Edwards made a scornful noise. “More like the boot was on the other foot.”
“I beg your pardon?”
For a short time Leo didn’t think Edwards was going to answer. He just picked at some invisible irregularity in the fabric of his breeches. Leo was about to ask him again what he meant, when he started speaking. “Look, I don’t know the full story—you’d best ask the women about all that, but I’ll warn you now, they keep it between themselves. I knew there was something nasty afoot—it blew up when young Isobel was fifteen or sixteen—even then she was budding fair to become a rare little beauty. And the kind of guests Sir Bartleby invited, well, they weren’t the sort who were encumbered by morals or even common decency.” His mouth twisted. “To that kind of man, a lovely young girl is temptation.”
Leo must have made some kind of sound, because Edwards looked up, his face grim. “As I said, the girls tended to disappear when their father was visiting. I don’t rightly know what happened—I was out on the day—but it was clear something untoward had taken place. When I got back, Sir Bartleby was in a rage and his guests were all stirred up—some were laughing and jeering, and the one they were laughing at was in a white-hot fury. And the women of the house—” He met Leo’s gaze, his eyes glittering with anger. “I’m talking about the women servants, not the doxies Sir Bartleby’s guests brought with them—the women of the house clammed up like you wouldn’t believe. Could not get a word out of them about what had happened, but after that they made sure neither of the girls was ever alone again while their father and his guests were visiting.”
“I see.” There was a sour taste in Leo’s mouth, and it wasn’t the ale. “Thank you for letting me know. Now, I’d like to leave within the hour. Would you have Nanny Best step in here, please?”
When he informed Nanny Best that she was to be housed in a cottage of her own on his estate, and given agenerous pension to support her, the old woman burst into tears. Leo shifted uncomfortably. Women’s tears unmanned him.
He hurried her off with instructions to pack what she needed—anything she forgot could be sent on afterward.
While he was waiting for her to pack her belongings, Leo questioned the cook and several of the women servants about the tale Edwards had told him, but as the man had said, they were vague and evasive, and he came away none the wiser about the details. But it was clear whom they supported, and it wasn’t Sir Bartleby.
He drove away from Studley Park Manor with more questions than answers, and in the company of an elderly nanny who was embarrassingly grateful. The only way he could stop the endless flow of thanks was to ask her about the girls, and so the trip between Studley Park and his own estate—thankfully not a very long one—was filled with stories about the doings of Miss Clarissa and Miss Isobel. She, too, was fond of both girls, though Clarissa was clearly her darling. Understandable if she’d been nanny to Clarissa’s mother as well.
None of what he’d learned about Isobel Burton in this visit fitted with any of the accusations Sir Bartleby had made in his letter. The letter, like the will he’d left, was an act of spite.
The Isobel the servants talked about—bright, lively, mischievous and a little rebellious—was the Isobel he’d seen from the start.
And yet from the day he first met her, he’d let himself be influenced by the calumnies in Sir Bartleby’s letter. Of course, he was bound by the weight of it being a deathbed communication—and at that time he hadn’t known the girls at all. But he’d believed it at first—or at least tried to—though why he had was a mystery, even to him.
Now, his visit to Studley Park Manor had extinguishedany lingering doubts, and all he had to wonder about was the kind of man who would leave his daughters without a home simply because they’d defied him—successfully.
The prospect of separating the two girls was looking even more impossible now. But somehow he had to do it.
***
Well, wasn’t that fun?” Clarissa said. She and Izzy were on the front steps of Lady Davenham’s house, waiting for the carriage to collect them. “I never thought a literary society would be like that.”
Izzy nodded. “Lady Scattergood enjoyed herself, too, don’t you think? From the reaction of some of the people there, she’s been greatly missed.” Lady Scattergood was awaiting the carriage from inside the house. She had entered and exited the carriage in a rush, clinging to the girls, her eyes closed, as if trying to block out all awareness of the outside world. Izzy was enormously grateful to her for making the effort of coming out. Because it clearly was an effort.
“Did you see her with Lady Davenham’s cats?” Clarissa murmured.
Izzy chuckled. “I did. The more she narrowed her eyes at them, pulling her best cat-repelling face, the more the cats were intrigued and approached her.”
Their carriage arrived, and for the next few minutes they concentrated on getting the old lady into it. The girls took one arm each and led her—eyes scrunched closed—to the carriage. She was tense and shaking, though not as much as she had been when they’d left her house earlier in the evening.
A few minutes later they pulled up outside her house and repeated the exercise in reverse.
Once inside, Lady Scattergood shook off their hands, heaved a huge sigh and looked around her, as if reassuring herself that nothing had changed. “Well,” she said. “Well.”The little dogs yapped and frolicked around her feet, and she picked one of them up and hugged it to her bosom.
“I did it,” she said. “Didn’t I?”
“You did,” Izzy said. “And it wasn’t easy, I know. You were very brave.”
“Pshaw!” she said, but she looked pleased. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought. Yes, my precious ones, itisbeastly cats you can smell,” she added to the interestedly sniffing dogs. “Bea’s house is infested with the creatures.”
“Everyone was very happy to see you,” Clarissa said. “Lady Davenham thanked us for bringing you along.”
“Bea did?”
Clarissa nodded. “She said she’d missed you.”
“Did she?” Lady Scattergood said vaguely.
Izzy hid a smile. Lady Davenham, who’d told the girls to call her Lady Beatrice, had made no bones about it. She’d informed her old friend that she wasn’t going to be allowed to rot in solitude any longer, that she knew what that was like from personal experience, and it was dashed unhealthy!
