Chapter Fourteen
July 14, 1818
“Isobel!” Urgency rang in the whisper. A jostling to her shoulder followed. “Isobel, please wake up.”
With sleep still clinging to her brain, she came to consciousness and blinked her eyes open to find Fanny leaning over her. Worry and sorrow filled her expression in dawn sunlight that flooded the room. Had her friend thrown open the curtains or had a maid? And why the devil was she being so violently encouraged to awake so early?
“What’s wrong?” Isobel levered up on an elbow. It couldn’t be good if Fanny was here.
A few tears slipped down her friend’s cheeks. “Perhaps it’s better if you come to your mother’s room.”
Immediately, her heartbeat quickened. “Is Mother…?” She couldn’t bring herself to utter those words that would make the inevitable final.
“Please come.” Fanny dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief.
Without hesitation, Isobel flung back the bedclothes, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and then vaulted to the floor. She grabbed the dressing gown of Chinese silk from off the back of a nearby chair, and as she followed her friend down the corridor, she donned the garment, but the cool silk didn’t bring her comfort or confidence in this moment.
At the door to her mother’s bedchamber, Fanny paused. “She passed from this world sometime in her sleep. Quietly. Peacefully. William was with her,” she explained in soft tones. “I’ll leave you alone with him so you can grieve together.”
Even though the news wasn’t unexpected, Isobel’s heart broke and the pieces crashed to the floor. With knots of worry and regret pulling in her belly, she entered the room where she’d spent many hours talking to her mother about whatever had come into her mind. “Wills?” Her brother sat on a wooden chair at the bedside where her mother’s body lay peacefully, his head resting on his folded arms. “When did she go? Why didn’t you come for me?”
He lifted his head as she moved to his side. “It happened so quickly, I wasn’t certain that’s what was occurring.” Her brother stood and offered her the chair. “Dawn broke. Mother stirred. She briefly woke, looked at me, patted my hand.” Exhaustion lined his face, but grief shadowed his eyes as he took her hand. “She told me to look after you and Caroline, told me to tell Caroline once more that she was sorry. Said she hoped the man you were seeing would be everything you’d hoped he would, and then she trained her gaze to the window, smiled, and said Father was waiting for her.” He shoved his free hand through his hair. “She left this world with a smile. I’d like to think she’s finally out of pain and that she’s free from guilt and regret.”
“Oh, poor thing.” She’d told her mother everything that had currently bothered her, including the fact she’d willfully entered into an affair with someone. Thank goodness the name wasn’t betrayed at the last. “We said our goodbyes yesterday, but I’ll never forgive myself for not being here when she went.”
“You couldn’t be here every second.” William enfolded her into a hug. He let her cry into his cravat before he set her away. “I’d only just relieved Francesca.”
Isobel nodded. Panic quickly climbed her throat as she gazed down at her mother’s still form. A slight smile played about her faded lips. Peace made her pale face beautiful again. What will happen to me now? Grief battled with anger in her chest. Life was so unfair to take her one remaining parent from her when she needed her the most. Tears welled in her eyes, and she took shallow breaths to stave off the need to rail at someone or something. “What do we do?”
“There are plans to be made.” He put an arm about her shoulders, but at the moment she didn’t wish for comfort and pushed him away.
“Will we bury her in London?” From the depths of her memories, she recalled that her father had found his eternal resting place in a vault on the Derbyshire property, surrounded by generations of other Stormes.
“No. She’d indicated that she wanted to lay beside Father.” Emotion graveled William’s voice. He frowned as Isobel slowly retreated toward the door. “I’ll make the arrangements. We’ll leave for Derbyshire within the week. I expect you to attend the services. No more of your inability to give serious matters your full notice.” A hint of censure rang in his tones.
Another load of guilt piled upon her shoulders. Her whole body shook from the force of the emotions she’d kept back over the years. She would break from them and soon, and she’d rather not do that in front of her family. “I rather think it’s no one’s business how I conduct my affairs or how I keep my emotional state.” Her throat was tight, her words stilted. She balled a fist in the voluminous folds of her night gown.
“You’re going, Isobel. On this I’ll have no argument.” He pinned her with a hard glance. “You owe it to Mother’s memory to behave just this once.”
A couple of tears escaped to her cheeks. Oh, God, her heart felt as if it would twist right out of her chest. The shock of everything came hurtling into her at once, and she gasped from the force of the blows. “Someone will need to inform Caroline.” It was all too much to contemplate just now. She pressed a hand to her throat. “Will this affect her negatively, send her further into herself and away from the family?”
“I don’t know.” William shook his head. “Francesca is sending over a missive to Cousin Andrew. Perhaps he’ll have advice… or you could tell her. It might go over better coming from a woman.”
“I couldn’t!” Isobel gasped. Her world was collapsing around her feet. The last thing she wanted to take up was doing the same for her poor, lost sister. “It might remove the small progress she’s made since coming to live with Andrew.”
Her mother’s death, couple with Royce taking up the mantle of the Earl of Worchester made her reel from the weight of expectations and the enormity of the changes she faced. Though she’d seen him two nights ago at that ball, it hadn’t ended with the torrid love making she’d hoped. No, it was further testament that his new life was pulling him in that direction, disrupting their affair and leaving her behind to clutch at the unraveling threads of her mental wellbeing. To say nothing of the budding feelings she was beginning to have for him as a man.
It was all too much, all too confusing, all too fast.
“I have to go.”
“Where?” William frowned as he followed her over the floor.
“I don’t know, but I cannot be here. Not right now when so many things are threatening to pull me apart. When everything is changing and there’s naught I can do nothing to stop it!”
He caught her up at in the corridor beyond the door with a hand on her wrist. “What is the name of the man you’re seeing?”
Isobel fought to breathe as her chest tightened. What was she to do with her future? She wrenched away from hold. “It matters not.”