Chapter 10
As Isabella walked into the church she had attended her entire life, she was taken aback by just how many people openly stared at her. She realized immediately that none of them had expected to see her there. None of them had ever expected to see her again.
“Ignore them, Your Grace,” Kitty whispered quietly into her ear. “You must take your place down at the front of the church, the most forward pew.”
“Kitty, I do not want to go to the front of the church.”
“You are the Duchess of Coldwell, and there is allotted seating for the Duke and his family. You have every right to take it, Your Grace.” Kitty quickly and secretly squeezed her hand as the last of the staring congregation returned their attention to the front of the church.
“If I walk, they will simply stare at me afresh.”
“If they wish to stare at you, Your Grace, they will take any opportunity no matter where you stand,” Kitty said in hushed tones. “So, you might just as well take your rightful place and let them stare and be damned.”
The moment Kitty had finished speaking, she cast her eyes heavenwards, clearly remembering that she was in a church. She looked at Isabella with a comical, wide-eyed expression which almost caused her to laugh out loud.
“Oh, Kitty.” Isabella was surprised at how quickly her tone had turned from one of embarrassment and panic to one of amusement. “But you will sit with me, will you not?”
“I shall sit there with you if you wish.” Kitty smiled at her, her dark eyes brimming with warmth in her thin, pale face.
Isabella walked down the central aisle with Kitty in tow as she made her way down to the front of the church and the Duchy of Coldwell pew. As she did so, she realized that her movement had caused many of those present to turn and look at her once more. Quite what they were expecting to see, she could not say.
What she could say was that many of those who stared were the very people who had greeted her warmly week in week out throughout the years she had attended the church. It was as if, by nothing more than a simple marriage, she had become not just a different person, but almost a different species of being.
She had become a curiosity, and she knew it. Isabella also knew that when a person became a curiosity, none would dare to enquire after her outright. None would ask the questions that they wanted to ask and would simply hope that they would find it out at some later date in the tried and foolishly trusted method of gossip.
Isabella mused that nothing had changed about her appearance; there was nothing new about her to stare at. Even her clothes were not different, for she had chosen to wear one of her old gowns, rather than one of the new ones that the Duke had commissioned for her.
The only thing that had changed was her circumstances. As far as the congregation was concerned, she had been sold to the monster by a father who thought absolutely nothing of her. Well, that was in part true. She had been sold by a father who thought absolutely nothing of her. But now, after her first few weeks of married life, Isabella was quite sure that the man to whom she had been married away was not a monster.
Despite her newfound defiance, by the time she had gained the safety of the front pew, Isabella felt greatly relieved. It was not an easy thing to have all eyes on you, and she suddenly had a dreadful sense of what it must be like to be Elliot. She understood now exactly what it was that might induce him to dress differently when he was out and about on the grounds in daylight. He did not want to be seen; he did not want to be stared at. And in his position, worst of all was likely the idea that someone could not bear to look upon him and would, instead of staring, cast their eyes immediately away.
What a great effect something as simple as the look of another could have upon the soul. How it could make one feel so many things; embarrassment, defeat, anger, resentment. Not one of those feelings was good.
Isabella had hardly heard a word that the Reverend had said that morning. She was so distracted by her own cacophony of mixed feelings that she could not concentrate.
It was her first visit to church since she had been married and, ordinarily, Isabella had always enjoyed the services there. However, she had enjoyed them from the comfortable position of not feeling at all resentful towards any other member of the congregation.
If only Esme had been there, Isabella felt sure she would have felt very different indeed. Esme would have warmed her heart and strengthened her resolve, but Esme had returned her letter some days before to tell her that she would be away with her family in the Midlands visiting relatives, and very likely was, at that moment, attending a church service more than a hundred miles away.
Still, Isabella had Kitty for support, and she was very grateful for her.
Despite the fact that Isabella and Elliot had been able to converse a little more freely of late, Isabella had not expected that she would be free to attend the church.
Elliot and everybody who worked on the estate attended private services in the little chapel where Isabella and Elliot had been married.
The services were a little later in the day and were performed by the same minister who had presided over their marriage. From what Kitty told her, the Minister came from a small chapel somewhere east of the Coldwell Estate and routinely performed a service at the Coldwell Chapel as soon as he had finished ministering to his own little congregation.
But as much as she missed Sunday morning services, Isabella could not bring herself to accept spiritual guidance from a man who had behaved as the Minister had. He had known that she had been married against her will and he, a man of God, had done nothing to help her.
She knew, of course, that no man of God would have done. There was not a reverend, a priest, or a minister anywhere in the county who would have gone against a Duke and an Earl. Apparently, they found it very much easier to go against their own God, the God they claimed to serve unequivocally.
“We have a service here at Coldwell every Sunday if you care for it,” Elliot had said to her when the subject of church had been touched upon during one of their evening meetings in the drawing room.
“I used to attend the church down in the village, Elliot,” Isabella had said by way of explanation.
Of course, it was not any loyalty to her old church which was holding her back from attending family chapel, and she knew it. But what else could she say to him?
“You may attend the Coldwell Chapel with me if you wish it. If you do not, then I shall not force you. You might think that you have very little to give thanks for currently or very little to pray for. I daresay that is quite natural. But you may attend any time you wish, anytime at all.”
“I am afraid that I do not wish to be preached to by a minister who would…” Isabella could not finish.
Although she could only see the perfect side of his face in the gloom, she felt sure that she could see enough to see the sadness there.
“You would not wish to be preached to by a minister who would see a young woman fainted away at the sight of her husband and continue on as if everything was well?”
“I realize that men of God oversee the marriage of many a young woman who has been forced into it, and they do nothing. It is the way of things; I know this,” Isabella began cautiously. “And it would seem almost impossible to give you an explanation of my feelings on the matter without also causing some insult to you. I would not wish to cause such insult, and all I can do is give my explanation as truthfully as possible.”
“Of course,” he said flatly.
“I do not think that a man who can perform such a ceremony when he is under no illusion about the young lady’s part in it is a man that I can accept spiritual guidance from. That is not a true man of God, in my opinion, and I would not be able to concentrate on my prayers in his presence. I hope this does not offend, Elliot, and I realize that if you say I must go, then I must, but I would rather not.”
“You need not do anything you do not wish to do.” Elliot reiterated his earlier sentiment. “But you need not go without spiritual guidance altogether. Perhaps you would prefer to go to the church in the village again? I used to attend myself and can understand your attachment.”
“You would have no objection to my going there?” Isabella was entirely surprised.
“No, I would have none.” As he spoke, Isabella had studied his perfect left side in the gloom. “All of the servants on the estate attend the chapel here, but you may take Kitty with you if you wish for the company.”
“I would be very pleased to attend the church in the village Elliot, and if Kitty is willing, I shall take her with me. Thank you.”
As Isabella sang with the congregation who had stared at her and made her feel so uncomfortable, she wondered if she was as pleased to attend the church in the village now as she had been previously. Perhaps she would have been better off simply putting up with the guidance of the Minister who had seemed to her so morally redundant.
Her attention was drawn by Kitty, who seemed to be surreptitiously returning the gaze of somebody on a pew across the aisle from them.
Of course, it was her family’s own pew, the Earl of Upperton’s pew. Why Isabella had not even thought to look that way when she had entered the church was beyond her. She had known all along that her family would be there, her mother, her father, and her brother, Anthony.
But she had not considered what she would say to them if she found herself in conversation because she could not imagine such a thing. Isabella had decided to ignore them completely; they were nothing to her anymore.
But it would seem that the same could not be said for them, or perhaps it was simply that they were as curious as the rest of the congregation that the monster had let his prisoner free from the tangled green barrier of hawthorns which surrounded his evil castle on all sides.
Either way, Isabella was not at all interested. She kept her eyes facing front although she was vaguely aware that Kitty continued to return her family’s glances.
Now that her discomfort at the stares of people who she had once considered acquaintances was leaving her, a new sense of disquiet was moving in to take its place. Isabella could not escape the impression that she would have to have some conversation or other with her parents before leaving the church that day.
She did not want to have to explain her life to them anymore. They did not deserve it, and she certainly did not owe it to them. But a part of her wanted to tell them that she was not a prisoner, not trapped, and not afraid. Not because it would put their minds at rest, but because it would signal some small victory over her father. She had survived.
How complicated it all was. How tangled family life could be.
The moment the ceremony was over, Isabella made haste, taking Kitty by the hand and whispering in her ear that she wanted to leave immediately. However, her father had moved very quickly indeed and was already standing at the end of her pew, essentially blocking her exit, by the time she reached it.
“Lord Upperton,” she said in a sarcastic tone.
Isabella had already determined never to refer to the Earl as her father again. He did not deserve so great a title, the greatest title of them all.
“Isabella, I have something I would speak with you about.”
“I cannot think that there is anything to be said between us, Lord Upperton.”
“Am I not your father anymore?” he said with his old aggression, his old antagonism.
“Were you ever?” she spat angrily. “I would thank you to take a step backward away from me, Lord Upperton.”
“I can see that you are still a little angry with me, Isabella.”
“I am unmoved by you altogether. Still, we are no longer family, and so it is of little matter. I beg you would excuse me,” she said and made to push past him.
“Very clever, Isabella.” He grasped her upper arm very hard and hissed into her ear, “You might think that you are out of my reach now that you are married, but you are mistaken. I might not be permitted to hurt you any longer, but I am still married to your mother, and I am permitted to do to her whatever I wish.”
His threat was very clear, and Isabella perceived his meaning immediately. If she did not stand and listen to him, if she did not pay him the old respect that she thought herself free from, he would hurt her mother as a means of punishing her.
“What is it you wish to speak about?” Isabella said and pulled her arm away from her father’s grasp so roughly that she knew she had done much to ensure that she would be bruised.
“I would like you to petition your husband to provide more funds for Upperton Hall. It would seem that we are in much graver circumstances than I had first calculated, and so I must ask for the settlement made upon you to be increased.”
“The settlement is already made, and it has been paid. I am married away, and I cannot see any incentive for the Duke to accept your request.”
“That is for you to work out, Isabella. You will find a way of convincing the Duke to accept my request or you will hear of the consequences.”
“I cannot ask my husband to provide you with more money. You must ask him yourself, Lord Upperton.”
“You will ask him, Isabella, or your mother will pay very dearly for it.” He looked at her with the purest hatred before turning to march away along the aisle and out of the church.
“Are you quite well?” Kitty said and took her hand.
“I shall be well, Kitty. I shall be well,” Isabella said and felt anything but.