An Inconvenient Beauty

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Griffith shifted his gaze to Miranda, whose shoulders were shaking with mirth while both hands were clamped over her mouth below wide eyes. “Am I truly that bad?” he asked her.

  She lowered her hands, but the wide smile remained proof of her delight in the conversation. “I wouldn’t say bad so much as particular.” Two steps brought her to Griffith’s side, where she wrapped him in a tight hug. “Although, the fact that you’ve been in this room for nearly ten minutes and have yet to stack the papers is akin to a miracle. I have to agree with Georgina. Marry that woman. As soon as you possibly can.”

  “Special license!” Georgina chirped. “The archbishop’s office is still open, if you’re quick about it. You can have the whole thing secured by dinner.”

  If only he knew she’d say yes, he’d be taking his carriage to Doctors’ Commons as fast as the traffic allowed. “What if she says no?”

  Miranda wrapped her arm around his and dropped her head to rest against his bicep. “Then we find a way to turn her into a frog.”

  Griffith’s mind was filled with the frippery of potential love until he walked into his study. Jeffreys, Ryland’s valet, was waiting for him, road dust still coating his clothing.

  “Ryland sent you?”

  The wiry thin man shrugged. “He said you needed the best and the fastest.”

  God certainly knew what he was doing when he created friendship. Griffith couldn’t be more thankful. He gestured Jeffreys into a seat. “Would you care for tea?”

  “Much obliged, Your Grace. I don’t have a great deal to report, though. Why would you need to know about a failing sheep farm in the wilds of Northumberland?”

  “Failing, is it?” Griffith tried to keep the emotion out of his voice as he arranged for tea with the servant who answered his summons. “And the family?”

  “Nice folks. A bit threadbare and living close to the bone, but nice.”

  Griffith tried to sit in his chair behind the desk, but the more accurate description would be that he fell into it. Isabella was dancing through London in gems and satin, riding rumors of a great dowry and powerful family connections. And her family was barely eating? “Are you sure you had the right family?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. That letter you sent them caused quite a bit a noise.”

  The tea arrived and Griffith fell silent, watching Jeffreys quickly prepare his cup and start to guzzle it with the grace of a tavern regular. Let him have his tea. He needed to clear his parched throat of any remaining dust, because he was about to tell Griffith everything.

  He was there. Tall and handsome, an oasis of calm in the middle of social desperation.

  Isabella dragged her gaze back to the man currently talking to her. Lord Someone-or-another. It had gotten incredibly difficult to keep them all straight. As her uncle had predicted, a week away from London had done nothing but enhance her popularity. It was ridiculous, really, and didn’t say much for the individual decision-making abilities of the country’s leaders.

  Seeing Griffith watch her but refuse to wade into the throng only made it harder. Did it mean he’d changed his mind about the things he’d said in Hertfordshire, or did he simply refuse to be one of the masses?

  She escaped to the retiring room to catch her breath, wondering what she was doing in this mess. It had been difficult before, but now every dance, every dinner, every flirting smile or restrained laugh had become nearly impossible.

  Miss Newberry slipped her feet back into her slippers as Isabella walked into the room.

  “Enjoying the ball?” she asked.

  It took a moment for Isabella to realize the other girl had been talking to her. Most of the girls didn’t want much to do with her, the unknown who had waltzed into Town and stolen their men’s attentions. And Miss Newberry certainly hadn’t had a nice thing to say to her at the house party last week. “Er, yes. It’s not too much of a crush tonight.”

  “Much to Lady Wethersfield’s dismay.” The girl grinned.

  “Many more people and there wouldn’t be room to dance.”

  “And everyone would talk about it for days.” She shrugged. “It’s the way things work.”

  Isabella fidgeted with the edge of her glove. “Does it ever bother you?”

  “I don’t let it.” Miss Newberry leaned over to look in a mirror and adjusted a curl. “I have to marry, so I might as well marry as well as I can. We don’t all have our pick of the top tier.”

  The smile she gave Isabella looked genuine but sad.

  Guilt crashed through Isabella. “If you could choose, who would it be?”

  A quick shake of her head sent Miss Newberry’s carefully adjusted curls bouncing. “I try not to think about it. Alethea talks constantly about the merits of one man versus the other. I simply want a comfortable home and secure future. There’s a lot of men here who can give me that.”

  “What of love?” Hypocrisy layered over the guilt until Isabella wondered if she was going to be ill.

  Miss Newberry sighed and hugged herself. “I danced with Lord Ivonbrook once. He’d just come back from observing the workings of a new steam engine. I didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about, but it was nice to see someone . . .”

  “Excited?”

  “Care.”

  Isabella had been in London for more than a month, and this was the first time someone, outside of Frederica and Griffith, had seemed like a real person, had shown any sort of vulnerability.

  She wanted to ask more, but at the same time she didn’t. Already she knew she’d never look at Lord Ivonbrook the same way again. Every time she danced with him, she’d wonder if Miss Newberry was unknowingly losing her secure future for Isabella’s family’s future. It didn’t seem like a very fair trade, especially not when someone else was making the decision for you.

  The door opened, and two more girls tripped in, giggling. They looked young. Too young. Were they even eighteen? Isabella felt old, knowing these ladies thought her to be nineteen like them, but she suddenly felt ten years older instead of only five.

  Any chance of conversation was lost, and Miss Newberry gave Isabella another smile, this one the practiced, cold one Isabella had seen on so many of the other faces in the ballroom. Then she rose and left the room without another glance.

  If Isabella wanted a distraction, she’d certainly gotten it, but it wasn’t the kind she’d been looking for.

  She slipped back down the passage and into a door on the side of the ballroom.

  “Will you dance with me?”

  That deep voice was the last thing she needed. Even as it rolled over her, making the hairs on her skin stand up at the very idea of being the one to finally dance with him, it fed the ball of misery in the pit of her stomach. “I can’t.”

  “Why not? You’ve hardly left the floor all night. And I know you don’t keep a dance card.” Griffith pushed away from where he’d been leaning against the wall. He angled his body so that anyone looking their way would see only his back. No one would know she’d returned. Her cream silk skirts would be visible on either side of his legs, but they probably looked like the skirts of half the other women in the room as well.

  “I can’t.”

  “You said that already.”

  “And it’s as true now as it was five seconds ago.”

  “Oh.”

  He fell silent for a moment. Isabella could have walked away. He wasn’t touching her or caging her in. He wasn’t even standing all that close, but somehow she felt trapped, glued to the floor until he decided to let her go. Only, if she were honest with herself, it wasn’t his will keeping her there—it was her desire that things could be different.

  She stood, feeling her heart beat, focusing on keeping her breaths shallow so she wouldn’t inhale too much of his cedar and grass scent.

  “How about now?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Her gaze flew to meet his. A mistake, as she got snagged in his deep emerald gaze.

  “Is it still true?”r />
  Despite herself she smiled. “Yes. I’m afraid it is.”

  “Can’t is such an interesting word.” He tilted his head but kept his eyes on hers. “So many times we confuse it with the word won’t.”

  She swallowed. “Very well. I won’t.”

  “Won’t is also an interesting word. It means there’s a chance I can change your mind.”

  Again she smiled, realizing she’d been neatly maneuvered but having trouble caring. “You won’t.” She swallowed, the curve drifting off her lips. “You can’t.”

  One eyebrow winged upward, and for a moment he looked every inch a man capable of holding his own against anyone—up to and including the ruling monarch of the country. And she was trying to take him on in a battle of wills.

  “That’s a rather bold declaration. I am a duke. There isn’t much I can’t do.”

  “You can’t do this. I won’t let you.”

  A shadow slid over his face, taking away the playful glint in his eyes and the teasing crease at the side of his mouth. “You’re probably the only person who could stop me. I’d like to call on you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll tell Osborn that I’m not home.”

  “Then I’ll call on Frederica.”

  “If you like.” Isabella wanted to cry, to scream, to growl, to do something that would release a small bit of the frustration caused by the clashing of the light moment with her dreadful guilt and the nagging voice at the back of her head that was getting harder and harder to silence. “But she won’t be home either.”

  If he thought to come visit her uncle, there would be nothing she could do to keep him away, but somehow she didn’t think that he wanted to bring Uncle Percy into this. Her name had dripped from many a tongue, but to her knowledge, it had never been linked with the duke’s in more than a cursory fashion, and he seemed to want to keep it that way. It made her wonder about his declared intentions. If he truly wanted to court her, why wasn’t he doing it openly?

  “Etiquette says that once you’ve turned someone down, you shouldn’t dance the rest of the evening, lest you make him feel like you’re rejecting him personally.”

  She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh at his overly innocent expression even as a little bit of her heart broke at the thought of hurting this man. “I suppose I’ll just have to assure you that it’s personal, then. We wouldn’t want anyone to walk around with erroneous assumptions.”

  Then she curtsied and walked around him, taking great care to not look back until she’d been swallowed up by the crowd.

  Chapter 23

  It was fascinating, really, the way he chose to torture himself. There were so many other ways Griffith could be spending his time. He could go to the library and play cards. Retreat to the drawing room, where refreshments had been set up. He could even go home, take off the cravat that felt like it was choking the life out of him, and get a good night’s sleep.

  Instead, he was holding up the wall of the ballroom, trying to ignore the fact that people were starting to stare. Speculations had only grown about what he intended to do this Season and if he would eventually select a partner for the dance floor. The amount of time he’d spent in ballrooms lately probably had something to do with it. The betting book at the club and an impromptu house party hadn’t hurt.

  He watched Isabella dance, remembering all too well how it felt to curve his arm around her waist, to have her trust him enough to guide her through the dark. Trust him enough to send a letter home to her family. But not trust him enough to tell the truth about what she was doing in London. Because even with all he’d learned, things weren’t adding up.

  Other than Ryland’s contacts and the little bit of privileged information he’d received from Isabella, he’d had a difficult time tracking down the truth about her. When her mother married, she’d broken contact with everyone in the aristocracy, embracing the life of a northern county sheep farmer. Isabella and Lord Pontebrook had been able to create any sort of history they wanted, and no one in London would be able to contradict it.

  Still, nothing he’d been able to find told him why she’d done it. Or had allowed it to be done. Her current situation remained shrouded in mystery.

  The dancers had worked their way up and down the line, so the song would be ending soon. Where would she be escorted? It was a game he was playing with himself. Albeit a rather torturous one, but he didn’t have anything better to do with his evening than plant himself within view of wherever she was when she selected her next dance partner. He’d been more than obvious that he would accept the position whenever she let him.

  As the dancers moved and the song wound down, he worked his way through the crowd to a group of men in high collars and stiff cravats. Their coats ranged from the bright dandy colors to the somber black, with every shade in between. As most of her potential partners were part of the group, it was likely that corner of the room was where she would head.

  He refused to join the actual group, milling about like cattle waiting to be cut from the herd. He could be close enough to see and hear, though, without actually wading in.

  As he approached, it became clear that men were not the only ones in the group. More than one lady had braved the crowd in the hopes of procuring her own potential dance partner. Feathers could be seen waving over the shoulders of the men, and a few couples began to break away and move toward the floor as the current dance set broke apart.

  Isabella smiled as she approached the group, but it wasn’t a real smile. Griffith wasn’t an expert on such things, but real smiles didn’t tend to leave people looking as if they had the beginnings of a headache swirling at their temples.

  She didn’t break into the middle of the group, choosing instead to stand to the side. As if what she really wanted to do was make a run for the retiring room again.

  The men didn’t let her remain on the fringe very long.

  Ladies who hadn’t yet procured a partner were deserted as the men flocked around Isabella.

  The abandoned ladies didn’t look happy.

  Lady Alethea was among them, and the frown on her face made it plain that she no longer cared to put up with Isabella’s position as queen of the ballroom.

  She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before pasting a smile on her face and wading in once more. Only she wasn’t heading for any particular man. She was cutting her way through to Isabella.

  Griffith stepped closer, trying to hear what was being said. He’d witnessed more than one all-too-public ballroom fight, most of them the fault of his own family. They were never very pretty and almost always ended badly.

  There was too much noise in the crowded ballroom to hear the women over the cavernous echoes the rest of the revelers were making, so he pushed into the fringes of the group.

  “Are you enjoying London, Miss Breckenridge?” Lady Alethea’s voice was simpering and hit Griffith’s ears like sludge from the Thames.

  “Immensely.” Isabella smiled at one of the men around her. “Never have I found myself in the midst of such enjoyable companions.”

  “It must be so different than . . . Where did you say you were from, again?”

  Griffith tensed. There was very little chance this wouldn’t go badly. He knew Isabella’s shell was delicate. When poked just right, it cracked easily. And while he’d had no problems with what he found beneath the surface—in many ways even liked it—it wouldn’t put Isabella in a very good position to have it revealed in the middle of a ballroom that she was the twenty-four-year-old daughter of an injured, half-Scottish farmer from Northumberland instead of the nineteen-year-old heiress of a landed gentleman in Yorkshire.

  While the answers Griffith had learned from Jeffreys weren’t enough to make him drop his pursuit of her, they were enough to destroy her reputation here in Town, and likely Miss St. Claire’s and Lord Pontebrook’s along with it.

  “The north,” Isabella said quietly.

  “Ah yes. Yorkshire, so I’ve heard. How far you must
have traveled!” Lady Alethea fluttered her fan and, to most, probably looked as if she were avidly curious about Isabella’s life. And she probably was, but not in the congenial way she was implying.

  “The drive is long.”

  “Did you come from your father’s estate, or did you winter with Lord Pontebrook? Winters must be so cold up there. It’s practically in Scotland, after all.”

  Griffith stepped closer, trying to catch Isabella’s eye and give her a way out of the current conversation. He wasn’t above using uncomfortable circumstances to attain his goal, as long as he was innocent of the creation of such circumstances.

  “Yorkshire isn’t that close to Scotland. We do keep the fires burning all night in the heart of the winter, though.” Isabella’s smile looked even tighter. Was she about to crack?

  Finally she met his gaze. He lifted a brow and tilted his head toward the dance floor. None of the other men were moving toward it, as if they’d just realized that they didn’t actually know much about Isabella’s father or background. Everyone had associated her with Lord Pontebrook, as if she were simply another daughter he’d kept hidden away. But she wasn’t. And they’d all just been reminded of that fact.

  Isabella’s gaze flitted from face to face, pain and indecision in her eyes. Then she turned to the man nearest her. “We have a lovely winter dance every year. All of the gentry come. The Duke of Northumberland even came down and made an appearance last year.”

  She was so set against dancing with him where others could see that she was going to allow this to continue.

  Lady Alethea’s lashes fluttered. “I’ve never met the Duke of Northumberland.”

  If Isabella’s expression was anything to go by, she hadn’t either.

  Griffith could not allow this to continue.

  He allowed his arm to bump into Lady Alethea’s. He inclined his head with a bow. “My humble pardons, my lady.”

  She smiled and dropped into a slight curtsy. “Not at all, Your Grace.”