“North is an enormous place. It could take us weeks to find her,” Rock warned.
Nick looked to the pair of females waiting excitedly at Gabriel’s elbow, then back to the men at the table.
“I find myself willing to make the trek.”
Two
* * *
Townsend Park
Dunscroft, Yorkshire
Isabel considered the pale, exhausted girl who sat before her on a low, narrow cot. She was barely old enough to be out, let alone old enough to have traveled four days by mail coach to arrive on a strange doorstep in the dead of night.
Eyes wide with fear, the young woman stood, clutching a small traveling bag to her.
Isabel smiled. “You are Georgiana.”
The girl did not move. Her expression did not change.
“I am Isabel.”
Recognition flared in Georgiana’s blue eyes. “Lady Isabel?”
Isabel came closer, warm and welcoming. “The very same.”
“I thought …”
The smile turned into a grin. “Let me guess. You thought I would be old? Wizened?”
The girl half smiled. A good sign. “Perhaps.”
“In that case, I shall take your surprise as a great compliment.”
The girl set down her bag and dropped into a curtsy.
Isabel stopped her. “Oh, please don’t. That will make me feel old and wizened. Sit.” Isabel pulled over a small wooden stool to join her. “We don’t stand on ceremony here. And if we did, I would be the one deferring to you. After all, I am a mere earl’s daughter and you …”
Georgiana shook her head, sadness in her expression. “Not anymore.”
The girl missed home.
Not many girls who landed at Townsend Park missed where they came from.
“How did you find us?”
“My … a friend. She said you took in girls. Said you could help.” Isabel nodded, encouraging. “My brother. I couldn’t tell him …” Her voice cracked, making speech impossible.
Isabel leaned forward, taking the girl’s cold, shaking hands in her own. “You don’t need to tell me, either. Not until you are ready.”
I know that sometimes it is easier not to tell.
Georgiana looked up, eyes wide and filled with tears. “My friend … she said you would take care of us.”
Isabel nodded. “And we shall.” The girl slumped with relief. “I think you have come a long way. May I suggest that you try to sleep? We shall have breakfast in the morning, and you can tell me anything you wish.”
Within minutes, Georgiana had slipped between the crisp, clean sheets of the narrow bed, a bed Isabel imagined was likely far less grand than any in which the sister of the Duke of Leighton previously had slept. Isabel watched for a few long moments to ensure that the girl was, indeed, asleep, and slipped from the room.
To find a collection of curious onlookers had assembled in the hallway beyond.
“Is she asleep?” Isabel’s cousin and closest friend, Lara, asked in a whisper.
Isabel nodded, waiting for the latch to click before turning back to her audience. “Why isn’t this hallway properly lit?”
“Because you cannot afford the candles.”
Of course.
“The sister of a duke, Isabel?” Jane whispered the rhetorical question.
“It shouldn’t matter who she is,” Gwen, the cook, argued. “She needs us! We take in girls who need us.”
“She cannot stay,” Kate announced flatly, looking to the others for support.
“Perhaps we could move this conversation away from the poor girl?” Isabel whispered, motioning the whole group back down the hallway.
“She cannot stay!” Kate whispered again as they walked.
“Yes, I believe you’ve made your position clear on the subject,” Isabel said dryly.
“It’s an enormous risk, Isabel,” Jane said when they were back at the top of the stairs, as though Isabel had not thought of it herself.
As though her heart were not pounding with dread.
Of course, it was a risk. One did not simply open one’s doors and offer board to the sister of a duke—one of the most powerful men in England—without his knowledge.
This could end James.
Her brother was only ten years old, a new earl, and he would struggle to escape their father’s reputation. If the Duke of Leighton discovered his sister here—discovered the women who were hidden here under the protection of the Earl of Reddich—James would never survive the scandal.
The others were right. She should turn the girl out. It would be the responsible thing to do. It would protect them all.
She looked from one woman to the next, each of whom had come to Townsend Park under similar circumstances to the young woman she had just left. She could have turned them all away. But she hadn’t. Settling on her cousin, she asked, “Lara?”
There was a beat, as Lara considered her words. “I know the rules, Isabel. I know what we say. But … a duke. It will bring suspicion upon all of us. She … What if someone comes looking for her? What if we are found? ”
Isabel looked in the direction of the room where she had left the sleeping girl. “I imagine that it is more a question of what shall happen when someone comes looking for her. Sisters of dukes are not often allowed to go missing.” She paused, then, “She is increasing.”
Jane let out a low whistle.
“Did she tell you that?” Gwen asked.
“She did not have to.”
“Well,” Lara said, “obviously we cannot turn her out, then.”
Kate disagreed. “She’s no merchant’s daughter. No barkeep’s wife. Not even from landed gentry. She’s an aristocrat, for heaven’s sake. She could be two aristocrats! We should send the girl home to her aristocratic family.”
“An aristocratic family is not always the solution, Kate. I know that better than anyone.” Isabel thought of the deep, dark circles beneath the frail girl’s closed eyes, the hollow cheeks that spoke volumes of this small, mysterious woman.
This girl who was lost and alone.
It was enough for Isabel.
“I’ve never turned a girl away. I shan’t start now. She has a place here for as long as she needs one. We shall put her to work. James is in need of a new governess. I am certain that she will do quite well.”
Kate snorted. “Did you see her? I’d wager she’s never done a day’s work in her life.”
Isabel smiled then. “Neither had you when I took you in. And now you’re the finest stable master this side of London.”
Kate looked away, wiping one hand down her breeches. “Sister to a duke,” she whispered.
Isabel looked at the women crowded around her—to Jane, her butler, who ran a house with the ease of any male servant trained for years; to Gwen, a cook who could have been trained in the best kitchens in London for the pride she took in her work; to Kate, who had a way with horses that rivaled that of the jockeys at Ascot. Each of them had come to Townsend Park under similar circumstances to that of the sleeping girl, each of them had been given room, board, and a chance for a future.
And they had believed that Isabel could face any challenge.
Little did they know.
She was just as scared. Just as uncertain.
She took a deep, steadying breath, and when she spoke, she did her best to infuse her tone with confidence—prayed that the others would believe it. “She needs Minerva House. And Minerva House shall rise to this challenge.”
I hope.
Isabel opened her eyes and shot straight up in her chair.
Her cousin Lara was standing on the other side of the earl’s desk. “Good morning.”
Isabel squinted at the windows, where a brilliant blue sky announced that she had slept well into the morning. She looked back at Lara. “I fell asleep.”
“Yes. I see that. Why did you not attempt such a feat in your bed?”
Isabel tilted her head back, the muscles of her ne
ck and shoulders screaming at the movement. “Too much to do.” She placed one hand to her cheek, removing a small slip of paper from where it had become stuck in the night.
Lara set a teacup down on the desk and seated herself across from Isabel. “What could you possibly have had to do that required you to forgo sleep?” She paused, distracted. “You have ink on your face.”
Isabel wiped her palm across her stained cheek, her gaze falling to the paper she had removed from the same location. She considered the list she had drafted the night before.
The immense list she had drafted the night before.
Her stomach flipped.
She brushed a stray auburn lock back from her face and returned it to its tight, practical home. Guilt washed over her as she was consumed with the myriad of things that she had meant to do the previous night—after taking a quick nap.
She should have come up with a plan to secure the girls’ safety. She should have drafted a letter to her father’s solicitor to confirm that there were no funds set aside for James’s education. She should have written to the real estate office in Dunscroft to begin the search for a new house. She should have begun reading the book on roof repair that was soon to be an emergency text.
She hadn’t done any of that, however. Instead, she’d slept.
“You need rest.”
“I’ve had plenty of rest.” Isabel started to organize the papers on the desk, taking note of a new pile of envelopes there. “Where did these come from?” She lifted the letters, revealing a ladies’ magazine that had come for the girls. She registered the headline: Inside! London’s Lords to Land! and rolled her eyes before returning the envelopes to their place.
“With the post this morning. Before you open them—”
Isabel lifted a letter opener and looked at Lara. “Yes?”
“We should talk about James.”
“What now? ”
“He has been hiding from his lessons.”
“I am not surprised. I shall talk to him. Has he even met the new governess?”
“Not exactly.”
The words were a signal. “How, exactly, Lara? ”
“Well, Kate found him watching her in her bath.”
Isabel leaned forward. “I don’t suppose you mean he was watching Kate in her bath? ”
Lara laughed. “Can you imagine how that would have gone? She would have skinned him.”
“I just might skin him myself! He’s an earl now! He shall have to behave as one! Watching the new girl in her bath? What on earth? What would possess him—”
“He may be an earl, Isabel, but he is a boy first. You think he is not curious? ”
“He grew up in a house full of women. No. I would think he would be entirely disinterested.”
“Well, he isn’t. In fact, I think there’s no question that James is interested. He needs someone with whom to discuss such interests.”
“He can speak to me!”
Lara gave Isabel a disbelieving look. “Isabel.” “He can!”
“You are a marvelous sister. But he cannot discuss such interests with you.”
There was silence as Isabel considered the words. Of course he couldn’t. He was a ten-year-old boy with no one to help him understand his world and he needed a man with whom he could discuss such … male … things.
She sighed. “I must find a way to get James to school. I plan to send a letter to my father’s solicitor about that very thing today. Not that there will be money to arrange it.” She paused. “Alternatively, perhaps the new guardian of the estate will arrive bearing knowledge only those of his gender can impart.”
They had been waiting for word of Oliver, Lord Densmore, the mysterious and missing guardian named in her father’s will, since they had learned of the earl’s death. It had been just over a week now, and every day that went by without news, Isabel breathed a bit easier.
His specter loomed nonetheless, for if the Wastrearl had appointed him, it seemed that Lord Densmore would very likely be precisely the sort of guardian they would all prefer not to have.
“There is something else.”
There always was.
Isabel winced at the thought. “About James?”
“No. About you.” Lara leaned forward in her chair. “I know why you fell asleep here instead of taking yourself to bed. I know you are concerned about our future. About finances. About James. About Minerva House.” Isabel started to shake her head. “Do not insult me by feigning ignorance. I have known you for your entire life. Lived with you for six years. I know you are worried.”
Isabel opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Lara was, of course, right. Isabel was worried. She was worried that the dire financial straits of the estate would keep James from going to school, from learning to be an earl, from restoring some semblance of honor to the earldom. She was terrified that his new guardian would never show his face—and his finances. Almost as terrified as she was that he would arrive and close Minerva House—casting out the women she had worked so hard to keep safe.
The women who needed her.
The roof was leaking, they’d lost seven sheep through the fence at the western edge of the Park that week, and Isabel hadn’t a farthing to her name. She was going to have to send some of the girls away if she could not find a solution.
“I don’t suppose the earl left any money,” Lara said softly. It was the first time any of the other residents of the Park had spoken of their combined situation.
Isabel shook her head, feeling frustration surge at the question. “Everything is gone.”
Everything that had not been entailed to the future Earl of Reddich.
Her father had not even cared enough to ensure that his children were cared for—that his heir would be cared for. It had taken her half an hour to convince the solicitor who had arrived a day after the news of her father’s death that she could understand the finances of the estate well enough for him to explain their situation to her.
As though being impoverished were a complicated state of affairs.
The Wastrearl had gambled everything away—the house in town, the carriages, the furniture, the horses … his daughter. There was nothing left. Nothing but what was now James’s by right…
And what was Isabel’s to sell.
A pang of sadness flared in her chest.
Her brother had not had the father or the mother or the upbringing that the earldom should have promised him but he would have an earldom. And she would do what she could to keep it afloat.
A dead earl.
A child heir.
A crumbling estate.
Two dozen mouths to feed, all of which were required to remain well hidden.
She had never felt so panicked in her life.
If only she hadn’t slept the night before, she might have already devised a plan for them all to be saved.
She just needed time.
Closing her eyes, Isabel took a deep, steadying breath. “It is not your concern, Lara,” she said firmly, refusing to show her thoughts, “I shall make certain that we are well taken care of.”
Lara’s gaze softened. “Of course you shall. None of us have doubted such for a moment.”
Of course they hadn’t. No one ever doubted Isabel’s strength. Not even when they should. Not even when she was holding the whole thing together by a thread.
She stood and went to the window, looking out at the once-lush and fertile Townsend land. Now the fields were overgrown and untilled, and the livestock had dwindled to a pittance.
“Are the girls worried?”
“No. I do not think that it has crossed their minds that they might all be tossed out on their ears.”
Isabel’s heart raced at the words. “They shan’t be tossed out. Never say such things again.”
Lara had followed her. “Of course they shan’t.”
They might be. Isabel heard the words as though they had been spoken aloud.
Isabel turned quickly, her skirts swirl
ing around her ankles as she raised a finger, wagging it in front of Lara’s nose. “I shall think of something. We shall find some money. I shall move them all to another house. It is not as though this one is any kind of prize.”
“Minerva House the second,” Lara said.
“Precisely.”
“A capital idea.”
Isabel huffed at her cousin’s tone. “You needn’t agree simply to appease me.”
“Fair enough,” Lara said. “Do you have a stash of money stored somewhere? Because last I’d heard, houses that accommodated two dozen women required funds.”
“Yes. Well. That is the part of the plan that I have not quite worked out.” Isabel crossed the room to the door, then turned back, pacing to her desk. She sat there, staring at the papers strewn across the enormous tabletop, where three generations of Reddich earls had sat. After a long silence, she said, “There is only one way to ensure that we’ve the funds to stay afloat.”
“Which is?”
She took a deep breath.
“I will sell the marbles.” There was a roaring in her ears as she spoke the words—as though, if she did not hear them, they had not been said.
“Isabel …” Lara shook her head.
Please don’t fight this, Lara. I do not have the strength. “It’s silly to keep them. No one is enjoying them.”
“You enjoy them.”
“They are a luxury I can no longer afford.”
“No. They are the only luxury you’ve ever had.”
As if she didn’t know that.
“Do you have a better solution?”
“Maybe,” Lara hedged. “Maybe you should consider … maybe you should think about marriage.”
“Are you suggesting that I should have accepted one of the myriad of oafs who has passed through over the years after having won me in a game of chance? ”
Lara’s eyes widened. “Oh, my, no! Not one of them. Never one of them. No one who knew your father. I’m suggesting someone else. Someone … good. And if he is wealthy, well then, all the better.”
Isabel lifted the magazine she had seen earlier. “Are you suggesting I try my hand at landing a lord, cousin? ”
Color flared on Lara’s cheeks. “You cannot deny that a smart match is not the worst thing that could happen to you.”