Governesses Under The Mistletoe: The Runaway Governess / The Governess's Secret Baby

Chapter Eight

Isabel listened to the clattering of the carriage wheels over stones and the sound vibrated into her ears and stayed. The maid sat beside her. The servant was a good two score older and would be the proper chaperon. Isabel didn’t want to be alone. Choosing whom to call on was easy because the only person she knew was William’s sister and the driver knew the direction there.

She had to get something in her head other than the repeat of marriage vows and a sigh. And the memory of William’s eyes begging her forgiveness while his words ran through her like a pike.

The maid darted a look at Isabel.

‘It is just...nothing...’ She kept her next sigh internal. It was nothing. Her marriage. Nothing. She felt no different. Just odd. Everything around her except her clothing was different. Even her name.

The clatter of thoughts in her head didn’t cease when the carriage stopped. She didn’t want to leave the vehicle, but she put her hand on the door, and descended.

She had to speak to someone and William’s sister was most likely to understand. Besides, Sophia already knew the details and Isabel would not have to guard her words.

Once inside Sophia’s home, she was taken to the sitting room with light-coloured walls and matching brocade on the sofa. This was a far cry from Madame’s school where all the furnishings could withstand constant use. In the centre of the room, a small table for a tea service had an oval rug under it and two chairs were aligned for easy conversation, with the sofa just on the other side in case two more people wished to join in.

This was the same room she’d visited before, and yet, she didn’t recall any of it.

She waited, careful not to disturb anything. A clock pealed in the distance and a dog barked several times, then stopped.

Finally Sophia entered the room, steps slow. She took a breath. ‘He is not here.’

They only knew one person in common. Thoughts buffeted Isabel. Sophia thought William had already left the marriage. ‘I know.’

Sophia’s lips turned up. Her face eased. ‘He was here. Almost all night.’ She added the last words quickly. ‘He has a chamber of his own here. He often comes to the house early in the morning and sends his coach home. Then we have breakfast and he falls asleep, and slips out in the evening.’

Sophia indicated Isabel sit, but Sophia remained standing.

‘Does he talk much?’ Isabel asked, making herself comfortable.

‘No. But we don’t have a lot to say. It is almost like a pair of slippers who’ve been stored side by side. He goes his places and I go mine, but we spend time together while nothing else is happening.’

‘Oh.’ Isabel imagined herself as another pair of slippers. Now she understood the marriage William wanted. But she preferred to be the same shoe and match. The one that was part of a pair.

She dismissed her thoughts. The marriage was still fresh. It would take at least a few days for him to understand how wonderful it was to have a wife. A cold thought hit her. Just as it had taken her parents a few days to understand how much they missed her and return.

Sophia interrupted Isabel’s memories. ‘William says you have a voice like a songbird.’

‘I am pleased with it.’ Isabel smiled.

‘Would you sing something for me? I would like to hear it.’

Isabel opened her mouth, then stopped. Never before had she felt the slightest hesitation for singing. If someone asked a question, she had to prevent herself from giving the answer in song.

Shaking her head, she touched her throat. ‘I can’t. Today I woke up with a soreness and it would hurt to sing.’

‘Later, then?’ Sophia asked.

‘Of course.’ Isabel smiled, but her thoughts didn’t match her face. Her desire to sing had fled in the same way a clock that had ticked a whole lifetime suddenly stopped and would not work again. She could not bear the thought of being watched while singing. Just could not. And it had been her favourite part of the performance before.

‘I look forward to meeting your sisters and your husband,’ Isabel said, turning the conversation in a different direction.

Sitting in the chair adjacent to Isabel, Sophia shrugged. ‘You’ll know sooner or later—my husband and William do not get on overly well. They are friendly.’

‘It is not uncommon for a man to not think someone good enough for his sister.’

‘It’s not that.’ She waved away the words. ‘My husband is a few years older and he treats me as if I were born on a cloud and my feet shouldn’t touch the ground. He feels William does not take life seriously enough.’ She grimaced. ‘William does take life seriously. Too seriously, I think.’

That was not quite how Isabel saw him. She raised her brows in question.

‘He is quite determined to wring all the excitement out of it he can,’ Sophia said. ‘He may be out at all hours but it is a seriousness in itself—to grasp the spice of life. I became aware of it about a year after our mother died. He does not talk of what he does much. Sometimes he checks with the man-of-affairs to see how the finances are going and watches over what our sisters are doing. He has been counting on Aunt Emilia to find them matches. Usually, he is ready to sleep when he is here as he has been awake the night.’

‘I do not know where he is right now, but he’s not at his town house sleeping the day away.’ She smiled to take any censure out of her words. ‘But you know how we met so it is not as if it is a love match. I don’t think he quite wants that.’

Calling it a friendship was even an overestimation. She would have liked nothing better to have been discovering his life from him, but instead she sat with his sister.

‘I once had hope...’ Sophia ran her fingers along the wooden arm of the chair, letting her words fall away into the room. ‘I am only a year younger than he and closest to him. I was twelve when our mother died and our father grieved so much that William had nothing to do but take things in hand. My brother was quite the stickler with us. As he watched over us and made certain our lamps were out at a decent hour, he then bribed the coachman to take him about. He was tall even then and his ready smile helped get him wherever he wished to go. He told me the older men had no trouble testing the young pup’s mettle and challenging him to keep up with them.’ She grimaced behind her smile. ‘He did, I’m sure.’

Isabel remembered his form flashing across in front of her as he tackled Mr Wren. ‘Did he ever have cause to fight with someone?’

‘I would imagine he did after our mother died. He would say he fell from a horse, and yet, he’d taken Father’s carriage. The stories he tells me are all suitable for a grandmother’s ears. My husband has privately mentioned a few escapades of my brother and they weren’t saintly. William laughs it away when I ask and will not give a direct answer.’ She paused. ‘He never angers with me, except when I would jest at him about one of my friends hoping for his notice or ask him when he might marry. That is the only time he would anger. He would stay away longer as well.’

Isabel straightened her shoulders. William married because of his love for his sisters. He protected them. He wouldn’t have wed her if not for the disgrace that would have been visited upon him and his family otherwise. She mustn’t forget that.

‘I do not want to be too inquisitive.’ She used the same downward chin movement and the tilt of her head that could capture an audience’s awareness. ‘But has he ever been in love before?’ Her demeanour was relaxed, but her heart braced for the reply. If he had been in love once, then he could fall in love again.

The thought jarred her. She wanted him to love her. Very much. And it was not as if she loved him. She’d been serious when she mentioned wanting to leave. Leaving could be much happier than loving someone who gave the highest regard to a friendly marriage. A Mr Grebbins.

Sophia laughed, leaning forward. ‘You do not have to be jealous. I can assure you. Not long ago I asked him the same question. If you could have seen his face, you would have known he told the truth. He told me to bite my tongue. I have never known of any woman he has mentioned by name, although my husband has heard that William attended Drury Lane with someone on his arm.’

‘I am so relieved.’ Her shoulders dropped, but her smile might not have fooled friends who had seen her perform. William had not been in love. He’d started his adulthood earlier than many, yet had not even mentioned a woman by name to his sister.

‘Does the—?’ Sophia started, but then shrugged away her words.

‘What?’ Isabel asked. ‘Please tell me what you were going to say.’

‘I was going to ask about the ring. If he has mentioned it, or if you have it and have chosen not to wear it. I have not seen it since the night our mother died. William surely has it still.’

Isabel forced her hands to remain still and her eyes not to glance at the plain band on her finger. ‘I haven’t seen it.’

On the table beside her, Sophia touched the base of the lamp, turning it, staring into the glass. ‘Our mother always wore the ring. The night she died, I was at the door because I’d heard a flurry of movement and knew something had happened. Father insisted William take the jewellery. Told him he must marry some day and it would be his wife’s. William shouted he could not take something she loved so much. Father insisted.’

Isabel glanced at the gold band on her finger. It was like her own mother’s wedding ring and her mother’s band was a reflection of love. Now, the gloss on Isabel’s seemed a jester’s laugh, as practised as the words of songs.

She remembered the expression on her parents’ faces when they saw the other person enter the room—enchantment.

Kind Mr Grebbins and his wife had visited her parents often and both had the kindest words. Mrs Grebbins reminded Isabel of a fluffy hen clucking, preening happily in the sun, but almost unaware her husband was in the room. Mr Grebbins smiled often, in the way of a grandfather not seeing much more than a blurred shape.

Isabel had overheard her mother and father discussing how lonely the couple was. Mr Grebbins’s first wife had died in childbirth and his heart had died with her. He’d married again, but he’d never danced with the same dash as he had with his first wife, nor had he laughed so heartily. He made the best of it and didn’t bemoan his lot in life as Mrs Grebbins was a good sort, he was a good sort and that is what good sorts did. They had spent thirty years of their lives together. Good-sort years.

Mr and Mrs Grebbins had always ambled back to their home—silent—their shadows remaining alone, never touching.

Love is priceless and cannot blossom for every couple, her mother had said, and then her parents had shared a lingering glance.

At William’s town house, when Isabel had left, William had wished her well with all the courtesy of Mr Grebbins suggesting to his wife they might leave before darkness descended.

Chapter Nine

Matrimony didn’t agree with him. In fact, the whole house seemed out of sorts since his marriage. A fortnight should have been enough time for them to adjust. If it had been a manor, he would have called it Bumbling Hall. Cook didn’t seem able to adjust to the circumstance of his asking for breakfast.

‘My apologies.’ The servant bowed her head as she exited his breakfast room, after replacing the drink. ‘I brought you the mistress’s chocolate and she does not wish for hers to be spiced as you do.’

He nodded, taking a sip from the glass left behind. The chocolate still wasn’t correct. He tasted it again, drinking half of it to see if he could discern exactly what error had been made. He paused, realising why it tasted bland. His cook had not made morning chocolate for him in years. The only time he drank it was at Sophia’s and he’d got used to the way her cook prepared it. If he ended the night at his own home, he sipped a brandy as he prepared for bed.

He left, returning to his sitting room. The newspaper lay on the table, but he had no wish to read it. He preferred his news from the club, either by men who had participated or men who’d seen it. Almost always the stories varied, but he sorted out the truth from them.

He picked up the print anyway. Reading through it, he then slapped it back down. Old news. He should have taken to the clubs. He would not make such a mistake tonight. All his friends would be abed now so he had no reason to trot out.

Sylvester had congratulated William on finding a bride who didn’t curtail the nights out and said he planned to do the same.

He looked closer at the arm of the chair and pulled a bit of feather from it, then flicked the fluff aside.

William wasn’t even certain if Isabel knew he was home or not.

Isabel was not like his sisters, always managing to burst upon him with some question, or leave this or that frippery for the servants to put away.

Moving to the door, he opened it and returned to his chair.

* * *

She’d not spoken with him since she had suggested she could leave and change her name. Perhaps that had been too imaginative, but still, she’d offered.

William had left each night at dusk since their wedding night, until the last one. He’d been arriving home some time after midnight because she’d listened and he didn’t return before she fell asleep.

She could not imagine that Husband would be expecting her to provide an heir without his help. She’d also kept the smaller bed and although it had started as a rebellion of sorts, she’d considered it carefully and kept the plan. She looked at the paper in her hand, blowing to dry the inkspot she’d mistakenly made. Well, her penmanship never would win any notice.

She would not be able to send this letter to Grace. She hoped that Grace might meet William some day and draw a picture of him. Grace could sketch up anyone’s face so quickly.

After Isabel realised she was to be married, she’d written to Grace, Rachel, and Joanna. Isabel had spent the entire day writing to everyone she knew—making sure they all knew of her good fortune so they would not suspect she’d made a judgement in error. She’d only admitted to Grace that the marriage was not exactly a love match, but more of a union of two sensible people in exact understanding of each other. Isabel’s teeth had ached after writing the letters, but she was certain it conveyed a certain sophistication and a smattering of newly gained maturity.

Isabel knew she was indeed more fortunate than Grace, with the uncertainty of finding a child, and how horrible it was that Grace had not been able to keep the little one in the first place.

‘Isabel.’ William’s voice interrupted her thoughts. She started. She hadn’t heard him enter her sitting room. Her throat tightened and she nearly knocked the paper from the table. She caught it in mid-air and looked his way. His white cravat looped in a single knot. His face was freshly shaven, which jolted her. The other men she’d met had never looked anything but whisker-peeled after a shave.