Page 82 of The Rake's Daughter
“I don’t believe you. I don’t think you trust us.”
“Why ever would you imagine such a thing?” he said dryly.
For a moment she stood, glaring down her imperious little nose at him, then a gurgle of reluctant laughter escaped her. “All right, so behind your back we organized a tiny little party in your name.”
He snorted at the wordtiny.
“And”—she added as if goaded—“we did enter society against your specific instructions. But it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
He didn’t respond, and the mischief slowly faded from her eyes. “Even if we did disobey you, that’s no reason to saddle us with a—a gaoler. Clarissa and I have been virtually locked up all our lives, and now, when we’re finally free, you hire a gaoler?” There was a plea as well as defiance in her voice.
Again he cursed Studley for forcing this guardianship on him. For her to see him as her gaoler was agony. She was young, spirited and passionate—and he hated to crush that in her. But once he accepted a responsibility, he carried it out to the best of his ability, and this was no different. Much as she hated the idea of a chaperone, it was for her own and her sister’s good.
“Don’t be so melodramatic. She won’t be a gaoler, just a respectable lady who will help steer you and your sister through the shoals and reefs of London society.”
“But we don’t need anyone to tell us how to go on. We have friends willing to chaperone us, and we’ve been managing just fine on our own.”
“You’ve hardly begun. Growing up as isolated as you were, you have no idea how intricate and rigid the unspoken rules of society can be. A respectable chaperone willensure that society will note that all proper arrangements have been made.” He was also hoping the presence of a chaperone would underline the girls’ respectability. “Now, I don’t propose to argue, Isobel. I intend to make the arrangement and that’s the end to it.”
“Oh, you just don’t want us to have any fun at all.” She turned on her heel and marched to the door.
“That’s not it at all,” he began. “I just don’t want you to be”—the door slammed behind her—“hurt,” he finished.
He understood, more than she realized. He knew she and her sister had been shut away from the world for most of their lives. It was much how he’d felt in the ten years he’d been stuck on his family estate, desperately working to get it back into shape, while his former school friends traveled the world, having adventures.
However, he’d had the choice, he reflected. He could make short visits to London when everything got too much for him. And after his father’s death, once the estate was profitable again, he’d taken a year to go adventuring.
Isobel and her sister were poised on the brink of their own little adventure, their first taste of freedom. And he was clipping their wings.
But he couldn’t see any other way around it. Society was rigid in its expectations of young unmarried girls. And unforgiving of those who transgressed.
***
It will be some horrid old battle-axe,” Izzy told her sister. They were in the small room near the scullery that Clarissa had turned into her workroom. “She’ll watch us like a hawk and we won’t be able to have any fun.”
“Mmm.” Clarissa stirred three drops of rose oil into one of her concoctions.
Izzy picked up a small phial from the collection on the shelf and stared at it with unseeing eyes. “She’s bound to be ghastly—he said he was looking for an elderly widow.”
Clarissa gently removed the phial from her grasp and replaced it. “I thought you said he was looking for someone in their fourth or fifth decade. That’s hardly elderly.”
“No, but she’ll act elderly and stuffy, I’m sure,” Izzy said darkly. She paced back and forth in the small room.
Clarissa sniffed at her mix, frowned, added another drop of rose oil and kept stirring.
Izzy watched, brooding. “I hate that he doesn’t trust us. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Not really. And I don’t think it’s a lack of trust that bothers you—it’s being told what to do. You’ve always hated that.”
“I know,” Izzy admitted with a rueful grin.
“And you must admit he has good reason not to trust us. We’ve disobeyed him so often. And quite blatantly.”
Izzy smirked. “True.”
Clarissa continued. “And Milly has said numerous times that her mother considers it a scandal that we often go about with only a maidservant or young Jeremiah in attendance. Or no one at all.”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “Oh, Milly and her never-ending bleats of what Mama says! That girl has raised irritation to an art form.”
