The Hidden Heiress (5 page)

"Never."

Edward's face crumpled. "I'm tired of talking!"

Isabel leapt into the hall before he could reach her, trembling with fear. She heard a sound from further down the hall. She turned to see Paige watching her coldly, only a few feet away.

"Miss Balfour, where did you run off to?" Edward appeared in the doorway. "Don't be afraid of discovery, my dear. Jane is already asleep downstairs."

Isabel turned to Paige and said, "Did you need something, Paige? Are you having trouble sleeping?"

Edward followed her gaze to his daughter and blanched. "Hello, dear. Just making sure your governess is doing her job."

"And we all know what that is." Paige scowled, then stalked off into the shadows.

Edward grimaced and took another step into the now empty hall. "Did you do that on purpose? Did you bring her out here?"

"I didn't do anything. She must have heard us speaking in my room. Her room is only one door away."
She would hear my screams
, Isabel thought to herself. She pointed to the stairs. "Now would you please leave me alone?"

"Your job might be on very shaky ground, Miss Balfour. I would watch it if I were you."

She shook her head, cringing with disgust. "I appreciate the advice, Mr. Templeton, but I will not sleep with you to save my job."

He laughed with disbelief. "We'll see about that."

Isabel didn't reply as he passed her to go downstairs. She would let him have the last word. He could enjoy it for all she cared. But she was determined that was
all
he would get out of her.

"You're just like the rest of them," Paige sneered as soon as Isabel sat down the next morning. Her brown hair, frizzy and unbound, was worse than usual that morning. The buttons on her dress weren't even completely closed. She must have escaped her maid prematurely.

Isabel didn't blink an eye at her outburst. She leaned back in her chair. "Who is 'them', Paige?"

Paige moved a tall stack of books to carefully shield herself from Isabel's gaze. "All the other governesses that my father has seduced."

"Your father has not seduced me." She removed a book off the top of the stack and pushed it toward the girl. "Now open your history book."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Balfour," she replied in sweet, mocking tone. "Of course he didn't seduce you.
That
wasn't necessary."

Isabel leaned forward, this time moving the entire tower of books aside. "Paige, listen to me. Your father and I are not having an affair."

"Then what was he doing in your room last night? Playing whist?"

Isabel struggled for a response. She couldn't tell the truth to Edward's impressionable daughter, but anything other than the truth wouldn't ring true. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Your father was--"

"Don't bother, Miss Balfour. I know you're going to lie. I can see it in your eyes."

"I would like you to stop assuming things, Paige. It's a very ignorant habit."

Paige smirked. "So is prostitution."

"That's it," Isabel said, slamming her book closed. "You're doing lines for the rest of the morning."

"That isn't fair!"

"You've dug your own grave. I want you to copy this sentence into your reader one hundred times."

"Just because you can't keep your skirt down--"

Her face burned with embarrassment as her mouth fell open in shock. She struggled to find the words. Her gaze jumped to the bookcase. She yanked out a thin volume after spying its title. "And after that, you will read this book on etiquette from cover to cover. Perhaps by then, you'll have learned how to speak like a lady."

Paige stared at the two boks on the table in front of her and jumped up and down in her chair. "You--"

"If your handwriting isn't perfect, you'll keep doing it until it is." She watched the rage fester on the little girl's face and noticed how she kept glancing at the door. "As your governess, I have full control over you. You will not find any relief by running to your mother."

"That's what you think," she replied, her excitement bubbling down into quiet rebellion. "When she hears about you and father. . ."

"Your mother won't believe you. More than likely, she'll send you back up here to finish your penance, which will then become worse for your attempt to escape it. But you can take that risk, if you like."

Paige stared down at her reader, her eyes free from tears. "My mother knows about father's roving eye, you know. She cries herself to sleep. You're going to hell, not I."

"I have had nothing to do with your father. I will not repeat this again. If you mention the subject one more time, you will be writing those lines until your hand falls off."

Paige ripped open the book so violently she almost tore it and then she started to write. The pencil shook in her hand as she quivered with repressed fury.

"Jane and I are concerned about your future, Marshall." Edward leaned against a heavy wingback chair. "Becoming involved with Miss Balfour is
not
a move in the right direction. Have you so quickly forgotten what happened to Grant?"

"No."

His brother crossed the room to where he kept the humidor. "Cigar?"

"No, thank you. Many women consider them a nasty habit."

"I'm glad you told me," Edward replied, retrieving one from the large wooden box. "You have seen quite a bit of Miss Balfour considering she's only been in our household for a week."

"You can trust that I haven't seen as much as her as I would have liked."

He snipped the end of the cigar. "I wish I could laugh, but our governess is not the right woman to dally with. You worked so hard for your position and--"

"Stop right there. Grant got himself into trouble by marrying the girl." Marshall saw the lighter resting on the sideboard and offered it to his brother. "I don't intend to be so foolish."

"I wish I could believe that," he said, lighting the cigar. "But women like that have a way of trapping men."

"I am shocked that you would think I could be so manipulated. I realize I don't have the family estate to fall back on or anything else beyond what I've earned. I'd never risk that for something I can get anywhere."

"Then stop this nonsense entirely!"

Marshall tapped his foot on the light oak floor. "But Isabel isn't something I can get anywhere! She's clever, witty, and strong."

Edward's expression was cynical. "You forgot to say beautiful."

"
That
, I can get anywhere." Marshall paced in front of the Chippendale desk. "So the answer is no, I cannot just pretend that she doesn't exist."

Edward puffed fragrant smoke into the air. "Listening to you list her glorious attributes, I might as well post the marriage banns right now."

"This is going to stay casual, Edward."

"If you say so."

Marshall shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. "Is there anything else you wish to lecture me on?"

His brother rested his cigar in an ashtray and leaned against the desk next to him. "I only want the best for you."

"Always the elder brother, aren't you?"

Edward patted his shoulders. "You need to marry a woman who is your equal. Someone with wealth, a title, and all the attributes expected in the wife of a man of your standing. You won't get that junior lord position by marrying a governess."

"It's too bad that I cannot also increase my happiness by marrying a woman that pleases me."

His brother laughed again, but this time more cynically. "You wife doesn't need to please you, Marshall. That's what mistresses are for."

Marshall pushed himself away from the desk. "I have to go."

His brother followed him into the hall. "Just remember that Miss Norcross has had her eye on you for quite some time. She meets all of the above criteria and isn't at all dull."

Marshall scowled. "No, she is certainly the opposite of dull. I think she may be a little too lively, if you catch my drift."

"Those are just rumors. Don't you consider her pretty?"

"Not as much as she does," he said, one foot already on the porch. "I'll be back for dinner. Tell Jane that if she sits me next to Norcross, she'll get an earful."

He pulled the door shut before Edward could say anything else. Though snippy, it was better than slamming it as he would have preferred.

For his brother to suggest that Marshall couldn't handle himself with a woman was highly insulting. Just because he liked to talk to Isabel, didn't mean he was going to marry her. Just because he enjoyed being with her, didn't mean he was a lovesick child.

He would prove to his brother that he was wrong.

Marshall looked back at the closed door to the house and wished he was inside with Isabel.

Chapter 5

They couldn't go on like this. Isabel watched Paige clear the schoolroom table, sending daggers at her hated governess with every glance. "Paige, would you like to take tea in my room?"

"Why would I?"

Isabel sighed. "So we can talk."

Paige looked around the small schoolroom a few times before answering. "Weren't the lines punishment enough?"

"This isn't a punishment. I would like to make an attempt at friendship."

Paige shrugged, "I suppose I'll pay for it in some way if I refuse."

Isabel frowned and then led the way into her bedroom and started to fire up the small stove she used to heat the water.

Paige sat in one of the club chairs. "I don't really like tea."

"My tea is a little different. Perhaps you'll be surprised."

She shrugged again, examining the paintings on the wall with much interest.

When the tea finished brewing, Isabel put a pinch of mint in the pot, her special ingredient, then poured the tea into two small cups. "Paige?"

The girl looked up, boredom etched onto her face. "Thank you," she said, accepting the cup.

Isabel sipped her tea. "I think our first week went well. What do you think?"

"Oh, yes. Lovely." Paige winced when she tasted the tea.

"What?"

"Not enough sugar."

Isabel set her cup on an end table. "Let me get you some more," she said as she stood.

"Don't worry," Paige replied, waiting until Isabel had already crossed the room. "I'm almost finished now."

"Paige, a lady doesn't gulp her tea."

"I was thirsty," she replied. She coughed. "Though your tea was terrible, it tasted quite peculiar."

Isabel took a deep breath. "I don't understand how you drank it so fast if you didn't even like it."

Paige coughed again.

"Are you all right?"

"I don't know." She clutched her throat. "I can't breathe."

Fear enveloped her as she thought of what had happened when she'd first come to London. Her tea had been poisoned. Just like then, she'd had no warning. No precognition; no prickly feeling in the back of her neck.

But this time, Paige was being attacked.

Isabel rushed to her side. "Take slow, calm breaths, Paige."

"I think I'm going to vomit," she gasped.

Pangs of guilt mingled with hope. If the girl could expunge the toxins from her body, she might survive. But what if she didn't? Isabel touched Paige's forehead. It was far too hot. "I'm going to get your mother."

Paige gripped her arm. "Don't go." A tear escaped her eye. "She won't be any help to me anyway."

Isabel looked around her bedroom, wondering where the culprit was this time. Who was doing this to her, and would she ever be safe? She offered Paige her hand. "We can go for help together."

After coughing again, Paige propelled forward and vomited on the rug. "I ck etter," Paige sighed, a note of surprise in her voice. She leaned back and took a deep breath. "What was in that tea?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I know," she replied, hating to face the reality that Paige would soon discover.

"What do you mean, as far as you know?"

"
I
didn't put anything unusual in it, but . . ." She nibbled on her bottom lip.

Paige stood up, her energy apparently regained. She approached the small stove. "I want to see."

"I don't think you'll find anything."

She looked through the tea first, then into the pitcher of water the maid had left. Then she spied the tin where Isabel kept the mint. "What's this?"

"Mint leaves."

Paige dropped the tin, sending it rattling across the floor. "You put mint in my tea?"

"Yes, I put mint in
our
tea. It gives it a nice flavor."

"I'm allergic to it!"

Isabel stumbled forward. "What?"

"I can't have mint. It makes me . . . well, you've already seen what it makes me do." Paige stormed to the door. "You poisoned me."

"Don't be ridiculous, Paige. I didn't poison you. How would I know that you're allergic to mint?"

"My mother probably told you. Or perhaps the cook. Maybe you paid one of them to tell you. No one in this house gives a damn about me!"

Isabel yanked the bell pull for the maid. "You're behaving foolishly, Paige. I would gain nothing by trying to hurt you."

"Of course you would."

"Like what?"

Paige stared down at her feet. "Your plans are much too devious for me to figure out." She pulled open the door, surprising the maid.

Dolly took a gingerly step into the room. "Is everything all right, Miss Paige?"

"Everything is fine
now
," she bit out, tossing Isabel an icy look.

Isabel gestured to the rug. "We've had a little accident."

The maid grimaced. "I'll get that cleaned up right away."

Paige nodded. "Good. But be careful around Miss Balfour. I simply don't know what the crazy woman is capable of." With that, she disappeared.

Unable to meet the maid's eyes, Isabel moved away from the mess. Her relationship with Paige was in shambles, but she couldn't help but feel relieved. It had merely been an allergy, not tea leaves laced with arsenic. The temporary life she'd carved out for herself was still safe.

They hadn't found her. Yet.