suspect he made it himself. It wasn’t a place a girl could go.”
“And she sent you…?” Charlotte was appalled.
“Papa kept the liquor locked up, and she couldn’t really…” Belatedly, Lady Isabella seemed to sense her listener’s reaction. “It doesn’t matter. In the end, of course, Simon got me away.”
“Simon?”
“My husband. He was a neighbor. I’d known him all my life, and one day he came to see me and said I had to get out of that house and why didn’t I marry him.” She gave her tinkling laugh. “I was thirty-one years old! Can you believe I said no at first?”
“I suppose it was a surprising…”
“All I could think about was how Mama would scream at me if I so much as mentioned… But Simon didn’t give up. He went to Papa. I don’t know what he said to him, only that Papa came and told me I was a fool if I didn’t grab the chance to escape hell. He was a blunt man, Papa. It was kind of him, though, because I was the only one she listened to when her delusions overcame her. I know it was worse for him after I was gone.”
Charlotte found she had tears in her eyes. “So, it was a romantic rescue.”
“Oh, well.” Lady Isabella gestured vaguely. “Mama had screamed at Simon in front of everyone at a country ball. Quite humiliating. I think he liked the idea of taking something away from her. He spent every cent he had on hunting, of course.”
“Simon did?” confirmed Charlotte, thrown by the change in direction.
“He was hunting mad! His string of horses cost the earth. And the stables, and men to tend them. I always thought he cared more for the horses than for Edward.” She said this as if it were perfectly commonplace.
“Surely he loved his son…?”
“He was glad to have an heir, naturally. His first wife died without producing one. Poor silly Simon. He was killed forcing a water jump at sixty-five years of age, if you can believe it? He would not tolerate the idea that he couldn’t ride neck-or-nothing any longer. At least then we were able to sell the horses and the lodge in Leicestershire and use the income for other things.”
Charlotte wondered if she talked to everyone so freely, or if she considered her a member of the family and thus privy to its secrets. Did gossip fascinate her because her own life was a lurid tale?
“My sad little story,” she finished with a moue, as if reading Charlotte’s mind. “Everyone in town knows it. I always wanted to live in London, so it all came right in the end.” Lady Isabella’s look was bright and oblivious; her smile just as usual. Charlotte could do nothing but smile back. But this seemed the wrong response; her guest’s expression shifted to consternation. “You haven’t brought that horrid animal here?” she exclaimed.
Looking down, Charlotte saw that Callie had come into the room. The cat strolled regally between them, tail in the air. “I’m keeping her for Lizzy. She’s a reformed creature…”
Effortlessly, Callie leapt onto the arm of the sofa, inches from where Lady Isabella sat. She fixed her yellow eyes on the gently waving fringes of her shawl. Lady Isabella stood as if galvanized. “So you will come to the rout party?”
“Yes, thank you. She’s just being friendly, I th…”
“Splendid. Would you mind, my dear, taking a cab and meeting me there? I know I should fetch you, but it is such a long way out here.”
“Of course.”
“You really must move from this forsaken spot.” Lady Isabella kept an eye on Callie as she moved toward the door. It was as if she’d forgotten that Charlotte had no choice but to live in a neighborhood that fashionable Londoners viewed as next to exile. “Till Thursday then.”
“It is very kind of you to ask me.”
Lady Isabella waved this away. Charlotte saw her out, bemused by the odd mixture of traits in her personality, then returned to the drawing room. Callie sat in the same spot, washing a front paw with a rasping tongue. “Was that really necessary?” Charlotte asked her. “We do not have so many callers that we can afford to discourage them.”
The cat ignored her, continuing her ablutions.
“I realize that you did not actually attack the shawl. Though I think that might have been more lack of opportunity than self-control. But I would remind you that you are not allowed on the drawing room furniture.”