Page 47 of The Lover’s Eye

The sun was aligned with the glass paned ceiling, bearing down to lend golden light and warmth over the table setting. The expanse of portraits and murals looked ethereal stretching high overhead.

The ladies took their seats quietly, speaking only once they were settled. Mr. Finch, with the help of other servants, busied about the sideboard that had been brought in.

“It is such a lovely space,” said one woman, who Isobel remembered was called Mrs. Herron. Her dark eyes hovered over the polished tea service before them. “What was your … inspiration, if I might ask?”

“This room is often disused, but Giles and I love it so. The cuttings are all fresh from the gardens here.”

Isobel was beginning to wish she was in the gardens.

A strange panic was seizing her, putting pressure on her breastbone and making it difficult to breathe.

She suddenly questioned her sister’s advice to pretend, for she had never felt more like herself than she did just now—small, strange, and other.

The exceedingly tall woman beside Mrs. Herron broke into a catlike grin. “Yes, I have heard from one lady before that the earl has an affinity for this room. It is such an intimate space, after all.”

Isobel could only keep grinning at her, unable to guess the source of her humor. Trays of sandwiches, sweetcakes, dried fruits and nuts were distributed to the guests.

“Now then, when did you and Lord Trevelyan meet?” asked Mrs. Heppel.

“When I was here to visit my sister in January,” Isobel said. She was sure the sandwich tasted delicious, but she could hardly muster a bite.

“I heard your coach got stuck outside of the lodge gates, and Lord Trevelyan was so kind as to let you stay here,” Mrs. Herron said with a meaningful smirk.

Isobel felt herself coloring up. She had hoped to avoid indulging that detail, knowing how improper it sounded when repeated—even more so now that they’d married hastily. “Yes,” she said, “unfortunately it was impossible for our coach to pass. Giles was very kind.”

“Now that is what I call luck!” exclaimed the tall woman. “Becoming stranded outside of a fine bachelor’s house. And you are certainly glowing with health, not unlike some other young mothers—pardon me, young brides I have known.”

Mrs. Herron gave the woman a swift elbow. “You must forgive Miss Armstrong, Lady Trevelyan. She is quiet the jester, I’m afraid.”

Mercifully for Isobel, the conversation drifted to local happenings, and advice on the best modistes and milliners in nearby Newcastle. Giles waited tactfully to appear when there was a lull in conversation.

Isobel’s nearly empty stomach constricted with apprehension when the women fawned over him before her eyes.

Miss Armstrong, in particular, looked the most pleasant she had all afternoon.

It was difficult to discern the young woman’s age.

She wore the overly decorated pink gown of a debutante, but Isobel felt the drape of Miss Armstrong’s skin suggested she was older than herself.

“I feel I must offer my deepest condolences, alongside my congratulations to you, Lord Trevelyan,” Mrs. Heppel said. “It is a wretched business, what you and my dear husband have been involved in these past weeks.”

Isobel knew Mr. Heppel was the local magistrate, the man who had come the night of her wedding to inform Giles about the discovery of Aurelia’s body. But her features remained unmoved; her cheeks aching painfully from smiling for so damned long.

“Thank you, Mrs. Heppel,” Giles said with a fraction of a bow.

“Your Lady Trevelyan is lovely,” Mrs. Herron said, “I am sure she is a great comfort to you.”

Giles’s foot tapped a little before he drew it straight under himself. “Yes, I am most fortunate. If you ladies will excuse me, I have some business to attend to.”

A flurry of farewells arose from around the table, and Mr. Finch arrived with fresh hot water for the tea.

Isobel had gotten through the first pouring without issue and was happy to reach for the black and gilt pot now.

The task made her feel more like a hostess than the foolish words that had been coming out of her mouth, and gave her hands ample distraction.

As Isobel filled the lady’s cup beside her, Miss Armstrong asked a question in her high, insolent tone. “Forgive my impertinence,” she said, “but what pet name has Lord Trevelyan assigned to you? I’m simply dying of curiosity.”

Isobel’s hands began to shake. What sort of question was that? She could formulate no answer, pretending to tend to the teacup with extra diligence.

“What a peculiar question to ask, child,” Mrs. Heppel said reproachfully.

Miss Armstrong sighed. “I guess I am only remembering the last time we dined here. Miss Gouldsmith was so forthcoming—”

“ Miss Armstrong !” came a sharp, anonymous whisper.

Isobel turned to her other side and began filling Marriane’s teacup, trying to mask the race of her beating heart, the increasing tremble in her limbs. Pretend. Pretend.

“All of you were here,” Miss Armstrong said defensively. “She said he called her his ‘little butterfly’. I suppose pet names are more suited to compromised ladies, but then again, I hear there are handsome captains even in Cumberland.”

The porcelain teapot became unbearably heavy at that instant, and Isobel’s hands extraordinarily weak. She missed the edge of Marriane’s cup and poured a little of the piping hot water on the tablecloth.

“Oh, dear,” Isobel said weakly, setting down the teapot and moving to place a napkin over the spill, lest it should make its way onto Marriane’s lap. But in pivoting her body, her elbow struck the teapot on the table’s edge, and turned it over.

The scald of hot porcelain and streaming water assailed Isobel’s lap, the boiling liquid so shocking to her senses that she instinctively jumped up in response to the pain. The elaborate pot crashed to the floor, a piercing shatter upon tile.

Gasps filled the room like ghosts, emanating from every mouth and chair until it sounded like they were moving in from the walls and portraits themselves.

“I’m so sorry,” Isobel said, looking down aghast at her soiled gown and the dismembered teapot. She was trembling all over. “Oh, I’m so t-terribly sorry.”

A firm grip encircled her arm, her awareness so limited, she hardly realized she was being hauled away from the scene. It was not until Marriane had gotten her to the privacy of the breakfast room and placed her in a chair that Isobel realized who had been taking her away.

Being separated from the group had the effect of a dam bursting.

Isobel felt a multitude of varied pains at once, hurts that had been there before, only suppressed.

Her face stung with petrification and exhausted muscles, and the skin atop her thighs was burning forcibly—a pain that demanded to be felt.

She began to rattle off a slurry of combined curses and concerns. What about her guests, Giles’s mother’s teapot, Mr. Finch?

Marriane disregarded all of them, bending to hike up the layers of Isobel’s skirts until her bare skin was revealed. Then it was her turn to utter an oath. She untied the ribbon keeping Isobel’s left stocking in place and rolled it down.

Before either of them could comment on the fiery red patch of flesh, Betsey entered the room with cold water and rags. “Oh, milady!” she gasped.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Marriane said as she and Betsey began to place the cold rags over the burn in disorganized haste.

Isobel still felt detached from reality, dwelling on her pain and mortification rather than the people tending to her. Ordinarily she would have been mortified to have her skirts around her hips and people kneeling at her feet.

“What did she mean?” Isobel asked dryly, moistening her lips. “That Miss Armstrong. All her strange remarks, what did she mean?”

“That is the least of your concerns, Isobel,” Marriane growled, removing a rag that had already been warmed by the hot flesh and replacing it with another.

The grit of pain made itself known in Isobel’s voice. “Tell me.”

Marriane’s tone was exasperated. “You somehow managed to copy much of Aurelia’s bridal luncheon. Is that what you wished to know?”

Isobel gulped. “How much?”

Marriane placed another saturated cloth on Isobel’s leg, the cold water dripping down to the carpet in little thuds and running beneath her stockings and into the backs of her slippers. A cold chill ran down her spine.

“It was held in the central hall. With flowers from the gardens, and the same tea service.”

Isobel slumped more heavily into her chair; a tear surprising her when it slid from the outer corner of her eye.

“Are you hurt?” Giles asked loudly, striding into the room and placing his hands on Isobel’s shoulders. His eyes connected with her leg. “Damn and blast it.”

She looked up at him. He stood behind her, and from her reclined position in the chair, his concerned countenance was upside down.

The pinched brows and clenched teeth looked more like a glower, but she felt nothing.

Her own pain was overwhelming, momentarily depriving her of empathy—and good sense.

“Just confess it,” she said weakly.

“What?” he asked. Concern had given his voice a sharp edge.

“That I’ll never be Aurelia.”