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Chapter 18
Meanwhile, at the Strandmere estate, Stephen was happily putting all of the finishing touches on his plan to ruin Isaac. To anyone who didn’t know Stephen’s history, this plot might have seemed like a flight of fancy. Stephen, however, knew that this plan had been a long time coming.
Stephen was older than Isaac, but they had both studied law at the same institution at the same time. Stephen knew that he was the most intelligent person in their class, and yet somehow, whenever it came time for their knowledge to be tested, Isaac had somehow managed to beat him. He could never figure out how it happened. Deep, deep down, he knew that Isaac had never acted in a pompous manner, and so his superior intelligence over Stephen was just that – Isaac was smarter than he was.
But his entire life, Stephen had always been the best ateverything.He never failed to run the fastest, jump the highest, or speak with the most authority. He was revered by everyone he met, and his family was held in such high esteem within the community that he had never known anything other than greatness.
And so when this man – thisboy– stepped into the classroom one day and began showing him up at every turn, he vowed to make him regret the day he had ever met Stephen. For a time after they graduated, however, Stephen had been unable to find a way to get Isaac back for his insolent behaviour. However, when he overheard that young Irish girl talking about Isaac and the young Miss Louisa, he knew he’d found his way in.
And even better, he had spied on the two of them enough to know that they were falling in love. Stephen hadn’t originally intended to propose marriage to Louisa, but when he discovered he would be taking away Isaac’s great love if he did that, it was the easiest decision he’d ever made. It didn’t matter who his wife was in the end, for he would be spending so much time with his many mistresses anyway. What mattered was that his great rival would never have the pleasure of getting to marry the love of his life.
As Stephen sat at his desk admiring the murder of crows once again and thinking about the loss of Isaac’s love, he began laughing. He couldn’t believe that everything had fallen into place so nicely; it almost didn’t seem real. Even though Louisa was being rather recalcitrant about the whole business, he knew that the rest of their plan would go off without a hitch. And if it didn’t, he had plans for that as well.
Stephen fanned out the collection of papers on his desk and perused them once more purely for his own pleasure. “There is my investment in the business of his rival lawyer, there is my investment of the office that he had planned on buying when moving his firm into town, that investment will implicate his first-ever client, Richard Uxbridge, in a scandal, and that will make all of his investments turn sour,” Stephen whispered to himself. “Stephen ... I do believe you’ve outdone yourself!”
He clapped his hands together with glee and heard the familiar sounds of flapping wings. He looked out the window, which he had forgotten he’d left open, and saw many of the crows taking flight. One, however, remained in a nearby tree and seemed to stare at Stephen. He rose from his desk to address the bird.
“You aren’t afraid of me in the least, are you?” he asked the crow. The bird began grooming itself idly as if in response to Stephen’s question. “What a foolish, foolish error to have made, you great beast.”
Stephen picked up the hunting rifle that was leaning against the window, pointed it through the open pane towards the bird, and thencrack! The branch that the bird had been sitting on had broken, and the crow flew away, completely unaware of the danger he had escaped. Stephen lowered his hunting rifle and watched the black bird flying across the grey sky. “You won’t be so lucky next time,” he growled.
There was a knock on his office door. “Enter,” Stephen said, quickly hiding the rifle out of sight. His valet, Damien, entered, looking quite pleased.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said respectfully. “I came to inform you that the invitations for your engagement party have all been delivered. I will send Anna out tomorrow to collect the responses, but I can only assume that you will have a grand turn out for such an auspicious occasion.”
A cruel smile crept across Stephen’s lips. “Wonderful,” he said. “And has Mrs Craigmore finished the dress for Miss Louisa for the occasion? I should be wildly embarrassed if the young lady were to come dressed in her own clothes.”
“She has, sir,” Damien responded. “We could never have that, now could we?”
“Out of the question. Thank you, Damien, you are dismissed.”
Damien bowed his head and disappeared wordlessly from the room, leaving Stephen alone with his thoughts. And all Stephen could think about was the sweet, sweet reward of Isaac’s misery.
Unbeknownst to Stephen, however, at the same time as he was finalizing his plans, Louisa was doing everything that she could to undo him. As she rode home, she thought of who she could enlist to assist her in discovering all of the atrocious things that Stephen would certainly be trying to do to ruin him.
Of course, she would first refuse to marry Stephen and not go ahead with the sale of her house at that price to Isaac. She knew that this would come at a great social and monetary cost to her and her family, but she had no other option; she absolutely could not hurt Isaac like that. Without that central part of his plan, Louisa knew that the rest of his ill-deeds would hopefully fall apart, but she needed to ensure that they did. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Isaac in the lurch like that.
When she returned home, she finally thought of the one person who she knew had enough connection to undo all of Stephen’s plans: Gregory Quince. And she knew just the person to ask to return to the Quince Estate to call upon him and ask for his aide.
“Sophie?” Louisa called when she got inside. The young maid popped her head out of Louisa’s parents’ bedroom.
“Yes, Lulu, what is it?”
“Are you in the middle of something?” she asked, taking off her cloak and replacing it on the hook beside the door.
“Just talking with your father, but if there’s something that needs doing ...” Sophie stepped further out of the room, striding over to stand in front of Louisa.
“Yes, I believe there is,” Louisa replied, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “And I do believe that this is a task that you will greatly enjoy.”
Sophie’s eyes lit up. “I like the sounds of this,” she said happily.
“I need you to take a visit to the Quince house and call on the duke …” Louisa began explaining, but Sophie put up a hand to stop her from going further.
“Say no more. I am up for the challenge!” Sophie responded enthusiastically.
“Wonderful, but I do rather need to say more, as what I am going to ask you to do involves a good bit of explanation, but also requires no extraneous questions to be asked. Do you agree to that?”
Sophie nodded emphatically. “Good,” Louisa said, “then allow us to pop out into the garden for a moment so that I might explain things more clearly to you.”
Louisa and Sophie sat outside, and Louisa explained only what Sophie needed to know about Stephen, what had transpired between the two of them, and what exactly she needed to ask of Gregory. Sophie was rapt the entire time, and Louisa only left out the part about promising to marry Stephen in exchange for acceptance back into society.
“Nothing would make me happier than to see this man ruined for his cruelty,” Sophie said determinedly, slamming her fist against her open palm when Louisa finished explaining herself. “And while I believe you understand the ... shall we sayattractionbetween the duke and I, I shall endeavour to be on my best behaviour and repeat everything that you have told me to the duke. You have nothing to worry about, Lulu.”
Sophie gave her a reassuring pat on the knee and then left the garden to go and collect up the horse. Louisa wondered what Isaac would think to see a young woman returning on the horse that she had left on this morning. She worried what he must have been thinking about her right now but tried her very best to put those awful thoughts from her mind. She had more important things to focus on.
