Page 1 of The Lover’s Eye

Cumberland, England

Thursday evenings turned Isobel Ridgeway into a mathematician.

The dinner courses went by faster when she counted down the number that remained.

If she made some vague, monosyllabic sound every three bites or so, very little conversation was expected from her.

And if she took care not to extend her left elbow more than forty-five degrees from her side, it never brushed Captain Elias Sempill.

“Say, Lord Ridgeway, when was the last time you had a chimney sweep out?” Lady Sempill, the young captain’s mother, peered over her shoulder at the fire smoking in the grate.

The old viscount shrugged, and without waiting to swallow his mouthful of mutton, addressed his daughter. “Damned if I know. What do you make of it, Isobel?”

She was struggling to drag her knife through the fatty meat on her plate, but lifted her eyes. “I couldn’t say. Marriane always sorted the household matters.”

“Why, she’s been married for over a twelvemonth now!” Lady Sempill exclaimed, the black feather tittering in her grey hair. “It is crucial someone assumes these responsibilities, lest the entire house catch aflame. It is a woman’s responsibility, and you are certainly of age, ma’am.”

Isobel took her lower lip between her teeth, casting for a reply. She had known the Sempills for all eternity, and they always addressed her with the utmost informality. Unless, of course, their tempers were heating.

“I’ll speak with Father, when we return home,” Elias said at her side. “He’s bound to know a good chimney sweep.”

“ I know a good chimney sweep,” Lady Sempill said, arching a brow. “A very thin child, able to fit in the narrowest of—”

Isobel winced at the thought of sending a child up the soot-blackened flues. A young boy had gotten stuck in one of the chimneys at Ridgeway House before, and by the time he was twisted out by the rope around his waist, he had burns and scrapes all over his flesh.

She hadn’t forgotten about the dirty chimneys. She just hadn’t wanted to subject another child to that cruelty.

The wind howled bitterly outside, and a gust swept down the chimney, forcing a billow of black smoke into the room and silencing Lady Sempill.

Two footmen appeared immediately, adjusting the screens before the hearth.

The older woman broke into a spasm of coughs and ran a hand up the back of her stiff coiffure.

“Very well,” Lord Ridgeway said with a weighted sigh. “I’ll look into the matter.”

“You mention your sister,” Elias said, leaning a little nearer to Isobel. “Have you heard from her lately? I imagine the coast is bitterly cold in winter.”

She smiled faintly at him, trying—not for the first time—to find attraction in those sharply hewn, narrow features. But all she saw was her childhood friend, not the dashing captain everyone expected her to wed.

“We write to each other. You know Marriane, however. Most of her letters are about new draperies or the latest French receipts.” Isobel ducked her chin. “She sounds happy enough.”

“I don’t know how she could be, married to that damned impudent man,” Lord Ridgeway burst in. “Hasn’t even brought her ’round for a visit. Not once in eighteen months, mind you.”

“Oh, but the marquess seems very amiable, indeed,” Lady Sempill said. “I’d wager Marriane lives in such comfort at his side, she’s no desire to travel about.”

The old viscount shook his head roughly enough to make his jowls wag. “I should’ve never let her run off to London, I tell you that. If I had it to do over—matter of fact, Isobel, never ask me for a blasted Season. Understand?”

“I have no desire for a Season, Papa.”

A thunderous banging sounded in the distance, and every hand stilled. The doorknocker was so seldom used, Isobel almost didn’t recognize its sound.

“Callers?” Lady Sempill asked, her mouth falling open.

“Impossible,” Lord Ridgeway said, gesturing for more wine to be poured.

The front door opened with a distant creak, and Isobel could pick out the timbre of the butler’s voice, though none of his words were clear.

“Who on earth could be calling at Ridgeway House?” Lady Sempill asked again. She sat down her knife and raised a hand to her breast.

On this rare occasion, Isobel shared her sentiments.

The only visitors she and her father received were the pair in front of them now, who made the short journey every Thursday evening for dinner.

It was unthinkable to have a caller at this hour, come so far into the country on a black winter’s night.

“What’s the trouble?” Lord Ridgeway shouted.

The shadowy form of the butler appeared in the dining room, and Isobel’s pulse quickened with unaccountable dread.

“It is a messenger on horseback, my lord. Delivering an urgent dispatch from Northumberland, for Miss Isobel.”

Isobel stood so quickly, her hips caught the table’s edge, sloshing the drinks and eliciting a gasp from Lady Sempill. “Please,” she said, striding toward the butler. “Let me see.”

He handed the letter over without a word and Isobel ducked from the room.

The paper was cold between her fingers, the seal difficult to tear as she sought out the light of a wall sconce. She hadn’t paused long enough to read the address, and was shocked to find a blocky, masculine script printed inside.

Sister,

Marriane has taken ill. I’ve summoned the physician, and her lady’s maid reports she is quite comfortable at the time of my writing this. Yet she requests your presence at the earliest convenience. I’ll have a room done up for you, should you trouble yourself in coming.

Signed,

Lord Pemberton, Marquess of Whitburn

When Isobel reached the end of the letter, she was leaning against the wall for support. She scanned the sparse message again and again, as if in doing so she could divine more information about her sister’s illness.

Marriane’s husband had never written before. Perhaps the clue to her condition lay not in his careless phrasing, but in the penmanship itself. If her sister had been able, she would have written personally.

“Pardon me,” Isobel said, walking back to where the butler waited. “Is the messenger waiting on a reply?”

“Yes, miss.”

The wind whipped outside, ruthless cold sieving through the seams of the door to raise gooseflesh on Isobel’s arms. “See that’s he’s taken to the kitchen for a hot meal, and that his horse is attended to.”

She moved toward the yellow drawing room, her fingers itching in anticipation of the reply she was about to pen.

“Is there anything else, miss?” the butler asked, plainly curious to the bone.

She paused. “Yes, actually. Have my trunks brought up at once, and the coach readied for a morning departure. I’m going to Shoremoss Hall.”

?

It was a lofty declaration. Isobel had never been invited to her sister’s new home. She’d never been to Northumberland. She’d never been anywhere. Was it a distance traversable in a day?

By God, did she even own travelling trunks?

“Pray, child, tell us what the matter is,” Lady Sempill said as soon as Isobel walked back into the room. It seemed dinner had gone on without her, the damask tablecloth having been taken up and dessert laid out.

“It seems my sister has taken ill,” Isobel said, allowing Elias to help her into her chair. His knuckles grazed her exposed back, and she flinched.

“How curious,” Lady Sempill said. “And Lord Pemberton sent a messenger? Is she quite ill, then?”

Lord Ridgeway was popping a piece of dried fruit into his mouth and spoke as he chewed. “Marriane always gets quite fussy over such things. Isobel’s always been the more amiable of my girls.”

“Papa, how can you say that? She’s ill enough to have requested I come.”

An instantaneous burble of words arose from Lady Sempill, none of them intelligible at first. “S-Surely, Lord Pemberton possesses ample staff to attend his wife,” she said finally.

“I feel certain she will make a hasty recovery,” Elias added, putting a sweaty hand over Isobel’s.

“It is my hope that both of you are correct,” Isobel said, steeling her strength, “but still, I shall go to her in the morning.”

Lady Sempill laughed in a soaring soprano that was painful to Isobel’s ears. “Pray, child, you cannot travel such a distance in these conditions! Why, you shall be ill next, if you endeavor to take such risks.”

“Have you already written a reply?” Elias asked. “Allow one of our footmen to go in your stead.”

Isobel looked diligently at her cake. “Yes. I’ve already sent word that she can expect me tomorrow.”

The Ridgeways’ guests grew very quiet. Elias revoked his hand, using it to rub his nose roughly. Only Isobel’s father continued on with his meal.

“Lord Ridgeway,” Lady Sempill said, “you cannot seriously hope to allow such a scheme.”

“You heard the girl,” he said with a shrug, tossing a sweet morsel to the floor for his tabby cat, Beatrice. “Word’s already been sent. One less decision I have to trifle with.”

Isobel refused to meet anyone’s eye and began nibbling at her dessert, ignoring the fact that she’d left her appetite in the hall.

She was two and twenty. She could make her own decisions.

And though she could tolerate much from the Sempills, owing their plain speaking to years of familiarity between the two families, their resistance on this matter was not welcomed.

“If you are so set on going,” Lady Sempill said at length, her voice clipped, “I feel it my duty to educate you on Lord Pemberton’s neighbors. There are no eligible young gentlemen thereabouts, I can assure you.”

The conversation that followed would have read like a scandal sheet, with Lord Ridgeway occasionally interjecting to laugh or offer opposition.

It was only after Lady Sempill had castigated a good number of Northumberland children, questioning whether they had been born on the right side of the blanket, and lamented that one country squire had botched it all up over gin and gaming, that she said something which interested Isobel.

“Oh, and pray do not allow me to start on the poor, poor Earl of Cambo,” she said, the crimped lines of her face deepening to a pout. “Elias, you must stop me from telling the story.”

Playing the dutiful son, Elias sharpened his posture and managed to say but three words about his recent promotion before his mother spoke over him. “Do you know the Earl of Cambo?” she asked Lord Ridgeway.

“Giles Trevelyan, is it? In name only, I—”

Even the vague recognition was enough to send Lady Sempill off on the next leg of her rant. “Then you must know of the tragedy that befell him but last year, losing his beloved betrothed.”

Isobel paused mid-sip, the stem of her glass goblet stilling between her fingers, saccharine madeira pooling in her mouth. Giles Trevelyan, Earl of Cambo . Had she heard that name before?

She felt Elias’s eyes on her and hastened to lower her glass, forcing a swallow on the generous sip.

“Er, what was the lady’s name?” Lord Ridgeway asked, distracted by Beatrice, who was now sharpening her claws on his knee. Isobel’s curiosity had eclipsed her father’s, and she waited impatiently for the reply.

“Miss Aurelia Gouldsmith.” Lady Sempill let free an expressive sigh, the feather in her hair flexing with the movement. “Even her very name sounds gilded. They say she was a most exceptional beauty.”

Lord Ridgeway’s wiry grey brows dipped. “I’m not familiar with that name. From what family—?”

“Oh, she had no titles to recommend her,” Lady Sempill said. “That is in part why it is so romantic, as if pulled straight from the pages of a novel. For a mere vicar’s daughter to grab the attention of an earl! It is unheard of. A true love match.”

Isobel fixed on these words.

“I hope you will heed my advice, dear Isobel, when I tell you to keep your distance from Lord Trevelyan. He is the only eligible bachelor about those parts, but everyone knows no other lady will ever compare to his lost Aurelia.” The older woman’s jaw worked over some confection.

“Not even a lady of such fine breeding as yourself. It would be a shame for you to make a spectacle of yourself.”

Elias stiffened at Isobel’s side, and a long muscle twitched in her neck.

“Surely, Lord Trevelyan will not be out in society, Mother,” he said. “If all is as you say, he is likely still mourning.”

Lady Sempill’s head cocked to one side as she raked her fingers through a bowl of cakes. “Men are strange creatures, Elias. One cannot tell what schemes they may get up to.”

It was a peculiar comment, as were most of the things that erupted from Lady Sempill’s mouth, but it worked to the desired effect. Elias’s thin lips pinched, and he clung to Isobel’s side like a wet leaf for the remainder of the evening.

Relief did not come for her until much later, when she was tucked under the heavy counterpane in her bedchamber, a fire blazing in the grate. Two trunks sat at the foot of her bed, and though they looked ancient, they withstood the weight of her belongings packed inside.

She was only going to visit her sister. It would be a short, uneventful visit, just long enough to see Marriane restored to health. Why, then, did she feel like she was on the cusp of something inexplicably … more?

Isobel tossed from side to side until the linen sheet tangled around her feet and her pillow was beaten to a misshapen lump.

With a sigh, she rose. Even the carpets were cold under her stockinged feet, and she heard little flecks of wintry precipitation pinging against the windows.

She reached under her bed and pulled out a small box.

Marriane’s handwriting glowed off the pages, her characters smooth and legible and feminine. How much better Isobel would feel, had tonight’s missive been written in this hand.

I promise I shall have you out for a visit soon, sister. If only I could get the guest rooms just as I want them. Wouldn’t you know, papering walls is quite a trifling task.

I intended for you to come stay with Martin and me in the next fortnight, but own I’m rather ashamed for you to witness the state of our dinners. Perhaps after I hire a new cook.

Oh, Isobel, to be wed is bliss. When you at last relent to our good Elias, I hope he makes you a pinch so happy as Martin does me.

And then, at the very last of the stack …

Lord Trevelyan is a perfect gentleman, and I believe you would find him most handsome.

I cannot help but feel terribly sorry for him, as he’s lost his bride in a sudden, very mysterious fashion.

He is Martin’s particular friend, but since this tragedy befell him, he’s scarce been seen by anyone at all.

I shall tell you all about him, when you come to visit me—if I do not scheme about, and introduce you personally.

Just what Isobel had been looking for.