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Chapter 18
The ride back to London was done in silence. Galliston sat across from mother and daughter with a scowl, glaring out the window. Isabel was too numb to cry any further, and she was sure if she did, then the duke would be telling her to stop being so pathetic. He had done a lot of shouting at her over the last two days because she wouldn’t leave to go back to London immediately.
She couldn’t go. She had to stay and make sure that the tonic worked. But with the duke hovering over her and getting irate that he wasn’t leaving when he wanted, Isabel only had enough time to actually make the tonic and pass it over to the housekeeper. She wouldn’t know if it was successful for a while, which was agitating to her. Isabel didn’t want to leave until she knew it was having some kind of effect.
There had been a moment where she wondered if the current viscount would actually allow them to leave – they had been brought down here to look after the estate during his illness, after all – but Galliston had got to him first. And a viscount was lower on the social ladder than a duke; he couldn’t argue if the other man wanted something.
Hopefully, he would recover soon. Then his wife and child could return, and they could leave them alone. Isabel didn’t want anything further to do with her cousin, not after the way she and her mother were treated. If he hadn’t forced them to leave and find alternative arrangements, this would never have happened.
It was getting dark when they started through Hampshire, and Galliston began to grumble. They wouldn’t reach London in time, and the horses needed resting. They would have to spend the night in an inn. Something Galliston wasn’t happy about, but he couldn’t argue against horses that needed stopping; otherwise, they went lame.
They managed to find a nice little inn with pleasant landlords who allowed them to take two rooms. Galliston in one and Isabel with her mother in the other. The only saving grace was that, somehow, their rooms were at opposite ends of the building. Not what Galliston wanted, but they couldn’t argue with it. Isabel certainly wasn’t about to.
“Isabel?” Lady Dunley sat by the fire and watched as her daughter took the pins out of her hair. “Are you feeling any better?”
“Do you really need me to answer that question, Mother?” Isabel dropped the pins onto the table. “Of course I’m not feeling better. Every mile we take away from home just makes things worse. What if the tonic doesn’t work?”
“I’m sure it will work. With you making it up, it will work.”
“How do you know?”
Lady Dunley gave her a small smile.
“Because I know you.”
That didn’t make Isabel feel any better. She had already pushed it staying two further days, and she wished she had pushed to stay longer. But no one went against Galliston, not without repercussions.
Like Richard. He had been threatened away from Isabel, and she hadn’t seen him again. Isabel ached to see him, and she had spent sleepless nights wishing she could go to Richard. To confess that she loved him in return. She had never got around to actually telling him; fear held her back. Loving him didn’t matter if he wasn’t wealthy. With everything on the line, she couldn’t go with her heart.
And that hurt her more than she expected.
“I have something for you.” Lady Dunley stood up and approached her. “I found it while I was going through your father’s things, and I thought you might like to look at it.”
“What is it?”
Her mother held out the small leatherbound book she had been holding onto for the journey. Isabel took it. It looked vaguely familiar, although she couldn’t figure out where from.
“It’s your father’s journal. One of many.”
“I didn’t know he wrote journals.”
“He did, avidly. It was his way of getting things out when he wasn’t sure how to say them out loud.” Lady Dunley gave her daughter a sad smile. “He was just as awkward as you were, but he was better at hiding it.”
“I ... I didn’t know.”
“Nobody was supposed to know.”
Isabel opened the journal. On the inside cover was her father’s name in his neat, scrawling handwriting. The sight of her father’s own words brought a lump into her throat. She swallowed.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because you will see that you and your father are more alike than you ever imagined.” Lady Dunley sat on the edge of the bed. “Did you know that he wanted to go to New Holland?”
“What?” Isabel stared. “He wanted to go to a convict colony? Why would he do that?”
“To study the wildlife. To explore the lands and see for himself how fascinating a new country was. The only reason he didn’t go was that he could get incredibly seasick. That would have killed him before he got halfway.”
Isabel had had no idea about that. Her father had spoken a few times about travelling around the country in his younger years and learning something new every day, but he had never said anything about New Holland. Isabel would have loved to have learned about that expedition to a convict colony that was still being mapped and had many people arguing over the name. The name of Australia had been rejected already, but Isabel could see it catching on. New Holland wasn’t really catching.
