by Darcy Burke
“I don’t think that’s true. I think he’s just a blockhead,” Viola said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It doesn’t matter since we can’t marry. As I said before, he’s a duke and I’m a librarian.”
“And I told you that doesn’t matter. Or if I didn’t explicitly, I meant to. Let me say it now: there’s no magic to being a duchess. You’re clever, graceful, and my grandmother likes you. You’re already leagues ahead of most duchesses.”
“But I don’t want to be a duchess.” There, she’d said it. She was terrified of being at the center of Society’s interest and gossip.
“Even with Val at your side?” Viola’s voice was so full of hope, her gaze so awash with anticipation, that Isabelle could almost be swept up in her enthusiasm. Almost.
“Not even with Val at my side.” An ache rooted in Isabelle’s chest and began to spread. “I need to go pack for my trip.”
“You’re still going?”
“Of course. Nothing has changed now that you know the truth, Viola.” Some of the truth. The real truth would remain buried deep inside Isabelle, where she could keep it safe and treasure it in the days to come. “I am still in need of a job, and your grandmother has been kind enough to help me in my time of need. She’s already arranged for my journey, and I won’t disrespect her by changing my mind.”
Viola made an inelegant sound with her lips. “All right. But I will say, I don’t think my grandmother would feel disrespected if she knew you and Val loved each other. She’d want you to marry. She’s desperate for him to remarry.”
So desperate that even Isabelle would do? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, and thankfully, it didn’t matter since it would never come to pass.
Isabelle summoned a smile for Viola, sorry that their friendship was over just as it had barely begun. “Thank you for your support.”
“You shall always have it.” Her tone and gaze were both warm and determined.
Isabelle turned and left before the ache in her chest swallowed her whole.
Chapter 14
Viola swept Val with an assessing appraisal from head to toe. “Don’t you look splendid.”
Val blinked at his sister standing in the center of his entrance hall. He took in her heavy cloak and the boots peeking out from beneath the hem. She was not dressed for Almack’s, but then she never went to Almack’s. “Why is it Grandmama never forces you to go to Almack’s as she does me?”
“Because I am not husband shopping.”
He strode farther into the entrance hall. “And why not? Why are you excused from the Marriage Mart while I am not? I actually tried the bloody estate of marriage, unlike you.”
“You know why I didn’t marry,” she said quietly.
Yes, he did. “Why are you here?”
“I came to tell you that Isabelle is leaving in the morning for Oxford. She has an opportunity at a school there.”
Val’s muscles bunched as his heart began to pound. He worked to keep his equilibrium. “Good for her.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Viola groaned and rolled her eyes. “You are the most idiotic…” she muttered.
“What am I supposed to say?”
Viola threw her hands up. “Oh, I don’t know. That you love her? That you can’t live without her? But maybe I’ve read this entire situation wrong. First, she won’t admit she loves you and insists she can’t be a duchess, and now you’re behaving as if she’s just another person instead of the woman who stole your heart ten years ago.”
Val gaped at her. “The what?”
“She told me all about Oxford. Maybe not all about it, but I’m not stupid like some people.” She looked at him from the side of her eye. “So are you going to pretend you don’t love her either?”
Pretend. Yes, that’s precisely what he’d done for a decade now. He’d pretended their night together was something he could keep locked away, that the love he’d felt for her could be ignored. The love he still felt for her.
“No.”
Viola stared at him, her eyes widening to an impossible diameter and her jaw dropping. “You aren’t going to argue with me?”
“Apparently not.”
She snapped her mouth closed and finally blinked. “I honestly don’t know how to react. I may need a vinaigrette.”
“I would douse you in the contents if you’d just be quiet.” He said that because she expected him to. Right now, he actually wanted to kiss her with gratitude. “She doesn’t want to be a duchess?”
“Do you want to make her one?”
“I think I do.” He’d already asked her at the Wicked Duke, but that had been a reaction he hadn’t entirely thought through. Now he had. He wanted to marry her.
His insides somersaulted. He’d cocked it up so badly the last time. It wasn’t that he’d chosen Louisa. None of it had been her fault.
“You think?” Viola stepped toward him, her forehead creasing. “I know you’re afraid, but Isabelle isn’t Louisa.”
“Louisa deserved far better,” he said softly, keeping his voice low. “All she ever wanted was for me to love her. I tried, truly I did. But my heart already belonged to someone else.”
“Isabelle.”
He nodded. “Louisa did what anyone would in the face of rejection.”
“I would argue that not everyone would do what she did, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Louisa is gone, and you can’t change the past. You can, however, control the present.” She brushed a speck of something off his lapel. “Grandmama has taken Isabelle to Almack’s.”
“What?” The word exploded from Val.
Viola giggled, her eyes alight with mirth. “Shocking, isn’t it? Once I explained to Grandmama that you would find your duchess tonight if she only took Isabelle with her, she completely understood. She had to work quickly to obtain a voucher, but you know how the patronesses adore her. If the patronesses had a patroness, it would be Grandmama.”
A truer statement had never been made.
“Honestly, the hardest part was convincing Isabelle to go. Indeed, I fear she may change her mind. I had to leave to come here before they departed.”
Val could imagine Isabelle not wanting to go to Almack’s, particularly since he never wanted to go. Until now. Suddenly, Almack’s was the only place he wanted to be—so long as she was there. “Do you think she went?”
Viola shrugged. “There is only one way to find out. You go, and I’ll go home. If she’s not at Almack’s, you’ll know where to come.”
He leaned down and kissed his sister’s cheek. “Thank you. I shall owe you for this.”
“Yes, but pray do not repay me in kind.” She shuddered with revulsion. “I do not want you matchmaking for me.”
“Life may surprise you, sister.” He winked at her, then went toward the door where the footman met him with his gloves and hat.
He dashed to his waiting coach and instructed the coachman to make the best possible time. He’d never been so eager to get to Almack’s in his life.
As Isabelle walked into the hallowed ballroom at Almack’s, she wondered how on earth she’d allowed the dowager duchess to persuade her to come. The answer, of course, was simple: she was the Dowager Duchess of Eastleigh, and one did not refuse the Dowager Duchess of Eastleigh.
But now that Isabelle was here beneath the glittering chandeliers and amidst the ton’s most elite, Isabelle was beginning to regret her decision. She glanced over at the dowager, whose expression could only be described as pleasant hauteur. The ostrich feathers atop her head gave her additional height, making her seem an even bigger presence than she already was. Though they’d just arrived, everyone around them was looking in her direction and murmuring as they cast looks—some surreptitious and others openly curious—in Isabelle’s direction.
Self-consciously, she smoothed the side of her hair, which had been swept into an impossibly complicated style with pearls and a bandeau that sported its own violet ostrich feather.
Then she brushed her gloved hand along her hip, smoothing the line of her Saxon-blue gown. It belonged to Viola, but she’d never worn it, and the dowager’s maid had worked a miracle to alter it to fit Isabelle, including the addition of a violet flounce at the hem since Isabelle was a few inches taller than Viola.
Finding slippers had proven the biggest challenge and had required several footmen visiting countless cobblers and returning with a variety of footwear, all of which had been rejected by the dowager save the pair now adorning Isabelle’s feet. And pinching her toes, for they were just a bit too snug.
“Come and meet the patronesses, dear.” The dowager led Isabelle along the side of the ballroom to the opposite end, where several women seemed to be holding court from a group of sofas atop a dais.
Isabelle dipped into the curtsey she’d practiced too many times with Viola. The least she could have done was come with them, but she didn’t have a voucher, and she’d refused to allow her grandmother to obtain one. There was a deeper reason Viola avoided certain aspects of Society, but while Viola was content to meddle in other’s affairs, she did not reveal her own secrets.
And against her better judgment, Isabelle had allowed her to meddle.
After retreating to her chamber following her conversation with Viola that afternoon, Viola and the dowager had come to see her. The dowager had laid it out very clearly: if she wanted Val, she had to demonstrate that she could be a duchess, and that meant going to Almack’s and holding her own amongst Society’s most exclusive members.
That, of course, had done absolutely nothing to persuade Isabelle, which was why the dowager had then simply told her she was going. When Isabelle had asked why, she’d responded, “Because if my grandson is in love with you, as my granddaughter insists, then you shall give him the opportunity to recognize what a fool he is for not making you his duchess sooner.”
With logic like that, how could Isabelle have refused?
After paying their respects to the patronesses, they moved to a nearby sofa along one of the longer walls. “I am going to sit,” the dowager said.
“Should I also sit?” Isabelle hoped so. She felt rather vulnerable standing there. She realized she’d likely feel just as vulnerable if she hid herself in the corner all evening.
“Not until after you dance, and while the patronesses gave you permission to waltz, I’d be careful with whom you do.”
Isabelle’s heart began to pound, and her neck grew damp. She’d reviewed the basics of dancing with Viola in between dress fittings, but now that she was here with the orchestra playing and the dancers moving in beautiful harmony across the ballroom, she felt as if she might cast up her accounts. She’d been to an assembly or two, but that had been years ago, and it hadn’t been Almack’s.
Suddenly, the noise of the room diminished, the dancers became a blur, her pulse slowed. He was coming toward her. Dressed in a crisp black coat with a rich green waistcoat and the whitest, most intricately knotted cravat she’d ever seen. He was an apparition, a dream conjured by her twenty-year-old mind.
Did dreams bow?
Of course they did.
He presented his leg, then straightened to his full height. This seemed to restart everything around her—the sounds, the sights—as well as her feeling of disquiet. Her heart increased its pace once more, the cacophony of it echoing in her own ear.
Val turned to the dowager and inclined his head. “Good evening, Grandmama.”
She looked up at him approvingly. “Good evening, Eastleigh.”
He returned his attention to Isabelle. Her entire being thrilled at the sight of him. She didn’t have to look around to see if anyone saw what she saw—everyone did. They openly gaped at him, and all she could think was that it had to be incredibly uncomfortable. And yet he seemed hardly to notice. Indeed, he seemed to notice only one thing: her.
“I would be honored if you would dance the next set with me,” he said. “Will you?”
She wanted to caution him that his feet might not survive, but she could only manage a tiny squeak of a word. “Yes.”
He offered his arm, and she curled her hand around his sleeve. Though she’d touched him many times, and in far more intimate ways than she currently did, this was somehow different. They were on display for all the world to see. They’d come out of the shadows and into a dazzling light. There was no going back now.
She looked up at him, and his answering gaze told her that he knew it too.
“We’ll just promenade for a few moments while this set finishes,” he said. “May I say you look beautiful?”
“Thank you. So do you. Handsome, rather.” For a supposedly educated woman, she was having an incredibly difficult time finding words tonight.
“Thank you. I understand you are going to Oxford tomorrow.”
They were going to discuss that here? Isabelle glanced about. It wasn’t as if anyone could hear them over the music and conversation, even if they were staring.
“Yes. Mrs. Featherstone invited me. She is considering retirement. It’s possible a year from now I could be headmistress of my own school.” She looked at him sideways, waiting for his reaction.
“That’s precisely what you wanted.” He didn’t sound nearly as enthusiastic as he should, but then, she didn’t feel nearly as enthusiastic as she should.
“Yes.”
The music finished, and he stopped, turning toward her. “Are you ready to dance?”
“No, but I will try. Have a care for your feet.”
His lips spread in a grin that made her heart flip over. “Do your worst.”
He led her onto the dance floor. “It’s a waltz. Do you know the steps?”
“Barely.” Viola had given her a cursory overview, but Isabelle had never seen it, let alone danced it.
“While you will likely have more occasion to destroy my feet in a waltz, I will also be able to guide you more carefully than in a country dance. Ready?” He gently clasped either side of her waist while she placed her hands on his shoulders. It was an alarmingly intimate dance meant to be tempered by holding each other at arm’s length. However, Isabelle was far too keenly aware of his touch and where it could lead were they not in the middle of the most popular Society location in London.
Why oh why had she agreed to this?
Then the music started, and he swept her in elegant circles. The light sparkled around her, and the music hummed through her body. She was suddenly very glad she’d come.
She immersed herself in the gaiety and splendor surrounding them, laughing as she stepped on his foot for the third time. He grinned in response, seeming to be having as wonderful a time as she was. Then she began to feel a bit dizzy and, laughing, asked if they could slow down.
“I will go at whatever speed you decree.” He moved her out of the way of other spinning couples so they could twirl at a more sedate pace. When the music came to a close, she found she couldn’t stop smiling.
“You enjoyed that,” he said, his green eyes twinkling beneath the chandeliers.
“More than I ever imagined.” Whatever happened, she had no regrets. Tonight, she’d danced in the arms of the only man she’d ever loved, and nothing in the rest of her days would compare.
He offered his arm once more, and she took it, sorry that the dance was over. “I am going to leave now, but I will call on you tomorrow.”
Reality tore the veil of her dream. “I’m going to Oxford tomorrow.”
He looked down at her as they made their way toward the dowager. “Are you still?” He sounded a bit…surprised?
She hadn’t thought about not going. Did this mean—? She had no idea what it meant, nor could she ask him to explain in the middle of Almack’s when they were a dozen steps from his grandmother.
“I think so,” she said, feeling utterly confused. What was happening here?
They’d arrived at the dowager’s sofa. He took her hand and kissed the back. “I’ll call on you tomorrow. Early.”
He said
good night to his grandmother and left, cutting a swath through the people who gawked as he strode by.
“Now you may sit,” the dowager said, indicating the space next to her. Another woman sat at the other end of the sofa, but she was speaking with someone seated on the adjacent sofa.
Isabelle slowly sank down beside the dowager and allowed the dream to envelop her once more as she lost sight of Val’s departing back.
The dowager leaned toward her. “I know you don’t understand Society, so allow me to explain what has happened. The Duke of Eastleigh is an unmarried man in want of a wife. He came to Almack’s, the definitive Marriage Mart in London, a destination he never frequents, and danced the waltz with precisely one woman: you. Then he left. He spoke to no one, and barely reserved more than a handful of words for me.”
Isabelle’s pulse couldn’t seem to regain a normal pace at all since she’d arrived. “I see.” She didn’t really, but also didn’t want to aggravate the dowager.
“You will not be asked to dance again because it seems clear Eastleigh has singled you out, and because you are sitting with me. I frighten some people—those people are generally fools. People, and not just the fools, are now wondering if you will become the next Duchess of Eastleigh. Idiotic wagers may even be taking place.”
One visit to Almack’s and one dance, and she was precisely where she’d never wanted to be: at the heart of Society’s gossip. She shifted uncomfortably. “You’re saying the expectation is for me to marry him. But he hasn’t even asked me.” Only he had, and she’d refused him. And he was going to call on her tomorrow.
Oh, she was terribly stupid. He was going to propose again. Furthermore, he’d conveyed his intentions rather clearly to anyone with a thimbleful more of knowledge and experience than Isabelle. Which was the entire ballroom of nearly a thousand people.