An Impossible Deception

Chapter One: Stay

"I can't stay here?" Isabella said.

Stay. Once more, Sir Edwin's jaws stopped moving about his toast. Lady Garvey gave a shocked flutter of her earlobes. Edwina was for a moment silenced.

It had been six years since her family had decided that Isabella must Go. The scandal hanging over her had threatened to cast its shadow over her two sisters as well. But surely now both Edwina and Arabella were successfully married, there was no worry she would jeopardize their futures?

"I think you should know that our circumstances are not what they once were," Sir Edwin said, reaching for the peach conserve. "I cannot afford to support an unmarried daughter."

It was on the tip of Isabella's tongue to ask if she couldn't get married. Of course, at twenty-three, she was almost old, and with her reputation no great match could be expected for her, but surely there would be some middle-aged widower of comfortable standing who might condescend to accept her? Her dowry at the very least—

"You might as well be aware," her father added, wiping peach sauce from his mouth, "that I was required some years ago to spend the portion I had been saving for you. The rents have not been bringing in what they should, and through a period of distress, I was obligated to find capital from where otherwise I would not have touched it."

"Oh."

"Of course..." Her father's hand hovered over the conserves a moment, before selecting the quince jelly. "Over the years I will be able to restore the funds, but it will take time. If I live another ten years, which God allowing I will, you should be satisfactorily situated upon my death."

Lady Garvey coughed.

"Allowing, of course, for your mother's comfort as well."

Isabella stared glumly at the crumbs on the plate in front of her. She would be thirty-three by then. Too old to get married, and too poor, and too ruined. She was not stupid. She knew well enough that the hot-house conserves, the gems winking at her mother's throat and ears, and the gleaming silver breakfast set were the cause of whatever embarrassment her father was in now. She knew, too, that whatever reparations her father intended would never come about. There would be more bad rents. Newer bills coming in for whatever glittering trinkets had caught her mother's eyes or her father's stomach. It had long been obvious to Isabella that the only way to get anywhere with her family was to demand what you needed and take what you wanted. But demanding was not in her nature.

"I don't suppose I could be useful here, like I was with the Phillipses?"

"Oh, useful." Her mother waved the idea away. "My dear Isabella, I am very glad to see you after all this time, but what use could you be? We are none of us invalids."

"And I am all the help mother needs in keeping this house in good order," Edwina said, almost jealously. "Don't worry. I will find you someone who needs your help. Our Aunt Lydia perhaps. I believe she has — was it nerves or lungs, Mama?"

"Lungs," Lady Garvey said. "Ever since she was a girl."

Isabella's heart fell. She hadn't minded looking after old Mrs Phillips, exactly. There had been utility, purpose, service in it. And old Mrs Phillips had appreciated her, even if she had often been crotchety when her rheumatism was bad. It was nice to be appreciated. But Isabella didn't want to spend the rest of her youth being a caretaker for old women, until one day she was old too.

Through the window open onto the front lawn, there came the clop of horse hooves and then the creak of carriage springs. Lady Garvey's expression brightened.

"That will be Arabella!" She looked at Isabella. "She never misses my birthday, you know."

"She would if it lit between February and May," Edwina said sourly. She moved to the door then stopped and frowned at Isabella. "But you can go and let her in. I must get to the bottom of these receipts. Mother, it cannot be one and thirty candles!"