An Impossible Deception

35 chapters · 15,382 words

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Chapter One: Stay

The greeting that awaited Isabella Garvey when she returned after a six year absence to her childhood home was not a warm one. Sir Edwin Garvey forgot to chew his toast for half-a-minute, while Lady Garvey merely raised her eyebrows a fraction of an inch over her cup of chocolate.

“‘At ‘oo ‘ooing ‘ere,” Sir Edwin grunted.

“Pardon?” Isabella sat down at the breakfast table, in front of a plate of abandoned toast crumbs. Edwina’s spot, she thought; Edwina never could sit still long enough to finish a meal. “Might I have coffee?”

After a pause, Lady Garvey said, “Why not.” But there were no more cups, so Isabella sat without while her father swallowed his unchewed mouthful with an audible squelch.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated.

“Mrs Phillips found that she did not need me after her mother-in-law died,” Isabella said.

“But I sent her a letter saying to keep you on until we’d found a place to put you.” Sir Edwin’s perpetually red cheeks flared momentarily purple. “I sent a letter!”

Isabella remained quiet. Her father had always hated efforts unnecessarily expended. She thought she might risk sending him into apoplexy by telling him the letter had been read and ignored. Mrs Phillips had wanted Isabella gone, and so Isabella had git.

“It is most awkward, you being here just now,” Lady Garvey said. “Arabella is visiting, she arrives today, and tomorrow we are entertaining. We are obliged to do a great deal of entertaining at this time of year. It is very trying, really, but what is one to the world but what one’s neighbour whispers of oneself?”

“Our neighbours will not whisper of me, if that is what you mean, Mother. At least, I will give them nothing to whisper of.”

Lady Garvey shook her head, her heavy gold earrings making her earlobes sway like a rooster’s wattles. “Why, I am at a loss for what we shall do with you. Ed wina!”

The last was cried in a ringing falsetto. Isabella winced. A moment later, footsteps sounded in the hall, and then Edwina entered the breakfast room, looking down at a thin sheaf of papers she held in her hand. Isabella was surprised to find Edwina looked almost old — she would be thirty by now, of course, but Isabella had not expected there to be such deep lines around her mouth and eyes. Nor, for that matter, had Isabella expected her father to get so fat or her mother’s hair so grey. The six years she’d been away seemed suddenly more.

“I’m busy, Mother.” Edwina said, not looking up. “Thirty-one candles this week! What on earth do you do with them?”

“Decide what we are to do with your sister,” Lady Garvey said.

“She’ll stay in the blue room as usual,” Edwina said impatiently.

“Not Arabella! Your other sister.”

At last, Edwina looked up. Her brows rose and then drew together in a frown that gave Isabella a sudden understanding of the lines on her face.

“Oh,” Edwina said. “What are you doing here?”

“Mrs Phillips seems to have gotten sick of her,” Lady Garvey said.

“Goodness.” Edwina could never be surprised long. Her brows unknitted. “Well, she’s here now.” With unchanged efficiency, Edwina began to plan. “For the moment, she can help me tidy the house. Then, Mrs Orville will know someone who needs a companion — or if she doesn’t, she’ll find out. If worst comes to worst, Arabella might take her for a while. I certainly shan’t.”

“I can’t stay here?” Isabella said.

Stay. Once more, Sir Edwin’s jaws stopped moving about his toast. Lady Garvey gave a shocked flutter of her earlobes. Edwina was for a moment silenced.

It had been six years since her family had decided that Isabella must Go. The scandal hanging over her had threatened to cast its shadow over her two sisters as well. But surely now both Edwina and Arabella were successfully married, there was no worry she would jeopardize their futures?

“I think you should know that our circumstances are not what they once were,” Sir Edwin said, reaching for the peach conserve. “I cannot afford to support an unmarried daughter.”

It was on the tip of Isabella’s tongue to ask if she couldn’t get married. Of course, at twenty-three, she was almost old, and with her reputation no great match could be expected for her, but surely there would be some middle-aged widower of comfortable standing who might condescend to accept her? Her dowry at the very least—

“You might as well be aware,” her father added, wiping peach sauce from his mouth, “that I was required some years ago to spend the portion I had been saving for you. The rents have not been bringing in what they should, and through a period of distress, I was obligated to find capital from where otherwise I would not have touched it.”

“Oh.”

“Of course…” Her father’s hand hovered over the conserves a moment, before selecting the quince jelly. “Over the years I will be able to restore the funds, but it will take time. If I live another ten years, which God allowing I will, you should be satisfactorily situated upon my death.”

Lady Garvey coughed.

“Allowing, of course, for your mother’s comfort as well.”

Isabella stared glumly at the crumbs on the plate in front of her. She would be thirty-three by then. Too old to get married, and too poor, and too ruined. She was not stupid. She knew well enough that the hot-house conserves, the gems winking at her mother’s throat and ears, and the gleaming silver breakfast set were the cause of whatever embarrassment her father was in now. She knew, too, that whatever reparations her father intended would never come about. There would be more bad rents. Newer bills coming in for whatever glittering trinkets had caught her mother’s eyes or her father’s stomach. It had long been obvious to Isabella that the only way to get anywhere with her family was to demand what you needed and take what you wanted. But demanding was not in her nature.

“I don’t suppose I could be useful here, like I was with the Phillipses?”

“Oh, useful.” Her mother waved the idea away. “My dear Isabella, I am very glad to see you after all this time, but what use could you be? We are none of us invalids.”

“And I am all the help mother needs in keeping this house in good order,” Edwina said, almost jealously. “Don’t worry. I will find you someone who needs your help. Our Aunt Lydia perhaps. I believe she has — was it nerves or lungs, Mama?”

“Lungs,” Lady Garvey said. “Ever since she was a girl.”

Isabella’s heart fell. She hadn’t minded looking after old Mrs Phillips, exactly. There had been utility, purpose, service in it. And old Mrs Phillips had appreciated her, even if she had often been crotchety when her rheumatism was bad. It was nice to be appreciated. But Isabella didn’t want to spend the rest of her youth being a caretaker for old women, until one day she was old too.

Through the window open onto the front lawn, there came the clop of horse hooves and then the creak of carriage springs. Lady Garvey’s expression brightened.

“That will be Arabella!” She looked at Isabella. “She never misses my birthday, you know.”

“She would if it lit between February and May,” Edwina said sourly. She moved to the door then stopped and frowned at Isabella. “But you can go and let her in. I must get to the bottom of these receipts. Mother, it cannot be one and thirty candles!”

Isabella got up and went out into the hall as Lady Garvey began to argue with Edwina about candles. When Isabella opened the front door, she interrupted a groom in the act of knocking. He gaped at her and then turned back to Arabella, who was coming sedately up the front steps with a silk shawl around her shoulders and a diamond pin at her breast. The groom looked from one sister to another. But for their dresses and the style of their hair, they were still as alike as the day they were born. Isabella might have been looking in a mirror.

Only as she smiled, Arabella narrowed her eyes in a scowl.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, coming through the door and holding out her hands for a maid to deglove.

“Mrs Phillips’s mother died. I came home.”

The maid, after giving them a surprised ogle, took Arabella’s gloves and bonnet away upstairs. Arabella went immediately to a mirror and began to straighten her hair. She glanced at Isabella through the reflection.

“Don’t tell me you’re staying in this backwater now.”

“I don’t know.”

“Hmph.” Arabella gave one last pat to her hair and seemed satisfied. “Where are they?”

“The breakfast room.”

“Well I’m not going to watch Father chew his cud. Tell Mother I’m in the drawing room.”

Arabella departed in a cloud of perfume, and Isabella went back to the breakfast room where her mother was sitting in stony silence while Edwina rooted candle stubs from a drawer in the sideboard. Her father was still mechanically making his way through the toast and conserves. Isabella told them where Arabella was and, when Edwina and her mother went out, hesitated only a moment before following them. Even if Arabella didn’t seem particularly pleased to see her, she might warm up later. She had always cared more for Isabella, in her own caustic way, than anyone else ever had.

In the drawing room, Edwina and Lady Garvey set to giving Arabella the requisite kisses, and her mother inquired particularly after her health. Isabella sat down, unnoticed, on a settee. When the reunion was complete, there was a general settling down of bodies and conversation. Arabella looked around the room.

“That is rather a pretty wallpaper, Mother. I remember you writing to me about it. You cannot tell from this distance that it is not hand-painted. I shall have my library done up just the same — after Locke has left again, of course.” She sighed heavily. “You would think the son of a merchant would appreciate fine things, but he begrudges every penny spent on me or the house.”

Lady Garvey shook her head. “I cannot understand such an attitude — your father is always sympathetic to the efforts I make to keep up appearances.”

“Locke doesn’t care one whit about that!”

“But he does have the money, doesn’t he?” Lady Garvey pressed.

“Of course he does! And he can go gadding off to Europe whenever he pleases, but if I so much as buy myself a new gown…” Arabella blinked, her eyes suddenly bright. “He is so cruel, Mama.”

Lady Garvey launched into a flurry of comfort, patting her hands around Arabella’s shoulders and uttering coos of sympathy. Arabella dabbed at her eyes with a lacy slip of a handkerchief. From across the room, Edwina met Isabella’s eyes and rolled her own. At first, Isabella was shocked, but a moment later the lacy handkerchief was discarded, Lady Garvey’s hands were pushed away, and Arabella launched once more into cheerful conversation.

“How do you like this dress?” she said. “Is it not magnificent?”

“It is a very fine print indeed.” Lady Garvey pawed at the satiny fabric. “Why, look at the colours it shows in the light!”

Isabella looked down at her own faded gown. It was hard to remember what colour it had been originally — green, she thought, with little yellow flowers. Now it was nearer white.

“I bought you something too of course, Mama,” Arabella said, getting up and going to the door. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Lady Garvey gave a coo of pleasure as Edwina’s expression soured. Edwina turned to Isabella:

“Arabella always buys Mama some little trinket, and saves the best for herself. For all she complains of her husband, at least he is wealthy.”

Isabella looked doubtfully at Edwina’s silk gown. Walter Garvey could not be too poor, she thought.

“A little trinket,” Lady Garvey said, “is better than no trinket at all. I find Arabella very thoughtful, she always thinks of me.”

“If I had as much money, I’d spend it as freely,” Edwina sniped.

Isabella felt suddenly guilty for having nothing to bring upon her coming home. She had quit the Phillipses’ house so expediently that she had little more than a few coins in her pocket, and the grandest of her worldly possessions was a brooch that old Mrs Phillips had left her in her will.

As though reading her thoughts, her mother turned to her: “Then old Mrs Phillips is dead — did she leave you anything? You were very good to her, all those years. And these old women have a way of squirrelling away their pennies until they are a very many pounds.” Lady Garvey’s eyes gleamed.

“I have a brooch,” Isabella ventured.

“What sort of brooch?” Edwina asked indifferently.

“It is carved as a bird on a branch,” Isabella explained. “She said it was ivory, but I think it must be bone.”

The gleam in Lady Garvey’s eyes faded. “I do think it was very cruel of old Mrs Phillips, after all you had done for her, not to do more for you.”

“There was not more she could do, I think. She was on but a hundred pounds a year after her husband died.”

“A lot can be done with a hundred pounds! Why, I’d have five new gowns out of a hundred pounds.”

It was beyond Isabella to remind her mother that old Mrs Phillips had had obligations beyond new gowns. Silence fell over the room until a footstep alerted them to Arabella’s return. She came in and laid around her mother’s shoulders a shawl of fine grey lace.

“I thought it the very thing!” Arabella said.

“A grey shawl!” Lady Garvey sniffed. “At my age? I am not in mourning, I tell you.” She modified that. “At least, a black ribbon may do for Mrs Phillips. She was only a cousin of a cousin after all.”

Isabella, who had tried her best to dye her oldest gown black and given up the job when it turned bright purple, sighed. It would have been nice to be able to do the right thing by old Mrs Phillips.

“Still,” Lady Garvey said, examining the lace, “but I do think this is very good quality, is it not? How much did you pay?”

“Thirty shillings.”

“Why, then you have made a bargain of it! I would not price it less than three guineas!”

“Oh, I never overpay these tradesmen,” Arabella said contemptuously. “Though I have not paid yet, you know. I thought it would look good if I had a bill to present to Locke that was not for me.”

Isabella winced. “Is that fair to your husband?”

“Fair?” Arabella raised her eyebrows. “My dear sister, why should I be fair to That Man?”

“Because he is your husband?”

Arabella tossed her head. “Husband! And what does he do to deserve such a title? Why, he is gone eleven months of the year and makes it clear he loathes my presence the twelfth! He spends it drunk, you know. I have not seen him sober since the night I married him. And yet he sees fit to judge everything I do, to condemn me, to despise me!”

Isabella shrank back against this onslaught.

“Really, Isabella, Mr Locke is no friend of our family,” said Lady Garvey.

“He’s an odious man,” Edwina agreed.

“Then why did you marry him?”

“I was younger then,” Arabella said. “I was not so wise.”

“Hoodwinked us all,” Lady Garvey added darkly.

Edwina caught Isabella’s eye and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together meaningfully.

“Oh don’t let’s talk about him!” Arabella said. “I hate him! Mama, tell me about your dinner party — who is coming?”

“The Orvilles naturally,” Lady Garvey said. “And the Watersons. And Lady Kilpatrick and her brood.”

“And the Sempells?”

“Oh, of course! I know what good friends you are with Mrs Sempell.”

The discussion continued. For Isabella, many of the names were entirely foreign or half-forgotten. She sat back and watched Arabella talk. Arabella did not seem to have aged as much as the others — but then Isabella had seen herself in the mirror every day for the past six years, and marked the same changes in herself — the features starting to lose their youthful softness, the faint lines that came and went around the mouth. All the same, Isabella realized she no longer really knew her twin sister. She had been seventeen when she left, and they had both been girls then. Now Arabella was a woman, in her manner, her movement, her talk. And Isabella, five minutes the younger, felt a child by comparison.

At length, the conversation faltered and Arabella leaned back on the couch with a hand over her eyes.

“I must rest, Mama,” she said. “I am ever so exhausted. So much dust on the road.”

Lady Garvey was all solicitude at once, but when Arabella stood she pushed her mother away.

“No, Isabella shall attend to me.” She fixed her dark eyes on Isabella, with something of a smile in them. “I imagine we must have so much to talk about.”

Perhaps they did, but they went upstairs in silence. In the blue room, the best room, Arabella flung herself down on the bed with a groan.

“Doesn’t Mother natter so?” she said. “On and on and on — it’s exhausting.”

This agreed with what Isabella had been privately thinking, but it seemed disrespectful to Lady Garvey to admit it, so she only shrugged.

Arabella rolled over on the bed and propped herself up on one elbow to gaze at Isabella. “Why are you really back?”

“Mrs Phillips doesn’t need me anymore.”

“Hm.” Arabella narrowed her eyes. “What was it then? One of her sons fall in love with you? Or was it the husband?”

Isabella felt her cheeks burn. Arabella let out a peal of laughter.

“Men!” she said. “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

Relief swept over Isabella. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

“He was really very awful,” she said. “He kept putting his hands on my knees — under the dinner table, once even in church. It was mortifying.”

“Only hands and only knees? Dear child, you may consider yourself lucky. Besides, you will never have to see Mr Phillips again.”

Arabella’s tone became gloomy. Isabella’s relief withered; of course it was impossible to expect sympathy from Arabella. However, Isabella was not as solicitous as her mother. She waited for several moments, and, when it became obvious that Arabella wanted to be asked, would not speak until she was, offered the begrudging query:

“Is Mr Locke so objectionable then?”

She was curious anyway. She had never met Arabella’s husband and had heard little of her marriage. Mr Locke was wealthy, she knew, but it did not seem to have made Arabella happy.

“Awful.” Arabella sank back down amongst the pillows. “I would never have married him if Mother had not pushed me into it. All she could ever see of him was his fortune. I tell you, he is an ugly man — ugly of heart and body. It is difficult for me to even talk about the cruel things he does.”

“It must be indeed,” Isabella said gravely. “You have brought him up only twice this past hour.”

Arabella flashed her a suspicious glance. “I am not telling you the half of it. I am very afraid of him. He is awful to me when he is angry — and he is always angry.”

Of all things, Isabella feared a man— or a woman —in a temper. She bit her lip.

“Why, you never told me—” and then she broke off. Arabella’s letters had been few and far between the past six years. Edwina had consulted regularly, sent Isabella letters full of good advice at least once a quarter, but Arabella only ever wrote letters that began with “I am so bored, my darling,” usually around November or January, or sometimes in a rainy March.

“I did not know,” Isabella finished. “I’m so sorry. But can we help?”

Arabella shrugged and blinked back tears. “There is no help — but fortune in that he is never here long.”

A/N: I am really, really looking forward to this one.

Chapter Two: No Mistake

Lady Garvey had not been aggrandizing when she said that they were entertaining a great deal just now. It was early June, and many of the Garveys’ friends were temporarily returned from Town to rusticate at home for a little while before drifting on to their usual summer watering holes. For the Garveys, whose mismanagement of their finances prevented them ever visiting Town, the early summer weeks were the highlight of their social year. The very first evening of Isabella’s return, Sir Edwin was holding a dinner party in honour of his wife’s birthday.

At first, it seemed that Isabella would not be invited — there were efforts even to move her on to Aunt Lydia’s before the day was out — but while her mother was complaining about the settings and her father was fretting about the number of poussins, Arabella had violently taken the opposite course and insisted on Isabella attending.

“I simply can’t bear to lose my darling sister again so soon,” she said sweetly. “She must stay a night or two at least, Mama. She must come to the dinner party. I am sure everybody will be so excited to see her.”

Though Isabella was in no hurry to leave so soon, she was a little shy of the prospect of a dinner party.

“I have nothing to wear,” she protested.

“I’ll lend you one of my old dresses,” Arabella said. “So you needn’t be afraid of embarrassing us. But wear your hair very plain, for I will have white pearls in mine.”

Isabella had nothing to put in her hair anyway, for her companionship and nursing of old Mrs Phillips had been unpaid, and her pin money, when she got it, barely stretched to the occasional ribbon, let alone pearls. But Lady Garvey, who could never refuse Arabella anything, conceded with a sigh.

“After all,” she said, “the neighbours might think it queer if she were to leave again so quickly.”

Edwina settled the matter. “If you’re here for the afternoon,” she said, “you might as well help me sort the linen closet.”

Isabella made no protest. She thought if she made herself really useful, Edwina or her mother might want her to stay. As they pulled out the bed-linen to examine it for stains and threadbare patches, Isabella asked Edwina about Mr Locke.

“It has gone very bad, hasn’t it, Arabella’s marriage?”

“I don’t believe it ever was very good,” Edwina said. “She never could abide him, though she took great care before it was settled not to let him know it.”

“Why on earth did she marry him then?”

Edwina shrugged. “She wanted to marry money. She will tell you that Mother pushed her into it, but no one ever could make Arabella do anything she didn’t want to do. No, she saw her chance to make her fortune, and she took it.”

“And Mr Locke? Was he in love with her?”

“Until their wedding night, I believe he was.”

“That poor man.”

“He had fair warning, if he’d but the wit to see it. All he had to do was look in a mirror and ask himself what she saw in him.”

Isabella shuddered at the callousness of Edwina’s tone. “Is he so unhandsome?”

“Quite monstrous really — he had smallpox as a child, and his face is covered in the scars.”

“He cannot help that!”

“No more, I suppose, than Arabella can help finding him ugly for it.”

Isabella folded a sheet in silence, her heart troubled. She loved Arabella better than all people on earth, but she was not blind to Arabella’s faults. To marry for money, despite all contrariness of heart, was a selfish, cruel thing to do to someone else. And a cruel thing to do to yourself too, Isabella thought, for it meant that you could never truly be happy.

“It seems a great mistake for them to have married,” she said slowly. “If she cannot love him, and if he is cruel to her. He is cruel, as she says?”

“Odious,” Edwina said pleasantly. “He has a vicious tongue and a savage manner, and he behaves the worst to Arabella, whom he hates the most. But I see no mistake in it. I tell you, there are no two people on earth more deserving of each other than Mr and Mrs Locke.”

It was a philosophy Isabella could not support. Her tender heart ached for Mr Locke, who had married for love only to find he had not got it, and for her sister, who had married for money and sacrificed all else.

By the time they were done sorting the linen, it was past five o’clock. Edwina stood up, brushing dust from her skirts, and announced she was going to get dressed for dinner. Isabella realized that Arabella still had not given her the dress she had been promised — and that of the two best dresses she had brought with her, the one she was wearing was crushed and dusty, and the one in her valise was overdue for laundry.

Nervous that perhaps Arabella had forgotten about it, nervous too of Arabella’s temper, Isabella went down to the hall where on the entry table she found a letter addressed to her sister and took that up to Arabella’s bedroom as a pretext for the interruption.

There was no one there, and Isabella would have retreated if her eye hadn’t been caught by a dress laid out across the bed. It was as delicate as a sugar confection, all cobwebby silver lace and teardrop beading over a deep rose undergown. The sleeves were so insubstantial as to be mere whispers of silk, and the neck came down so low that Isabella wondered how it would ever hold her in — for she thought that this was the dress Arabella had picked out for her.

She dropped the letter on the bed and picked up the dress so she could hold it against herself in the looking glass. It was the perfect colour to bring out her complexion and colouring. Her hair and eyes looked darker against it, rather than the rather middling, difficult brown they truly were. For the first time in years, she saw herself not as a drab companion but as — well, as a pretty young lady, even if the expression about her eyes was a little terrified at the thought.

There was a noise at the door, and Arabella’s maid entered.

“Oh, ma’am, I didn’t know as you were ready yet,” she said. “Should I start with your hair?”

Before Isabella could explain, Arabella herself appeared behind the maid, clad in a silk dressing gown with her hair loose and damp across her shoulders. When she saw Isabella, she scowled.

“What are you doing!?”

The maid darted out of the way as Arabella strode forward and snatched the dress from Isabella.

“I — I came to see you,” stammered Isabella. “There’s a letter for you from Mrs Sempell. And you said you’d lend me a dress.”

“Not this one! Where’s the letter?”

“On the bed.”

Arabella picked it up, slit it open with a forefinger, and scanned it. Her scowl did not lessen, but Isabella was almost sure she was relieved. She looked up at her maid.

“I’ll dress in ten minutes. Go away until then.”

“Can I borrow a gown?” Isabella asked, keen to press on while she had the chance.

Arabella, despite being angry, was not entirely unfair. She flung open her wardrobe and stared at the piles of clothes within before extracting a snuff-coloured lump of cloth and holding it out towards Isabella.

“Here. This should do. It makes me look pasty.”

It made Isabella look pasty too, but it was far nicer than anything she owned, and she felt almost pretty when she came down to await the guests. Arabella, in her deep rose and silver, was more than pretty. She was beautiful. She was in high spirits tonight too, laughing and chattering and being pleasant to everyone. She even spared the time to compliment Isabella, before they went into the dining room.

“Why, Sister,” she said, as she passed on a gentleman’s arm, “you make that dress look the very thing.”

It was compliment enough to make Isabella’s cheeks burn with pleasure, despite her own opinion about the dress, and as she trailed into the dining room — last, on the left arm of Mrs Sempell’s poor cousin — she felt confident enough to remark to him that it was rather a crush tonight.

He looked at her, astounded. “We are but eight pair, Madame.”

“I mean, it’s rather a crush — for me. I’ve not been to such a large party in — why, ever.”

She was seated by the same young man at the table, and, despite her gauche beginning, found him rather charming. His name was Charles Haythorn, and he was down from London, staying with Mrs Sempell before he went on to Bath. His conversation was neither deep nor warm, but he admired her dress, the food, the room, and the company in a genuine and pleasant manner.

Towards the end of the second remove, Isabella noticed him staring somewhat towards the high end of the table, where Arabella sat, the pearls softly glinting in her hair. He noticed Isabella watching and smiled.

“I was struck by the likeness between the two of you,” he said apologetically. “You are very alike for sisters, are you not?”

“We are twins, did you not know?”

“Ah. Of course, that explains it.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “She did not tell me she had a twin,” he said, more to himself than to Isabella.

Not long after, Lady Garvey rose and the women retired to the drawing room. Arabella sat down immediately next to Isabella and made herself pleasant.

“You had all the luck,” she said spiritedly. “I was stuck between that odious Admiral Aston and Harriet Kingston’s father. On the one side, no talk at all, and the other, more talk than I cared for. Heavens, the way he talks about it you’d think he won the battle of Trafalgar single-handedly! Now, tell me” —she took Isabella’s hands in her own— “what was Mr Haythorn talking to you so busily about?”

“Oh, nothing in particular, though he was very pleasant. He thinks our mother’s taste in china very good, and he said he likes this dress.”

“Of course he does.” Arabella patted at the snuff-coloured muslin. “Funny, it looks so much better on you than it ever did on me. You must keep it.”

The pleasure of that gift and the compliment that came with it was almost enough to dull the pain that, immediately after, Arabella abandoned Isabella and turned her power to charm upon the rest of the room. But her power to charm was great indeed, and the conversation moved along at such a ready pace that, when the men joined them, the women thought it was almost too soon.

There was an interval of coffee, and then Lady Garvey suggested they break up for whist. Isabella thought herself very lucky to end up a table with Mr Haythorn, even if she had to also contend with Edwina and the dull Admiral Aston. Edwina was too efficient to be a good card player, for she snapped at any mistake on the part of her partner or of her luck, and so games with her were never pleasant.

Mr Haythorn, who was her unfortunate partner, seemed to find it trying. In the break after the third set, he made his apologies and said he needed some air. Edwina, who never liked to be without activity, was quick to inveigle the next table into a game of vingt-et-un instead. Isabella, who was afraid of such a fast and chancy game, contented herself with standing behind Edwina’s shoulder and watching.

At length, Isabella grew bored and, thinking she would not be missed, took the opportunity to slip away from the drawing room and meandered hopefully towards the terrace. Mr Haythorn had impressed her with his manners and attention and looks. Perhaps Isabella was too easy to impress. For the past six years she had had precious little masculine company except for Mr Phillips and his wandering hands, and the elderly vicar and his wandering mind.

As she opened the door to the terrace, she heard voices and stilled.

“You know I love you,” Charles Haythorn said.

Isabella peered cautiously out. On the terrace, Arabella stood encircled by Charles Haythorn’s arms, her head resting on his shoulder.

“It’s impossible,” Arabella said. “My husband—”

“—God damn him!” Charles kissed her, violently. “Why, I must have you — no matter the consequences!”

“Charles! It cannot be!”

Arabella raised her head, and Isabella caught the glint of tears under the moonlight. Heart pounding, she stepped back into the hall before either of them could notice her.

Over the week that followed, Isabella watched her sister and Charles Haythorn very carefully. She was anxious on Arabella’s behalf. It seemed imperative, not only that no one should discover the secret, but also that Arabella should not lose her heart to Mr Haythorn.

Perhaps it was already too late. Though she never publicly betrayed any tenderness towards Mr Haythorn, in private, Arabella let slip dark hints about her feelings to Isabella.

“Locke,” Arabella whispered to Isabella one day after Mr Haythorn had called, “would be cruelly jealous if he saw how I talk to Mr Haythorn — Mr Haythorn is such a good friend of mine, but Locke has such a bitter mind.”

Or, one time, after returning from a ball to which Isabella had not been invited:

“When you marry, be sure you marry for love, and not because Mama wants you to marry — she will, you know, if she thinks you have the chance. It is what she did to me.”

From these and other hints, Isabella gathered that Arabella had seen her on the terrace that night after all, but Arabella never explicitly broached the matter, and Isabella dared not be the one to do so. She could only sit back and anxiously watch Arabella for signs of love. It was almost a relief when Arabella’s visit drew to a sudden close — a letter arrived on the ninth of June saying that Mr Locke would return to London on the tenth, and wished for Mrs Locke to be at home to welcome him. Arabella read it aloud at the breakfast table without comment or expression. Sir Edwin grunted his comprehension of the matter, Lady Garvey burst into tears, and Edwina got up to see to the arrangement of packing and carriages, leaving half a boiled egg uneaten behind her. Isabella, though relieved that Arabella and Charles Haythorn must now part ways, felt a shadow pass over her; she knew that it was only because of Arabella’s insistence that she had been allowed to stay here so long already. Once Arabella was gone, Lady Garvey would have no compunction in sending Isabella off to nurse Aunt Lydia.

After breakfast, Isabella trailed after Arabella into the drawing room where Arabella lay down on a couch and played with her hair. Isabella had thought the news of her husband’s return would depress Arabella, but she seemed unconcerned by it. Perhaps she was not in love with Charles Haythorn after all.

“I’m bored,” Arabella drawled. “Do tell me that story about Mrs Phillips again, Issy, it is so very diverting.”

“Which one?” Isabella said obligingly.

“The one about the kipper.”

“Oh yes, the poor old woman ate her kipper and then forgot she had eaten it. She so looked forward to her kippers, you know, but the doctor would not allow them more than once a week. And so we had a whole week of trying to explain to her that she had eaten her kipper that week already. And then we realized it was the cat who had eaten her kipper after all.”

Arabella gave a shriek of laughter. “But it is the way you tell it, so naturally — I could never tell a story like that.”

Isabella’s cheeks warmed with pleasure. She was not often complimented.

“You must have had so much fun in the country,” Arabella said.

“I imagine you would have found it very dull. There were no balls, few dinner parties, and very little good company.”

“It’s London that’s dull. Always the same people, the same sort of talk. Stupid, I should call it. I have had more original conversation this past week than the past year.”

Isabella was not foolish enough to think Arabella referred to her own conversation; it was Charles Haythorn Arabella was thinking of.

“It is a great pity that you are not happier with your station in life,” Isabella said gently. “You have a great deal that many would be thankful for, Arrie.”

“I do not have love.” Arabella sighed. “No. Of the two of us, it is you who ought to be the happier, Issy. I can never love while I am married, and you one day may marry for love. You have hope.”

“Is there no chance,” Isabella said hesitantly, “that you could not come to love Mr Locke?”

Because it would be better, Isabella thought, if Arabella were to forget Mr Haythorn, and fall in love with her husband, no matter his pock-scars. Better for poor Mr Haythorn, and better for Arabella too. Best of all for Mr Locke, who must, Isabella believed, still love his wife.

But Arabella shook her head. “You do not understand. Every action he takes, every word he speaks, he seeks only to wound me. I cannot love a man who treats me in such a way — and he, he would never love me.”

Isabella was silent, her heart troubled.

Compounding her guilt, Arabella said heavily, “I’ll miss you when I leave. It’s been so nice having you again.”

“I— I might come,” Isabella said. “I could come, if you wished. I could live with you, and not Aunt Lydia. I might be able to help you, with Mr Locke.”

Arabella’s eyes flew open and she made a strange sound, almost a sob, but not quite. Isabella could not understand it. Then Arabella turned and buried her face in a pillow.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “Now, leave me, do.”

Isabella left, drifting idly from the house in a long, pensive, unhappy walk that ended in the village, where she cheered herself up a little by looking in the window of its one mercery and haberdashery shop. There, she felt a touch at her arm and turned. Charles Haythorn was looking at her.

“Arabella?”

“No,” Isabella said. “I am Isabella.”

He flushed. “I’m sorry. I thought you were Ara— Mrs Locke.”

“But everybody makes that mistake.” Isabella found herself charmed by Mr Haythorn’s manner even now, and smiled. “Even our mother.”

“But you are so alike, of course.” Mr Haythorn fell into pace with Isabella as she started to meander back home. “Tell me, is Arabella coming to Lady Kilpatrick’s ball on Monday?”

“No, she won’t be. She is leaving tomorrow morning.” Isabella felt the need to add, “Her husband arrives in London tomorrow afternoon.”

Mr Haythorn’s face fell at the mention of Mr Locke. “Of course. She is at his beck and call.”

They walked on in silence the rest of the way. Isabella had the feeling that Mr Haythorn wanted to ask her something, but did not dare. At the road to her house, Haythorn stopped.

“Look, I don’t want to come in — but will you give Mrs Locke a message from me?”

“Of course.”

“Tell her — tell her I want to talk to her tonight — just to talk — under the pear tree at ten. And don’t tell anyone else — you wouldn’t, would you?”

“Of course,” Isabella said, taking pity on him. “It’s alright, I understand. I’ll tell her.”

“You do, I can see you do.” Mr Haythorn shook her hand, his eyes downcast and strangely bright. “Thank you. I’ll never forget this kindness.”

**__
**

A/N: I don’t think I’ve ever written a character as naive as Isabella before. Quite the change after writing Laura.

Chapter Three: Too Long and Too Close

When Isabella gave Arabella Mr Haythorn’s message, Arabella shrugged it off.

“These young men always think they’re in love with one,” she said with a sigh. “What a nuisance. But don’t tell anyone, will you? It’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t get about. I’ll meet him tonight and let him down gently, so he’ll stop bothering me.”

That came as a surprise to Isabella. She had thought there was love in the way Arabella had laid her head on Charles’s shoulder — but perhaps not.

If the arranged let-down was gentle or not, Isabella did not know. She was asleep by ten o’clock that night, and slept fast through until dawn the next morning. After washing and dressing, it occurred to her that Arabella might need waking — Arabella always slept late — for her journey that day. She tiptoed down the hall, careful not to make any noise lest she wake Edwina or her mother and father. Arabella’s room was yet in darkness, the curtains tightly closed. Isabella whispered her name once, and, when no answer came, fumbled her way to the bed. She patted across the covers for Arabella. Instead of the warmth and bulk of a body, her hand met only cool, smooth silk. The bed was empty.

Isabella stumbled to the window and threw the curtains wide. Enough pale light came into the room to show it had been abandoned. The chest at the end of the bed stood open, one sleeve of a nightgown hanging forlornly out of it. The usually cluttered dressing table was denuded of all but an empty box of tooth powder, a candle stub — and a letter, lying open between them.

Isabella picked it up with shaking fingers.

Dear Edwina,

_I know you’ll be furious with me but I can’t do it any longer — I can’t stay married to that vile man. You must forgive me — or don’t, what do I care — but I have fallen in love and gone away with the only man for me in the entire world. You will have to make my excuses to Locke if you care. If you are really as clever as you believe, you will find a way to keep it from him. _

Arabella

Isabella sat slowly down upon the bed. Then Arabella had been in love with Charles Haythorn after all — poor Arabella!

But the scandal of it — this could not be hidden! Mr Locke was returning to London this afternoon, and he wanted Arabella to be at home to greet him. Isabella got up and hurried to Edwina’s room, where Edwina was yet sleeping, all but her nose buried beneath the covers.

“There’s a problem,” Isabella said. “Edwina, there’s a big problem.”

“Go away,” Edwina muttered.

“Arabella’s run away with Charles Haythorn.”

For a moment Edwina was silent. Then the covers heaved as she sat up. “That selfish little bitch!”

“But Edwina, she must love him.” Isabella pressed the note into Edwina’s hands. “Read it.”

Edwina had to squint in the dim light to do so. Her frown creased the lines on her forehead. She scowled and crumpled the letter up.

“I don’t know what we’ll do now.”

“We — we must beg Mr Locke to be merciful to her.”

“Pah!” Edwina tossed the note into the empty grate. “Burn that.”

“But—”

“Do as I say.”

There was steel in Edwina’s voice. Isabella went to the fireplace and set the tinderbox to the letter. It blackened, shrunk, and disintegrated to ashes.

“We must prevent Mr Locke from finding out about this,” Edwina said.

“It cannot be kept from him. Arabella gave no word of where she has gone. We cannot bring her back. Even if we could, she would only return to him sooner or later.”

“Pah. Arabella’s got no more constancy than a tomcat.” Edwina got out of bed and slipped into her dressing gown. “She’ll be back before long. Haythorn’s got no money.”

“I cannot believe that. She must have been deeply in love with him to even consider it.”

Edwina rolled her eyes and went to the washstand where she started to wash her face. “She’ll be back. All we have to do is delay Locke from finding out she has run away until she comes back or he leaves for the Continent again.”

“Surely he’ll want to see her.”

“I will manage it for us,” she said through a damp towel. “I will tell Locke myself that Arabella is with friends in Brighton — no, even better, Harrogate. He’ll never chase her down there. And a month from now, he’ll return to the Continent, none the wiser.”

Isabella had her doubts, but Edwina looked so well pleased with herself that she dared not utter them. Instead, she went to Arabella’s bedroom to make it look like the bed had been slept in.

Edwina broke the news to their parents at breakfast.

“Arabella has gone off,” she said lightly, as though Arabella had only gone down to the village for a moment. “I expect she will be back before long, but it has put us in a bit of a bind, with Mr Locke returning to London this afternoon.”

Sir Edwin dragged his attention away from his toast and bacon and eggs and kippers and jam and coffee. “What do you mean, ‘gone off?” he growled; he was always in a bad temper before he had fed himself in the mornings.

“I mean she’s gone off,” Edwina said, slicing the top off a boiled egg with one swipe of her knife. “It’s Charles Haythorn she’s gone with.”

Lady Garvey fluttered her hand about her jet necklace, her face very pale above it. “Oh dear! Oh dear! I do wish she had not!”

“Wishing doesn’t do much good, where Arabella is concerned,” Edwina said. “Pass the salt, Isabella.”

In a daze, Isabella passed the nearest object to her.

“I said the salt!” Edwina said sharply. “Not the jam!”

Isabella gave a hasty apology and found the salt instead. She could not understand Edwina’s sanguine attitude. The blow to their family’s reputation would be irrecoverable. Once, six years ago, she had been foolish enough to linger too long in the spring woods with a gentleman, too long and too close. They had been seen, and the scandal that had followed had left her parents with no recourse but to send her away to Mrs Phillips in the country. And this was much worse. Arabella was married. Not only that, Arabella loved Mr Haythorn. It was not just her reputation she stood to break, but her heart as well.

At least Lady Garvey was not sanguine. “I do not know what we shall do!” she said. “Arabella gone and Locke returning this afternoon — he will want to see her! He will find out!”

“We will tell him she has gone away to Harrogate,” Edwina said. “He will not care to go after her.”

“But he must suspect! That silly girl! Could she not—”

Sir Edwin held up a hand, one finger raised, while he chewed a gritty slice of bacon. Lady Garvey silenced her squeaks of distress but continued to flutter her fingers about her necklace. Edwina waited, her brows raised a fraction in expectation. At last, Sir Edwin swallowed and spoke:

“Edwina, are you certain that Mr Locke will not find out about Arabella’s indiscretion?”

“I am certain that he will not seek her if I tell him she is elsewhere.”

“Then you must do so.” Sir Edwin speared another slice of bacon, droplets of oil spattering over the table cloth. “Thank God I was granted one sensible daughter!”

Isabella bit back a protest. She was sensible, she thought. She had made one mistake when she was seventeen, and behaved herself thereafter.

Lady Garvey, who had never been called sensible and would not see the compliment in it if she had been, twisted her fingers through her jet necklace, her neck red and white where it dug into her flesh.

“Do you think, Edwina darling,” she began hesitantly, “that you could press Mr Locke to help us with a small bill? It has been weighing on my mind recently — and our circumstances are not what they used to be.”

“Impossible,” Edwina said. “He considers himself obligated to Arabella, not to us. Without her to ask it of him, we won’t see a penny.”

Lady Garvey dropped her necklace, her thin lips suddenly tight and querulous. “It really is very selfish of her! When I have a pressing bill just now — she knows I do!”

“It will have to wait until she comes back,” Edwina said. “Really, she’s put us to a great deal of strife, but I will see us straight, Mama.”

“Ah, but can you lend me five hundred and fifty pounds!” Lady Garvey said. “I think not!”

Even Edwina went pale at that. “What on earth have you been buying, Mother!?”

“It is not that — I bought nothing — it was a little loo, my dear. A little vingt-et-un. Perhaps some farro. There is so little to do in the country of a winter evening.”

Two bright red circles bloomed on Edwina’s cheeks. She laid her knife down on her plate with a clang. “My God — and is my husband who will inherit your debts when you are both dead! Mother!”

Lady Garvey raised her napkin to her eyes. “I do not like it when my daughter speaks to me so harshly.”

Edwina made a sound of disgust. Lady Garvey lowered the napkin half-an-inch to peer hopefully at Isabella. For a moment, Isabella wondered why, and then she understood that her mother wanted her comfort, the same way Arabella would have given it, with effusions of sympathy and pity. Effusions of any kind were beyond Isabella. She merely stared at her mother, a dull, heavy weight inside her. Everything was wrong, she thought. Arabella lost, her family ruined, and scandal hovering over them all like a guillotine.

Edwina was staring out the window, a faint frown on her face, her hazel eyes wide and pale with anger.

“We must pay off Mother’s debt before it becomes any larger,” she said, her voice flat. “Father, is there no money?”

“There is not five hundred and fifty pounds.” Sir Edwin’s cheeks were purple. “You told me it was just a little whist, Marina.”

“Sometimes it was whist,” Lady Garvey protested. “Sometimes I was winning.”

An argument started up between her parents, Sir Edwin’s gravelly voice booming, and Lady Garvey’s shriller tones cutting in on top. Isabella had forgotten how they used to do that. She looked to Edwina, who was biting her lip so hard it was white.

“We need Mr Locke,” she said in a low voice. “Five hundred and fifty pounds! It will ruin us!”

“Will he help us, do you think, without Arabella?” Isabella asked. “Could we not appeal to his better side?”

“He doesn’t have one,” Edwina said. “He has explained to me before that he feels a duty towards his wife’s mistakes, but not towards ours. No. We are done without her.”

“Then we are done.”

“Perhaps.” Edwina stared at Isabella, the colour returning to her lips. “Perhaps not.”

Isabella felt a shadow of misgiving. “What do you mean?”

Edwina leaned over the table to lift Isabella’s chin, scrutinizing her face. “You have a few more freckles than she, but freckles do grow with time. No, if you were to wear her clothes, he would not notice a difference. He only sees her once a year after all.”

Isabella jerked away. Lady Garvey and Sir Edwin fell quiet and looked thoughtfully at her.

“Locke will not refuse Arabella what she asks of him,” Edwina said softly. “Or someone he believes to be Arabella.”

Sir Edwin pinched his chin. “That is rather a cunning scheme, my daughter. And it would have the advantage of hiding Arabella’s disappearance from Mr Locke too.”

“Edwina, I can’t.” Isabella was horrified at the idea of it. “To pretend that I’m Arabella — to deceive her husband! Even if it weren’t wrong, it’s certainly impossible! He will know the moment he looks at me!”

“No he won’t!”

Edwina got up and ran her hands through Isabella’s hair, disarranging her neat bun until locks came loose over her forehead and ears. They tickled her eyelashes, and Isabella blinked.

“A little rouge on the cheeks…” Edwina pinched them. “And one of Arabella’s dresses, and there is no one in the world who would swear you were not her.”

“It is very true,” Sir Edwin said. “They are exactly alike in appearance, but their manners are so very different, Edwina.”

“A manner is nothing!” Lady Garvey said. “All Isabella needs to do is act a little more lively, be a little more interesting.”

Isabella had had enough of it. She stood up, rearranging her hair and rubbing at her cheeks. “No. I won’t do it. Even if I thought I could get away with it, I would not. It is wrong. Can you not see that? It is a lie.”

Three pairs of eyes looked baldly at her. They did not see it, Isabella realized.

“Five hundred and fifty pounds,” Sir Edwin said. “It will ruin me.”

“You are the only one who can help us, Isabella,” Lady Garvey said severely, “and you will not do it, so it is your fault if your father ends up the debtor’s prison and I am made a widow and shunned by my friends.”

“It will save our reputation, you well know that. And,” Edwina added, “it is not as though Mr Locke cannot afford it.”

Isabella shook her head. “I can’t. You cannot ask me — you should not.”

Edwina pressed her lips tightly together. Sir Edwin gave a grunt of disgust. Lady Garvey patted at her eyes with her handkerchief.

“She’s too much of a coward to try,” Sir Edwin said at last. “A great misfortune it is that my youngest children are both selfish and foolish. It is not my side of the family it comes from.”

“Well I am sure it is not mine!” Lady Garvey retorted. “Isabella, really! After taking you back in, this is how you repay us?”

Isabella said nothing. She was not even sure she could truly deny being selfish, and a fool, and a coward. She turned and left the room. Behind her, Lady Garvey and Sir Edwin broke out into argument again.

Isabella went up to Arabella’s room, where she sat down on the bed and stared at the open wardrobe. Many of Arabella’s clothes still sat folded within it. She must have taken only what she could carry with her. In autumn she would get cold, unless Mr Haythorn could afford to buy her new shawls and cloaks. Isabella did not think he could.

There was a knock at the door, and Isabella lifted her head, but it was only Edwina. She came in, shutting the door behind her.

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Edwina said.

“It would be wrong.”

Edwina gave a heavy sigh and sat down on the bed next to Isabella. “You wanted to be useful, didn’t you? You wanted to come back here and help us. Well, the help we need is this.”

Determined not to be persuaded, incapable of protesting, Isabella stayed silent.

“We’re as good as ruined if you don’t do it,” Edwina continued. “Locke’s been keeping us afloat these past five years. Every hole we’ve ever gotten into — and there have been many, while you were away with Mrs Phillips you might not have realized that — he’s gotten us out of. He hates us, he hates Arabella, but he stands by her, and she, for all her flaws, stands by us. But you?” Edwina shook her head. “Where do you stand?”

“I cannot do what is wrong.”

“Is it wrong? To save your sister’s reputation, to save your family’s honour?”

“But to lie to a man who has done me no harm, who has been wronged by Arabella—”

“Pah! And has wronged her in return! If you saw the way he treated her, you would have no qualms about it. He is vile to her.”

Isabella looked down at her lap.

“And he will be worse, you know, when he finds out what she has done. He will drag her through the divorce court. He will shame her in front of England. He will leave her with nothing. And that is only what he will do in public. Who knows what his anger will be like in private. And you, you could prevent that. You could protect Arabella.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t put it that way.”

“But it is that way. You say that you are doing what is right, but you are abandoning Arabella, let alone the rest of us. What is right about that?”

Doubt nipped at Isabella’s heart. She stared at her knees.

“You could, if you so chose, save Arabella from the consequences of her action,” Edwina said, her voice very, very soft. “I want you to know that.”

“S-she chose her own action.”

“And hasn’t she tried to save you from your mistakes? Papa and mother did not forgive you, you know, but Arabella always stood up for you, after your flirtation with Mr Quale.”

Even hearing the name sent shivers of shame down Isabella’s spine. She bit her lip.

“There is no right choice,” Edwina said. “There is only what will save Arabella — save your family — and what will damn them.”

“He’ll find out,” Isabella whispered. “I cannot deceive him — he will know.”

“No. No, he sees her so infrequently that he could not suspect — not in an hour, perhaps not in a day. And that is all it would take, you know. Present yourself before him as Arabella, save her reputation, at the very least. Tomorrow I will figure out a scheme to get you away from his house. Away from him.”

“And the money?”

“Arabella would ask for it.”

Isabella stared off into the distance and wondered what Mr Locke was truly like — ugly, cruel, cruellest to Arabella. He must have been cruel, if Arabella had run away. And he would be crueller still if he discovered this. Perhaps it could be kept from him — at least, until Arabella was safe from his anger.

That was what decided Isabella in the end. She would protect Arabella, as Arabella had attempted to protect her.

“Tomorrow morning,” she said, “you find an excuse for me to leave his house. You will do that?”

Edwina’s lips thinned as she smiled. “I promise.”

**A/N: Sometimes I think I enjoy writing dysfunctional families more than I do the romance bits, if I’m honest! But we meet our male hero next chapter, and I’m having fun with him too.
**

Chapter Four: An Embarrassment of Riches

Isabella smoothed down the silk skirts of Arabella’s dress. She had never worn anything so fine before in her life, but, even though the dress was just a little loose, she felt like it was strangling her. On the carriage seat opposite, Edwina sat looking very composed and perhaps just a little pleased with herself.

“He will know,” Isabella repeated, for the hundredth time since their carriage had set off from the Garvey’s Hertfordshire home. “He will know as soon as he sees me.”

“Nonsense. I have told you, he’ll have no idea. Just don’t look scared. Arabella never looks scared.”

Isabella bit her bottom lip to stop it from trembling. They were in the outskirts of London now, and could not be far from Mr Locke’s house, though the carriage had slowed to a crawl in the crowded streets. Isabella had never seen so many people before in her life. Every one of them, no matter how finely dressed or handsome, looked somehow dirty. Perhaps it was because the dust of the streets was coming up under the carriage wheels. Even with the glass up, Isabella could smell horse manure and sewerage seeping into the air of the carriage. She envied Edwina’s lavender nosegay.

When they reached Bloomsbury Square, where Mr Locke lived, Isabella was relieved to find it seemed slightly cleaner than the rest of London. An imposing facade of grand, pale buildings, all very much alike, looked out over a flat fenced lawn. Mr Locke’s house was a dour-looking yellow brick building towards one corner of the square. Their groom banged the knocker, and when a butler opened the door, Edwina elbowed Isabella in the waist.

As she had been coached, Isabella swept, or tried to, up the whitewashed front steps and through the open door.

“My sister is just visiting, White,” Isabella said to the butler. “The carriage will wait for her.”

“Welcome home, madame,” White said, bowing.

Isabella opened her mouth to say hello and then shut it. Of course Arabella would not say hello to a butler. Isabella did not think even ordinary people said hello to their butlers.

Edwina stalked off down the hall, and Isabella scurried after her. A carpeted staircase occupied one side of the hall, on the other was a wooden door.

“Locke’s study,” Edwina said in a low voice. “You’ll never need to go in there.”

Further down the hall, under an archway, was a set of painted double doors. “Dining room,” Edwina muttered as she passed it. Beyond that was the last door of the downstairs hall, which Edwina opened. It led to a narrow room lent cheer by yellow wallpaper and a fire burning in the grate. It was rather cluttered too, with two settees and several matching chairs by the fire, and a work table and a desk by the windows.

“Arabella’s sitting room,” Edwina said. “She usually spends most of the day in here, but when people call — even me — she prefers to receive them upstairs in the drawing room. Don’t forget that, if someone calls.”

“Can’t I just say I’m not at home?”

“I suppose, for now,” Edwina said vaguely. “Come on, you’d better see the upstairs too.”

They went back into the hall and up the stairs. On the floor above was the drawing room, stretching the width of the house and looking out over the square. Edwina didn’t give Isabella more than a glimpse of it before hustling her onwards to the room behind, which was Arabella’s bedroom, a vision in royal blue and gold.

“Locke’s bedroom is on the floor above,” Edwina explained, sitting down on Arabella’s bed. “So don’t go up there. Now, he’ll be back later this afternoon, and he’ll want you to be at dinner with him this evening, but after that, come to my house, and tell me how he was.”

“What will I say to him?” Isabella asked.

“As little as possible, I think will be best. Arabella rarely talks to him at all. If he asks how you found the London season, you must say, ‘Dull,’ and if he asks why, you need only say that the people were stupid — Arabella thinks everybody is stupid. But he probably will not ask why. He perhaps will not ask anything at all.”

“And you’ll send an excuse for me tomorrow?” Isabella said. “Perhaps one night I can manage it, if he really does not see much of me, but no more.”

“Once you have the money to pay mother’s debt, I’ll make sure to get you out of here.”

“It feels very wrong to ask him for that money, Edwina. This all feels wrong, but that feels worst of all.”

“It would be in Arabella’s character to ask for it. Besides, if you do not, we will be as good as ruined. Remember that.”

Isabella smoothed down Arabella’s dress again and looked around the bedroom. Despite the thick-piled carpet beneath her feet, and the softness and delicacy of the furnishings, the room felt suddenly like a cage. She did not think she could ask Mr Locke for money, and then come back to this room and sleep in it.

“Well never mind,” Edwina said after a while. “We can talk about this later tonight. Now, I have to leave. Walter will be missing me.” Edwina gave a crooked smile. “I must say, it is the one thing I have that Arabella does not — a husband, who misses me.”

Edwina got up, and Isabella went to the door, but Edwina waved her back.

“Arabella never sees me off,” she said. “Arabella always has the servants see people off — remember that.”

Edwina left, shutting the door behind her. For a moment, Isabella stood in the centre of her new cage, feeling very lost and confused. Without Edwina there to guide her, she did not know what to do. At length it occurred to her that she ought to familiarize herself with her new surroundings, so that she did not betray herself by any display of ignorance or surprise. She set to methodically exploring Arabella’s bedroom. The wardrobe and the chest revealed that Arabella had excellent maids, but on opening the drawers of the dressing table, Isabella discovered evidence that Arabella truly had inherited their mother’s untidiness. That was another thing she would have to remember, Isabella thought, wiping a greasy lotion stain from her fingers; she mustn’t pick up after herself while she was here.

With the contents of Arabella’s bedroom catalogued, Isabella slipped back into the hall again. Another door off to the right revealed the luxury of a tiled bathroom. There was little to explore there, so Isabella went back to the drawing room. Whatever Arabella’s faults, she had excellent taste. The pale lemon and sage colours made the room feel spring-like and airy, but despite the prettiness of the furnishings and the sun streaming through the windows, the room felt somehow cold. After a while, Isabella realized why: there was no evidence, from the perfectly ordered cushions on the settee to the new decks of cards stacked in the drawers of the card table, that anybody really lived here. It could just as easily have been a room in a hotel or club as a lady’s drawing room.

Feeling uncomfortable, Isabella descended the stairs and went back into Arabella’s narrow sitting room. Here, she felt more at home. The pigeon-holes of the writing desk were cluttered with papers, and there was a wax stain on the sewing table. It was evidence of life. Isabella sank down into one of the chairs by the window, away from the fire. Arabella had always liked a warm room, and it was stuffy in here. Well, she would have to put up with it for a little while at least. It might seem peculiar if she ordered the fire to be put out.

She sat there for some time, listening to the activity of the house around her. There were on occasion footsteps from above, or the clanging of pots and pans from the kitchens below. More strange to her were the noises of the city — horses whinnying, carriages rattling, or street sellers shouting their wares. Even at the back of the house, away from the street, it was not quiet.

Because of the noise, Isabella did not at first notice the knocker banging on the front door. By the time she realized what it was, servants’ footsteps were already pattering towards it. Isabella crept to the sitting room door and cracked it open, peering through just in time to see the butler open the front door.

Isabella’s first instinct had told her that the man waiting on the doorstep was Mr Locke, but as her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that it was no man at all but a woman. A friend of Arabella’s? But White had his hand firmly on the door handle, as though about to close it.

“I’d like to speak to the lady of the house,” said the woman on the doorstep.

“I will see if she is at home.”

“I can see she’s at home. She’s skulking in the doorway behind you.” The woman’s voice rose. “Mrs Locke, how are you enjoying that dress? Not getting threadbare?”

Isabella looked down at her dress in confusion. It was a very pretty dress, quite new, and it must have caused Arabella some pain to have to leave it behind her when she ran off with Mr Haythorn.

“I mean it has been nearly a year since I made it for you,” the woman continued, insinuating herself against the door frame as the butler tried to shut the door. “I’d be happy to make another one, you know… once you have paid for the first.”

Comprehension dawned upon Isabella. She blushed, remembered Arabella would not, and stepped back into the shadow of the sitting room.

“Now don’t you run away, Mrs Locke,” the woman said, warding White off with the point of her umbrella as he tried to shoo her back off the doorstep. “I want to know when I’m going to receive my due.”

“I’m not running away.” Isabella tried to think of what Arabella would say. She would no doubt have a clever way of getting rid of this woman. It would definitely not be in Arabella’s character to pay a debt merely because it was demanded of her.

It was, however, in Isabella’s.

“I’ll pay you today,” she said.

A look of surprise crossed the woman’s face, then she slipped past the butler’s arm and positioned herself very firmly against the grandfather clock.

“I’ll wait here,” she said.

“Mrs Mercier—” White began.

“I’ll wait,” she repeated.

It occurred to Isabella now that she had no idea where Arabella kept her money. She did not even know how much the bill was. She stepped back into Arabella’s sitting room and opened the top drawer of the desk. Within was a clutter of papers, ribbons, ink bottles, and wax sticks. Isabella sighed and shoved the drawer shut again.

There was a footstep behind her and she turned to see White in the doorway.

“Should I get rid of Mrs Mercier, madame?” he asked. “I can call upon the footman to assist me.”

“No, no.” Isabella anxiously smoothed back the locks of hair falling over her brow, remembered that was not how Arabella wore her hair, and rumpled them loose again. “Where does— where does one ever find anything in this house? My money. Find it for me and I’ll get rid of her.”

That seemed like a suitably Arabella thing to say. At any rate, White nodded and turned aside. Isabella went back into the hall where Mrs Mercier gave her a superior smile.

“I had sent you so many letters about the bill that I had begun to think you couldn’t read,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Isabella said, before she could stop herself.

Mrs Mercier blinked. “Are you quite well, Mrs Locke?”

“Quite well.”

Uncertainty flitted across Mrs Mercier’s face. “I do enjoy your custom, you know, but business is business.”

“Oh, I understand.”

Mrs Mercier fell into a flummoxed silence. The grandfather clock ticked loudly. Isabella clasped her hands behind her back and tried to look like she wasn’t embarrassed.

White came back downstairs and handed Isabella an enamelled jewellery box. She opened it on the hallway table and started to root through the glinting coins within. It could not have been all of Arabella’s money, for it was mostly shillings and half-crowns. Perhaps it was what she kept for giving vails to servants, or donations for the poor.

“How much was it again?” Isabella asked. “Four guineas?”

“Fifteen!” Mrs Mercier said indignantly. “And what will I look like, carrying all those coins down the street? No customer has ever paid me in pennies before.”

“If you’ll wait for Mr Locke to return, I’ll pay you in notes,” Isabella offered.

“No, I’ll take it now,” Mrs Mercier said hastily. “If there is fifteen guineas in there.”

There was, though it left the box almost empty, and Mrs Mercier’s reticule threatened to break with the weight of the coins within. She gave Isabella a sharp nod.

“I thank you for your custom, and I would be more than happy to create a dress for you again,” she said.

Isabella could not commit to that on Arabella’s behalf. “Perhaps you will one day,” she said.

Mrs Mercier looked panic-stricken. White opened the front door wide and looked pointedly at her.

“Your bill has been paid, madame, and I think it is time for you to leave.”

She did, with one last, confused, worried glance at Isabella. When the door was shut behind her, White looked at Isabella.

“I apologise for letting her in, madame.”

“It’s not your fault,” Isabella said.

White’s composed expression faltered into confusion. Isabella bit her lip.

“I mean,” she stumbled, “that you cannot help being stupid. If you could, you would be more than a butler. But do not do it again, White. I might be disappointed a second time.”

“Very well, madame,” he said, and clicked his heels and left.

Isabella retreated upstairs to the drawing room, where she paced up and down trying to cool her heated cheeks. She was never deliberately cruel to anybody, and to have said what she had said to White filled her with a particularly painful sort of shame. But Arabella could never be patient with other people’s mistakes, and would never have so readily accepted such an apology from a servant. It would have been better, Isabella realized, to have said nothing at all, to have raised her nose and left the room in silence. That was something Arabella might do, and it was not so cruel. No, from now on, Isabella would take refuge in silence.

As she decided it, the door knocker rang out again. A moment later, there came the sound of footsteps and movement from the hall below. The gravelly tones of a man’s voice floated up the stairwell and through the drawing room door. This had to be Mr Locke. Her heart pounding, Isabella went to the mirror and checked her reflection once more. Somehow, without her noticing, the locks of hair that Arabella always wore around her face had been brushed up and back again. She hastily disarranged them once more. There. Now she looked like Arabella — all except for the anxious expression in her eyes. She blinked and then frowned, but she could not get rid of it. Mr Locke would know, she thought. He must know, surely. Arabella was his wife. It didn’t matter how similar they looked, he would sense a difference as soon as she spoke. As soon as he met her eyes.

“Narcissus drowned that way, don’t you know?”

The voice spoke low from behind her. Isabella jumped and turned. A man stood only a few feet away, his hands in the pockets of his coat, his head tilted to one side as he scrutinized her. She, in her surprise, scrutinized him back. He was tall and broad, with dark hair brushed back from a pock-scarred face, and low, rather glowering black brows. Beneath them, his eyes seemed to glitter, eyes of a peculiarly pale blue, made paler still by the blackness of the lashes that surrounded them. Isabella’s heart skipped a beat.

It was a good thing she had decided to seek refuge in silence, for she could think of nothing to say. Frozen with fear, she stared at Mr Locke. He was meeting her eyes; he would know.

“Welcome home,” Mr Locke said, in a soft, ironic tone. “Or even, Hello, dear, how nice to see you. What a lie that would be.”

Isabella, confused and frightened, could think of nothing to do now but leave, and tried to do so as Arabella would — slowly, with her chin held high.

“I’d accept a comment on the weather,” Mr Locke called out as she passed through the doorway. “Yes, it does look like rain, doesn’t it?”

Isabella ignored him and started down the stairs. She had to force herself to keep her hand on the bannister and not over her heart.

There were rapid footsteps behind her, and then a warm, strong hand grasped her wrist and she found herself twisted around to meet the pale blue eyes barely six inches from her own. Isabella’s heart beat so fast that she thought she might faint — only that would certainly give it away, for Arabella never fainted.

“Just one word,” Mr Locke said. “Just one word is all I ask. Let it be an ugly one if you choose, but for God’s sake, Arabella, don’t just ignore me.”

He did not know. He did not even suspect. Isabella’s heart slowed.

“Please, my darling wife.” The sarcasm in Mr Locke’s tone was biting. “One word.”

Isabella forced herself to speak. “Narcissus didn’t drown.”

The blue eyes widened. Then Mr Locke laughed and released her wrist.

“And so I get three! An embarrassment of riches! Oh, fortunate day!”

Confused and frightened, Isabella hurried away down the stairs before he could delay her again.

A/N: Finally we meet our hero. Who is not, in fact, very hero-like.

Chapter Five: The Other Woman

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