Page 107 of The Lover's Eye
“Ah, it’s only superstition.They say a party for the new year shouldn’t be odd in its number.”Giles was never good at keeping the humor from his voice.
“I thought that was only for the number thirteen, dearest.And we certainly have amassed a larger crowd than that.”Everyone had been invited, including the tenant farmers and villagers.
“That’s just it.We’ve amassed anoddcrowd.”
Isobel was seized by laughter so sudden, she snorted.Giles’s chest rumbled under her.He wasn’t exactly wrong.
At the table, Pemberton cradled a swaddled bundle against his chest.On one side of him, Lord Ridgeway was hollering something about it being Grandpapa’s turn to hold the babe, and on his other side, Reverend Gouldsmith looked bemused at the colorful verbiage spewing from the old man’s lips.
Marriane grabbed Beatrice up off the floor—for the old viscount refused to travel without his cat—and hollered, “Beatrice, you old woman, meet your granddaughter!”She was promptly clawed.
The ladies from Isobel’s long ago disastrous luncheon huddled by the hearth, petting Smooch and Pepper, their cheeks flushed from too much drink.Someone dropped a glass, and it rolled, spilling dark liquid all over the carpets.
“You know,” Isobel said, tilting up her chin to look at Giles, “I rather like odd.”
Before he could answer, fondness and something rakishly desirous clouding his blue eyes, Marriane was stomping up and tugging Isobel into the hall.“I’ll return her soon enough, Trevelyan.You can manage for a moment without her.It might even serve you well, clingy man.”
Giles smiled broadly, calling after them.“I can manage, but that’s not to say I’ll like it.”
When Marriane finally stopped, loosening her grip on Isobel’s wrist, she was breathless and wore a devilish glint in her eyes.It had scarcely been a month since she’d given birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter, and Isobel had never seen her in finer health or spirits.
Motherhood became Marriane, but it was more than that.She had changed.She was more like her old self, before all the strife that plagued the early part of her and Pemberton’s marriage, but it was more than that, too.
She was stronger.Louder.More afraid of saying nothing, than of saying something that might offend polite society.Just now, though, she was brimming with sisterly mischief.“Have you heard?”she whispered.“About the Sempills?”
Isobel attempted to keep a neutral countenance, but couldn’t prevent her grin.“Yes.But people must be exaggerating—I can’t imagine the caricatures are circulating through all of London.”
“Oh, they are.”She produced a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Isobel.“I believe this one is my favorite yet.”
Isobel was practically salivating to see one of the offensive sketches; she had only heard about them thus far—wild, garish depictions of Elias and his mother, their features exaggerated and their behavior made a mockery for entertainment.But nothing prepared her to see the artist’s work with her own eyes.
Before Isobel had the paper fully unfolded, she gasped, her laugh sounding more like a shriek.Marriane smacked her arm and shushed her, but they both giggled wildly as they peered at the image.The Sempilltons.
Lady Sempill had been depicted as a prize heifer adorned for a cattle show, a single black feather pluming between her ears.Elias had been allowed to keep his captain’s uniform, but it was fitted around the girth of a very thin jackass with a haughty expression.
Isobel laughed and laughed, until she gripped her side and the world blurred around her.“It’s brilliant!But I still cannot comprehend how the Sempills earned such widespread ill repute.”Her eyes caught on the date at the top of the sheet.Februrary 1815.“Wait—”
“It took a few weeks to catch on, but now everyone makes a mockery of them,” Marriane grinned.“They hardly remember the origins ofwhythey dislike them, but that isn’t the point.I have it on good authority that Elias’s marital prospects are ruined.I hope he never lays a hand on another woman again.”
Isobel’s grin softened into open-mouthed awe.“Marriane—you did this?”
“Well, not entirely.I hired a caricature artist and anonymously sent the drawings to the gossip rags with the most acclaim.”Meeting her sister’s disbelieving expression, Marriane threw her hands up.“What?I needed something to entertain me during my confinement.Besides, one can only have so many new draperies.”
Isobel was at a loss for words.Athank youhovered on her lips, but it felt insufficient.This was more than a gag or joke, it was an attempt to thwart Elias from harming more women who found themselves in his path.And if talk was to be believed, it was marvelously successful.One small right in a world of wrongs.
“Truthfully, Isobel, I must apologize.You were right, all those months ago, and I’m terribly glad you did not listen to my advice.”
“Oh, you don’t—”
Marriane silenced her protest with a teary glance, and squeezed her arm.“We should not pretend, and we must never settle.I understand that, now more than ever.”She cast a glance into the room, where her daughter rocked in Pemberton’s arms.“And that is what I shall teach her.”
“I’m glad.”Isobel’s voice was barely above a whisper.She wrapped her sister in a hug.
“It all sorted out, didn’t it?”Marriane asked, sniffling through a laugh.“What an awful load of rubbish to get here, but you certainly didn’t settle, my dear.”
Isobel nodded.She met Giles’s gaze from a distance.He was beaming, his arms laden with a basket of gifts they had picked out for their guests, but he stilled when he saw her.
They knew how to voice their feelings to each other, but damn if there wasn’t something electric and primal and soul-scorching aboutthismeans of communication.A held glance, yes, but a promise of love and devotion.A desire to close every distance, no matter how short.
