Sherry Thomas: Ravishing the Heiress

Today his consideration only signified that he himself was gloriously happy at the prospect of seeing his beloved. He was summertime itself, young, luminous, lit from within by rekindled hopes and reawakened dreams. And every beggar along his path—herself included—could expect redoubled generosity and kindness.

He turned to leave but stopped. “I almost forgot, you ought to be more mindful of your intake of salt—you put enough into your scrambled eggs to preserve them for the next decade.”

And then he was gone, leaving her alone in the garden.

F itz stood outside Isabelle’s house.

He thought he’d learned to be levelheaded, but every emotion that tumbled through him was unrestrained, heart-stopping. Second chances—not many received such graces, and even fewer were in a position to seize them with both hands.

Dread and hope pulsed in his blood with equal intensity. So many years had passed. He’d changed. She, too, must have changed. Would they even have anything to say to each other when they came face-to-face?

He rang the bell. A maid in a large white cap and a long white bib opened the door, took his card, and asked him to follow her into the house. He stopped, however, in the vestibule, empty except for a rectangular mirror and a narrow console table underneath. A silver tray for calling cards sat on the table. Beside it, an instantly recognizable photograph.

He had a copy of the same photograph somewhere in the depths of his dressing room. It had been taken near the end of his first stay at the Pelham house, the ladies in their Sunday finery seated in the front row, the gentlemen, a solemn-looking lot, standing behind them. He himself looked impossibly young; Isabelle was uncharacteristically demure, her hands folded chastely in her lap.

But those hands concealed a secret. Directly after the photographer pronounced himself satisfied, she’d pulled Fitz aside and given him what she’d been stowing in her pocket: a tiny dormouse she’d named Alice. Alice had been the perfect pet for a busy student: She hibernated for much of Michaelmas Half and all of Lent Half, emerging only in April to live in his pocket on a delicate diet of berries, nuts, and an occasional caterpillar.

“I always keep that photograph close to me,” said a familiar voice. “It’s the only one I have of you.”

He set down the photograph and carefully, slowly, turned toward her.

Isabelle.

She was both taller and leaner than he remembered—and not eighteen anymore. Her face had settled into a somewhat harsher shape. There was tension to the contour of her jaw. Her skin seemed to require a greater effort to stretch over her features.

But those features were as chiseled and proud as ever. Her hair was the same blue black. The fire in her eyes remained undiminished. And in the intensity of her gaze he recognized the Isabelle Pelham of yesteryear.

And at the sight of her, long-lost memories, recollections that had become as faded as pages in an ancient manuscript, suddenly reacquired color, brightness, and focus. Isabelle in spring, holding an armful of hyacinths. Isabelle in her white tennis dress, waving her racquet at him, her smile brighter than the sun shining on the deep green lawn. Isabelle crunching fallen leaves underfoot, turning occasionally to say something to her governess, who trailed several steps behind them, and whom he barely noticed, because he had eyes only for his girl.

“Mrs. Englewood,” he said. “How do you do?”

“Fitz, my goodness,” she murmured. “You are exactly as I remember you. Exactly. ”

He smiled. “I still look nineteen?”

“No, of course not. You are a man full grown. But the essence of you has not changed at all.” She shook her head slightly, as if in wonder. “Come, we can’t hold a conversation in a passage. Let’s sit down.”

The tea things had already been laid out in readiness. Isabelle poured for them both.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

“Tell me about India,” he said at the same time.

They both smiled. He insisted that she regale him first with her stories, so she did. Delhi was unbearably hot in the month of April. Kashmir was very likely the most beautiful place on earth, especially Srinagar on the shores of Dal Lake. And she enjoyed the food of Hyderabad the best. He, in turn, gave her the latest on their mutual friends and acquaintances: courtships, marriages, children, and scandals minor and major.

An hour flew by.

Eventually she lifted her teacup and looked at him. “You haven’t said a thing about yourself, Fitz. How have you been?”

How had he been? “I can’t complain,” he said.

Isabelle’s gaze was fluid and just slight mocking. A smile played at the corners of her lips. How well he recalled this particular expression on her—she was about to say something naughty. “I hear you have been very successful with the ladies.”

He lowered his gaze. Between the two of them, he’d always been the shyer one. “It’s a way to pass time.”

A way to cope—and to forget.

“Lady Fitzhugh is very understanding, then.”

“She’s always been very sensible.”

“When I was still in India I’d heard it said that the two of you got on very well. I hadn’t quite believed it—but I guess it’s true.”

At last they came to it, the subject of his marriage. Her face turned somber, her gaze that of one regarding a friend’s tombstone.

“For someone who had no say in the matter,” he said, “I’ve been fortunate in the wife I’ve been allotted.”

“So…you are glad you married her?”

He did not look away this time. “I didn’t say that. You know I’d have crawled over broken glass to marry you, had the circumstances been different.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Yes, I know that.”

The front door of the house opened and in wafted the sounds of children at lively chatter, followed by a quick “shhh” from their minder.

“Excuse me a moment,” said Isabelle. She left the parlor and came back with a boy and a girl. “May I present Hyacinth and Alexander Englewood. Children, this is Lord Fitzhugh, an old friend of Uncle Pelly’s and Mama’s.”

Hyacinth was six, Alexander a year younger, both beautiful, both with their mother’s coloring. Suddenly, Fitz couldn’t speak. Had things been different, they would have been his children, and would not regard him with solemn, curious wariness, but run to him with open arms and wide grins.

They stayed only a minute before leaving for the recesses of the house with their governess. Isabelle lingered a moment at the door, her eyes following them. “They grow up so fast.”

Fitz swallowed a lump in his throat. “You always did like the names Hyacinth and Alexander.”

“I did. Hyacinth and Alexander Fitzhugh,” she murmured, a sheen of tears in her eyes.

She retook her seat. The sun streaming in from the open curtains sparkled on the gold trim of the saucers. She turned her cup round and round on its saucer—she was never one for staying still.

And then she looked at him, bold, resolute, Isabelle as he’d always remembered. “Is it too late to reclaim some of what we could have had?”

As if she had to ask. As if he hadn’t been thinking of the very same in the weeks since her first letter arrived. As if he wouldn’t hold on to this rare, priceless second chance with both arms and never again let go.

“No,” he said. “It’s not too late.”

The Pact

1888