Isabella (Trevelyan Family 1)

"Mama!" Isabella cried as she entered the room, to find her mother in the embrace of a stranger. It was quite the most shocking thing she'd ever seen; although her mother appeared to be participating most enthusiastically, and the stranger was, it must be confessed, a very handsome fellow.

Languidly, Maria drew away from Lord Deverell. "Ah, there you are, my love. What an unconscionable time you've been returning. Say hello to your papa, my dear."

Isabella’s Epilogue

Lord Hartleigh gently assisted his rather bulky wife into a comfortable chair on the terrace. Although he had, at the beginning, shown a rather alarming tendency to over protectiveness, Isabella—with some help from her mother—managed to reassure the anxious father-to-be. He was at length convinced that it was not in his wife's best interest to be confined to her bed for nine months. After ascertaining that the walk from the garden had not caused her any irrevocable damage, he told her that she had a letter from his cousin.

"From Basil. Oh, thank heaven. I was so worried."

"I don't see why. Between his talent for gathering gossip and Henry Latham's talent for making money with it, he promises to do quite well for himself. Better than he deserves," the earl muttered, irritated anew as he remembered the trouble his cousin had caused him.

"Now, darling, he did write a very penitent letter before he left—"

"Maudlin, rather," the earl grumbled. But his wife reached for his cravat and pulled his head down so that she could plant a kiss on his forehead, and he remembered to be grateful to Basil for unintentionally thwarting those early plans to marry the fair Honoria. "Well then, let us see what he has to say."

“‘My darling Isabella,'" the countess read aloud.

“Not a promising start, the insinuating wretch.”

“‘You will perhaps be pleased to hear that I have not contracted any of the five hundred and eighty different varieties of foul disease that flourish in this abominable climate. That is because I am dying of a broken heart and haven't the strength to contract them.’”

"Broken heart, my foot."

“’Nonetheless, even in my weakened state I have managed to be of some use to your uncle, who confesses himself astonished at the amount of helpful gossip I am able to relay to him. He informs me that my debt to him is now paid, and that whatever else I accomplish from now on is shared profit, my share being available to me for whatever wanton purposes I wish to pursue.

"'Unfortunately, between the heat and the unending din of this vile city, I haven't the energy even to imagine any wanton purposes, nor would I have the strength to pursue such, could I imagine them. Therefore I am making a gift to your firstborn, care of your uncle, so that he or she might have at least one kind memory of the villainous Uncle Basil.

"'Your uncle now talks of Greece, and suggests we might find something to our advantage there. No climate can be as vile as this one, and in the hopes that I might be set upon by marauding Turks, I have commenced packing my few miserable belongings, preparatory to leaving in the next week.

"'Pray give my regards to my fortunate cousin, and you might pat Lucy on the head for me—if she'll stand for it. And if you can find it in your heart to forgive me...well, pray for me, Isabella—for I did love you as well as I could.

"'Ever your affectionate and humble servant, B.'"

"'Loved you as well as he could.' Well enough to spend your money and ruin your life—"

"He was desperate," Isabella reminded gently.

"And I was such a fool that without his interference, I wouldn't have realised how desperately in love with you I was."

"Was?" Isabella asked, tugging on his neckcloth again.

"Am. Will be. Always," Lord Hartleigh replied as he dropped to one knee to gaze lovingly into the intelligent blue eyes of his countess. "From the very first day I saw you and you scolded me."

His wife gave a low chuckle of satisfaction, and pulled him closer for a kiss.

“Poor Basil,” the earl murmured a few minutes later. “I wonder what will become of him?”

“Something dramatic, no doubt,” was the whispered reply. The letter slipped from her lap to the floor of the terrace, was picked up by a breeze, and slowly fluttered, forgotten, to the garden.