Isabel stopped in the path, withdrawing her hand from his arm. ‘Lord Somerton, I think there is something you should know about Lady Kendall. Indeed, I am surprised you haven’t been apprised of the choicest piece of gossip concerning my late husband. He had been visiting Lady Kendall the night he died.’
Sebastian cleared his throat. ‘I had heard that.’
‘You should know that he was, in fact, a frequent visitor to her home. Lady Kendall occupied a very particular position in my husband’s life. She was his mistress.’
Sebastian tried to look surprised but could see from the tightening of Isabel’s mouth that he had failed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I had heard the story. I should have been more careful of your sensibilities.’
She looked away, the muscles in her neck taut as she swallowed. ‘Brantstone Hall is your home, Lord Somerton and Lady Kendall is your friend’s sister. I can raise no objection if you wish to entertain her, and her brother, of course, but do not ask me to play at being the gracious hostess in her company.’
‘I understand.’
She looked back at him, an almost wild desperation in her eyes. ‘Do you?’
Before he could respond she set off at a brisk pace. He joined her, but they walked back to the hall in silence.
Chapter Fifteen
Isabel would have been appalled if anyone had accused her of flouncing. Nonetheless, she arrived back at the hall feeling uncharacteristically out of sorts and irritated.
She went straight up to her bedchamber and stood by the window, unbuttoning her gloves while she thought about Georgiana, Lady Kendall. Really, the woman just had to flutter her eyelashes and men fell helpless at her feet.
How did she do it?
Isabel tugged impatiently at a small pearl button, tearing the silk threads that held it to the fine kid. The button fell to the floor with a soft ping and rolled under a chair.
‘Oh, curse it!’ Isabel said aloud, consigning this small domestic inconvenience to the long list of grudges she held against Lady Kendall.
What concern was of it hers if Lord Somerton succumbed to the obvious charms of Lady Kendall?
Going down on her hands and knees, she searched around for the little button, retrieving it from behind her chest of drawers.
She sat back on her heels and caught her refection in thelong mirror. Who was that woman with the haggard face and dark circled eyes that looked back at her?
‘Lucy!’ she summoned her maid who appeared at the door.
‘My lady?’
‘Find my riding habit and tell the stables to saddle Stella. I am going for a ride before dinner.’
Lucy’s eyes widened. ‘A ride, my lady?’
‘I need exercise and fresh air.’
‘But m’lady?—’
‘Now, Lucy.’
Standing before her mirror, pleating the fine pleating the fine woollen skirt of her riding habit between her fingers, she understood her maid’s reluctance. The deep bottle-green habit, fashionably trimmed with black frogging, had been her last purchase before William’s death and now it hung on her. When had she become so thin?
Experimentally, she pulled a few stray curls from the severe coil of hair on the back of her head, noting how they softened the hard angles of her face, a parody of the fashionable hairstyles she had once favoured.
Impatiently, she poked the unruly curls back. Why was she indulging in such foolishness? She had no one to impress and yet, if Sebastian could see her as she had once been, he might be pleasantly surprised. No one had ever called her a beauty, but, in the right clothes and the right company, she had been known to turn heads. The queen of the London drawing rooms had reduced herself to black rags and hideous caps. Something unsettling was stirring in her heart, bringing her back to life, and it frightened her.
She stood up and reached for her hat, pinning it to her head and settling the veil over her face, pulling on her gloves, she left her room.
In the stable yard, her usual mount, the star-faced bay mare called Stella, stood saddled and ready. With the boy’s help she mounted, kicking the mare into a trot and then a canter, clearingthe stables and the house, her ride taking her more by instinct than design to the grand mausoleum on the hill.
