Seduction & Scandal. Charlotte Featherstone

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СКАЧАТЬ up to see her cousin watching her with what Isabella imagined was sympathy. “It hardly matters. The chance I will be published is very slim, Lucy. It’s really only a hobby.”

      Lucy lifted Isabella’s chin with her slim fingers and gazed down upon her with her brilliant green eyes. “Repeat after me. I, Isabella Fairmont, will finish this book and submit it to every publisher in London—”

      “And New York,” Isabella reminded her.

      “And New York,” Lucy added. “And I will not rest until I see it published. I will not give up on my dreams.”

      Isabella stood and hugged Lucy who, although she was her cousin, was more like her best friend. They were sisters of a sort, now that Isabella had come to live with Lucy and her father. “I promise you, Luce. I will finish it, and it will find a home. And I will make Mr. Knighton a devotee of the fictional world if it’s the last thing I do.”

      “And you must promise to read to me, every night when you’ve written something new.”

      Isabella flushed. “You only want the parts that speak of breathlessness and heaving bosoms.”

      “Well, of course,” Lucy drawled. “Why else does one read a novel? Now then.” Lucy sighed. “Let us go downstairs. We’re already late and Papa will be snorting with indignation. We must not keep the Marquis of Stonebrook waiting.” Lucy shook her head, although she was grinning. “Papa is such a pompous aristocrat.”

      Yes, the old marquis was rather self-important, but he was a good man. He had taken Isabella in, his niece by marriage, despite the scandal of her parents’ nuptials. He had clothed her, protected her and Isabella loved him like the father she never knew. He had saved her from an uncertain future and from herself. She owed her uncle more than she could ever repay. Still, she missed the comfort of her mother’s stories, and her grandmother’s arms. She missed Whitby with its dark and forbidding abbey, and the mist that rolled in from the sea. She missed the heather-covered moors, and the rocky cliffs that stood tall and proud against the foamy, turbulent waves of the North Sea. She missed home, and everything about it.

      She missed them.

      How dearly she longed to see her mother and grandmother again, and Isabella felt her eyes begin to well with tears. Thankfully Lucy’s voice drew Isabella out of her thoughts. “My feet ache already just thinking of the night ahead of us. Dear me, Issy, I’m tired of the social whirl.”

      Whitby forgotten for now, Isabella strived for composure. “I am as well, Luce. I would pay a very high price for a chance to stay in my room and sit at my desk and write until my fingers are blackened with ink.”

      “As much as I’d like more of Death, Issy, it’s pertinent we make an appearance at my father’s ball.”

      “You know, when I was a young girl, I envied you your life, the gowns, the balls, the suitors … Now, I’m not so certain you had it better than I.”

      Lucy tossed her a cheeky smile over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “I always envied you your cozy cottage and the meadow and woods where you and the other children from the village ran and played without any concern for deportment. You had a childhood, Issy. Something I never did.” Lucy tipped her head and smiled. “I’ve always been envious of that. And here we were all this time, feeling resentful of the other. It’s ironic, isn’t it?”

      “It is, indeed, for I’m sitting here loath to go to a ball, something I’ve always dreamed about.”

      “Chin up,” Lucy ordered. “There could still be light at the end of the tunnel for this night. Perhaps you can write more of your book. Our ballroom has many private corners, you know.”

      “And of course that will have the suitors flocking to my side,” Isabella muttered ungraciously. “Men adore lady novelists.”

      “I bet Lord Black does.”

      Isabella sent her cousin a glare before she reached for the ivory gloves that sat atop her dressing table. “How could you suppose such a thing, Luce? Lord Black never comes out of that mausoleum he calls a town house.”

      Lucy stopped at the threshold, and slowly turned, the salmon-pink silk of her gown’s elaborate train wrapping around her legs. “I saw him last night.”

      “Fibber! You did not!” Isabella challenged.

      “I did, I swear it. I couldn’t sleep after the Anstruther soirée. I was sitting on my window box, gazing out at the stars when I saw those massive iron gates swing open. A carriage, black and shining and led by four black horses, came clattering out of the drive. The conveyance lingered for a moment, and then I saw it, a shadow that was illuminated by the lanterns. It engulfed the interior, like spilt ink, and then I saw him, his pale face appeared in the window, and he was looking up, and I swear his gaze lingered on the window beside mine—your bedroom window, Issy.”

      “Nonsense,” Isabella scoffed.

      “It’s the truth.”

      “I think, Luce that you should take up novel writing with me. You’ve the imagination for it.”

      “Think what you like, Isabella, but I know what I saw. And you mark my words, our neighbor will be here tonight. The Marquis of Stonebrook will have it no other way, I assure you.”

      THERE WAS ONE THING that had surprised Isabella after coming to live with her uncle, the Marquis of Stonebrook, and that was the strange fact that she rather despised balls.

      For most of her girlhood, she had sat on the weathered window bench of the small cottage her mother rented, thinking of her beautiful cousin, laughing and flirting and dancing around the Stonebrook’s glorious ballroom, wearing an outrageously expensive gown. Her young heart had ached with longing. She had wanted to attend a ball. To wear a stunning gown. To have a handsome suitor.

      It was rather satirical that now, after she possessed all three, she had no taste for it. She would have much preferred curling up before the large hearth in her room, wearing her old flannel nightrail, writing her stories—just as she had before Stonebrook and Lucy had come to Whitby to bring her back to London.

      The wonder and novelty of town life had soon worn thin. There had been so many balls this past week, despite it being October. It seemed that the aristocracy no longer found it necessary to depart for their country estates at the end of the season as they did in the past. Perhaps it was because the nouveau riche rarely ever left London. An aristocrat could hardly marry off his titled daughter to a wealthy businessman if he was up in Yorkshire with sheep and trees.

      No, the marriage mart had extended well beyond the traditional season. And this season, it was no secret that the Marquis not only wanted to marry off his daughter, but his niece, as well.

      Isabella had been taken with the idea at first. The romance of a courtship, rides in the park, the soirées, the balls, the musicales. It had not taken long before she realized that the thought of going out yet another night provoked her to distemper. Not even Lucy who had been born and raised in this way of life enjoyed the endless parties.

      They were a fine pair, Isabella thought, as she slipped the delicate silver strap of her reticule higher onto her wrist. Lucy was content to pursue her interest in the occult, and Isabella was happy writing the stories that constantly filled her head. Both of them were originals, and nothing like a young lady of good breeding should СКАЧАТЬ