“Then we shall go to Keswick, too.”
“There will be shops there,” she said. “I can buy some clothes, since you abducted me without so much as a clean shift — or a hairbrush! Perhaps there will be a shop where I can buy a new doll for Helena, since Madame Marie was broken.”
“Oh!” Ian clucked his tongue in annoyance. “I meant to get one when I was in town, but it went clean out of my head. I was in such a panic about the special licence I forgot everything else.”
“My orderly husband in a panic,” Izzy said with a smile. “What is the world coming to?”
Keswick was an easy drive away, and although the roads did their best to hinder them, they were installed in a fine set of rooms in an hotel well before dinner. Ian spent the evening writing a multitude of letters, and after that they settled down to enjoy all that the Lakes had to offer.
Ian could not remember the last time he had had Izzy to himself for more than a couple of days before she set off on her travels again, or else began a round of entertainments on her own account. He had never minded sharing her with the world, and even in Keswick she managed to find a number of acquaintances, or else made new friends to dine with or stroll about the town, but the most precious moments were when they were alone. Sometimes they would walk up into the hills, or perhaps they would drive to a lake and simply sit, admiring the view. At least, Izzy admired the view and Ian admired Izzy.
But most of all, they talked, and this time it was not simply Izzy talking about her next evening engagement, or the lateston ditfrom town. They talked as Ian had never talked to anyone before — about themselves and how they saw the world. They talked of their childhoods, Izzy’s in the heart of a large, happy family and Ian's struck by repeated tragedy. They talked of their own children, and how they would like to see them grow up. They spoke of politics, too, for Ian was a peer and involved in making the laws, and Izzy found that part of his life fascinating. And sometimes, at the end of the evening, over brandy, they talked of philosophy and God and science and the strangeness of the world, and how the future might unfold.
Ian felt he had come to know Izzy in a way he had never imagined possible, discovering to his surprise that beneath the frivolous exterior was a thoughtful and informed woman who had clearly learnt a great deal about the world from the seemingly light-hearted exchanges she conducted at dinner or over cards. She was, in fact, an astute observer of those she met.
But one day she gave him an even greater surprise. He was sitting with his back to a tree, and she lay stretched out, her head in his lap as he played idly with her hair. She looked up at him mischievously and said, “I do believe you are the handsomestman I know, husband. There are many who might claim that title, but they have not your nobility of mien.”
“Me, handsome? You are mistaking me for someone else.”
“There is no mistaking you for anyone else, not with that red hair. Where did it come from, I wonder? Of all the portraits at Stonywell and Brook Street, you are alone in having such a distinctive colour. Are you a changeling?”
“It was never mentioned,” Ian said, laughing. “My father never commented on it, or suggested in any way that I was not as welcome to him as my brothers. I am quite sure no one smuggled me into Stonywell from elsewhere, like a cuckoo’s egg. None of the servants ever hinted at a liaison for my mother. There were no secret love letters tucked away in her escritoire. Even in town, where gossip is the lifeblood of society, no one ever sidled up to me with whispered innuendo. I get teased about my hair, inevitably, as all those cursed with such a vivid colour do, but not in connection with my mother. Yet people must think it, just as you do… as I do, truth to tell. I have always wondered. But if my mother had a lover, she was extraordinarily discreet. It does not matter to me.”
“Nor to me. I like your hair,” Izzy said, smiling up at him. “It is a beacon to me in a crowded room, so that I am always able to say,‘There! Over by that pillar is safety and comfort and security, if ever I should need them.’”
Ian smiled, and stowed her words away in a corner of his mind, to be brought out and wondered at and savoured many times in the years to come.
So the days drifted away in contentment. Brandon, her lips rigid with disapproval at being left behind yet again, arrived from Lochmaben with Izzy’s boxes. Wycliffe, more phlegmatic about his master’s doings, arrived from Strathinver with Ian’s rather smaller quantity of luggage. Even Ian’s own carriage,larger but less stylish than Izzy’s, came from Durham, where he had abandoned it.
“Have you had enough of the Lakes?” Ian said one morning over breakfast. “However splendid the surroundings, after more than two weeks here we have rather exhausted the possibilities.”
“Do you want to get back to Stonywell? I have had a wonderful honeymoon, but I long to see the girls again, and you have missed the start of the shooting season.”
“Henry and his brothers will kill whatever needs to be killed. I am not in a particular rush to leave, but you seem a little out of sorts this morning so I wondered if perhaps you are ready to move on.”
“How observant you are, husband. I am out of sorts, it is true, but it is the good kind. All this ravishment has had its inevitable consequence.”
“Oh!” Even as he smiled, fear gripped his insides. “You are increasing, but… is it not too soon to know?”
“To be certain, yes, but it is the third time, so I recognise the very early signs. Are you pleased?”
“Of course!”
“But?”
He sighed. “Every child is a blessing, naturally, but childbearing is a horrid business for a woman, and it terrifies me… that you might leave me behind.”
She reached across the table to take his hand. “It is what marriage is for, my love, and it is a perfectly natural process. Women give birth without difficulty the world over every single day. I shall follow Mama’s advice. She told me to eat only good, wholesome food, to take my exercise every day and not to worry. Since I have scraped through the business twice already by following her wisdom, and Josie likewise, no doubt it will serve me just as well a third time. But you must not worry, either. Whatever happens, happens, and perhaps I shall produce a boythis time, so that he may be called Charles after your father and mine, as we planned five years ago.”
“If it is another girl, what will you call her?”
“Cecilia. A pretty name, is it not? I think perhaps it might be as well to leave Keswick, husband, and settle at Stonywell before this tiresome nausea gets properly under way, but might we call in at Corland on the way? I should like to see Grandmama again, and Papa, of course.”
“That is an excellent idea. We can leave today, if you wish. I shall need to write a few letters first.”
“You and your letters,” she said, lifting his hand to her lips and kissing it gently. “What an organised person you are, husband.”
***
