Secrets of a Proper Countess (4 page)

I
sobel reluctantly opened her eyes and blinked at the toast and tea that had been left on her bedside table. Both were stone cold.

She squinted at the clock on the mantel and gasped. It was nearly noon. She threw back the covers and would have shot out of bed, but every muscle in her body ached. It was a very pleasant ache, and she lay back and smiled. She felt warm, satisfied and rested, and she tried to recall the last time she had woken this late, or feeling this good, but it was something that simply had never happened before.

Blackwood!

She hadn't dreamed it. Every single caress had been gloriously real. Robert had never made her feel this way. Not even in the early days of their marriage when he still pretended to like her.

She listened for footsteps in the corridor, but the house was silent, so she burrowed back under the covers. She touched a fingertip to her mouth, marveling that she'd really dared to—she let her lips spread into a wide grin—in Evelyn's garden, for heaven's sake! She suppressed a giggle, but it bubbled out as a sigh.

Blackwood!

He'd more than lived up to his reputation, far surpassed
her wildest dreams of what it would be like to—She gasped as heat pulsed through her body, pooled in her belly, breathless at the images that flitted through her mind. His eyes, his mouth, his hands, oh, his hands! It had been a daring risk, but well worth it, she gloated. It wouldn't matter if he was discreet or not. He had no idea who she was. She grinned and stretched like a wanton cat.

Her bare foot popped out from under the covers into the cold air of her room, shocking her back to reality. What was she thinking? Her behavior had been shameful! She should never have taken a simple flirtation so far. There would be terrible consequences if Honoria found out.

Her mother-in-law would not understand that Blackwood was utterly irresistible and she had been rendered mad for one foolish instant by his smile, his eyes, his—

What had she done?

Perhaps she was just as wanton as her mother after all. With her face burning, Isobel got up and wrapped her robe around her body like protective armor, knotting the sash so tightly it nearly cut her in two. She held her breath and waited, but there were no shrieks of rage from Honoria's rooms, no pounding feet on the stairs as they came to demand an explanation for her behavior.

Not that she had one, except that it had been
Blackwood
. How could she have acted otherwise?

She gulped down a cup of cold tea to steady her nerves. She ignored the toast. She couldn't eat with her stomach in knots, her heart in a tangle, her mind and limbs mush from—

Blackwood.

She crossed to the basin to splash her face with cold water before reverie could carry her off again. It hit her like a slap, and she looked at herself in the mirror that hung above the basin. She didn't look any different. Well, her eyes were brighter, perhaps, and her cheeks rosier. Her lips looked—
well, they looked soft and plump, like she'd spent the night in a dark garden kissing someone.

Not just
someone.

Blackwood.

She sucked her moony grin into a tight pucker and scrubbed her glowing face with a cold wet flannel.

Isobel rang the bell and waited for her maid to arrive. After a few minutes with no Sarah, she went to the wardrobe and chose a suitable dress herself, gray serge with a black edging, plainly cut and suitable for a respectable widow. Honoria had chosen it. Isobel put it on, knowing she had been anything but respectable last night.

It was over, she told herself. It would not be repeated, and the whole thing was best forgotten. She buttoned the hated half-mourning gown all the way to her chin and sighed. Such an encounter could never be truly forgotten. Tucked away perhaps, for private reflection, but who could forget
Blackwood
?

She picked up her comb, horrified to note that her hazel eyes still glowed and her cheeks shone. She pulled her russet hair into a matronly bun and practiced looking sober and sensible. Perhaps if she kept her eyes downcast and didn't meet Honoria's gaze, her mother-in-law wouldn't notice anything amiss. She shut her eyes and tried to banish Blackwood to a secret corner of her mind.

There was a knock on the door, and Isobel spun, but it was only Sarah, her maid, come at last. “'Morning, Countess. You rang for me?”

“Yes, some time ago,” Isobel replied with a smile, giving her hair a final pat with nervous fingers. A veritable forest of pins, twice as many as Sarah would have used, held her unruly curls in submission.

“I'm sorry. Her ladyship had me help count the silverware again,” Sarah said. “I couldn't get away. If so much as a teaspoon goes missing…”

She let Sarah complain. Honoria often pressed Isobel's maid into helping with menial chores. Counting silverware was not part of the duties Sarah had been hired to perform. Nor was polishing crystal or sorting linen. Isobel had objected, carefully, but Honoria insisted if the girl was unwilling to work she should be dismissed. Isobel couldn't bear to lose Sarah.

Sarah kept her secrets.

“Never mind, Sarah, I'm dressed now. I'm going up to the nursery to see Robin,” Isobel said, patting the maid's shoulder sympathetically. “We're going to feed the ducks this afternoon.” She held the door as Sarah carried out the breakfast tray.

Isobel climbed the stairs to the third floor, catching herself humming. She clamped her lips shut before anyone heard her, but a thrill crept up from her toes, and she took the last few steps two at a time like a giddy girl.

Blackwood!

At the nursery door, she smoothed her gown and went in, a smile of anticipation on her face. Her five-year-old son looked up from his lunch and grinned, and for the first time since she'd left Evelyn's party, all thoughts of Blackwood vanished.

“Mama!” the Sixth Earl of Ashdown crowed with delight, and threw himself around her knees, burying his face in her skirt. Isobel didn't care that he'd been eating tarts and her gown now sported wrinkles and small jammy handprints. She ignored Nurse's offer of a napkin to wipe it away and ruffled her son's soft curls.

She sat on the floor with her child while Nurse looked on fondly. He had so little time to play. Honoria insisted that Robin spend his days learning reading, numbers, French and Latin. She wanted her grandson to go to Harrow at the earliest possible age. The fact that Isobel thought he was too
young for that didn't matter. Her husband's will left the raising of their son to his mother and brother.

Isobel had not realized how much Robert hated her until his will was read. True, theirs had never been a warm marriage. They were wed by arrangement, with no consideration of love, or even regard, but still it shocked her when his will placed herself and Robin so entirely under his family's control. If she married or even formed friendships without Charles and Honoria's approval, she would be barred from her son's life. Charles was given the management of her fortune, to keep her from the kind of temptations a woman rich in her own right might fall prey to.

Robert's will insisted that his widow's behavior must be impeccable, in keeping with the sterling reputation of the Maitland family. If there was the faintest whiff of the kind of scandalous behavior that Isobel's mother had engaged in, Honoria would see that every respectable door in London was closed to her.

While the opinions of society mattered little to Isobel, her son was the only good thing in her life. She could not bear to lose Robin, and so she behaved as they wished her to. Mostly.

She looked at Robin's bright face now, at the red hair that came from her side of the family, the smile and eyes that were all her mother's. How it must rankle when Honoria looked at him.

Robin prattled on about ducks, and Isobel bit her lip, thinking of what she'd risked for a few moments of pleasure in Blackwood's arms. It must never, ever, happen again, even if she had to live the rest of her life without a man's touch.

The door opened without the courtesy of a knock. Isobel, with her back to the portal, watched as Nurse's smile fled, and she knew who it was before even turning to look.

“Good day, Miss Kirk,” Nurse said stiffly, confirming the intruder's identity. Isobel's heart sank as she turned to
meet the disapproving glare of Honoria's paid companion.

“Lady Honoria and Lord Charles sent me to tell you that they are awaiting you in the dining room, Countess. You are fifteen minutes late for luncheon.”

Jane Kirk eyed Isobel as if hoping to catch her at a greater misdeed than merely sitting on the floor of the nursery. In addition to writing Honoria's letters and reading to her from improving books, Jane was her ladyship's spy.

Jane's eyes narrowed with speculation now, and Isobel felt her skin heat, remembering she was indeed guilty this time. She wondered if there was some telltale sign that a woman had been recently bedded, and very well bedded at that. She wanted to hide, but instead she rose as gracefully as possible and returned the companion's glare.

“You have stains on your gown, Countess,” Jane Kirk said coldly, and Isobel felt relief that jam was all she had noticed. “I shall inform Lady Honoria that there will be a further delay while you change your dress.”

Isobel resisted the urge to smooth her gown. Jane held the door open, expecting her to obey Honoria's summons immediately. Instead, she turned to hug Robin, who had gone quiet, his smile lost at Jane's unwelcome intrusion.

Isobel kissed his cheek, and whispered in his ear. “Ask Nurse to have Cook pack up all the dry bread, and I'll meet you at the duck pond at three o'clock.”

“I shall save my own bread from luncheon,” Robin whispered back.

“Me too,” she replied, and he smiled.

“Growing children need their food, and ducks are dirty creatures,” said Jane with disapproval, leaning in to hear the private words between mother and son. Robin's smile faded once more. Isobel suppressed a sharp retort. It would only get her into trouble.

“I'll see you in the park,” Isobel said, sending her son a
conspirator's grin as she left the room, ignoring Jane Kirk's sour expression.

 

Honoria glared at Isobel as she took her seat at the table. “Luncheon is always served precisely at one o'clock, Isobel. You are more then half an hour late. It was very inconsiderate of you to have kept Charles and myself waiting.”

“I'm sorry. I was with Robin in the nursery,” Isobel murmured.

Honoria's frown deepened. “You baby that boy far too much. You should limit your visits to one per week, and for a few minutes only. You fly in at the most awkward times and interrupt his lessons.”

Isobel stared at the plate of soup before her. It was cream of leek, which was Charles's favorite and therefore served regularly. Isobel detested it. She let her lip curl for a moment.

“You fill the boy's head with nonsense, telling him fairy stories,” Charles added, snapping his napkin in the air before laying it on his lap. “He needs more time with his tutors. His Latin is abysmal.”

Isobel forced herself to swallow a mouthful of the hated soup to keep from asking her brother-in-law just how good his own Latin was. She recalled Robert telling her that Charles had been at the bottom of all his classes at school. Yet Robert had made him responsible for managing their son's affairs until he came of age. She, of course, was not permitted to know the details of how the earldom was being managed.

Resentment tasted as vile as the soup. She would order Robin a dozen new storybooks from Hatchard's the moment luncheon ended, and not a single one of them in Latin.

“Jane said she found you rolling on the floor of the nursery, your gown disheveled and filthy. She said your hair needed combing. Is this the way you believe you should appear before an impressionable child?” Honoria demanded.

Isobel bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood, but didn't argue. There was no point in making her mother-in-law angry. Especially today. She felt hot color creeping over her cheeks, and the knot of anger in her throat made swallowing more soup impossible.

“Blood will tell, I suppose,” Honoria added, shooting the familiar barb at Isobel's mother.

Isobel concentrated on placing her spoon just so on the edge of her bowl before she clasped the linen napkin in her lap and twisted it, imagining it was Honoria's fat neck.

It was hardly her fault that her mother had run off with an Italian musician, abandoning her cold marriage when her daughter was only ten. She had chosen happiness and love, two things Isobel would eternally lack, thanks to Robert's will and Honoria's twisted ideas of proper behavior.

At least she had her secret tryst with Blackwood to soothe the sting of Honoria's comments today. She suppressed a smile as a tingle bubbled through her tainted blood.

Her mother-in-law was expounding on the right way to raise a boy, and Isobel stopped listening. Honoria had no right to tell anyone how to be a mother, having raised two such odious, unfeeling, self-centered sons as Robert and Charles.

She let her mind drift back to the delights of Evelyn's garden, the delicious anonymity of it all. Perhaps she truly was like her mother, and it just took a man like the notorious—

“Marquess of Blackwood,” Charles said out loud, and Isobel looked up at her brother-in-law in horror. He laughed at her, his piggy eyes disappearing into pouches of sallow skin.

“Woolgathering again, were you?” He laughed. “I can imagine the blackguard's name would shock you, and rightly so.” She continued to stare, and he rolled his eyes at her lack
of comprehension and stabbed a finger at the newspaper beside his plate.

“It says Blackwood's youngest sister is making her debut this season. For all she's the granddaughter of the Duke of Carrington, she'll not find it easy to get a proposal from a decent gentleman, with Blackwood's name associated with her own.”