When the Duke Returns(42)

“She is a musician? You were travelling around Europe with a performing musician?” Now he looked surprised.

“We always had enough to eat, Simeon. In case you were picturing her playing for pennies by the side of the road.”

“Why didn’t you inform my solicitor if you were in that sort of situation? It was utterly inappropriate for a duchess and I would never have allowed it!”

Godfrey was halfway through his second glass of wine but paused with the glass halfway to his lips. “Did you travel about in fairs?” he asked eagerly. “I love fairs! One came through the village and my mother allowed me to attend. There was a wonderful fiddler named Mr. McGurdy. Did you ever happen to meet him?”

“No, I didn’t meet Mr. McGurdy,” Isidore said, enjoying herself hugely. “Why Simeon, are you saying that you would have travelled back to England before completing your investigation of the Nile had you known I was in extremis?”

He gave her a sour look. “I would have instructed my solicitors to find you an appropriate situation if you didn’t wish to return to my mother’s house.”

“A nunnery, perhaps?” Isidore asked mockingly.

For a moment his eyes lingered on her chest. “They wouldn’t have had you.” She felt a flare of triumph.

“Was it hard sleeping by the side of the road?” Godfrey asked. He had finished his second glass and was sawing away at a piece of chicken in a manner that suggested his coordination was impaired.

“I never slept by the side of the road,” Isidore said, adding primly, “thank goodness.”

“I just don’t understand this family!” Simeon said, putting down his cutlery. “Isidore, you had access to whatever funds you wished. Not only did your parents leave you a considerable inheritance, but you could have drawn on my funds at any point. Why were you travelling with fairs? Why is everyone’s attitude toward money so peculiar?”

“Mother doesn’t know you have all that money,” Godfrey said, turning to his brother owlishly. “She thinks we don’t have any.”

“She knows,” Simeon said grimly. “She sees the books. She simply can’t bring herself to disperse any of it.”

Godfrey frowned. “You mean—”

Isidore shot her husband a look. His little brother had the bewildered look of a child who’s been lied to. “Her Grace showed her respect for her husband by continuing to operate the estate precisely as he had done, I have no doubt,” she said.

Godfrey brightened. “Yes, of course. Father never allowed any untoward expenditures. He considered it a point of honor.”

“There’s little honor in not paying tradesmen for their honest work,” Simeon said.

Godfrey looked stricken again. Isidore took another try. “When I visited this house many years ago, I remember being rather surprised by your father’s frugal attitude. But in a frank discussion with your mother, she informed me that he considered himself merely the guardian of the duchy and hoped to pass on his estates intact, without wasting his substance as so many noblemen do.”

Godfrey reached for the sideboard and the bottle of wine, but Isidore gave him a minatory look and his arm dropped. He picked up his fork, but a moment later Simeon poured wine into all three of their glasses.

“I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me how you and your aunt were reduced to busking at fairs, given your birth, not to mention our marriage,” Simeon said, his voice rather chilly. Apparently, it was her fault that at twelve years old she had failed to voluntarily enter a nunnery while waiting for his return.

“Some say my aunt is one of the greatest violinists ever born,” Isidore said. Godfrey had finished his chicken and looked a little dazed.

“She must have been better than Mr. McGurdy, then,” Godfrey mumbled. “Though he played a tambourine with his right foot at the same time.”

“My aunt played only the violin.”

Simeon put down his fork again. “I have felt as if I were living in two worlds for the past week or so, and this only confirms it. Are you saying that your aunt was in great demand, and you did not travel fairs?”

“No, we did not,” Isidore said. “She had a long-standing arrangement to join the French court for the Easter season; Queen Marie Antoinette is quite fond of music, you know. My aunt would play solos for her in gardens of Versailles. Sometimes my aunt would steal into the great maze, and then begin to play. The ladies would wander into the labyrinth until they were able to find her by following the sound of her music.”

“I’d love to see that,” Godfrey said.