Thus it was that he dressed for dinner in a less than salubrious mood. Looking down at his coat of blue superfine and fawn breeches, he wondered when he’d paid more than a passing thought to his attire.
Fashion had never been one of his favorite subjects. Even in his salad days—though he did recall a time when his shirt points had been ridiculously high—he’d been more interested in horses than the cut of his coats. Allowing his valet to stab a pin into the froth of his neckcloth, Trevor bit back a sigh. Surely he was beyond all this fashion nonsense by now.
Wasn’t he?
The question dogged him as he headed downstairs to the drawing room.
It was only due to their current houseguest that they were even observing the custom of drinks before dinner. As a general rule, he and his sisters dined en famille with little ceremony. He knew that the girls should be dining in the nursery or the schoolroom, but it was one of the few times during the week that he actually saw them. The farms and estate kept him busy, and when there was a governess in residence the girls had their studies. But while he was willing to alter their normal routine because of their guest, he was not willing to send the girls back to the schoolroom. If Lady Wharton objected to his sisters’ presence at table, then she would simply have to endure her displeasure in silence.
When he reached the drawing room, he found that Lady Wharton was already there. She was at the window gazing out at the view of the back garden. He took a moment to watch her without interruption.
Tonight, she was wearing what he secretly referred to as a gut puncher, for the feeling it inspired in him. The gown was a bluish green, the shade of a robin’s egg. It was cool and elegant and hugged her every delicious curve. He might have resigned himself to her presence in his household for the next week or more, but he hadn’t quite managed to steel his body against its reaction to her. Perhaps he’d have done better to send her packing at once, he reflected. At least then he wouldn’t have to endure the constant state of arousal he’d suffered with since her arrival.
He knew the moment she realized he was behind her because her relaxed stance became deathly still.
Like a doe sensing a hunter.
“Your Grace,” she said before turning. Her gown was just as gut punching from the front as it was from the back. The fabric of her bodice revealed as much of her breasts as it concealed, and Trevor had to admit to himself that they were exquisite.
Her dark hair was arranged in a much looser style than the neat chignon she wore during the day. Tonight curly wisps hung down on either side of her face to caress the skin of her long neck, almost as if they’d come loose during some exerting activity. He longed to slip his hands into her silken locks and finish the job of tousling her coiffure completely.
If he didn’t expect his sisters any moment he might have tried his luck, but they were coming any moment, and besides that, he needed to get Lady Wharton on his side regarding the estate before anything could happen between them.
Which sounded, he thought to himself, as if he would allow something to happen after they went to London. Which was foolishness itself. The Lady Isabella Whartons of the world were not made for him. He might bear the title of Duke of Ormonde, but that was in name only. In person and spirit he was a country farmer who wished for nothing more than a life tending his crops and seeing to it that his tenants were well cared for. Someone like Lady Wharton could never understand that. And, in truth, she didn’t need to. Let her go back to London and find some fancy town lord to sweep her off her feet.
He must have been quiet for too long, because the object of his rumination said, “I don’t believe I’ve seen you dressed so formally before, Your Grace. It looks quite well on you.”
Trevor listened carefully for a tone of condescension in her words, but try as he might he could find none. Perhaps she was simply making conversation. Even so, he could not keep the edge of annoyance from his voice. “I am not a savage, madam,” he said, moving to stand with his shoulder against the mantle. He allowed himself to survey her from head to toe. “Nor are you, it would seem. I would mention the formality of your gown, but that would not be polite.”
“Touché,” she said, acknowledging her own gaffe. “I apologize for my frankness. I am simply having difficulty reconciling your grandmother’s description of you with the man before me. I think perhaps the intelligence she received about you was not quite correct in its assessment.”
He was hardly surprised to hear that his grandmother had such low expectations of him. She was, if he remembered her correctly, wholly taken up with the pomp and circumstance of her elevated status. It was hardly surprising to learn she assumed he was just as countrified as she was sophisticated. “I suppose my grandmother led you to think that we lived in the barn with the livestock?”
“Something like that,” Lady Isabella acknowledged with a warm smile. “Though I think she probably thought you had different stalls from them at the very least. Even provincials have their standards.”
Startled by her unexpected humor, Trevor couldn’t help but laugh. “I hadn’t expected that,” he admitted with a rueful smile.
“What?” she asked, moving to the sideboard to pour him a glass of brandy. “That I possessed a sense of humor or that I had the ability to laugh at all. I do so often, I assure you. I find it is the only recourse one has sometimes for dealing with life’s more absurd occurrences.”
Taking the drink from her, he reflected that her icy beauty was warmed considerably by something as simple as a smile. She was elegantly beautiful when in repose, but when animated with good humor she was breathtaking. He wondered fleetingly why such a woman was ostensibly unattached. The men in London must be blind or in possession of very thin skin.
“You are quite right about laughter,” he said, gesturing to her with his brandy glass. “I often see some of the lowest, most unlucky people in my position as local magistrate, but you would be amazed to see the number of poor souls who manage to soldier on solely because they can find the bright side of things.”
“Ah yes,” she said, nodding. “I believe you wish, as part of my education, to have me sit in on one of your sessions as magistrate. I must confess that I’m quite fascinated by that part of your requirements. It is somewhat lowering to admit it, but I am an avid reader of Minerva Press novels, and someone is always being brought up before the magistrates in them. I hope you won’t mind if I gawk terribly.”
Trevor might have expected her to admit to many things, but wishing to attend the quarter sessions solely to satisfy vulgar curiosity was not one of them.
“Really?” he asked, a bit dumbstruck. “I would never have guessed it of you. You don’t seem like the sort would who enjoy such…” He searched his vocabulary for a descriptor that would be accurate without being insulting.
“Such low forms of entertainment?” she asked with a laugh. At his surprise she shook her head with good-humored derision. “I can hardly be a fan of the genre without having heard all of the myriad ways in which they are denigrated by those who have never even bothered to read one.”
He gulped a mouthful of brandy. Blinking back tears as the scorching liquid ran down his throat, Trevor coughed a bit before replying. “I suppose that’s right,” he said. “I’ve never read one, though I know Eleanor borrows them quite frequently from other girls in the neighborhood. My own reading is rather duller than yours, I fear.”
“Let me guess,” she said, eyeing him thoughtfully. “Treatises on agricultural practice?” she said, placing a provocative finger at the corner of her mouth.
He felt his eyes drawn to her lips, though he managed to answer her. “Guilty as charged, my lady,” he said ruefully. “And seed catalogs.”
“I thought as much,” she said with mock disappointment. “I am quite scandalized, Your Grace. You really must reform yourself if you wish to find any young lady willing to—”
* * *
Isabella stopped, realizing what she’d just been about to say. What
on earth was she thinking, to say such a thing to the man? It was entirely improper, no matter how easily they’d been getting on this afternoon. He was not her brother, that she might tease him about such matters without fear of reprisal.
She was saved from continuing by a cleared throat from the doorway. Turning, she saw Belinda enter the room and cross to address her brother.
“Trevor,” his younger sister told him, bounding toward him in the enthusiastic stride that said as much about her age as her attire. “We’ve a surprise for you, so you must close your eyes.”
Raising a brow, he looked at Isabella. She wondered whether she and his sisters might not have made a mistake by surprising him with Eleanor’s new gown. Sometimes men preferred to learn of changes gradually rather than all at once.
“I’m sure that’s not necessary, Belinda,” she said quickly, slipping an arm around the younger girl’s shoulder. “I’m sure your surprise does not need such fanfare as all that. You will make your brother wonder just what you’ve been up to.”
She squeezed Belinda’s shoulder in a warning gesture, but clearly the girl had no notion of what the move meant.
“Of course it does, silly,” Belinda responded, slipping out of Isabella’s hold and stepping closer to her brother. “Now close your eyes, Trevor,” she said, reaching up to cover his eyes with her fingers.
With one last puzzled look for Isabella, Trevor allowed himself to be blindfolded by his sister’s small hands. “There,” he said. “Now what?”
Isabella heard the shushing sound of satin brushing against itself and looked up to see Eleanor entering the room. She looked as fresh as a spring flower in the gown. Isabella had never looked half as good in it, for the color was far better suited to Eleanor’s coloring. It was far more demure than the gowns being worn this season by girls of a similar age, and Isabella felt a pang of relief when she realized that the duke could have no objection to the gown. In the half hour since she’d left the girls upstairs she’d been afraid that her original assessment had been wrong.
“Open them,” Belinda said to her brother as she removed her hands from his eyes.
Isabella watched with some trepidation as the duke opened his eyes and took in his sister’s attire. His expression, far from the warm, good-humored one that Isabella had seen only a few moments ago, was instead shuttered.
“Eleanor,” he said sharply, “what are you wearing? Where did you get that gown?”
Perhaps thinking his concern was where she’d acquired the gown, Eleanor dropped into a curtsy. “Good evening, Trevor. Lady Wharton had her maid make over this gown for me so that I might have something to wear that isn’t utterly provincial. Don’t you like it?”
Isabella could have shaken the girl for her exaggeration. She had not said anything about giving Eleanor the gown to ward off provincialism. She might have known a seventeen-year-old would find it impossible to inform her brother of the situation without editorializing a bit. Even so, barring the provincialism remark, the gown itself was hardly objectionable.
“I am so thankful that we have Lady Wharton to save us from provincialism,” Trevor said acidly to his sister, his eyes dark with anger as they bore into Isabella’s. “I fear, however, that you will need to return the gown from whence it came. It is entirely inappropriate for a girl of your age. I suggest you go upstairs and change at once.”
As soon as the words left his mouth Isabella knew he’d taken the wrong approach to the matter. Eleanor’s jaw clenched and her eyes shot daggers at her brother. She was well and truly offended and was not going to back down from this fight without lashing out first. Isabella cringed at the thought. She certainly hadn’t expected her gift to cause so much unhappiness. The opposite, in fact.
“You are so horrid,” Eleanor said in a histrionic tone. “And I will not have you dictating to me what I may and may not wear. I am no longer a schoolgirl to be ordered about like that. Lady Wharton was only trying to be nice and you are being awful to her and to me!”
“I think Ellie looks beautiful,” Belinda said, stepping up next to her sister, the two of them forming a solid wall of opposition. “Just like Lady Wharton!”
“Girls, I appreciate your defense of me,” Isabella began, “but I really do not think—”
“I think you’ve thought quite enough for one evening,” the duke said darkly. “Now, Eleanor, I asked you to go change you gown. So, go.”
The girl looked as if she’d like to continue arguing, but when she looked to Isabella with a question in her eyes Isabella nodded for her to go upstairs. Looking angry and red-faced and utterly heartbroken, the girl left the room in a huff, followed close behind by Belinda, whose small back was ramrod straight as she hurried from the room.
“Well,” Isabella said calmly, “that went well.”
The duke looked at her with a glare. “It might have gone a bit better if you’d kept your nose out of my business.” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking as unapproachable as he’d ever done.
“Oh, come, Your Grace,” Isabella said with just as much starch as she could muster. “It’s as plain as a pikestaff that Eleanor is in desperate need of female guidance. And when she asked to look through my wardrobe I thought it was harmless enough. The gown fits her perfectly well and I have seen young ladies of the ton dressed far more provocatively in town this year.”
“But that’s just it,” he said bitingly. “We aren’t in town. We are in Yorkshire, where a gown like that one could spell disaster for my sister’s social chances in the neighborhood.”
But, if he was hoping to sway her with that argument, Isabella was quite prepared to disabuse him of the notion. “Perhaps it is not right for country entertainments,” she conceded, “but if that is the case then she might just as well wear it in London when she makes her come-out.”
“She isn’t going to London to make her come-out,” the duke said haughtily. “She doesn’t need to. There are any number of young ladies and young gentlemen here in Yorkshire to provide her with entertainments.”
“Your Grace,” Isabella said patiently, “if you go to London to take up your responsibilities as duke, which you have assured me you will do so long as I follow you about the estate for the next week or so, then you will need to bring your sisters with you. And coming with you will mean, for Eleanor, making her debut. It is perfectly ridiculous for the sister of a duke to be buried in the country for the rest of her life simply because her brother is too stubborn to let her mix with the society to which she is entitled.”
His jaw, which had already been clenched, got tighter as Isabella watched her words sink in. A pulse thundered at his temple.
“I have never expected that my sisters would be forced to mix with the family members who shunned them their whole lives,” he said curtly.
He looked so alone standing there with his arms crossed and his face as still as a stone. Isabella could not help it. She stepped forward and touched him on the upper arm. It was just a light touch, but she felt the muscle beneath his coat and shirt leap to attention. She could feel the warmth of his body through his clothes, and she had to swallow before she could speak.
“Your sisters need not mix with your family in London,” she said quietly. “For that matter, you need not spend a great deal of time with them. You could hire another house besides Ormonde House and keep your sisters there. Your grandmother will not bestir herself to visit them there if you do so. She is self-important enough to demand that they be brought to her, but you need not obey her. Truly, I think having you go up to London would be enough to satisfy her for a long while.”
At Isabella’s words the duke seemed to lose some of the tension in his body.
“I suppose that is true,” he said grudgingly. “I had not considered letting another house in town. Whenever my father ever spoke of town it was of Ormonde House. I suppose I had begun to conflate London and Ormonde House into one and the same.”
“They are not,” Isabella assured him. “Believe
me. I managed all season to avoid the dowager. Until she summoned me to order me here, that is. But you must know that you are the duke. You can order her about. Not the other way around.”
At that he laughed. “I do know that,” he said ruefully. “I am not such a milksop that I think an old woman powerful enough to make me dance to her bidding.”
Isabella looked him up and down. “Your Grace,” she said finally, “I do not think anyone would ever accuse you of lacking in courage.”
A spark of fire kindled in his eyes and Isabella felt a thrum of desire pulse between them. No, she thought to herself, he was as masculine a man as she’d ever seen.
“Thank you for that,” the duke said, the deep timbre of his voice sending a chill up her spine.
Isabella swallowed and blinked to bring herself back under control. She wasn’t sure, but she might have swooned a bit. Clearing her throat, she said, “Now, Your Grace, what of Eleanor’s gown? Surely it is not so objectionable as all that. I daresay some of the ladies in the neighborhood have seen more fashionable gowns than that. And much more scandalous ones, I assure you.”
The duke thrust both his hands into his hair. “I suppose you are right,” he said finally. “It is but a gown. I simply wasn’t expecting to see … that is to say, my sister is becoming quite the—” He broke off with a shake of his head.
“I understand you perfectly,” Isabella said, biting back a smile. “Your sister is growing up and you do not like to admit such a thing. It is perfectly understandable.”
“It is?” he demanded, his brows knitted together. “A few minutes ago I was a churlish beast who behaved without any kind of logic.”
She waved away his complaint. “Do not be foolish. That was your sister speaking in the heat of the moment. She will recover herself soon enough. She is finding this growing-up business just as difficult as you, I assure you.”
“Do you think so?” he asked, surprise evident in his expression.
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