Page 2 of The Lover's Eye
The shadowy form of the butler appeared in the dining room, and Isobel’s pulse quickened with unaccountable dread.
“It is a messenger on horseback, my lord.Delivering an urgent dispatch from Northumberland, for Miss Isobel.”
Isobel stood so quickly, her hips caught the table’s edge, sloshing the drinks and eliciting a gasp from Lady Sempill.“Please,” she said, striding toward the butler.“Let me see.”
He handed the letter over without a word and Isobel ducked from the room.
The paper was cold between her fingers, the seal difficult to tear as she sought out the light of a wall sconce.She hadn’t paused long enough to read the address, and was shocked to find a blocky, masculine script printed inside.
Sister,
Marriane has taken ill.I’ve summoned the physician, and her lady’s maid reports she is quite comfortable at the time of my writing this.Yet she requests your presence at the earliest convenience.I’ll have a room done up for you, should you trouble yourself in coming.
Signed,
Lord Pemberton, Marquess of Whitburn
When Isobel reached the end of the letter, she was leaning against the wall for support.She scanned the sparse message again and again, as if in doing so she could divine more information about her sister’s illness.
Marriane’s husband had never written before.Perhaps the clue to her condition lay not in his careless phrasing, but in the penmanship itself.If her sister had been able, she would have written personally.
“Pardon me,” Isobel said, walking back to where the butler waited.“Is the messenger waiting on a reply?”
“Yes, miss.”
The wind whipped outside, ruthless cold sieving through the seams of the door to raise gooseflesh on Isobel’s arms.“See that’s he’s taken to the kitchen for a hot meal, and that his horse is attended to.”
She moved toward the yellow drawing room, her fingers itching in anticipation of the reply she was about to pen.
“Is there anything else, miss?”the butler asked, plainly curious to the bone.
She paused.“Yes, actually.Have my trunks brought up at once, and the coach readied for a morning departure.I’m going to Shoremoss Hall.”
♦
It was a lofty declaration.Isobel had never been invited to her sister’s new home.She’d never been to Northumberland.She’d never been anywhere.Was it a distance traversable in a day?
By God, did she even own travelling trunks?
“Pray, child, tell us what the matter is,” Lady Sempill said as soon as Isobel walked back into the room.It seemed dinner had gone on without her, the damask tablecloth having been taken up and dessert laid out.
“It seems my sister has taken ill,” Isobel said, allowing Elias to help her into her chair.His knuckles grazed her exposed back, and she flinched.
“How curious,” Lady Sempill said.“And Lord Pemberton sent a messenger?Is she quite ill, then?”
Lord Ridgeway was popping a piece of dried fruit into his mouth and spoke as he chewed.“Marriane always gets quite fussy over such things.Isobel’s always been the more amiable of my girls.”
“Papa, how can you say that?She’s ill enough to have requested I come.”
An instantaneous burble of words arose from Lady Sempill, none of them intelligible at first.“S-Surely, Lord Pemberton possesses ample staff to attend his wife,” she said finally.
“I feel certain she will make a hasty recovery,” Elias added, putting a sweaty hand over Isobel’s.
“It is my hope that both of you are correct,” Isobel said, steeling her strength, “but still, I shall go to her in the morning.”
Lady Sempill laughed in a soaring soprano that was painful to Isobel’s ears.“Pray, child, you cannot travel such a distance in these conditions!Why, you shall be ill next, if you endeavor to take such risks.”
“Have you already written a reply?”Elias asked.“Allow one of our footmen to go in your stead.”
