The Earl's Mistress by Liz Carlyle

Author:Liz Carlyle
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical Romance, Victorian, Fiction
ISBN: 9780062100306
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2014-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

“Ow!” Isabella yanked back her hand to see a pearl of blood welling up on her index finger.

“Did you stick yourself?” Jemima looked up from her darning. “That’s three times. I can mend that pillowslip, Bella, if you want to start dinner.”

“Mrs. Barbour left a hen in the oven,” said Isabella, hastily folding the linen and stuffing it back into her basket. “And the linens can wait. Clearly, my mind is elsewhere. Besides, Jemma, it is Sunday. Why don’t you do something enjoyable? Didn’t Miss Hokham loan you a book at school?”

“Yes, it was very kind of her,” said the girl, drawing her thread through the toe of one of Georgina’s stockings. “I read three chapters already—but I’m not wasting candles, Bella, I promise.”

“I know you’re not, sweet.” Isabella had put away her sewing basket and had begun to tidy the sitting room. “What’s the book called? Is it good?”

Jemima cut a sidelong look at Georgina, who sat upon the floor, stacking up her blocks. “It is one of Anne Brontë’s works,” she said quietly. “The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall.”

“Oh.” Isabella stopped what she was doing and looked at the girl very pointedly.

Jemima blushed. “Miss Hokham said I mightn’t read it if you disapproved,” she said. “Do you?”

Isabella pursed her lips. The book was about a mysterious woman believed by her village to be a wealthy man’s mistress, and therefore shunned. The fact that, in the end, the woman was proven no such thing did not negate the fact that the book dealt with harsh and indelicate subjects; subjects that hit uncomfortably near home.

“It’s a little late to ask now,” said Isabella on a sigh, “if you’re already on chapter four. No, I suppose you are mature enough to grasp—”

A sudden and very harsh knock on the door downstairs caused Isabella to startle. She exchanged uneasy looks with Jemima. In the last week, Mrs. Barbour had been twice required to send Everett away, once with Lady Meredith in his company.

“I’d better see if there’s a carriage,” said Isabella uneasily, going at once to the window and leaning into the glass.

“Is it Cousin Everett?” asked Jemima, her face stark.

“Cousin Everett is vile,” said Georgina from her pile of blocks, “and creepy.”

“Hush, Georgie,” said Isabella.

“Jemma says it,” replied the child sullenly.

But the carriage that sat in the street below was far too fine to be Everett’s; he and Lady Meredith were still tooling around in her father’s old rattletraps, and the glossy black landau below was the embodiment of elegance, as was the elderly, well-dressed coachman.

But the occupant, whoever he or she was, already stood too near the door to be seen.

“Well, it’s not Everett or Lady Meredith,” Isabella murmured, turning from the window.

The anxiety fell from Jemima’s posture. “Someone is lost, perhaps?”

“I’ll go down and see.”

Hastily Isabella went down the narrow stairs that led to the shared entryway. To her shock, a tall man stood framed in the door’s window, and just above the frame itself she could see a mop of blonde curls beneath a tiny straw bonnet.

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