Seduction & Scandal by Charlotte Featherstone Page B

at home.”
    The door shut behind Annie, and Lucy groaned. “Men! They do know how to put a pall on a perfectly good morning, do they not? I was utterly enchanted by your story, Issy. Now I must wait to hear what happened when your heroine sat on the bench, suffering beneath Death’s lascivious stare.”
    Isabella glanced at her open journal. There was much more there than her story of Death and his mysterious lady on those pages. There were her penned memories of last night, in the maze with Lord Black—which somehow had found their way into the newest writing of her novel.
    Closing the cover, she shut the tiny lock with a click and wrapped the key around her wrist, which she held on a delicate bracelet of black jet. She trusted Lucy not to go prying into her personal writing while she was below, taking tea with Wendell. Still, though, she could not allow the events of last night to get out. While she knew that she was not yet in love with Wendell, she cared for him, would not want to jeopardize what might possibly turn out to be a marriage proposal. She also didn’t want Wendell to discover that she had been out with Lord Black, allowing him unmentionable intimacies—and enjoying them. More than enjoying them, she finally admitted, but dreaming of another evening with him and perhaps allowing even more scandalous intimacies than a lady of good breeding and sound sense would ever dare think of allowing a gentleman.
    But dream she had. All night, in fact. Her sleep had been fitful, the dream at times sensual, but then turning darker, dangerous. Black had featured in her dreams, and this morning she was paying for the hours of restlessness. She had the beginnings of a headache, the type that were brought on by her dreams. She didn’t believe it to be one of those dreams—the sort that had plagued her since she was twelve.
    â€œI’ll come down with you,” Lucy announced as she rolled onto her side and slipped from the bed. “I’ll fetch Sibylla and meet you downstairs.”
    At the mention of Lucy’s maid, Isabella felt compelled to ask, “Has Sibylla arranged for you to attend any more séances?”
    Lucy’s green eyes shone as brilliant as emeralds. “Sibylla has the same deep interest in mysticism and spiritualism as I do. I do not care a fig that she can’t dress my hair for anything, for she can find the most diverting amusements. Where she hears of these things I’ll neverknow—but I won’t be the one to ask her, for she has kept me amused for a month.”
    â€œLucy…” Isabella warned. “You’re evading the question.”
    â€œOh, all right then, yes. There’s to be a séance tonight, and guess where? Oh, it’s going to be so brilliant,” Lucy cried as she ran to her and reached for her hands, squeezing them hard in her exuberance. “Imagine this, Issy, a séance in Highgate Cemetery! First we will do our séance, and then at midnight, and beneath the full moon we will walk amongst the headstones and see if we might not conjure up an apparition! The medium is to be Alice Fox, directly descended from the Fox sisters. So you know it’s not going to be a sham. Oooh, I can hardly wait.”
    â€œUncle will forbid it.” And thank heaven for that, because Isabella had no desire to spend the night at Highgate Cemetery, with anyone directly or indirectly related to the three sisters who were considered responsible for making England crazed with spiritualism.
    â€œFather is at his Masonic lodge meeting tonight. So he won’t even know.”
    â€œLucy—” Isabella began as her headache began to thump in her head.
    â€œThere’s to be an initiation tonight, I heard father telling his valet this morning. You know he’s out at the lodge all night whenever there is an initiation. He won’t even know about me going out, and we’ll be home well before father