Why Dukes Say I Do (35 page)

Isabella remembered with disgust her husband’s glee when she had informed him that she was with child. She’d thought it was because at long last he would have an heir, thus proving himself to be as virile as he claimed to be. But now she understood that there had been another reason for his enthusiasm. Ralph would have thought himself something close to omnipotent for achieving such a feat as getting both his wife and his mistress with child in such quick succession.

Of course, his joy had turned into contempt when he learned the circumstances behind the deaths of Isabella’s mother and brother. Then he treated her like a prisoner, always on the lookout for some sign of impending madness.

“Of course, when you miscarried and I lost my baby so soon after he was born,” Charity continued, “Ralph showed just where his loyalties lay,” the other woman said bitterly. “He didn’t even shed a tear over my little Charlie, but he carried on for weeks over the loss of your whelp. If I’d had any doubts over who he valued more, he set me straight then. When I asked him for the funds for a proper burial he told me to pay for my own bastard’s grave. As if he didn’t have a hand in fathering the boy.”

Isabella thought back to the weeks following her miscarriage. It was not a time she remembered well, simply because she’d been in such despair and had taken so much laudanum to numb her pain that she’d spent much of the time sleeping. How much worse would she have felt if she’d carried the child to term and lost him then? she wondered. It was hardly surprising that Mrs. Savery was so angry now. Especially if Ralph had behaved as she said he did.

“He was a detestable man,” Isabella said, not bothering to hide her vehemence. “He used you and dismissed you. He took out his frustrations on me with his fists, and worse. He deserves neither one of our pity.”

But if she had thought the other woman would agree with her, Isabella was in for a surprise. Instead of chiming in with her own contempt for the man who had hurt them both, Charity began to laugh. Not a joyous sound, but a maniacal one.

“Of course he beat you,” she said with a shake of her mobcapped head. “You kept him from doing what he really wished and marrying me. He might not have treated me like a queen,” she continued, “but he loved me. We loved each other. And no amount of money from your father or threats from the dowager could change that. He was weak, it’s true. Otherwise he never would have married you in the first place. But his father had his rules. And Ralph was nothing if not an obedient son. So he married you to make his father happy. And he kept me in our little house to make himself happy.”

It was a common enough tale, Isabella supposed. Plenty of gentlemen lived double lives, keeping a wife and children in one, respectable, residence, and a mistress in another. But Isabella hadn’t considered that Ralph would have defied his father in such a way. Of course, she was the embodiment of his obedience to the older man. She wondered suddenly if her father-in-law had known about her husband’s arrangement with Mrs. Savery. Isabella somehow thought he might have.

“I see,” she said aloud. If she could perhaps keep the woman talking, Trevor would discover she’d left her bed and would come looking for her. “Why did you wait so long to punish me? It’s been nearly four years since Ralph died, after all.”

“I was approached by a certain person,” the other woman said casually, “a person who wanted to pay me to make your life a living nightmare.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I needed the money. And I know enough about you from Ralph’s stories that I knew just what to do to frighten you.”

Isabella was surprised to hear that the woman had been hired by another person to frighten her. Who would do such a thing? And why? She thought back to the first note she’d received.
I know what you did last season.

Could the person who hired Mrs. Savery be doing this as a means of revenge for Gervase’s death? It seemed so far-fetched. And yet it made a diabolical kind of sense.

Though she knew the other woman had little reason to tell her, Isabella asked, “Who was it that hired you to frighten me, Mrs. Savery? Will you tell me?”

The baby stirred in the other woman’s arms and began to fret. It was disturbing to watch Charity soothe the baby even as she kept the gun trained on Isabella. “There, there, little mite,” Charity crooned. “There’s nothing to be frightened of. Nothing at all.”

To Isabella she said coldly, “I wouldn’t tell you who hired me, even if I could. Because that would give you some satisfaction. And I’ll be damned before I see you relax ever again, Your Grace.” She said the courtesy with contempt, as if the very words tasted terrible in her mouth.

It was worth a try, Isabella thought, even as the woman’s words sent a shiver down her spine. She wished suddenly that she’d waited for Trevor to return before charging up here. If only because together they’d have an easier time rescuing the baby.

“I’m not quite sure why you hate me so much,” Isabella tried again. “Clearly Ralph was far more fond of you than he was of me. I was little more than an obligation to him. You were the one he wanted to be with. Even though I didn’t know you were there waiting for him across town, I knew that his heart belonged to someone else.” She was improvising now, but she decided if she could convince the other woman that Ralph had truly loved her perhaps she would let down her guard a little.

“You lie,” Charity said, her eyes narrowed. But there was a hint of something there, hope, perhaps, that told Isabella she was making progress.

“No, not at all,” she said, leaning forward in her chair a bit, as if they were two acquaintances chatting over the tea table. “In fact, I once found a note that I thought was written to me but I now suspect was written to you.”

The promise of a letter from her dead lover proved to be just the right sort of lure to spark the woman’s interest. “Why do you say that?” she asked, her eyes a bit less narrow, her lip between her teeth.

“It was addressed to ‘Darling’ for one thing,” Isabella said, hoping that Ralph had been as careless with his endearments with the other woman as he was with her. “Does that sound familiar?”

When the other woman’s eyes lit up, Isabella knew it did. Grateful for her late husband’s laziness, she went on, “If you’ll just let me go back up to my bedchamber, I’ll retrieve it for you.”

But that would have been too easy. Charity’s gaze hardened and she shook her head. “I don’t think so, Your Grace. I don’t think I trust you not to go running for help. No, I’ll come with you, just to keep you company, you understand.”

Careless of the baby in her arms, Mrs. Savery rose from the chair and in the process woke the sleeping baby, who began to wail. “Shut up. Shut up.” Jerking her head at Isabella, Charity indicated that she should take the baby from her arms.

“You hold the little one,” she said coldly, “and I’ll follow you to your bedchamber. I still don’t trust you not to run, but at least with the baby in your arms you’ll be hampered a bit.”

Taking the child, Isabella was disturbed to see a red mark on the baby’s cheek as if she’d been struck. “What’s her name?” Isabella asked the other woman.

“Doesn’t have one so’s I can tell,” Charity said. “I got her from a woman in Whitechapel whot runs a nursery of sorts.”

Isabella could guess what sort of nursery Charity spoke of. Ladies of the
ton
weren’t supposed to know such places existed, but Isabella had heard about them from Georgina, who in turn had learned about them through her charitable work. They were horrible places where babies were kept and drugged with laudanum until they were too weak to survive. Isabella cuddled the child to her even as she vowed that they would both escape this ordeal. And holding her head high, she led the other woman out of the nursery and into the hallway.

*   *   *

“Let me see the note again,” Trevor said to Lord Archer from their table at the Goose and Pickle.

Wordlessly the man handed Trevor the folded missive. They’d been approached by an urchin with the note just as they were leaving the Wharton town house.

It had been two hours since the appointed meeting time, and Trevor was feeling hoodwinked. He scanned the words on the page once more to see if they’d missed something. But the message was simple enough. They were to meet this person and in exchange for fifty pounds he would tell them who was responsible for tormenting Isabella. But there was something about the words. The paper. Something that triggered a memory. If only he could remember what.

“Is there anything odd about this note, Archer?”

Trevor’s companion frowned. “You mean besides the fact that it’s a blackmail note? Not particularly.”

“There’s something here,” Trevor said with a shake of his head. As if the shaking would dislodge whatever was making him feel uneasy.

“‘If you want to know who’s teasing yer lady wife, bring fifty pound and I’ll tell yer,’” Archer recited the note from memory. “Is it something about the phrasing?” he asked. “The grammar?”

Trevor thought through the wording of the note again. “It’s ‘lady wife,’” he said. “Someone has used that precise phrase with me recently.” He’d met so many new people since his and Isabella’s arrival in London it was difficult to remember all of them. But someone had used the phrase. It was common enough, but not one that was used all that frequently in his hearing.

Archer shook his head. “I haven’t heard it recently. But who has been speaking to you of Isabella? Perhaps we can narrow it that way.”

“Since the majority of conversation I’ve had since I got to town has been about my hasty marriage, that will hardly make a difference.”

“Good point.” Archer took the note from Trevor and looked at it. “It’s the sort of phrase a person uses when issuing an invitation, like ‘and will your lady wife be joining you this evening?’ or when asking after her, ‘And how is your lady wife?’”

Trevor nodded. “Yes, but those sound like inquiries from our peers. For some reason I think this came from someone with a lower accent.”

Archer tipped his head to the side, rather like an inquiring spaniel. “It would be highly irregular for a servant to use the phrase with you. It’s overfamiliar. And I cannot imagine Timms allowing such a thing in Ormonde House. Or Mrs. Timms for that matter.”

“Yes,” Trevor said. “That’s why it feels so out of place. But I’d swear it was someone in Ormonde House. Not that there isn’t an army of servants to go through there.”

“But not that many who would have reason to speak to you,” Archer pointed out. “With whom do you have conversations among the servants? Your valet, and I believe you’d remember him saying such a thing. The maids? The footmen? Isabella’s m—”

“That’s it!” Trevor interrupted. “It was Isabella’s maid, Sanders.” He felt a chill run down his spine. “I stepped into Isabella’s bedchamber to … uh, speak to her, and Sanders made a point of telling me that she’d leave me alone with my ‘lady wife,’ as if she were doing me a favor by leaving.”

“She would certainly have the kind of access necessary to blackmail you. And if she knows whoever it is that has been frightening Isabella—”

“But that’s just it,” Trevor said. “I’ve had the feeling all evening that this was a diversionary tactic. What if it’s Sanders who has been doing all of this to Isabella? She knows everything about Isabella’s daily life. She knows her likes and dislikes. Just what it will take to push her over the edge.” Sanders even knew, though he didn’t say it aloud, when he and Isabella made love. When they quarreled. When they made up.

“If this was a ploy to get us away from Isabella,” Archer said, “then we’d better get back to the house at once. Because she’s had two hours alone with her.”

But Trevor was already out of his seat and rushing out of the tavern.

*   *   *

“Just tell me where the letter is,” Charity said sharply once they’d reached the sitting room attached to Isabella’s bedchamber. The hand holding the gun hadn’t wavered once as they’d made their way to the mistress’s suite. And with her prize in sight, the maid had nearly begun to vibrate with anticipation of reading her former lover’s words to her. She was obsessed, Isabella knew now. Obsessed with a man who had treated her like a used handkerchief. To be cast aside once he’d finished with her. But clearly whatever bond the other woman had shared with Ralph, it had been different from her own. Perhaps to Charity’s disordered mind that had been love.

“It’s hidden inside a book of poetry,” Isabella said, hoping that Charity’s anger when she discovered that Isabella was lying would be distraction enough to let her escape. She moved toward the small shelf of books near her writing desk. “It’s Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

The book was one she kept with her whenever she traveled. She only hoped that Charity had never looked inside it before. Otherwise Isabella was in danger of having the woman catch her out in the lie.

Isabella hoisted the baby onto her shoulder, relieved to feel the child’s shallow breaths on her neck. “Here,” she said, reaching out a hand to grasp the book before Charity could. Isabella flipped open the volume where she’d absently slipped a bill from Madame Celeste to use as a bookmark and hoped that it looked enough like a personal letter to fool the other woman.

Unfolding it, Isabella improvised, pretending to read aloud:

“‘Darling, As I write this my wife sleeps. And all I can think of is you and the child you carry. If only our child could inherit the title instead of the accursed child of this loveless union I’m trapped in. It is you I love. Only you. And no amount of whinging from Isabella can change that. You are the wife of my heart. And I will do whatever it takes to make sure we can be together. Yours, Ralph.’”

As Isabella said the words, she feared that she was overdoing it. Ralph had never been particularly demonstrative with her. But she hoped that Charity’s wishful thinking was enough to make her believe that for the space of this one letter he’d unburdened his heart, such as it was.

“Again,” Charity said, tears streaming down her face. “Read it again.”

To Isabella’s astonishment, Charity had taken a seat in the desk chair and was looking to Isabella like a child requesting a story. Charity had even rested the gun in her lap for a moment.