"Deaton, has suggested, that I withdraw the debts owed from the people of Upton. But, the people of Upton, they have little money, and they've relied on my father for years to provide," Isobel tried to ignore the impropriety and plead her case, sticking to the plan she'd had in her head, in the carriage, even as she saw it all derailed so quickly. "Lord Brighton, your father and my father had a longstanding relationship. Please, if you have an inkling of worry or care in your heart, will you please consider discussing the debts my house owes yours? If you would take under consideration—"
"You can stop right there, eh, love?" Lord Brighton quipped. "And, by the by, it's Elle
ry. I hate hearing 'Lord Brighton'," the dissolute man scoffed. "There's a pretty simple solution t' all this. How about we discuss it a little more... intimately, over a dinner?" Lord Brighton purred. "Deep in debt the way you are, I'd doubt you'd be able to find a dinner like I have ready anywhere else. What's to say, hmm? Sound fair?"
"M'lord, I... Ellery," she struggled to say the first name so casually, shuddering as she spat it out. "I... I can't stay long, the people at the manor, they need leadership in trying times—"
"C'mon now, what good are you back at the Duskwood Manor, love? Are you going to spend the night counting just how deep into debt you are to Norbury?" he joked coarsely. "Besides, I've already summoned my entire staff to prepare a meal for the both of us, the likes of which I'd doubt you've seen in quite some time. What do you say, hmm, lovey?" The incessant pet-naming made Isobel squirm; it felt so scandalous. She looked at the Lord Brighton, his face so handsome - but so... lewd, so full of insinuations. Now she began to see that she had not walked into the manor of a gentleman. She began to see precisely what her father, Deaton, Father McConnell, and doubtless others, had warned the prim young Isobel about.
"Y... yes, let's discuss our issues over dinner," Isobel broke down, the memory of her father - and the people of Upton - in her mind. She knew it was a bad idea, but she didn't have much of a choice.
"Dinner's this way, love," Lord Brighton beckoned her on. "Though I'd much prefer if you led the way," he winked cheekily. Isobel blinked.
"But... it's your home. You're the gentleman, after all," she naively added. "I'm not certain why..."
"I'd much rather look at the back of you on the way," he purred, getting in close enough she could feel his breath. It felt so good, but so wrong.
What had she gotten herself in to?
CHAPTER FOUR
He certainly had not simply been bragging about the nature of his wealth. There was a dinner, and it was a grand dinner - and she was not disappointed.
In Lord Brighton's expansive dining hall, she sat on one end of the table, as her manners properly dictated; but with his incorrigible swagger, Ellery sauntered down from the other end and sat himself closely, intimately closely, right next to Isobel, pulling the chair up tight, grinning full of lewd confidence the entire time. Servants bombarded the pair with dish after dish - first came a whole roasted pig, and then two roasted game hens; then came a grand salad of greens, two entire loaves of fresh-baked bread, sides of Welsh rarebit; boiled and seasoned potatoes. Lord Brighton paraded in front of her more food than half of the village of Upton could eat in an entire week. Casually he plucked bits and pieces from each entree as they arrived at the table; he watched her with a grin as he chewed bread, gnawed on smoked meat.
Isobel ate with quiet, shy grace; she cut away bits of pork and chicken, tiny bite-sized chunks, and ensured her chewing made no noise. Proper and mannered, she kept her eyes away from the brazen lord. She could scarcely believe such a man could hold a title as prestigious as he did.
"You've no need to keep those ridiculous manners and lies up around me, love," Ellery Brighton scoffed, reclining in his chair and watching her closely. "It's all a sham, after all."
"A sham?" Isobel dared to question such curious wording. In truth all she wished was to negotiate her debts and escape as quick as she could, but her eyes met his emerald gaze and she took a deep breath, so confused yet so curious.
"You, looking for a husband. Me, looking for a wife. Eating in little bites. Nodding, bowing, curtsying; empty gestures. Like those pretenders at your father's funeral. Laughing one minute, crying their eyes out the next. That Duke of Thrushmore, perfect example. How long's he been trying to undo your garters, lovey?" Lord Brighton smirked. Isobel scoffed, lips wide in shocked embarrassment. He had a point about much, and his distaste for the Lord Miller intrigued her, but she couldn't think of expressing such sentiment aloud. It clashed with years of custom she'd been taught.
"I beg your pardon?" she squeaked in quiet outrage. The duke perked up, finishing his piece of bread.
"I'd wondered how far I could get before you'd start to put on the facade," he snorted. "You're telling me you've never thought about a man stripping down your gown, love? Never crossed your mind? A man pushing you onto a bed, telling you dirty words in your ear and spanking you until you couldn't breathe, it felt so good?" Isobel's cheeks grew brighter and brighter.
"H-how da... how dare you speak to me that way?" she managed, her voice wobbling in confused rage. She began to see quite well why her father had kept the Lord Brighton out of her reach for so long.
"Darlings like the Lady of Brittany, now that's a real woman. She knows what she likes," Lord Brighton sighed wistfully. "And she's not ashamed to admit it."
"She likes to drink wine and romp at funerals!" Isobel exclaimed with all the might her meek and innocent voice could muster, letting her fork and knife clatter onto her plate in exhausted shock. "Just as you do! I should have listened to Deaton, and to my father. I had such high hopes, putting aside my doubts for this," she exclaimed haughtily, unable to believe someone could speak so crudely to a woman of her stature. The more she protested, though, the more delight crept across the Lord Brighton's face.
"I should feel hurt, I suppose, but I do what I like, love," Ellery shrugged coyly. "What's the harm in that?"
"There's a lot of harm in it. For one, it causes scandal," Isobel argued, "scandal that my name need not suffer from."
"Sex is scandal, is it? Enjoying oneself, that's scandal, is it?" Lord Brighton challenged her. His attitude perturbed her training, but it poked at her instincts. She remembered the revelers at her father's funeral - the feeling of how empty all the emotion felt. The world tuned out, where she could feel nothing genuine about the gathered lot of them. While she resented so raucous a display as wine and laughter at her father's funeral, she could at least begin to fathom perhaps, Lord Brighton had been the only soul in the whole of the graveyard to express real emotion that day.
"Y-yes," she hesitated to answer. "Of course they cause scandals. They're scandalous things to do. It's... not acceptable for a woman, particularly a woman of my stature, to be so fruitlessly indulging in these sorts of things. It's not proper," Isobel explained.
"Listen to you, you don't even believe that yourself, do you? Somebody told you that, and you just accepted it," Lord Brighton derided her. "I saw the way you were at the funeral. I saw that stiff, the Duke of Thrushmore. Filthy Eugenius, that's what dad used to call him," Ellery laughed. "You pretend you could stand his company at that funeral, because society says you should, don't it?"
"I tolerate his company because it's what's expected of a woman in my position," she stammered, "and because he is a proper gentleman. He's beloved! And his poor, poor wife," she recalled the arguments the old chirping women used to make about the duke, repeating them verbatim to try to prove her case. "He's far more a proper man than someone like you, Lord Brighton."
"How d'you know? I could show you a man if you followed me up to my bedroom, love," Lord Brighton growled, leaning in close with a devious grin on his face.
"E-excuse me?!" proper and prim Isobel responded in outrage. He was gorgeous, but she couldn't bring herself to even believe he could dare say something so brash to her.