Page 124 of The Rake's Daughter
“Don’t interrupt.” Lady Scattergood rattled the letter at her. “According to Gertie, he drove down to his country property immediately after the ball—no, Clarissa, Gertie doesn’t even mention our dearest Izzy! Now, are you going to let me tell this story or not?” She sternly leveled her lorgnette at the girls, then satisfied of their complete attention, she returned to her letter.
“The very night he arrived home, he went straight to his library—without a word to his poor wife—and blew his brains out. Gertie says it is all over town that he’d come straight from some horrid gaming hell where he’d gambled away every last penny he owned, including his estates—which were already mortgaged to the hilt. He only went to the ball to collect his poor wife and go home—apparently so he could kill himself in comfort.”
She snorted. “It’s his poor wife I feel sorry for. I hope he’s burning in the other place! Well, of course he is, along with the rest of that circle of which your father was one. All gone now and the world will be a better place for it.” She glanced around. “Is there any more tea?”
Izzy, feeling a little numb at the news and not quite sure how she felt, jumped up to refill the old lady’s teacup. This, then, would be the scandal Lord Randall had mentioned the other day, the one that would replace the scandal about her birth. How ironic.
She ought to feel sorry that the man was dead, but she couldn’t. She passed the old lady her tea. “Here you are, Lady Scattergood.”
The old lady eyed her sternly. “Isn’t it time you started calling me Aunt Olive, gel?”
Chapter Eighteen
It’s going to be a beautiful wedding.” Clarissa sighed. “You’ll look so lovely.”
Izzy smiled and ran her hands over the exquisite wedding outfit spread out on the bed. Miss Chance had outdone herself with a beautiful, simple dress in ivory silk, tight at the bosom, then flowing in layers. And because the weather in London was so unreliable, and Miss Chance said that goose bumps weren’t a good look for a bride, she’d added a lovely creamy long-sleeved spencer in silk velvet brocade, fastened down the front with pearls.
“And did you see what she sent you as a gift?” Clarissa pushed a small, flat distinctively embossed box forward. “She gives one to all her brides, she said.”
Inside was... well, it was like no nightgown that Izzy or Clarissa had ever seen.
“Are you supposed to wear that to bed? It looks terribly improper.”
Izzy held it up against herself. “Gorgeously improper. Butthen a wedding night isn’t supposed to be proper, is it?” It was beautiful, the palest, sheerest peach silk trimmed with lace and gauze. And a kind of a—well, you couldn’t call it a dressing gown because it covered practically nothing, but oh, it was so pretty.
She couldn’t wait to wear this for Leo. She tucked it away for later.
“You’re going to need a maid,” Clarissa said abruptly.
Izzy glanced at Betty and then realized Betty would be staying with Clarissa, of course. “Perhaps Matteo could find me one.”
“We have an idea,” Clarissa said breathlessly. “Betty and I.”
“Go ahead.”
“We thought we’d go down to the orphan asylum—there’s one in Mayfair—and Betty and I could talk to the girls there. And select one to be your maid.”
“The girls there are ever so good, miss,” Betty said anxiously. “But most of them will end up in factories, or scrubbin’ floors. Or worse. Like me, before you and Miss Clarissa brought me here with you.”
“And while you’re away on your honeymoon, we—Betty and I—can train her up a bit.”
“Teach her how to do hair, and clean and starch and iron clothes and all that.” Betty gazed at Izzy with almost painful eagerness.
A maidservant from an orphan asylum. Izzy never passed one of those places without thinking that there but for meeting Clarissa that fateful day, went she. She might have been the one toiling in a factory or scrubbing floors. Or worse.
“It’s a splendid idea.” She embraced her sister and then hugged Betty. “It will be a wonderful wedding present, thank you. Now come on, help me dress. I don’t want to be late for my own wedding.”
***
Izzy had never been to a wedding, and found the whole thing much more moving and emotional than she’d expected. Everyone she cared about had come: Clarissa, of course, Lord and Lady Tarrant and the little girls, half the ladies from the literary society—even Lady Scattergood, who’d arrived in her beloved palanquin. Even Milly and her mother, who’d sat prune faced through the ceremony.
But the look on Leo’s face, the blaze that lit his smoky gray eyes—how had she ever thought them hard?—when Izzy entered the church and started walking down the aisle... She’d never forget it.
If she’d ever had any doubts about why he wanted to marry her, they would have dissolved then and there. Not that she had any doubts.
And then he’d taken her hand and the minister said, “Dearly beloved...” and the rest passed in a blur.
The wedding breakfast, too, passed in a happy, noisy, extravagant, delicious blur. Matteo and the cook, Alfonso, had outdone themselves. She recalled mounds of gorgeous, colorful, exotic-looking food, but she barely tasted a thing. She was floating on a cloud.
