“A physician provided by whom?”
“—For her nerves.”
“Nonsense,” Isabel said, unable not to. She understood precisely why Montfort had encouraged Eva’s dependence on laudanum. To ensure her compliancy. “Eva has nerves of steel.”Had, Isabel silently amended. Eva had returned to her six months ago a shell of the woman she’d once been.
“It was her choice.”
And what of her babe?Isabel didn’t ask. She swung around, no longer able to lay eyes on Montfort. What choice had Ariel?
She shuddered at the memory of him as a newborn, struggling and shivering, squirming in pain that wouldn’t resolve, causing him to cry when awake and be fitful when asleep. Its cause was the laudanum, the midwife had said. She’d seen it before.
“Laudanum?” Isabel had asked the woman, confused.
“Aye.”
“But she needs it. She trembles without it.”
“I’m tellin’ ye what I’ve observed these last thirty years of midwifin’. And babes born to mums ’oo take it, come out like this, all shaky and mis’rable, poor mite. Two more things I’ll tell ye fer free: git ye a wet nurse and stop givin’ yer sister that rubbish.”
Montfort drew abreast with Isabel, and they stared out in parallel at the pond. “Speaking of dear Eva, where is she while you’re off gallivanting about the countryside and marrying the younger sons of dukes?”
It hadn’t occurred to Isabel that Montfort wouldn’t know Eva was here. He seemed to know all. But not this. Well, she wouldn’t be the one to tell him.
Neither would she tell Eva that Montfort was here. She didn’t know how her sister might react, but no good could come from it,thatshe knew with certainty.
“She’s with the babe.” It was the truth, if only a fraction of it. Isabel had never developed the knack for telling a convincing lie.
When Eva had returned to the shop, ripe with child, Isabel hadn’t been able to contain the first question out of her mouth. “Who is the father?”
“A lord.”
The answer had only encouraged another question, one whose answer Isabel had anticipated with dread. “Not Montfort?”
“Not Montfort,” Eva replied, flat and hollow. “Ariel’s father is French.”
Just now, Montfort held out his arm. “Will you join me for a turn about the grounds?”
Although the question was phrased like an invitation, it wasn’t. It was a command, and Isabel must obey. She touched her sweat-sheened palm to the navy superfine of his morning jacket, no more than the lightest application of pressure. Still, revulsion seized her as she caught his sweetish, musky scent.
Once they’d settled into their stroll, he began, “Would it be too forward for me to ask just what the hellfire happened last night?” His visage had transformed from jolly avuncularity to dead seriousness.
“I—” Isabel wasn’t sure she could speak around the knot in her throat. “I got the wrong man.”
Montfort chuckled humorlessly. “You most certainly did.”
“I followed the instructions to the letter.” Isabel hated the defensive note in her voice. “But it washewho was at the table.”
“Is that so?” Montfort’s brow wrinkled. “And, pray tell, how did you discover your error?”
“When he won the last hand, he didn’t ask to take me to—” Oh, what a thing to speak aloud. “Bed.”
“What did he ask for?”
“He asked”—Isabel wracked her brain for a morsel of information to feed this man who held the future of her family in the palm of his hand—“He asked forthe keys,” she finished just as the memory came to her.
Montfort’s eyes narrowed on her. Had he found significance in that last part? Isabel hadn’t.
“What do you know about Lord Percival?”
