulled back in his arms, searching his face for a sign of mockery, but found none. “You do?”

He nodded. “It’s not every woman who could take care of herself when times got hard.”

She smiled weakly.

His eyes dropped to her lips. “You always had,” he said, stroking her bottom lip with his thumb, “the prettiest smile.”

He lowered his head and Isabelle stiffened. But what would it matter if she shared one kiss with him? Just this one. The last time she’d kissed him, she hadn’t known it was the last. This time, she did. It would be good, she told herself, to have this final kiss. A kiss of farewell.

Suddenly, Marshall broke away before his lips touched hers. Isabelle, in a disoriented, dreamy state, slowly opened her eyes and looked into his. It was like being doused with a bucket of cold water. His dark eyes were once more hard. Pained.

Isabelle blinked, feeling confused and bereft.

“Forgive me,” Marshall said, stepping back. “It was ill done to treat you with such disregard.”

“No need to apologize,” Isabelle said. She ran her palms up her arms, the wool of her dress coarse beneath her fingers. No doubt Marshall realized he’d almost kissed a servant. She cautiously laid a hand on his forearm. “I know I’m out of practice, but I haven’t forgotten how it’s done.”

He jerked his arm away from her and took several steps backward. “Mr. Miller hasn’t kept you in practice?”

Isabelle’s jaw dropped.

“I cannot touch you,” he said, bracketing his hands around his face, “without remembering what you did with that man and being cuckolded all over again.”

An icy fist grabbed her innards. “How dare you?” she seethed. “I never betrayed you!” She stalked forward, hands on her hips. “Justin never did anything wrong. He tended me when I broke my rib in a riding accident, and for that both he and I have been ruined!” She stood in front of her tormentor, shaking with the force of her anger.

Marshall held out a staying hand. “Spare me those tired old excuses. My father
died
, Isabelle.” He jabbed a finger into his chest. “And while I was gone settling his affairs, you brought that man into my house. My mother saw your disgusting tryst in the cottage. I suppose I can only be grateful you didn’t bring him into my own bed. Do you expect me to believe she was mistaken? Or that she lied?”

“No,” Isabelle hissed. “I don’t.” Something deep inside snapped. He would never listen to reason all those years ago. Swamped with grief over his father’s passing, Marshall was called home to deal with his wife’s supposed infidelity. Nothing Isabelle said would convince him she and Justin had done nothing wrong.

Her hands balled into white, bloodless fists. Her voice was steely quiet when she spoke. “Of course I don’t expect you to believe me. You never did. I apologized for inviting Justin to stay while you were gone, but for mercy’s sake, Marshall, you knew when we married that he was a close friend. He came to dinner the very day we met!”

His lip curled in a sneer. Marshall circled her slowly, a wolf waiting to make the killing blow. “Oh, yes, your
friend
. Tell me, Isabelle, what kind of
friend
accepts an invitation to a newlywed woman’s home while her husband is away? Hmm?” He stopped in front of her, his hands clasped behind his back. “And then runs for the hills as soon as he’s been caught taking advantage of his host’s … hospitality,” he finished suggestively.

She raised a fist in front of her chest in a challenging stance, and in that moment, if she could have, she would have consented to a round at Gentleman Jackson’s to settle things between them. “Your vile insinuations and your evil divorce were the betrayal. Not me, Marshall. It was never me. You trumped up your petition on the flimsiest of reasons, based only on the filth your mother fed you.”

Marshall’s eyes blazed with a fury as strong as her own. “Your memory fails you, my dear.”

Isabelle scoffed.

“The servants confirmed you invited Mr. Miller to Hamhurst after my departure. You rode together every day, disappearing for hours at a time. And when my mother — whom I sent to keep you company, by the by, knowing you would be in need of company — found you in
flagrante delicto
, you start spinning yarns about broken bones and friendly teas.”

“How can you say that?” Isabelle grabbed the hair at her scalp and bent forward. The room seemed to have gone askew. “Are you mad? My ribs were still wrapped by the time you came home. I tried to show you the bandages.”

He exhaled slowly and rubbed his hands over his face. “You’re wasting your breath, Isabelle.”

The flat, disinterested tone of his voice made her heart feel sick. She didn’t know why it even mattered to her anymore what he believed.

“We were young, and I was foolish and you were — ” He gestured with a hand. “Well, I was warned.”

By his mother.

His mother, alarmed by Isabelle from the first, insisting to anyone who would listen that her son’s intended was only after his fortune and title.

His mother, whose protests could only be silenced by Marshall’s father.

His mother, crying at their wedding for the proper match her son had failed to make.

His mother, newly widowed, standing over Isabelle while she was laid up in bed with a broken rib, calling her a whore.

His mother, telling her a divorce was only what an overreaching nobody like her deserved.

A dozen memories tumbled through her mind, each and every one of them pointing to a single, horrible conclusion.

Isabelle didn’t feel her knees give way. Marshall was suddenly crouched beside her on the floor, rubbing his hand across her back. Then she became aware of her position, on her knees, curled into a ball.

“Have you fainted?” Marshall asked, his annoyed tone tinged with concern.

“No,” Isabelle said into the rug. “I rarely faint. You know that.”

“It looked for all the world like you fainted,” Marshall said. “Your face went ghastly white, and you fell to the floor. What does that sound like to you?”

Isabelle straightened to sit on her heels. “Listen to us,” she said smiling sadly, “arguing over whether or not I fainted.” Marshall regarded her with a bemused expression. She looked at her hands in her lap and concentrated on keeping them still. “Just as well your mother had us divorced.”

She could have recited the first three pages of
The Mirror of Graces
in the ensuing silence.

At last, Marshall said in a carefully even voice, “That’s quite an accusation, Isabelle.”

She lifted her chin. “I do not make it lightly.”

“On what evidence do you base such claims?”

Isabelle shook her head. “There is no evidence. The dowager duchess always hated me, because I committed the sin of being born to a man without a title and a French peasant. No evidence, as you say. There was only the word of the woman who hated me, and the word of your wife.” She shrugged. “You chose to believe her.”

Marshall sat down on the floor with his arms resting on his knees. He looked at Isabelle for a long moment, searching her face. After a while, his eyes were still settled on her, but she could tell he was no longer
looking
at her. She saw anger and hurt in his expression, but also introspection.

The clock on the mantle chimed one o’clock in the morning. She’d been in his room for almost an hour. Mr. Davies would be furious with her for neglecting the kitchen for so long, especially if he found out she’d gone to a bedchamber with a guest.

“I have to go,” Isabelle said. Marshall seemed not to hear her. She retrieved her cap from the floor, twisted her hair into a hasty knot, and pulled the cap over it. She crossed to the door, but the sound of his voice stayed her hand.

“Even if what you say is true,” he said, “what do you expect me to do about it?”

He looked disarmingly charming sitting on the floor — nothing at all like the forbidding aristocrat he’d been downstairs.

She had no idea what sort of answer he wanted. She hadn’t thought that far ahead herself. “Nothing. What’s transpired is done.”

He nodded slowly.

They exchanged one last gaze — Isabelle in her cook’s garb and Marshall a disheveled duke sitting on the floor — and then she walked through the door and back to her duties. There were still dishes to be done before she could have her own supper.

• • •

For a long time, Marshall remained sitting on the floor. He didn’t know why — perhaps it had something to do with his affinity for being close to the earth. Whatever the reason, sitting on the floor had always been his preferred posture for serious thinking. He didn’t do it often, for reasons of propriety, but at a time like this, a chair was too confining for the large, troubling thoughts lumbering through his mind. A field would have been even better, but the open expanse of the sitting area floor would have to do.

Several truths had made themselves evident this evening. First, his former wife was living in anonymous exile and poverty, working to support herself. She was also an excellent cook, which he hadn’t known when they were married. It bothered him that he had not known this about his wife. She was well aware of his love affair with botany and the work he was involved in with the scientific community. Why hadn’t he taken the time to discover her talents and passions?

He shoved that bit of self-criticism aside to further ponder tonight’s observations. Isabelle had continued to deny that any wrongdoing transpired between herself and Justin Miller.

This troubled Marshall. If he were honest with himself, he had to admit she had always been a forthright woman, and had never given him cause to doubt her intentions or word, until the fateful day he learned she’d played him false. However, he could not discount the scene his mother witnessed at Hamhurst, especially when combined with Isabelle’s admission of inviting Miller to Hamhurst behind Marshall’s back.

Of course, there was her accusation that his mother manipulated both of them into divorcing. This was certainly an alarming prospect. Yet, when Marshall thought back to his courtship of Isabelle, their wedding, and the brief time in which they had lived together as husband and wife, he could not disregard her accusation out of hand. Caro, dowager Duchess of Monthwaite, had indeed distrusted Isabelle from the first. She had pleaded with Marshall not to marry her, certain the young Miss Fairfax was interested only in her son’s title and fortune. Only Marshall’s father had finally convinced her to keep her mouth closed on the subject. Her tears at the wedding were an unusual display of emotion from a woman who typically kept her reactions on a tight rein.

Caro was nothing if not a strong woman, with a firm sense of what was best for her children. As much as it pained him to think so, it would not be beyond her to have done what Isabelle suggested, particularly if she had good reason, such as proof of adultery.

Finally, Marshall turned his attention to the kiss he and Isabelle had almost shared. It had been there in his mind, the elephant in the room he had tried to think his way around without acknowledging. The Isabelle Marshall encountered tonight was in need of several good meals and a bath. Her dress was the most unbecoming woolen sack Marshall had ever laid eyes on. She smelled like a kitchen, herbs and yeast and lye soap. And she had intoxicated his senses more surely than all the alcohol he’d been steadily consuming since he saw her earlier this evening.

She had wronged him. She had lain with another man. Because of her actions, he’d been forced to air his private grievances in the most public forum imaginable, a divorce trial. He had spent years avoiding her and replacing whatever silly, juvenile tenderness he’d harbored for her with a sophisticated cynicism toward females.

And yet, he’d still been powerless against her artless charms. He’d unwillingly pitied her predicament, and simultaneously admired the gumption she had displayed by taking on employment. Worst of all, he had been painfully aroused. It was as bad as, or worse than, the passion he remembered from their marriage. If he had felt only a passing attraction for Isabelle, enough to beget his heir and little beyond, her betrayal would not have struck the blow that it had. But he had been strongly, deeply attracted to his young wife. She had awakened passion in him that no other woman before or since had come close to realizing. And that’s what he could not forgive, the way she had him nearly eating from the palm of her pretty hand, and then turned to another man for what Marshall had so freely given her.

Still, he thought, pulling himself to his feet and retrieving his portable writing desk, however she had wronged him, she was a gentlewoman who did not deserve the circumstances to which she had been reduced. He seated himself at the table in the corner of the sitting area and took out a fresh sheet of paper.

Mr. Fairfax,
he began,

I have recently discovered a matter that may cause you a degree of concern. Though we no longer share a familial connection, it is my sincere hope that you will take my words in the manner with which they are intended. You have my assurance, as a gentleman, of discretion. In return, I suggest in the strongest terms that you take every measure at your disposal to rectify the problem.

The matter to which I refer concerns your sister …

In the middle of March, a letter arrived from Fairfax Hall with a summons from Alexander for Isabelle to return home. Her brother included with his letter a bank draft with more than enough money for her to hire a post-chaise for the trip. He also said she should plan on an extended absence from her cottage, and should therefore make arrangements for its care while she was away.

When she went to the George to deliver her resignation, Mr. Davies met the news with dismay. “What do you mean you’re leaving us, Mrs. Smith?” He ran a rag over his sweat-sheened pate. “Is it a higher wage you’re after?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Is that blighter at the Fox and Glen trying to steal you away?”