Once a Duchess(92)

 

Inevitably, though, conversation turned to Marshall. People wanted to hear about the shooting or talk about his public apology. After a couple weeks, she’d had enough. Isabelle quit the Bachmans’ home and returned to Fairfax Hall, and from there, traveled to the only place she’d ever escaped public scrutiny.

 

She scrawled her name across the newspaper clipping and stuffed it into an envelope. Then she picked up the five calling cards from the silver salver Bessie had brought her. She didn’t recognize a single name. Isabelle tossed them back into the tray and made a disgusted sound.

 

The village was not the haven it once had been. As bothersome as she found signing newspaper clippings for autograph collectors, this was worse. She’d become an attraction. Perfect strangers invaded her home, hoping for an audience with the famous heroine.

 

If she was home, she simply refused to see the visitors. Then guilt nagged at her for disappointing people. She solved that problem by keeping herself busy. She threw herself into local charity work, traveling to schools and orphanages. She’d even been to Newgate and donated sewing supplies for the female prisoners.

 

Isabelle was tired. It would all blow over soon enough, but meantime, she wished people would just leave her alone. Most of all, she wished they’d stop talking about Marshall.

 

“What was that?” She squinted at Bessie.

 

“I said, ma’am, the painter came by to look at the nursery. He’d like to begin soon as possible, so he can finish before the weather turns.”

 

Isabelle nodded. “Yes, all right. Good. He may start whenever he’d like.”

 

Bessie wrung her hands at her waist.

 

Isabelle looked up from her papers. “Is there something else?”

 

“Begging your pardon. It prob’ly ain’t my concern, but I was wondering why you’re fixing up the nursery so nice.” The older woman pulled her head backward, so that the loose skin bunched around her cheeks and chin.

 

Isabelle tapped her fingernail against the desk. She closed her eyes. The old daydream came at once, a vision of holding a baby in her arms, rocking and singing while the little one cooed. But it wasn’t her baby. Not anymore. The hollow ache in her chest bloomed into a staggering pain of loss. Isabelle wrenched her eyes open.

 

“I’ll have nephews and nieces one of these days,” she said quietly. “I’d like to be ready for them to come visit.”

 

Bessie exhaled. “Oh, right. Nephews and nieces. Of course, ma’am. And might I say,” she rushed, “it’ll be a beautiful nursery. You have the nicest taste in colors, I always say.”

 

“You always say that, do you?” Isabelle shook her head.

 

The mental picture came again: her baby, and Marshall kissing them both.

 

She pushed back from the desk. “Has Cook started dinner yet?” she asked as she walked briskly, trying to outpace the visions.

 

Bessie struggled to keep up. “I don’t believe so, ma’am.”

 

“Good.”

 

Isabelle strode to the kitchen where her cook, a portly man, was about to decapitate a feathered pigeon.

 

“Stop!” Isabelle ordered. The man let out a high-pitched shriek and his knife clattered to the board.

 

Isabelle shooed him with a flick of her wrists. “Out you go, then. I’ll see to myself tonight.”

 

“Are you sure, ma’am?” Cook asked. “I was just about to braise — ”

 

“That sounds excellent,” Isabelle said, tying an apron around her waist. “I’ll do it myself. Thank you.”

 

The man grumbled as Isabelle evicted him from the kitchen. Then, as she did from time to time, she stood in the center of the room with her hands on her hips and took stock of her surroundings. It was a good kitchen. Perhaps not as fine as another she had cooked in, but it was clean and well-provisioned for a modest country household.

 

She stirred together wine and stock for the braising liquid and put the pot on to heat. Then she peeled several onions and began methodically chopping them.

 

As she sliced into a vegetable, the first tear slipped down her cheek. She liked to chop onions. When she worked with them, no one asked why she was crying.

 

• • •

 

“ … am prepared to offer a considerable sum for your services as translator, as I realize this has arisen at the last possible moment. The urgency of your immediate response cannot be overstated. Gratefully yours, et cetera.”

 

Marshall blew out his cheeks while Perkins finished jotting down the dictation. He looked out the window over Grosvenor Square. Crisp, dry leaves crunched under boots and hooves in the street below. The air was turning cold. In a few weeks, winter would fall upon England.