Page 130 of An Inconvenient Vow

“Oh Isemay, what have you done?” Sabina demanded. “Tying yourself to this man for life!”

“I told you, I mean to take you for my role model now,” her sister said sticking her nose in the air.

“How on earth have I influenced you to compel Sir Leland into marriage?” Sabina squeaked.

“I mean to make his life a misery and make him pay for what he did.”

Sabina stared at her. “That is not why I married Sir Jeffree!” she burst out.

Isemay looked momentarily disconcerted. “Is it not?”

“Of course not! I would hardly embark on such a reckless course of action! I only married Jeffree at his insistence. He demanded I take responsibility for his tarnished reputation!”

Isemay waved this aside. “Very well then, I took Jeffree for my role model,” she said sounding unconcerned.

“You took Jeffree for your role model?” Sabina repeated, quite thunderstruck.

“Yes, for I vowed that Leland would make reparation for those terrible accusations he made against me. I have thought it through and the only way for my pride to be restored to me is for him to marry me himself and thereby show everyone that he believed my conduct beyond reproach. That is how Jeffree restored his reputation, was it not, after you dragged it through the mud?”

Sabina slumped against the wall. “This is dreadful,” she pronounced hollowly. “This is all quite dreadful. What is to become of us?”

Isemay looked around her. “Where is Jeffree anyway?” she asked, as though she had only just noticed the absence of her brother-in-law. “Did you come by yourself?”

“He has gone to Ganford Chase,” Sabina said hollowly.

“Oh, what for?”

“To see his uncle and Sir Charles, I expect,” Sabina replied feeling nettled. “Sir Charles has been riding out hither and thither in search of his son. Apparently, he has been as far as Halfordshire in search of him.”

Isemay did have the grace to look a little guilty at that. “I daresay the news will soon leak out that Leland lives still.”

“Let us hope that Sir Charles does not swear vengeance on our poor blameless father’s head!”

Isemay looked concerned for all of two heartbeats, then her expression relaxed. “He can hardly do that, not when his godson is wed to you. That would be very poor form and I understand he is something of a stickler for convention.”

Sabina pursed her lips. “And just how long do you suppose you can keep up this ruse, Isemay?”

“What ruse?” her sister huffed, blowing a lock of her dark hair out of her eyes. “There is no ruse. We are legally wedded and there is nothing anyone can do to prevent me taking charge of him!”

“What of Sir Charles?” Sabina asked, plunking her hands on her hips. “He will oppose this match to the utmost!”

“And what if he does?” Isemay answered with spirit. “Leland has reached his majority. He is over one and twenty.”

“If his father were to cut Leland’s allowance you would be left with nothing to exist on! You know how straitened our own father’s circumstances are. Do you suppose he can support you both indefinitely?”

Isemay rolled her eyes. “Do you imagine I have not thought of that? Leland says he is to inherit some money from his maternal grandfather on his twenty-fifth birthday. We have only to eke out our existence here for a sixmonth before then.”

Sabina absorbed this a moment in silence. “Well, that is something,” she admitted grudgingly. She allowed her sister to lead her downstairs. “I must say his memory loss seems remarkably patchy.”

“It is strange, is it not?” Isemay agreed absently. “He seems to recall practically everything apart from those fateful events at Ganford Chase and the days surrounding it.”

“And the details of your own wooing apparently,” Sabina pointed out.

“Oh yes, but there is not really anything for him to remember in that regard, is there?” Isemay said scrunching up her face.

“Well then, you do not think it is strange that he recalls some things and not others?” she asked pointedly for she did not think it was right that Leland should string her sister along by pretending he was still her victim. “What will you do when he remembers all?”

“Maybe he never will,” Isemay suggested hopefully.