Banishment (Daughters of Mannerling 1) by M. C. Beaton Read Free Book Online Page B

uncomfortable. She had always taken the Stoppards’s oily blandishments as the Beverleys’s due. It looked as if no one at all had really cared for them.
    It was at that moment that the viscount walked into the room. He stood for a moment in the doorway, his expression serious as he noticed the distress on Isabella’s face.
    ‘Why, ’tis Guy, come to join the ladies,’ cried Mrs Kennedy.
    ‘I wondered if Miss Isabella would care to take a turn in the gardens with me.’
    ‘Gladly.’ Isabella rose, pleased that she was wearing one of her prettiest morning gowns of white muslin with an overdress of white lace. She would have been amazed had she been able to read Mrs Kennedy’s thoughts. Mrs Kennedy privately thought Isabella looked sadly overdressed. All her gowns were obviously expensive but lacked the style they should have had considering what the Beverleys had probably paid for them.
    In the gardens, the viscount drew Isabella’s arm through his own and glanced down at her in amusement. ‘I feel I should be leading you down the aisle.’
    Isabella looked up at him in alarm. Was this a proposal of marriage?’
    ‘Your gown,’ he said gently. ‘All that white lace.’
    ‘Oh!’ Isabella blushed in confusion. ‘It does not please you, my lord?’
    ‘You please me, but you could enhance your looks further with something less . . . fussy.’
    ‘And you the arbiter of high fashion!’
    ‘Not I. My aunt, however, has a keen eye.’
    ‘Mrs Kennedy!’
    ‘She was once a dasher but now dresses for comfort.’
    ‘And she has been criticizing my gowns to you?’
    ‘She has a maternal concern for you, that is all. You and your sisters have provided her with a new lease of life. She does not mean to interfere or criticize. All her actions are prompted by kindness and concern.’
    ‘I agree about the kindness and concern. But you should leave any strictures on fashion to your aunt instead of repeating them to me. What if I were to say to you that my father disapproved of the cut of your coat?’
    ‘My coat is an excellent cut and I would disagree with him. Now if you were to tell me that Sir William disapproved of my Irishness, that I would believe.’
    ‘You must consider us too high in the instep.’
    ‘A trifle.’
    ‘And I must take you to task, my lord. When you called on us at Mannerling during our last week and I did not wish to see you, it was because I was angry with you.’
    ‘Oh, my poor heart! What had I done?’
    ‘I feel you knew of my father’s gambling and that we were shortly to be ruined and were hinting such. Why did you not come out and speak to me direct about it? Perhaps we could have stopped him before he lost all.’
    ‘I had only heard rumours that he was playing deep at the tables of St James’s. And I have seen many men lose all they had. But I did not know for certain. It seemed an impertinence to tell you about your father without actual knowledge.’
    Isabella practised a flirtatious look at him. ‘You are forgiven.’
    Then she wondered if her look had been too bold because it was answered with a quizzical look of his own.
    ‘You have not looked at the gardens,’ he chided.
    They were in a walled garden now. Peach trees were espaliered against the walls. The neat beds were full of herbs and vegetables. Isabella bent down and plucked a sprig of lavender from a bordering hedge. ‘The smell of the herbs is delicious.’
    ‘Most of the gardening here might depress you. At the moment we are concentrating on vegetables rather than flowers, but even here we have things like lavender. No grand vistas or temples, Miss Isabella.’
    She gave a little sigh. ‘I took so very much for granted. I thought life would go on, undemanding and pleasant, like a well-oiled machine.’
    ‘But you had a Season in London, and a Season usually means a husband, particularly for someone as beautiful as you are and as rich as you were until recently. That would have meant change.’
    Isabella gave