“The tragedy?”
“Aye. That so much male beauty is utterly wasted on an absolute reprobate of a human being.”
“Male beauty?!” Mac crowed. “Aye, I think I might need tae talk to Ma about this, after all.”
Isolde sighed as her brother doubled over with laughter, shoulders shaking. Heads turned their way, including predictably, Kendall’s.
James finished the set with Mariah and handed her off to another gentleman of their acquaintance for a spirited reel, before walking toward Mac and Isolde.
At least five women turned to watch James’s progress across the ballroom floor. At twenty-seven and twenty-five years of age, respectively, Mac and James were also two of the more eligible bachelors on the marriage mart.
“Ye tell Isolde what we heard at Brook’s today?” James asked as he joined them.
Both her brothers eschewed membership at White’s—the other prestigious gentlemen’s club in London—due to its more conservative politics, preferring the more liberal Whig atmosphere of Brook’s.
Kendall, naturally, reigned supreme at White’s.
“No,” Isolde said. “What did ye hear?”
“’Tis about Pa and his investments.”
“Och, shut it, James,” Mac warned.
Isolde huffed a laugh. As ifthatwould temper her curiosity.
“Give over, Mac,” she said. “Ye know ye will tell me eventually. Might as well forgo my nagging from the start.”
Mac shot James an aggrieved look.
“Fine,” Mac said to her, “but ye cannot go running tae Pa over it. Ye must keep this a secret.”
“I will absolutely go tae Papa, if necessary. Ye ken that.” Isolde adored their father, just as he adored her.
“Aye, but in this, ye cannot. I don’t think he wishes us tae know, or he would have said something afore now.”
“I’m well and truly worried now. Tell me.”
“Promise ye won’t tell Pa.”
“No.”
“Isolde,” said with warning in his tone.
“Mac.”
Her brother rolled his eyes.
“Ye might as well tell her,” James said, conversationally. “Ye ken she’ll get it out of us eventually.”
Mac let out a heavy sigh. “Very well.”
He leaned down to whisper in Isolde’s ear.
3
I have said it before and I will say it again—I dislike how Kendall watches and studies our Isolde. Why? What treacherous plans does he spin? And how many times must I poke holes in His Grace’s pride before he heeds the warning and leaves us all be?
—private letter from Lord Hadley to Lady Hadley
