An Inconvenient Beauty

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Before she could stop herself, Isabella was turning to acknowledge the young man with a soft smile on her lips. Weeks of near solitude, visiting every park and green space London had to offer should have been long enough to break an unwanted habit of three months, but apparently it was not.

  “Lord Naworth.” Isabella gave the smallest of curtsies.

  “The ballrooms of London have been devastated by the loss of your lovely face. How fortunate we are that I chose to attend when you chose to grace us with your presence again.”

  “Thank you, my lord. You are more than gracious.” He was also pompous, empty-headed, and smelled a bit of linseed oil.

  “Might I have the honor of this dance?”

  She was about to decline. The excuses were readily available on her tongue. Her lips had parted to say the word no.

  And then she saw him.

  Griffith was standing on the other side of the ballroom. His height allowed him to see over the sea of people between them, and her height gave him a clear view of where she stood.

  He started making his way toward her.

  Retreat. She couldn’t leave, but she could retreat. And hide. And what better place than the one place Griffith avoided if he could at all help it?

  Praying God would forgive her for using this man one more time, she smiled up at Lord Naworth. “The honor would be mine.”

  Once she’d stepped onto the dance floor, there didn’t seem to be a polite way to leave it again. Despite her uncle’s insistence that the men would forget about her without constant encouragement, most of her suitors still seemed inclined to give her their attentions. While they weren’t as insistent or outrageous as they once had been, they were still plentiful.

  And all of them wanted to dance.

  Any guilt she’d felt disappeared partway through the first set of dances. Even though she was dancing with the men, her demeanor had changed. The flirting statements and the coy glances she’d worked so hard to include were thankfully left behind, and she found herself actually enjoying it.

  Until her feet began to hurt.

  And her throat became scratchy from talking and exerting herself for so long.

  But after every dance, there was someone waiting to ask her hand for the next one. And every time she saw Griffith waiting to the side, eyes sad and hopeful at the same time, and before she could think it through, fear would prompt her to accept the invitation to dance, and she would once more find herself taking her place in the lines of dancers.

  She found herself praying that God would do something to get her off the dance floor.

  It wasn’t the type of prayer she really expected God to answer, but as she said a mental amen, a loud boom echoed through the ballroom, bringing the music and the dancing to a blessed halt.

  All eyes swung to the entrance of the ballroom, where one of the heavy, ornate doors had been thrown back hard enough to slam against the wall, causing the echoing crack.

  A soldier stood in the doorway, his uniform sporting more red than usual. He strode in and people scattered, exclaiming at the blood and dirt that marred his wrinkled and torn uniform. The man looked around the room and made his way in the prince regent’s direction. As he went the crowd parted, until Isabella was able to see he held objects in his hands. Golden eagles. The kind Napoleon had bestowed upon his army regiments with the command that they protect these standards with their lives.

  And this soldier was carrying two of them.

  And then he was kneeling, laying the golden eagles on the ground at the feet of the prince regent.

  No one moved. Isabella wasn’t even sure anyone was breathing.

  “Your Royal Highness. I come bearing news from His Grace, the Duke of Wellington.” The man lifted his bowed head. “Napoleon has been defeated.”

  Never before had a drawing room seen so much agitated gossip. Despite the fact that none of them knew a thing, the ladies—who had been removed from the ballroom and placed into every other available public room in the house—were speculating wildly on what the men were hearing in the ballroom as the official dispatch was being read aloud.

  “What do you think is going on in there?” Isabella shifted her weight onto one leg and shook out one of her already tired feet. The seats in the room had respectfully been granted to the elder ladies, and if the waiting went on much longer, Isabella was giving serious consideration to sitting on the floor.

  “I don’t care.”

  Isabella looked at her cousin in surprise.

  “What?” Freddie shrugged. “I don’t. Considering whatever official declaration being read in there won’t tell me what I really need to know, all that matters right now is that the war is over.”

  Isabella inclined her head to acknowledge the truth. It didn’t matter. Curiosity still kept her from suggesting they make their way home. History was being read in that ballroom, and it was rather thrilling to be so close to it.

  Then a cry rang out through the house, indicating the ballroom doors had been reopened. The ladies surged, a tidal wave of silk and satin.

  Freddie and Bella flattened themselves to the wall to avoid the trample of curious ladies who were doomed to remain disappointed for the time being. Even the men who would be willing to share some of the details with their wives or daughters weren’t going to do so here.

  Isabella and Frederica trailed the last of the ladies out of the drawing room. Some of the men were talking excitedly in passages and alcoves, and others were seeking out their ladies to escort them home or back to the ballroom.

  Griffith was standing atop the staircase leading up to the ballroom, his glance bouncing from group to group until it landed on her.

  As the ladies clustered, a more somber attitude rolled through their ranks. Isabella’s heart threatened to choke her with its rushed, heavy beating, and a sense of numbness covered her as she took in the whispered news being passed back along the crowd. The prince regent was crying. The victory had come with a great loss. At least thirty thousand dead. Countless more wounded.

  A tight squeeze of her hand broke through Isabella’s numbness. She looked at Frederica’s pale face, the stark white of her skin making her nose appear larger.

  With hope and dread battling in her chest, Isabella swung her gaze back to Griffith. Did he know anything? Had the dispatch contained the names of officers lost?

  Griffith continued slowly down the stairs. It was a beautiful thing to watch him cut his way through the crowd, going against the flow with ease. When the man wasn’t hemmed in by dancing couples he was actually rather graceful.

  Isabella held her breath and her position. To move forward would bring her to meet him on the stairs. To move back would leave her trapped in the now private emptiness of the drawing room. As much as she wanted—no, needed—to know what he knew, simply seeing him this close was making her heart hurt. Speaking with him would be agony.

  He came closer, and Isabella caught her breath as she drank in the handsome lines of his face. He looked tired. There were shadows under his green eyes that she hadn’t noticed as he descended the stairs but became clear as he stopped in front of them.

  “Miss Breckenridge. Miss St. Claire. Perhaps you would both like to step into the drawing room for a moment?”

  No. No, she most certainly would not like to step back into the drawing room, but next to her she heard Frederica suck in a harsh breath. Isabella’s heart pounded at the possible implications. Unless Griffith had lost all sense of logic and propriety, he wasn’t about to take this moment to renew his pursuit of her or seek to ask her to explain her refusal to marry him or even see him.

  It was more likely that the communication that had just been read in the ballroom actually mentioned Arthur. And if it did, it probably wasn’t good news.

  Isabella gripped her cousin’s arm as she nodded and quietly pulled Frederica back into the drawing room.

  Griffith followed, his face giving no indication of what he was going to share. His eyes seemed to dr
ink in Isabella, though, the same way she’d absorbed his presence earlier.

  Once they were in the drawing room, the noise from the hall, stairs, and ballroom faded into a distant, indistinct roar. It was easily conversed over—assuming one knew what to say, of course.

  Griffith turned to Frederica. “Arthur Saunderson is alive.”

  Isabella had to wrap a steadying arm around Frederica as she wilted with her first indrawn breath. A few tears slipped down her cheeks to ride the grooves made by her sudden smile.

  Griffith returned her smile with one of his own, and Isabella considered joining her cousin in a boneless heap. How could she have forgotten how dear and handsome his smiles were? The large, honest ones like he wore now were so rare, and the dark sadness that had been wrapped around Isabella’s heart cracked at the sight of it.

  His smile faded a notch, possibly considering the number of men who would not have such a simple, hopeful statement said about them.

  His green eyes locked on Isabella’s. “I’ve been trying all night to approach you. The ball is over now. I don’t think anyone is sure if we should celebrate or mourn. That will change soon, and there will be victory balls all over London. Will you dance with me at one of them?”

  Isabella’s mouth dropped open in shock. “You bring news like this and then ask me to dance with you without giving us any details?”

  He shrugged. “I have your attention now. I don’t want to waste it.”

  “I won’t dance with you,” she said quietly. “I won’t allow you to align your name with mine only to have everyone think you’re one more man I toyed with before deserting London. Please don’t ask me to do that to you.”

  He said nothing as his eyes roamed her face. His lips pressed into a grim line before he redirected his attention to Frederica. Once more his mouth softened into a curve of joy.

  “Not only is he alive,” he continued, as if he’d never requested Isabella dance with him, “but he is coming home a hero. He led his squadron around the back to cut right through the 105th regiment, capture the standard, and send it back to the rear while he kept charging through. You should be proud of him.”

  A sob and a laugh escaped Frederica, and she turned to Isabella to throw her arms around her. The resulting hug was so tight, it drew a laugh from Isabella even as she tried to breathe.

  “I’ve missed your laugh,” Griffith said quietly.

  Though the statement wasn’t enough to bury all of the merriment in the drawing room, it was enough to quiet their celebration.

  Frederica pulled back, her lips still curved and her eyes still bright with happy tears. She looked from Isabella to Griffith and back again. “I’m going to see if the front hall has a little more air.”

  The statement was ridiculous, and all of them knew it, but that didn’t stop Frederica from positioning herself at the door. Enough in the room to say the couple hadn’t been left alone, but giving them as much privacy as was possible in a house bursting with several hundred people.

  Griffith reached out a hand and cupped her cheek. “I’ve missed you. I came to see you.”

  “I know.” Isabella almost choked on the words. She should have found a way to go home to Northumberland, found a way to convince Frederica that she didn’t want to come tonight. Had she secretly been hoping that something like this would happen? Had she been so hungry for the mere sight of Griffith that she’d been ready to break her heart all over again?

  “I love you, Isabella. And I don’t believe there is anything between us that can’t be overcome.”

  She lowered her lashes down over her eyes, blocking his earnest face from her sight. “Sometimes life blocks our paths because God has a different plan.”

  She had to believe that. Had to believe that God still had something good planned for her, despite her earlier disobedience. And she was going to do her best to walk in His path from now on. Even if it hurt.

  “This isn’t one of those times.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because if God wanted to turn the paths of two people seeking to honor Him, He’d have made the problem immovable. And this barricade can be overcome.”

  As a duke he probably hadn’t come across many obstacles that he couldn’t overcome. But this one—she didn’t even think he knew what it was. And there wasn’t any way he could change the past three months. “I wish that were true, Griffith. But it isn’t. There is nothing that can be done. I shouldn’t have stayed. I’ll find a way to be on the next coach to Northumberland.”

  Griffith reached out, gripped her shoulders. “No.” A single word, but it had sounded almost panicked, dripping with emotion.

  Slowly, his hands slid down her arms until he held her fingers loosely in his. He leaned forward, his forehead rested against hers.

  “I know more than you think, Isabella, enough that we could go forth from here. But I want no lingering doubts between us. Let me take care of all your trepidations. Give me a chance to prove you wrong.”

  Chapter 34

  “This is a mess.” Ryland tossed the sheaf of papers onto Griffith’s desk and leaned back. “And everyone’s happy with it?”

  Griffith leaned one hip against his desk and ran a thumb along the edge of a blue dart. “That’s how it ended up so convoluted. All of the pertinent parts of the old proposal are there. I simply adjusted the contested parts and maneuvered them around a bit.”

  “A bit?” Anthony extended his red dart and poked at the discarded papers. “It’s eleven pages long. Half of them aren’t going to read it.”

  “As long as they leave the room to vote, I don’t care. It took me nearly two weeks to write that and get the required support.” Griffith cocked his head to the side and shrugged one shoulder before straightening from the desk and lining up his dart to toss at the board on the far wall of his study. “It does the job.”

  The men fell silent as Griffith took aim and launched his dart at the target. Once the thunk of metal into cork had faded, Ryland leaned forward in his chair and propped his forearms on the edge of the desk. “I don’t understand. What about the concerns you had last time? That some of the villages in your territories would be left without any options for medical care? The College of Physicians is growing, but there are not many of them wanting to move out to Cornwall and set up on the cliffs.”

  “There’s nothing in there that says a town can’t still have a practicing apothecary—only that he must be trained.” Griffith threw another dart. “We’re learning more about medicine every day. The more I looked into it, the more I saw the value in some form of standard training. So I’ll pay to have them trained.”

  No one spoke as the last blue dart left Griffith’s hand and sank into the center of the board.

  He turned, not knowing what he expected to see on the faces of the men he’d turned to for counsel and camaraderie in his adult years.

  Ryland’s grey stare was leveled in Griffith’s direction. Unblinking, unwavering, and unreadable.

  Anthony’s blue gaze was a little bit easier to read, but the underlying humor Griffith saw there made him turn away.

  The marquis laughed and moved into position to throw his own darts. “It’s nice to know that love can fell even the largest of men.”

  “Does she know you’ve done this?” Ryland asked.

  Not wanting to look at either man and discover he’d done something foolish despite his careful considerations, Griffith kept his eyes on Anthony’s flying darts, soaring across the room in considerably quicker succession than Griffith’s had.

  “No,” he said into the quiet stillness after the last dart had been thrown.

  “It was read officially for the first time today.” Anthony strode across the room and began pulling the darts from the board. “Someone’s bound to have gone by Lord Pontebrook’s house and informed him.”

  Griffith knew this, had even contemplated going by and telling the man himself, but he knew the next time he saw Isabella’s uncle he was going to be l
aying down some very specific expectations on the man.

  Most of the time Griffith tried not to think about the fact that what he wanted was almost as good as law for most people. It was a heady and somewhat terrifying power to wield, and Griffith didn’t take it lightly. Sometimes, though, it was good to be a few steps below the king.

  “Are you going to go see her?” Ryland’s voice matched his unchanged gaze.

  “No.” Griffith had lost a great deal of sleep last night wondering the same thing. “Not until it’s done. She walked away from me because she didn’t want the apothecary measures to come between us. I’m making sure they’re out of the way before I approach her again.”

  Anthony stopped at Griffith’s shoulder. “And if she comes to you?”

  “She’s always had that option.”

  “I’ll pay for mine as well.”

  Ryland’s declaration cut into Griffith’s suddenly maudlin thoughts, and it took a few moments for Griffith to grasp what he was talking about. “Your apothecaries?”

  The other duke nodded. “It’s a good solution. Better for my people all the way around.”

  “Then, I can count on you if debate gets too heavy tomorrow?”

  Ryland let out a bark of laughter and picked up his copy of the bill once more. “If? With the way this thing is written I think we’re looking much more at when.”

  “Never have I seen such a bungling bill, not even from the bunglers over in the House of Commons!”

  Ryland bumped his shoulder into Griffith’s. “See? Even Earl Stanhope agrees with me.”

  “Can you name a bill Earl Stanhope hasn’t had an objection to lately?” Griffith whispered back. He was once again sitting in the back row in the House of Lords. The vote would occur tomorrow, assuming this debate didn’t get the third reading pushed back even further, but the bill’s fate would really be decided today. He waited to see who else would have an objection.

  “I think this an honest and worthwhile topic,” the earl continued, “but should we really be smuggling through such a potentially oppressive act at such a pace?”