Deceived (8 page)

Isabella grimaced. "I thank you, but no." She tapped the newspaper. "It seems that some enterprising person has
already chosen to profit from my activities. It is only a matter of time before my letters make it into print. It is most vexing," she added. "Such a shoddy little publication, as well!"

"Would it have been better had the gossip been printed in the
Times?"
Pen inquired.

"Certainly. One gets a better standard of scandal in those sorts of papers." Isabella sighed gustily. "It cannot be helped. My entire married life has been dogged by quizzes and gossips. But you will forgive me if I do not set pen to paper again."

Pen's brow was furrowed as she scanned the column in the paper.

"Do you know who is writing this?"

Isabella shrugged. "It could be anyone. Acquaint-
ances
, servants. . . Certainly it seems to be someone who has more than a little knowledge of my life."

Pen bit her Up. "Do you intend to try and find out who it is?"

Isabella raised her brows. "I shall not bother. A little more tittle-tattle can scarcely harm me."

Pen put the paper aside. "So if you are not to write letters," she said, "the seawater cure it is. Assuming that you do not expire from the excitement first!" She paused. "You do know that you will have Marcus Stockhaven as tenant at Salterton? Aunt Jane leased Salterton Cottage to him when he and cousin India were married."

Isabella, whose teacup had been balanced precariously on the arm of her chair, now jumped so much that the liquid cascaded onto the floor.

"Marcus Stockhaven? Why did you not tell me before?"

She realized that her words had come out much more stridently than she had intended. Pen was staring at her, a little flushed.

"Well, upon my word! I had no idea that the matter would be of such great import to you after all these years," she said. "Is it not Mr.
Churchward's
job to acquaint you with your inheritance, rather than mine?" She paused, adding more lightly, "Marcus has seldom visited Salterton since Aunt Jane died. You need have no fear of meeting him unexpectedly, if that is what concerns you."

"I beg your pardon," Isabella said, still flustered. Her pulse was thrumming and her heart beating in her throat, and it was the mere mention of Marcus's name that had done it. God forbid that she should meet him again. She would be a quivering wreck. But of course, she would not. She reminded herself that he was in prison. Perhaps the tenancy of Salterton had been a problem for him. Since he did not own the house, he would not have been able to sell it to settle his debts.

She used the opportunity provided by the spilled tea to turn away from Pen and gather up her shattered control. "I did not intend to sound so sharp, Pen. I was merely surprised." She looked up, as flushed as Pen from surprise and guilty conscience. "I do apologize."

Pen looked evasive. "Oh, it is nothing to the purpose. It must have slipped the minds of both Aunt Jane and myself to mention it in our correspondence."

Isabella hesitated. There was an odd tone in Pen's voice and an odd feeling in the room, as though something had been left unsaid. She waited but Pen merely avoided her gaze and fidgeted with her teaspoon, smearing honey over the saucer.

"I infer that Mr. Churchward did not mention the matter to you at all?" Pen added.

Isabella's shoulders slumped. She recalled that on her first meeting with Churchward after she had returned to England, the lawyer had indeed attempted to tell her something of the encumbrances upon her new estate, but she had waved the matter aside. The issue of Ernest's debts had become far more pressing than any other matter and she had forgotten all about the details of Salterton. It looked as though it would prove to be an expensive oversight. It seemed that she was tied to Marcus Stockhaven in more ways than she had anticipated, and none of them were welcome.

"No, he did not," she said. "How provoking!"

Pen raised her eyebrows. "That Churchward forgot to tell you?"

"No! Yes!" Isabella collected herself. "I do recall him mentioning something about a tenant, but I did not pursue it."

"Oh well. . ." Pen seemed anxious to let the subject go. "I imagine you will not be much troubled by Marcus. Salterton Cottage was damaged by fire a few months ago and is uninhabitable. Besides, Marcus chooses to live elsewhere—or to travel. One seldom sees him in society. I am not even sure where he is now."

Imprisoned in the Fleet for debt,
Isabella thought.

She swallowed a variety of uncomfortable feelings and kept quiet. Her overriding emotion was a deep and heartfelt desire for Marcus to be kept under lock and key. If he were ever to be free. . .the very thought of it was sufficient to make her insides quake.

At the same time, she was puzzled. What had happened to render Marcus's financial state so dire? She had asked him but he had declined to explain and she had not pressed. Now she wished she had.

"I imagine you will not be much troubled by him. . ."

Truth to tell, she was already far more troubled by Marcus Stockhaven than Pen would ever know.

Her sister was fidgeting with her cup.

"I wish I could help you, Bella," Pen was saying. "Financially, I mean. I know this is not how you would have wished your return to England to be."

Isabella shook her head. She appreciated her sister's generosity but Pen subsisted on next to nothing as it was. Their father had left her a small allowance, enough to permit her to live quietly in an unfashionable comer of London, but there was certainly not enough to make any kind of impression on Ernest's debts.

"You are all kindness, Penelope," she said, smiling, "but my situation is not too dreadful. I have managed to stave off bankruptcy for a few months and once this house is sold, I shall be solvent again and able to afford to live in the country if I am careful. In fact my plans are falling out rather well."

Rather well if one discounted the small
incon-venience
of an unwanted husband, she amended silently. She made a mental note to ask Mr. Churchward for the particulars of annulment at once. She hoped that he might be able to speak of matters such as non-consummation of the marriage without too much personal embarrassment.

Pen's chatter recalled her thoughts.

"I warrant that some country gentleman will snap you up," her sister was saying. "A man of fortune and standing in Salterton society, who has great plans for the development of the place as a resort and wishes for a tided wife to add to his prestige."

"God forbid," Isabella said, shuddering. "I fear I would be too outrageous for such an upright man."

Her sister looked at her. "True," she said, after a moment. "There is something—" she hesitated "—something too sophisticated about you to sit comfort-ably in a small town with a small-town husband. You would always do something scandalous and shock the local worthies. I know you."

"I am not scandalous!" Isabella objected. "Ernest was scandalous. I am quite. . ."

"Quite?"

"Quite respectable."

"Doing it too brown, Bella," Pen said with relish. "It is true that you are not disreputable in the sense that Ernest was, but being a princess has conferred certain privileges on you that make you dismissive of society's rules."

"I insist that you give an example," Isabella said indignantly.

"Very well." Pen seemed calmly assured of the truth of her assertion. "You put your elbows on the dinner table. You address the servants directly as though they were real people. You have been known to attend a sparring match at the Fives Court. You have ridden one of those newfangled hobbyhorse wheeled contraptions, which no lady could consider genteel—"

Isabella waved a dismissive hand. "Such matters are scarcely outrageous!"

"You told the Duchess of Saint Just that she treated her niece worse than a scullery maid—"

"Well, so she did. She forced the child to starch the linen until her fingers blistered!"

"And you told Prince
Bazalget
that he was an old lecher to consider marrying a seventeen-year-old girl."

Isabella opened her eyes very wide. "I have strong feelings on such a subject."

"Understandably," Pen said. "But you do admit the accuracy of what I am saying?"

Isabella deflated a little. "I suppose so. Manners do not make this princess, do they?"

Pen leaned across and gave her a spontaneous hug. "You are splendid, Bella. But you will never be respectable."

A certain raucous noise from the entrance hall at that moment suggested that the remaining member of the Standish family had arrived and that Isabella was not the only one to be less than respectable. Belton threw the library door open.

"Lord Standish," he announced with dreadful calm, as though the evening could only degenerate further.

Like his sisters, Freddie Standish was very pleasing to the eye. Fair and slim, he was a general favorite with the matrons as long as he made no attempts to seek fortune by marrying one of their daughters. He shared the modest house in
Pimlico
with Pen and worked—nominally, at least—for a banker who liked the prestige of having a titled gentleman to deal with the social side of his business. Despite the ignominy of his situation, Freddie always seemed good-humored and blessedly unflustered. Isabella loved him for it, though Pen maintained with dry affection that Freddie only had one mood because he was too stupid to have developed a range of them.

"Good evening, Freddie," Isabella said, tilting her face up for his kiss of greeting. "I was telling Pen that I have managed to stave off bankruptcy for a few months, until the house is sold."

"Congratulations," Freddie said, sitting down on the sofa and ungallantly obliging his sister to move up to give him more space. He looked about him. "Never liked the place myself. Far too vulgar."

"Yes, it is," Isabella said with a sigh. "I shall be retiring to Salterton instead."

Freddie looked horrified. "Salterton? In Hampshire?"

"Dorset," Pen snapped. "I told her it was a foolish idea."

"Quite right," Freddie said. He helped himself to one of the buttered scones on the dainty china tea plate. "Dorset is unspeakably dull. Why not try Kent instead, Bella?"

Isabella heard Pen give an exaggerated sigh. Not for the first time she wondered how the bookish and sharp-witted Penelope and the intellectually slow Freddie ever managed to share a house in anything approaching harmony.

"You will not wish to visit me, then," she said.

"No danger of that," Freddie said cheerfully. "I would rather work for a living than retire to Dorset."

"You are already supposed to work for a living," Pen pointed out.

"Only notionally," Freddie said with a cheerful grin. "Unfortunately I do not have that option," Isabella said briskly. "As a governess or a maid I would earn insufficient money in my entire life to cover Ernest's debts. And the only other alternative is to become a
cyprian
. I suppose one may work from home and do hours to suit—"

"Steady on, Bella!" Freddie was so scandalized that his half-eaten scone slipped off his tilting plate. Pen retrieved it.

Isabella patted his arm. "I apologize, Freddie. I was only speaking in jest."

"So I should hope," Freddie said, squaring his shoulders. "Head of the family. Couldn't approve. Sorry, Bella, but there it is."

"Of course not," Isabella said comfortingly.

"I would rather you married Augustus Ambridge than contemplate a career as a demimondaine," Freddie said. "And you won't hear me say that very often."

This time it was Pen who intervened. "I cannot agree with you, Freddie. Augustus Ambridge is the most tiresome bore."

They fell to squabbling like a pair of schoolchildren and Isabella sighed. It was fortunate that one of the alternatives she was not considering was sharing the
Pimlico
house with her siblings. In that event she would likely run mad within two days. They did not even notice when she slipped out of the room to find her cloak and evening slippers for the ball.

As she came down the staircase, she met Belton in full sail, like a galleon with a following wind.

"Lord
Augustas
Ambridge has arrived and is awaiting you in his carriage, Your Serene Highness," Belton announced, with a hint of approval in his voice at long last.