Chapter 28

Griffith shifted against the red upholstered bench and leaned his head back until it was supported by the wall behind him. He didn’t often choose to sit on the back bench, since it was usually occupied by those who simply couldn’t be bothered to care, but considering he’d actually contemplated not even showing up to Parliament that day, sitting on the back row was a decent compromise.

Ryland climbed the steps and slid onto the bench next to him. “Why are we being backbenchers today? Is there a division I don’t know about?”

The ministers in the front row didn’t look very anxious, so Griffith had to assume there wasn’t an exciting vote planned for the day. “I hope not. I doubt I’ll hear much of the debate.”

Ryland crossed his arms and settled against the bench. “Things didn’t go well yesterday, I take it. Did you tell her what an illogical choice she was?”

A heavy sigh accompanied the closing of Griffith’s eyes. He was never telling his sister anything ever again.

A bump to his shoulder caused Griffith’s back to slide against the seat, scraping his head against the tapestry-covered wall. He lifted it and opened his eyes to glare at his friend.

Ryland looked at him for a moment. “She really turned you down?”

“Yes.” That was all the explanation Griffith felt like giving. Of course, it was all the explanation he’d been given, so he couldn’t give Ryland much more even if he wanted to.

Anthony slid onto the bench on Griffith’s other side. “Why are we sitting back here? Do we have something against Irish priests now?”

Ryland leaned forward to look at Anthony across Griffith. “Is that what we’re talking about today?”

“How is it you don’t know? Last week you told me not only which days we’d be discussing the foreign ally treaty but who was prepared to make statements and whether or not Prinny was inclined to get involved.”

Ryland shrugged. “I care about the treaty. Roman Catholics in Ireland don’t really concern me.”

“I’m going to have to side with Ryland on this one.” Griffith grunted, thankful that today’s debate was one he didn’t really care about. He’d happily sit with the other disinterested men when it came time to call for a division. Assuming they were even voting on it today. He let his eyes fall shut once more and debated leaving the hall entirely.

“What’s his problem?”

Ryland laughed. “He’s fallen prey to the illogical upheaval of love, I’m afraid.”

Anthony’s mouth went slack. “She turned him down?”

Griffith glared at the marquis. “Your wife wasn’t even there when I talked to my sisters.”

He shrugged. “No, but Miranda and Ryland came to dinner last week.”

“It was a couples thing.” Ryland grinned. “I’d say you should join us next time, but that would require you actually settling on a woman to marry.” He angled his shoulders and ducked his head, as if afraid Griffith would attack him for the dig.

Griffith thought about it, but it wasn’t worth the effort. “I apologize for every comment I made at your expense, gentlemen. I am now convinced love turns a man into an idiot.”

“Are we back to making logical choices about who we marry?” Ryland shook his head. “Please tell me Miss St. Claire hasn’t returned to the top of the list.”

“That would put him in too close a proximity to the idiocy-inducing Miss Breckenridge.” Anthony tapped one finger against his chin, eyes squinted in exaggerated thought. “He needs a lady who will take him in a different social direction entirely.”

“You can save your energy.” Griffith shifted against the seat again. The benches had never been overly comfortable due to his long legs, but today they felt like torture devices. “I’ve decided to abandon the idea of marriage for a while.”

His friends looked at each other and then back at him.

“You can’t be serious,” Anthony said.

“You’re really going to give up?” Ryland rubbed a hand over his face before sitting back to stare in shock at Griffith.

Griffith’s gaze fell to the other side of the chamber, where Lord Pontebrook was blustering, so angry his face was turning red and spittle flew from his mouth as he gestured toward the open chamber doors. “She needs help, and I can’t be the one to help her.”

An inelegant, scoffing snort came from Ryland. “You’re a duke. If you can’t help her, who can?”

“I don’t know.” Griffith shrugged. “She won’t tell me the problem.”

The other two men were silent for a long time, longer than Griffith had expected. He’d rather hoped that they would have some advice on how he should proceed, given their own difficult paths to happiness.

“That’s it?” Anthony finally asked. “That’s the reason you’re moping on the back bench?”

Griffith frowned. “I’m not moping.”

“You are, but that’s hardly the point.” Ryland crossed his arms. “If you want to fix her problem, the first thing you have to do is discover what it is.”

It was such a simple concept, the next logical step. Why on earth couldn’t he have thought of it? He’d investigated her background but obviously not enough of her present. “You see?” He looked from Anthony to Ryland before gesturing to himself. “Idiot.”

He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, pressing his hands together and balancing his chin on top of his fingers. His mind began to leave the familiar surroundings of the House of Lords once more, but this time he welcomed the disconnection as he stepped into the equally familiar activity of problem solving. He wasn’t giving Isabella up without a fight. Something strange had been going on with her all Season, and there was no reason to think whatever it was had gone away.

Which meant it was time for Griffith to shift this emotion to the side and let his mind save the day once again.

And he would start with her uncle.

They weren’t supposed to be nice.

Isabella smiled at Sir Richard over the top of yet another bouquet of flowers. This one hadn’t come with over-the-top poetry or ridiculous compliments. It had been honestly handed over as the sentiment of wishing to come by and see her was expressed. She’d tried not to keep a record, even a mental one, of the men who visited her, but she remembered him. She was fairly certain he’d been by three or four times before.

He had been pleasant to talk to and seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say. They would speak for a while and he would take his leave, promising to seek her out when next they were at the same event.

Today was no different. As his visit came to a close, he remarked upon the weather they appeared to be headed toward for the next day or so. He always closed with the weather. After they danced at a ball or shared a cup of punch at a musicale, the last thing he mentioned was always the weather.

It was a rather refreshing change from it being the first thing mentioned, but it was a strange habit.

And it made her feel a bit guilty.

Because not only was he nice, but he wasn’t even one of the men her uncle wished to convince to his way of thinking. Sir Richard didn’t have a vote. He was a baronet, doomed to live on the line between peerage and gentry. As far as she could tell he had no real political aspirations. He was simply a nice man who had come to London to socialize with his peers and perhaps find a wife while he was at it.

And Isabella didn’t know how to tell him that she wasn’t going to be that wife. If she started discouraging any of her suitors, she would start discouraging them all. If she ever gave leave to the words screaming inside her head, she was afraid they would never stop.

Even though she wasn’t sure what the point was anymore.

Her family didn’t need her to sacrifice herself. They’d been saved through other means, through another plan. One she hadn’t been patient enough or confident enough to wait on. Even though her mother would look to the sky every night and say how glad she was that the Lord was in control, Isabella had always thought it more of a hollow statement that kept her mother from admitting how bad things really were. But what Isabella had thought was a weakness was actually evidence of a faith stronger than she could have imagined.

And God had come through. Not as Isabella had hoped, not the way she’d asked for in the early days after her father’s accident, but in a way that had left everyone in her family better off.

Everyone except her. But she couldn’t blame God’s unusual plan for that one. She’d done this to herself.

She wasn’t sure what she’d said, but her smiles had been bright enough and her conversation witty enough, because Sir Richard looked as pleased as ever as he made his good-byes and predicted that the dreary grey in the sky would not give way to rain for another two days.

If only it would rain now. Pour down in sheets and buckets so she would have a reason to curl up in her bed for the foreseeable future.

Frederica came walking in, her quick breathing and flushed cheeks proving she’d run through the house to get to the drawing room even though she was walking sedately when she came through the door.

She looked around the room, eyes wide. “He already departed?”

“Of course. They visit, I smile, they leave. We’ve been doing this for a while now.” Isabella dropped her eyes to the flowers, lying bright and vibrant against the oldest skirt in her wardrobe. It had been the nicest dress she owned before her uncle had swooped in and told her he had a way to fix everything.

“But he just got here! Osborn sent a maid to get me, and I ran all the way down here. It couldn’t have taken more than five minutes.”

Perhaps Isabella hadn’t been as sparkling a conversationalist as she thought.

Freddie sat on the sofa next to Isabella. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming downstairs?”

Because she was afraid she’d lose the will to come downstairs at all if she didn’t come straight from her room.

Frederica ran a hand over Isabella’s skirt where it fanned out over part of the seat. “Is your family well?”

“Yes. Very well.” Isabella looked up into Frederica’s concerned face. Her cousin had been there through everything. She shouldn’t have to suffer for Isabella’s sin. That was the consequence, then. She could and would beg God for forgiveness, but she would still have to follow through for Frederica’s sake.

“Have you heard from Arthur?”

“No.” Frederica lifted one shoulder and tipped her head down, a sad smile on her lips. “But that’s not surprising. He didn’t know if they’d be riding straight into battle or making camp somewhere. Even if he could send a letter, it could be tied up for weeks before they clear it of any secret communications.”

“He’ll come home, Freddie.”

She looked up with a smile, but tears clung to her eyelashes. “I’m praying he will.” A deep, shuddering breath lifted her shoulders. “Either way I’m thankful that God let me see him again, let me know that I wasn’t mistaken to continue loving him. And this time, his colonel promised to find me personally should anything . . . Well, this time I’ll know for certain. I’m grateful for that blessing.”

If anyone deserved to question God’s plan, it was Frederica. She’d lost her mother and brother to taking the wrong medicine. Her father had all but tossed her aside as useless after telling her the man she loved was dead, but he’d lauded her cousin as worthwhile simply because she was pretty. And now, after finally being reunited with the man she’d stayed loyal to, he’d been sent off to war again. Yet still she had faith.

It was enough to make Isabella wish to run upstairs and curl up beneath her coverlet.

The butler knocked once upon the open drawing room door. “My ladies, Mr. Emerson is here to see Lord Pontebrook. As his lordship is not home yet, would you like me to show him in here?”

No. No she most certainly would not. “Yes, of course. Send him in and have tea brought directly.”

Osborn bowed and retreated.

Isabella slid her hand across the sofa until she could grip Frederica’s. This was for her and her future happiness. A few more weeks of smiles weren’t going to hurt anyone. And maybe, when everything was over, she could throw her future into God’s hands and see if Griffith could possibly forgive her for everything.

The idea that she may not have to walk away from Griffith after all lifted her spirits like nothing else. As Freddie had said, it all might not turn out well in the end, but she could have faith and do what needed to be done to know for sure that God had closed that door. Perhaps something good could come of Isabella’s folly.

Mr. Emerson bowed at the door before entering and sitting in the armchair across from the cousins.

The smile Isabella gave him was real—possibly a bit too wide for the occasion, but she didn’t care. The last time Mr. Emerson had come to the house, the Apothecary Act had been approved by the House of Commons the day before. So far the man had brought nothing but good news to her uncle.

Perhaps this would all be over soon.

Tea arrived, and they chatted the same conversation Isabella had held countless times as they sipped tea and nibbled on strawberry tarts. She could almost speak this conversation in her sleep. The names of the events changed and occasionally she switched up her choice of words that indicated how lovely she was finding London, but by and large it was always the same, barely scratching the surface.

Uncle Percy joined them in the middle of a debate over the current opera that was actually quite interesting.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Emerson. Come to brighten your day with my niece?” He glanced their way. “And daughter?”

Freddie rolled her eyes and tipped up her teacup.

Mr. Emerson rose. “It’s always a pleasure to visit with your family, my lord, even when it was not my original intention to do so. I merely came to bring you a piece of news. You’ve been so interested in how the House of Commons was viewing the Apothecary Act that I thought I would do you the courtesy of delivering the news myself.”

Uncle Percy rocked up onto his toes and patted his midsection with a wide grin on his face. “Well, I have to say I appreciate that. Shall we adjourn to my study, then?”

The two men exited and went up to her uncle’s study. Mr. Emerson was back down the stairs in less than ten minutes.

“Good afternoon, ladies. Always a pleasure.”

“That can’t be good.” Frederica set a half-eaten tart down on the tray.

“Why not?” Isabella picked at her skirt.

“Because he didn’t stay long. If it had been good news, Father would have convinced him to celebrate with a toast at the very least.”

Isabella swallowed hard. “Perhaps they drank it quickly.”

The girls waited, all but holding their breath.

When the clock in the hall struck the hour, they both jumped, stunned to find they’d been sitting in silence for nearly half an hour.

“Should we check on him?” Isabella whispered.

Freddie turned wide eyes on her cousin. “Why would we do that? If it’s bad news he’ll take it out on us eventually. Probably by saying we’ve wandered down Bond Street a few too many times and then cutting my pin money for a month.”

There was a good deal of truth to Freddie’s statement. If something had gone wrong with the Apothecary Act, Uncle Percy had no reason to keep Isabella in Town any longer. And no reason to let Freddie marry Arthur.

Aside, of course, from that fact that it would make him a good father.

Isabella stood and smoothed her skirt, finding comfort in the brightly patterned silk that was highly unfashionable here in London but was admired by many back home in Northumberland. “We’ll just walk by. If he calls us in to share his news, then we’ll know. If he’s drowning his sorrows, then we can just keep walking.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to walk up the stairs.” Freddie stood, though she was considerably slower to straighten. “Quietly.”

“Of course.” Isabella agreed, though Freddie had no way of stopping her if she decided to stomp on the top two stairs to let her uncle know they were there.

They moved toward the stairs as if a monster lurked at the top, waiting to devour them.

As they neared the top of the stairs, Isabella elected to go with Frederica’s plan for quiet and placed her foot gently on the next tread. At the top of the stairs they walked through the passage, winding their way to the next staircase that led up to the bedchambers.

Their feet had touched the first stair when a voice boomed out from the open study door they’d slipped past.

“Isabella!”

She swallowed, the bravery of downstairs drowned out by the panicked thudding of her heart.

Dear Lord, give me strength.

Her heart didn’t stop trying to pound its way out through her ears, but a calm came over her in other ways. She was still scared, but there was an innate sense that everything was going to work out. It was amazing how quickly God was willing to take her back after she’d spent months doing things her own way.

She took a deep breath. “Yes, Uncle?”

“Come in here. The Apothecary Act has been abandoned, and I need you to save it.”