Nicola Cornick - Deceived

There was a silence. Nothing happened. Warwick was as still as though he had not heard. Nevertheless, Pearce quaked in his shoes.

“You are certain?” Warwick’s voice was very soft now.

“Yes, sir. Which means that Stockhaven—”

“Owns Salterton Hall now. Yes, I realize that.”

Pearce fell silent. Edward Warwick did not need him to make his deductions for him. He had a mind like a steel blade.

“I thought,” Warwick said, after a long interval, “that Princess Isabella was ruined by debt and would be obliged to sell Salterton. How damnably annoying.”

“Her debts were more pressing than we had been led to believe. She had no time.” Pearce shook his head. “Henshalls are very discreet, sir.”

Warwick sighed. Not even his intelligence was accurate every time.

“This is inconvenient.”

Pearce knew that to be an understatement. He waited.

Warwick sighed again. “Very well. Leave this with me. Watch Stockhaven, and keep me informed.” He opened the top drawer of the desk and took out a small bag. The contents clinked softly. Warwick pushed it across the desk to Pearce. “You have done well.”

Pearce was so relieved that his body came out in a cold sweat. He brushed a droplet away from his brow. “Thank you, sir.”

He took the money and went. The fresh air swirled along the corridor downstairs. He could hear the sounds of female shrieks and masculine laughter from the open windows of the brothel. He did not want to linger. He had money for drink now and he still had his job. And his life. The last man to occupy Pearce’s role had disappeared and turned up six weeks later in the Thames. One could never be certain with Mr. Warwick.

ACROSS TOWN IN BRUNSWICK Gardens, Isabella was reading the evening edition of the Gentlemen’s Athenian Mercury. That newspaper was taking a close interest in her affairs and she did not care for it.

Members of the Ton will doubtless be disappointed to have seen so little of the lovely Princess IDC since her return from foreign shores. Can it be true that the princess has become a recluse, or is it merely that she is so short of funds that she cannot afford a new dress in which to dazzle society? Or perhaps the upright society hostesses cannot countenance such a bird of paradise upsetting their nests? One matter is for sure—the Princess will not find a rich gentleman to meet all her needs if she hides away at home….

Isabella put down the paper with a sigh. For a week now that vulgar publication had been running a series of announcements on the return of a certain royal personage whom they coyly referred to as Princess IDC. It did not take the finest minds in Europe to identify which particular princess they were referring to. Isabella sighed again. It seemed that someone was selling information about her. Most of it was presented as speculation, of course, but a couple of times the informant had been uncomfortably close to the mark. There had been a reference to her need to sell the Brunswick Gardens house, for example, and an accurate description of its tasteless opulence. Isabella found it disconcerting that someone should know so much about her life.

“Miss Penelope Standish, Your Serene Highness.”

The butler’s smooth tones broke into her thoughts. Belton spoke with the air of a man announcing news in somewhat dubious taste. It had been clear to Isabella from the beginning that Belton was a servant of discrimination, who felt it might be slightly beneath his dignity to work for a family where the genes of King George’s fishmonger were combined with the poor reputation of a third-rate European prince. After all, he had served the most high-ranking families of the land. This could only be construed as a comedown.

The butler’s tone was not lost on the young lady who entered the library, for she gave him a twinkling smile. When he responded with a faint but irresistible twitch of the lips, she went into a peal of laughter.

“Good evening, Belton. I always have the impression that you wish you had a respectable duchess to announce.”

“Madam…” the butler said repressively. “It is scarcely my place to express a preference.”

Pen gave him another melting smile, very like her sister’s, and came forward to kiss Isabella.

“You look very doleful this evening, Your Serene Highness,” she said. “Have you lost a guinea and found a groat?”

“Please drop the Serene Highness nonsense,” Isabella besought. “I have asked Belton time and time again, but he insists that it is not appropriate merely to call me madam.”

“I should think not,” Pen said cheerfully, throwing herself down on the sofa with hoydenish abandon. “The least you can do is give your servants the gratification of addressing you properly if they have the privilege of working for a princess. There is nothing worse than a lady of consequence who will not accept her own importance, you know.”

“You talk a great deal of nonsense,” Isabella said. Nevertheless, she felt cheered. Until Pen had arrived she had been drinking a solitary cup of tea and staring blankly at the newspapers, wondering what the Gentlemen’s Athenian Mercury would make of the real truth. She had importuned a former lover to marry her; she had contracted the marriage in the Fleet Prison and she intended to have it annulled as soon as she could. If the editors of the papers knew the true story, their gossip columns would likely burst into flames.

“You look tired,” Pen was saying solicitously.

“I have not slept,” Isabella said with a sigh. “It puts me out of countenance.”

It was not in fact accurate to describe the last night as sleepless. Her bouts of wakefulness had been punctuated by broken dreams about Marcus of such astoundingly erotic content that she had been dizzy and aroused upon awakening, unable to banish him from her mind. She had been forced to dredge up her Latin declensions in order to try and bore herself to calm. It was the third night it had happened and thinking of it now was sufficient to put her out of countenance all over again.

“Are we not to attend the Duchess of Fordyce’s rout?” Pen inquired, stripping off her gloves. She gestured to her rose-pink gown. “Here I am dusting down the only dress in my wardrobe worthy of the occasion and I find you sitting here with a face like a December morning.” Her comical expression faded. “Oh! I forgot—you were to see Mr. Churchward this week about Ernest’s debts, were you not? Was it so very bad?”

“Worse than very bad,” Isabella confirmed.

Pen made a tutting sound. “Then I am surprised not to find you at your packing,” she said. “Was Mr. Churchward’s advice not to return to the continent?”

“It was one of the suggestions that he made,” Isabella said evasively. She did not intend to tell Pen about her marriage of convenience. This was no altruistic move designed to spare her sister the shock, but sprang from the certain knowledge that Pen would disapprove and, further, would express that disapproval in very pithy terms. And since Isabella intended to dissolve the marriage before the ink was dry on the certificate, there was no need for Pen to know anything. It would have been nice to have a confidante, but in recent years Isabella had become used to keeping her own counsel and, besides, she knew the one thing it would be dangerous to discuss was Marcus Stockhaven.

“This house is to be sold,” she continued. “Not that I regret that particularly, since it was Ernest’s and he furnished it in his customary deplorable taste.”

Pen looked around at the ostentatious golden ornaments and flamboyant decor. “It would be appropriate for a bawdy house,” she conceded, “but I cannot favor it for a residence.”

“Mr. Churchward thinks that a nabob may buy it,” Isabella said gloomily. “Home from home, so to speak.”