“Don’t you think you ought to stay?” Henry said from his spot in the bright morning room. He looked every bit the part of his viscount title, down to the line between his brow and his double-breasted vest, which he pulled an invisible piece of lint from. “We have company.” He sounded perfectly polite, but Isobel knew him well enough to recognize that he was holding back his irritation.
The problem was, theyalwayshad company. Usually of the ill-wanted and boring sort.
Clara came into the hall as Isobel pulled on her first glove. “You’re leaving?” She poked her bottom lip out, her hazel eyes entreating. “Can I go with you?Please,Aunt Isobel,” she begged.
Before she could say anything, Henry let out a sound of disapproval. “Definitely not,” he chastised. “The seamstress is coming by especially for you today.”
Clara rolled her eyes, plucking at the pale rose material she wore. “Don’t I have enough bloody dresses?” she muttered low enough that only Isobel heard the curse.
Isobel didn’t envy her. It was Clara’s debut Season, and she was quite popular with the young gentlemen despite her obvious disinterest in them.
Just as she thought that would be the end of it, the Lord Richard Seymour,the company, said, “If you must go, wait ten. I can escort you in the carriage. It isn’t proper for a woman to walk alone.”
“No, no,” Isobel replied, waving her hand dismissively. “The walk is what I’m after, Lord Richard. I hardly see how walking can be considered improper. Women also have legs and need to exercise them.”
Clara snickered. Henry rubbed his temples, exposing the gray hairs beneath his tight brown curls, and Lord Richard said something or other about perception.
Perception. If he only knew what kind of books she read.
The walk into Cinder wasn’t long at all, and Keats’ Literature was located on the outskirts, tucked between a printing shop and a boutique like a book on a cramped shelf. It boasted a large selection, but more importantly, Mrs. Keats stocked her favorite risqué romance books. In a secret room hidden behind a bookshelf, Mrs. Keats had an arsenal of prohibited books. Experimental sciences, controversial philosophies, and spell books made up just some of the restrictedcollection. If ever found out, she’d be ousted from good society, damned to an eternity in hell, and probably thrown in an asylum.
Clara came closer, pitching her voice low after a quick glance at her father. “Could you see if Mrs. Keats has the second volume ofDr. Winston’s Maladies and Malaise?”
The girl was insatiable when it came to anything medical. And Isobel couldn’t help but fuel her curiosity and thirst for knowledge. “I will,” she promised her niece, who flashed her dimples at both her and Henry before heading to safer ground.
Isobel cleared her throat. “I’ll be on my way now.”
Lord Richard gritted his teeth and refrained from voicing some scathing remark. His attitude was a glimpse of what she would have to deal with once they were married, but she tried not to dwell too much on that. She had a good three months before she became his wife. The look on her elder brother’s face, however, told her she wouldn’t be entirely free from male commentary. She was no doubt in for a great lecture when she returned.
They may have both inherited their father’s dark curls and warm brown eyes, but Henry alone had inherited his penchant for long-winded monologues.
As Isobel fitted her favorite floral bonnet over her barely tamed locks, she snorted quietly at Lord Richard’s audacity. Just because they were betrothed did not mean he could tell her what to do.
Not yet.
He was a good friend of Henry’s, their friendship spanning decades. Like Henry, he was a widow. Soon after Richard and his first wife had wed, she’d passed from a sudden and severe illness that left the doctors perplexed. Now, in his early forties, he had decided he was ready to settle down. Again. It was serendipitous, then, that his best friend had an available sister.
The man could have had his pick from theton, certainly. He was handsome enough, with his blue eyes and fastidiously maintained blond locks. But even more importantly, as the youngest son of the Duke of Gisham, he was of good stock.
Yet he had picked Isobel. As it was, according to her brother, no one else was willing to have her. At the age of six-and-twenty, she was already considered a spinster, having successfully driven all other credible matches away in her youth. When their father had passed two years ago, though, everything changed. Her adamant wishes to remain unmarried became selfish.
He wasn’t a cruel man, her brother, but his unshakeable devotion to logic usually blinded him to the nuance of emotion. He also had little patience for her eccentricities, though he rarely commented on them. Mostly, his disapproval showed on his face. People often showed their dislike of her in the expressions they couldn’t quite suppress.
Even Lord Richard’s concern didn’t truly come from his desire to keep her reputation safe. He didn’t want her to embarrass him. That had been the reason for most everyone’s need to herd her and shape her long after the schooling of adolescence—they merely didn’t want her to humiliatethem.
“I really do think—” her brother started, but Isobel was already on her way. Until she was shackled to Lord Richard later in the Season, she would do as she pleased.
And nothing would ever stand between her and her books.
“You came backfor me,” Prudence said breathlessly. Her pirate prince stood before her, the torrent of rain the only thing separating them on the rocking ship.
Wesley stepped toward her, and in the same moment, a violent gust of wind pushed her into him. He caught her effortlessly and held her steady in his strong arms. “I’d cross sea and land for you, Prudence. Neither a fleet of a thousand ships nor a hundred armies could keep me from you.”
Isobel sighed contentedly as she reread the pirate’s vow. Her ability to read quickly was both a blessing and a curse. These books were one of the few satisfactions she had, and she’d devoured this one in a single sitting. She was tempted to go back to the beginning and get lost in the magic of Prudence and Wesley’s love story all over again.
Though the competition for her favorite romance novel was tough, Isobel knew without a doubt that the pirate had stolen the spot. The sweeping adventure, the risks the two had taken to be together, the pirate overcoming a betrayal, his deep, unfaltering love for Prudence even when he was gone for several years—Isobel loved it all so much.
The warm, fuzzy feeling that overwhelmed her person was something she looked forward to every time she read the works of her favorite author, SV.
