The Wicked Heir (Spare Heirs #3)(54)
With him there were no nerves, only an odd peace and easiness she’d never experienced before. Wasn’t a nervous inability to speak a requirement when in the presence of love? Not that any of this mattered since he clearly did not want to be listed among her potential husbands. Far too complicated, he’d complained. What about this was so complicated?
At the squeaking sound of the door opening, Isabelle bolted up from the sofa. “Fal…” she began, but her voice trailed away. It was a woman filling the doorway, a shocked look on her face. She was a sturdy-looking older woman in a dark ensemble that had seen better days. Was this Fallon’s housekeeper?
“Oh! There is someone here.” The housekeeper jumped, almost dropping the tray in her arms. “I thought he was teasing. He’s not one to do such a thing, always so serious and quiet, but it caught me so off guard, you know. But here you are in his bedchamber.” Her eyebrows rose a bit, clearly offended on some level by the impropriety of the situation. “Forgive my surprise.”
Isabelle uncurled her feet from beneath her and stood to greet the woman. “We can be surprised by this news together since I hadn’t planned on being a houseguest. I’m Lady Isabelle Fairlyn.”
“A lady…here.” The housekeeper’s face flushed for a moment before she collected herself. “How…interesting.”
Interesting? This was the most activity Isabelle had experienced since her arrival, other than Fallon’s company. And she was trying to put that from her mind for the moment, to concentrate on the housekeeper. “It isn’t interesting at all, to be quite honest.”
“I’m sure it isn’t. I’m Mrs. Featherfitch. I have the run of things around here. Well. The house part anyway.” She turned away to place the tea tray on the table where Isabelle had shared dinner with Fallon the previous night.
Isabelle had cleared the table last night and placed everything beside the door, where it was still piled high now. At her home, someone would have cleared the dishes away when the fire was stoked for the night, but the oversight was easily explained by the locked door and her current imprisonment. Perhaps now that the housekeeper knew about her, Isabelle could have someone attend to a thing or two.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Isabelle offered with a smile as she tugged at her dress to straighten it. “My stay will hopefully be short. I won’t be too much trouble.”
“A short stay? Only for a night or two, then?” she asked with her back turned and poured Isabelle a cup of tea.
“I’m not certain. Mr. St. James may be able to better answer that question.”
The housekeeper busied herself for another moment moving plates around on the table unnecessarily all the while grumbling under her breath, “If Lady Herron were here…disgrace…her very bed, I’m sure.”
Isabelle couldn’t hear all of her mumbled words, but she heard enough. Mrs. Featherfitch had the wrong idea about Isabelle’s presence, but it was the mention of another lady that caught her attention. “Lady Herron? Did she live here? Was this her home?”
Mrs. Featherfitch trailed a hand down the floral draperies with the reverence one would have for a fallen queen. Yet Isabelle couldn’t help but notice the dust the woman released with her touch. “This home now belongs to Mr. St. James, but Lady Herron’s spirit lives on.”
“Does it indeed?” Isabelle hung on every detail of the housekeeper’s story. “A true apparition? I suppose you’ve heard the doors opening and closing at all hours of the night? Voices in the halls? Last night I thought I heard singing, and I wondered then—”
“Of course not!” the woman said, glaring at Isabelle. “I only meant that Lady Herron lives on in these walls, breathing through the flowers she loved so.”
“Really?” Isabelle lifted an embroidered pillow from the sofa and examined it. “Is she ever seen though? I heard once of a spirit who would warn all guests to leave the home at once, but I always thought it rather unwelcoming. It must have been terribly disappointing for the owners of the home to always have their guests fleeing into the night. But if she’s the friendly sort…”
“A lady of her standing in society would never stoop so low as to be an apparition.”
“Hmmm. I see.” With the noise Isabelle had heard at all hours last night, she would be the judge of that. “Who was she, if you don’t mind? I’m sleeping in her former room, am I not? It would be nice to know something of the history.”
Mrs. Featherfitch thawed a bit at her question. “Lady Herron was a vibrant lady, well respected in town. She lost his lordship early in her marriage, the poor dear. She made the best of things, though. She was strong of will. But after many years, her ladyship grew lonely. She longed for companionship, a gentleman in her life.”
“I quite understand her plight. I’m searching for love in my own life.”
“Indeed.” The woman’s eyes flitted to the bed with a judgmental gleam before looking back to Isabelle.
“She looked about for a husband, but by then she was of an age.”
“Oh, how devastating.” Isabelle couldn’t imagine the horror of proceeding with life knowing that her time to love had spoiled in the sun—like that time when the groom had left a pail of milk sitting near the garden gate. She wouldn’t wish being spoiled milk upon anyone, especially not someone with a love of flowers like Lady Herron.