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

Anthony watched Arabella move down the stairs and out of sight. He was surprised on two accounts. The first was that she was right. He recalled now that Narcissus did not drown; that, he remembered vaguely, had been Hylas. The second was that she had replied not with a bitter word, but quietly, almost indifferently. He had expected a slap for grabbing her.

He shrugged it off and went to his room, where he kicked off his boots, loosened his cravat, and flung himself down on his bed. He was weary from travelling, wearier still from having at last arrived where he did not wish to be. He hoped that Arabella would leave London again soon. He had satisfied himself that she was still alive — or dissatisfied himself — and now he wanted to forget her again.

He was not allowed to. She was at dinner that night, sitting silent and pale in her chair and addressing barely a word to him. Her appetite was smaller than usual, and he thought she had lost weight. Perhaps she had been ill. At one point, when she refused a second glass of claret, he almost asked her, but he bit it back. If she had been, she was better now, and if she had not been, then she would make sure he suffered for the asking.

After dinner, Anthony went to his study with a bottle of port — he always found himself in need of drink when returning and leaving home — and a collection of London newspapers. He was just settled down in his favourite chair with a newspaper in his lap and the bottle of port on the table beside him when a thought occurred to him. He got up again and rang the bell for the butler.

“Anything you need, sir?” White asked.

“Not exactly. I just wanted to know if Mrs Locke has been ill lately.”

“She had a cold last December,” White said. “I do not remember her being ill since then. However for the past two weeks she has been with her parents in the country. She may have been unwell there.”

“Hmm.” Anthony poured himself some port and twisted the glass in his hands. “She was very quiet at dinner. Perhaps she is unhappy about something.”

“Perhaps, sir.” White hesitated, and Anthony waited. A moment later, White spoke again. “She paid a bill today out of her own allowance, one of Mrs Mercier’s. Perhaps it is Mrs Mercier she is unhappy with.”

“What!?” Anthony laughed. “She never did! My poor wife — she must be very unwell indeed. Perhaps she is dying. No, it cannot be: only the good die young.”

Mute disapproval flickered in White’s eyes.

“Now don’t give me that look, White. You know she is not good.”

“It is not my place to say, sir.”

“I give you leave for it.” Anthony leaned forward over his knees. “I mean that. I am not very often here, and if there are problems between the servants and my wife, I rely upon you to tell me.”

White’s gaze descended to his feet. The balding top of his head gleamed under the candlelight.

“White?”

“She is not well-liked, sir, by the servants, but she is not usually cruel.”

“Not usually?”

White rubbed his scalp. “She called me stupid today, sir. I did not like it. I think it was unjust.”

Anthony blinked. “I’m sorry.”

“You need not be sorry, sir. You would never say such a thing. But I would like to inform you—” White took a deep breath “—that the repetition of such an incident may result in—” another deep breath “—my giving notice.”

Slowly, carefully, Anthony took a sip of his port. He swallowed, and the liquid settled uneasily in his stomach. White looked nervously at him, the cobwebby wisps of his fair hair floating up on end where he’d rubbed his head.

“I appreciate being so informed,” Anthony said at last. “Thank you, White. I will see to it that the incident is not repeated. You may go.”

The butler clicked his heels and left. Anthony drank his glass of port and then poured himself another. Arabella must be unhappy about something. He would not exert himself further trying to find out what, but he could not afford to have his servants flee from his wife’s bad temper. He was about to get up to go and talk to her about it when there came a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Anthony called.

The door opened a crack and Arabella poked her nose into the room. She had a shawl over her shoulders and a reticule in one hand, which meant she was going somewhere. Presumably she wanted money first. Anthony sighed.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I want to go to my sister’s.”

He shrugged. “Very well then. Go.”

“You will not need—” she broke off.

“I will not need what?”

“The carriage.”

Anthony wondered at her asking. “No. I won’t.”

“Very good.” She turned to leave. “Then I’m going.”

“Wait a moment please, Arabella.”

She stopped in the doorway but did not turn back to face him. “Yes?”

“White was here just now.”

“Yes?”

“He had a complaint about your conduct towards him.”

Arabella’s shoulders stiffened.

“If you must call someone stupid, let it be me. I, at least, have the privilege of being able to abuse you in return. And there will be no end to the abuse I will give you if your bad temper loses me my butler, or any other of my servants. That, I promise.”

Arabella stood there in silence, then she made a brief movement of her head that may have been a nod and walked away. A moment later, Anthony heard her ordering White for the carriage. Her tone was stiffly civil, and she even said thank you. Anthony breathed a sigh of relief and picked up one of his newspapers.

He had finished one newspaper and another glass of port when there came a knock on the front door. Anthony put his paper aside and waited, grinning as he heard a familiar voice speaking from the hall. After a minute, White ushered a fair, slender young man into the room.

“Mr James Redwood to see you, sir.”

“Thank you, White.” Anthony got to his feet and clapped Redwood on the back. “You look like you haven’t seen sun for a year.”

“That’s London for you.” Redwood looked Anthony up and down. “You look well — too well. I suppose France was as wonderful as ever — the wine, the food, the country… the women.”

Anthony snorted and went to the cabinet to get another glass for Redwood. “I’m a married man, Redwood.”

“Oh, don’t remind me of that. I’d almost managed to forget.” Redwood sighed heavily. He had always disliked Arabella. Back when Anthony had first started to court her, it had almost ruined their friendship. “How is Mrs Locke then?”

Anthony handed Redwood a glass of port. “I don’t quite know. She hasn’t spoken above a dozen words to me tonight.”

“Then I will be the pessimist and assume she is in excellent health.” Redwood circled his finger around the rim of his glass. “Do you know, I myself had a near miss with a young lady while you were away.”

“You did?” Anthony sat down again. “That’s not like you.”

“I can only conclude it was a fit of madness. But I have recovered now, and I am more decided than ever against the married state.”

“What if you were in love?”

“I was in love,” Redwood said. “Therein the madness lies. But as I said, I am recovered now, and still a happy bachelor. Marriage is a trap, Locke. One always falls out of love eventually, and when one has, one is shackled to a woman whom one no longer cares for, perhaps even despises.”

“I do not believe that one always falls out of love.”

Redwood raised his eyebrows. “Last summer, you were considering divorce.”

“And I still am. But I am not every man, Redwood. And Arabella is not every man’s wife.”

Redwood seemed struck by that. He sipped his port in silence, frowning.

“Are you still considering divorce?” he asked eventually.

Anthony nodded.

“Is there evidence for it?”

Anthony stared into his glass of port. He had no doubt that Arabella had taken lovers over the years. He could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. If he wished to divorce her, he would need to prove her adultery before the courts. It would be expensive, not to mention humiliating and painful. He would have to look at what he so long preferred to make himself blind to.

“There is reason,” he said finally, “and so there will be evidence. Somewhere. But divorce would cost thousands of pounds. It would take me years to recover. Socially, I probably never would. I don’t know if I would be better off free.”

Redwood looked around the study, his gaze lingering on the calf-bound books, the marble fireplace, and the comfortable, deep-winged leather chairs. “It is a charmingly gilded cage, I will give you that.”

Anthony smiled. “You’d rather me divorce?”

“I don’t know. No, I don’t think I would, actually. Money is its own freedom, after all, and the only freedom you lose in being married to Mrs Locke is the freedom of marrying another woman.” Redwood frowned. “Is there another woman?”

“As long as I’m married, there won’t be. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“On Mrs Locke?”

“On the other woman.”

*     *     *

Edwina’s house, near Bedford Square, was a great deal smaller than Mr Locke’s. Isabella made the mistake of commenting upon that when she entered.

“Well I did not sell my soul to marry money,” Edwina snapped. “And Bloomsbury Square really is a very unfashionable address these days.”

“Is Gower Street a fashionable address?” Isabella asked innocently as Edwina led her into the drawing room.

“It is a very respectable address,” Edwina said, sitting down on a straight-backed chair and pointing at the seat opposite to indicate Isabella do so too. “Now, how did Mr Locke take it?”

“I don’t think Mr Locke suspects anything. He is a very strange man though. He frightens me.”

“He won’t hurt you.”

Isabella remembered the pressure of his hand on her wrist and shivered. “It’s not that I think he’ll hurt me. He just… frightens me.”

Edwina narrowed her eyes. “You’re too easily frightened. What has he said to you thus far?”

“Very little. He talked to me when he came in, and he seemed, I don’t know, perhaps angry, though he laughed. At dinner we said nothing to each other, but after dinner, as I was leaving, he told me to be kinder to the butler. He threatened me that if any of the servants left because of my behaviour towards them, he would be very angry.”

“Just as I thought, you have fooled him. You might stay there a few more days, even until he returns to Europe.”

“I couldn’t!” Isabella got to her feet and began to pace the narrow passage of carpet between the chairs. “Edwina, if he realizes who I really am, it will be the ruin of both me and Arabella. Not to mention our family!”

“But he will not realize. And even if he did suspect, how could he prove anything? You are her very image, and no one — that is no one in London — even knows that Arabella has a twin. I do not think even Mr Locke knows that Arabella has anything more than another sister, living somewhere in the country. There is no risk.”

“No, you must get me out of there tomorrow,” Isabella said. “I have barely spoken to him so far, but the more he sees of me the more likely he is to realize. I must leave. I barely dare stay the night.”

“He won’t go to bed with you,” Edwina said. Then she frowned. “Perhaps you should lock your bedroom door.”

Isabella shivered. That particular danger had not yet occurred to her. “You see I must leave as soon as I can.”

“Yes, of course,” Edwina said soothingly. “Now sit down and stop this fluttering. You’re behaving like Mother would.”

That was enough to get Isabella to sit down again, though she wrung her hands in her lap. “You will get me out of there?”

“I will,” Edwina said. “But first do you think you could ask him to pay Mother’s debt?”

“I don’t know if I would dare ask him. I’m sure he will say terrible things to me.”

“He will,” Edwina said. “He has a very cutting tongue. But Arabella would ask for it, Issy. She would not leave London without asking. She really is very good by Mother, in her own way.”

Isabella bit her forefinger. “She would.”

“Yes, she would.” Edwina patted Isabella’s knee, making Isabella jump. “If you’re afraid of him, I can be there when you ask.”

“That might be easier.”

“It would give me the chance,” Edwina added, “to say something about Cyril’s education.”

Cyril was Edwina’s five-year-old son, whom Isabella had never met. Isabella had heard a great deal of Cyril in Edwina’s letters to her over the past six years though. She chewed her lip.

“Cyril’s education?”

“I’m afraid his talents exceed mine. I, you see, never had the chance to learn Latin or Greek.”

“And does Cyril learn Latin and Greek?”

“He would, if we had the money to hire a tutor for him. He would also learn geometry and algebra and history. I suppose I can teach him a little history, and also a little French, but I cannot teach him more. And I dare not send him away to school, which is all Walter can afford. Anybody’s son might attend a school.”

“He’s too young for school anyway,” Isabella said. “Surely a tutor might wait a year or two?”

“I have taught him to read and write already. I do not want his talents to languish for want of money. And as Mr Locke has no children, nor ever will I think, it is not unreasonable to expect him to contribute to Cyril’s education.”

It dawned upon Isabella that having Edwina with her might be more dangerous than being alone with Mr Locke. Isabella shook her head and tried to smile.

“I think I can ask him myself,” she said. “After all, it is what Arabella would do, isn’t it?”

“Then you will ask him?”

Isabella thought it over once more. She was not unprincipled, certainly not unaware of the inherent wrongness of the situation, but she was also an anxious creature, and the idea of her family being in debt more than five hundred pounds horrified her.

“I’ll ask him at breakfast,” Isabella said. “Then at eleven o’clock, you must come over and find a reason to get me away from his house. You will do that?”

“Of course,” Edwina said. “I’ll arrange for Walter and I to go to Brighton for a few weeks, and invite you, that is, Arabella, to come with us. Don’t worry. I’ll sort everything out.”

__

A/N: I don’t think there’s a single nice character in the story yet, with the exception perhaps of the poor butler. But half the fun comes from seeing the nasty characters learn to be nice, right?

Chapter Six: Master Garvey’s Talents

When Isabella came down to breakfast the next morning, she found Locke already sitting at the dining table with his newspaper propped open in his lap and blocking him from view. To interrupt a man reading a newspaper was beyond Isabella. She sat down and nervously took a boiled egg, which she peeled as she waited for him to lower his paper.

He did not. Instead, his strong brown hand reached around the newspaper and grasped a cup of coffee, then disappeared with it behind the paper again. There came a slurp and then a swallow. The hand reappeared and set the coffee down, cup empty.

“More coffee, Mr Locke?” Isabella said as an opening.

The newspaper lowered and Locke looked at her over the top of it, one eyebrow raised. “I beg your pardon?”

“Do you want more coffee?”

His eyebrows drew suspiciously together. “I suppose I do.”

Isabella stood and reached over the table to pour him a cup. His gaze followed her wrist up her arm to her neck.

“What on earth is that thing on your breast?” Locke asked.

“What — oh.” Isabella looked down and saw the brooch old Mrs Phillips had given her. “My cousin’s mother left—” But that would not do. Locke might know that Arabella had been left nothing by a cousin’s mother. “—left this at my parents’ house, and I thought I might as well take it as not.”

“You’d best return it to her,” Locke said. “It’s hideous.”

It was the nicest thing Isabella owned. She slapped his coffee down in front of him so hard that most of it spilled onto the saucer.

“I wanted to drink the coffee,” Locke said, “not decorate the table with it.”

“You may drink it.” Isabella sat back down and started slicing her egg. “My sister is well.”

The newspaper rose and Locke disappeared behind it again. Isabella gritted her teeth. She could see now why Arabella hated the man. He was so impossibly rude.

“My mother is not well,” Isabella continued.

The newspaper rustled.

“S-she…” Isabella hardened her voice; Arabella never mumbled. “She has been gambling.”

The newspaper stilled.

“Commerce, farro, loo…” Isabella trailed off. “She is in debt, sir.”

“Gracious. What a surprise.” Locke did not sound surprised.

“It is a matter of five hundred and fifty pounds and she does not have five hundred and fifty pounds. I believe it is urgent.”

The newspaper lowered again and Locke’s pale blue eyes regarded Isabella contemptuously over the top of it. “Is there anything else?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is there anything else for which I must pay?” He spoke slowly, as though to a child. “You might as well tell me all at once. It will hurt just the same, but it will be over more quickly.”

“I don’t believe there is, no.”

Locke raised his eyebrows. “Nothing?”

“But nothing.”

“Not a new gown that I must pay for? Or a pearl necklace, perchance? Or is it that the drawing room was in dire need of new settees?”

“Nothing.” Isabella frowned. “That is…”

“Ah. Here it is.” Locke smiled. He had, Isabella noted, an ugly smile, full of sharp white teeth.

“I believe my sister Edwina would like some help with her son’s education. He is five now and she wishes to hire a tutor for him, so that he can learn Latin and Greek.”

“Latin and Greek? At five?”

“Edwina is an ambitious mother.”

“And is young Mister Garvey an ambitious student?”

“I don’t quite know.”

“It may be a waste, you know, if he is not as ambitious as his mother.”

“Edwina would be ever so pleased if you helped her though. Just a little contribution towards his education. Please.”

Too late, Isabella realized that Arabella would hardly beg her husband, or anybody else for that matter, but Locke only looked amused, not suspicious.

“Very well then,” he said pleasantly. “I’ll make a contribution, since you asked so nicely. Now is that all?”

“That’s it, yes. Though it is quite—” A lot, she had been going to say. “—enough, is it not?”

“Oh. An amiable coming home present.” Locke flicked his newspaper up again and looked at Isabella over a corner of it. “What I mean is, is there nothing for you?”

“Nothing.”

He sighed and the newspaper rustled. “And you paid off Mrs Mercier yesterday, quite a year before it became really rude — my dear wife, I am afraid you are sickening for something.”

His sarcasm was beyond endurance. Isabella stood and went to the door, leaving her breakfast uneaten. Behind her, she heard Locke laugh.

To Isabella’s relief, Locke left the house after breakfast and was still gone when Edwina arrived at eleven o’clock with a pasty, plump little boy in tow.

“This is Cyril,” she said. “Shake hands with your Aunt Arabella, Cyril.”

The child dutifully held out a small hand and Isabella dutifully shook it. As Cyril released her hand, he clutched at her brooch, dragging her downward.

“It’s pretty,” he said. “Let me play with it.”

“Call for tea and cake,” Edwina said. “That will distract him while we talk. Let that go, Cyril. You can’t play with it.”

Isabella discovered, while they waited for the cake, that Cyril was a child in a state of constant distraction. Even Edwina’s efficiency was no match for his curiosity. The moment she took her eyes off him, he would wriggle off to investigate what was at the top of the chimney or attempt to scale the curtains by their tassels.

“A good tutor would discipline him,” Edwina explained, as she dragged Cyril out from under the avalanche of paper he caused while climbing Arabella’s writing desk. “His nurse simply has no control over him.”

“Are you sure he’s ready for Greek?” Isabella inquired. “He is very little.”

“He has a very active mind.”

His hands and feet were active too, at least until the maid arrived with a plate of cakes and tea, at which point peace descended upon the room. Isabella and Edwina knelt by the writing desk and shoved Arabella’s papers haphazardly back in the drawers and pigeon holes.

“I asked Mr Locke to help with Mother’s debt this morning,” Isabella said in a low voice.

“And?”

“He said he would do it. And he said also that he would help with Cyril’s education. He made some very sarcastic remarks about me — Arabella, I mean.”

“But it was worth it,” Edwina said with satisfaction, shoving the last of the papers in a pigeon-hole and rolling down the desk cover. “Very good.”

Isabella felt her cheeks heat at the praise. “You’ll get me out of here now?”

“Of course. Where is Mr Locke? I’ll tell him that I’m going to Brighton and that I’ve invited you to come with me.”

“He’s out. I think he went to his bank.”

“Then we can wait until he comes back.” Edwina settled herself down on the couch next to Cyril and stroked his hair while he munched steadily through his third piece of cake. “I’m so glad he agreed to help Cyril. He never took to him before. But most men are like that with children, even their own. Walter flatly refused to teach Cyril Latin when I asked him.”

Isabella looked doubtfully at Cyril, who was currently engrossed in licking jam from his fingers. “Are you sure Cyril is old enough to learn?”

“Oh yes. With a good tutor, you know, children can be taught at a very young age. And a good tutor does not cost more than a hundred pounds a year.”

“That is a great deal of money.”

“Indeed. That is why I’m so glad Mr Locke agreed to help pay for it. That is what he said?”

“He said that he would contribute.”

“You persuaded him very well indeed. He has always been so dismissive of Cyril’s talents before.”

“I have learned my lesson.”

Mr Locke’s softly ironic voice made both women jump. Isabella turned to find him standing in the doorway. How long had he been there? Long enough to hear anything suspicious? He couldn’t have been, but his smile made Isabella nervous.

Edwina flushed red and then white. “Good morning, Mr Locke.”

“Good morning, Mrs Garvey.” Locke came into the room and held out his hand for Cyril to shake. “Young Master Garvey.”

Solemnly and silently, for he had a cherry tart stuffed in his mouth, Cyril shook Mr Locke’s hand. Afterwards, Mr Locke commandeered a napkin and delicately wiped jam stains off his palm.

“Indeed I have overlooked Master Garvey’s talents before now,” Mr Locke announced, settling himself down on the couch and crossing his legs. “Greek, Latin, how very impressive. Et ridiculum nimis. Nonne, Cyril?”

Cyril blinked.

“He hasn’t started learning yet, because we haven’t found a tutor,” Edwina said in her sweetest tone. “Arabella told me that you had agreed to contribute a little something towards his education?”

“Oh I have, I have indeed,” Mr Locke said, in a tone as sickly sweet. “Let me just get it.”

He uncrossed his legs and stood up again. Isabella had the suspicion that he’d sat down only because he knew he was not wanted there. As he left the room, Edwina met Isabella’s eyes and raised her brows.

“He is in a good mood. What did you do to him?”

“This is his good mood?”

“He’s smiling, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but it’s not a nice smile.”

“You don’t have to like it, but it is a smile.”

Rapid footsteps sounded in the hall, preventing Isabella from explaining that that was not what she meant. Mr Locke returned, holding a pile of books stacked against his chest.

“A present for you, Cyril,” he said warmly. “My contribution to your education.”

Edwina’s expression faltered as Locke dumped the pile of books on the couch next to Cyril.

“Here,” Locke said, picking one up and waving it towards Cyril. “ The Aeneid. This is only volume one, but don’t worry, when you’ve finished it, I’ll give you volume two as well. And here—“ Locke picked up another book. “Pliny’s Natural History, volume seven. Well this need not be read in order, and I think you will like it. It has pictures.”

Two bright pink spots burned on Edwina’s cheeks. “Mr Locke,” she began.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Mr Locke said fervently. “I have not neglected the Greek. Here we have Plato’s Crito — a little dry for a boy, perhaps, but I think I also have Daphnis and Chloe somewhere in here. Ah, here it is. Now this is a very engaging tale, but you will have to wait until you are a little older to understand it, young man.”

“What does that mean?” Edwina snapped. “He is an intelligent boy, Mr Locke. He is capable of understanding anything if someone would just teach him Latin and Greek.”

Isabella curiously leaned forward and took up the volume of Daphnis and Chloe. The script inside was completely incomprehensible to her, but this book had pictures too, rather interesting ones. She slammed the book shut again, her cheeks flaming.

“His tutor will teach him Latin and Greek,” Mr Locke said, unperturbed. “And these books will help him.”

A dreadful stillness came over Edwina.

“Arabella said that you had agreed to help us pay for a tutor,” she said.

“I agreed to contribute to Cyril’s education,” Mr Locke corrected, a gleam in his eyes. “This is my contribution.”

“Well.” Edwina gathered her reticule and shawl and stood up. “Cyril, we are leaving.”

Isabella got up too. “But you said something about Brighton—”

“Yes,” Edwina said. “I and my husband are going to Brighton tomorrow. We will be there two weeks.”

“I thought you wanted me to come,” Isabella added.

“I had considered it,” Edwina said, “but I no longer think it is a good idea.”

“But, Edwina! I must leave— London. I cannot bear it here any longer.”

“Walter and I could not possibly have you with us,” Edwina said coldly. “We are staying in a hotel. Really, Arabella, you would not want to come.”

With Mr Locke in the room, Isabella could not argue further. She pressed her lips tightly together as Edwina marched to the door, Cyril in tow. Mr Locke gave her a sly grin.

“I did the boy a favour,” he said, starting to pick up his books from the couch. “No one needs to suffer Latin at the age of five.”

“You said you would help Edwina educate him.”

“And when the time comes, I will. The time is not now, Arabella.” Locke wiped jam off one of the books. “He’s far too young.”

“It is what Edwina wanted for him.”

“She wanted wrong.”

Locke stacked the books in his arms and left. Isabella waited for a moment in Arabella’s sitting room, wondering what to do now. Clearly Edwina was punishing her for having failed to convince Locke to help pay for a tutor. If she could get Locke to change his mind, then Edwina would back down and invite her to Brighton.

Isabella made up her mind and went to the study, leaning through the door to see Locke rearranging the books on his shelves. He looked up.

“What is it?”

“Will you reconsider this?” she asked.

“No.” Locke slotted another book into the shelf. “It’s ridiculous, Arabella. The boy hardly speaks English yet.”

“Edwina is very upset. She had promised to take me to Brighton with her, and now she won’t.”

“Why do you care about Brighton?” Locke turned to her, exasperated. “You can go there with Mrs Day or that twit Mrs Sempell, can’t you? Go, go on. I won’t stop you.”

Isabella drew back, anxiety flickering within her at the hint of Locke’s temper. Locke shelved the last of his books and sighed.

“I spoke with the manager at my bank about your mother’s debt,” he said. “Tomorrow, I will go into the country and give your father four hundred pounds. The rest he must make up himself.”

Isabella shrugged. “Thank you,” she said stiffly.

“I hope you’ll do your best to keep her from gambling again,” he warned. “Four hundred pounds may not have ruined me, Arabella, but it certainly hurt.”

“I can’t stop her,” Isabella said. “What can I do? She does not listen to me.”

“You have a way of making people listen when you want. I suggest you make yourself want.” Locke came closer and lowered his voice. “My pockets are not endless. If she gets herself in further trouble, I may not be able to help.”

Isabella wondered at the vastness of Locke’s funds, that he could give up four hundred pounds with barely more comment than this.

“Arabella?”

He came closer still, and Isabella smelled something fresh and spicy and faintly earthy — sandalwood, it had to be. Isabella found her gaze focusing below his eyes, at the point where his throat disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. His throat pulsed faintly with the beating of his heart. She swallowed.

“I’ll try.”

She dared to raise her eyes to meet his. He was so very close that they were almost touching. And he thought she was his wife. He had every reason to touch her if he wished.

But he only nodded and slipped through the door, leaving her with the fading scent of sandalwood.

__

A/N: Poor Isabella. Surrounded by cruel, selfish people on all sides. The Latin means, ‘And ridiculous too. Eh, Cyril?’ Or it’s meant to anyway. I trusted google translate for that one.

Chapter Seven: The Lesser of Two Evils

At first, Isabella did not believe that Edwina would really abandon her to Mr Locke’s tender mercies, but when Isabella went to Edwina’s house that afternoon to beg her for help, she discovered that she had already departed for Brighton, leaving Isabella with only a cryptic note.

Dear Arabella, it read,

As there is no persuading you, I have forced your hand. I will return in two weeks and extract you then, by which time I hope you will have convinced Mr Locke of the importance of supporting his nephew’s education. If you have not, at the very least you will have provided him and the rest of the ton with plentiful proof of your innocent presence in London.

I hope you will continue to be sociable at this time. You have told me that you are going to dinner with the Days next Tuesday, and I know that you have a great many other engagements written in your diary, which is in the top drawer of your Japanned cabinet. I hope you enjoy yourself in London society. You have a reputation for being a great wit, though to me it appears that all you do is say mean things and laugh a lot, even when nothing is funny.

Yours with love, Edwina

Isabella went back to Mr Locke’s house with an anxious heart, arriving in time for a foreboding dinner with him. He did not speak, though his eyes rested frequently upon her, unspoken thoughts flitting in their expression. Was he suspicious, or was that how he always looked at Arabella? Isabella felt a shiver of unease every time his eyes met hers. She dared not stay here, alone with him, until Edwina returned. Besides, she was no longer sure she could trust Edwina to help her leave at all. No. Isabella would have to seek refuge with her parents. Luckily, Locke was going there tomorrow. She could come too.

It wasn’t until the nuts and fruit were brought out that she managed to pluck up the courage to speak of it, however.

“I might come with you to my parents’ house,” she said, as indifferently as she could manage, pretending to be preoccupied in selecting grapes.

Locke bit into a strawberry, with no need to pretend indifference. “You might?”

“The carriage will take me too, will it not?”

“I was going to ride.”

“You could take the carriage.”

“My dear wife, if you take the carriage, I certainly will not.”

Isabella rather thought the quirk to his strawberry-stained lips was laughter. She did not like his joke. She reached over the table to take a strawberry for herself and nibbled at it. Locke gave them up, and started to crack walnuts. Isabella saw personal insult in it.

“I want to go,” she said, irritated. “So I will take the carriage, and you will ride post.”

Locke cracked another walnut, so hard that the flesh as well as the shell splintered over his plate.

“Very well then,” he said. “You have arranged it very nicely.”

It would have been a nice arrangement too, but the next morning Isabella woke to a roll of thunder. As she dressed, the sky darkened rather than lightened, and the rain pattering against the windows swelled to a drum. When she came downstairs at seven, ready to leave, she found Locke not in riding clothes, but in plain pale breeches and stockings and a fawn tail-coat. Isabella stared. She had never before seen Locke in anything but dark, rather floppy trousers, no doubt a habit picked up in France.

“You look like an Englishman,” she said.

“I do happen to be one,” Locke answered.

“Where are your riding clothes?”

“We ride together.” Locke opened the front door and gestured to rain now pouring down outside. “I decided that your company was the lesser of two evils.”

Isabella hesitated on the doorstep. She relished as little as Locke the prospect of spending three or four hours alone together in a coach. Before she could demur, Locke had opened an umbrella and held it over her, his hand at the small of her back, guiding her towards the door.

“It’s bad luck to open umbrellas indoors,” Isabella muttered.

“I delight in bad luck,” said Locke.

In the carriage, Locke closed the umbrella again and shook it out. Isabella was quite dry, but he must have been rained on, because the smell of damp wool clouded the cramped space. She settled back in the seat. Locke sat next to her, but to her relief, he opened a book almost immediately, leaning towards the window for the best light to read it by.

As they moved off, Isabella took the opportunity to examine his severe, angular profile. In the dim light, his pock-scars faded to a faint texture, not unlike the rind of an orange. Isabella wondered if they felt as rough as they looked. He turned a page of his novel, frowning, and she caught a glimpse of strange foreign letters and then a picture plate. It was Daphnis and Chloe again. Locke seemed rather more interested in the pictures than the words. Isabella doubted he was really reading it. Perhaps he could not. Her father kept a number of very serious and imposing books on display in his study but never read anything more demanding than the paper, and the only foreign words he could reliably pronounce were the names of French dishes. Isabella wanted to ask if Locke could really read Greek, but didn’t dare.

They spent the first half of their journey, therefore, in complete silence. After looking through all the pictures, Locke dropped the book closed in his lap and stared out the window. The smell of his damp coat was becoming cloying and stale. He shifted and the scent rose. Isabella wrinkled her nose in distaste. Locke caught her expression.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“That was something.” Locke leaned closer. “I can’t read your mind, but I can often read your face. What have I done now? I have displeased you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Well then.”

Locke leaned back and again the scent of damp wool wafted into the air. Isabella sighed.

“I won’t be offended if you tell me,” Locke added. “I’m collecting them, you see. The ways in which I’ve displeased you.”

“You have not displeased me.”

Locke gazed at Isabella through narrowed eyes for a moment and then turned back to the window. Isabella no longer dared watch him; she had the idea that he was watching her now, out of the corner of his eye, so she turned to her own window. Outside, the fields and lanes appeared fragmented and warped through the rain on the glass.

Silence lasted for some time, until abruptly Locke broke it.

“I have it!” he said. “You are still upset that I will not give your sister money to engage a tutor for young Mister Garvey.”

“It certainly would have helped me if you had,” Isabella said peevishly, “but I am not upset. I am not displeased. Or at least, I was not, before you insisted that I was.”

A sly grin cracked across Locke’s face. “Your eyes belie that. You always wrinkle your nose when something displeases you.”

Isabella wrinkled her nose just then, because she knew it to be true — as true of Arabella as it was of herself, apparently. She did not like to think what else Locke could read in her expressions. Nor did she like Locke’s smile. He was enjoying her irritation — what he thought was Arabella’s irritation.

“I cannot understand a man who takes so much pleasure in his wife’s discomfort,” Isabella said — quietly, half-hesitantly. “That displeases me. It shows a bitterness of character.”

“And I am bitter.” Locke’s smile faded. “Any man in my position might be.”

The sombreness of his expression intimidated Isabella into silence, but his words rankled her. He had sounded so sorry for himself, so undeservedly self-pitying. She thought that somebody ought to tell him that he was being ridiculous. Arabella, if she were here, probably would, but Isabella was not so brave.

For several miles, she soothed herself by telling herself all the things she would say to Locke if she dared, and eventually, to her surprise, she found herself saying them:

“What exactly is it that a man in your position has to be bitter about, Mr Locke? You spend your year going wither you will amongst the prettinesses and attractions of Europe, and return to London in its mildest month to dabble in the business your father built, largely, I must assume, to the dismay of your manager. From this you then collect the lion’s share of the profit without doing any of the real work, and return to Europe to spend it howsoever you desire. I see nothing to make you bitter. On the contrary, I see a great deal that ought to make you happy.”

Locke, who had once more fallen into reverie looking out the window, turned abruptly to her. His eyes were wide with surprise. Isabella felt the heat rush to her cheeks and quickly turned away. She was ashamed of her own daring. That had been positively rude.

“I wanted a wife,” Locke said. “One who loved me. I’d trade everything — every last penny — for that.”

“It would not take that much,” Isabella said, thinking of the way Arabella had laid her head on Mr Haythorn’s shoulder.

Locke leaned closer, close enough that the scent of his soap came through under the scent of damp wool.

“What would it take?” There was a strange, half-angry light in his eyes. “If you asked me anything, and promised me love for it, I’d probably yet be fool enough to give it to you — but you would never love me, Arabella. So don’t ask. Grant me that small mercy at least.”

His voice did not rise, but there was an angry curl to it. Isabella shrank back.

“Are you still in love with — me?” she asked.

A sneer appeared on Locke’s face. “God no!” He drew back abruptly. “Thank the Lord not!”

Isabella did not know if that made things better or worse, but it confirmed her suspicion that Locke enjoyed feeling sorry for himself, and furthermore, she thought prudishly, had a rather unfortunate penchant for melodrama.

It was a relief to arrive at her parents’ place at last. Despite their argument, Locke was out of the carriage first and held his hand out to Isabella to help her down. Then, once more, the umbrella came out and hovered politely over her. To Isabella, it felt like a farce. Besides, it had nearly stopped raining by now anyway.

They walked into the drawing room to find her parents were not alone. Seated in an armchair by the fire, with a grey shawl pulled around her grey shoulders, was a little old woman unknown to Isabella. She stared vacantly into the flames with her mouth half-open, seemingly unaware that anybody had entered the room.

Lady Garvey was up in an instant and flinging her arms around Isabella.

“My darling Arabella!”

The greeting was so warm that at first Isabella thought her mother might really be confused, but, after a brief round of colder greetings, Mr Locke left the room with Sir Edwin, and Lady Garvey grabbed Isabella’s elbow and drew her to the window.

“Does he know?” she hissed.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Good. I have been asking Mrs Sempell where her dratted nephew has gone but she says she doesn’t know either. I think she suspects something happened between them. You’ll have to pretend to be Arabella until Mr Locke leaves again.”

“I don’t think I can,” Isabella said. “I wanted to come back here, away from Mr Locke.”

Lady Garvey gave a resigned sigh. “I thought you might. Arabella always had more thought for us. Well, you’d better meet your Aunt Lydia.” She led Isabella to the old lady by the fireplace. “Aunt Lydia, this is Is— Arabella. Your niece. Arabella.”

No light appeared in the vacant eyes. A puddle of drool glistened at the corner of the half-open mouth.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Isabella said.

A faint, rattling sound came from deep within the old lady’s throat. Then she coughed, spittle flying out of her mouth.

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

That must have been a very long time ago indeed.

“She likes to have the Bible read to her,” Lady Garvey continued. “Her favourite is the Book of Ruth.”

Aunt Lydia stared at the fire. Isabella stared at Aunt Lydia.

“How old is she?” Isabella whispered.

“Eighty-eight,” Lady Garvey said. “She’s still very hale and hearty you know, but she’s not much of a conversationalist these days.”

Aunt Lydia’s breath creaked slowly in and then out again.

“Lovely cottage she has, in a little village called Deep Dean,” Lady Garvey continued. “Very quiet place. Peaceful, I would think. Now, if you’re going to stay, I suppose you’ll want a bedroom made up. Why don’t you talk to Aunt Lydia while I’m doing that?”

Lady Garvey bustled from the room. Isabella sat down on a seat near Aunt Lydia.

“Isn’t this just hideous weather?” she asked.

Aunt Lydia stared at the fire and said nothing.

Two futures loomed ahead of Isabella: live with Mr Locke and pretend to be his wife, or live with Aunt Lydia as her companion. The door opened, and Mr Locke returned. His eyes, not vacant, met Isabella’s. His mouth opened, and words, not breath, creaked out of it, very softly and close to her ear.

“You know, I once had a dog like her,” he said, nodding at Aunt Lydia. “A pug. We called her Queenie. She never moved, she just sat by the fire snuffling. She was dead three days before anybody noticed.”

This surprised a laugh out of Isabella. “Really?”

“Really.”

“And how do you know it was three days, if you didn’t notice when she died?”

Mr Locke met her eyes unblinkingly for a long moment. Then, to her surprise, he smiled properly for the first time. It completely changed the character of his face, bringing warmth and fire into his severe, cold eyes. Isabella felt herself smiling in response and hastily made a fuss of rearranging Aunt Lydia’s shawl.

“Alright, I don’t know exactly when the poor mutt died,” Locke said, keeping his voice low. “But there is a resemblance there, I promise.” His voice rose to a normal volume. “Now, your father has, very graciously, pressed upon me an invitation to dinner. Given the weather, and the hour at which you dine, that might mean staying the night. Frankly, I’d rather go home, and that means pressing on in an hour or so, but if you want to stay, I can leave the carriage and grooms here for you, and borrow a horse from your father.”

“Oh no.” Isabella took one last glance at Aunt Lydia. “I’d rather go with you. I don’t even know why I came, really.”

She knew as she said it that she was committing herself to a very dangerous future, but it seemed, at that moment, the lesser of two evils.

__

A/N: Oh, Isabella, so naive!

Chapter Eight: Something Rotten

Thanks to the sodden roads, they didn’t arrive home until well after dark that night, when the rain had at last settled down to a gentle patter. Anthony went straight to his room to change out of his damp clothes. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and scowled at his reflection. His hair, which always went fluffy in damp weather, stood on end in a feathery black halo around his head. He dragged a comb through it, trying to flatten it back down, then gave up the matter in disgust. Why even bother? It was Arabella who had to look at him, and no matter how much effort he put in she would never find any pleasure in it.

He dropped his comb, slipped into a fresh coat, and went downstairs to Arabella’s room, where she was occupied in the same task as he had just been, her hair loose over her shoulders. He stopped in the doorway, and she met his gaze through the mirror and jumped.

“What is it?” she asked, a querulous quaver to her voice.

“It’s already ten. I was wondering if you ordered dinner for tonight.”

“Oh.” She looked, for some reason, faintly relieved. “I didn’t know what time we would be back, so I told Cook to prepare a cold collation that might keep till tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Locke grumbled. He felt half-starved from their long journey and the insufficient tea at the Garveys’ house. “What would I do without you?”

“I imagine you’d go to your club,” Arabella said, returning to the task of brushing her hair. The candles brought out golden lights in it, shimmering with the movement of the flames. Locke could imagine its silky weight in his hands. His fingers twitched.

“Would you prefer to?”

Locke jumped. “What?”

“Would you prefer to eat at your club tonight? I see cold collation does not impress you.”

“It is not a matter of being impressed, dear wife. I require sustenance. There is a sinking feeling in my stomach, indeed, in my soul. It will not be assuaged with cold boiled eggs and little bits of ham.”

Arabella frowned. “That’s a very long-winded way of saying that you’re hungry.”

Locke felt somehow rebuffed. He hovered in the doorway, watching Arabella brush her hair. It was mesmerising, really, watching the candlelight play across her locks. Perhaps he would go to his club, where he could get a steak at least. But it was still raining outside and rather chilly. It would be much more comfortable to stay in, even if it were Arabella he was staying in with. Arabella, and a plate of cold ham. He sighed.

“I might be able to persuade Cook to fry up a bit of veal,” Arabella said, winding her hair into a twist at the back of her head. “And we can have fresh hot tea too. Would that suit you?”

Locke blinked, surprised she was being so accommodating. “I — yes. Yes, thank you.”

“Then I’ll go and order it, once I’ve finished with this.” Arabella held her hair in place with one hand and with the other fumbled across her dressing table for a pin. “Oh, drat!”

The pin evaded her grasp and fell to the floor. Locke obligingly came forward and picked it up for her, and then, on a sudden irrepressible impulse, took her head in his hands and slid the pin into the twist at the back of her neck. She stiffened at his touch and he let go. The twist slowly collapsed undone and the pin clattered to the floor again.

“Ah,” Locke said. “That was not as helpful as I thought it would be.”

“Not quite.” There was a pink tint to Arabella’s cheeks, very unusual and strangely becoming. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll wear it down. It’s only you and me anyway.”

She shook her hair loose, casting up the scent of flowery soap, then stooped to pick up the pin. Locke resisted the impulse to disarrange her hair further and stepped away from her. He had thought that after five years of marriage he was immune to her physical charms, and yet here he was, falling to temptation when she wasn’t even trying to incite it.

At least, he didn’t think she was. She had laughed at his joke about her aunt, really laughed, though he had intended to offend her. It was so many years since he’d seen a pleasant expression on her face that he’d forgotten what it was like. It had got his guard down. He ought to have gone to his club for dinner, rather than allow her to satisfy his wishes without him even uttering them. It was thoughtful of her to do so, and as Arabella wasn’t thoughtful, she must have some dark purpose in it. No. He could not let his guard down again. She was still the same old Arabella — duplicitous, selfish, cruel. He could not allow himself to forget it for even a moment, particularly not just because she happened to be brushing her hair under a low candlelight.

“Actually,” Locke said abruptly as Arabella reached the door, “I think I’ll go to my club tonight after all.”

Arabella looked startled. “Oh — well then, if you wish. It will be easier on the servants that way too.”

Somehow, Locke had expected a protest. Arabella did not lightly offer favours to anyone, least of all him. He frowned, then shrugged it off and went to find his coachman.

After the hairpin incident, Locke was determined to keep a cool and wary distance from Arabella. He had been too long in France, he had allowed his memories of her cruelty to dim, his caution to fade. If he were not careful, he might fool himself into thinking he was still in love with her.

To that end, he left London altogether and visited his only living relative, his dour Aunt Georgiana at her cottage in the country. The distance from Arabella would clear his head, and his aunt could always be relied upon to remind him of the mistakes he had made in his marriage.

In fact, the first thing Aunt Georgiana said, once they were sitting down in her parlour and waiting for tea, was a typically cold:

“I take it that you’ve come here fleeing from That Creature?”

“It’s only a strategic retreat,” Anthony replied. “Besides, I bought you a present in Paris and I thought you might like to receive it by hand.”

He took the small parcel out of his pocket and handed it to his aunt. It contained a crystal bottle of perfume that the shop assistant had insisted would win any lady’s affection, but Anthony was not convinced. Aunt Georgiana unwrapped it and, sniffing, dabbed a little onto her wrist.

“Summer roses — well it is not offensive, and the bottle is rather pretty. I suppose you still know how to charm the ladies, when you choose.”

“You’re incapable of being charmed,” Anthony said lightly. “So I’m in no danger from you.”

“Ah.” Aunt Georgiana’s eyes lit up with curiosity. “And you are in danger from your wife again? What is it she wants this time?”

“Nothing, as far as I can tell.” Anthony paused, hearing the familiar clickety-clack of dog paws on tile from the hallway. A moment later, Pug snuffled into the room, made a beeline for Locke’s feet, and sat down upon them. Locke reluctantly leaned down to give her a pat.

“She likes you, you know,” said Aunt Georgiana.

“And I like her well enough… at a distance. She always manages to drool on my shoes.”

Aunt Georgiana, who cared more for Pug than shoes, shrugged. “A dog suits most people better than a wife or a husband, I find. You ought to have got a dog, instead of an Arabella.”

Anthony shifted his feet under Pug and idly wondered if he ever would manage to convince Aunt Georgiana of a dog’s inferiority to human company, at least when it came to one vital area. He doubted it. Not that Aunt Georgiana was cold-hearted, but there were certain aspects of human existence that appeared to be entirely beneath her notice.

“A dog, after all, is never ungrateful when you feed it, or play with it, or give it attention, and an Arabella is,” Aunt Georgiana continued, warming to the theme. “She’s a distinctly cat-like creature, I always thought.”

“There is something feline about her.” Locke remembered that once he’d rather liked that. “She’s got claws at any rate.”

“And she spits at one when she’s angry.” Aunt Georgiana looked fondly at Pug, who was now contentedly snoring. “I told you before you married her that Arabella was a spiteful creature, but you would not listen.”

“I was in love. Of course I wouldn’t listen.” Locke bit back his anger; it was Arabella who deserved it, not his Aunt Georgiana who had seen through her insincere affection. “It’s too late now anyway. What’s done is done, and I have to live with it.”

“Or hide from it on the Continent eleven months of the year,” Aunt Georgiana said with a thin smile.

Locke was luckily prevented answering by the entry of the maid with tea and cake and sandwiches. Food always calmed his temper and knocked the edges off Aunt Georgiana, and after a few sandwiches, he was able to speak with tolerable calmness.

“Her mother’s been gambling, and racked up quite a debt. I paid that off but knowing Lady Garvey, it will happen again. It’s not the money that bothers me so much as it is…”

“…That the money is all they see in you,” Aunt Georgiana finished. “I don’t think any of them sees anything in anybody, except what they can get from them. And it’s their loss, their misfortune, if they’d but the wit to see it.”

“You’re probably right,” Locke said. “That doesn’t stop it hurting though, particularly—”

“Particularly?”

Locke stretched, disturbing Pug, who grunted and settled down on his feet again. “If she tried — really tried — to like me, I think I’d fall in love with her again. That’s why I came here.”

Aunt Georgiana choked on a sandwich. “Is she trying?”

“Of course not!” Locke remembered Arabella’s guilty flash of a smile at his joke; that had not been intentional, it could not have been. “But she’s not as cold as usual, and even that faint warmth is enough for me to feel some danger. It’s easier when she’s being cruel. At least then I know where I stand.”

Aunt Georgiana’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t forget who she really is, Anthony. It’s not as though most women don’t think at least a little of money when they marry, but Arabella is the only woman I know who ever married a man she despised. That she could care so little, not just for you, but for her own happiness, shows how absolutely heartless she is. Don’t trust her, not even an inch.”

“I don’t intend to. That’s why I came here, so that you could remind me of all the bad things she’s done to me over the years, and then I’d go back, armed against her.”

Aunt Georgiana gave a thin smile. “And here I was thinking you’d come for the pleasure of my company.”

“Unlike Arabella,” Locke said lightly, “you never pretend to be sweet. I can’t say it’s pleasurable, but I like it well enough.”

By the time Anthony left his Aunt Georgiana’s house three days later, he was well guarded against even Arabella’s prettiest smile. He had spent most of his visit complaining about her, and Aunt Georgiana had sympathetically listened and even more sympathetically reminded Anthony of the things he’d forgotten to complain about. On Thursday night, he arrived back home full of anger and wariness only to find the house dark and quiet and empty.

“Where is my wife?” he asked the footman as he passed him his coat and hat. “She hasn’t gone to Brighton has she?”

“She has only gone to dinner with friends,” the footman said, crushing Anthony’s hope. “She will be back later tonight.”

Anthony sighed. “Gone, and left me to come home to an empty house and cold collation again, no doubt. What a wife!”

“Oh no,” the footman said. “She was very insistent about your dinner, sir. Said that you would be tired from travelling and want something hot. It’s under covers waiting for you now.”

Mystified, Anthony went through into the dining room to find the table laid for one with the very best of his silver. He lifted the lids of the serving trays and saw steaming baked potatoes, grilled trout, and French beans. On the sideboard stood a decanter of wine and a plate of grapes and cheese, waiting for dessert.

“Madame was very particular,” the footman said from the doorway behind him. “Quite put Cook out about it.”

“And did she seem ill?” Anthony enquired. “Perhaps a touch of sunstroke? A little turned in the head?”

“Well no, sir, she was only a little worried, I think, that you wouldn’t like it.”

“Let it never be said that I do not like food, but there is something rotten in the state of Denmark if my wife is the one preparing it for me.” Anthony frowned. “Did she poison it?”

“Sir,” the footman said reproachfully. “Cook would never allow that.”

“You have a point.” Anthony prodded a potato, his stomach growling. “Very well then, tell Cook that I am very pleased with her. And I’ll pass any compliments onto my wife myself.”

__

A/N: I’m so sorry this is late guys - I’ve been so busy and tired lately.

Chapter Nine: A Gown of Midnight

While Mr Locke was absent from London, Isabella guiltily discovered that there were pleasures to be had in pretending to be Arabella. She could order whatever she liked for dinner, for one thing. In fact, the servants insisted that she did not choose whatever was convenient for them, but whatever she most desired. And when she did come down to dinner, though alone, Arabella’s maid expected her to choose the dress that most pleased her from Arabella’s extravagant wardrobe. On the first night, Isabella lacked the courage to take advantage of this and wore one of Arabella’s plainest dresses, but on the second night, her timid vanity got the better of her, and she dared to wear a gown of black lace and bronzed muslin, which made her look so dashing she almost disapproved of herself.

Of course, while she was only staying in the house, she had no call to wear anything more elaborate than day dresses, but the sparkling, delicate evening gowns in Arabella’s wardrobe called to her, and she began to wonder if it would not look too strange to wear one to dinner one night. There was one in particular, of dark blue silk and silver embroidery, that made her think of midnight and moonlight, even at the noon of a summer’s day. She held it against herself in the mirror and sighed wistfully at her reflection, pale, pretty, and somewhat witchy above the dress. If she just had somewhere to wear it…

She remembered Edwina’s letter, and went downstairs to Arabella’s study to find her Japanned cabinet and the diary within it. Arabella was not the most orderly of thinkers, and the dates were arranged in a haphazard fashion, but there were dates enough. Tonight, as Edwina had told her, Arabella was invited to dinner with Mrs Day.

Well she would not go. She could not, not even for the sake of wearing the midnight dress. Even if Arabella’s husband had noticed nothing amiss, Arabella’s friends surely would.

But as the hours of the day slipped by, vanity and avarice moved Isabella where Edwina could not. No one could say it was strange to wear an evening dress to a dinner party. It would be stranger not to. And once she had worn the dress, and appeared at the dinner, why, then she could make her excuses and come home quickly, before anyone realized who she really was.

So it was that at eight o’clock that night, Isabella walked up the steps of a foreign townhouse in the midnight dress and was greeted by the housekeeper, who appeared to know Arabella well.

At her first step into the house, Isabella realized she had made a huge mistake. Within was a carpeted hall, smaller than Mr Locke’s though his house was not large and dark for want of candles. It smelled strongly of stale wine and tobacco smoke. Isabella turned to leave on instinct — genteel people could not live here.

She was too late. A voice called to her from the stairs.

“Mrs Locke?”

Isabella turned, and a woman — very fair and rather pretty but dressed to her disadvantage in violet — came floating down the stairs towards her. She greeted Isabella with a soft coo of pleasure and a very damp and rather unpleasant kiss on the cheek.

“We’re all in the drawing room already,” Mrs Day said, taking her arm and leading Isabella up the stairs, further into the dimness and dankness of the house. “My, hasn’t it been an age since I last saw you! Such a drag it must have been, rusticating with the forebears for a whole fortnight.”

Her bluntness shocked Isabella and she could not reply.

Mrs Day gave a high pitched laugh. “Though I saw your lemon-sucking sister the other day! If only she’d smile once in a while.”

“She is having difficulties with her finances,” Isabella said, unable to keep the defensive note from creeping into her tone.

Mrs Day looked surprised. “Aren’t we all? Here we are.” She stopped before an open door. “Look, everyone, Mrs Locke has arrived and we can now stop pretending not to be bored.”

Nobody in the crowded drawing room looked at all bored to Isabella, but they all broke up their conversations to look at her anyway. Isabella suppressed the instinctive desire to sidle against the nearest wall and attempt to become a part of it. Instead, she sat down in a chair, sweeping the train of her dress around her ankles, and turned with a forced smile to her neighbour, a dapper young dark man. Thankfully, he launched into immediate, friendly conversation.

“You have just saved me from Mrs Belmond,” he said in a low voice, but not so low that the woman the other side of him could not hear. She gave a huff of indignation and turned away. “I thought I was going to die of boredom,” the man continued. “What are you thinking about, Mrs Locke? You are always thinking something fascinating. Entertain me.”

Put on the spot, Isabella could only clutch at the fabric of her gown, and wonder why on earth she had ever come. The dress must have bewitched her. She would spoil everything by saying something to prove that she was not Arabella after all.

The dapper man leaned closer — too close. “Oh, was it a secret? Whisper it to me. I won’t tell.”

The words of Edwina’s letter rang in her ears:

You have a reputation for being a great wit, though to me it appears that all you do is say mean things and laugh a lot, even when nothing is funny.

Isabella swallowed. “I was just thinking that Mrs Day’s dress makes her look sallow.”

The dapper man laughed, showing a pair strangely large front teeth, like a rat’s. “With a complexion like yours, you never have to worry about such things,” he said.

That was a surprise to Isabella, who was not used to being complimented. “Do you really think?” she asked.

“Would I ever lie to you, Mrs Locke?”

“That sounds like a lie,” Isabella said severely, because it did. Thankfully, that was the kind of thing Arabella might say anyway. Her neighbour smiled.

“Then you have your answer.”

He must have been a particular friend of Arabella’s, because he became very involved in talking to Isabella about a number of people she’d neither met nor heard of, monopolizing and rather boring her until the gong rang for dinner, at which point he stood up and offered her his arm. She took it, not out of any preference for his company, but because she didn’t know any of the other men in the room and this dapper, toothy man seemed to have bought her deception. In the dining room, however, she experienced her first mishap, when asking for white wine.

The dapper man clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Now didn’t you once tell me white wine is bad for the complexion?”

“It is,” Isabella said, trying to remain composed as Arabella would. “But I don’t care. I’m a married woman. I can ruin my own complexion if I please.”

Her companion laughed and so did she, though she did not know what they were laughing at.

“What do you think Mr Locke would say about that?” he asked.

“Mr Locke does not care.”

“Well, I care.” Her companion took the wine glass from her hand, in the process brushing his fingers over hers. “Your complexion is very important to me.”

The action grated Isabella, both for its familiarity and for its paternalism, but she forced a smile on her face. This man must be a very close friend of Arabella’s, to treat her so familiarly. She could not risk betraying herself by being cold or snappish towards him.

“Won’t you give that back to me?” she asked. “I’m thirsty.”

The man smiled. “What will you do for it?”

“Well, if you don’t give it back, I won’t talk to you the rest of the night.” And then, because it was beginning to seem like the right thing to do, Isabella laughed again.

It must have worked, because the man gave the wine back, but after that, she was stuck in conversation with him for the rest of the dinner. If she attempted to speak with the more genteel-looking man on the other side of her, the dapper man would quickly interrupt and demand her attention. She could not understand Arabella at all, being friends with such a person.

It was a relief when at last Mrs Day stood and signalled for the women to retire to the drawing room. As they went upstairs, Mrs Day took Isabella’s arm and whispered in her ear, “Well, you and Mr Oliver are getting on very well again — I thought you’d decided you hate him.”

“Oh I do,” Isabella said, relieved to be speaking something truthful at last. “Odious man, isn’t he? His face is all front teeth, like a rat.”

Mrs Day laughed. “How very true! How very clever! I must tell my husband that one! Oh, Mrs Belmond, did you not just hear what Mrs Locke said? Mr Oliver’s face is all front teeth, like a rat! Isn’t that just perfect?”

Within moments the comment had travelled through the crowd of women, laughter following wherever it went. Isabella felt oddly embarrassed to be so pleased by the laughter she had caused. It was not a nice thing she had said, but so many people had liked it. And if nobody liked Mr Oliver, why on earth had Mrs Day invited him to her dinner party?

It confused Isabella, and to hide her confusion, she sat down on a couch in the furthest, darkest corner of the drawing room, away from all the other women. Soon, she could make her excuses to go home — perhaps before the men and that odious Mr Oliver came back. She would plead a headache. Arabella frequently had headaches.

Just as she was about to do so, another lady, a little older than herself, rather plump and snub-nosed and blinking-eyed, sat down next to her, smoothing down her skirt with the awkward mannerisms of one not comfortable in her own flesh. She caught Isabella’s eye and gave a faint, awkward smile, then quickly looked away, as though afraid of having the smile returned.

She did not seem like the kind of woman Arabella would be friends with. Isabella had a suspicion that, like herself, this woman was merely trying to avoid the rest of the room.

“You do not come to Mrs Day’s often?” Isabella asked.

“Er. We have met here before.” The woman flushed pink. “Perhaps you do not remember me, Mrs Locke. Eliza Quale. I believe your family has some small acquaintance with my husband.”

A sort of cold shiver ran over Isabella. Mr Quale. Even six years later, his name still sent a flame of anticipation up Isabella’s spine — followed by a quenching flood of shame.

“But your husband is not here tonight?” Isabella said quickly.

“N-no. He does not often come with me. H-he has a different social circle.”

Mrs Quale smoothed down her skirts again, and could not meet Isabella’s eyes. Isabella wondered where Mr Quale was right now — with another woman, it must be, since his wife was so embarrassed to speak of him.

Isabella was suddenly full of contempt for this woman, so unpretty, so unconfident, so unbecoming. Then this was who Mr Quale had been betraying when he had plied his intentions upon Isabella, promising her he loved her, promising her they would get married. And she, all of seventeen — and pretty then, she had been pretty but had not known it — defenseless against his lies.

“I remember Mr Quale of course,” Isabella said slowly. “Why, I always thought him a very low sort of man. But you must forgive me for saying so — I forget he is your husband.”

Mrs Quale’s cheeks went pink. “I need forgive no such thing. It should not be said.”

Isabella had not been prepared for resistance from one so meek-looking as Mrs Quale. She blinked. And then, as though possessed with Arabella’s spirit, she said, with complete composure, “Very well then. I shall only think it.”

She laughed, exactly as Arabella would laugh, and realized the rest of the women in the room had been listening when they followed suit. Mrs Quale went pink to the tips of her ears.

“It is best not to say anything about Mr Quale at all,” Mrs Day said, eager and overloud. “For as the adage goes, if one can say nothing good…”

Isabella giggled. “Indeed, Mrs Day has the right of it. Let us not speak of Mr Quale. I shall not even think of him. Let my mind be pure.”

Again, the women burst into laughter. Tears glimmered in Mrs Quale’s eyes. She blinked them away, but she was not quick enough to hide them from Isabella. Not that Isabella felt any pity for her. She looked with jealous satisfaction upon Mrs Quale’s snub nose and frizzy dark hair. It was somehow gratifying to know that the wife of the man had stolen Isabella’s reputation — and for a brief time, her heart — was almost ugly.

Watching her, Isabella realized how much they had in common: they had both been used and betrayed by Mr Quale, they both lacked confidence in themselves. But tonight Isabella was dressed in a gown of midnight, and no one knew who she really was. Suddenly fearless, she gave a genuine laugh for the first time that evening.

“Come,” she said. “Let us not tease Mrs Quale. Let us enjoy ourselves and forget our silly husbands exist. For I can assure you that when we are absent from them, they do not burden their hearts with thoughts of us!”

Another burst of laughter followed this. Isabella’s cheeks burned with triumph and pleasure. It was easy after all, easier even than Edwina had told her it would be. As long as she didn’t doubt herself, no one else would think to do so.

Isabella was still flushed with triumph when she returned home some hours later. She had never before in her life had so much fun with complete strangers. It seemed that everything she said and did was admired as witty or pretty or fine. And she had been witty, she told herself, looking at her reflection in the hall mirror and smiling. She had said some very clever things indeed.

There was a noise behind her, and she turned to see Locke standing in the study doorway, a glass of port in his hand. Then he was back from the country. Her heartbeat quickened.

“You look happy,” he said. “What evil have you done?”

Isabella’s high spirits faded. She looked at the glass of wine in his hand. “You drink too much.”

“You have driven me to it.”

“Have I? What have I done? We have not seen each other in three days, and I have been out of the house all evening. And here you are, drinking alone—”

There was a footstep behind him and another man, a stranger to Isabella, fair and slender, leaned through the doorway.

“Not alone,” the stranger said with a grin.

“Too much all the same.” Isabella took a deep breath. “You will make yourself ill, Mr Locke.”

Then she went up the stairs, her hands shaking on the railing. For she had done evil. Mr Quale might have done her harm, might have seduced and abandoned her, but Mrs Quale had done no wrong. And she had made Mrs Quale cry.

__

A/N: I think this story contains some of the least good characters I’ve ever written. No one is outright evil, really, but even the good ones are capable of being horrible at times. Hopefully, some of them will get better along the way though.

Chapter Ten: Polite Conversation

“She looks well,” Redwood commented as they went back into study and sat down again by the empty fireplace.

“Like an apple with a rotten core,” Anthony said, pouring himself another glass of wine. “Why did she have the cook prepare dinner for me?”

That was what they had been puzzling over for the past hour. Anthony could not explain it. It was so unlike Arabella to be thoughtful of his comfort. And tonight she had been happy — really happy. Anthony had seen it by the way she had smiled at herself in the mirror. That was unusual too. Wherever she had been tonight, the company must have been sweeter to her than his own. But if that were the case, why bother to be kind to him? It could not be out of guilt. Arabella was incapable of feeling such an emotion.

“They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Redwood suggested. “Perhaps she wants you to love her again.”

Anthony snorted.

“Very well,” Redwood agreed. “Perhaps it was poisoned.”

“It didn’t taste poisoned.” Anthony swirled the wine in his hands, watching it glint and wink under the candlelight. “She must want something from me. She must be trying to butter me up.”

“Hm.” Redwood raised his eyebrows until they disappeared beneath his mop of fair hair. “You know, Locke, you could just ask her why she did it.”

“Ask her?” Anthony looked up, then frowned. “I suppose I could. It seems somewhat anticlimactic.”

Redwood laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if maybe you don’t enjoy it after all.”

“Enjoy what?”

“This state of constant warfare.” Redwood pointed at Anthony and mimed shooting a pistol. “I mean, you’re trying to fault her for doing something kind for you. You’re turning an off-hand favour into a mystery.”

“It is a mystery,” Anthony said stubbornly. “She has never done me any such kindness before.”

“And haven’t you heard about the gift horse? Any other man would simply thank his wife — or forget to, more like. Well, I suppose it can be called a kind of success, if after five years of marriage, a man still finds his wife interesting.”

“Interesting!?” Anthony was almost insulted by that. “If I found her interesting, would I spend eleven months of the year avoiding her?”

“You provoke her — you certainly did provoke her just now — and a bored man does not waste his time provoking his wife. I’d wager you’re a little disappointed she didn’t give you more of a reaction. I think you enjoy squabbling with her.”

“I don’t enjoy it,” Anthony said shortly. “I’ll prove it. Come on.”

What he was proving, he didn’t quite know; he had drunk too much tonight and was more than a little tipsy. He got to his feet and went upstairs, and Redwood followed behind him, snatching up the bottle of wine as he went.

Arabella was in her bedroom, unpinning her hair at the mirror. She looked startled when Anthony came in, and when Redwood appeared in the doorway behind him, she got to her feet.

“What’s this?” she demanded.

“It was his idea,” Redwood said politely, leaning against the doorframe and taking a swig from the wine bottle. “Locke, I don’t think your wife appreciates our company.”

“Not in my bedroom,” Arabella said sharply. “Mr Locke—”

“—Why did you order dinner for me?” Anthony cut in.

Arabella blinked. “I— I thought you’d be hungry.”

Redwood laughed softly from the doorway. Anthony scowled.

“You’ve never thought that before,” he accused. “What did you mean by it?”

“Mean by it? What am I meant to have meant by it?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking!” Anthony retorted.

“Then I did not mean anything by it!”

This flummoxed Anthony and sent Redwood into a fit of vinous giggles.

“You always mean something by everything,” Anthony insisted. “And I can’t decipher it, so you might as well just tell me. Is it money? Do you want money for something?”

Arabella cheeks coloured. “Are you… angry?” she asked incredulously. “Angry that I had Cook make dinner for you? I cannot imagine why that would anger you, but from the moment I come home you treat me like a criminal. No wonder my sister—”

She broke off sharply, a flash of panic crossing her face.

“No wonder Edwina what?” Locke asked, narrowing his eyes.

“N-no wonder she says I ought never have married you.” Arabella lifted her chin defiantly. “If even my kindness displeases you, then why ever did you choose such a wife for yourself, Mr Locke? I pity you for being so cynical.”

She sounded more contemptuous than pitying. Locke closed the distance between them and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Don’t pin this on me. It’s not my fault we’re like this — I loved you. Remember that. I loved you. And you rewarded me for that with lies and scorn. Do you think that kind of anger can fade so easily?”

An emotion bloomed in her eyes. Before he could discern it, she looked down and it was hidden beneath long lashes and soft shadowed lids.

“You don’t love me anymore, do you?”

“No.” This close, he could smell the soap she used in her hair, of roses and summer evenings. It made him dizzy. “I haven’t loved you in years.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “I mean… it makes it easier. It need not be painful, not so painful, if you don’t love me.”

“It’s never going to not be painful, Arabella. Did you really think it ever would be?”

“We c-could see less of each other,” she said hesitantly. “I could be out of the house more, if you would like.”

She raised her eyes again to meet his. There was an emotion in them he could not quite decipher, something soft and warm and questioning.

Suddenly, the closeness was too much and Locke stepped back. He didn’t love her. But she was still his wife, and part of him still responded to her the way it always had. But she did not respond to him. Never had. Not since the first night of their marriage when she’d rolled over in bed and said, cutting through his apologies, “Of course it hurt. The first time is supposed to hurt.” It had been the disgust in her voice that had hurt him. Disgust, either for his concern or for his love-making. And the disgust hadn’t faded, not the next night, nor the night after, not when it no longer hurt her at all but merely bored her. It hadn’t been long after their wedding night when he’d stopped trying. He wasn’t going to start again now, only to see the contempt return to her eyes once more.

There came the clink of glass, and Anthony remembered with a start that Redwood was still in the doorway.

“You’re right,” he said. “We could see a great deal less of each other. That would be best. Let’s start now.”

And he turned and left, so fast that Redwood, giggling like a girl, had to scurry to keep up. Back down in the study, Redwood drained the last of the port from the bottle.

“Now I see why you enjoy squabbling with her,” he said grandly. “If you didn’t make yourself hate her, I think there’s a real risk you’d still be in love with her.”

Anthony dropped down into an armchair and kicked his heels against its base. “I’m not stupid,” he said savagely. “If I ever fall in love again, it’ll be with a woman capable of sharing the disease with me.”

---

After that night, Isabella saw very little of Mr Locke. At breakfast, he hid behind his paper and refused to even look at her. At dinner, he ate in funereal silence. Outside of meals, she never saw him at all, unless they chanced to pass in the hall or upon the stair. He spent his time either out or locked in his study.

Isabella too found her time occupied. After the dinner party at Mrs Day’s, it no longer seemed polite to refuse to be at home when Arabella’s friends called upon her. Instead, she took Mrs Day or Mrs Belmond or Mr Oliver and his sister up to the drawing room to make polite conversation with them, or what passed for polite conversation with such a crowd. There was very little pleasant that any of the four had to say about anybody else. They talked of the cruellest and most trivial of gossip, of cuckolding and debauchery and scandal and vice. The more time she spent with them, the less Isabella liked any of them, but she could not deny that they were sometimes very amusing and that there was something very pleasant about having young, lively company about her. She thought that perhaps, when Edwina returned and extracted her from Mr Locke’s house, she might somehow miss these days.

Except Edwina did not return.

A week after she left for Brighton, a letter came for Isabella stating that Edwina and her family were enjoying Brighton so much that they would stay there until the beginning of August — right about when Mr Locke would leave for the continent again.

Somehow this did not quite surprise Isabella. Nor did it entirely disappoint her. She no longer feared Mr Locke discovering who she really was; he was too intent on avoiding her for that to happen. Arabella’s friends were also unlikely to suspect anything. Despite their proclamations of affection and admiration, they did not seem to know Arabella very well at all. Their conversation was always devoted to the topic of other people. Staying an extra fortnight under Mr Locke’s roof did not seem too much a danger. And it would give her the chance to wear more of Arabella’s dresses, to go shopping with Mrs Day, and to ride in the park with Mrs Belmond, things which to Arabella might have been very mundane, but which Isabella was very much looking forward to.

She had even been invited by Mr Oliver to a concert at Vauxhall Gardens. This was the biggest treat of all, but Isabella was not sure it would be right to attend. Mr Oliver assured Isabella that he would be with a party of men and women, that they would have a supper room away from the disreputable crowds, that he would have his coach deliver her home by midnight if Mr Locke could not spare her his. And Isabella knew that most married couples did not attend such events together, that it would not be wrong for a married woman to attend such a concert with an unmarried man and his sister, but that did not make it feel right, not when looking at Mr Oliver’s long teeth, exposed by his long smile.

By the night of the concert, she was still undecided. It happened also to be Mr Locke’s last night in London. Isabella wondered if perhaps it would be polite for her to stay home, but Mr Locke did not seem to want her company. His things were packed in trunks in the below-stairs hall, ready to be sent away tomorrow, and he was holed up in his study writing some last letters of business. It seemed that there would be no goodbye, not unless she interrupted him in his work or waited at home until he came up the stairs to bed. There would not be time for goodbyes in the morning. He left before dawn.

Regardless, she went upstairs and got once more into the midnight gown and paced the drawing room, trying to decide if she should call her carriage to Mr Oliver’s house or not. As she was thinking, a knock came at the door. Then Mr Oliver had come for her. He had said he might.

It was not Mr Oliver.

Isabella went to the top of the stairs and saw Edwina and a strangely familiar muddily-fair man in the hall. As they came up the stairs, she recognized the man by his short-sighted, squinting brown eyes: her cousin Walter, who she had not seen in years, Edwina’s husband.

“You look well,” she said politely, as Edwina met her. Edwina did, indeed, look less like she was sucking lemons; in fact, she had more of an expression as though she were licking cream.

“Thank you.” Edwina looked Isabella up and down more critically. “A very pretty dress.”

“I was invited to a concert. But I have decided not to go, so you are interrupting nothing.”

“Good. I want to talk to you.”

Edwina led the way into the drawing room, without waiting for Isabella to invite her. Walter followed, after giving Isabella a stiff and very correct bow. Isabella sighed and went after them.

“Well?” Edwina demanded, sitting down on the couch. “How is everyone taking it?”

Isabella cast a glance at Walter.

“I know,” he said, in that quiet, perpetually-irritated voice she remembered so well. “Mrs Locke has run off. You have taken her place. We must keep appearances.”

There was a world of bitter judgement to his tone; he had never liked Arabella.

“Arabella’s friends seem to have noticed nothing,” Isabella said quietly. “I have seen a great deal of Mrs Day and Mrs Belmond, and a little too much of Mr Oliver and his sister. They seem to be fond of me — Arabella, I mean.”

“And Mr Locke?” Edwina asked.

“He suspects nothing, as far as I can tell. I have little to do with him actually. He is frequently out of the house, as am I, and when we do meet, he does not talk.”

Edwina’s shoulders straightened with pride. “I knew it would work,” she said. She turned to Walter. “I told you, there was nothing to worry about.”

Walter shook his head. “A lie must always make a good man worry, Mrs Garvey.”

That was another thing about Walter that Isabella had forgotten; he spoke in moral generalizations. A flame of dislike rose up inside her against him. He had said, about the time that Mr Quale had ruined her, that the man must beware the woman with the apple. Perhaps that was why he dared not meet her eyes now. Thank goodness it was Edwina who had had to marry him.

“Have you heard anything from Arabella?” Isabella asked.

“Hmph.” Edwina picked an invisible speck of dust from her skirt. “She is in Dublin.”

“What!? Then you must go and get her back! Or — or Father must.”

“I must do no such thing, and Papa certainly will not. She did not give her direction in any case. I came home to find a letter saying that she will never return. She and Haythorn plan to make their way to America.”

“America! But then… we must tell Mr Locke the truth.”

“No, we must not.”

“But if she has left, if she is not coming back, then he must know! It cannot be kept up forever!”

“She will come back.” Edwina shrugged. “She asked me to send money, you see. And I won’t, so she’ll have to return.”

It all sounded very simple, the way Edwina put it. Isabella bit her forefinger.

“What if she… doesn’t?” she asked hesitantly.

Edwina dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand.

“I would not so soon rely upon Mrs Locke to do anything she is required to do,” said Walter.

A crease appeared between Edwina’s brows. “What are you saying? That she might not come back?”

He gave a brief stiff nod.

“Well if she never did, would it even matter?” Edwina asked thoughtfully. “If Mr Locke has not found out by now, he never will. I would think that Arabella never returning might be the best option for all of us after all. Isabella would simply take her place — forever.”

“I couldn’t do that!” Isabella’s gut twisted. “That would be too… too cruel. Too deceitful. We would have to tell him the truth, all of the truth.”

Edwina raised her eyebrows. “Would we?” Again, she flicked a speck of invisible dust from her skirt. “Perhaps we would. Well then, let us tell him right now.”

She stood and went to the door, her skirts snapping at her ankles. Isabella jumped to her feet and pulled her back.

“Wait! Don’t!”

Edwina stopped. “Don’t tell him? But just now you said we should.”

“I— I didn’t mean now.” Isabella could imagine the scorn, the anger in Mr Locke’s eyes when he heard it — no, worse than that. He would be hurt. He must be hurt to hear of it. And it would ruin Isabella too. “We ought to send him a letter. Once he’s abroad, once he has space.”

“There’s no point delaying the inevitable,” Edwina said briskly, slipping loose from Isabella’s grasp and opening the door.

Isabella slammed it shut again. “Don’t do it! You can’t!”

“But we must!”

“Not now! Edwina, please, don’t!”

This time, when Edwina stopped, it was to smile at Isabella — a crocodile smile.

“You see,” she said, “we cannot tell him. When does he go to the Continent? Tomorrow, was it not?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Isabella said miserably.

“Then tomorrow afternoon you will return to Mother and Papa in the country, as Arabella. We will put it about that you have the flu. Sooner or later, Arabella will return, and when she does, she will recover from her flu. If she really does make it to America, well, you will continue to be her in her place.” Edwina smoothed down her hair the way a cat licks its paws. “I must say, you really ought hope she doesn’t return. It must be much more comfortable to be Mrs Locke, abandoned wife, than it is to be Miss Garvey, ruined spinster.”

“It was Arabella who did the abandoning,” Isabella said quietly, but her spirit was dampened. She could see now that she had trapped herself. She dared not face Mr Locke’s wrath when he found out the truth, as some day he must. No, Isabella thought savagely. It was Arabella’s fault, and when Arabella returned, it would be her problem.

If Arabella returned.

__

A/N: Wow, this is a long one. But Mr Locke cannot be deceived forever, one way or another, he’s gonna find out ;)

Chapter Eleven: In The Dark

When the knock came at the door that night, Anthony was in his study writing letters and drinking the last of his favourite bottle of brandy. He got up to answer the door, then stopped as he heard his sister-in-law’s sharp voice float through it.

“When we have a townhouse as big as this, I shall have the door painted red! I do not like these black doors. They are so grim. Just like Mr Locke!”

There came the softer, discontented rumble of Walter Garvey’s voice in reply, too indistinct to decipher. Anthony shut the study door with a soft click as the footman came down the hallway. He would not ruin his last night in London by allowing Edwina or her supercilious husband to catch sight of him and trap him in conversation.

Through the door he caught the sound of their footsteps going up the stairs, and then Arabella’s softer voice speaking to them. Then there came the creak of floorboards from the drawing above. Locke sat down again and returned to his letters. He had several yet to write, to his lawyers and managers mostly, and he wanted to get them finished and go to bed early.

The faint, muffled sound of voices from above disturbed his concentration. After a few minutes, it seemed they began an argument. Though he could not hear what they were saying exactly, their tones were sharp and shrill.

Locke sighed. It would impossible for him to get to sleep early if they stayed much longer. He finished his last letter, and opened the desk drawer to discover that he’d run out of sealing wax. There was more — in the writing table in the drawing room upstairs.

He looked at the ceiling. The floorboards creaked above as someone thundered across the floor, then a shriek cut through the walls. Edwina’s? Or Arabella’s? It was getting physical, it seemed. Sometimes when Arabella lost her temper she became violent. She’d slapped him, spat at him, kicked him. Last summer she’d even thrown a vase at him, and he didn’t think she’d missed deliberately. Perhaps Edwina was like that too. It must have been in the way they were raised. He just hoped they wouldn’t break anything.

He opened the study door quietly and stuck his head out into the dark hall. Now he could hear them more clearly.

“…Don’t do it!” Arabella was shouting. “You can’t!”

“But we must!”

“Not now! Edwina, please, don’t!”

Arabella? Begging? Anthony was curious, but not curious enough to interrupt whatever was going on above. It seemed, in any case, that they were not physically fighting, and he still needed sealing wax.

Hesitating a moment, Anthony took up his candle, went down the hall, and slipped into Arabella’s sitting room at the back of the house. She would surely have sealing wax somewhere in here, and it would save him from going upstairs and getting involved in their squabbling. There was no wax on her little writing table, so he went over to the roll-top desk. It was locked, but the key was in the hole. As he unlocked it, the thought came to him that if Arabella caught him, she would be furious with him for invading her private space, but another indistinct shout came from upstairs, and he consoled himself that it was his money, after all, that bought her sealing wax.

He pulled the roll-cover up, and a cascade of papers and junk came bursting from the pigeon holes. Sorting through the debris — which included, for some reason, shoe buttons, a broken string of pearls that used to be his mother’s, and a bar of soap — he found at last a stick of wax, unused. There was no point trying to put things back as they had been, but he bent to pick up some letters which had fallen to the floor, and as he did, the address on one caught his eye:

Sun of my soul, enchantress of my wand,

A sudden chill came over him, despite the warmth of the evening. He picked the letter up, holding it towards the candle to read. As he read, the cold settled deeper over him. There was no name on the letter, nothing beyond anonymous endearments, but the writer described in vivid detail the face and features of his beloved, leaving no room for doubt as to who his intended recipient was.

Locke sat down where he was, slowly, one joint at a time, like an accordion folding up. He was aware, in a distant way, of the pain of something digging into his foot and of the sound of more shouts from upstairs. The echo of a memory returned to him, so strongly that he could almost feel and hear and see it: his wife’s body on the first night of their marriage, her flesh so soft and warm under his hands, her teeth in his shoulder, the scream bitten off as he had entered her. He had been afraid to hurt her. He had hurt her. And afterwards he had tried to apologize, to promise he wouldn’t hurt her ever again, and she had sat up and told him not to be stupid. What did he expect from a virgin?

The sudden bang of the front door startled Anthony out of his shock. He became aware of the room around him, of the candle dripping wax onto the desk, of the rug digging into his foot, of the scattered letters crinkling on the floor in a draught. Edwina and her husband must have left. There came the sound of Arabella’s footsteps down the hall. But she didn’t come in. Perhaps she didn’t see the light. Her footsteps went onwards, up to the next floor, and then faded away.

Calmer now but still shaking, Anthony gathered up every last letter from the floor and desk and smoothed them out under the candlelight. Some were innocent, unpaid bills or notes of business. Others, however, were by the same author as the first, and for the same purpose. With no thought for Arabella’s privacy now, he read them one by one. They were all along the same lines. Supplication, endearments, flattery, lust, addressed to “Love of my life” or “Light of my heart” and signed, always, with kisses and the initials L.T. He could hardly fathom how she had dared keep them so carelessly. Anyone might have looked in the desk for a sheet of paper or a pen and discovered the evidence. But perhaps all her friends knew. Perhaps he was the only one in the dark.

He had always known, of course, that she was not faithful, in heart, or mind, or soul. But it was one thing to suspect her of intimacy with another man, and quite another to be confronted by evidence of such bodily, explicit nature. Anger, humiliation, disgust, and some strange grief tore through him.

It was the grief— for something he had lost long ago —that gave him the stupid impulse to lock up the desk, run to his room, and burn the letters. But even as he thought of it, he knew he couldn’t. The letters could never be burned, because he would need them if he sued for a divorce. When he sued for divorce.

He doused the candle and went slowly upstairs, the bundle of letters clutched to his chest. On the second floor, light glowed through the crack under Arabella’s door. She was still awake then, and alone. Should he speak to her now? Could he even bear to see her face? A sudden surge of anger drowned out his grief. It was she who deserved to have to bear him. He strode to the door and kicked it, slamming it open against the wall.

Arabella jumped, and turned around from her dressing table.

“L-Locke.”

She was in a flimsy night-dress, brushing her hair. She dropped the brush and made a movement to cover her chest before stilling herself. It incensed him.

“What are these?”

He strode over to her, thrusting the letters in her face. She shrank back.

“What are they, Mrs Locke?”

She took them from him with trembling hands. With her first glance, her face went white. As she read on, it went red.

“I-I…” She pushed the letters blindly towards him, looking at the floor, and when he didn’t take them, dropped them. “I don’t know.”

Her voice trembled. Her hands shook. Her cheek, what he could see of it, was white again. It was the first time he’d ever seen Arabella scared. He had thought he might like it, but somehow he didn’t.

“You don’t know,” he said flatly. “You deny them?”

“N-no. I-I…” She buried her face in her hands. “No. I don’t… deny.”

“How long has it been going on?”

“I-I don’t— I won’t tell.”

“How long, Mrs Locke!? How many men have there been!?”

He was surprised to see her flinch at his shout. Remembering the servants might overhear them, he came closer and bent over her, so he could speak in a harsh whisper into her ear.

“At least let me know the extent of my cuckolding, Wife. I deserve that, at least: to know how great a fool I have been.”

“N-no.”

“Then, you tell me nothing. Of him. What do you have to say of yourself? Do you offer any defence, any explanation? A private one, before we take this to the publicity of the courts?”

She wouldn’t speak at all now. She simply looked up at him between her fingers, her eyes huge and dark and terrified.

“What do you have to say for yourself!?” When she did not speak, he placed his hands on the dressing table behind her, surrounding her. “Say something, Arabella. Tell me something, anything.”

She flinched again. “Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” He stepped back in astonishment. He had never hurt her. But she was cowering in front of him, like a scared child. “Do you think I’ll hit you? Do you think that of me?”

She must. She was shrinking back against the dressing table, her arm over her head. It was completely impossible. He had stood still while Arabella had spat at him, slapped him, and shouted at him. And he had never used force upon her, except for once, several years ago, when she had picked up a knife and threatened to stab herself. He hadn’t believed she would until she had done it, and then he had ripped the knife from her grasp and pinned her down while the footman ran for a doctor.

And Arabella hadn’t been scared then, either. Not scared to hurt others, or herself, certainly not scared to be hurt.

But here she was, terrified of simply being shouted at again.

He put a hand towards her, and she whimpered. It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t fake. She was terrified.

He could not understand it. And then, in a rush of sudden comprehension, he did.

Arabella would never behave this way.

This was not Arabella.

__

A/N: And so Locke finally realizes. And Isabella is in deep, deep trouble now ;)

Chapter Twelve: Anger Rising

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Chapter Thirteen: Criminal Conversation

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Chapter Fourteen: A Man of Impulse

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Chapter Fifteen: Isabella

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Chapter Sixteen: What Fools Deserve

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Chapter Seventeen: Old Hat

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Chapter Eighteen: Becoming Arabella

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Chapter Nineteen: A Lie

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Chapter Twenty: Man’s Animal Nature

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Chapter Twenty-One: Forgive Her

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Chapter Twenty-Two: Anthony

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Chapter Twenty-Three: Four Left Turns

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Chapter Twenty-Four: Poisonous Testimony

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Chapter Twenty-Five: Sentiment Inflicted

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Chapter Twenty-Six: Blind Alley

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Chapter Twenty-Seven: Poisoned and Poisonous

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Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Promise

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Chapter Twenty-Nine: Only A Kiss

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Chapter Thirty: An Ugly Word

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Chapter Thirty-One: Bad Etiquette

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Chapter Thirty-Two: One Night

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Chapter Thirty-Three: Bad Deeds

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Chapter Thirty-Four: Daughters Lost

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Epilogue

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