The Portrait Read online

  I was listening, not sure what all this meant, but scared to find out. When the earl paused, I glanced sideways at Papa. He was looking stricken, which made me afraid. I put my hand over his and held tight.

  The earl was continuing, “One day, while Maria and her husband were in London, one of the nursery maids took little Charlotte for an outing in her pram. According to the maid, she only turned her back for a few seconds, and when she looked back at the pram, the baby was gone.”

  I stared at the earl, afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid I would break into little pieces. I didn’t want to hear any more, but the earl was holding my eyes and I couldn’t seem to look away.

  “You were that baby, Isabel,” he said. “And your mother has been mourning you for all the years you have been alive.”

  I felt as if he had punched me in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I shook my head in denial, turned to my father and said in a breaking voice, “Papa?”

  He was hunched up like an old man, and his face was pinched and white when he looked at me.

  “Papa?” I said again piteously. “Is this true? Please tell me it isn’t true!”

  “This is what happened, little one.” Papa’s voice was low and sad. “The circus I was attached to had played the south coast of England for the summer and we were all at the dock ready to return to France. When your Maman and I were about to board, a woman came up to us with a baby in her arms. She wanted to sell it to us.”

  I closed my eyes tightly. Please, please, don’t let him say it. Dear God, don’t let him say it.

  Papa continued, “Of course I said no and turned away. But your Maman had reached out for the child and was holding it against her breast.” He threw a brief glance at the earl. “Like your aunt, my wife had longed in vain for a child. Now she had a baby in her arms, a baby that could be hers. I looked at her and knew I could not deny her this gift from God. So I paid the woman what she wanted and we brought Isabel home with us to France.”

  I was frozen. I didn’t know what to think, what to do. I wasn’t Isabel Besson. I was someone else, the child of some English aristocrat. From out of nowhere I heard myself saying, “I don’t like the name Charlotte.”

  “I would never ask you to change your name, Isabel.” The earl’s voice was quiet. “But I would like you to come home with me. Your mother is still alive, and she deserves to see you. By birth you are Lady Char…Isabel Lewins, and your father left a bequest in his will for a generous sum of money to go to you should you ever be found.”

  “I don’t want any money!” I flared.

  He ignored me and turned his blue gaze to my father. “I would like Isabel to meet her natural family. I realize you had no idea of who she might be when you…adopted…her, but you must see she was done a great wrong. My aunt was done a great wrong.”

  “I understand,” my father said. He was white as chalk. “Of course we always believed she was the child of the woman who was looking to sell her. We thought she would be in much better circumstances with us than she would have been with her natural mother.”

  “Then you won’t object if I take Isabel to live with her family for a time. Her original family.”

  “I don’t see how I can object,” my father said in that unfamiliar small sad voice.

  “Papa!” I cried in protest. He couldn’t want me to go off with this strange man! We were going back to France. The circus was engaged to perform in Paris. I was the main attraction. He couldn’t leave me in England.

  I said all of this to Papa, but he didn’t look at me. He said to the earl, “Where is your home, my lord?”

  “Camden Hall in Berkshire. I live there with my brother Robert, Robert’s wife and their two children, my Aunt Augusta and my cousin Roger. Of course, I will invite my Aunt Maria for a visit so she can be reunited with her daughter.”

  “I am not going anywhere with you,” I said loudly. “I don’t care a fig about my birth. Papa has been my father for all of my life. I am not leaving him!”

  “You must, little one,” my father said. “Think of that poor woman, your mother, who has loved you and mourned for you for nineteen years while your Maman and I had the great joy of your presence.” Papa turned back to the earl. “I do not regret a moment of those years, my lord. If we had not adopted Isabel, God knows whom that evil woman would have sold her to. But I think you are right. I think she needs to know the family of her birth.”

  “Papa! Think! In a month the circus is to perform in Paris. How will you fare without Alonzo’s performance?”

  “We will improvise.”

  I had a terrible thought. “Alonzo! You can’t put another rider on Alonzo!”

  “Non. Alonzo would not be Alonzo without you, Isabel.” Papa took my hand and held it. “You can take Alonzo with you to this house where the earl lives. It will be good for the both of you to have a little rest from performing. I do not want him to become stale.”

  My eyes flew to the earl. “How long a stay are you proposing?”

  “I think half a year would be fair. After all, as Monsieur just said, he has had you for nineteen years.”

  *

  Papa and I went back to our hotel and argued. He wanted me to go, and I didn’t understand why. After going around and around for what seemed like hours, Papa saying it would be a good thing for me, me saying it wouldn’t, he said in that voice with which he kept all of his workers focused on their jobs: “Isabel, you must go. You are the daughter of an earl. You have been left some money. You now have the opportunity to live the life you were born for, the life that thieving servant girl stole from you. I believed I was doing a good thing when I took you from her, but now that I know the truth, I feel I have stolen from you as well.”

  I stared at him and for the first time noticed how tired he looked. I saw how many wrinkles there were in his beloved face. He had been thirty-seven when I was born. He was fifty-six now, and he had worked hard all his life. He was tired.

  I said abruptly, “Papa, do you ever think of quitting the circus and retiring?”

  His return smile was crooked. “Where did that come from?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  He shook his head. “The circus is our income, Isabel. I cannot afford to give it up.”

  I remembered how relieved he had looked when Astley’s wanted me for their show. They had paid quite a lot of money. I had never thought much about money, and Papa had never talked about money with me. We always seemed to have enough. But if he disbanded the circus, where would our money come from? Was he going to have to work hard for the rest of his life?

  If there had been money left to me, I could use it to help Papa retire. Suddenly the visit to the earl’s home took on a different light.

  Papa had taken my hand into his warm one. “I have made inquiries about the earl,” he said in a reassuring voice. “If I had heard he was a libertine, I would never allow this. But I have heard that he is a good man. little one. His reputation is unblemished. I will send Elisabeth with you so you won’t feel lonesome; she will be a piece of home.”

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  He leaned toward me. “You owe it to this family who was robbed of you to be kind. Do your best to make these six months a pleasant visit for both you and your new family and I will come and take you home after six months have passed.”

  I held onto his hand as if it was a lifeline. I blinked back tears and nodded. “I will show this family that I was brought up with the right values,” I said in a wobbly voice. “I will make you proud, Papa.”

  His eyes glistened with tears as he took me into his arms. “You always make me proud, Isabel. You always make me proud.”

  Chapter Three

  The earl wanted to leave London before word got out about my identity. “There will be a huge clamor,” he said. “The newspapers will seize on it. Everyone who has seen you ride at Astley’s will suddenly find they noticed your resemblance to my family. The thing to do is get you home to Camden Hall wh
ere you can be protected from any vulgar curiosity.”

  Camden Hall would never be my home, but I agreed with the rest of his idea. The sooner these six months was over the better. I would do my best to be pleasant to these people, but this visit wasn’t going to change me. I would never be Lady Isabel. I was Isabel Besson now, and I would always be Isabel Besson. And my mother would always be Maman, who had loved me and who had left me too soon.

  I was thinking this as I stood with the earl in the stable behind his London house. We had just moved Alonzo from the amphitheater stables to Grosvenor Square’s. Alonzo had traveled through the busy London streets with equanimity. To a horse used to the sound of canons and fireworks—an occasional accompaniment to Papa’s circus as well as Astley’s—a walk through the busy London streets was not frightening; it was interesting. He had always been a curious horse, and I mentioned this to the earl as he closed the stall door behind Alonzo’s muscled hindquarters.

  “There are only a few things he objects to seriously,” I said. “It’s important for your stable people to know he hates cats.”

  We were leaning against Alonzo’s stall door watching him eat hay. “Cats?” The earl turned to look at me. I am not short, but my head barely reached his chin. He had to be several inches over six feet. He lifted one golden eyebrow. “Why cats?”

  I shrugged. “His aversion was firmly fixed by the time I got him as a three-year-old. It’s a nuisance because stables need cats to keep down the rodents.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” the earl said. “How do you handle it?”

  “We got a terrier to live in the stable. Her name is Penny and Alonzo adores her. She keeps the rats away.”

  “And where is Penny?”

  “She just had a litter, so we left her in France.” I tilted my chin to look at up him. “He misses her. Do you think we might get him another terrier?”

  “Of course. If there is anything else you want—anything at all—just tell me and I’ll arrange it.”

  What I wanted was something even this great earl couldn’t arrange. I wanted my Maman and Papa to be my real parents. I wanted to be performing with Alonzo before a huge crowd of people, reducing them to silence by the incredible beauty of my horse. I wanted the life I had always led.

  “Isabel.” His voice was gentle. He had this way of saying my name that was different from anyone else’s. I thought it might be in the way he pronounced bel. His voice seemed to linger on the syllable. “I know this is hard for you,” he said. “You have led a wonderful life with two parents who loved you very much. You have had the opportunity to work with this amazing horse. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the mother who lost you. I told you a little about her when we first met. Her life has not been a happy one. Her first husband, the Earl of Mansfield, was a hard man. He had one son by his first wife, and he married Maria, who was much younger than he, so he could have more sons to ensure his heritage. Maria’s only child was a girl—you. Mansfield blamed her for not giving him another son, then he blamed her for entrusting you to a careless nursemaid. His death was a happy release for her.

  I wanted to ask him about the inheritance, but I thought it was too soon. Instead I said, “You said she married again?”

  “Yes, to a Scot who lives in the Border country between England and Scotland. He’s only a baronet and he doesn’t have much money, but he seems to be a decent sort and Maria loves him. I didn’t object to the match when she asked.”

  I looked at him in bewilderment. “Why on earth would you object to the match? You sound as if you’re sorry that Maria had such a miserable first marriage. I should think you’d be happy she finally found happiness.”

  He gave me a puzzled look. “I was happy for her. That’s why I agreed to it.”

  I nodded slowly, trying to figure out how this family worked. “Why did you let her marry the earl if he was such a batard?” I asked.

  The earl gave me an amused look. “You will have to watch your vocabulary when you are at Camden, Isabel. Young ladies in England don’t use words like bastard.”

  I shrugged.

  He said, “I had nothing to do with Maria’s first marriage. Her father, our grandfather, arranged that. He chose Mansfield because he was rich and owned large amounts of property. Those were the things that mattered to my grandfather.”

  “More than his daughter’s happiness?”

  “Yes.” He looked down at me and smiled. “Look what you escaped when you were kidnapped. If you hadn’t been, you might be married to a marquis by now. Or a duke.”

  I made a noise of dismissal. “A title is nothing to me.” Alonzo turned his head to look at me. He was still chewing on his hay. I said in the voice I used only to him, “I’ll bet that tastes good, big boy.”

  He threw his head up and down then turned back to the hay that was piled in the corner of his stall.

  I said to the earl, “I don’t want to be called ‘Lady Isabel.’ It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me feel like an imposter.”

  He said, “You’re the daughter and sister of an earl. You’ll get used to it.”

  The sister of an earl? I had a brother?

  The earl was going on, “I have written to my aunt to advise her of your existence. I have also invited her to make a visit to Camden Hall so she can meet you.”

  My stomach and my throat tightened. I had known I would have to meet this foreign mother. The earl’s announcement shouldn’t have come as such a shock. But it did.

  I swallowed, dipped my head in a brief nod, and silence fell. Alonzo ate his hay. At last I said, “If she lives in Scotland, why am I staying with you?”

  “Because I am the head of Maria’s family and it is proper for you to be under my roof. Your mother may stay with me for as long as she likes. It is her old home, after all.”

  I opened the stall door and slipped in to stand beside Alonzo. He looked up from his hay, acknowledged me with a flick of his ears, and went back to eating. He was accustomed to being in strange stalls, and as long as he knew I was nearby, he would be fine. I laid my hand on his neck, felt his warmth, his familiar smell, and wanted to bury my head in his mane and cry.

  Instead I bent and picked up a few stalks of hay. “No wonder you’re gobbling it up,” I said, sniffing it. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “When we get to the hall you will have to speak with Stoddard so he knows what to feed Alonzo,” the earl said from the other side of the stall door.

  “I most certainly will.”

  The earl had told me that Stoddard was the name of his Head Groom, the person in charge of the stables at Camden Hall. I planned to have a long, detailed chat with the man as soon as we arrived. Alonzo was a fairly adaptable horse—he was an Andalusian and the breed was known for its good temperament—but he was accustomed to me looking after him. I was going to have to make it clear what the earl’s staff could do and what I was going to do myself.

  I turned to horse-talk to keep the earl from speaking about family any more. “Alonzo needs to be turned out by himself and you cannot stable him next to a mare.”

  “I know,” the earl replied with obvious patience. “You have told me this a dozen times already, Isabel. If you can’t give me credit for knowing how to take care of a stallion at least give some credit to my staff.”

  I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust his staff. The Cirque Equestre had performed at a few chateaux in France, so I knew the house was going to be at a distance from the stable. I wouldn’t be able to run in and out to check on Alonzo as I was accustomed to. I wouldn’t be able to take a nap curled up in the corner of his stall.

  “Maybe I should leave him with Papa,” I said in an anguished voice. “I’m being selfish wanting to keep him with me.”

  “Nonsense,” the earl said.

  His tone was crisp and dictatorial. I swung around to stare at him.

  “Use your brain, Isabel,” he said. “You need to ride Alonzo. If he is not ridden properly he will lose the muscle y
ou have so painstakingly built up. There is no one else who is capable of keeping him in decent condition. He needs to be with you.”

  I didn’t like his tone, but he was right. I was being an idiot. I glared at him to show what I thought of his manner, then turned and kissed Alonzo’s neck. “I’ll see you in the morning, big boy,” I said.

  Alonzo continued to munch on hay, and I returned to the earl’s side. He looked down at me, amusement in his intensely blue eyes. “I’ll drive you back to your hotel,” he said.

  I was to spend this last night in London with Papa. Tomorrow the earl would drive Elisabeth and me to his home in Berkshire, where I would be imprisoned for six months with a host of people I didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

  And I had promised Papa to be kind to them.

  Please God, I prayed, let me return home with enough money for Papa to retire.

  Chapter Four

  The earl’s coach collected Elisabeth and me from the hotel the following morning at six o’clock. If all went well, the earl had estimated we would be at Camden Hall in time for dinner. Elisabeth was traveling in the coach with the earl’s valet; the earl and I were riding.

  We set off on time. Alonzo ignored the strange chestnut gelding trotting beside him through the busy London streets. Alonzo was very good about being in company with other horses. The circus had so many different horses, many coming and going, that he paid little attention to strangers. He knew he was the king, all of his human servants knew he was the king, and that was enough for him. He felt no need to assert his preeminence unless he was challenged. Which had never happened.

  The earl’s tall chestnut thoroughbred was not as comfortable with Alonzo as Alonzo was with him. The chestnut was a gelding and Alonzo was a stallion. The chestnut knew immediately that Alonzo was the king, and he kept trying to move sideways away from us. The earl handled him beautifully. I was impressed.